ROMAN CONQUEST

THE ROMAN ARMY

=Military Service.=—­To be admitted to service in the Roman army one must be a Roman citizen.  It is necessary to have enough wealth to equip one’s self at one’s own expense, for the state furnishes no arms to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them.  And so only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a small fortune.  The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from service, or rather, they have no right to serve.  Every citizen who is rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the disposition of the consul and this from the age of seventeen to forty-six.  In Rome, as in the Greek cities, every man is at once citizen and soldier.  The Romans are a people of small proprietors disciplined in war.

=The Levy.=—­When there was need of soldiers, the consul ordered all the citizens qualified for service to assemble at the Capitol.  There the officers elected by the people chose as many men as were necessary to form the army.  This was the enrolment (the Romans called it the Choice); then came the military oath.  The officers first took the oath, and then the rank and file; they swore to obey their general, to follow him wherever he led them and to remain under the standards until he released them from their oath.  One man pronounced the formula and each in turn advanced and said, “I also.”  From this time the army was bound to the general by the bonds of religion.

=Legions and Allies.=—­The Roman army was at first called the Legion (levy).  When the people increased in number, instead of one legion, several were formed.

The legion was a body of 4,200 to 5,000 men, all Roman citizens.  The smallest army had always at least one legion, every army commanded by a consul had at least two.  But the legions constituted hardly a half of the Roman army.  All the subject peoples in Italy were required to send troops, and these soldiers, who were called allies, were placed under the orders of Roman officers.  In a Roman army the allies were always a little more numerous than the citizens of the legions.  Ordinarily with four legions (16,800 men) there were enrolled 20,000 archers and 40,000 horse from the allies.  In the Second Punic War, in 218 B.C., 26,000 citizens and 45,000 allies were drawn for service.  Thus the Roman people, in making war, made use of its subjects as well as of its citizens.

=Military Exercises.=—­Rome had no gymnasium; the future soldiers exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the other side of the Tiber.  There the young man marched, ran, leaped under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with perspiration, swam across the Tiber.  Often the older men, sometimes even the generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never ceased to exercise.  Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and aqueducts.