. Six thousand years of history. shed, was manly courage (virtus), manhood. Romancourage was no mere animal daring, but duty, obedienceto will, self-surrender to the public good—the courage ofthe Spartan at his best amongst the Greeks. The Romanlegions subdued the world not by discipline alone, nor bystrength, nor audacity, but by moral force, contempt ofpain, preference of death to dishonor. Unconquerablefidelity to duty was the spell which laid the forces of theworld prostrate before her: in that strength she went forthconquering and to conquer. The chief virtues of the oldRomans were these—
. Six thousand years of history. shed, was manly courage (virtus), manhood. Romancourage was no mere animal daring, but duty, obedienceto will, self-surrender to the public good—the courage ofthe Spartan at his best amongst the Greeks. The Romanlegions subdued the world not by discipline alone, nor bystrength, nor audacity, but by moral force, contempt ofpain, preference of death to dishonor. Unconquerablefidelity to duty was the spell which laid the forces of theworld prostrate before her: in that strength she went forthconquering and to conquer. The chief virtues of the oldRomans were these—fortitude, temperance, spirit to resistoppression, respect for legitimate authority, ardent patri-otism. Of charity and chivalrous generosity—virtuesmainly of Christian production and growth—they weregenerally destitute. They were cruel, hard, and grasp-ing, and often faithless in their dealings with other all the qualities which contributed to make Romesupremely great amongst the nations—the one all-con-. HISTORY OF ROME 193 qtiering people of the ancient world—the chief was thehabit of obedience, of reverence for authority, which wasingrained in the Romans nature. Such was the character of the ancient Roman—acharacter in all its chief features essentially military. Tothis character accordingly must be mainly attributed theextraordinary success of the Romans in extending theirconquests over the world, and in uniting so many differentnationalities in one Empire. But as another and almostequally important factor in this result we must regard theirmilitary organizations. The constitution of the Romanlegion—the great military instrument of Roman conquest—varied at different epochs of history, and underwentsuccessive improvements from men of tactical ability. Themain principle of its formation, however, was the samethroughout. In the later days of the Republic, when per-fected by the great commander Marius, the legion was,in numbers, a brigade; but i
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