[418] The name pentecosty indicates that it originally comprised fifty men, which suggests that the century may have been a higher group. Before the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. v. 68) the Lacedaemonian organization had departed far from its original form.
[419] Droysen, Griech. Kriegsalt. 70; Gilbert, Const. Antiq. 72. Compulsory service beyond the border ceased with the fortieth year; Xen. Hell. v. 4. 13.
[420] Cf. Liers, Kriegsw. der Alten, 14.
[421] Busolt, Griech. Gesch. ii. 180 ff.; Helbig, in Mém. de l’acad. des inscr. xxxvii¹ (1904). 164. But the Athenian army did not become efficient till long after Solon; cf. Niese, in Hist. Zeitschr. xcviii (1907). 278-82.
[422] The Romans believed that they got the phalanx from the Etruscans; Ined. Vat., in Hermes, xxvii (1892). 121 from an early historian, Fabius Pictor or Posidonius or Polybius (Pais, Anc. Italy, 323); Diod. xxiii. 2 (Müller); Athen. vi. 106. p. 273 f.; Wendling, in Hermes, xxviii (1893). 335 ff.; Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, i. 364 ff.; Smith, Röm. Timokr. 40. The circumstance does not prove that the Romans were then in subjection to the Etruscans.
[423] Some of the ancients derive classis from calare, “to call,” hence “summoning;” Dion. Hal. iv. 18. 2; Quint. Inst. i. 6. 33; accepted by Walde, Lat. Etym. Wörterb. 125; Soltau, Altröm. Volksversamml. 242; Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 464. Others connected it with κᾶλος “firewood,” hence “gathering;” Serv. in Aen. i. 39; Isid. Etym. xix. 1. 15; Schol. Luc. i. 306. Corssen, Ausspr. i. 494, proposes to derive it from a root “clat,” which appears in the Greek κλητεύειν (Lat. *clat-ē-re), Germ. laden, which would still give the meaning “summoning;” cf. Curtius, Griech. Etym. 139; Vaniček, Griech. Lat. etym. Wörterb. 143 (*cla-t, cla-t-ti-s). Mommsen accepted the meaning “summoning” in the early editions of his History, but rejects it in the Staatsrecht, iii. 262 f. (cf. his History, English ed. i. 1900. 115 f., 118) on the ground that however adapted it may have been to the later political classes, it could not well apply to the fleet and army, and hence could not belong to the earlier use of the word, which denoted the line in contrast with those who fought outside the line. But against his reasoning it could be urged that classis with the idea of “summoning” first applied to the line of heavy infantry—the only effective part of the army; and when once the connotation of “line” had been established, it could easily extend to the fleet.
[424] Gell. vi (vii). 13: “‘Classici’ dicebantur non omnes, qui in quinque classibus erant, sed primae tantum classis homines, qui centum et viginti quinque milia aeris ampliusve censi erant. ‘Infra classem’ autem appellabantur secundae classis ceterarumque omnium classium, qui minore summa aeris, quod supra dixi, censebantur. Hoc eo strictim notavi, quoniam in M. Catonis oratione, qua Voconiam legem suasit, quaeri solet, quid sit ‘classicus,’ quid ‘infra classem;’” Fest. ep. 113; cf. Cic. Verr. II. i. 41. 104; Pseud. Ascon. 188; Gaius ii. 274.
[425] The statement of Diod. xxiii. 2 (Müller), and of the Ined. Vat. (in Hermes, xxvii. 121) that the Romans derived their round shield from the Etruscans accords with archaeological evidence for the use of the round shield by the early Etruscans; Pellegrini, in Milani, Studi e materiali, i. 91 ff.; Helbig, in Comptes rendus de l’acad. des inscr. 1904. ii. 196.
[426] The notion of Delbrück, Gesch. d. Kriegsk. i. 227, that the army was not organized in centuries till after the beginning of the republic has no foundation whatever.
[427] P. 76. The original number cannot be determined.