Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

EXERCITUS. EXERCITUS. 489
tween cavalry and infantry, being designed to fight minute practical exposition of the preliminary
on horseback or on foot, as circumstances required. exercises by which the Roman cavalry were
It is in the time of Alexander the Great, that trained; to Arrian, likewise, we are indebted for
we first meet with artillery in the train of a a very interesting fragment entitled eK-asi tcay'
Grecian army. His balistee and catapeltae were'AacvCuv, supposed to be a portion of his lost
frequently employed with great effect, as, for in- history, which bore the name'AAoVLKUd, consiststance, at the passage of the Jaxartes (Arrian. iv. cng of instructions for the order of march to be
4. ~ 7). After the invasion of Asia also ele- adopted by the force despatched against the Scyphants began to be employed in connection with thians, and for the precautions to be observed in
Grecian armies. (Miiller, Dorians, book iii. c. 12; marshalling the line of battle. This piece taken
Wachsmuth, Hellenisckie Altertlumskunde, book vi.; ill connection with the essay of Hygiez2ns, of which
K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staatsalterth. ~ 29, 30, we have spoken rluder CASTRA, Will assist us
152; Haase in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclop. materially when we seek to form a distinct idea
art. Phlalanx; Heeren's Reflections, &c. Ancient of the constitution of a Roman army in the early
Greece, c. xii.; BiJckh's Pub6lic Economy of.Athens, part of the second century. It remains for us to
c. xxi. xxii.) [C. P. M.] notice the Latin "Scriptores de Re Militari,"
2. ROMAN. In the present article we shall F-rontinus, lModestls, and Vegetius. The Stryateattempt to present a view of the constitution of a gematic(a of the first, who lived under Vespasian,
Roman army at several remarkable epochs, and to is merely a collection of anecdotes compiled withpoint out in what respect the usages of one age out much care or nice discrimination, and presents
differed most conspicuously from those of another, very little that is available for our present purpose;
abstaining most carefully from those general state- the Libellus de Vocabulis Rei ilIilitaris of the
ments which in many works upon antiquities are second, addressed to the emperor Tacitus, affords a
enunciated broadly, without reference to any spe- considerable number of technical terms, but is in
cified time, as if they were applicable alike to the such a confused state, and so loaded with interpolareign of Tarquin and to the reign of Valentinian, tions, that we can employ it with little confidence;
including the whole intermediate space within the Rei 1M1ilitfaris Instituta of the third, deditheir wide sweep. cated to the younger Valentinian, is a formnal treatise
Our authorities will enable us to form a con- drawn up in an age when the ancient discipline of
ception, more or less complete, of the organisation Rome was no longer known, or had, at least, fallen
of a Roman army at five periods: - into desuetude; but the materials, we are assured
1. At the establishment of the comitia centuriata by the author himself, were derived from sources
by Servius. the most pure, such as Cato the Censor, Cornelius
2. About a century and a half after the expul- Celsus, and the official regulations of the earlier
sion of the kings. emperors. Misled by these specious professions,
3. During the wars of the younger Scipio, when and by the regularity displayed in the distribution
the discipline of the troops was, perhaps, more of the different sections, many scholars have been
perfect than at any previous or subsequent era; and induced to adopt the statements here embodied
here, fortunately, our information is most complete. without hesitation, without even asking to what
4. In the times of Marius, Sulla, and Julius period they applied. But when the book is subCaesar. jected to critical scrutiny, it will be found to be
5. A hundred and fifty years later, when the full of inconsistencies and contradictions, to mix
empire had reached its culminating point under up into one confused and heterogeneous mass the
Trajan and Hadrian. systems pursued at epochs the most remote from
Beyond this, we shall not seek to advance. each other, and to exhibit a state of things which
After the death of M. Aurelius, we discern nought never did and never could have existed. Hence,
save disorder, decay, and disgrace; while an in- if we are to make any use at all of this farrago,
quiry into the complicated arrangements introduced we must proceed with the utmost caution, and
when every department in the state was remodel- ought to accept the novelties which it offers, merely
led by Diocletian and Constantine, would de- in illustration or confirmation of the testimony of
mand lengthened and tedious investigation, and others, without ever permitting them to weigh
would prove of little or no service to the classical against more trustworthy witnesses.
student. But while the number of direct authorities is
Autlhorities. The number of ancient writers very limited, much knowledge may be obtained
now extant, who treat professedly of the military through a multitude of indirect channels. Not
affairs of the Romans, is not great, and their works only do the narratives of the historians of Roman
are, with one or two exceptions, of little value. affairs abound in details relating to military operaIncomparably the most important is Polybius, tions, but there is scarcely a Latin writer upon
who in a fragment preserved from his sixth book, any topic, whether in prose or verse, whose pages
presents us with a sketch of a Roman army at are not filled with allusions to the science of war.
the time when its character stood highest, and its The writings of the jurists also, inscriptions,
discipline was most perfect. This, so far as it medals, and monuments of art communicate much
reaches, yields the best information we could desire. that is curious and important; but even after we
The tract irepI o'-paT'7ImiCP TSEWv o'EkAX7vsucv have brought together and classified all these
of Aelianus who flourished under Nerva, belongs, scattered notices, we shall have to regret that
as the title implies, to Greek tactics, but con- there are many things left in total darkness, and
tains also a brief, imperfect, and indistinct ac- manynupon which the assertions of different wricount of a Roman army. The reXv7 7aIcTLIC of ters cannot by any dexterity be reconciled in a
Arrian, governor of Cappadocia under Hadrian, satisfactory manner. We shall endeavour to exis occupied in a great measure with the ma- pound in each case those views which are supnoeuvres of the phalanx, to which is subjoined a ported by the greatest amount of credible evidence,