the
rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not
completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man
could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very
limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military service
in but one campaign.

Under the emperors there were still other changes. The regular army
consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops.

The Auxiliaries (_Socii_) consisted of troops from the States in
alliance with Rome, or those compelled to furnish subsidies. The
infantry of the allies was generally more numerous than that of the
Romans, while the cavalry was three times as numerous. All the
auxiliaries were paid by the State; their infantry received the same pay
as the Roman infantry, but their cavalry received only two thirds of
what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier received in
the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to about three
cents; the horseman three times as much. The praetorian cohorts received
twice as much as the legionaries. Julius Caesar allowed about six asses
a day as the pay of the legionary, and under Augustus the daily pay was
raised to ten asses,--little more than eight cents per day. Domitian
raised the stipend still higher. The soldier, however, was fed and
clothed by the government.

The Praetorian Cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
when they had served sixteen years received twenty thousand sesterces,
or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each praetorian had the rank
of a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV.
they were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
Janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the
purple itself.

Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without some
description of the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman
army never halted for a single night without forming a regular
intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of
burden, and the baggage. During the winter months, when