Discourses on Livy

What importance the armies of the present day should allow to artillery; and whether the commonly received opinion concerning it be just.

Looking to the number of pitched battles, or what are termed by the French journées, and by the Italians fatti d'arme, fought by the Romans at divers times, I am led further to examine the generally received opinion, that had artillery been in use in their day, the Romans would not have been allowed, or at least not with the same ease, to subjugate provinces and make other nations their tributaries, and could never have spread their power in the astonishing way they did. For it is said that by reason of these firearms men can no longer use or display their personal valour as they could of old; that there is greater difficulty now than there was in former times in joining battle; that the tactics followed then cannot be followed now; and that in time all warfare must resolve itself into a question of artillery.