Grecian Costume
(After Hope)
You ought rather to compare Man with Man, Captain with Captain, than the Fortune of one with the other. How many Roman Generals may I name, that never suffer’d a Repulse in their days? We can run over whole Pages in the Annals of our Magistrates, full of Consuls and Dictators, whose Success as well as Virtue, was such, as they never gave the Common-wealth so much as one days grief or discontentment. And that which makes them yet to be more admired than Alexander, or any other King in the World; some of them held their Office of Dictator not above ten or twenty days, and none the Consulship beyond a year: Their Levies were often obstructed by the Tribunes of the Commons, so that they set forth too late; and sometimes for holding the Court for Elections, they were sent for home too soon: In the hurry of Affairs the Year was apt to be wheel’d about, and then they must leave all to new Instruments; now the rashness, another time the dishonesty of a Colleague, was either a great hindrance to their Success, or perhaps occasion’d a mischief. Many times they succeeded after the defeat of their Predecessors, or receiv’d a raw and undisciplin’d Army: From all which inconveniences Kings are not only free, but absolute Masters both of their Enterprizes, and the times and means they will take to accomplish them, leading all things by their Councils, and not following them. Had therefore this unconquered Alexander been engaged against these unconquered Captains, he would have hazarded all those past pleasures of Fortunes favor; nay, in this the danger would have been greater, that the Macedonians had but one Alexander, and he not only obnoxious to many Casualties, but voluntarily exposing himself to frequent Dangers. But the Romans had many that were Alexanders equals, both for Glory and the grandeur of their Atchievements, each of whom, might according to his peculiar Fate, either live or dye, without at all endangering the Publick.
It remains now to ballance the Forces on each side, and that neither in respect of numbers, quality of the Soldiers, or the multitude of their Allies and Auxiliaries. There were numbered of Romans in the Surveys taken by the Censors of that Age, two hundred and fifty thousand Polls; and therefore in all the revolts of the Latines, they were able to levy Ten Legions, and that too almost wholly in the City; and frequently in those times, four or five distinct Armies were kept on foot at once, which maintained Wars in Etruria, in Umbria, with the Gauls (Confederates with the Enemy) in Samnium and in Lucania: On the other side, he must have cross’d the Sea, having of old Macedonian Bands not above Thirty thousand Foot, and four thousand Horse, and those most of them Thessalians; for this was the total of his Force when he appeared most formidable. If he should have added to these, Persians, Indians, or others out of his new Conquests, they would but more encumber rather than assist him. Then the Romans had Supplies at hand to reinforce them presently from home upon any accident; whereas Alexander (as it happened afterwards to Annibal), Warring in a remote foreign Country, his Army would have mouldered away apace, and could not readily have Recruits. The Macedonians had for their Arms, a Shield and a Spear like a Pike; the Romans, a large Target that skreen’d almost the whole Body, and a Javelin, a Weapon not a little more serviceable than the Spear, both to strike and push with, near hand, and also to be lanced at a distance. The Soldiers of each side were wont to stand firm, and keep their Ranks; the Macedonian Phalanx was immovable and uniform; but the Roman Battalions more distinct, and consisting of several Divisions, more ready to separate and close again upon any occasion.
A Patriotic Estimate of Rome’s Greatness
To speak now of labour and travel, What Soldier is comparable to the Roman? Who better able to hold out and endure all the fatigues of War? Alexander, worsted in one Battel, had been utterly undone: But what Power could have broken the Roman courage, whom neither the shameful disgrace at Caudium nor the fatal defeat at Cannæ, could in the least daunt or dispirit? Undoubtedly Alexander, although his first attempt should have prov’d prosperous, would often here have missed his Persians and his Indians; he would have wish’d to have been dealing again with the soft and cowardly Nations of Asia and confest, That before he only fought with Women, as King Alexander of Epirus is reported to have said, when he had here received his Death wound, reflecting upon those easie Occurents of War, which this young Prince (his Nephew) met with in Asia, in respect to those difficulties he himself had to struggle with in Italy.
And truly, when I consider that the Engagements at Sea between the Romans and Carthaginians in the first Punick War, took up no less than four and twenty years’ space, I am inclinable to conjecture, that the whole age of Alexander would not have been enough to have finish’d a War with either a one of those States. And since by antient Leagues they were then at Amity and in Alliance with each other, ’tis probable an equal apprehension of danger might have united them against the common Enemy: And what less could he then expect but to have been utterly overwhelm’d and crush’d by the joint Arms of two the most potent Republicks in the World? The Romans, though not indeed in the days of Alexander, or when the Macedonian Power was at heighth, have yet since try’d the courage of the Macedonians, under the conduct of Antiochus, Philip, and Perses, and came off not only without loss, but even without any danger or hazard.
It may seem a proud word, but without arrogance it is spoken, Let there be no Civil Wars amongst us; never can we be distressed by any Enemy, Horse or Foot; never in set Battel, never in plain equal ground, or places disadvantagious, outdone in Courage or Resolution. The Soldier I confess in heavy Armour, may be apprehensive of the Enemies Cavalry in a Champion Country, or be incommoded with Arrows shot from a distance, or embarrass’d in unpassable Woods, or Quarters, where provisions cannot be brought to them; but still let there be a thousand Armies greater and stronger than that of Alexander and his Macedonians, so long as we hold together, and continue that love of Peace, and prudent care of civil Concord, wherein we live at this day, we are able, and ever shall be, to rout and put them all to flight.[d]