§ 1. Everything necessary for war must be procured betimes. War must be prepared for a long time so that you may conquer more swiftly, for a long preparation for war makes victory swift. Philopoemen of the Achaeans, praised by the ancients, must be praised and imitated by us: when he traveled in time of peace, he was fixed upon the thought of war—how, for example, the hill which they were passing might be overcome. How far he differed from Vitellius, who concealed his cares beneath luxury: he did not prepare arms, address and strengthen the soldier by exercise, or keep his name upon the lips of the people, but lay hidden in the shades of gardens like slothful animals which, if you furnish them food, lie down and grow torpid; he had dismissed past, present, and future things with equal oblivion.
§ 2. Therefore, the first and most praiseworthy preparation for war is to hold brave and warlike men at a great price and in honor, and to entrust civil dignities to them. Rome was a seedbed of the best commanders and warriors because civil honors were granted to martial valor. For it judged it just that those who had undergone the greatest dangers for their fatherland should possess the highest place within it, and that the city should rightly be entrusted to the government of those by whose blood it had been defended. The nobility of Europe also derives its origin from martial valor. Hence writers of the Middle Ages call them soldiers, and the Germans Knaben vom Schildt; hence too they all bear a shield and helmet adorned with hereditary insignia. They also obtain the chief dignities in courts. If the young see these men honored, they will be kindled with the same zeal and will prefer to spend life in camps rather than to be softly educated at home.
§ 3. For this one reason the Greeks gravely afflicted their state: they regarded men brave and ready in counsel like plane trees, which they neglected during peace but, when a storm arose, fled trembling beneath their shade. Thus they were readily conquered by King Philip, for he possessed companies of the best and most circumspect centurions. Therefore, in the midst of peace let counsel concerning war flourish and be heard in the state; let no one who is to be a suitable defender and leader of the fatherland lack his proper honor when danger appears to be absent.
Nicias used to say at Athens that in peace he set many men before himself, but in war he was the foremost. From this fact there arises another evil, and one the more dangerous the more hidden it is. For when men of lofty spirit, swollen by the deserved praise of victories, are treated contemptuously in peace, they either migrate elsewhere, or wish for war and, if they can, persuade men to it—just as physicians in need wish for fevers and wounds—or they turn to brigandage and plunder.
§ 4. When provision has been made for men, arms must also be prepared. For if a man provides many arms and great arsenals without men, he acts in the same way as one who procures the instruments of various arts but has no craftsmen who know how to use them. By the best reasoning the great kings of old founded arsenals, for they obtained two advantages from them: first, that they had arms prepared against enemies; second, that the common people were not armed everywhere and did not abuse arms against themselves or against the state. At Rome arms were kept in public places. For, in his speech for Gaius Rabirius against Saturninus, Cicero says that when Gaius Marius was consul, arms were distributed to the Roman people from public buildings and arsenals. Private persons, however, were forbidden to possess, buy, or sell arms.
Vegetius demonstrates the Romans’ industry and expenditures in this kind of matter in book 2, chapter 11: “A legion has, moreover, carpenters, builders, wagon-makers, smiths, painters, and the other craftsmen prepared to construct the buildings of winter quarters, machines, wooden towers, and the other things by which the cities of adversaries are either stormed or their own defended; some made new arms, vehicles, and other kinds of artillery, while others repaired the damaged. They also had shield works, armor works, and bow works, in which arrows, missiles, helmets, and every kind of arms were formed. For this was the chief care: that whatever appeared necessary to the army should never be lacking in camp. This went so far that they even had miners, who, after the manner of the Bessi, drove a tunnel beneath the earth and dug through walls within their foundations, so that they might emerge unexpectedly to capture the cities of their enemies. Their proper judge was the prefect of the craftsmen.”
They had arms factories not only in the legions but also in towns and provinces, as Gottschalk Stewech, the most learned interpreter of Vegetius, teaches: “Those factories existed not only in the legions for manufacturing arms, but also in towns. Appian, in his Mithridatic War, is certainly a witness that Mithridates established them town by town. Caesar, in book 1 of The Civil War, says: ‘They had conveyed grain from the neighboring regions and from all the forts into the city, and had established workshops for arms in the city.’ Under the emperors the Roman Empire had a great number of factories, and these by provinces, in which every kind of arms was manufactured for the use of the state by the arms-workers. From the Notitia Imperii I shall enumerate where the factories of the East were.
“Five were in the East: a shield and arms factory at Damascus; a shield and arms factory at Antioch; shields and arms at Edessa; a spear factory at Irenopolis in Cilicia. There were three Pontic factories: a mail-armor factory at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and a shield and arms factory at Nicomedia. There was one Asian factory, namely a shield and arms factory at Sardis in Lydia. There were two Thracian factories: a shield and arms factory at Hadrianopolis and a shield and arms factory at Marcianopolis in Haemimontus. There were four in Illyricum: those of Thessalonica, Naissus, and Ratiaria, and the shield factory of Horreum Margi.
“But in the same Notitia the factories of the West are of a somewhat greater number. First in Illyricum: at Sirmium a factory of shields, ballistae, and arms; a shield factory at Acincum; a shield factory at Carnuntum; a shield factory at Lauriacum; and an arms factory at Salona. At Mantua there was an armor factory, at Cremona a shield factory, at Ticinum a bow factory, and at Lucca a sword factory. In the Gauls there were a factory of every kind of arms at Strasbourg, an arrow factory at Mâcon, an armor factory at Autun, a shield, ballista, and mail-armor factory at Soissons, a sword factory at Reims, a shield factory at Trier, a ballista factory at Trier, and a sword and shield factory at Amiens.
“Whether the Roman Empire had to be extended or its ancient frontiers defended against invaders, it had its frontier garrison soldiers in various forts, and also Roman legions scattered among various seats, whose number appears to have grown gradually as the empire grew. But whence arms of every kind were supplied to so numerous and dispersed a soldiery you can now have learned from me: namely, from those factories established by provinces. Whenever new arms were required on expeditions, they were sought from those same factories and conveyed by compulsory transport to the camps or designated places. This the constitution of the emperors Leo and Anthemius, in the Code On Arms-Workers, taught me.”
Now private persons could not manufacture or sell any other arms apart from short knives, which no one would assume for use in war. But bows, arrows, swords, half-swords, cuirasses, pikes, lances, shields, helmets, and the other warlike arms of that kind Emperor Justinian permitted to be made nowhere except in public factories and by public craftsmen—that is, men maintained by the public grain allowance; his Novel 85, On Arms, concerns this matter. In the later books of the Code there is exceedingly frequent mention of the body of arms-workers, their duty, privileges, and so forth; and there is also a title there On Arms-Workers.
That even public vehicles were appointed for carrying arms to the camp especially signifies a consummate industry which omitted nothing useful.
Nor were they content with this diligence: there were also custodians of arms, book 49, π, title 16, On Military Affairs: “If a soldier has alienated his arms, the fault is generally imputed to the custodian of the arms if he entrusted the arms to the soldier at an improper time.” Hence it appears that there were custodians of arms in the camps. For if any men lost their arms, or if they were broken, new ones had to be provided, besides the fact that an immense supply of arrows and javelins had to be conveyed and was kept in camp. For each man preserved his own lances, spears, bucklers, shields, small shields, and cuirasses, and men did not seek them from a custodian when about to fight. Nor is there any doubt that there were custodians of arsenals in the cities. Certainly, in time of war and of peace, watches, laws, and arms are deservedly required: law Qui excubias and law Officium, On Military Affairs, π.
§ 5. It is evident from Sacred Scripture that pious kings had care of arsenals. Song of Songs 4:4: “Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks; a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty.” Hence in 1 Kings 14:28 there is an arsenal of shield-bearers. What it was like is shown in 2 Chronicles 9:19: “And also three hundred golden shields of three hundred pieces of gold, with which the individual shields were covered; and the king placed them in the arsenal which was planted with a grove.” It was called the House of Lebanon; its furniture had been golden, and the arsenal was in that palace.
Rehoboam himself, when he had peace during the first three years, fortified cities and made arsenals. In 2 Chronicles 11:5 and 12 the words run thus: “And Rehoboam dwelt in Jerusalem and built walled cities in Judah. And he constructed Bethlehem, Etam, and Tekoa; also Beth-zur, Soco, and Adullam; and Gath, Mareshah, and Ziph; Adoraim, Lachish, and Azekah; also Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron, which were strongly fortified cities in Judah and Benjamin. And when he had enclosed them with walls, he placed princes in them and storehouses of food—that is, oil and wine. But in each city he also made arsenals of shields and spears; and he strengthened them with the greatest diligence, and ruled over Judah and Benjamin.”
The cause of this new diligence was that a new and indeed more powerful enemy had now arisen, and the cities which in Solomon’s time had been in the heart of the kingdom had, through the secession of the ten tribes, become frontier cities. The remaining arsenals of the ten tribes had also fallen to Jeroboam. In Isaiah 22:8 there is also mention of the arsenal of the House of the Forest.
Exercise produces spirit and confidence. He who wishes his own men to be cowardly so that they may not rise against him is not safe from his neighbors. These things must be cared for in peace so that men may grow accustomed to obeying. The one virtue of a soldier is prompt obedience. Those who are prone to duels are not brave, but bestial.