through the thickest hedge of pikes, and stood firm before the wildest onset of Celt or German[1] The organization of Augustus and Trajan was swept away by Constantine, and the legions which for three hundred years had preserved their identity, their proud titles of honour, and their ésprit de corps, knew themselves no longer[2].
Constantine, when he cut down the numbers of the military unit to a quarter of its former strength, and created many scores of new corps[3], was acting from motives of political and not military expediency[4]. The armament and general character of the troops survived their organization, and the infantry, the 'robur peditum,' still remained the most important and numerous part of the army. At the same time, however, a tendency to strengthen the cavalry made itself felt, and the proportion of that arm to the whole number of the military establishment continued steadily to increase throughout the fourth century. Constantine himself, by depriving the legion of its complementary 'turmae,' and uniting the horsemen into larger independent bodies, bore witness to their growing importance. It would seem that the Empire—having finally abandoned the offensive in war, and having resolved to confine itself to the protection of its own provinces—found that there was an increasing need for troops who could transfer themselves with rapidity from one menaced point on the frontier to another. The Germans could easily distance the legion, burdened by the care of its military machines and impedimenta. Hence cavalry in larger numbers was required to intercept their raids.
But it would appear that another reason for the increase of the horsemen was even more powerful. The ascendancy of the Roman infantry over its enemies was no longer so
- ↑ Cf. Tacitus, Annals, ii, 21.
- ↑ The old legions of the first century are found in full vigour at the end the third. The coins of the British usurper Carausius commemorate as serving under him several of the legions which, as early as the reign of Claudius, were already stationed in Britain and Gaul.
- ↑ He had 132 legions and 'numeri,' besides 100 unattached cohorts.
- ↑ See Gibbon, ii. cap. xvii.
