THE SECOND OBSERVATION.
SEcondly,* 1.1 I observe the benefit which an opu∣lent and able State may make of any losse or misfortune received by an enemy: which con∣sisteth chiefly in the reinforcing, or, if it may be, in the redoubling of such troups as the casual∣ties of war have consumed. For it much abateth the spirit of a people, and turneth the pride of a victory into discouragement and faintness of heart, when they see their best and most fortu∣nate indeavours atchieve nothing but a reitera∣tion of their labours, and are driven to begin a∣gain that work which with much difficulty and hazzard they had once overcome. For it is the end that maketh any labour to be undertaken, being a otherwise nothing but a pain of the body & vexation of the spirit. And herefore when it shall be found either circular, or of many con∣frontments, before it can answer the design∣ments of our mind, we chuse rather to forgo that contentment which the accomplishment of our desires would afford us, then to buy it with such a measure of trouble, as exceedeth that which the proportion of our means seemeth able to effect. In regard whereof the ancient sages of the world made a task of this quality to be one of Hercules labours, by faining the serpent Hy∣dra to be of this nature, that when one head was smitten off, two other heads grew out pre∣sently from the same stump: and so his labour multiplied his travell, and his valour increased the difficulty of his work. It was Caesars cu∣stome in other cases, to have such a beginning of strength at his first entrance into a war, as by continuance might be augmented, and rather increase then decay upon the resistance of an e∣nemy. So he began the war in Gallia with six legions, continued it with eight, and ended it with ten: he began the civile war but with one legion; he arrived at Brundusium with six; he followed Pompey into Greece with fifteen thou∣sand foot and five thousand horse; and ended that war with two and twenty thousand foot and a thousand horse. He began the war at A∣lexandria with three thousand two hundred foot, and ended it with six legions. He began the war in Africk▪ with six, and ended it with eight legions. And thus he imitated naturall mo∣tion, being stronger in the end then in the be∣ginning, and made his army as a plant like to grow great, and sprowt out into many bran∣ches, rather then to die or decay for want of strength or fresh reinforcing.