as superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.

The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
they were capable of any privation and fatigue.

The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
the number at six thousand eight hundred an