ft_ arm) of the British; who, under a severe fire of slings,
arrows, and catapults, drew back, though only a little, to take up a
new formation, and their fire, in turn, was for the moment silenced.
And that moment was seized for a gallant feat of arms which shows how
every rank of Caesar's army was animated by Caesar's spirit.

C. 11.--The ensign of every Roman legion was the Roman Eagle, perched
upon the head of the standard-pole, and regarded with all, and
more than all, the feeling which our own regiments have for their
regimental colours. As with them, the staff which bore the Eagle
of the Legion also bore inscriptions commemorating the honours and
victories the legion had won, and to lose it to the foe was an even
greater disgrace than with us. For a Roman legion was a much larger
unit than a modern regiment, and corresponded rather to a Division;
indeed, in the completeness of its separate organization, it might
almost be called an Army Corps. Six thousand was its normal force in
infantry, and it had its own squadrons of cavalry attached, its
own engineer corps, its own baggage train, and its own artillery of
catapults and balistae.[81] There was thus even more legionary feeling
in the Roman army than there is regimental feeling in our own.

C. 12.--At this time, however, this feeling, so potent in its effects
subsequently, was a new development. Caesar himself would seem to have
been the first to see how great an incentive such divisional sentiment
might prove, and to have done all he could to encourage it. He had
singled out one particular legion, the Tenth, as his own special
favourite, and made its soldiers feel themselves the objects of his
special regard. And this it was which now saved the day for him. The
colour-sergeant of that legion, seeing the momentary opening given by
the flanking movement of the galleys, after a solemn prayer that this
might be well for his legion, plunged into the sea, ensign in hand.
"Over with you, comrades," he cried, "if you would not see your Eagle
taken by the enemy." With a universal shout of "Never, never" the
legion followed; the example spread from ship to ship, and the whole
Roman army was splashing and struggling towards the shore of Britain.

C. 13.--At the same time this was no easy task. As every bather
knows, it is not an absolutely straightforward matter for even an
unencumbered man to effect a landing upon a shingle beach, if ever so
little swell is on. And the