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4. From the first consulship of Marius (b. c. 107) until the extinction of the legion. — For some centuries after Marius the numbers varied from 5000 to 6200, generally approaching to the higher, limit. Festus (s. v. sex millium et ducentoruin) expressly declares that C. Marius raised the numbers from 4000 to 6200, but his system in this respect was not immediately adopted, for in .the army which Sulla led against Rome to destroy his rival, the six complete legions (e£ rdy^ara T6€ia) amounted to 30,000 men (Plut. Suit. 9, Mar. 35, but the text in the latter passage is doubtful). In the war against Mithridates again, the 30,000 men of Lucullus formed five legions (Appian. Mitlir. 72). Comparing Plutarch (Cic. 36) with Cicero (ad Att. v. 15), we conclude that the two legions -commanded by the latter in Cilicia contained each 6000. Caesar never specifies in his Commentaries the number of men in his legions, but we infer that the 13th did not contain more than 5000 (B. C. i. 7), while the two mentioned in the fifth book of the Gallic war (c. 48, 49) were evidently incomplete. In Appian, M. Antonius is represented as calculating the amount of 28 legions at upwards of 170,000 men, that is nearly 6100 to each legion, but he seems to include auxiliaries (r&v ffwraff-cfo^vwv). During the first century the standard force was certainly 6000, although subject to constant variations according to circumstances, and the caprice of the reigning prince. The legion of Hadrian, if we can trust Hygimis, was 5280, of Alexander Severus 5000 (Lamprid. Sev. 50), that described by Vegetius (ii. 6), to whatever period it may belong, 6100, and most of the grammarians agree upon 6000 (e. g. Serv. ad Virg. Aen. vii. 274 ; Isidor. Orig. ix. 3. § 46 ; Suidas, s. v. Xeyec&v, but Hesychius gives 6666). The Jovi-ans and Herculeans of Diocletian and Maximian formed each a corps of 6000 (Veget. i. 17), but beyond this we have no clue to guide us. If we believe the ray/mara of Zosimus and the apiQ/jioi of Sozomen to designate the legions of Honorius, they must at that epoch have been reduced to’a number varying from 1200 to 700.,
Number of Cavalry attached to the Legion.— According to Varro and the other authorities who describe the original constitution of the legion, it consisted of 3000 infantry and 300 cavalry. The number of foot soldiers was, as we have seen above, gradually increased until it amounted to 6000, but the number of horsemen remained always the same, except upon particular occasions. In those passages of Livy and Dionysius, where the numbers of the legion are specified, we find uniformly, amid all the variations witli regard to the infantry, 300 horsemen set down as the regular complement (Justus equitatus) of the legion.
Polybius, however, is at variance with, these authorities, for although in his chapter upon Roman warfare (vi. 20) he gives 300 as the number, yet when he is detailing (iii. 107) the military preparations of the year b.c. 216, after having remarked that each legion contained 5000 infantry, he adds, that under ordinary circumstances it contained 4000 infantry and 200 cavalry, but that upon pressing emergencies it was increased to 5000 infantry and 300 cavalry, and this representation is confirmed by his review of the Roman forces at the. time of the war against the Cisalpine Gauls (ii. 24). It is true that when narrating the
events of the first Punic War, he in one place (i. 16) makes the legions to consist of 4000 infantry and 300 cavalry ; and in the passage referred to above (ii. 24) the consular legions amounted to 5200 infantry and 300 cavalry, but both of these were pressing emergencies. The statements, therefore, of Polybius upon this point are directly at variance with those of Dionysius and Livy, and it does not seem possible to reconcile the discrepancy. There are two passages in the last-named historian which might appear to bear out the Greek (Liv. xxii. 36, xlii. 31), but in the first he is evidently alluding to the assertions of Polybius, and in the second the best editors agree in considering the text corrupt, and that we should substitute duceni pedites for duceni equites.
When troops were raised for a service which required special arrangements, the number of horsemen was sometimes increased beyond 300. Thus the legion despatched to Sardinia in b. c. 215 (Liv. xxiii. 34) consisted of 5000 infantry and 40Q cavalry, the same number of horsemen was attached to a legion sent to Spain in b. c. 180 under Tiberius Sempronius (Liv. xl. 36), and in’b.c. 169 it was resolved that the legions in Spain should consist of 5000 infantry and 330 cavalry (Liv. xliii. 112), but in the war against Perseus when the infantry of the legions was raised to 6000 the cavalry retained the ancient number of 300. (Liv. xlii. 31.) It must be observed that these remarks with regard to the cavalry apply only to the period before Marius ; about that epoch the system appears to have undergone a very material change, which will be adverted to in the proper place’.
We now proceed to consider the organisation of the legion at the five periods named above.
First Period. Servius Tullius.—The legion of Servius is so closely connected with the Comitia Centuriata that it has already been discussed in a former article [CoMiTiAl, and it is only necessary to repeat here that it was a phalanx equipped in the Greek fashion, the front ranks being furnished with a complete suit of armour, their weapons being long spears, and their chief defence the round Argolic shield (clipeus).
Second Period. The Great Latin War, b. c." 340. — Our sole authority is a single chapter in Livy (viii. 8), but it " is equalled by few others in compressed richness of information," and is in itself sufficiently intelligible, although tortured and elaborately corrupted by Lipsius and others, who were determined to force it into harmony with the words of Polybius, which represent, it is true, most accurately the state of a Roman army, but of a Roman army as it existed two centuries afterwards. According to the plain and obvious sense of the passage in question, the legion in the year B. c. 340 had thrown aside the arms and almost entirely discarded the tactics of the phalanx. It was now drawn up in three, or perhaps we ought to say, in five lines. The soldiers of the first line, called Hastati) consisted of youths in the first bloom of manhood (ftoi*emjuvenumpubescentium in militiam) distributed into fifteen companies or maniples (ma-nipuli), a moderate space being left between each. The maniple contained sixty privates, two centurions (centuriones), and a standard bearer (vexilla-rius) ; two thirds were heavily armed and bore the scutum or large oblong shield, the remainder carried only a spear (hasta) and light javelins (gaesa). The second line, the Principes^ was com-
