ohors
Praetoria.] One of the most significant changes that had sprung up
of late years was one which was introduced by Scipio Aemilianus at
Numantia--the institution of a body-guard, or Cohors Praetoria. It
consisted of young men of rank, who went with the general to learn
their profession, or as volunteers of troops specially enlisted for
the post, who would often be veterans from his former armies. The term
Evocati was applied to such veterans strictly, but also to any men
specially enlisted for the purpose. [Sidenote: The equites.] It is
probable that the equites no longer formed the cavalry of a legion,
but only served in the general's body-guard, as tribunes and
praefects, or on extraordinary commissions. The cavalry in Caesar's
time appears to have consisted entirely of auxiliaries.

[Sidenote: Disinclination for service at Rome.] There had been for a
long time among the wealthier classes a growing disinclination for
service, and as the middle class was rapidly disappearing, there
had been great difficulty in filling the ranks. The speeches of the
Gracchi alluded to this, and it had been experienced in the wars with
Viriathus, with Jugurtha, with Tryphon, and with the Cimbri. One
device for avoiding it we have seen, by the orders issued to the
captains of ships in Italian ports. Among Roman citizens, if not
among the allies, some property qualification had been required in a
soldier. [Sidenote: Marius enrols the Capite Censi.] Marius tapped a
lower stratum, and allowed the Capite Censi to volunteer. To such men
the prospect of plunder would be an object, and they would be far more
at the bidding of individual generals than soldiers of the old stamp.
Thus though obligation to service was not abolished, volunteering was
allowed, and became the practice; and the army, with a new drill, and
no longer consisting of Romans or even Italians, but of men of all
nations, became as effective as of old, if not more so, and at the
same time a body detached from the State. [Sidenote: The army ceases
to be a citizen army.] The citizen was lost in the professional, and
patriotism was superseded by the personal attachment of soldiers of
fortune, who knew no will but that of their favourite commander or
their own selfishness. Their general could reward them with money, and
extort land for them from the State; and when Marius after Vercellae
gave the franchise to two Italian cohorts, saying that he could not
hear the laws in the di