Epaminondas, Cromwell, and Washington beat the professional soldiers opposed to them.

The fundamental element of a nation's strength is the physical hardihood of its people, combined with that force and energy of character which are the consequences of such hardihood, and the patriotism, or love of and pride in country, which is the consequence of some degree of good government. Accordingly, all nations which have been at any time strong have encouraged the use of manly and athletic exercises; the neglect of which has a most pernicious effect, not only on the bodily strength, but on the bodily and mental health and courage of the community. For a coward-a man incapable of defending himself as a celebrated writer * has observed, wants one of the most essential parts of the character of a man, being as much mutilated and deformed in his mind as a man who is deprived of some of his limbs, or has lost the use of them, is in his body. And to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness which cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading through the great body of the people, deserves the most serious attention of the government; in the same manner as it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent a deadly pestilential disease from spreading itself among them.

The great writer above referred to, however, does

* Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. part iii. art. ii.

not appear to estimate truly the danger of such a disease; when comparing it to a leprosy, he adds, "or any other loathsome and offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous:" for the disease of cowardice, when it has to any extent attacked a nation, is not only dangerous but mortal.

Now, though it is true that the greatest courage and determination and force of character, as well as vigour of intellect, may co-exist with a feeble constitution and frame of body, yet, besides courage, bodily strength, hardihood, activity, power of endurance, and some skill in the use of arms, are essential for defence against an enemy; and these qualities can only be attained and preserved by some degree of bodily training and practice in the use of arms—a familiarity with which of itself imparts to men a certain amount of courage and self-reliance. cordingly, all healthy and powerful nations have cultivated bodily strength and hardihood, from the early Persians to the English yeomen, whose strong right arms sent their deadly shafts among their enemies' ranks with such unerring aim and irresistible force. Of the careful training of the English archers, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Ac

While the Persians were in their healthy and vigorous state, the three great lessons the youth were taught, from five to twenty years of age, were to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak truth.*

*Herod. i. 136.

But the

Persians fell from the same cause which has destroyed so many nations—by the trunk of the tree becoming too weak to bear the branches: a process which commenced, in their case, from the time when Cyrus led the hardy mountaineers of Persia against the Medes. In fact, this question can be more satisfactorily elucidated from the negative than the positive aspect of it; that is, from endeavouring to learn and to state accurately the principal causes which have led to the decline of the strength, and ultimately to the ruin, of nations. There are many symptoms by which the disease of the political body manifests itself; and the world is now old enough to supply an induction of facts recorded with sufficient accuracy to furnish some conclusions that may be of use to the present generation. In the following pages I will endeavour to show by such an induction, necessarily more or less imperfect, to what causes some of the most remarkable nations of the history of the world have been indebted, first, for their strength and prosperity, and afterwards for their weakness and ruin.

9

CHAPTER II.

THE SPARTANS.

THE Greeks, in their early and healthy state, paid the greatest possible attention to the cultivation of bodily strength and activity, by instituting public contests in running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, and throwing the quoit. And it is not unworthy of note that the prize was made of small value, that the combatants might be animated by the love of distinction, not of sordid gain. Of the Romans I shall speak in a subsequent chapter.

Among the Greeks, the Spartans, as I have said, were prominent for their cultivation of the physical and moral qualities (I mean those moral qualities that relate to courage, fortitude, and patriotism,) that go to the formation of a nation's strength. One grand peculiarity of Sparta consisted in having military divisions quite distinct from the civil divisions: a distinction which enabled the Spartans to render their military organization much more perfect than it ever was in the other States of Greece.* The special

* See the admirable account of the Spartan institutions, civil and military, in Grote's History of Greece, vol. ii. part ii. chapters vi. & viii.

characteristic of the Spartan system, and the pivot upon which all its arrangements turned, was what was called the enômoty. This was a small company of men, varying from twenty-five to thirty-six, drilled and practised together in military evolutions, and bound to each other by a common oath. Each enômoty had a separate captain, or enômotarch, the strongest and ablest soldier of the company, who always occupied the front rank, and led the enômoty when it marched in single file. In whatever number of ranks the enômoty was drawn up, the enômotarch usually occupied the front post on the left; in technical language, stood on the left flank of the front rank and care was taken that both the front rank man and the rear rank man of each file * should be soldiers of particular merit. These small companies were taught to march in concert, to change rapidly from line to file, to wheel right or left, in such manner that the enômotarch and the other front rank men should always be the persons immediately opposed to the enemy. Their step was regulated by the fife, which played in martial measures peculiar to Sparta, and was employed in actual battle as well as in military practice. So perfect was their discipline,

* To render this clear, it is proper to state that the number of ranks, and the consequent number of men in a file, was more than two. Montecuculi gives the following clear definition of rank and file: "Rang est un nombre de soldats rangés en ligne droite à côté l'un de l'autre. File est un nombre de soldats rangés en ligne droite l'un derrière l'autre.”—Mémoires de Montecuculi, p. 5. Paris, 1760.