Luxuria occubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem.
_Juv. Sat. vi. 292.]



CHAPTER XX.--_Of the Dangers incurred by Princes or Republics who resort
to Auxiliary or Mercenary Arms_.

Had I not already, in another treatise, enlarged on the inutility of
mercenary and auxiliary, and on the usefulness of national arms, I
should dwell on these matters in the present Discourse more at length
than it is my design to do. For having given the subject very full
consideration elsewhere, here I would be brief. Still when I find Titus
Livius supplying a complete example of what we have to look for from
auxiliaries, by whom I mean troops sent to our assistance by some other
prince or ruler, paid by him and under officers by him appointed, it is
not fit that I should pass it by in silence.

It is related, then, by our historian, that the Romans, after defeating
on two different occasions armies of the Samnites with forces sent by
them to succour the Capuans, whom they thus relieved from the war which
the Samnites Were waging against them, being desirious to return to
Rome, left behind two legions to defend the Capuans, that the latter
might not, from being altogether deprived of their protection, once
more become a prey to the Samnites. But these two legions, rotting in
idleness began to take such delight therein, that forgetful of their
country and the reverence due to the senate, they resolved to seize by
violence the city they had been left to guard by their valour. For
to them it seemed that the citizens of Capua were unworthy to enjoy
advantages which they knew not how to defend. The Romans, however,