ime the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman
legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with
hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not
remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw
themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx.

=Discipline.=--The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general
had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who
quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the
lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head;
or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves. When
an entire body of troops mutinied, the general separated the guilty
into groups of ten and drew by lot one from every group to be
executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The
others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside
the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans
never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners:
after the battle of Cannae the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage
were sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without
honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left
in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a
small ransom, but the senate refused to purchase them.

=Colonies and Military Roads.=--In the countries that were still only
partially subject, Rome established a small garrison. This body of
soldiers founded a town which served as a fortress, and around about
it the lands were cut into small domains and distributed to the
soldiers. This is what they called a Colony. The colonists continued
to be Roman citizens and obeyed all commands from Rome. Quite
different from a Greek colony which emancipated itself even to the
point of making war on its mother city, the Roman colony remained a
docile daughter. It was only a Roman garrison posted in the midst of
the enemy. Almost all these military posts were in Italy, but there
were others besides; Narbonne and Lyons were once Roman colonies.

To hold these places and to send their armies to a distance the Romans
built military roads. These were causeways constructed in a straight
line, of limestone, stone, and sand. The Romans covered their empire
with them. In a land like France there is no part where one does not
find traces of the Roman roads.

CHARACTER