themselves in more fertile regions; where, the fruitfulness of the soil
enabling them to increase and multiply, they may defend themselves
against any who attack them, and overthrow any who would withstand their
power.

And as for that languor which the situation might breed, care must be
had that hardships which the site does not enforce, shall be enforced by
the laws; and that the example of those wise nations be imitated, who,
inhabiting most fruitful and delightful countries, and such as were
likely to rear a listless and effeminate race, unfit for all manly
exercises, in order to obviate the mischief wrought by the amenity and
relaxing influence of the soil and climate, subjected all who were to
serve as soldiers to the severest training; whence it came that better
soldiers were raised in these countries than in others by nature rugged
and barren. Such, of old, was the kingdom of the Egyptians, which,
though of all lands the most bountiful, yet, by the severe training
which its laws enforced, produced most valiant soldiers, who, had their
names not been lost in antiquity, might be thought to deserve more
praise than Alexander the Great and many besides, whose memory is still
fresh in men's minds. And even in recent times, any one contemplating
the kingdom of the Soldan, and the military order of the Mamelukes
before they were destroyed by Selim the Grand Turk, must have seen how
carefully they trained their soldiers in every kind of warlike exercise;
showing thereby how much they dreaded that indolence to which their
genial soil and climate might have disposed them, unless neutralized by
strenuous laws. I say, then, that it is a prudent choice to found your
city in a fertile region when the effects of that fertility are duly
balanced by the restraint of the laws.

When Alexander the Great thought to add to his renown by founding a