Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > Botero: The Reason of State > Status Update

Not of little importance is a certain cheerfulness and liveliness of countenance which keeps the soldiers cheerful and in good spirits which depends for the most part on the demeanor of their commander and, if they do not go gladly and fiercely into battle, they will not accomplish anything worthwhile.

And so with others God shows sometimes that he favors not the captain but the prince. Sometimes, however, the intention of the captain is so good that God rewards him even if the prince does not please him and is afflicted and punished in another way.

Next, it increases the courage of soldiers to lead them far from their homeland, and the reason is that distance removes the ease of flight to which the nearness of home often leads, and the affections for parents, children, wives, friends are not so strong from a distance as from nearby.

Valor increases with the quality of the arms, defensive as well as offensive.

States are also acquired when they are taken as pledges for money that has been loaned; such pledges, because it rarely happens that they are paid off, are considered by princes to be their property

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Some peoples, in order to make it difficult for enemies to enter their ter- ritory (so imitating nature which has separated empires by mountains, seas, and rivers, but also by vast deserts such as Mauretania from Guinea, Numidia from Nubia, and Nubia from Egypt), have established desolate areas on their borders.

are useful to princes or not because we see that nature itself uses them.