training, the views of a consul or praetor were almost invariably
influenced by the programme of his political party. When, as sometimes
happened, the men under their command sided in the political differences
of their leaders, all real control came to an end. The soldiers of the
Republic hardly ever forgot that they were citizens with voting powers;
they served as a rule only during a campaign; and, while there could be
little question as to their patriotism and stubbornness, they lacked
almost entirely that _esprit de corps_ which is found only amongst the
members of a body having a permanent corporate existence. Thus they had
the vices as well as the virtues of a nation in arms, and they fell
still further short of the ideal because of the dubious and precarious
tenure of their generals' commands. The great officers were usually sent
home at the end of a campaign, to be replaced by their elected
successors, and they showed all the hesitation and fear of
responsibility usually found in a temporary commander. Above all, when
two armies, each under its own consul or praetor, acted together, the
command was either divided or exercised on alternate days.
11. _Roman Empire._--The essential weaknesses of militia forces and the
accidental circumstances of that under consideration led, even in
earlier times, to the adoption of various expedients which for a time
obviated the evils to which allusion has been made. But a change of far
greater importance followed the final exploits of the armies of the old
system. The increasing dominions of the Republic, the spread of wealth
and luxury, the gradual decadence of the old Roman ideas, all tended to
produce an army more suited to the needs of the newer time than the
citizen militia of the 3rd century. Permanent troops were a necessity;
the rich, in their newly acquired dislike of personal effort, ceased to
bear their share in the routine life of the army, and thus the
proletariat began to join the legions with the express intention of
taking to a military career. The actual change from the old _regime_ to
the new was in the main the work of Gaius Marius. The urgent demand for
men at the time of the Teutonic invasions caused the service to be
thrown open to all Roman citizens irrespective of _census_. The new
territories furnished cavalry, better and more numerous than the old
_equites_, and light troops of various kinds to replace the _velites_.
Only the heavy foot remained a purely Italian force, and the spread of
the Roman citizenship gradually abolished the distinction between a
Roman and an allied legion. The higher classes had repeatedly shown
themselves unwilling to serve under plebeians (e.g. Varro and
Flaminius); Marius preferred to have as soldiers men who did not despise
him as an inferior. Under all these influences for good or for evil, the
standing army was developed in the first half of the 1st century B.C.
The tactical changes in the legion indicate its altered character. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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