fields; thus it was among the Greeks, and so it is to this day among the people of Asia. On the frontiers of Georgia, Russia and Persia make war against each other for a couple of months every year; in the laws of Charlemagne the period is fixed during which the people are bound to service. During the intervals, the intercourse was more or less free; the time of the festivals especially was quite free, as, for instance, the common festivals of the Etruscans near the temple of the Voltumna, or that of the Ausonian people near the temple of Feronia. It was only for the stated period that the soldiers could be kept in the field, and as soon as it was over, they dispersed. The means of Rome for keeping up a large force were very much lessened since the Etruscan and Volscian wars: in former times the army was paid from the tithes which the possessors of the _ager publicus_ had to give. But since the _ager publicus_ was lost, every one marched out to war οἰκόσιτος, the men brought their stock of provisions from home, and what they wanted besides they tried to get by foraging: if this could not be done, the army had to return home again. It was owing to this that so very few sieges took place. But as it was now intended to carry on the war in right earnest, and not to lay down their arms until Veii were conquered, the army was to receive pay. This decree was perhaps connected also with a proposition for levying the tithes again from the _ager publicus_, and thence defraying the expense of the pay. There is some ground for the supposition, that in the earliest times already a _stipendium_ was very generally paid, in a statement that in the census of Servius Tullius the _equites_ received two thousand asses; without doubt, therefore, the _pedites_ also got something. I suppose that it was a hundred _asses_, whether the war lasted a longer or a shorter time; and that for this sum, the soldier had to find himself in arms and provisions. With such a system wars of conquest were incompatible, as in these the soldier must be entirely kept by the state; and this is the arrangement which was intended, when it is said that the Roman soldiers now first received a _stipendium_. It would be incorrect to take it for granted that formerly they had nothing given them; but there is a very great difference, between their receiving a small sum at once and their being paid by the day. It may be assumed, that the ærarians, as they were not obliged to serve in war, had always had to pay a war tax for the _pedites_, as the _orbi orbæque_ had for the equites; for, the plebeian could not have been loaded with the double burthen of serving with his body and with his goods.