How they could have sped well in undertaking such a match: it is uneasy to find in discourse of human reason. It is true, that virtue and fortune work wonders; but it is against cowardly fools, and the unfortunate. For whoever contends with one too mighty for him: either must excel in these as much as his enemy go beyond him in power; or else must look both to be overcome, and to be cast down so much the lower by how much the opinion of his fortune and virtue renders him suspected, as likely to make head another time against the vanquisher.
Whether the Roman or the Macedonian were, in those days, the better soldier; I will not take upon me to determine. Though I might, without partiality, deliver mine own opinion: and prefer that army, which followed not only PHILIP and ALEXANDER, but also ALEXANDER'S princes after him, in the greatest dangers of all sorts of war; before any that Rome either had or, in long time after, did send forth.
Concerning fortune; who can give a rule that shall always hold? ALEXANDER was victorious in every battle that he fought: and the Romans in the issue of every war. But forasmuch as LIVY hath judged this a matter worthy of consideration: I think it a great part of Rome's good fortune, that ALEXANDER came not into Italy; where—in three years after his death—the two Roman Consuls, together with all the powers of that State, were surprised by the Samnites; and enforced to yield up their arms.
We may therefore permit LIVY to admire his own Romans, and to compare with ALEXANDER, those captains of theirs; which were honoured sufficiently in being thought equal to his followers. That the same conceit should blind our judgment; we cannot permit without much vanity.
Now in deciding such a controversy, methinks it were not
amiss for an Englishman to give such a sentence between
the Macedonians and Romans; as the Romans once did,
being chosen arbitrators, between the Ardeates and Aricini
that strove about a piece of land: saying, "That it belonged
to neither of them; but unto the Romans themselves."
If therefore it be demanded, whether the Macedonian or the Roman were the best warrior? I will answer, "The Englishman!"
