# 43. Those who fight for Glory’s Sake make Good and Faithful Soldiers

Another point to be considered in connection with the above discourse is what a difference there is between a contented army which fights for the glory of the thing and one that is ill disposed and fights to help on someone’s ambition. For, whereas the Roman armies were accustomed to being victorious under the consuls, under the Decemviri they always lost.

This shows, among other things, the reason why mercenary troops are useless, for they have no cause to stand firm when attacked, apart from the small pay which you give them. And this reason is not and cannot be sufficient to make them loyal, or to make them so much your friends that they should want to die for you. For in armies in which there is no affection for him for whom they are fighting such as would make them his partisans, it will be impossible for them ever to have virtue enough to withstand even a moderately valorous foe. Since neither the requisite love nor the requisite enthusiasm can be aroused except in your own subjects, it is necessary if one desires to retain a form of state, i.e. desires to uphold either a republic or a kingdom, to arm oneself with one’s own subjects, as it is manifest that all have done who by means of armies have reaped great profit.

Under the Ten the Roman armies had the same valour as before, but, because they had not the same disposition towards their rulers, they did not produce the same effect as usual. Whereas as soon as the administration of the Ten was abolished and they began to fight as free men, they recovered the same old spirit, and, in consequence, their attacks produced the same happy results as they had always done.