She fell when she had to contend with other standing armies.

The lesson which is really to be learned from her ascendency and from her decline is this, that the occasional soldier is no match for the professional soldier.

[2] The same lesson Somers drew from the history of Rome; and every scholar who really understands that history will admit that he was in the right.
The finest militia that ever existed was probably that of Italy in the third century before Christ.

It might have been thought that seven or eight hundred thousand fighting men, who assuredly wanted neither natural courage nor public spirit, would have been able to protect their own hearths and altars against an invader.

An invader came, bringing with him an army small and exhausted by a march over the snows of the Alps, but familiar with battles and sieges.