[276] Four centurions for a guard--_Praesidio qui forent, quatuor centuriones_. It is a question among the commentators whether the centurions were attended by their centuries or not; Cortius thinks that they were not, as ten men were sufficient to cause an alarm in the fortress, which was all that Marius desired. But that Cortius is in the wrong, and that there were common soldiers with the centurions, appears from the following considerations: 1. Marius would hardly have sent, or Sallust have spoken of, _four_ men as a guard to _six_. 2. Why should centurions only have been selected, and not common soldiers as well as their officers? 3. An expression in the following chapter, _laqueis--quibus allevati milites facilius escenderent_, seems to prove that there were others present besides the centurions and the trumpeters. The word _milites_ is indeed wanting in the text of Cortius, but appears to have been omitted by him merely to favor his own notion as to the absence of soldiers, for he left it out, as Kritzius says, _summâ libidine, ne uno quidem codice assentiente_, "purely of his own will, and without the authority of a single manuscript." Taking a fair view of the passage, we seem necessarily led to believe that the centurions were attended by a portion, if not the whole, of their companies. See the following note. [277] XCIV. Those who commanded the centuries--_Illi qui centuriis praeerant_. This is the reading of several manuscripts, and of almost all the editions before that of Kritzius, and may be tolerated if we suppose that the centurions were attended by their men, and that Sallust, in speaking of the change of dress, meant _to include the men_, although he specifies only the officers. Yet it is difficult to conceive why Sallust should have used such a periphrase for _centuriones_. Seven of the manuscripts, however, have _qui adsensuri erant_, which Kritzius and Dietsch have adopted. Two have _qui ex centuriis praeerant_. Allen, not unhappily, conjectures, _qui praesidio erant_. Cortius suspected the phrase, _qui centuriis praeerant_, and thought it a transformation of the words _qui adscensuris praeerat_, which somebody had written in the margin as an explanation of the following word _duce_, and which were afterward altered and thrust into the text. [278] Progress--might be less impeded--_Nisus--faciliùs foret_. The adverb for the adjective. So in the speech of Adherbal, c. 14, _ut tutius essem_. [279] Unsafe--_Dubia nisu_. "Not to be depended upon for support." _Nisu_ is the old dative for _nisui_. [280] Causing a testudo to be formed--_Testudine actâ_. The soldiers placed their shields over their heads, and joined them close together, forming a defense like the shell of a tortoise.