The defects of the legion had not escaped the notice of Roman military organizers, and it was already accompanied by auxiliary cohorts of light troops. In Cæsar’s army they were not very numerous as compared with the legionaries—perhaps about as one to six. Northern Africa supplied excellent skirmishers—its light cavalry was world-renowned, but Cæsar does not appear to have had any of it in Gaul. Crete supplied him with archers, and Balearic slingers served with him as with Hannibal. Later the proportion of auxiliaries is found steadily on the increase. Under the Empire there were at least as many auxiliaries as legionaries. Cæsar, however, depended mainly on his legions. For cavalry he relied chiefly on friendly Gallic tribes, though it is probable that he had a small body of Italian or Italian-Gallic horse. From 52 B.C. onward he had a brigade of German cavalry in his pay.
The engineering department of the Roman army has never been equalled. There was a corps of engineers, but entrenching was part of the private soldier’s training. No body of troops ever halted for the night without surrounding themselves with a rampart and ditch. The result of constant experience of spade-work was that Roman troops frequently accomplished feats of engineering that seem almost miraculous. The work that in modern armies falls upon the engineers was in that of Rome chiefly done by the infantry privates. Cæsar in his campaigns made good use of the siege artillery of the period, and his march was generally accompanied by a train of balistæ (gigantic crossbows), catapultæ, and scorpiones.
Every legion had a baggage train, of course, and probably every privates’ mess had at least one slave for menial service; but the legionary bore a great part of his baggage himself, and it is a marvel how he contrived to march—as we know he did—anything from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day under his burdens. Besides arms, armour, and cloak, he carried grain or flour to last for a fortnight, a spade, a saw, a basket, several pales wherewith to crown the camp rampart, as well as his share of the mess service and other matters.
The standard of the legion was now always the famous Eagle, which had been introduced or generally established by Marius. The Eagle-bearer (Aquilifer) was always a soldier chosen for good conduct and gallantry. He wore the skin of a wild beast over his helmet as the sign of his honourable position. With one of these gallant men we shall soon make acquaintance.
A BRITON.
His weapons and shield drawn from originals in the British Museum.
Against this magnificent military machine the Britons had little but a mass of disorderly and ill-armed levies, formidable in numbers, individual courage and physical strength, but without cohesion. Most of them fought on foot, and few can have possessed body-armour; they were protected only by helmet and shield, perhaps not always the former. They were armed with badly-tempered iron swords and spears, and in battle made free use of missiles of all kinds—chiefly, it would seem, darts and stones. Of cavalry there were few; the British horses were too small for riding. The bulk of the wealthier warriors fought from timber cars. This chariotry was evidently a formidable force, and gave the Romans serious trouble. The small active horses took the cars along at a great rate, and the picked warriors who manned them—strong, active, and brave, as well as skilled with their weapons—were capable of being extremely dangerous. The cars certainly were not armed with scythes on their axles; their effectiveness lay chiefly in their mobility and the skill with which they were manœuvred, to which Cæsar bears emphatic testimony. In the nobles who went into battle on them the pomp and circumstance of British war was seen at its best. With their brightly-dyed garments, their tall helmets surmounted by bronze ornaments or waving plumes, their body-armour and shields bright with enamel and gilding, and displaying all the wonderful intricacies of Celtic spiral metal-work, their beautifully wrought scabbards and sword-hilts, their golden bracelets and collars, the British chiefs must have been splendid figures.
GAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR.