phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.

The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
troops were familiarized with the practice of war.

It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
the Romans w