Philip II of Macedon

and if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way whether mercenary or not i reply that when arms have to be resorted to either by a prince or a republic then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of a captain the republic has to send its citizens and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily it ought to recall him and when one is worthy to hold him by the laws so that he does not leave the command and experience has shown princes and republics single-handed making the greatest progress and mercenaries doing nothing except damage and it is more difficult to bring a republic armed with its own arms under the sway of one of its citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign arms rome and sparta stood for many ages armed and free the switzers are completely armed and quite free Of ancient mercenaries, for example, there are the Carthaginians, who were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers after the first war with the Romans, although the Carthaginians had their own citizens for captains.

After the death of Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon was made captain of their soldiers by the Thebans, and after victory he took away their liberty.

duke filippo being dead the milanese enlisted francesco sforza against the venetians and he having overcome the enemy at caravaggio allied himself with them to crush the milanese his masters his father sforza having been engaged by queen johanna of naples left her unprotected so that she was forced to throw herself into the arms of the king of aragon in order to save her kingdom and if the venetians and florentines formerly extended their dominions by these arms and yet their captains did not make themselves princes but have defended them i reply that the florentines in this case have been favored by chance for of the able captains of whom they might have stood in fear some have not conquered some have been opposed and others have turned their ambitions elsewhere One who did not conquer was Giovanni Acuto, and since he did not conquer, his fidelity cannot be proved.

But everyone will acknowledge that had he conquered, the Florentines would have stood at his discretion.

Probably these tales are the scandals of neighbors who envied Byzantine prosperity, for it is at any rate certain that the city showed all through its history great energy and love of independence, and never shrank from war as we should have expected a nation of epicures to do.

It was not till the rise of Philip of Macedon and his greater son Alexander that Byzantium fell for the fifth time into the hands of an enemy.

The elder king was repulsed from the city's walls after a long siege, culminating in an attempt at an escalade by night, which was frustrated owing to the sudden appearance of a light in heaven, which revealed the advancing enemy and was taken by the Byzantines as a token of special divine aid, B.C. 339.

In commemoration of it they assumed as one of their civic badges the blazing crescent and a star, which has descended to our own days, and is still used as an emblem by the present owners of the city, the Ottoman sultans.

In reality, as Plutarch's biography of Demosthenes shows, they lived rent by factional struggles in constant fear and envy of one another and under the shadow of a great peril which union, not disunion, could alone avert.

Macedon Philip of Macedon united Greece under his own leadership, and with the power thus secured Alexander the Great laid the Persian empire prostrate and open for swift and persistent Greek colonization.

As Machiavelli in his Prince points out, his successors had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions.

This was sufficient, however.

"You say that my little Gargantua is quick? Ho, ho.

Now, my good lords, Philip of Macedon had a son who was quick, too.

Yes, they said that he was as quick as that," snapping his fingers together so that they went crick-crack like a pistol shot.

"You have heard of the lad and that wild Bucephalus of his.