The Greatness of Cities [28]
reason, and all men would content themselves with that which justly doth belong unto them, haply the judgment of the ancient law-makers were worthy to be embraced. But experience shows, through the corruption of human nature, that force prevails above reason, and arms above laws, and teacheth us besides the opinion of the Romans must be preferred before the Grecians; inasmuch as we see the Athenians and the Lacedemonians (not to speak of other commonweals of the Grecians) came to present ruin upon a very small discomfiture and loss of a thousand and seven hundred citizens or little more where, on the other side, the Romans triumphed in the end though many times they lost an infinite number of their people in their attempts and enterprises. For it is clear more Romans perished in the wars they had against Pyrrhus, the Carthaginians, Numantians, Viriathus, Sertorius and others, than fell without comparison of all their enemies. And yet for all that they rested always conquerors by means of their unexhausted multitude, with the which, supplying their loss from time to time, they overcame their enemies as much, though they were strong and fierce, as with their fortitude and strength. In these former books I have sufficiently declared the ways and means whereby a city may increase to that magnificency and greatness that is to be desired, so that I have no further to speak thereunto, but only to propound one thing more that I have thought upon, not for the necessity so much of the matter as that because I think it will be an ornament unto the work, and give a very good light unto it. And therefore let us now consider.
2. What the reason is that cities once grown to a greatness increase not onward according to that proportion
Let no man think the ways and means aforesaid, or any other that may be any way devised, can work or effect it that a city may go on in increase without ceasing. And therefore it is in truth a thing worth the consideration how it comes to Pass that cities grown to a point of greatness and power pass no further, but either stand at that stay, or else return back again. Let us take for our example Rome. Rome, at her beginning, when she was founded and built by Romulus (as Dionysius of Halicarnassus writeth) was able to make out three thousand three hundred fit men for the wars. Romulus reigned thirty-seven years, within the compass of which time the city was increased even to forty-seven thousand persons fit to bear arms. About one hundred and fifty years after the death of Romulus, in the time of Servius Tullius, there were numbered in Rome eighty thousand persons fit for arms. The number in the end, by little and little, grew to four hundred and fifty thousand. My question therefore is, how it comes to pass that from three thousand and three hundred men of war the people grew to four hundred and fifty thousand, and from four hundred and fifty thousand they went no further. And in like matter, since it is four hundred years since Milan and Venice made as many people as they do at this day, how it doth also come to pass that the multiplication goes not onward accordingly. Some answer the cause hereof is the plagues, the wars, the dearths and other suchlike causes. But this gives no satisfaction. For plagues have ever been, and wars have been more common and more bloody in former times than now. For in those days they came to hand strokes by and by, and to a main pitched battle in the field, where there were within three or four hours more people slain than are in these days in many years. For war is now drawn out of the field to the walls, and the mattock and the spade are now more used than the sword. The world besides was never without alteration and change of plenty and of dearth, of health and of plagues. thereof I shall not need to bring examples, because the histories are full. Now if cities with all these accidents and chances begun at first with a few people increase to a great number of inhabitants, how comes it that proportionably they do not increase accordingly? Some
2. What the reason is that cities once grown to a greatness increase not onward according to that proportion
Let no man think the ways and means aforesaid, or any other that may be any way devised, can work or effect it that a city may go on in increase without ceasing. And therefore it is in truth a thing worth the consideration how it comes to Pass that cities grown to a point of greatness and power pass no further, but either stand at that stay, or else return back again. Let us take for our example Rome. Rome, at her beginning, when she was founded and built by Romulus (as Dionysius of Halicarnassus writeth) was able to make out three thousand three hundred fit men for the wars. Romulus reigned thirty-seven years, within the compass of which time the city was increased even to forty-seven thousand persons fit to bear arms. About one hundred and fifty years after the death of Romulus, in the time of Servius Tullius, there were numbered in Rome eighty thousand persons fit for arms. The number in the end, by little and little, grew to four hundred and fifty thousand. My question therefore is, how it comes to pass that from three thousand and three hundred men of war the people grew to four hundred and fifty thousand, and from four hundred and fifty thousand they went no further. And in like matter, since it is four hundred years since Milan and Venice made as many people as they do at this day, how it doth also come to pass that the multiplication goes not onward accordingly. Some answer the cause hereof is the plagues, the wars, the dearths and other suchlike causes. But this gives no satisfaction. For plagues have ever been, and wars have been more common and more bloody in former times than now. For in those days they came to hand strokes by and by, and to a main pitched battle in the field, where there were within three or four hours more people slain than are in these days in many years. For war is now drawn out of the field to the walls, and the mattock and the spade are now more used than the sword. The world besides was never without alteration and change of plenty and of dearth, of health and of plagues. thereof I shall not need to bring examples, because the histories are full. Now if cities with all these accidents and chances begun at first with a few people increase to a great number of inhabitants, how comes it that proportionably they do not increase accordingly? Some