Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/493

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ROMA—ROMAN ARMY
471

appointed by the Edinburgh town council sole regent of the “town's college” (“Academia Jacobi Sexti,” afterwards the university of Edinburgh), and three years later he received from the same source the title of “principal, or first master,” and was engaged in lecturing on philosophy. When the staff of the young college was increased by the appointment of additional regents, he assumed with consent of the presbytery the office of professor of theology. From 1587 he also preached regularly in the East Kirk every Sunday at 7 a.m., and in 1596 he accepted one of the eight ministerial charges of the city. He took a prominent part in the somewhat troubled church politics of the day, and distinguished himself by gentleness and tact, as well as ability. He was appointed on several occasions to committees of presbytery and assembly on pressing ecclesiastical business. He was elected moderator of the General Assembly held at Dundee in May 1597. In 1598 he was translated to the parish church of the Upper Tolbooth, Edinburgh, and immediately thereafter to that of the Grey Friars (then known as the Magdalen Church). He died at Edinburgh on the 8th of February 1599.

Rollock wrote Commentaries on the Epistles to the Ephesians (1590) and Thessalonians (1598) and Hebrews (1605), the book of Daniel (1591), the Gospel of St John (1599) and some of the Psalms (1598); an analysis of the Epistle to the Romans (1594), and Galatians (1602); also Questions and Answers on the Covenant of God (1596), and a Treatise on Effectual Calling (1597). Soon after his death eleven Sermons (Certaine Sermons upon Several Places of the Epistles of Paul, 1599) were published from notes taken by his students. His Select Works were edited by W. Gunn for the Wodrow Society (1844-1849).

A Life by George Robertson and Henry Charteris was reprinted by the Bannatyne Club in 1826. See also the introduction to the Select Works, and Sir Alexander Grant's History of the University of Edinburgh.

ROMA, a town of Waldegrave county, Queensland, Australia, 318 m. by rail W.N.W. of Brisbane. It is the centre of a rich pastoral and wheat-growing district, in which oranges and vines are largely grown and much wine is produced. The town was incorporated in 1867. Flour-milling is its chief industry. Pop. (1901) of town, 2371; of the district, 7110.

ROMAN, capital of the department of Roman, Rumania, on the main line from Czernowitz in Bukovina to Galatz, and on the left bank of the river Moldova, 2¼ m. W. of its junction with the Sereth. Pop. (1900) 14,019, including 6099 Jews. The river is here spanned by a fine bridge of iron. Roman has been the seat of a bishop since 401. Its seminary dates from 1402. There are several ancient churches, including a cathedral, built. in 1541. Roman has a transit trade in the products of northern Moldavia. A large annual fair is held in August.

ROMAN ARMY. In the long life of the ancient Roman army, the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history, we may distinguish four principal stages. (1) In the earliest age of Rome the army was a national or citizen levy such as we find in the beginnings of all states. (2) This grew into the Republican army of conquest, which gradually subdued Italy and the Mediterranean world. A citizen army of infantry, varying in size with the needs of each year, it eventually developed into a mercenary force with long service and professional organization. This became (3) the Imperial army of defence, which developed from a strictly citizen army into one which represented the provinces as well as Italy, and was a garrison rather than a field army. Lastly, (4) the assaults of the Barbarian horsemen compelled both the creation of a field force distinct from the frontier garrisons and the inclusion of a large mounted element, which soon counted for much more than the infantry. The Roman army had been one of foot soldiers; in its latest phase it was marked by that predominance of the horseman which characterized the earlier centuries of the middle ages.

So far as we can follow this long development in its details, it was throughout continuous. So unbroken, indeed, is the growth that many of the military technical terms survived in use from epoch to epoch, unchanged in form though deeply modified in meaning, and ordinary readers often miss the diversity which underlies this unchanged-seeming system. The term legio, for example, occurs in all the four stages above outlined. But in each its significance varies. Throughout, it denoted citizen-soldiers: throughout, it denoted also a force which was chiefly, if not wholly, heavy infantry. But the setting of these two constant features varies from age to age. In the first period legio was the “levy,” the whole host summoned to take the field. In the second period it was not the whole levy, but one of the principal units into which developing organization had divided that levy; the “legion” was now a body of some 5000 men—the number of “legions” varied with the circumstances, and the army included other troops besides citizens, though they were for the most part unimportant. In the third or Imperial age there were many legions (indeed, a fixed number) quartered in fixed fortresses; there were also other troops, numerous and important, if not yet so formidable as the legionaries. Finally, the legions became smaller units, and the other troops of the army, notably the cavalry, became the real fighting-line of Rome (see Legion).

First Stage.—The history of the earliest Roman army is, as one might expect, both ill-recorded and contaminated with much legend and legal fiction. We read of a primitive force of 300 riders and 3000 foot soldiers, in which the horseman counted for almost everything. But the numbers are clearly artificial and invented, while the pre-eminence accorded to the cavalry has no sequel in later Roman history. We reach firmer ground with the organization ascribed to Servius Tullius. In this system the host included all citizens from 17 to 60 years of age, those under 47 for service in the field, those over 46 for garrison duty in Rome. The soldiers were grouped at first by their wealth—that is, their ability to provide their own horses, armour, &c.—into cavalry (18 “centuries”), heavy infantry, a remainder which it would be polite to call light infantry, and some artificers. The heavy infantry counted for most. Armed with long spears and divided into the three orders of hastati, principes and triarii (the origins and real senses of these names are lost), they formed a phalanx, and charged in a mass, while the cavalry protected the wings. The men were enrolled for a year—that is, for the summer campaign; in the autumn, like all primitive armies, they went home. It has been conjectured that about the time of the fall of the kings the normal Roman army comprised some 8500 infantry under 47 years of age, 5000 seniors, 1000 riders and 500 fabri, &c. The evidence for the calculation is unfortunately inadequate, but the result is not altogether improbable, and it may help the reader to realize what “may have been.” It must be added that this Servian system is closely connected with the political organization (see Rome, History).

Second Stage.—From this Servian army a series of changes which we cannot trace in detail produced the Republican army of conquest. Our ancient authorities ascribe the chief reforms to the half-legendary Camillus (q.v.), who introduced the beginnings of pay and long service, improved the armour and weapons, abolished the phalanx and substituted for it an open order based on small subdivisions (maniples), each containing two centuries.

Whatever the truth about Camillus, some such reforms must at some time have been carried through, to convert the Servian system into the army which was engaged for nearly three centuries (from 350 B.C.) in conquering Italy and the world. This army broke in succession the stout native soldiers of Italy and the mountaineers of Spain and overthrew the trained Macedonian phalanx. Once only did it fail—against Hannibal (see Punic Wars). But not even Hannibal could oust it from entrenchments, and not even his victories could permanently break its moral. Much of its strength lay in the same qualities which made the Puritan soldiers of Cromwell terrible—the excellent character of the common soldiers, the rigid discipline, the high training. Credit, too, must be given to the genius of the Scipios and to the more commonplace capacities of many fairly able generals. But the organism