CHAP. IX.
How to lodge more or less than four Battalions, and what number of men is sufficient to make head against an Enemy, be he as numerous as he may.
TO your first demand I answer, that be your Army composed of more or less than four or six thousand men you may increase or lessen their lodgments as you please, and in the same manner, you may proceed to less or more in infinitum: Never∣theless when the Romans joyn'd two Consular Armies together, they made two Camps, and turned the place of the unarmed men one against the other.
To your second demand I reply, That the ordinary Roman Army consisted of about 24000 men, but when by accident they were over-pressed with numbers, they never ex∣ceeded 50000, with this number they opposed 200000 Gauls which assaulted them after their first War with the Carthaginians; with this number they opposed themselves against Hanibal: and you must observe that the Romans and the Greeks always carried on their Wars with a few men, fortifying themselves with their good order, and the excellence of their discipline; whereas the Eastern and Western Nations did all by their multitudes, but the Western people performed all by their natural fury, and the Eastern by their sub∣mission and obedience to their King. In Greece and in Italy where their natural fury, and their natural reverence to their King was not so great, it was necessary to apply themselves to discipline, which was of such efficacy, that it has made a small Army prevail against the fury and natural obstinacy of a greater. I say therefore that if you would imitate the Romans and the Greeks, you are not to exceed the number of 50000 men, but rather to be fewer, because more do but breed confusion, and hinder the order and discipline that you have learn'd. Pyrrhus used ordinarily to say, that with 15000 men he would go thorow the world.
But let us pass now to another part of our discipline.