# CHAPTER 20 — What Kind of Danger a Prince or a Republic Employing Auxiliary or Mercenary Soldiers Incurs

If I had not discussed in detail in another work of mine * the question of how useless mercenary or auxiliary troops are and how useful one’s own soldiers are, I would extend my discussion in this chapter farther than I have already done, but since I have spoken of this question at length elsewhere, I shall at this point be brief. It has not seemed appropriate to pass over it entirely, since I have found so many examples of relevance to the topic of auxiliary troops in Livy; auxiliary soldiers are those, led and paid by you, that a prince or a republic may send to assist you. With respect to Livy’s text, let me say that having defeated two Sam-nite armies in two different places with their own troops, which they had sent to assist the Capuans and thus to free the Capuans from the war the Samnites were waging against them, and wishing to move back toward Rome, the Romans left two legions behind in the city of Capua to defend it, so that the Capuans, deprived of protection, would not once again become prey to the Samnites. These legions, wasting away in idleness, began to take such pleasure in it that, having forgotten their native city and their reverence for the senate, they pondered the possibility of taking up arms and making themselves rulers of the city that they had defended with their own valour, feeling that the inhabitants were not worthy of possessing property they did not know how to defend. This matter, when discovered, was dealt with and corrected by the Romans, as will be amply demonstrated when we deal with conspiracies. * Let me say again, therefore, that of all the kinds of soldiers, auxiliary troops are the most harmful, for the prince or the republic that adopts their assistance possesses no authority whatsoever over them, but the one who sends them alone possesses such authority. Thus, auxiliary soldiers are those who are sent to you by a prince, as I have said, under his captains, under his banners, and paid by him, as was the army the Romans sent to Capua. These kinds of soldiers, once they have gained victory, in most cases prey upon the one who has hired them as well as the one against whom they are hired, and they do this either because of the wickedness of the prince who sends them or because of their own ambition. Although it was not the intention of the Romans to break the agreement and the conventions they had established with the Capuans, nevertheless, the ease with which they could take the city was so obvious to those soldiers that they were able to persuade themselves to think about taking it from the Capuans. It is possible to cite many examples of this, but I should like this one along with one other to suffice, that of the people of Rhegium, whose lives and land were seized by a legion that the Romans had placed there as a garrison. * A prince or a republic must, therefore, first choose any other policy but that of bringing auxiliary troops into their state for their own defence when it is necessary to rely upon them completely, because every pact, every convention with the enemy, no matter how long it lasts, will be less burdensome than this policy. And if we read about past events and discuss those of the present, we shall discover that for each one who has benefited from this policy, countless numbers have been deceived, and a prince or an ambitious republic cannot have a better opportunity to occupy a city or a province than to be invited to send its armies to their defence. Thus, anyone who is so ambitious that he calls in such assistance not only to defend himself but also to attack others, seeks to acquire what he cannot hold and what can easily be taken away from him by the same one who acquired it for him. But the ambition of man is so great that, in order to satisfy a desire of the moment, he does not think about the evil that can result from it in a very short time. Nor do ancient examples move him any more in this matter than in the others we have discussed, because if men were moved by such examples, they would see that the more generosity they demonstrate toward their neighbours and the less inclined they are to occupy their territory, the more likely such neighbours will be to throw themselves into their laps, as will be discussed below through the example of the Capuans.