The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.
Edward Gibbon (2016). “The Collected Works of Edward Gibbon: Historical Works, Autobiographical Writings and Private Letters, Including The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.1212, e-artnow
