OF REGULAR FORTIFICATION.

CHAPTER II.

History of Artificial Fortification.

Few people, even though unskilled, often resist a great multitude when the location favors them. Rome, at the brink of destruction, saves itself by preserving the Capitol.

We must now pass to Art, that imitator of Nature, and see how happily it has borrowed from her its ditches and its bastions.
Necessity and usage, to which we owe the invention of all things, had taught men that a powerful enemy had often been wearied and repelled by a smaller number of persons of little defense, but who made use of the advantage of the location. One need not seek an example outside of Rome, which saved the lives of all its inhabitants by defending the Capitol (or, as Titus Livius original: "Tite Live" says, a poor little hill) so that it might later possess the most glorious Empire of the world. For the space of seven months, the Barbarians, the Gauls, a thing incredible, halted against a mountain, trying night and day to force it. But the Roman youth, from a place of defense, protected their Gods (says the historian), their men, and the Roman name, for which a large army, where all the strength of Rome resided, had fought in vain in the open field near the Allia river. Furthermore, and this is more astonishing, it is certain (according to what Florus asserts) that there were no more than a thousand men in the Capitol; which was but a handful of people in comparison to this prodigious and seasoned multitude that besieged it.

Art, imitating Nature, has easily found the ditches and the ramparts.

It has therefore not been without reason that art, by an ingenious imitation of nature, began to prepare in times of peace that which falls into use when affairs become troubled: procuring places of safety, and ones suitable for chasing or harassing the enemy; setting up mountains and bastions in the plain behind which one takes cover, and digging up broken valleys, or ditches filled with water, which stop entirely, or at least retard, the passage of enemies.

Military Architecture proposes these ends: To defend ourselves and to offend the enemy, with little loss on our part. The wisest Captains have always had this goal. Themistocles, in the fortification of Athens and the Piraeus. The Romans in that of Cremona.

For these are the three ends that Military Architecture proposes: To subsist safely in a location fortified by art against the unforeseen accidents of war: to be able with few people to resist with impunity large opposing troops, to fight them, retard them, or repel them with a handful of inhabitants, and without great apparatus, their foreseen incursion, or their open and continuous force; finally, to assail the enemy ourselves, when our affairs permit it, to avenge ourselves upon him, and to defeat him with the least danger to our forces. These were the three ends that Themistocles proposed to himself, when he tried so hard to persuade his fellow citizens to enclose Athens and the Piraeus with walls. For he had projected that the height and width of the wall, enclosing the port and the city, would suffice to prevent the incursion of enemies with few men of defense; and that the best soldiers would mount the ships, trusting particularly to naval forces, and judging that the power of this people would be much increased if it devoted itself to the navy.
The Romans had this same goal, placing Colonies in all convenient locations, by means of which the Empire sustained itself. Tacitus, when speaking of