# 21. Princes and Republics which have not their own Armed Forces are highly reprehensible

Present-day princes and modern republics which have not their own troops for offence and defence ought to be ashamed of themselves. They should consider the example set by Tullus, and should ascribe this defect not to lack of men fit to become soldiers, but to their own fault in that they have neglected to train men to be soldiers. Rome had been at peace for forty years when Tullus succeeded to that kingdom and he found there no man who had ever been to the wars. None the less, when he was making plans for war, he did not consider making use of the Samnites or of the Tuscans or of others who were accustomed to the use of arms, but decided, like a prudent man, to avail himself of his own people. And so great was his virtue that in a brief space under his rule he was able to make excellent soldiers. It is indeed the truest of truths that if, where there are men, there are not soldiers, it is their ruler’s fault, not the fault of the situation or of nature.

Of this there is quite a recent instance. For everyone knows how a short time ago the king of England attacked the kingdom of France, and took with him none but his own people as troops. It being more than thirty years since this kingdom had been engaged in war, there were neither soldiers nor officers who had ever seen military service. Yet with such troops the king did not hesitate to attack a kingdom in which there were plenty of officers and of good troops who had been continuously under arms in the wars in Italy. All this was due to the king’s being a prudent man and to his kingdom being in good order, for in times of peace it had not dropped the institutions associated with war.19

When the Thebans, Pelopidas and Epaminondas, had liberated Thebes and delivered it from servitude under the Spartan empire, they found themselves in a city accustomed to servitude and amidst an effeminate populace. Yet, such was their virtue that they did not hesitate to put the populace under arms nor with such troops to scour the countryside in search of the Spartan army, which they defeated. With reference to this a writer says that these two showed in a short time that it was not only in Lacaedemonia that warriors are born, but wherever men are born, provided there be those who know how to give the military training, as we have seen that Tullus did in the case of the Romans. This view could not be expressed better than it is by Virgil, nor does any remark put it so neatly as he does when he says of Tullus:

And his slothful men

Will Tullus rouse to arms.