Robert Connor's Ownd. From moving elephants through high mountain passes in wintertime to ISBN Carthage was really the capital of a great North African empire, as Rome was of the Italian peninsula. Uncommonly good collectible and rare books from uncommonly good booksellers. Theodore Ayrault Dodge. Catalonia, July and August, B. From the Rhone to the Alps, Fall, B. The foothills of the Alps, October, B. The summit of the Alps, October, B. The army of Italy on the Po, November, B.
The battle of the Trebia, December, B. The Arnus marshes, Spring, B. The battle of Lake Trasimene, April, B. Fabius Cunctator, Summer, B. A curious stratagem, Fall, B. Minucius, Fall, B. Marcellus, Fall, B. Campania, B. Making a new base, B. Tarentum won, B. A wonderful March, B. Capua, B. Another Roman army destroyed, B. Tarentum lost, B. Marcellus' death, B. Hasdrubal and Nero, B. The Meraurus campaign, Summer, B.
Scipio, B. On to Carthage, B. Zama, Spring, B. Casualties in some ancient battles Some Roman marches. Includes index. Classifications Library of Congress DG D62 The heavy fought in a unit of sixteen ranks, four men deep, called an ile.
How the Numidian and other light cavalry was organized is not known, but the Carthaginian army decidedly lacked homogeneity. Heavy infantry Of light cavalry there was an indefinite number. Several of these phalanxes acting together in one line were known as a grand phalanx. That the Carthaginian army adopted exactly this formation is not known, but its organization was unquestionably phalangiaL.
From the time of the First Punic War, the military power of Carthage was markedly on the wane. It was only the wonderful military capacity of Hamilcar Barca and his family which made the light to brighten — as it did indeed in a manner seen but a few times in the world's history — before it finally flickered and went out.
According to Aristotle it was the corruption of the political atmosphere which led to this condition, the bald fact that everything had become purchasable, and that the same individual could hold more than one office. This circumstance, coupled to one other, that the government was, as it were, a shuttlecock between the two families headed by Hamilcar Barca, representing the patriotic aristocrats, and by Hanno, who marshaled the democratic peace-party, could terminate in but one way.
It cannot be gainsaid that the successes of Hamilcar in Spain, brilliant as they were, contributed to the political decline of Carthage. The Iberian silver mines furnished means of purchasing what could not be otherwise got at home, and accelerated the growth of political dishonesty.
Added to these causes was the fact that the Carthaginian fleet had suffered a fatal blow at the close of the First Punic War, from which it never rallied. All the efforts of the Carthaginians were unable to replace it on the proud plane it had occupied for generations. The power of Carthage had resided in its splendid fleet; it now went over to its army, and this lay in Spain in the hands of the Barcas. Nothing so fully demonstrates the lack of vessels and the increased value of the army as the march of Hamilcar from Carthage to the Pillars of Hercules, and his crossing to Grades by transport Two generations before, a Carthaginian army would have been transported by sea from the harbor of Carthage itself.
But it must be noted, though the military power of Carthage was about to expire, that, owing to the extraordinary military talent of the Barcas, Carthage never possessed an army so hardened by campaigns, so inured to discipline and so devoted to its chief as the one which Hannibal commanded when he left Spain on his way to Italy. This was in spite of the decadence of Carthage, and purely the individual work of this remarkable family.
Military capacity is infrequently transmitted to posterity. The few exceptions to this rule shine with all the more radiance from their rarity. It is a curious fact that out of the six greatest captains of history, three, Alexander, Hannibal and Frederick, owe their armies to their fathers' skill as organizers, and the two former came honestly by their military genius. BY B. Carthage had acquired abundant territory in Africa, Spain, Sicily, the islands of the Western Mediterranean, and beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
Her main energies for orer two centuries were devoted to the conquest of Sicily, in which scheme she was rigorously opposed by Syracuse. Through good and ill, Carthage ended by owning the western half of the island; and during all this period she had repeated commercial treaties with Rome. She had a large territory in Northern Africa; possessed Sardinia, the Balearic Islands and some of the other smaller ones, a part of Sicily, probably Corsica, Madeira and the Canaries; and had colonies on the coast of Spain and beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.
Her naval accomplishments were extraordinary. A fleet under Hanno had sailed down the coast of Africa, it is thought as far as the equator, and his brother Imilco had at the same time sailed north to the shores of Great Britain, exploring the coast of Spain and France on the way. Her position Carthage is stated to have owed largely to the skill of Mago I. From this time to the First Punic War — the period of the greatest prosperity of Carthage — almost her entire energies were bent upon the sole ownership of Sicily.
In this she was opposed by the city of Syracuse, whose purpose was the same; and while Carthage nearly attained her object, she was eventually thwarted, and suffered meanwhile many bloody defeats. The first attempt of Carthage was made under orders of, or at least in connection with, Xerxes, whom she still acknowledged as Great King, and to whom, as above stated, she had occasionally paid tribute.
While Xerxes was to attack Greece from the east, Carthage would attack Sicily and prevent the Greeks of Sicily and southern Italy from aiding their countrymen at home. But the invasion of Sicily by Carthage was repelled by Gelon, king of Syracuse, with a loss to the Carthaginians, according to Herodotus and Diodorus, of three hundred thousani men, — not a soul of this vast force returning to Carthage.
This is not improbably an exaggeration. Sundry descents were thereafter made by Carthage on the island, with forces variously stated at from one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand men, and a not inconsiderable part of it was conquered or laid under contribution. Even Syracuse was besieged.
But in B. Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginians with a loss of one hundred and fifty thousand men, as we are informed by Diodorus and Plutarch. Not discouraged, the Carthaginians of the next generation renewed their attempts, and in B. Still this success was not lasting, and two years later the Carthaginians were all but driven from Sicily. Other invasions were made in and B. The Carthaginians were beaten back by Timoleon and finally begged for peace. This peace lasted nearly a generation.
War then broke out again between Carthage and Syracuse, of which city Agathocles was tyrant. A Carthaginian army again besieged the town of Syracuse, and Agathocles replied by transporting his army to Africa and attacking Carthage. This resulted in relieving Syracuse, and brought Carthage to the verge of ruin B. This carrying of the war into Africa is interesting as a prototype of the later invasions of the Romans.
In B. This city called to its aid Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, then in Italy. At first in a large measure successful, Pyrrhus was eventually compelled to leave Sicily.
Carthage, however, retained much of her hold on the island, keeping her most important western city, Agri-gentum, and more than half its superficial area. Her next opponent in Sicily was Rome. In the wars thus summarized there is little of military interest They are merely given to show with what equipment and experience in arms Carthage entered into her great struggle with Rome. The two great western cities had long had some connection, brought about naturally enough by commercial matters.
The mariners of one nation were apt to be driven by storms into the waters of the other, and as piracy and commerce largely went hand in hand in those days, were not infrequently subjected to grievous hardships.
To prevent or to rectify these, the first treaty between Rome and Carthage was made in B. C, followed by a second in B. A synopsis of both is on record. They show that Carthage held a much stronger hand than Rome. A third, of which we have no details, was made in B. This was for the moment suspended by a fourth treaty, in B. It was not long after this that the first serious breach occurred, — a breach resulting in wars which for generations bathed the territories of both in blood.
FROM the most remote times the Romans were peculiarly patriotic and subject to discipline. It was this which lay at the root of their strong military system. The earliest Roman organisation was derived from the Greeks in southern Itjdy, and was practically the old Dorian phalanx. Servius Tullius divided the population into tribes, according to wealth, and every able-bodied citizen was bound to serve or rather he alone had the privilege of serving , from seventeen to forty-five yean of age.
When the monarchy gave way to a republic, the consuls became the army-leaders instead of the kings. The youth of Rome was scrupulously trained to arms, and underwent a rigorous gymnastic drill.
Both the Greeks and Romans began with the phalangial idea, which is rather a defensive than an offensure one. But the Romans had a peculiar way of taking the initiative in war, and out of the phalanx they developed the germ of the legion, some time prior to B. This enabled the second or third line to advance through the intervals to sustain the first and renew a failing combat. The number of men in the century and the legion was changed from time to time. Not till the Second Punic War was the legion the settled body which is commonly described, and even after this date it was materially altered.
The Romans were good distance marchers, but careless in camp and outpost duty. In fortification and sieges they were behind the Greeks. Bnt the one thing in which they excelled was in making every detail of their organization bend to the offensive idea, and in carrying this out with vigor and consistency. Their one rule was always to attack. At the root of this national aptitude lay two characteristics, intense love of Rome and unremitting zeal in subordinating all individual aspirations to the necessities of the state.
These two virtues, patriotism and discipline, were infused into the Roman blood as early as the traditional time of the first kings. To trace the details of the growth of the organization of the Roman army from the earliest era is an engrossing study, but it must here be done in brief space.
The legion as it existed at the time of the war against Hannibal will be more fully treated. Rome under its earliest conditions was apparently little more than a den of robbers, a fortified asylum for adventurers, the rendezvous of all manner of roughs and outcasts.
The heroes of remote antiquity were most of them of this stripe. The interesting traditions of the imperial city are inventions of later days. But this turbulent crowd showed one marked virtue. It had the good sense to perceive that by organization alone and the strictest of discipline could it hold its own in the midst of its warlike neighbors.
This motley company of brigands by no means lacked leaders or intelligence, nor indeed high ambitions and admirable purpose, and out of their efforts to fit themselves to struggle against surrounding danger grew the most splendid military organization the world has ever seen.
Whatever the early leaders may have been, or however named, they laid the foundation of an enduring people. The earliest Gneco-Italian military organization, from which Rome derived its own, was probably a Homeric collection of the stoutest warriors on horseback. By the time of the kings this had, from the demands for greater numbers, changed to the Dorian phalanx of hoplites, with the horsemen on the flanks, and no doubt a few irregular skirmishers in front or flank.
The entire population was early divided by the magnates of Rome into three tribes, each of which was held to furnish on call one thousand fully armed footmen, and one hundred horsemen, who should serve at their own cost and furnish arms and rations. This body of one thousand infantry was divided into ten centuries of one hundred men each, and the horse, generally made up of the richest citizens, into ten decuries of ten men each. The three thousand foot and three hundred horse thus provided for made up the legion which was the successor of the Dorian phalanx.
Each thousand men were under a tribune, or colonel, each one hundred under a centurion or captain. Such was the bare skeleton upon which later changes were grafted. But what gave this body life was a singular spirit of discipline, subordination and patriotism, — an esprit de corps, — rarely equaled in the world's history. Gymnastic training and warlike exercises were of later growth. The early Roman was by his vagabond life already a vigorous soldier.
To Servius Tullius? The distinction between patricians and plebeians was already marked. There were raised from these classes, and armed according to the ability of each, one hundred and sixty-eight centuries of foot, or sixteen thousand eight hundred men, in four legions of forty-two hundred men each, two of juniors, seventeen to forty-five years old, and two of seniors, forty-six to sixty.
There were also centuries of pioneers and musicians, and the total cavalry was twenty-four hundred strong. Every citizen must serve sixteen, or in case of need twenty, campaigns of six months each, if in the foot, ten if in the horse; no one might look for state employment on less than ten years' service in the foot or five years in the horse, unless sooner disabled by honorable wounds.
Service laid burdens upon the citizens, but brought honor and power in the state. None but citizens in good standing were permitted to bear arms. The Servian classes were census-tribes for both service and taxation. Political and military rights and duties ran side by side.
The first class contained those who had farms of twenty jugera or more, or money to the amount of one hundred thousand asses or over. The value of the as originally a pound's weight of copper or copper alloy was very variable, being often reduced according to the necessities of the public treasury,—during the First Punic War to two, during the Second to one ounce, as Pliny tells us.
Before the reduction, one hundred asses are stated to have been equal to nearly two dollars, which was the price of an ox. But this is quite unsatisfactory as a measure of value. The jugerum was about two thirds of an acre. The second class comprised those who had three fourths as much land or seventy-five thousand asses; the third class, one half as much land or fifty thousand asses; the fourth, one fourth as much land or twenty-five thousand asses; the fifth, one eighth as much land or twelve thousand five hundred asses.
Those belonging to the sixth class, who had less than this, were reckoned as supernumeraries. There were also classes of artificers and musicians. At the close of the Second Punic War, the sixth class was diminished by only exempting those who had but six thousand asses.
The small area of the farms must have demanded considerable skill in cultivation ; judging from the money qualification, even the fourth class was what we should call well-to-do. The arms of the first class were a helmet, breastplate or coat of mail, greaves, shield, sword and long lance; the second class had no greaves, the third neither greaves nor breastplate, the fourth no metal helmet, and the fifth was, like the Greek psilos, armed alone with darts or bows.
Under the kings, Rome had no soldiers who were not citizens; but in the fifth century B. These allies socii or civitates federated kept their own laws and customs, but were bound to furnish each its quota of men, in legions assimilated to those of Rome. An army thus composed of soldiers called out in the spring, discharged in the fall, serving at their own cost and armed each according to his own fancy, was naturally subject to many inconveniences. It could not march far from home, could make no lengthy or distant campaigns, could not garrison captured cities.
This weakness grew so marked that before the end of the siege of Veil, B. C, the senate was forced to begin to pay, feed and equip the men. It is believed by Niebuhr that the men were paid at a much earlier period.
The pay was at first three and one third asses silver aday — one hundred asses a month — for a footman, twice as much for minor officers and cavalrymen, and thrice as much for a cavalryman who furnished his own horse.
And there were probably occasional meat rations as welL This step was the first towards the creation of a standing army in Rome; for so long as the soldier was fed, he was not restless if constrained to remain in the ranks, when he saw there was distinct need for his services. Longer campaigns could now be undertaken, and the leader of an army was less hampered in his manoeuvres. The change from kingdom to republic in no wise altered the military scheme of Rome.
The commanders of the army were the two consuls instead of the kings. These, outside of Rome, had almost unlimited power. If there was but one army, the consuls drew lots for command. If two, each commanded one.
If these two armies served together, each consul commanded on alternate days. This absurd habit continued for centuries, and, despite its absurdity, worked fairly welL On occasions of grave public danger, a dictator was chosen to take the entire military power in hand. This officer was then given full authority over army and state, peace and war, for the term of the war, but not usually for a period longer than six months.
Associated with him was a master of the horse magister equitum whom he appointed, and who commanded the cavalry, as the dictator did specifically the foot. To serve in the Roman army was looked upon rather in the light of a privilege than a duty, and was confined only to the worthy and to the free-born.
The right to serve in the army was the exact complement to the duty to so serve; to be a citizen meant to be a soldier. Stated shortly, the jus militia called all men into service between seventeen and forty-five years of age, with certain stated exceptions.
No citizen under seventeen or over forty-five could be obliged to serve on active duty, though he might elect to do so and be perhaps accepted. Men who reenlisted emeriti or veterani enjoyed especial honor and privileges. A citizen who had served twenty campaigns of six months each in the foot, or ten in the horse, was exempted. And as above stated, only he who had served half this number could aspire to any political office.
Gallant service in war was the only stepping-stone to civic honors. Those physically wanting — generally not many among this plain and hearty people—were exempt. Small stature was not a grave objection. The burly Gauls laughed at the little Romans until they got to close quarters with them.
The height was usually from five feet to five feet three inches. Men exceeding this height were not considered strong. Men under five feet were sooner accepted.
Any disablement of hand or foot which rendered the man unable to wield his weapons, any weakness of sight or hearing, or any clear physical defect exempted. The following was the man wanted, according to Vegetius, and a pretty good man he was, though the description belongs to a later period. If he has all this, no stress need be laid on the height, for it is far more important that the soldier should be strongly built than tall. Citizens in the public service were exempt, but might volunteer.
Priests and augurs were not expected to serve, unless in Gallic invasions, when they must guard the treasury in the CapitoL In recognition of extraordinary services to the republic, citizens were sometimes exempted for a term of years, as were also at times towns or entire districts.
No freedman or slave was allowed to serve, the latter being considered on a level with the beasts of burden. But there were occasions in a later epoch when slaves were armed, served with distinguished credit and thereby earned their freedom. The bitterest punishment for a Roman citizen was to be declared unworthy to serve. Whole provinces were thus punished on more than one occasion, as Bruttium, Lu-cania, Picenum and many cities, for joining Hannibal after Cannae.
The youths of Rome were early trained to war. Under seventeen years of age, all boys were called tirones or recruits, and were systematically put through certain exercises by experienced drill-masters to fit them for their duty as soldiers, namely, setting-up, marching, running, jumping, climbing heights, swimming, the use of arms and bearing heavy weights.
These exercises were constant and uninterrupted. The grown men kept up this training almost throughout life. From all this, of which the above is the baldest sketch, we can readily see why the Roman army grew to what it was. Not even the Spartans in their palmiest days bad a system in which physique and personal devotion, added to broad intelligence, were thus united. Speaking in general terms, the arms and equipment of the Roman soldier were much like those of the Greek. No doubt they came originally from the Greek colonists in Italy.
No doubt, too, the original legion more nearly approached the phalanx than it did the legion of the later years of Rome. The three tribes were set up, each in ten centuries, without intervals, and the several classes of heavy troops stood close behind each other in two or three lines, while the light troops skirmished around the flanks and front, much as with the phalanx.
The cavalry was uniformly on the flanks. Each levy-district furnished, by a regular system, an equal part of each century and each legion, so that the entire body and its several parts were homogeneous; and the best men, that is, the non-commissioned officers, were in the front rank, so as to make the steel edge to the legion, as it had existed for centuries in the phalanx. The early Roman army was set np in eight to twelve ranks, and in a legion of three thousand men there were from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and seventy-five files, covering a front of something less than a quarter of a mile.
It was practically a phalanx. But starting from this common point there was a divergence between Greek and Roman methods. The Greeks stuck to their one-shock idea, and used the light troops for duty requiring an open order.
The Romans conceived the idea of a formation which would give each man more individual scope, and which would provide for renewing a failing battle by bringing in fresh troops as occasion demanded. Out of this grew their later formation. The fourth and fifth class men were used as skirmishers, and the three first classes were set up as three lines, the best in the rear, the least good in front, and with the centuries at such intervals that the rear lines could advance through the leading ones to the attack, to relieve the others if overmatched, or to close up the line in one compact mass.
This was an outgrowth of what originally was a phalangial order, and seems to have been already in use about B. It was phalanx or legion, at wilL It was reached by a process of individualizing.
The Hellenic phalanx was a close order, and nothing else; the Roman legion was an open order, which could be made close by the simple advance into the intervals of the rear lines. The pilum and gladius were the weapons representing both distant and hand-to-hand fighting, and the use of the fortified camp allowed the offensive and defensive to be waged at will.
This order was again improved, about the time of the siege of Veii, by making the intervals equal to the front of the centuries, thus forming a oheckerwise line quincunoialis of great mobility.
At the same time the arms of the men underwent a change from similar causes. The long pike of the Greek hoplite was shortened down to the hasta, to which was added a casting lance or pilum. Both could be used equally at long distance or hand to hand. Darts replaced bows and slings, except in special corps of light troops. All these changes tended towards closer quarters, and finally grew into making the sword the chief weapon of the heavy-armed for the final struggle; and the sword was the terror of all who met the Roman legion.
Many of these changes are ascribed to the Dictator Furius Camillus. At the time of the second invasion of the Gauls B. About the middle of the fourth century B.
The third class was now in the middle line, and the men were called hastati, from their long lance; the second class, esteemed better, was in front, and hence called principes. This order gave the first blow with seasoned troops. The first or best class was in the third line, and hence called triarii. These three made up the heavy foot of the phalanx — or legion — which was still about three thousand strong, of which six hundred were triarii and twelve hundred each principes and hastati, more or less according to circumstances.
The fourth and fifth classes were rorarii, young soldiers, and accensi, supernumeraries,. They varied from one thousand to sixteen hundred in number.
In line they stood in the rear; in battle they had no special place, but were used wherever needed. At a period not well established, each line was divided into fifteen centuries, but these had ceased to number one hundred men. Each century of principes and hastati had two centurions, sixty men in ten files six deep, a trumpeter and an ensign-bearer, sixty-four men in all.
The centuries of the triarii had the same depth, but half the front and thus half the number. Intervals equaled century-fronts of the first two lines, and there were thirty to sixty paces between lines. The principes and hastati still stood cheokerwise. After this the centuries were not again recruited up to one hundred.
There were three hundred cavalry and three hundred sling-ers and archers attached to each legion. The cavalry, when in line, stood on the flanks; in battle it was dispatched wherever it could be best employed.
It sometimes fought dismounted to good effect The archers and stingers had no specific place. Thus the legion had grown to consist of about forty-six hundred men, according to the numbers of the several bodies.
The checkerwise formation, with the mobility it gave the several lines, must be considered a great advance in tactical formations, due to Roman ingenuity and the spirit which prompted them to come to hand-to-hand work.
In detail the formation was later much changed, but not in principle. In line of battle the Roman army thus had two lines and a reserve with the cavalry on the flanks. Often a reserve of supernumeraries was put between the lines, or the triarii were left to protect the camp. The cavalry was not infrequently placed in rear of flanks or oentre, or indeed between the lines.
The armies leaned their flanks on obstacles, woods, rivers or hills, but fought only in parallel order. They were not unapt to try to surround the enemy's flank, or to send out detachments to fall on his rear, by a circuit or from ambush. An attack in mass on tne centre to separate the enemy's wings was occasionally seen, but an oblique attack as practiced by Epaminondas and Alexander was not known to the Romans.
Their tactics was simple. What is peculiarly marked in the tactics of die Romans, and worthy of repetition, is the fact that they always took the initiative; they always attacked, never awaited attack. It was the defensive idea which bred the phalanx; it was the offensive idea which out of the phalanx evolved the legion. The arrangement for renewing the fight with the fresh lines in the rear savored distinctly of the offensive. In camp, in early times, the Romans were careless.
Their campaigns were undertaken only in summer, and they had not even tents. These they later made of sheepskin; but in their stead they were apt to build huts of twigs and straw in permanent camps.
There was at this early day no particular order of camping, nor any outpost-service deserving the name. Marches the Romans could, in all eras, make long and fast. They were used to their arms and carried their rations with them. But the extent of Roman territory was not great, nor the distance the armies had to move. Fortification and the art of sieges had not yet grown to any degree of perfection, though the Romans had got the general principle of the art from the Greeks.
Though it was an ancient custom to do so, up to the time of the war with Pyr-rhus beginning of the third century the daily camp was not fortified with any system or regularity, says Livy. Cities were better fortified, in the manner usual with the ancients. Rome, from early times, was well protected by good walls. The old walls of Roma Quadrata on the Palatine had probably no great strength; but some king, Tarquinius Priscus it is said? Towns as a rule were taken by sadden attacks, by assault or ruse.
In assaults, both ladders and tortoises were employed in the early times, but gradually more skillful means came into use, no doubt learned from the Greeks. Undermining walls and the use of mantelets and covers for the men date back to the fifth and sixth centuries. But the first real growth of which we have any record was at the siege of Veil, which lasted nine years, thus showing great inexpertness in management. Here the Romans first used walls of circumvallation around the town and contravallation against outside attack, as well as a mound, all of which the Greeks had used at Platea, thirty years before.
Finally the town was taken B. From this time on larger progress was made. Catapults were soon introduced, having been adopted from Sicily, according to Diodorus. Rams came later. These siege devices have been fully described in connection with Alexander's army.
On the whole the Romans had, from their adaptability and the necessity for being always ready for war, developed a system which promised far greater eventual results than the system of the Greeks. Such, briefly, was the growth of the art of war and its status among the Romans down to the siege of Veii and somewhat later.
At the time of the Punic wars there remained in principle the same system, but the details had been changed in many particulars. THE legions were raised by a rapid and careful system, which made the maniples of even strength and material. The recruits took an oath, were armed, and only then had the eagles delivered to their charge. The consul, powerless in Rome, was all-powerful in camp. Arrived at rendezvous, the organization was completed. The arms and equipment were helmet, shield, breastplate for the heavy foot, greaves, sword, pike and lance, all excellent of their kind.
The special Roman weapon was the gladius. The cavalry was not as good as the foot, but during the Second Punic War H was much improved. The number of men in the legion varied in certain epochs from three thousand to six thousand men.
The usual number was forty-two hundred foot and three hundred horse. The term legion meant one Roman and one allied legion, all told not far from ten thousand men, when full. The consular army was two legions, that is, from eighteen thousand to twenty-five thousand men. The early unit of service was the oentury, but each two centuries were later ployed together into a maniple; and each set of maniples of prinoipes, hastati and triarii, with its share of velites and hone, was a cohort.
The cohort then became the unit Intervals between maniples equaled their front, and the maniples of hastati and prin-dpes stood oheokerwise. With cavalry on the flanks, a legion of ten thousand men covered a front of three quarters of a mile, and had a depth of about nine hundred feet.
In line of battle, the Roman legions were in the centre, the allied on the flanks. The oonsular army covered a front of one and one half miles. The Romans were fast but careless marchers, and subject to surprises, until Hannibal taught them caution. They still invariably attacked. Battle was opened by the velites, followed up by the first line and decided by the second and third, the cavalry meanwhile fighting on the flanks.
What lent the legion mobility was also a source of weakness, — the intervals. When they met an enemy who was apt to penetrate into these, they advanced the second line into or dose up to the intervals of the first The youth were still trained as soldiers from their earliest years, and drilled not only in the " Tactics," but in mock combat and camp-fortification as well. Labor was unremitting.
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