It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns, were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural pursuits.
More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies, or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of armed men.
The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under constitutional forms of government.
The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline, introduced the phalanx,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence, the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible, as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by Miltiades at Marathon.
Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep, which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number, all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons, and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes, a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep, with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor. This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander, the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and smaller phalanxes.
In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect. The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East, the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had an intense esprit de corps; he was bound up in the glory of his legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength. When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities. Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must have been the military science that could reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II., Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians, were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits. Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in the various provinces.