Machiavelli lists four types of armed forces: mercenaries, auxiliaries, indigenous troops and mixed troops. Mercenaries, or soldiers hired to fight for a commission, are considered “ambitious, undisciplined, disloyal and quarrelsome[some]” (Machiavelli, 2009, p. 48), and are therefore useless and dangerous. Auxiliaries, or troops borrowed from a more powerful state to fight alongside it, are just as ineffective as mercenaries due to their loyalty to another ruler. Native troops, or one's own army made up of soldiers from one's territory, are the most effective and safest type of army. Mixed troops, or a combination of indigenous and non-indigenous soldiers, are a compromise between the three aforementioned military styles and are inferior to an all-indigenous army. Machiavelli repeatedly emphasizes the need for an indigenous army to ensure the effective security of a territory, citing an adage: "There is nothing weaker and unstable than a reputation for power which is not not supported by its own army” (Machiavelli, 2009, p..