Page:The Prince (Ricci, 1903).djvu/66

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52
NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI

selves and the soldiers any hardship or fear by not killing each other in their encounters, but taking prisoners without a blow. They made no attacks on fortifications by night; and those in the fortifications did not attack the tents at night, they made no stockades on ditches round their camps, and did not take the field in winter. All these things were permitted by their military rules, and adopted, as we have said, to avoid trouble and danger, so that they have reduced Italy to slavery and degradation.