§ 1. This discipline is one of morals, exercise, and labor. Our ancestors had the greatest care for morals; and it was said expressly concerning war, Deuteronomy 23:9: “When you have gone out to battle against your enemies, you shall guard yourself from every evil thing.” No one doubts that this must be done even in peace, but especially in war, because in it there are manifold causes of sinning and, at the final peril of life, the soul ought to be prepared for God, lest, if the body falls, the impious soldier be condemned also by the second death. Accordingly, a good emperor will severely and constantly form the soldier who has been levied to virtue, to knowledge, and to military fortitude. For discipline is the most tenacious bond; from it come all triumphs. It was so cultivated among the Romans that they overcame even affection for their children. “The discipline of the ancestors,” Alexander says in Lampridius, “sustains the state; if it falls apart, we shall lose both the name of the Romans and the empire.” For whatever is done without order and art is weak, just as if one should strike a wall with the side of a ram rather than with its head.
§ 2. In antiquity moral discipline consisted chiefly in moderating food, drink, and other pleasures, and in guarding against thefts. They had readily obtainable food: bacon and bread. At times they were compelled to carry provisions for half a month, at times for an entire month. The Turks excel so greatly in this respect that, if they added the other things, they would become invincible. They abstain from wine; when there is an abundance of rice, they easily do without bread. But if rice is lacking, they sustain themselves with a powder which they carry with them, made from salted meat ground small; for they put it into hot water and from it make a porridge effective for strengthening their bodies. Those who are more barbarous feed on the blood and flesh of horses.
§ 3. Their drink was posca, water mixed with vinegar. When the soldiers asked for wine, a brave emperor pointed to the Nile.
§ 4. They are moved by regular signals, and not by others unless necessary for a stratagem. Some signals are vocal, some semivocal, and some mute. The watchword, which they publish by voice, is vocal; trumpets, drums, and pipes are semivocal; standards, dragons, the labarum, and eagles are mute. Trumpeters sound for works or for the soldiers alone; horn-blowers sound when the standards are moved.
§ 5. Free men and slaves alike swore that they would carry nothing away from the camp by theft, and that if they found anything they would bring it to the tribune. The law was severe: let no one seize a chicken, lest a trace remain by which he may be thought to have injured one who was at peace. Frontinus, Stratagems, book 4, chapter 3, relates that a fruit-bearing tree which the laying-out of the camp had enclosed remained on the following day with its fruit untouched. Aulus Gellius, book 16, chapter 4, gives the formula of the oath: “When a levy was held in ancient times,” he says, “and soldiers were enrolled, the military tribune bound them by an oath in these words: IN THE MAGISTRACY OF GAIUS LAELIUS, SON OF GAIUS, CONSUL, AND LUCIUS CORNELIUS, SON OF PUBLIUS, CONSUL, IN THE ARMY AND WITHIN TEN MILES OF IT, YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT THEFT BY MALICIOUS FRAUD, EITHER ALONE OR WITH SEVERAL OTHERS, TO A VALUE GREATER THAN ONE SILVER NUMMUS ON ANY SINGLE DAY; and, apart from a spear, spear-shaft, wood, fruit, fodder, wineskin, leather bottle, and torch, if you find or take up anything there which will not be yours and which will be worth more than one silver nummus, you shall bring it or report it within the next three days to Gaius Laelius, son of Gaius, the consul, or to Lucius Cornelius, son of Publius, the consul, or to whichever of them you wish, whatever you have found or taken up, without malicious fraud; or you shall return it to its owner, whom you judge it to belong to, as you wish what is right to have been done.”
The punishment for theft was to be beaten with a club, according to Polybius. Tiberius punished with death a soldier who stole a peacock, Suetonius, chapter 60. Because of the plundering of a single cock, Pescennius ordered ten tent-companions who had eaten what one man had seized to be struck with the axe, according to Spartianus in his life of Pescennius.
But very much has often been indulged to the soldier. Aurelian’s letter has been praised rather than observed: “If you wish,” he says, “to be a tribune—indeed, if you wish to live—restrain the hands of the soldiers. Let no one seize another man’s chicken; let no one touch a bird; let no one carry off a grape; let no one trample the crop; let no one demand oil, salt, or wood; let him be content with his own ration. Let him have his goods from the enemy’s booty, not from the tears of the provincials. Let the arms be polished, the iron tools burnished, and the shoes strong. Let the new garment displace the old. Let him keep his pay in his belt, not in the tavern. Let him put on his neck-chain, armlet, and ring. Let him rub down his own packhorse; let him not sell a captured animal; let him attend kindly to the centurial mule. Let each obey the other as though he were a slave. Let them be treated by physicians without charge; let them give nothing to soothsayers; let them conduct themselves chastely in their lodgings. Whoever starts a quarrel, let him be flogged.”
§ 6. Let there be modesty in adornment, so that they appear rough rather than ornamented. For:
The rough soldier is armed.
Those who are dressed too ostentatiously are sluggish for the works of military service; they fear the rain and take care both for their clothes and for their body. Here a prudent commander will imitate an ancient commander. When Chares saw that in foul weather the soldiers performed the work sluggishly because they were sparing their clothes, he ordered them to exchange clothes with one another. Since no one took account of another man’s clothing, the work was quickly completed.
§ 7. The arms, nevertheless, should be polished and strong. Thus were the Silver-Shields; and in this matter especially military luxury is not useless, for in this way they cast their arms away less readily.
§ 8. The camp itself was also clean; the streets were accustomed to be sprinkled and swept.
That cleanliness was a defense against pestilence and contagion, although it is now scarcely ever observed. For this reason camps do not remain long without contagion.
§ 9. Let them abstain from lusts, for since they are generally men of little judgment, most are broken by pleasures. Antigonus consulted the chastity of citizens. For when he had heard, according to Frontinus, book 4, chapter 1, that his son had lodged in the house of a man who had three daughters of distinguished beauty, he said: “I hear, son, that you dwell in cramped quarters, since several masters occupy the house. Take more spacious lodging.” And, after ordering him to move, he proclaimed that no one less than fifty years of age should lodge in the house of a mother of a family.
Quintus Metellus did not wish to have his son as a tent-companion, but wished him to earn his standing in the ranks. Rutilius did the same.
§ 10. Exercise is peculiar to Roman valor, because it was greater among them than among any nation. Josephus, book 3 of The Jewish War: “If anyone examines another part of the Roman order in military service, he will see that they possess this great empire as the reward of valor, not as the gift of fortune. For war itself is not for them the beginning of taking up arms, nor do they move their hands only when there is use or necessity, remaining idle in peace. Rather, as though born together with their arms, they never make a pause in exercise and do not await occasions. Their practices or exercises differ in no respect from the true employment of fortitude and boldness, but every soldier is trained daily with all eagerness as though for war. Hence they endure battles very easily and almost without any sense of labor. For neither confusion removes and disperses them from their accustomed order, nor does fear render them stupefied, nor labor weary them. Victory therefore follows them when they fight against men who have not been strengthened in the same way. And surely one would not err who said that their exercises are battles without blood, and their battles exercises with blood.”
Hence they obtained the greatest victories with the smallest army; those who trained their men did the same. War therefore belongs not to multitude but to order and discipline. Xerxes complained that he had many human beings but few men, as Thermopylae showed. Who does not marvel that Cyrus began such great affairs at first with fourteen thousand men and Alexander with forty thousand? Epaminondas, with four thousand men, of whom four hundred were cavalry, defeated twenty-four thousand infantry and sixteen hundred cavalry of the Lacedaemonians. Fourteen thousand Greeks who set out with Cyrus the Younger defeated one hundred thousand barbarians and returned through an impassable route against the will of the barbarians.
They were exercised throughout the whole day; every class of soldier was exercised, even the veterans. The younger men trained twice a day, the veterans once. The commanders themselves were exercised. Silius, book 8:
He himself among their midst gave signs of immense glory to come: to brandish the stake, to pass in a leap across mural trenches, and, wearing a breastplate, to break by swimming the billowing ford— such were the spectacles of valor before the battle lines. Often on swift foot he himself outstripped a horse whose flanks were pierced, as it flew across the open fields; often, standing tall, he also cast both stone and spear across the breadth of the camp.
Agesilaus led the army around the camp three and four times every day, so that by cutting wood the enemy might be injured and the soldier exercised. The same judgment must be made concerning every kind of exercise, as I also advised above.
When Alexander wished to fill the ditch and make the rampart level at Tyre, he himself was the first to carry a basket of sand. Indeed, they thus won over their fellow soldiers. Livy, book 7, concerning Valerius: “No other man was more familiar with the soldier, because he performed without reluctance every duty among the lowest soldiers. Moreover, in military sport, when equals entered contests of speed and strength with one another, he was amiably ready to conquer and to be conquered with the same countenance; nor did he disdain any man as an equal who offered himself. In deeds he was kind according to the matter; in words he was no less mindful of another’s liberty than of his own dignity. And—nothing is more popular than this—he administered his magistracies by the same arts by which he had sought them.”
To this pertains what Plutarch says: that in the civil war Pompey, although already an old man and fifty-eight years of age, continually exercised himself among his men both as infantryman and as cavalryman. This indeed is not customary now; soldiers themselves are rarely exercised.
In rain they trained under porticoes roofed with reed or straw. Drillmasters—the παιδοδιδάσκαλοι, “teachers of the young”—arose later.
§ 11. The exercises were of many kinds and were always customarily required—for example, keeping the ranks. Vegetius, book 1, chapter 11: “Nothing must be guarded more carefully on the march or in the battle line than that all the soldiers preserve the order of marching.”
There has been a great withdrawal from diligence in exercising, for the command of Augustus and Hadrian was that infantry and cavalry should go out for a march three times in a month. Although this was only one kind of exercise, it is nevertheless agreed that other methods also existed.
§ 12. Running. Vegetius, book 1, chapter 9: “The younger men must especially be accustomed to running, so that they may run upon the enemy with greater impetus; may swiftly occupy advantageous places when the need arises, or forestall adversaries who wish to do the same; may proceed briskly to reconnoiter and return still more briskly; and may more easily overtake the backs of those who flee.”
Livy, book 27, says that the legions ran under arms for a distance of four miles. They ran every fifth day. When a run had been proclaimed for the Praetorians, Nero himself carried a shield before them.
§ 13. Accordingly, they ran armed and with their packs. Tullius, in book 2 of the Tusculan Disputations, acknowledges that the exercise of bearing burdens is severe and renders men strong:
“First, you see whence our armies have their name; next, what labor and how great a labor belongs to the column: to carry provisions for more than half a month; to carry whatever a man might wish for use; to carry the rampart-stake. For our soldiers do not reckon shield, sword, and helmet as burdens any more than shoulders, upper arms, and hands. For they say that arms are a soldier’s limbs, and indeed they are carried so suitably that, if need should arise, after the burdens have been cast aside, they can fight with their arms made ready as though with their limbs.” Virgil too describes the labor of the march:
Just so the keen Roman, in his ancestral arms, as he makes his way beneath an excessive burden, stands in ranks in a camp already pitched before the enemy has expected him.
Among their burdens was the carrying of provisions for half a month. At times they carried enough for a whole month: Scipio Numantinus compelled them to carry thirty days’ grain, Livy, Epitome, book 57. Sometimes they carried twenty-two days’ provisions. Thus Caesar, book 2 of The Civil War: “The legionaries had some supply of grain, because they had been ordered to carry away from Ilerda grain for twenty-two days; the light-shielded troops and auxiliaries had none, since both their means of obtaining it were slight and their bodies unaccustomed to carrying burdens.”
Alexander, according to Lampridius, changed the practice, for he ordered them to receive supplies at their stopping places; in enemy territory, in accordance with the ancient custom, they were compelled to carry seventeen days’ provisions. At times they carried grain, at times flour, and sometimes twice-baked bread. The case of grain is established, for for this reason they also carried mills with which to break it. Livy, book 24, says that shields, helmets, spears, axes, mattocks, sickles, troughs, and mills were given to Scipio. Without doubt they also prepared flour while they remained in camp or while they were being prepared for a journey, for they did not live for the day alone. Indeed, I would believe that ordinarily they baked loaves unless they were called to a hurried journey. For they were accustomed to carry with them twice-baked bread, which they call buccellatum, according to Spartianus in his life of Pescennius and Ammianus in his life of Julian. The Greeks called them paxamatia. They carried them in leather sacks or upon carrying frames; the soldiers were commonly called “Marius’s mules” when they had bound the rampart-stakes to their packs.
§ 14. Riding for a long time, mounting, and dismounting. For whenever the emperor commanded it, it had to be done.
§ 15. Rushing together in the likeness of a battle, chiefly so that they might learn to preserve the ranks. Care for preserving the ranks was foremost among the Romans, for when those are thrown into disorder, the hope of victory also recedes. They ought not to be packed so closely that room for fighting is lacking, nor spread so loosely that they can be broken through. They must also be accustomed to this: that they can change the formation of the battle line upon the moment.
§ 16. Performing works. Corbulo’s distinguished saying was that the enemy must be conquered with the mattock. Galba, Suetonius says, strengthened both veteran and recruit by continual work.
§ 17. Fortifying the camp. They did not do this through slaves or camp-followers, but completed the labor with their own hands.
§ 18. They also exercised themselves by swimming. Vegetius, book 3, chapter 4: “In the summer season all must be compelled to swim.” Formerly they learned to swim in the Tiber; public pools were also established for this use. Cato taught his son these things, and Augustus his grandsons. Plutarch concerning Cato: “He himself went before and taught his son not only to hurl missiles, fight with arms, and ride, but also to exercise at boxing, endure heat and cold, and overcome and cross by swimming the swirling and rapid currents of rivers.”
Suetonius concerning Augustus, chapter 64: “He himself for the most part taught his grandsons both letters and swimming and other rudiments.”
In the summer months every recruit alike ought to learn the use of swimming, for rivers are not always crossed by bridges. Plains are sometimes flooded, so that there is need of swimming if they wish to escape. Frontinus.
§ 19. They exercised themselves at the post. Vegetius exhibits the post exercises in book 1, chapter 11: “The ancients, as is found in books, exercised recruits in this manner. They wove rounded shields of wicker after the fashion of latticework, so that the lattice had twice the weight which a public shield was accustomed to have. Likewise, they gave recruits wooden clubs of double weight in place of swords. In this manner they were exercised at the posts not only in the morning but also after midday. For the use of posts is of the greatest advantage not only to soldiers but also to gladiators. Neither arena nor field ever proved a man invincible in arms unless he who was carefully trained was instructed at the post. Individual posts were fixed in the ground by the individual recruits so that they could not sway and projected six feet. Against that post, as though against an adversary, the recruit exercised himself with that lattice and club as though with sword and shield: now aiming as though at the head or face, now threatening from the sides, at times striving to cut down the knees and legs; he advanced, withdrew, assaulted, leapt upon it, and tested the post as though it were a present adversary—with every impetus and every art of fighting. In this practice that caution was observed: that the recruit should rise to inflict a wound in such a way that he himself exposed no part to a blow.”
They struck the post not only with a club but also with a heavy pilum. Vegetius, book 1, chapter 14: “But I return to the undertaking. The recruit who is exercised with a club at the post is also compelled to hurl against that post, as though against a man, shafts of greater weight than the real missiles will be. In this matter the instructor in arms attends to it that he should whirl the shaft with great force and direct the missile with an aimed stroke at the post or beside it. For by this exercise strength increases in the arms, and skill and practice in hurling are acquired.”
They said that one must strike not with a cut but with a thrust, for that wound opens the vital parts and, if driven in two inches, is mortal. Vegetius, book 1, chapter 12.
§ 20. Vegetius, book 2, chapter 13, seriously determines that skill in arms must be taught. Accordingly, instructors in arms, who are now almost wholly lacking, must be maintained. In the year 648 from the founding of the city, Rutilius, consul in the Cimbrian war, summoned instructors of gladiators from the school of Aurelius Scaurus to train the recruits. But Gaius Caesar trained recruits neither in a school nor through trainers, but in private houses through Roman knights and even through senators skilled in arms.
The fact that they were taught to strike with a thrust made the Roman especially formidable, since they knew that with a sure and aimed stroke he could touch τὰ καιρία—that is, the vital parts.
They were commanded to exercise horses not only on level ground but also among cliffs and ditches, Vegetius, book 3, chapter 2. Thus exercise from boyhood is of very great importance. From youth the Persians exercised themselves in hunting and horsemanship, Herodotus, book 1, and Strabo, book 5. Always girt with a sword, burdened with a quiver, and clinging to their horses, in the height of peace they practiced war. The Gauls were formerly so practiced in war that war was scarcely waged without them, Justin, book 25. Now, as soon as there is mention of war in Gaul, a levy is held for them in Germany and cavalry is sought.
§ 21. Marching in military fashion. Tertullian, To the Martyrs: “Even in peace they already learn to suffer war through labor and hardships: by walking about under arms, running across the field, constructing a ditch, and drying a tortoise.”
Vegetius, book 1: “Furthermore, both the ancient custom has remained and provision is made by constitutions of the deified Augustus and Hadrian that three times in a month both cavalry and infantry be led out for a march—for by this word they name this kind of exercise. The infantry, armed and equipped with all their weapons, were ordered to go ten miles at the military pace and return to camp, in such a way that they completed some part of the journey at a more rapid run. The cavalry too, divided into squadrons and armed, similarly completed as much of the journey, so that for equestrian practice they at times pursued, at times gave way, and by a certain wheeling return renewed the charge. Not only on plains but also in sloping and steep places, both forces were compelled to ascend and descend, so that absolutely no event or accident might befall them in battle which good soldiers had not previously learned by continual exercise.”
Vegetius, book 1, chapter 11: order cannot otherwise be preserved than if by continual exercise they learn to march swiftly and evenly.
In going and returning they completed twenty miles, and this in five summer hours; at the faster pace, twenty-four in four.
§ 22. Cutting down a forest. For this is necessary not only for making engines, fire, and roads but also for strength and exercise.
§ 23. Leaping over ditches. Plutarch attests that Pompey competed in leaping with the agile. Vegetius too has this exercise in book 1, chapter 9: “The soldier must also be trained in jumping, by which either ditches are leapt over or some obstructing height is surmounted, so that, when difficulties of that kind occur, he can cross them without labor. Moreover, in the clash and contest of missiles itself, the warrior who approaches with running and leaping dazzles the adversary’s eyes and terrifies his mind, and inflicts the blow before the other can surely prepare himself either to guard against it or to resist.” Sallust records this concerning the exercise of Gnaeus Pompey the Great: “He competed in leaping with the agile, in running with the swift, and with the strong at the lever.” For he could not otherwise have been a match for Sertorius unless he had prepared himself and his soldiers for battles by frequent exercises.
§ 24. Striking appointed targets. Those who belonged to the light armament were exercised with shafts, javelins, pila, arrows, and slings; this they called by the single name “armament.”
Vegetius, book 2, chapter 15, says that they were called armaturae and exculcatores. The first exercise was to throw shafts and whirl the stake. They did this under the supervision of centurions, and were said to throw “under the vine-staff” (sub vineam iacere).
In former times archers were of the greatest use. A third or fourth part of the young men was exercised in these things; Claudius and Scipio conquered by instituting archers. But now they are of little use, as are slings, which Vegetius sufficiently indicates were for driving off barbarians. They were always exercised in them, lest custom fail. Claudian, on the fourth consulship of Honorius:
First train the columns with hard exercises, and prepare them for savage Mars; let neither winter’s rest nor sluggish winter quarters enervate their hands with bodily ease.
See the laws of Theodosius and Valentinian, the law Duces, title On the Office of the Military Judge. Exercise, however, surpasses everything.
To dry the tortoise: in this manner its timbers were rendered stronger. The tortoise has been discussed in its proper place.
§ 25. Exercise is especially fitting for the man who fights for his fatherland and to whom it is not permitted to err twice. “The athlete,” Vegetius says in book 2, chapter 24, “the hunter, and the charioteer, for a small reward or certainly for the favor of the common people, are accustomed by daily practice either to preserve or increase their arts. The soldier—by whose hands the state must be preserved—ought more zealously to preserve knowledge of fighting and practice in military affairs by continual exercises. To him falls not only a glorious victory but also more abundant booty, and the order of military service and the emperor’s judgment are accustomed to raise him to wealth and dignities. Performers of the stage do not withdraw from their exercises for the praise of the crowd. The soldier selected under oath, whether a novice or already a veteran, ought not to cease from exercises in arms, since he must fight for his own safety and common liberty—especially since this is an ancient and prudent maxim: everything depends upon practice.”
Hence it came about that among the Romans exercise in the camp was held more ancient than affection for their children: law Postliminium, section Filius, π., title On Captives.
An army is armed more strongly by nothing than by discipline. Pompey and Trajan were especially powerful through it. Salutary rigor conquers the empty appearance of clemency.
Hence great emperors went before their men. Marius, vigorous in digging and laboring, himself furnished his share of the common work. Antoninus always presented himself first in digging and in constructing embankments and harbors, Herodian, book 4.
Hence also those who were negligent in these indoor exercises were punished.
Those who were more negligent in exercise were compelled to receive barley in place of wheat. Vegetius, book 1, chapter 13: “The discipline of exercise was preserved among our ancestors in such a way that both the instructors in arms were rewarded with double rations, and soldiers who had made too little progress in that rehearsal were compelled to receive barley in place of wheat. Nor was their ration restored to them in wheat until, after furnishing proofs in the presence of the prefect of the legion, the tribunes, or the chief officers, they had shown that they had completed everything which belonged to military art.” Plutarch, in his life of Marius, says that the Romans were so hardened by labors that you could see no man sweating or sighing. This was so in the long and laborious battle with the Cimbri. From this it has its name, so that an army is called exercitus, “the exercised body.” Hippocrates says truly: “Ῥαθυμίη ὑγραίνει, καὶ ἀσθενὲς τὸ σῶμα ποιέει, πόνος δὲ ξηραίνει, καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἰσχυρὸν ποιέει.”—“Idleness moistens and makes the body weak; labor dries and renders it strong.” Labor in camp and on the march was great.
Josephus: “They carry a spear and shield; besides these, a saw and a basket, a mattock and an axe, and in addition a strap, a sickle, and a chain.” Finally, they carried seven or twelve rampart-stakes apiece. Those stakes, indeed, are useless because of our artillery, except insofar as they can delay cavalry. If anyone could restore the other things, surely he would easily seize mastery of the world. For how great a protection it is that a soldier carries a month’s provisions upon his shoulders! Where would an army not penetrate when its provision is at home with it?
Scarcely any common soldier had servants; ten men had one servant in common, who carried the mill and the other things. For cauldrons, the skins of tents, and other things were necessary. They also had some beasts of burden, for many instruments of war must be conveyed.
§ 26. One may well marvel at the ancient diligence in this matter when it is compared with our negligence. Octavius Augustus, in order to overcome Sextus Pompey, exercised his forces throughout the whole winter. Suetonius, The Deified Augustus: “Until, after ships had been built anew, twenty thousand slaves manumitted and assigned to the oar, and the sea admitted into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes, he made the Julian harbor near Baiae. After he had exercised his forces there throughout the whole winter, he defeated Pompey between Mylae and Naulochus.”
§ 27. Accordingly, an ancient army, and every army which is rightly constituted, is not a mere multitude. A multitude is rather often harmful; a larger multitude is exposed to more accidents. Vegetius, book 3, chapter 1: “Accordingly, in lighter wars they believed that one legion mixed with auxiliaries—that is, ten thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry—could suffice. Praetors, as lesser commanders, often led this force upon an expedition. But if great forces of the enemy were reported, a man with consular power, as a higher-ranking commander, was sent with twenty thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry. But when an infinite multitude from the fiercest nations had rebelled, then, under the compulsion of extreme necessity, two commanders and two armies were sent with a command of this kind: ‘Let the consuls, either one or the other or both, see to it that the state suffers no harm.’
“Finally, since in different regions the Roman people fought against different enemies in almost every year, these numbers of soldiers sufficed for this reason: they judged it more useful to have armies not so large as well equipped with arms. Nevertheless, this proportion was observed, that the multitude of allies or auxiliaries in the camp should never be greater than that of Roman citizens.”
The other resources of the legions are worthy of wonder, so that Vegetius deservedly judges a legion to be a self-sufficient city. “A legion,” he says in book 2, chapter 25, “was accustomed to conquer not only by the number of its soldiers but also by its iron implements. First of all, it is equipped with missiles which no breastplates and no shields can withstand. For it was accustomed to have one wagon-ballista for every century; for drawing each of these mules were assigned, and for arming or directing it one tent-party—that is, eleven men. For the larger these machines are, the farther and more forcefully they hurl their missiles. They not only defend the camp but are also placed in the field behind the battle line of the heavy armament. Neither armored cavalry nor shield-bearing infantry can withstand their force. There are accustomed to be fifty-five wagon-ballistae in a single legion.
“Likewise, ten onagers—that is, one for each cohort—are carried fully equipped on wagons by two oxen, so that if the enemy should happen to come to attack the rampart, the camp can be defended with arrows and stones. The legion also carries boats hollowed from single timbers, together with very long ropes and at times even iron chains, so that by joining these monoxylous boats together, as they call them, and covering them over also with planks, rivers which cannot be forded without bridges may be crossed without danger by both infantry and cavalry. It has iron grappling-hooks which they call wolves, and iron sickles fastened to the longest poles. Likewise, for conducting work on ditches, it has two-pronged hoes, spades, stakes, rakes, troughs, and baskets in which earth is carried. It also has mattocks, axes, adzes, and saws, with which timber and stakes are shaped and sawn. It has, besides, craftsmen with all their iron tools, who make tortoises, gallery-shelters, rams, covered sheds, as they call them, and even movable towers for attacking the cities of the enemy. But lest still more be said by enumerating individual things, a legion ought everywhere to carry with it everything which is believed necessary in every kind of war, so that wherever it pitches camp it may make an armed city.”