and the passive strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at
least in the infancy of agricultural science, demand his
uninterrupted attention. At particular times of the year he is
almost wholly unemployed, and can, without injury to himself,
afford the time necessary for a short expedition. Thus the
legions of Rome were supplied during its earlier wars. The season
during which the fields did not require the presence of the
cultivators sufficed for a short inroad and a battle. These
operations, too frequently interrupted to produce decisive
results, yet served to keep up among the people a degree of
discipline and courage which rendered them, not only secure, but
formidable. The archers and billmen of the middle ages, who, with
provisions for forty days at their backs, left the fields for the
camp, were troops of the same description.

But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish a great
change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom
render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The
business of traders and artisans requires their constant presence
and attention. In such a community there is little superfluous
time; but there is generally much superfluous money. Some members
of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest from a
task inconsistent with their habits and engagements.

The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the
best commentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years
before the Christian era, the citizens of the republics round the
Aegean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed.
As wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual
alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which commerce