rst signal being given by the trumpet, the tents were all struck and
the baggage packed; at the second signal, the baggage was placed upon
the beasts of burden; and at the third, the whole army began to move.
Then the herald, standing at the right hand of the general, demands
thrice if they are ready for war, to which they all respond with loud
and repeated cheers that they are ready, and for the most part, being
filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their
right hands on high with a shout.'" [3]

[Footnote 3: Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, article "Castra."]

From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
rewards of the soldier were small; he was paid in glory. No profession
brought so much honor as the military; and it was from the undivided
attention of a great people to this profession, that it was carried to
all the perfection which could be attained before the great invention of
gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
in the Roman armies which particularly arrests attention, but the genius
of organization which controlled and the spirit which animated them.
The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a science that it required
comparatively small armies to conquer the world. Sulla defeated
Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while his adversary
marshalled against him over one hundred thousand. Caesar had only ten
legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these were of
Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when most of
the available forces of the empire were employed on one side or the
other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men, and
his cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
included the flower of the Roman nobility; the auxiliary force has not
been computed, although it was probably numerous. In the same battle
Caesar had under him only twenty-two thousand legionaries and one
thousand cavalry. But every man in both armies was prepared to conquer
or die. The forces were posted on the open plain, and the battle was
really a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling
their lances, fought with their swords chiefly; and when the cavalry of
Pompey rushed upon the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on
the mailed panoply of the mounted Romans, but were aimed at t