A glance at the military establishment of Augustus may help to some idea of its vast expense. Mommsen discusses the matter in detail (_R. G._ pp. 68-76). Augustus seems to have left at his death a standing army of twenty-five legions. Each legion approximated seven thousand men, giving a total of 175,000 soldiers. His legions were numbered from one to twenty-two. The number twenty-five is accounted for as follows: the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth had been exterminated under the leadership of Varus. But there were three legions, one in Africa, one in Syria and one in Cyrenaica, bearing the title third, and the fourth, fifth, sixth and tenth were each double. After Actium, Augustus disbanded the legions numbered above twelve (cf. his colonies of veterans at this time, numbering 120,000 men, c. XV). But by reason of the repetitions above alluded to, the legions bearing the numbers up to twelve, really amounted to eighteen. These duplications may have risen from the absorption into Augustus' army of legions bearing the same numbers from the forces of Lepidus and later from those of Antony. In 759, eight new legions, the thirteenth to the twentieth, seem to have been enrolled, in view of the German and Pannonian wars. This made twenty six. Three were lost with Varus, and their numbers, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, seem never to have been restored to the list. To offset this loss in a measure, two new legions, the twenty-first and twenty-second were levied. Thus the twenty-five remaining at the death of Augustus are accounted for. Such an establishment was enormously and increasingly expensive. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, VII, 45. [83] This form of benefaction began in 736. It is a little remarkable that Augustus should not mention the exact years of its continuance, its amount, or the beneficiaries, while he does name the minimum number of men who received aid from time to time. Perhaps he did not go into details because these gifts concerned the provincials and would be of slight interest to the city people for whose reading the inscription was intended. In 742, “when Asia was in need of aid on account of earthquakes, he paid the year’s tribute of the province out of his own means.” Dio, LIV, 30.