I'll wreathe my sword in myrtle bough, The second is the song of Hybrias the Cretan : My wealth is here, the sword, the spear, the breast-defending shield, And here arises a curious question. Do races, as is generally assumed, decline and fall like nations and empires? Does the body politic obey the law of the body corporal? Do peoples grow old and feeble and barren after their most brilliant periods of gestation? Or rather do they not cease to be great, and to bear great men, because their neighbours have grown to be greater, and because genius is repressed by unfavourable media? I cannot see that Time has greatly changed the peasant of the Romagna, the mountaineer of the Peloponnesus, the Persian become a Parsi in Bombay, or the modern soldier of the Nile Valley, who, under Ibrahim Pasha, defeated the Turks in every pitched battle. But the conditions of Italy, Greece, Persia, and Egypt, are now fundamentally altered: they are no longer superior to their surroundings; they are environed by races stronger than themselves. Hence, perhaps, what is popularly called their degeneracy. Lord Denman's translation. 2 D. K. Sandford. CHAPTER XII. THE SWORD IN ANCIENT ROME; THE LEGION AND THE GLADIATOR. THE role played by pagan Rome on the stage of history was twofold-that of THE conqueror and that of regulator. In obeying man's acquisitive instinct she was compelled to perfect her executive instrument, the fighter. To her we owe the words 'arms' and 'army,' 'armour' and 'armoury.'' As pugna derives from pugnus, the fist, so arma and its congeners derive from armus, the arm : 'antiqui humeros cum brachiis armos vocabant,' says Festus. Well knowing that the 'God of Battles' favours superiority of weapons as much as, and in select cases more than, 'big battalions,' she ever chose the implements and instruments she found the best; and, following her own proverb, she never disdained to take a lesson in arms even from the conquered. But Rome soon learnt that to make good soldiers she must begin by making good citizens. She insisted upon the civilising maxim 'Cedant arma toga,' without, however, the invidious precedence which Sallust calls 'those most offensive words of Cicero Concedat laurea linguæ. She subordinated the Captain to the Magistrate, and she proclaimed to both the absolute Reign of Law. The idea presented itself to the Greek mind in the shape of Fate, Anagké, Nemesis: Rome brought it down from the vague to the realistic, from the abstract to the concrete, from heaven to earth. Thus, while Greece taught mankind the novel lessons of ordered liberty, free thought, intellectual culture, and patriotic citizenship, Rome, by her reverence for Law, in whose sight all men were equal, preached the brotherhood of mankind. Hence Christendom ever has been, and is still, governed by a heathen code, by that Roman jurisprudence which flowed from the Twelve Tables, like the laws of Jewry from the Ten Commandments. Indeed the 'Fecial College,' which pronounced upon the obliga 1 'Armour' is from the Lat. armatura, through O. French armeure and armure; armoire is armarium, originally a place for keeping Arins, and It is not a little armamentarium is our arsenal. curious that finds' of Roman weapons are so rare, bearing no proportion to the wide extension of the rule. We must also beware of the monuments which are apt to idealise and archaicise: this is notable in the shape of the helmet, the pilum, and the Sword. Jähns specifies as the best place for study the RomanoGerman Central Museum at 'Mainz,' under Professor Dr. Lindenschmit (p. 192). tions of international war and peace, is an institution which might profitably be revived in the modern world.' Rome was single-minded in her objective, conquest; and unlike the Greeks, from whom she borrowed, she was not diverted by art or literature. All her poets for a thousand years fit into one volume. Her art, indeed, can hardly be said to exist; history is silent concerning any save a few exceptional Roman architects. Varro laughs at the puppets and effigies of the gods. The triumph of Metellus (B.C. 146) introduced Art, but the Helleno-Roman artist contented himself with copies and with portrait-statues of the great. In the days of their highest luxury and refinement, the toga'd people were connoisseurs and purchasers who diffused instead of adding to knowledge. Others, as Virgil said, might give movement to marble and breath to bronze: the Art of the Roman was to rule the nations, to spare the subjected, and to debase the proud. 'Fortia agere Romanum est.' For the constitution of the Roman army we must consult the estimable Polybius, its early historian, Livy, and the latest of the great authorities, Vegetius, in the days of Valentinian II. (A.D. 375–92); not forgetting Varro,3 who treats of weapon changings. Whilst the militia consisted of three bodies, the citizens, the allies, who were sworn, and the auxiliaries or mercenaries; the characteristic of Roman organisation was the Legion—that is, legere (they chose). Emerging by slow degrees from the Phalanx or close column, it learnt to prefer for battle the acies instructa, haye or line, and the acies sinuata, with wings; and it reserved for especial purposes the agmen pilatum or close array, and the agmen quadratum or hollow square. The reason of the change is manifest. The Phalanx or oblong herse was irresistible during the compact advance. The wise Egyptian inventors made it perfect for the Nile Valley. But it lost virtue in woodlands and highlands; it was liable to be broken when changing front, and the long unwieldy spears which it required caused confusion on broken ground. The Legion consisted, strictly speaking, of heavy-armed infantry-of Milites, from Mil-es, because reckoned by their thousands. They were preceded by the Velites, Ferentarii, or Rorarii, 'light infantry,' éclaireurs, who cleared the way for action; in the first century they were reinforced by the Accensi Velati. Whilst the Auxiliaries fought with bows and arrows, and some, like the Etruscans, with the 'funda' or sling, the Veles carried two to seven light throw-spears (hasta In our day the only 'Fecialists' are the Moslem 3 De Lingua Lat. iv. 6. States. Livy, viii. S. 2 Polybii Historiarum quae supersunt. The voluminous and luminous writer, a contemporary of Scipio Africanus, and a captain who witnessed the destruction of Carthage, was born A.U.C. 552 (B.C. 204), nearly three centuries after the Latin conquest of Etruria. He was called Auctor bonus in primis,' and Scipio said of him, 'Nemo fuit in requirendis temporibus diligentior' (Cicero, De Off. iii. 12, and De Rep. ii. 14). Also called Adscriptii, Supernumerarii, and Velati, because wearing only the sagum or soldier's cloak, opposed to the officer's paludamentum. Properly speaking, they were rear-troops, ranged in battle order behind the Triarii. During certain epochs the Rorarii stood next to the Triarii, and the Accensi, less trustworthy than either, formed the extreme rear. |