It is necessary that I should here notice what the ancient writers tell us respecting the education of the Eoman soldiers.' They were accustomed to the military step, that is to say, to make twenty miles in five hours, and sometimes twenty-four. During these marches they had to carry weights of sixty pounds.' They were inured to the habit of running and leaping fully armed. In their exercises they used swords, javelins, and arrows which were double the ordinary weight; and these exercises were con- tinual.'
The camp was not the sole military school. There was a place in the city where the citizens assembled ' See Vegetius, liv. i. Also see in Livy, lir. xxvi, the exercises to which Scipio Africanus subjected his soldiers after the capture of New Carthage. Marius, notwithstanding hia age, repaired every day to the Campus Martius. Pompey, at the age of fifty-eight years, went to the field fully armed, with the young men: he mounted his horse, rode with the bridle down, and hurled his javelin. (Plutarch, Lives of Marius and Fompey) ■■ An enumeration of the items which made up this burden will give a more distinct idea of the physical capabilities of the Romans. " The load which a Roman soldier carried is almost incredible; victuals for iifteen days, sometimes more, usually corn, as being lighter, sometimes dressed food, utensils, a saw, a basket, a mattock, an axe, a hook, and leathern thong, a chain, a pot, &c., stakes usually three or four, some- times twelve, the whole amounting to sixty pounds weight, besides arms; for a Roman soldier considered these not as a burden, but as a part of himself." (Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 18Y2, p. 268.)-— TbanS- LATOB.
' Vegetius, liv. i, ch. xi-xiv.
CHAP. II.] OF THE KOMANS. 51 for martial exercises. This -was the Campus Marti- us. After the exercises were over, they threw them- selves into the Tiber, in order to acquire the habit of swimming,' and to free themselves from dust and sweat."
We have no longer a just idea of the exercises of the body. A man who now applies himself too much to these is regarded as contemptible; for, as a general thing, such exercises have at present no other object than agreeable accomplishments; where- as, among the ancients, all, even to the dance, consti- tuted a part of the military art.
It has even come to pass among us that too exquisite a degree of skill in the use of the arms which we employ in war has become ridiculous; for, since the introduction of the custom of single combats, the sword-exercise has come to be regarded as the science of men who are either quarrelsome or cowardly.
Those who criticise Homer, because he commonly sets off in liis heroes the qualities of strength, ad- dress, and activity of body, ought to find SaUust exceedingly ridiculous; for he praises Pompey "as ' And yet it would ecem that many Romans, even soldiers — at least at some periods — did not acquire the art of swimming. Livy relates that many of the Romans who fled before the Gauls at the river AUia, just before the latter captured Rome, were drowned in their attempt to cross the Tiber, either from not knowing how to swim or from the weight of their armor. (Book V, ch. xxxviii.) — Translator.
"' Vegetius, liv. i, oh. x.
52 GKANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesqitieu.
being a man wlio ran, leaped, and carried a burden, equally with any man of bis time.""
"Whenever the Eomans regarded themselves as in danger, or when they desired to repair some disaster, it was their constant practice to strengthen their mili- tary discipline." Have they to make war upon the Latins — a people as warlike as themselves? Manlius, intent upon increasing the authority of his command, directs the execution of his own son — who had van- quished an enemy without orders. Are they beaten before Numantia? Scipio jilmilianus immediately deprives them of everything which had served to enervate them.'" Have the Koman legions passed under the yoke in ITumidia? Metellus has repaired this disgrace from the moment that he has compelled them to resume the observance of the ancient insti- tutions. In order to beat the Cimbrians and the Teutons, Marius commenced by turning the courses of rivers; and Sylla imposed such grievous labors' upon his soldiers — demoralized in the war against Mithridates — that they demanded battle as an end of their toils." Publius Nasica had his soldiers to buUd " Cum alacribus saltu, cum velocihus cursu, cum validis vecte certabat. Fragment of Salluat, cited by Vegetius, liv. 1, ch. ix.
" [Military discipline was the first thing which appeared among the Romans, and it was the last thing which they lost; so intimately was it identified with the constitution of their Republic. (Bossuet, Disc, mr VHist. univ, troisiemc partie, ch. vi.)]
" He sold all the beasts of burden belonging to the army, and made each soldier carry grain sufficient for thirty days, and seven stakes. (Epitome of Florus, liv. Ivii.)
" Frontinus, Slratagans, liv. i, ch. xi.
CHAP. 11.] OF THE ROMANS. 53 a fleet which he did not need. Idleness was more feared than the enemy.
Aulus-Gellius " assigns bad enough reasons for the Eoman custom of bleeding soldiers who had com- mitted some offense. The truth is, that physical strength being the principal quality of the soldier, the object was to degrade rather than enfeeble him.
Men so hardened were generally healthy. We do not observe in the ancient writers that the Eoman armies — which carried on war in so many climates — suffered much from sickness; whereas at the present day it happens almost constantly that our armies, without having engaged in battle, bury themselves, .so to speak, in a single campaign.
Among us desertions are frequent, for the reason that our soldiers are the vilest part of each nation, and that none of them possess, or believe that they possess, a certain distinction above other men. Among the Eomans, desertions were more rare. Soldiers drawn from the bosom of a people so proud, so haughty, so confident of dominating other peoples, could little think of so far undervaluing them- selves as to cease to be Eomans.
As their armies were not large, it was easy to provide for their subsistence; the chief could know his soldiers all the better, and be all the more readily advised of offenses and breaches of discipline.
The physical strength and endurance which re- " Liv. X, ch. viii.
54 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieit.
suited from their exercises, together with the admir- able roads which they had constructed, enabled them to make long and rapid marches." Their unexpected appearance chilled the spirits of their enemies; and they showed themselves above all after a bad success, when the enemy was in that state of negligence which follows victory.
In our battles at the present day, the individual soldier has but little confidence except in the multi- tude with which he acts; but each Koman, more robust and more inured to war than his enemy, counted always upon himself. He possessed natural courage, that is to say, that virtue which is the feel- ing of one's own force.
Their troops being always the better disciplined, it was likely, even in the most unfortunate combats, that they would rally in part, or that the enemy would somewhere be thrown into disorder. Thus we continually see in their history, that, although over- borne in the beginning by the number or the im- petuosity of the enemy, they finally wrested victory from their hands.
They were especially careful to ascertain in what respects their enemy might possess some superiority over them; and they immediately took action accord- ingly. They accustomed themselves to the sight of blood and wounds at the Gladiatorial Spectacles, '« Witness especially the defeat of Hasdrubal— and their activity in dealing with Tariathus.
CHAP. 11.] OF THE ROMANS. 55 whicK they borrowed from the Etrurians." The trenchant swords of the Gauls,'' and the elephants of Pyrrhus, only surprised them once. They first supplied the weakness of their cavalry '" by taking away the bridles from the horses, in order that their impetuosity could not be checked, and afterwards by mixing velites" with their cavalry proper. "When they came to be acquainted with the Spanish sword, they abandoned their own." " They eluded the skill " Fragment of Nicolaus of Damascus, liv. x, taken from AtheuEeus, liv. IT, ch. xiii. Before the soldiers departed for the army, they were entertained by a gladiatorial combat. (Julius Capitolinus, lAves of Maadnats and Balbinits.)
'* The Eomans presented their jaTelins, which received the strokes of the Gallic swords, and blunted them.
" This cavalry was, however, superior to that of the small peoples of Italy. It was composed of the principal citizens, for each of whom a horse was kept at the public expense. When dismounted, there was no injantry more formidable, and very often it determined the victory.
''" These were young men, lightly armed, and the most active of the legion, who at the least signal leaped upon the cruppers of their horsesi or fought on foot. (Valeeius Maximus, liv. ii, ch. iii; Livy, liv. xxvi, ch. iv.) (a) (a) Reference is here made to the practice of mounting light-armed young men behind the cavalrymen. Each of these young r"en, or velites, was armed with a buckler and several javelins. Carried by the horses into the presence of the enemy, they suddenly dismounted, formed a line, and discharged their javelins. (Livy, Book XXVI, ch. iv.) — Tkanslatok.
^' Fragment of Polybius, cited by Suidas at the word machaira.
'' In ancient warfare, the sword was an incomparably more important weapon than it is in modern times. On the same principle, therefore, which claims " the survival of the fittest " in the " struggle for existence " among animals, any superiority in the structure of this weapon would be very apt to tell favorably upon the fortunes of war among men.
Two celebrated swords figured in the time of the Eomans — the Gallic and the Spanish — both of which are described by Livy: " The shields of the Gauls and Spaniards were of the same shape; their swords unequal and dissimilar. The Gauls had very long ones, without points. The 56 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesqtiieu, of pilots by the invention of a macliine wHcli Poly- bius describes. In short, as Josepbus says," war was for tbem a study, and peace an exercise. If any other nation enjoyed any particular advantage — whether derived from nature or arising from its in- stitutions— they at once availed themselves of the same. They did not neglect to provide themselves with Numidian horses, Cretan archers, Balearic sling- men, and Khodian ships. In fine, no nation ever prepared for war with so much prudence, or carried it on with so much audacity.
Spaniards, who were accustomed to stab more than to cut their enemy, had swords convenient, from their shortness, and with points." (Book XXn, ch. 46, Spillan & Edmond'a trans., N. T., 1871.)
The Gallic sword was therefore limited to the single office of cutting, whilst the Spanish was capable of the double one of cutting and thrust- ing. The Romans adopted the latter; the Gauls adhered to theii own— and were thus at a serious disadvantage in their numerous combats with the great enemy by whom they were finally conquered. — Trahslaior.
'' De Bella Judaieo, lib. iii, ch. vi.
EAKEB.] OF THE ROMANS. 57 NOTE BY THE TKANSLATOE.
The accounts wMcli we have of the Eoman mili- tary discipline fully justify the opinion that it gauges the high-water-marli of all human attainment in this particular direction. The extent to which all the active and passive powers of the Eoman soldier were utilized has never been equalled upon a great scale.
This supremacy of the Eomans in the military art conducts us at once to the most accurate idea of their position in universal history. At a time when the spirit of war was dominant among mankind, and when, consequently, the warlike virtues were ad- judged to be the highest, the Eomans had the merit of beating the world according to its own standard of excellence. The amount of real manhood in- volved ia such a performance contains the secret of that peculiar enthusiasm which is yet awakened by the Eoman name.
The physical type of the Eoman harmonized well with his intense devotion to war. The typical Eoman was short in stature and heavily built; his head was low and broad; his jaws horseshoe-shaped, and his 58 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
nose aquiline. Describing this type from studies made of the busts of the early emperors in the Ducal gallery at Florence, M. Edwards says: "The vertical diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the summit of the cranium is flat- tened, and the inferior margin of the jaw-bone al- most horizontal, the contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant; the forehead low; the nose truly aquihne, that is to say, the curve com- mences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the base is horizontal; the chin is round, and the stature short." ' In just correspondence with their physical type and their purely military character, the Romans — during their period of conquest — were remarkably deficient in art-feeling; in which respect they dif- fered widely from the Greeks, whose period of great- est power in arms and greatest mastery in art very nearly if not quite coincided. Among the latter, Phidias was bom before Miltiades died; among the former, art did not acquire a distinctively national character until about the time of the emperors."
Deficient in the delicate sentiments, in the esthetic faculties, and in the powers of abstract thought, the hfe of the Eonian was intensely physical. His ge- nius was severely concrete and practical; and his will ' Quoted from Types of Mankind, Phila., 1868, p. 98. ' See Francis Pulszky, in Indigenous Races of the Earth, Phila., 1868, pp. 172-174.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 59 differed but little from obstinacy. At a time in the world's history when war was the leading interest among men, it is easy to see how admirably he was adapted to empire. He was the best embodiment of the military spirit.
As suggested in the foregoing remarks, the ex- treme military character of the Eomans was but a marked instance, upon a great scale, of that ascend- ency of the profession of arms over the industrial callings, which was a prevailing characteristic of the ancient societies generally. Upon a much smaller scale, the Spartans illustrate the extreme intensity of the same spirit among the Greeks. Comte has done excellent service to rational history by indicating the necessary causes which rendered the civilizations of antiquity much more military in their tone than those of modem times. Emerging from an extreme- ly rude social condition, during which for many suc- cessive ages they had been incessantly occupied with the interests of war, when the communities of the ancient world first come into historical view, their life is seen to be — as we should rationally expect to find it — very distinctly military.
"Under this aspect," says Comte, " it is constantly necessary to regard the social state of antiquity as radically the inverse of our modem social state, in which war has finally become purely accessory, while among the ancients it was necessarily and habitually preponderant in a high degree. Thus, in ancient 60 GKANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
times, the same as among our present savages, the greatest efforts of human industry were essentially con- nected with war — a circumstance which gave occasion to so many truly prodigious creations of the military sort, above all in the art of conducting sieges. Among the modems, on the contrary, although the immense progress which has been made in the mechanical and chemical arts has necessarily produced, in an accessory manner, important military innovations — of which, how- ever, the value is much exaggerated — it is neverthe- less certain that the system of arms is much less perfect, relatively to the present sum of human means, than it was among the Greeks and Eomans, relatively to their corresponding industrial state." ^ The difference between the ancient and the mod- ern types of society here indicated by Comte is a generalization of very high value. It is one of a con- siderable number of comprehensive facts, which, taken in their sum, show that the world's civilization has, in the long run, undergone a great progressive change.
' Cours de PHlosophie I'ositive, Paris, 1869, tome v, pp. 119, 120.
MONTESQUIEU.] OF THE ROMANS. Q1 CHAPTEE III.
HOW THE EOMANS WEEE ABLE TO AGGEANDIZE THEM- SELVES.
As at the present time the peoples of Europe have nearly the same arts, the same arms, the same disciphne, and the same method of conducting war, the prodigious fortune of the Komans appears incred- ible to us. There is besides at the present day such a disproportion of power among the nations of Eu- rope, that it is not possible for a small state to rise by its own force from the humble condition in which Providence has placed it.'
It is needful that we should reflect upon this; or else we shall look upon events without compre- hending them; and, not properly appreciating the difference of circumstances, be led to believe, while reading ancient history, that we see other men than ourselves. ■ In modem Europe, constant experience has proved that a prince who has a million subjects cannot, without ruining himself, support an army exceeding ' See my Note at the end of this chapter. — Translator.
62 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [moniesqcieu.
ten thousand men. It is therefore only great na- tions that can have considerable armies.
It was not the same with the ancient republics; for, the ratio of the soldiers to the rest of the pop- ulation, which is at present as one to a hundred, might easily be as one to eight among them."
The founders of these republics had made an equal division of the lands. That alone constituted ■ a strong people — that is to say, a weU regulated so- ciety. That also secured a good army — each indi- vidual having an equal interest, and a very great interest, in defending his country.
When the laws ceased to be rigidly observed, things came to the same pass in which they are at present among us. The avarice of some and the prodigality of others caused the lands to accumulate in the hands of a few; and straightway those arts were introduced which served to accommodate the mutual wants of the rich and the poor. The result was that there were but few citizens or soldiers any longer; for the lands, formerly set apart for the sup- port of the latter, were employed now for the main- tenance of slaves and artisans — instruments of the luxury of the new possessors, without which the state— necessarily continuing to exist notwithstanding its disorders — would have perished. Before corrup- tion set in, the primitive revenues of the state were divided among the soldiers, that is, among the labor- " See idem.
CHAP, ni.] OF THE ROMANS. 63 ers. After the republic had become corrupt, these revenues passed at once into the hands of rich men, who disbursed them upon slaves and artisans, reserv- ing a portion, by means of tributes, for the support of the soldiers.
Such men were little adapted to war. They were cowardly, being already corrupted -by the luxury of the cities, and often by the very arts which they fol- lowed; besides which, as they had properly speaking no country, and as they plied their industry every- where, they had but little to lose or preserve.
In a census of Home which was taken some time after the expulsion of the kings,' and in that which Demetrius Phalerius made of Athens,* there is found nearly the same number of inhabitants. The popu- lation of Home was four hundred and forty thousand, of Athens, four hundred and thirty-one thousand. But this census of Kome was taken at a time when she was yet in the fall force of her institutions, and that of Athens at a time when she had become thor- oughly corrupt. "We find, in the case of Home, that the number of citizens who had attained the age of puberty constituted one fourth of the inhabitants, whilst at Athens this class of citizens amounted to a little less than one twentieth of the whole number.
' This is the census of which Dionysius of Halicamassua speaks in Book IX, art. 25, and it appears to me to be the same as the one which he cites at the end of his 6th Book, and which was taken sixteen yeara after the expulsion of the kings.
^ Cetesicles, in Athenceus, lib. vi, oh. xix.
64 GRANDEUE AND DECADENCE [mostesquieu.
The power of Eome tlien was to the power of Athens, at these respective times, nearly as one fourth is to one twentieth — that is to say, it was five times as great.
The kings Agis and Cleomenes seeing that instead of the nine thousand citizens which Sparta contained at the time of Lycurgus," there were at their time not more than seven hundred, of whom scarcely one hundred possessed lands,' and that all the rest were nothing more than a cowardly populace, they imder- took to re-estabhsh the laws in this respect;' and Lacedsemon resumed her ancient power, and became once more formidable to all Greece.
It was the equal division of lands that rendered Eome capable of rising at once from her original feebleness. This is plainly seen after she became corrupt. She was yet a small republic when, the Latins having refused the contingent of troops which they were obligated to furnish, ten legions were im- mediately raised in the city.' " At the present time," says Livy, "when all the world may not contain Rome, she could hardly do as much if an enemy should appear suddenly before her walls — proof evi- dent that we have not become greater, but that we ^ These were citizens of the town, and properly called Spartam. Lycurgus made for them nine thousand shares, and thirty thousand for the other inhabitants.
' See Plutarch, lAves of Agis and Cleomenes.
' See ibid.
8 Livy, First Decade, liv. vii. That was some time after the capture of Rome — under the consulate of L. Furius Camillus and App. Claudius Crassus.
CHAP, m.] OF THE ROMANS. 65 have only augmented the wealtli and the luxury which encumber us."
" Tell me," said Tiberius Gracchus to the Nobles,' " which is the more worth, a citizen or a perpetual slave? a soldier or a man who is useless in war? In order to hold some acres of land more than the other citizens, will you renounce the hope of the conquest of the rest of the world? or place yourselves in dan- ger of seeing those very lands which you refuse to us, taken from you by the enemies of your eoun- tiy?"
' Appias, on the Civil War, lib. 1, ch. xi.
66 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [baker.
NOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE.
The author's remarks respecting the different de- grees of difficulty experienced in ancient and in mod- ern times by a weak nation seeking to become a powerful one — his statement of the comparative ratios of military force among the ancient republics and the modern states of Europe — and finally, his brief references to the land system of the Eomans — seem to call for some further observations, partly critical, and partly of a supplementary character.
1. Montesquieu says there is "at the present day such a disproportion of power among the nations of Europe that it is not possible for a small state to rise by its own force from the humble condition in which Providence has placed it."
This statement appears to be somewhat too strong. It is doubtless true, as a general proposition, that the modem is less favorable than the ancient condition of Europe to the aggrandizement of a small state. This appears due in a good measure to causes similar to those which render it so difficult for an individual to advance his fortunes in a society in which all the Nont.] OF THE EOMAKS. 67 posts of power, wealth and influence are strongly preoccupied against him. And it may be said in addition to this, that aggrandizement by force was much more in harmony with ancient than it is with modern ideas — a fact which, in ancient times, was at once more favorable to the achievement of conquest, and to acquiescence in its exactions.
Yet, there is a first class power in Europe to-day which proceeded from small beginnings, and which is of recent formation. It may certainly be said with justice that, at the time Montesquieu published these Considerations, (1734,) Prussia occupied a com- paratively humble position in the European system of states — ^possessing as she did a total population of less than two and a quarter millions, and a domain of no more than 2,160 German square miles. Since that time she has steadily extended her power in presence of her great neighbors — ^Kussia, Austria, and France — until at length she stands at the head of an empire of forty millions of people, and performs for the time the leading role of Europe.'
2. The standing military ratio, as given by Mon- tesquieu for the nations of modem Europe — one sol- dier to a hundred of the population — and which he thinks cannot be exceeded without serious injury to the nation, sustains a curious relation to the late sta- tistics of the more powerful class of the European ' See Meyer's ffand-Zexikon des Allgemdnm Wissens, 1872, Zur Karte Sistorisclie Ikiwickdimg von Freussen, 68 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bases.
states. In the following table I have embodied a statement of the populations and standing military forces of the seven principal powers of Europe, to- gether with the proportions between the two for each of these states taken separately, and between their sums for all taken together: Population.
No. of men in Army and Navy on peace footing.
No. of people to one sol- dier and Bailor.
Spain, including colonies (1870).
Nayy (1869-70)...22,117) Itai.t(1870) France (1871) AnsTKiA (1868) Navy (1871) 5,702 f Geb. Empire (1871) Gb. Britain (1871) Russia (1867) Total 23,219,526 25,766,217 36,594,845 35,904,435 40,144,295 31,465,480 82,159,630 276,254,428 2,765,817 74 119 78 139 97 122 99 100 For the statistics of population, and of land and naval forces here given, compare Meyer's Band-Lexir Icon des Allgemeinen Wissens, 1872, articles Spanien, Italien, Frankreioh, &c., and Chambers' Enc., Phila., 1873, articles Armies, Nmies, Spain, Italy, France, NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 69 &c. I have myself reduced the proportions which are exhibited in the last column, counting the sur- plus fraction as unity in each case. Thus, the exact result for Spain is Y3 and a fraction — set down in the table at 74; for Italy 118 and a fraction — set down at 119; and so of the rest. In view of the considerable discrepancy in the proportions as shown ' by the table, varying as these do from one in 74 in the case of Spain, to one in 139 in that of Austria, it is a curious, and certainly an unexpected result, that the aggregate proportion for the European sys- tem— as represented by these seven great states — should be (me soldier and sailor to one hundred of ths jpopulation — the proportion stated by Montes- quieu.
If we turn now to the United States of America, we shall see how immensely our country differs from the monarchies of Europe in respect to the propor- tion of its citizens detailed for military duty on the peace footing: Population of the United States (18Y0). 38,925,598 Army (1873), as limited by law (but actually still less).. 30,000 — showing a proportion of 950 of the total population to one soldier and sailor. But, in view of our large subsequent increase in population, it is safe to as- sume at the present time — 1876 — that the military ratio imposed by our republic in time of peace 70 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
does not exceed one tenth of the average Eii/ropean rate} Tlie Komans started, and for a long time con- tinued in, tliat immature social state in which, no standing army existed among them — ^for the reason that all were equally soldiers; and, under the influ- ence of the intense military spirit which prevailed during the greater part of this period, they may have been capable of recruiting a force as great as stated by Montesquieu — one in every eight of the entire population. But no such force could have been other than temporary — like the vast citizen armies which on occasions of pressing emergency are raised in modern states. With the coming in of the empire, they finally adopted the system of standing armies and permanent naVal establishments. It will be seen by reference to my note at the end of Chapter XV that the ratio between their peace establishment and their entire population after this was done approxi- mated the proportion of one to two hundred and sixty-six — a ratio which, while being nearly three times less than that of the principal states of modem Europe, was nearly four times greater than that of the United States.