[Illustration:  FIG.99—­A Roman General.]

Our friend Scius goes through the drill, the exercises, and the hard work already mentioned.  His pay will be somewhere about L8 a year, or a little over three shillings a week, and his food will consist mainly of wheaten porridge and bread, with salt, and a drink of thin sour wine little better than vinegar.  His wheat—­the price of which is deducted from his pay—­is measured out to him every month, and it is his own business to grind it or get it ground and converted into bread.  Vegetables he will procure as he likes or can; but meat, except a limited amount of bacon, he will commonly neither get nor very much desire.  On one occasion indeed we find the soldiers complaining that they were being fed altogether too much upon meat.  It deserves to be remarked that the results speak well for the wholesomeness of this simple diet of the legionary.  For his quarters he will be one of ten sharing the same tent under the supervision of a kind of corporal.  There are no married quarters.  Not only are women not permitted in the camp, but the soldier cannot legally marry during his term of service.

[Illustration:  FIG. 100.—­CENTURION.]

Scius will meet with no gentle treatment while in his pupilage.  The grim centurion, or commander of his company, is a man of iron, who has risen from the ranks; his methods are sharp and summary, and he carries a tough switch of vine-wood, with which he promptly belabours the idle or the stupid.  Any neglect of duty or act of disobedience is inevitably Punished, sometimes by hard labour in digging trenches, sometimes by a fine, sometimes by stripping the soldier of his armour and making him stand for hours in civilian attire as a butt for ridicule in the middle of the camp, sometimes by a lowering of his rank corresponding to the modern taking away of a “man’s stripes.”  If a soldier proves a hopeless case he is expelled with ignominy from the camp and army.  If he deserts or plays the traitor he may either be decapitated or beaten to death with cudgels.  If a whole company or regiment gets into disgrace, it may have to put up with barley instead of wheat for its rations, and if it is guilty of gross insubordination, or of some crime which cannot be sheeted home to the individual, it may be “decimated,” or, in other words, every tenth man, drawn by lot, may be condemned to death.  The last, of course, is an extreme measure, and is only mentioned here as belonging to extreme cases.

[Illustration:  FIG. 101.—­STANDARD BEARER.]

On the other hand, if Scius is a smart soldier he will gradually gain recognition as such.  He may become the head man in his mess of ten; or be made an orderly, to carry the watchword round to the messes; or he may be chosen by the centurion as his subaltern.  As he gains maturity and steadiness, and wins confidence, he may be elected to bear the of his company, in which case a bear’s skin will be thrown over his shoulders,