Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/303

279 EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIII. 279 whatever state vi^ould pay them best. These forces chaptkr constituted the capital, as it were, of the military ■ - chief, whose obvious interest it was to economize as far as possible all unnecessary expenditure of his resources. Hence, the science of defence was almost exclusively studied. The object seemed to be, not so much the annoyance of the enemy, as self-preservation. The common interests of the condottieri being paramount to every obligation to- wards the state which they served, they easily came to an understanding with one another to spare their troops as much as possible ; until at length battles were fought with little more personal hazard than would be incurred in an ordinary tourney. The man-at-arms was riveted into plates of steel of sufficient thickness to turn a musket-ball. The ease of the soldier was so far consulted, that the artillery, in a siege, was not allowed to be fired on either side from sunset to sunrise, for fear of dis- turbing his repose. Prisoners were made for the sake of their ransom, and but little blood was spilled in an action. Machiavelli records two en- gagements, at Anghiari and Castracaro, among the most noted of the time for their important conse- quences. The one lasted four hours, and the other half a day. The reader is hurried along through all the bustle of a well-contested fight, in the course of which the field is won and lost several times ; but, when he comes to the close, and looks for the list of killed and wounded, he finds to his surprise not a single man slain, in the first of these actions ; and in the second, only one, who, having