[288] They contend for what but little concerns them--_Illis supervacaneum est pugnare_. It is but of little concern to the great body of them personally: they may fight, but others will have the advantages of their efforts. [289] We might, etc.--_Licuit nobis_. The editions vary between _nobis_ and _robis_; but most, with Cortius, have _nobis_. [290] LIX. In the rear--_In subsidio_. Most translators have rendered this, "as a body of reserve;" but such can not well be the signification. It seems only to mean the part behind the front: Catiline places the eight cohorts _in front_, and the rest of his force _in subsidio_, to support the front. _Subsidia_, according to Varro (de L. L., iv. 16) and Festus (v. _Subsidium_), was a term applied to the Triarii, because they _subsidebant_, or sunk down on one knee, until it was their turn to act. See Sheller's Lex. v. _Subsidium_. "Novissimi ordines ita dicuntur." _Gerlach_. _In subsidiis_, which occurs a few lines below, seems to signify _in lines in the rear_; as in Jug. 49, _triplicibus subsidiis aciem intruxit, i.e. with three lines behind the front_. "Subsidium ea pars aciei vocabatur quae reliquis submitti posset; Caes. B. G., ii. 25." _Dietsch_. [291] All the ablest centurions--_Centuriones omnes lectos_. "_Lectos_ you may consider to be the same as _eximios, praestantes_, centurionum praestantissimum quemque." _Kritzius_. Cortius and others take it for a participle, _chosen_. [292] Veterans--_Evocatos_. Some would make this also a participle, because, say they, it can not signify _evocati_, or _called-out veterans_, since, though there were such soldiers in a regular Roman army, there could be none so called in the tumultuary forces of Catiline. But to this it is answered that Catiline had imitated the regular disposition of a Roman army, and that his veterans might consequently be called _evocati_, just as if they had been in one; and, also that _evocatus_ as a participle would be useless; for if Catiline removed (_subducit_) the centurions, it is unnecessary to add that he called them out, "_Evocati_ erant, qui expletis stipendiis non poterant in delectu scribi, sed precibus imperatoris permoti, aut in gratiam ejus, militiam resumebant, homines longo uso militiae peritissimi. Dio., xiv. p. 276. [Greek: _Ek touton de ton anoron kai to ton Haeouokaton hae Ouokaton systaema (ous Anaklaetous an tis Ellaenisas, hoti pepaumenoi taes strateias, ep' autein authis aneklaethmsan, ouomaseien) enomisthae_.] Intelligit itaque ejusmodi homines veteranos, etsi non proprie erant tales evocati, sed sponte castra Catilinae essent secuti." _Cortius_. [293] Into the foremost ranks--_In primam aciem_. Whether Sallust means that he ranged them with the eight cohorts, or only in the first line of the _subsidia_, is not clear.