But the serviceableness of an army, like that
of any other machine, depends above all on the ease and quickness
of its movements; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection
rarely reached and probably never surpassed in their readiness
for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity
of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything;
Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating
martial emulation and the esprit de corps, so that the pre-eminence
accorded to particular soldiers and divisions appeared even to those
who were postponed as the necessary hierarchy of valour.
He weaned his men from fear by not unfrequently--where it could be done
without serious danger--keeping his soldiers in ignorance
of an approaching conflict, and allowing them to encounter
the enemy unexpectedly. But obedience was on a parity with valour.
The soldier was required to do what he was bidden, without asking
the reason or the object; many an aimless fatigue was imposed on him
solely as a training in the difficult art of blind obedience.
The discipline was strict but not harassing; it was exercised
with unrelenting vigour when the soldier was in presence of the enemy;
at other times, especially after victory, the reins were relaxed,
and if an otherwise efficient soldier was then pleased to indulge
in perfumery or to deck himself with elegant arms and the like,
or even if he allowed himself to be guilty of outrages
or irregularities of a very questionable kind, provided only
his military duties were not immediately affected, the foolery
and the crime were allowed to pass, and the general lent a deaf ear
to the complaints of the provincials on such points. Mutiny
on the other hand was never pardoned, either in the instigators,
or even in the guilty corps itself.

But the true soldier ought to be not merely capable, brave,
and obedient, he ought to be all this willingly and spontaneously;
and it is the privilege of gifted natures alone to induce the animated
machine which they govern to a joyful service by means of example
and of hope, and especially by the consciousness of being turned
to befitting use. As the officer, who would demand valour
from his troops, must himself have looked danger in the face with them,
Caesar had even when general found opportunity of drawing his sword
and had then used it like the best; in activity, moreover,
and fatigue he was constantly far more exacting from himse