The ordinary pastimes of such husbandmen are the same as those of shepherds, and are in the same manner the images of war.But as husbandmen have less leisure than shepherds, they are not so frequently employed in those pastimes.They are soldiers, but soldiers not quite so much masters of their exercise.Such as they are, however, it seldom costs the sovereign or commonwealth any expense to prepare them for the field.
Agriculture, even in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement: some sort of fixed habitation which cannot be abandoned without great loss.When a nation of mere husbandmen, therefore, goes to war, the whole people cannot take the field together.The old men, the women and children, at least, must remain at home to take care of the habitation.All the men of the military age, however, may take the field, and, in small nations of this kind, have frequently done so.In every nation the men of the military age are supposed to amount to about a fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people.If the campaign, should begin after seed-time, and end before harvest, both the husbandman and his principal labourers can be spared from the farm without much loss.He trusts that the work which must be done in the meantime can be well enough executed by the old men, the women, and the children.He is not unwilling, therefore, to serve without pay during a short campaign, and it frequently costs the sovereign or commonwealth as little to maintain him in the field as to prepare him for it.The citizens of all the different states of ancient Greece seem to have served in this manner till after the second Persian war; and the people of Peloponnesus till after the Peloponnesian war.The Peloponnesians, Thucydides observes, generally left the field in the summer, and returned home to reap the harvest.The Roman people under their kings, and during the first ages of the republic, served in the same manner.It was not till the siege of Veii that they who stayed at home began to contribute something towards maintaining those who went to war.In the European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, both before and for some time after the establishment of what is properly called the feudal law, the great lords, with all their immediate dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense.In the field, in the same manner as at home, they maintained themselves by their own revenue, and not by any stipend or pay which they received from the king upon that particular occasion.
In a more advanced state of society, two different causes contribute to render it altogether impossible that they who take the field should maintain themselves at their own expense.Those two causes are, the progress of manufactures, and the improvement in the art of war.
Though a husbandman should be employed in an expedition, provided it begins after seed-time and ends before harvest, the interruption of his business will not always occasion any considerable diminution of his revenue.Without the intervention of his labour, nature does herself the greater part of the work which remains to be done.But the moment that an artificer, a smith, a carpenter, or a weaver, for example, quits his workhouse, the sole source of his revenue is completely dried up.
Nature does nothing for him, he does all for himself.When he takes the field, therefore, in defence of the public, as he has no revenue to maintain himself, he must necessarily be maintained by the public.But in a country of which a great part of the inhabitants are artificers and manufacturers, a great part of the people who go to war must be drawn from those classes, and must therefore be maintained by the public as long as they are employed in its service.
When the art of war, too, has gradually grown up to be a very intricate and complicated science, when the event of war ceases to be determined, as in the first ages of society, by a single irregular skirmish or battle, but when the contest is generally spun out through several different campaigns, each of which lasts during the greater part of the year, it becomes universally necessary that the public should maintain those who serve the public in war, at least while they are employed in that service.Whatever in time of peace might be the ordinary occupation of those who go to war, so very tedious and expensive a service would otherwise be far too heavy a burden upon them.
After the second Persian war, accordingly, the armies of Athens seem to have been generally composed of mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly of citizens, but partly too of foreigners, and all of them equally hired and paid at the expense of the state.From the time of the siege of Veii, the armies of Rome received pay for their service during the time which they remained in the field.Under the feudal governments the military service both of the great lords and of their immediate dependants was, after a certain period, universally exchanged for a payment in money, which was employed to maintain those who served in their stead.