[855] Polybii Historiarum quæ supersunt. The voluminous and luminous writer, a contemporary of Scipio Africanus, and a captain who witnessed the destruction of Carthage, was born a.u.c. 552 (b.c. 204), nearly three centuries after the Latin conquest of Etruria. He was called ‘Auctor bonus in primis,’ and Scipio said of him, ‘Nemo fuit in requirendis temporibus diligentior’ (Cicero, De Off. iii. 12, and De Rep. ii. 14).
[856] De Linguâ Lat. iv. 6.
[857] Livy, viii. 8.
[858] Also called Adscriptii, Supernumerarii, and Velati, because wearing only the sagum or soldier’s cloak, opposed to the officer’s paludamentum. Properly speaking, they were rear-troops, ranged in battle order behind the Triarii. During certain epochs the Rorarii stood next to the Triarii, and the Accensi, less trustworthy than either, formed the extreme rear.
[859] The weapon is well shown in a monumental tablet on the Court wall of the Aquileja Museum.
[860] The Clypeus, or Clipeus, of favourite Greek use, was also round, but larger than the Parma. Our ‘buckler’ (buccularius clypeus) takes its name from having on it an open mouth (bucca, buccula), in Chinese fashion, instead of the umbo.
[861] In Livy’s Phalanx (a.u.c. 415) the Velites were light-armed men, carrying only a spear and short iron pila (viii. 7).
[862] A congener of the Keltic Ast = branch; whence the Fr. arme d’hast. It was the Greek κοντός, contus, or lance, an unbarbed spear, a royal sceptre: under the Republic it collected the hundreds (hastam centumviralem agere); it noted auctions (jus hastæ), it was the weapon of the light infantry-man (hasta velitaris), and it served to part the bride’s hair (Ovid, Fast. ii. 560). Hastarius and hastatus, hasta and quiris are synonyms; the gæsum was a heavier weapon and barbed, and the jaculum, with its diminutives, spiculum, vericulum, or verutum, was a lighter javelin. Virgil uses hastile poetically.
[863] Loc. cit.
[864] The number of men greatly varied; the extremes of the Legion are 6,800 including cavalry under Scipio, and 1,500 under Constantine. In Livy’s Legion there were 5,000 infantry and 300 horse (viii. 8). Perhaps we may assume an average of 4,000 foot—a full Austrian regiment. Each line of the three numbered 10 cohorts, and each cohort three maniples. The latter were named from manipulus, a handful (of grass, &c., Georg. i. 400), because this rustic article at the end of a pole was the standard of Romulus.