Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Rome (Yesterday's Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page B

topped by a metal boss or button, kept firm on the head by cheekpieces which almost meet under the lower jaw, and bearing a band of metal of double thickness round the forehead, and a projection behind to cover the neck. This, like all the metal-work of his equipment, is browned to a serviceable and inconspicuous tone. His body is guarded by a number of strips of iron which pass round the trunk, forming a kind of jointed breastplate, and these are attached to the shoulder-pieces, similar strips of metal which pass over either shoulder and hang down in front and behind for several inches. His thighs are protected by strips of leather which hang from his waist, and his feet are shod with heavy sandals studded with nails, and bound on, well up the leg, with broad leathern thongs.

 
    STATUE OF GERMANICUS
     
     
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    In his right hand the soldier carries a short, stout throwing-spear, the famous "pilum," which the Roman hurled against the enemy's ranks as he came to close quarters. It measures about six feet nine inches in length, and has a long, heavy iron point, whose socket comes about half-way down the shaft. This point used to be fixed to the shaft by two iron rivets, but Marius has replaced one of them by a wooden peg, which breaks when the pilum sticks in an opponent's shield, so that the shaft bends over and drags on the ground, hampering his movements. On his left arm Sextius bears the great oblong shield of the Roman legionary, four feet from top to bottom and two and a half feet from side to side, curved round at the edges to the shape of a half cylinder, so that it covers the whole of one side of his body. In their early days the Romans used a smaller round shield, but they have long given it up in favour of this oblong one. Though the shield is so large, it is not nearly so cumbrous as you might think, for it is made of cloth and calf-skin built up on a wooden framework, and is really wonderfully light. The boss in the centre of it has brazen thunderbolts shooting out from it, the only ornament in the whole equipment.
    Last of all comes the Roman's great weapon, the short sword which won so many battles. A leathern baldric passes over the soldier's left shoulder, and across his chest to his right hip, and there in its sheath hangs a straight, heavy sword, thirty inches long, with a sharp point and two keen edges. Its hilt is perfectly plain, with a simple cross-bar, not so much to guard the hand as to keep the fingers from slipping as the swordsman thrusts. Why do the Romans wear their swords on the right side, instead of on the left, as all modern soldiers do? Well, if you had to carry a shield four feet by two and a half on your left arm, you would soon find out the reason. The sword is carried where you can get at it most readily. It is only since the time of the terrible war against Hannibal that the Romans have universally taken to this short Spanish sword, which made such dreadful havoc in their own ranks at Thrasymene and Cannæ. Now they know there is no weapon to match it, and no soldiers can use it so well as they. For Marius, in the new drill which he has introduced, insists on his men being taught fencing by the masters of the gladiatorial schools. They are all taught that, though their sword has two sharp edges, they are never to use the edge if they can help it, but always to thrust with the point; for the thrust is both more deadly and exposes the swordsman less. To-morrow will see the test between the Roman style of the short sword and the thrust and the Cimbrian method of the long claymore and the swinging cut, and before the end of the day 120,000 Cimbrian dead, piled on the Raudine Plain—more than two for every Roman sword at work—will show the superiority of the legionary method.
    We have kept poor Sextius Baculus standing for quite a long time before the ranks, while we have been taking stock of his equipment; but now Marius, in his long red general's mantle, comes forward to where the brave