Practical Manual of Artillery

aquatic, flying, and terrestrial animals. Nor did she give them only a natural inclination to warfare, but she also armed them with natural weapons with which to exercise it: for to one she gave the beak and claws, to another teeth, and to another horns with which to offend; this one with firm feet, and that one with raw poison and a deadly gaze kills its enemy. For this reason, ferocious battles are seen not only on Land, but in the Air and on the Sea. And if we wish to diligently consider the end of a just war, we will find that it is very noble and founded upon a very excellent virtue; for by means of war, peace and the concord of Republics are procured, a thing very important, or rather necessary for the conservation of those same Republics. Cicero affirms this in the first book of his De Officiis On Duties, when he says: >Wars must indeed be undertaken for this reason: so that we may live in peace without injury.< original: "Suſcipienda quidem bella ſunt ob eam cauſam; vt ſine iniuria, in pace viuamus." And finally, the excellence of the military is such that peace itself, without the protection of arms, will never be able to be secure in any place or at any time, nor will mortals enjoy the fruits of peace, which are a tranquility of the spirit, and a sweet and gentle rest of the body; things naturally much desired by the living. From this it has come about that magnanimous men of generous heart, the Kings and Emperors of the world, with continuous study and with all possible diligence, have sought to make this most noble exercise familiar, or rather their own, to acquire through it glory and fame. For this they did not refuse the heavy weight of armor, they supported heat and cold, they did not fear the storms and shipwrecks of the sea, the importunate vigils of the night, the rigor of battles, nor the dangers to their own lives. What did those great Kings Cyrus and Alexander the Great not do to expand their Empire and make themselves immortal in the memories of men, one subjugating all of the Levant, the other acquiring a great part of the world? What did the Assyrians, the Parthians, the Persians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks not do? And what did those famous Roman Caesars not attempt? They who triumphed over so many and such remote nations. Nor were some of them content only to exercise the military; in the midst of arms and wars, in the heat of battle, they also wrote, ordering their armies under rules and precepts of military discipline, like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Leo, Aelian, and Modestus the Emperors, with many other Princes and Captains of great value, up to our own times. These have written a thousand sorts of stratagems, have discovered various instruments, and secrets without number to defeat the enemy; they constructed many sorts of Machines to open the walls of fortresses, of which engines some with terrible impetus crushed and leveled high Towers; others with violent motion launched very large stones from themselves. Nor were there lacking those who, with different simples, composed materials of inextinguishable fires, with which they blunted the impetus of their adversaries, and caused many pernicious effects.