[Illustration: FIG. 103.—SOLDIERS WITH PACKS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 104—ROMAN SOLDIERS MARCHING. (Scheiber.)]
Before entering upon this description of service and armour of the legionary troops, it was stated that the legions made up but one-half of Roman army, the other half consisting of what were known as "auxiliaries." If there were in the whole Roman empire 150,000 soldiers of the kind described there were also about 150,000 of a different type. Just as it is a natural part of the British policy to raise bodies of Indian or African troops from among the non-British subjects of the empire, so it was an obvious course for the Romans to raise native troops in Africa, Syria, Spain, Gaul, Britain, or the German provinces on the western bank of the Rhine. And just as the British bring their non-British regiments into connection with the regular army, and put them under the command of British officers, so the Romans associated their "auxiliary" soldiery, mostly under Roman officers, with the regular force of the legions. To every legion of 6000 men there was attached, under the same general of division, a force of about 6000 men of non-Roman standing. The subject people of a province was called upon to recruit a certain quota of such troops, and, when so recruited, the soldiers of this class were required to serve for twenty-five years. At the expiration of their term they became Roman citizens, and their descendants ranked as such in the enjoyment of Roman opportunities. Such forces were not themselves formed into "legions" under an "eagle"; they served in separate regiments. Some of them were infantry almost indistinguishable from the Roman; others were armed in a different manner as to shield, spear, and sword; others were light skirmishing troops using their native weapons, such as javelins, slings, and bows. A very large proportion were cavalry, and whereas a legion possessed only 120 Roman horsemen, the auxiliary cavalry attached to it would number one or more regiments of dither 1000 or 500 men each. But it was also part of the Roman policy to employ such auxiliary troops, not in the region in which they were raised and among their own people, but elsewhere, and sometimes even at the opposite extremity of the empire. Thus in Britain might be found, not only Germans and Batavians, but Spaniards or Syrians, while in Syria there might be quartered Africans or Germans, and in Africa troops from the modern Austria. We cannot call this custom an invariable one, but it was usual, and obviously it was politic.
[Illustration: FIG. 105.—Imperial Guards.]
To these two co-operating forces—legions and auxiliaries—we must add the Imperial Guards, twelve regiments of 1000 men each, quartered in Italy, and generally congregated in a special camp just outside the gate at the top of the Quirinal and Viminal Hills beyond the modern railway station. Like other Guards, these were a picked body, containing many volunteers from Italy itself, while others came from the most romanized parts of Gaul or elsewhere. They enjoyed many privileges, wore a more gorgeous armour, served only sixteen years and received double pay. Frequently it came to be the case that this particular body of troops was the one which made and unmade emperors, chiefly under the influence of pecuniary promises or largess. Besides these, 6000 City Guards were in barracks inside the metropolis for the protection of the town; 7000 gendarmerie, already mentioned, served as night-watch and fire-brigade, but perhaps scarcely rank as soldiers. Here and there in the empire there also existed separate volunteer detachments of various dimensions serving on special duty, and it was to one of these that belonged the Cornelius of the Acts of the Apostles, who is there described as a centurion of the "Italian band."
[Illustration: FIG. 106.—BESIEGERS WITH THE "TORTOISE.">[
It would carry us too far afield if we entered into detailed descriptions of Roman warfare—of Roman marches, Roman camps, and fortifications, Roman sieges, and military engines. Otherwise it would be highly interesting to watch the attack made upon an enemy's wall or gate by a band of men pushing in front of them a wicker screen covered with hide, or holding their shields locked together above their heads, so as to form a roof to shelter them from the spears, stones, firebrands, and pots of flame which rained down from the walls.
[Illustration: FIG 107.—ROMAN ARTILLERY.]
Or we might see moving up on wheels a shed, from the open front of which protrudes the great iron head of a ram affixed to a huge beam. If you were under the shed, you would see that the beam was perhaps as much as 60 feet in length, and that it was suspended on chains or ropes by which it could be swung, so that the head butted with a deadly insistence upon the masonry of the wall. Meanwhile the enemy from the ramparts are doing their best to set the shed on fire, to break off the ram's head with heavy stones, to pull it upwards by a noose, or to deaden the effect of the shock by lowering stuffed sacks or other buffer material between it and the wall. At another point, in place of the shed, there is rolled forward a lofty construction like a tower built in several stories. When this approaches the wall it will overtop it, and a drawbridge with grappling irons may be dropped upon the parapet. Elsewhere there is mining and countermining. From a safer distance the artillery of the time is hurling its formidable missiles. There is the "catapult," which shoots a giant arrow, sometimes tipped with material on fire, from a groove or half-tube to a distance of a quarter of a mile. The propelling force, in default of gunpowder or other explosive, is the recoil of strings of gut or hair which have been tightened by a windlass. There is also the heavier "hurler," which works in much the same manner, but which, instead of arrows, throws stones and beams of from 14 pounds to half a hundredweight, doing effective damage up to a distance of some 400 yards.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.—AUXILIARY CAVALRYMAN.]