The Roman Army

Here one may well admire the foresight of the Romans in providing themselves with servants who are useful not only for the ordinary services of life but in war as well. And if anyone looks at the rest of their army’s organization, he will see that they hold so great an empire as a prize won by valor, not as a gift of fortune. For war is not where their use of arms begins, nor do they sit idle in peacetime and move their hands only when need arises. As if they had been born with their weapons on, they never take a truce from training, and they do not wait for a crisis. Their drills fall nothing short of the vigor of real combat; every soldier trains every day, with all his heart, as though in war. That is why they bear battle so lightly. No disorder scatters them from their usual formation, no fear drives them out of it, no toil wears them down, and so a sure victory always follows over those not trained as they are. One would not be wrong to call their drills bloodless battles, and their battles bloody drills. Nor can an enemy catch them off guard by a sudden raid. Wherever they invade enemy territory, they do not join battle until they have fortified a camp. They do not build it haphazardly or unevenly, nor do they all set to work at once or divide the tasks at random. If the ground happens to be uneven, it is first leveled, and the camp is measured out as a square. A crowd of carpenters goes with the army, with tools for the building. [a]

The space inside is divided up for tents. From outside, the circuit looks like a wall, set with towers at equal intervals. Between the towers they place the bolt-throwers, catapults and stone-throwers, and every other kind of launching engine, all ready to shoot. Four gates are built, one in each side of the circuit, easy for pack animals to enter and wide enough for sorties if need presses. Inside, the camp is neatly laid out in streets. The officers’ tents are placed in the middle, and in the very center of them stands the general’s headquarters, like a shrine. It is like a city put up on the spot, with a market place, a quarter for craftsmen, and seats for the officers of every rank, where they judge any disputes that arise. The outer wall and everything inside it go up faster than one could imagine, thanks to the numbers and the skill of the workers. If need presses, a ditch is also dug around the outside, six feet deep and as many wide. [b]

Once fortified, they take up quarters company by company, quietly and in good order. Everything else too is done with discipline and security. Wood, food when they need it, and water are fetched company by company. No one may take supper or breakfast whenever he likes; they all eat together. Trumpets announce the times for sleep, for the watches and for rising, and nothing is done without an order. At daybreak the soldiers each report to their centurions, and the centurions go to the tribunes to salute them; with the tribunes all the senior officers go to the commander of the whole army. He gives them the customary watchword and his other orders, to pass on to those under them. They do the same in battle, so that they wheel quickly wherever they must, and whether advancing to attack or falling back at the recall, they move in a body.

When they are to leave the camp, the trumpet gives the signal. No one lingers; at the first sign they strike their tents and make everything ready to go. The trumpets sound again for them to make ready. They quickly load the baggage onto the mules and pack animals and stand ready to dash off, like runners at the starting rope. Then they set fire to the camp, because it is easy for them to build another there, and so that it may never be of use to the enemy. A third time the trumpets sound for departure, hurrying along any who for some reason are late, so that no one is missing from his place in the ranks. Then the herald, standing at the commander’s right hand, asks them three times in their native tongue whether they are ready for war. Each time they shout back loudly and eagerly: “We are ready!” Indeed they shout it before the question is finished, and, filled with a kind of martial spirit, they raise their right hands as they shout. [c]

Then they set out and march in silence and good order, each keeping his own place as in battle. The infantry wear breastplates and helmets and carry a blade on each side. The one on the left is far longer, for the one on the right is no more than nine inches long. The picked infantry around the general carry a lance and a round shield; the rest of the line carry a javelin and a long shield, and besides these a saw and a basket, a spade and an ax, a strap, a sickle and a chain, and three days’ rations. So the foot soldier is not far from being a loaded mule. The cavalry carry a long sword on the right side and a long lance in the hand. A long shield hangs slanting along the horse’s flank, and in a quiver hang three or more darts with broad points, as large as spears. All of them have helmets and breastplates like the infantry. The picked horsemen around the general are armed no differently from the cavalry of the squadrons. The legion on which the lot falls always leads the march. [d]

Such are the Romans’ marches and halts, and such are their different arms. In battle nothing is done without forethought or on the spur of the moment. Planning always goes before every action, and the action follows what has been decided. So they rarely make mistakes, and when they do stumble they easily set things right. They think failures that come after careful planning better than successes that come by chance. Good luck that comes of itself tempts men into carelessness, while deliberation, even if it sometimes fails, is good practice for not failing again. Besides, the man who gets good things by chance is not the cause of them, while when gloomy things happen against expectation, it is at least a comfort to have planned as one should.

In their weapons drills they make not only their bodies but their souls brave, and they are trained by fear as well. Their laws punish with death not only desertion of one’s post but even a little slackness, and their generals are more to be feared than the laws. Yet by the honors they give the brave, the generals escape seeming cruel to those they punish. Their obedience to their commanders is so complete that in peace it is an ornament to them, and in battle the whole army is one body. Their ranks are so firm, their wheeling so nimble, and their ears so sharp for orders, their eyes for signals and their hands for work. That is why they are always the quickest to act and the slowest to give way. There is no instance where, once they stood their ground, they were beaten by numbers, by stratagems, by difficult ground, or even by fortune, for victory is surer to them than fortune is. When counsel leads the way into battle, and so effective an army carries out what has been decided, what wonder is it that the Euphrates on the east, the Ocean on the west, the richest part of Libya on the south, and the Danube and the Rhine on the north are the boundaries of their empire? One might rightly say that the possession is smaller than those who possess it. [f]

I have gone through all this not so much to praise the Romans as to console those they have conquered and to deter any who are thinking of revolt. Perhaps, too, an account of how the Roman army is trained may be of use to those lovers of learning who do not know it. Now I return to the point from which I digressed.