rment that reached to their buskins. The helmet was
surmounted with a plume, and with an ornament distinctive of each rank,
or with some device according to the fancy of the wearers, and which was
then, as now in heraldry, denominated the crest. This term was _crista_,
derived from the resemblance of the ornament to the comb of a cock.

The Romans made no use of saddles or stirrups, but merely cloths folded
according to the convenience of the rider.

Among the instruments used in war were towers consisting of different
stories, from which showers of darts were discharged on the townsmen by
means of engines called _catapultae_, _balistae_, and _scorpiones_.

But the most dreadful machine of all was the battering ram: this was a
long beam like the mast of a ship, and armed at one end with iron, in
the form of a ram's head, whence it had its name. It was suspended by
the middle, with ropes or chains fastened to a beam which lay across two
posts, and hanging thus equally balanced, it was violently thrust
forward, drawn back, and again pushed forward, until by repeated strokes
it had broken down the wall.

The discipline of the army was maintained with great severity; officers
were exposed to degradation for misconduct, and the private soldier to
corporal punishment. Whole legions who had transgressed their military
duty were exposed to decimation, which consisted in drawing their names
by lot, and putting every tenth man to the sword.

The most common rewards were crowns of different forms; the mural crown
was presented to him who in the assault first scaled the rampart of a
town; the castral, to those who were foremost in storming the enemy's
entrenchments; the civic chaplet of oak leaves, to the soldier who saved
his comrade's life in battle, and the triumphal laurel wreath to the
general who commanded in a successful engagement. The radial crown was
that worn by the emperors.

When an army was freed from a blockade, the soldiers gave their
deliverer a crown called _obsidionalis_, made of the grass which grew in
the besieged place; and to him who first boarded the ship of an enemy, a
naval crown.

But the greatest distinction that could be conferred on a commander, was
a triumph; this was granted only by the senate, on the occasion of a
great victory. When decreed, the general returned to Rome, and was
appointed by a special edict to the supreme command in the city; on the
day of his entry, a triumphal arch was ere