Excerpt from The Book of Famous Sieges
It is only in modern times that history has come to be anything more than a story of wars carried on between either rulers or peoples. In old times warfare was endless. Every people knew that its lives and its property were safe only so long as they could defend themselves from enemies that had no scruple to prevent them from killing or robbing all foreigners.
The art of making war or of defending a country against its enemies, therefore, was more important than any other study. Success in war was the only path to greatness and the price paid for safety in the possession of land or property. When a people was overcome, its men were slain, its women and children carried into slavery, its homes destroyed or occupied by the conquerors, while its wealth became the plunder of its enemies.
In this state of the world, every town was necessarily a fortress ever ready for attack; and the people living in it were the garrison who expected to defend it whenever enemies appeared.
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