the elder, it is said, maintained a standing army of a hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse, besides a large fleet of four hundred sail,8 though his territories extended no farther than the city of Syracuse, about a third part of the island of Sicily, and some seaport towns or garrisons on the coast of Italy and Illyricum. It is true the ancient armies, in time of war, subsisted much upon plunder; but did not the enemy plunder in their turn? which was a more ruinous way of levying tax than any other that could be devised. In short, no probable reason can be assigned for the great power of the more ancient states above the modern but their want of commerce and luxury. Few artisans were maintained by the labour of the farmers, and therefore more soldiers might live upon it. Titus Livius says that Rome, in his time, would find it difficult to raise as large an army as that which, in her early days, she sent out against the Gauls and Latins. Instead of those soldiers who fought for liberty and empire in Camillus’s time, there were in Augustus’s days musicians, painters, cooks, players, and tailors; and if the land was equally cultivated at both periods, it is evident it could maintain equal numbers in the one profession as in the other. They added nothing to the mere necessaries of life in the latter period more than in the former. {p6}
It is natural on this occasion to ask whether sovereigns may not return to the maxims of ancient policy, and consult their own interest in this respect more than the happiness of their subjects. I answer that it appears to me almost impossible; and that because ancient policy was violent, and contrary to the more natural and usual course of things. It is well known with what peculiar laws Sparta was governed, and what a prodigy that republic is justly esteemed by every one who has considered human nature, as it has displayed itself in other nations and other ages. Were the testimony of history less positive and circumstantial, such a government would appear a mere philosophical whim or fiction, and impossible ever to be reduced to practice. And though the Roman and other ancient republics were supported on principles somewhat more natural, yet was