There is another class of battles, from which the reader will expect some to be selected for comparison with the great events of the Persian war; those memorable struggles in which a disparity of force which seemed to make resistance hopeless, has not deterred an invaded people from asserting its independence, nor secured the invader from total defeat. Among them the long series of battles by which the freedom of Switzerland was ascertained and secured claims a foremost place; and we are led to take our examples thence, rather than from other history, by a resemblance, perhaps not more than superficial, between the circumstances of the Cantons and of the Greek republics. In either case it was the same class who fought: the Swiss, like the Grecian armies, were composed not of mercenary men at arms, nor vassals bound to follow their lord in public or in private quarrel; but of citizens trained to the use of arms, and habituated to consider military service as a privilege. Among them none pleaded birth or wealth as excuses for not serving in the ranks, or disdained to fight except as the commander of others. We may also notice, that since the time of Charlemagne the infantry service had generally fallen into disrepute and neglect,[24] and the strength of armies was estimated by their heavy–armed cavalry, the only capacity in which a knight or noble would condescend to serve. As the Athenians were the first Greeks who endured the sight of the Median dress, and the men who wore it, so the Swiss were the first infantry who dared unsupported to abide the furious charge of the high–born and high–spirited nobility. Here the nature of their country was a valuable auxiliary; and the brilliant successes which they wrought, partly by advantage of ground, but chiefly by their courage, strength, and constancy, aided by a real though not apparent superiority in arms and discipline, led, in conjunction with the invention of gunpowder, to a revolution in war, and re–established the infantry service in its due superiority.