Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.

Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.
times) thei folowed the victorie:  if thei were repulced, thei retired by the flanckes of the armie, or by the spaces ordained for soche purposes, and thei brought them selves emong the unarmed:  after the departure of whom, the Hastati incountered with the enemie, the whiche if thei saw themselves to be overcome, thei retired by a little and little, by the rarenesse of thorders betwene the Prencipi, and together with those, thei renued the faight if these also wer repulced, thei retired al in the rarenesse of the orders of the Triarii, and al together on a heape, began againe the faight:  and then, if thei were overcome, there was no more remeady, bicause there remained no more waies to renue them again.  The horses stoode on the corners of the armie, to the likenes of twoo winges to a bodie, and somewhiles thei fought with the enemies horses, an other while, thei rescued the fotmen, according as nede required.  This waie of renuyng theim selves three tymes, is almoste impossible to overcome:  for that, fortune muste three tymes forsake thee, and the enemie to have so moche strengthe, that three tymes he maie overcome thee.  The Grekes, had not in their Falangi, this maner of renuyng them selves, and although in those wer many heddes, and many orders, notwithstandyng, thei made one bodie, or els one hedde:  the maner that thei kepte in rescuyng the one the other was, not to retire the one order within the other, as the Romaines, but to enter the one manne into the place of the other:  the which thei did in this maner.  Their Falange brought into rankes, and admit, that thei put in a ranke fiftie menne, commyng after with their hedde againste the enemie, of all the rankes the foremoste sixe, mighte faight:  Bicause their Launces, the whiche thei called Sarisse, were so long, that the sixt ranke, passed with the hedde of their Launces, out of the first ranke:  then in faightyng, if any of the first, either through death, or through woundes fell, straight waie there entered into his place, thesame man, that was behinde in the second ranke, and in the place that remained voide of the seconde, thesame man entred, whiche was behind hym in the thirde, and thus successively, in a sodaine the rankes behinde, restored the faultes of those afore, so that the rankes alwaies remained whole, and no place of the faighters was voide, except the laste rankes, the whiche came to consume, havyng not menne behinde their backes, whom might restore theim:  So that the hurte that the first rankes suffered, consumed the laste, and the firste remained alwaies whole:  and thus these Falangi by their order, might soner be consumed, then broken, for that the grosse bodie, made it more immovable.  The Romaines used at the beginnyng the Falangi, and did set in order their Legions like unto them:  after, this order pleased them not, and thei devided the Legions into many bodies, that is, in bandes and companies:  Bicause thei judged (as a little afore I saied) that thesame bodie,
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Machiavelli, Volume I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.