Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.

Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.
in thesame maner, and with thesame order juste, as a little afore I have shewed you.  The Veliti muste stande a long, by the flankes of thesame, accordyng as is disposed in the first waie, whiche waie is called redoublyng by right line, this is called redoublyng by flanke:  the first waie is more easie, this is with better order, and commeth better to passe, and you maie better correcte it, after your owne maner, for that in redoublyng by righte line, you muste bee ruled by the nomber, bicause five maketh ten, ten twentie, twentie fourtie, so that with redoublyng by right line, you cannot make a hedde of fiftene, nor of five and twentie, nor of thirtie, nor of five and thirtie, but you must go where thesame nomber will leade you.  And yet it happeneth every daie in particulare affaires, that it is convenient to make the forwarde with sixe hundred, or eight hundred men, so that to redouble by right line, should disorder you:  therefore this liketh me better:  that difficultie that is, ought moste with practise, and with exercise to bee made easie.  Therefore I saie unto you, how it importeth more then any thyng, to have the souldiours to know how to set themselves in araie quickly, and it is necessarie to keepe theim in this battaile, to exercise theim therin, and to make them to go apace, either forward or backward, to passe through difficulte places, without troublyng thorder:  for asmoche as the souldiours, whiche can doe this well, be expert souldiours, and although thei have never seen enemies in the face, thei maie be called old souldiours, and contrariwise, those whiche cannot keepe these orders, though thei have been in a thousande warres, thei ought alwaies to be reputed new souldiours.  This is, concernyng setting them together, when thei are marching in small rankes:  but beyng set, and after beyng broken by some accident or chaunce, whiche groweth either of the situacion, or of the enemie, to make that in a sodaine, thei maie come into order againe, this is the importaunce and the difficultie, and where is nedefull moche exercise, and moche practise, and wherin the antiquitie bestowed moche studie.  Therefore it is necessarie to doe twoo thynges, firste to have this battaile full of countersignes, the other, to keepe alwaies this order, that those same men maie stand alwaies in the ranke, which thei were firste placed in:  as for insample, if one have begon to stande in the seconde, that he stande after alwaie in that, and not onely in that self same rancke, but in that self same place:  for the observyng whereof (as I have saied) bee necessarie many countersignes.  In especially it is requisite, that the Ansigne bee after soche sorte countersigned, that companyng with the other battailes, it maie be knowen from theim, accordyng as the Conestable, and the Centurions have plumes of fethers in their heddes differente, and easie to be knowen, and that whiche importeth moste, is to ordaine that the peticapitaines bee knowen.  Whereunto the antiquitie had so moche
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Machiavelli, Volume I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.