ROMAN ARMY. In the long life of the ancient Roman army, the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history, we may distinguish four principal stages. (I) In the earliest age of Rome the army was a national or citizen levy such as we find in the beginnings of all states. (2) This grew into the Republican army of conquest, which gradually subdued Italy and the Mediterranean world. A citizen army of infantry, varying in size with the needs of each year, it eventually developed into a mercenary force with long service and professional organization. This became (3) the Imperial army of defence, which developed from a strictly citizen army into one which represented the prov inces as well as Italy, and was a garrison rather than a field army. Lastly, (4) the assaults of the Barbarian horsemen compelled both the creation of a field force distinct from the frontier garrisons and the inclusion of a large mounted element, which soon counted for much more than the infantry. The Roman army had been one of foot soldiers; in its latest phase it was marked by that predomi nance of the horseman which characterized the earlier centuries of the middle ages.
So far as we can follow this long development in its details, it was continuous. So unbroken, indeed, is the growth that many of the military technical terms survived in use from epoch to epoch, unchanged in form though deeply modified in meaning, and or dinary readers often miss the diversity which underlies this seem ingly unchanged system. The term legio, for example, occurs in all the four stages above outlined. But in each its significance varies. Throughout, it denoted citizen-soldiers ; throughout, it denoted also a force which was chiefly, if not wholly, heavy infan try. But the setting of these two constant features varies from age to age. In the first period legio was the "levy," the whole host summoned to take the field. In the second period it was not the whole levy, but one of the principal units into which developing organization had divided that levy; the "legion" was now a body of some 5,00o men—the number of "legions" varied with the cir cumstances, and the army included other troops besides citizens, though they were for the most part unimportant. In the third or
Imperial age there were many legions (indeed, a fixed number) quartered in fixed fortresses ; there were also other troops, numer ous and important, if not yet so formidable as the legionaries. Finally, the legions became smaller units, and the other troops of the army, notably the cavalry, became the real fighting-line of Rome. (See LEGION.) First Stage.—The history of the earliest Roman army is, as one might expect, both ill-recorded and contaminated with much legend and legal fiction. We read of a primitive force of 300 riders and 3,00o foot soldiers, in which the horseman counted for almost everything. But the numbers are clearly artificial and in vented, while the pre-eminence accorded to the cavalry has no sequel in later Roman history. We reach firmer ground with the organization ascribed to Servius Tullius. In this system the army included all citizens from 17 to 6o years of age, those under 47 for service in the field, the older men for garrison duty in Rome. The soldiers were grouped at first by their wealth—that is, their ability to provide their own horses, armour, etc.—into cavalry, heavy infantry, a remainder which it would be polite to call light infantry, and some artificers. The heavy infantry counted for most. Armed with long spears and divided into the three orders of hastati, principes and triarii (the origins and real senses of these names are lost), they formed a phalanx, and charged in a mass, while the cavalry protected the wings. The men were enrolled for a year—that is, for the summer campaign; in the autumn, like all primitive armies, they went home.