§ 1. This matter is most difficult not only to treat, but also in practice itself. I see authors go in opposite directions: some wholly recommend τὸ ξενικόν, the foreign soldiery; others, the domestic. Princes follow now the former, now the latter.
Against the foreign soldier, these things are generally said.
First, that foreigners are unfaithful and, when offered greater pay by the other side, cast off both right and divine law.
Second, that they do not obey, cannot be commanded, and cannot be governed—and that when danger is close.
Third, that they flee without shame and are bound by neither fidelity nor affection to the prince or the country, for the soldier is a mercenary.
Fourth, that they have no cause for which they should contribute their blood to another’s dominion. Epaminondas exhorted his men to charge the Lacedaemonians, saying that when these had been slain, there would be no steadfastness in the rest.
Fifth, that when they come as auxiliaries, they regard the land as foreign and therefore, whenever they can, ravage the very land which they were hired to defend.
Sixth, that foreign auxiliary soldiers cannot readily be employed; for since they receive their pay from another, they will not be faithful to the man for whom they face danger, but to the man by whom they are supported.
Seventh, that he who wages wars by another’s aid is in the power of the man by whom he is assisted. Auxiliary Goths plundered the East and invaded the West. After the Saxons had defeated the Picts and Scots, they possessed Britain.
Eighth, that the mercenary soldier is useless because he does not expose his life for a small stipend. Further, he is either brave or cowardly: if brave, he is to be feared; if cowardly, he is a traitor. Finally, what you give a domestic soldier remains in the kingdom; what you give a foreigner makes your neighbors stronger.
§ 2. Nevertheless, in my judgment many things must be considered in this matter, and at times foreign soldiers must be preferred to domestic ones. Nor must it always be asked what is best absolutely, but what can be done and what, after the circumstances have been considered, must be embraced.
§ 3. Accordingly, it is to be wished that, just as in the Roman state in the time of Romulus and the other kings all citizens were soldiers, so also in kingdoms and cities the care of war should be joined with the arts of peace, so that all citizens may always be prepared both to sustain and to make war and, when it is ended, may be content with the triumph and return to the civil arts. Thus Atilius Regulus asked the senate to permit him to return home to care for his farms, because they had been rather negligently managed by his tenants; and other Roman soldiers laid aside their arms most eagerly.
Yet I do not think such a state can be stable, because no such state has appeared down to the present day which endured for a long time. For even at Rome, although there were many thousands of citizens, nevertheless only a few were enrolled for wars. For what were two or four legions in comparison with two hundred or three hundred thousand citizens?
§ 4. Those who possess extensive kingdoms composed of diverse nations can not only levy soldiers from their subjects, but can also hire them from other peoples. For what we see done today in most kingdoms is no reason why we should condemn it, unless an evident reason persuades us otherwise. Nor do we approve Machiavelli’s opinion that no kingdom and no state possesses a lawful ordering of warfare or skill in it. Thus, when the Roman emperor has war against the Turks, he employs not only Pannonian and German soldiers, but Italian and French soldiers also, thinking it contributes wonderfully to victory to exercise in camp the warlike men of every nation. Indeed, this was also the institution of the Romans: they conducted levies from all provinces and always had the auxiliaries of allied kings. Rarely, however, did the beginnings of disturbances arise from them; if anything adverse occurred, it began with the legionaries.
Machiavelli entirely rejects auxiliaries in The Prince, chapter 12, because there is no goodwill in them, they cost much, and they overthrow the prince. The Carthaginians were almost crushed by auxiliaries after the First Punic War. He adds other examples. Philip of Macedon, after the death of Epaminondas, was made commander by the Thebans; when he had gained victory over their enemies, he took away their liberty. When their prince Philip had died, the Milanese resolved to hire Francesco Sforza against the Venetians. After defeating the enemy at Caravaggio, he joined them in order to crush the Milanese, his masters. His father Sforza, while receiving pay from Joanna, queen of the Neapolitans, suddenly deserted her while she was unarmed, so that, to avoid losing her kingdom, she was compelled to cast herself into the arms of the king of Aragon.
If someone should object that the dominion of the Venetians and Florentines had been defended with these arms after the emperors had been driven back, and that their commanders had not brought it under their own power, I answer that the Florentines had a certain fortune favorable to them in that affair. For among their commanders who were vigorous and from whom they would have had something to fear, some suffered adverse battles, some met opposition, and ambition had carried the rest elsewhere. The man who administered the war unsuccessfully was John Hawkwood, whose fidelity could not be known when victory had been lost. But no one will deny that, if he had gained victory, the affairs of the Florentines would have been administered at his judgment. The Sforzas continually opposed the Braccios, each watching the other. Ambition drew Francesco wholly into Cisalpine Gaul, whereas Braccio turned against the state of the priests and the kingdom of Naples.
But let us proceed to what happened recently. The Florentines entrusted command of the war to Paolo Vitelli, a man of distinguished prudence who had acquired a very great name for himself from a private condition of fortune. If he had captured Pisa, no one would have denied that the state of the Florentines would have had to submit to his command. For if he had gone over to serve for pay on the enemy’s side, there was no means of escape; if they had retained him, they were compelled to take action at his command.
If the progress of the Venetians is examined, anyone may understand very easily that they conducted themselves most safely and successfully when they waged wars with their armies gathered from the Venetian people. This was their custom before they turned their zeal toward expeditions on land. At that time, equipped with arms from the patrician order and the urban common people, they conducted themselves with the greatest bravery. But as soon as they began to wage war on land, they neglected this valor and followed Italian customs. At the beginning of the enlargement of their dominion on the mainland, both because they had not yet extended the boundaries of their state very far and because they were held in great esteem, they had no reason to fear greatly for themselves from their own commanders. But when the boundaries of their dominion had been extended and Carmagnola was made commander of the army, they then obtained a specimen of this error. For when they had recognized him as a most vigorous commander, after they had beaten the petty ruler of Milan under his leadership, but then saw him become more remiss in waging war, they judged that they would obtain no further victory with him as commander. Therefore, lest everything already gained be lost, they neither wished nor were able to dismiss him. Accordingly, to render themselves safe from him, they killed him. They then appointed Bartolomeo of Bergamo, Roberto Sanseverino, the Count of Pitigliano, and others of this kind commanders of their forces. With these men as commanders, it was to be feared that they would bring injury to their state sooner than advantage. This is what occurred in the war fought at Vailà, where in a single engagement with the enemy everything acquired by so many labors over three hundred years perished. With these arms only slow, late, and slight increases of affairs are made, but sudden and unforeseen losses and calamities break forth.
Yet, since we see that mercenary soldiers are now employed everywhere, it must not be thought that amid so great a desire for victory no state follows what is most prudent. Foreign auxiliaries must nevertheless be used with moderation. The Venetians appoint one of their own as commander at sea; they themselves pay the mercenary soldier on land through their own men; they join associates and councils to the commander; from the council chamber they themselves direct the wars; and they especially desire to prolong them, so that they may wear out the enemy by expense and not readily bring the matter to the hazard of battle.
Auxiliaries given by a more powerful man are pernicious unless he is faithful, as when you summon the Turk to your aid, as the Greeks did. But if they come from a faithful kinsman, they are salutary. Julius II summoned Ferdinand of Spain; Ferdinand now summons Philip, and he summoned him against the Venetians, yet he did not lose a foot of his land through him. Thus, where there are fidelity, fear of God, common advantage, friendship, affinity, and kinship, they readily take up arms against common enemies or common objects of suspicion. For it concerns the Spaniard as much that Bohemia be defended as that Italy be defended.
§ 5. First, in sedition and civil war most men employ foreign soldiers. Pompey brought barbarians from Asia, Caesar Gauls and Spaniards; the Caesars found foreigners most faithful to themselves. Now also foreigners serve in Belgium—Germans, Gauls, English, Scots, Irish, Italians, Epirotes, and Swiss; the Swiss too are hired by many for garrison service abroad. Princes must not be accused of tyranny for this reason. For when their own people sustain factions and conspire to violate the safety of the prince, the princes can by merit and right defend themselves with a foreign garrison. Nor do kings alone do this; states themselves also say that they protect the liberty of their citizens with a foreign garrison. The Batavians station French and British garrisons throughout their notable towns to keep their own citizens obedient. They would by no means do this unless they judged that it had been prudently devised against internal movements and foreign wars.
The arguments advanced by Machiavelli and others are not in truth of great weight. They say that the foreigner is unfaithful: πᾶν τὸ ξενικὸν, every foreign body, is of wavering fidelity. I indeed admit that many examples of foreign perfidy can be recounted, and that the Roman Empire was overthrown through Goths, Alans, and others who had come as auxiliaries. But there are more examples of domestic perfidy. Sulla alone brought more injury than all the barbarian multitude poured into the city by Alaric. Indeed, it was not so much the foreign auxiliaries as the perfidy of their commanders together with them.
For this reason auxiliaries must not be summoned from every nation, but from one among which laws and treaties, both public and private, are sacred. Thus no Christian prince summons Turks, Tartars, or Muscovites to his aid; for they are ἄσπονδοι, without treaty, and are especially glad when they have deceived with perjury. Constantine summoned ten thousand Turks into Greece. After they had gained victory, they refused to depart, and from this flowed the causes of many calamities. Hiero of Syracuse, when he saw that his mercenaries were growing insolent, so that he could neither retain nor dismiss them without danger, employed a stratagem and killed them all. This was cruel and harsh, but they had deserved it.
Second, foreigners generally obey more readily and fight more bravely, since they place the hope of their safety in the favor of the prince alone and in victory.
Third, shame also restrains foreigners from flight, because they do not wish to be seen as cowards by foreigners or by their own people, to whom they would have to return without glory.
Fourth, I do not know whether you will more easily find a man prepared to establish the dominion of a foreign prince over others than one prepared to fight for the power of his own prince over himself. Thus it was done formerly: foreigners established Roman dominion. As the Romans grew in power, they had allies whom they gathered at the same time, as Polybius says: “At this very time the consuls give notice to the magistrates of the allied cities in Italy from which they wish to have auxiliaries and fellow soldiers, and inform them of the number, the day, and the place at which the men whom they select must assemble. The cities, making a levy similar to that already described and likewise binding the men by oath, send them and appoint a prefect,” and so forth.
The Romans, when they were pressed by the most grievous war of Hannibal, hired auxiliaries for pay, that is, the Volones. Tome 1, book 2: Μεταστάντας δὲ ἀπὸ Καρχηδονίων Γαλάτας, ἢ ἄλλους τῶν σφῶν συμμάχων τινάς, οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι ἐπὶ μισθοφορᾷ ἀπεστελάβοντο, μήπω πρότερον τρέφοντες ξενικόν. The Romans hired for pay the Gauls who deserted from the Carthaginians and certain others of their allies, although previously they had not been accustomed to maintain foreign soldiers.
Fifth, foreigners plunder more readily, since they are moved less by affection for the country and by a sense of shame; citizens, however, are more skillful, being acquainted with the places and circumstances. Accordingly, the things said against auxiliary soldiers are empty, for provision against them can be made with little trouble. Although they receive pay from another, since they nevertheless receive it on your account, they will also esteem you greatly. One must, however, take care not to seek auxiliaries from a suspect man, lest he impose a bridle upon the victor. Thus the most faithful σύμμαχος, ally, is the one whose interest it is that you conquer and be as powerful as possible.
§ 6. A commander must take great care that foreign auxiliaries do not possess more strength in the camp than his own men. Scipio experienced this in Spain: he hired the Celtiberians with money, but when the enemy corrupted them with other money, he was crushed.