Armies

In statibus variis civitatum, conscribuntur milites dissimillimis causis. Urgentur barbari amore pugnandi; admoneantur cives reipublicæ liberæ animā pietatis; in regno cives, at quidem nobiles, notione honoris animantur; sed incolas timidos atque delicatos imperii labentis necesse est ad militiam aut prolicere spe divitiarum aut compellere metu pœnæ.

 

In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.

 

—Edward Gibbon, De Lapsu et Ruina Imperii Romanorum (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)