[406] Tac. _Ann._ i. 51 ‘leves cohortes’, ii. 52 ‘legio medio leves cohortes duaeque alae in cornibus locantur’. Similarly iii. 39, iv. 73. [407] Cichorius, Pl. 27. For the helmet with metal ribs see Baldwin Brown, _Arts and Crafts_, Pl. xxx, Fig. 118. For the skins of animals worn by German auxiliaries see Tac. _Hist._ ii. 88. [408] Cichorius, Pl. 47, 50 and 80. They carry the Asiatic παλίντονα τόξα and may well be Palmyreni. Cichorius decides that those who wear scale armour are probably Iazyges, but his reasons seem insufficient. [409] Cichorius, Pl. 19. [410] Cichorius, Pl. 47, 50. [411] Cichorius, ii. 311. [412] viii. 18042 ‘Addidistis ut et lapides fundis mitteretis et missilibus confligeretis’. This is addressed to the ‘equites cohortis VI Commagenorum’. [413] Cf. Tac. _Ann._ xii. 16 ‘Bosporani … nostris in armis’, with _Hist._ iii. 47. CONCLUSION THE BREAK-UP OF THE AUGUSTAN SYSTEM In the preceding pages we have traced the history of the auxilia through the two centuries which followed the death of Augustus. At the end of this period, as at the beginning, the distinction between legions and auxilia still appears as one of the fundamental principles of the military system of the Empire. But during it the growth of certain tendencies, operative not only in the army but through the Empire as a whole, had profoundly altered the original scheme by which levies of uncivilized provincials, drawn from every province, were to support the contingents of the ruling race. Before a century had elapsed the legionaries were no longer Italians nor the auxiliaries barbarians. As a result, among other things, of the steady extension of civic rights, the legionaries were drawn from the provinces, and as a peaceful civilization developed, the recruiting-area for legions and auxilia alike gradually contracted to the frontier districts. Finally, at the close of the period, the distinction between _civis_ and _peregrinus_ was swept away by the legislation of 212. From the military point of view also the character of the army had undergone a no less fundamental change. The concentrated striking force of the days of Augustus, which was ready to plunge year after year into the heart of Germany, had been transformed into a frontier guard, scattered over a wide front and accustomed to act permanently on the defensive, every unit of which was fixed immovably, generation after generation, in the same position. This system, exposed, it is only fair to say, to a strain far more severe than its designers had ever contemplated, broke down completely during the course of the third century, and although, after fifty years of anarchy, the Empire rid itself temporarily of internal and external enemies, the military organization was never restored on the old lines. It is our business in this concluding section to trace the stages in this collapse, and to suggest reasons for the change in military policy traceable in the work of Diocletian and his successors.