and the arts were cultivated, and the first in which the ancient
discipline decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of
Plataea, mercenary troops were everywhere plying for battles and
sieges. In the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to
persuade or compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service.
The laws of Lycurgus prohibited trade and manufactures. The
Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force long
after their neighbours had begun to hire soldiers. But their
military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In the
second century before Christ, Greece contained only one nation of
warriors, the savage highlanders of Aetolia, who were some
generations behind their countrymen in civilisation and
intelligence.

All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks
acted still more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a
power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them
an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pacific. Where there are
numerous slaves, every freeman is induced by the strongest
motives to familiarise himself with the use of arms. The
commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm with
thousands of these household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which
military operations were conducted during the prosperous times of
Italy was peculiarly unfavourable to the formation of an
efficient militia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, armed
with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the largest
breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The
infantry was regarded as comparatively worthless, and was
neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained
their ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That foot-