um; the future soldiers
exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the
other side of the Tiber. There the young man marched, ran, leaped
under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the
javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with
perspiration, swam across the Tiber. Often the older men, sometimes
even the generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never
ceased to exercise. Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the
men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take
exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment
to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and
aqueducts.

=The Camp.=--The Roman soldier carried a heavy burden--his arms, his
utensils, rations for seventeen days, and a stake, in all sixty Roman
pounds. The army moved more rapidly as it was not encumbered with
baggage. Every time that a Roman army halted for camp, a surveyor
traced a square enclosure, and along its lines the soldiers dug a deep
ditch; the earth which was excavated, thrown inside, formed a bank
which they fortified with stakes. The camp was thus defended by a
ditch and a palisade. In this improvised fortress the soldiers erected
their tents, and in the middle was set the Praetorium, the tent of the
general. Sentinels mounted guard throughout the night, and so
prevented the army from being surprised.

=The Order of Battle.=--In the presence of the enemy the soldiers did
not form in a solid mass, as did the Greeks. The legion was divided
into small bodies of 120 men, called maniples because they had for
standards bundles of hay.[123] The maniples were ranged in quincunx
form in three lines, each separated from the neighboring maniple in
such a way as to manoeuvre separately. The soldiers of the maniples of
the first line hurled their javelins, grasped their swords, and began
the battle. If they were repulsed, they withdrew to the rear through
the vacant spaces. The second line of the maniples then in turn
marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third
line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and
was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks
and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single
mass incapable of manoeuvring; the general could form his lines
according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalae, where for the
first t