The Roman of the Republic was incomparably the first soldier of his age; and he equalled the best of the moderns in discipline, in loyalty to his loaders, and in enduring privations, hardship, and fatigue. But a glance at any of his campaigns—the famous ‘Commentaries’ suffice—shows how completely dependent he was upon the quality of his commander. Handled by second- and third-rate men, such as generals mostly have been, are, and will be, he was ignobly defeated, in his most glorious days, by the barbarous Gauls of Brennus; by the half-servile hordes of Hannibal; by the degenerate Greeks of Pyrrhus with their ‘huge earth-shaking beasts,’ and by the armed mob which the Cheruscan Arminius (Ormin or Hermann) led against the incompetent Varus. His campaigns, invariably successful in the end, were marked by many reverses; and in cases of sudden and sinister emergencies he was too often scared and put to flight. In fact, he could not fight a ‘soldier’s battle’; nor has any race done this effectively in modern days except the English and the Slavs.
But when following military genius, the Roman soldier performed prodigies of gallantry and valour. A Julius Cæsar, a conqueror in fifty pitched battles, whose practice was to order venite not ite! whose military instinct could cry at the spur of the moment in the Pharsalian fight, faciem feri, miles! and who could reduce mutineers to reason by one word, Quirites! never failed to point the way to victory. We learn from the Great Epileptic[930] himself the secret of his unexampled success; the care with which he cultivated the individual. ‘He instructed the soldiers (when exposed to a new mode of attack), not like the general of a veteran army which had been victorious in so many battles, but like a Lanista training his gladiators. He taught them with what foot they must advance or retire; when they were to oppose and make good their ground; when to counterfeit an attack; at what place and in what manner to launch their javelins.’[931]
His very arrogance was effective in making him a ruler of men, as when on receiving bad tidings he struck his Sword-hilt, saying, ‘This will give me my rights!’ And of his ‘politiké’ (as the Greeks call it) we may judge by what Polyænus[932] tells us of him. ‘The Romans had been taught by their commanders that a soldier should not be decorated with gold or silver, but place his confidence in his Sword,’ says Livy.[933] But Divus Cæsar encouraged his men to decorate their weapons with all manner of valuables for a truly soldier-like reason, that they might be the less ready to part with their property in flight. And though he plundered freely and rifled even the fanes of the gods, according to Suetonius, he was careful, like a certain modern Condottiere, to see that his men were well fed and regularly paid by means of the ‘loot.’
THE ROMAN SOLDIER.
The Roman soldier had another valuable gift, which has not wholly left the Latin race. He knew the ‘magic of patience,’ and was aware that ‘le monde est la maison du plus fort.’ So in the Napoleonic days the Spaniards believed chiefly in General ‘No Importa’ (no matter), and made little of defeat, hoping it might lead to victory. Nor did the Roman soldier degenerate till the citizen set him the example. Velleius Paterculus dated the decline of Roman virtue after the destruction of Carthage, when civil disputes were decided by the Sword; others to the invasion of luxury with Lucullus. Yet Pliny could boast of his fellow-countrymen: ‘They have doubtless surpassed every other nation in the display of valour.’
But the Roman soldier generally prevailed against races whom he excelled in size, weight, and muscular strength. His superiority in arms, like that of the Greek, was not conspicuous when he came into contact with the ‘barbarians,’[934] especially with the northern barbarians, after they had learned the moral training and confidence of discipline and the practical art of war, as well as, if not better than, himself. For the man of the higher European latitudes has ever surpassed the Southron in strength of constitution, in stature, in weight, in muscular power, and in the mysterious something called vitality. Hence it is a rule in anthropology that the North beats the South; in the Southern hemisphere the reverse being the case, as we see in the wars of the Hispano-American republics, Chili versus Peru. In Europe I need only point out that the Northmen of Scandinavia conquered Normandy and that Norman-French conquered England. The only exceptions are easily explained. The genius of Divus Cæsar made his Romans overcome, overrun, and subjugate Gaul. Napoleon the Great found the road à Berlin open and easy. But intellectual monsters like these two are the rare produce of Time; and human nature requires a long period of rest before repeating such portents.
Those who read history without prepossessions and prejudices are compelled to conclude that the life and career of a nation are mainly determined by its physical size and its muscular strength. We have only to learn how many foot-pounds a race can raise and we can forecast its so-called ‘destinies.’[935]
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SWORD AMONGST THE BARBARIANS (EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE).
Most works on Arms and Armour, when treating of Rome, describe the weapons of her European neighbours ‘upon whom she sharpened the sword of her valour as on a whetstone.’[936] The extent of the subject will here confine me to a general glance, beginning with the Dacians on the east and ending with the British Islands. I must reserve details concerning the Kelts, the Scandinavians, the Slavs, and other northern peoples for Part II., to which they chronologically belong.