Roman camp

“ These vast structures, together with a garden and a spacious tree-girt yard intended for the military exercises of the leudes and of the foot soldiers, all of whom were freemen and Franks, are surrounded by a fosse and earthworks, the ancient vestiges of the Roman camp which dates from the conquest of Julius Caesar. The parapets are considerably impaired by the centuries, but they still present a good line of defense. ”

“ This sight filled the Germans with more anguish and rage than all their wounds, past afflictions, and slaughters. They, who were just prepared to abandon their dwellings, and flit beyond the Elbe, meditate war and grasp their arms: people, nobles, youth, aged, all rush suddenly upon the Roman army in its march and disorder it. They next chose their camp, a strait and moist plain shut in between a river and a forest, the forest too surrounded with a deep marsh, except on one side, which was closed with a barrier raised by the Angrivarians between them and the Cheruscans. ”

“ This will be observed in a greater or less degree in all the stations, and there cannot be a doubt but that the dwellings were arranged in rows parallel to the four sides of the stations, and hence, intersecting each other at right angles. It was necessary that the Roman camp, whether of a temporary or permanent character, should be nearly uniform in its plan. If the troops rested but for a night, each man knew the part he had to fill in preparing the fortification, and could set about it at once ”

“ The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the Roman camp. ”

“ The Romans entered the camp without resistance; and the wildest scenes of disorder were veiled in the darkness and confusion of the night. Every Barbarian who met their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters, as rich heirs or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the licentious soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with the treasures of gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of conquest or economy in a long period of prosperity and peace. In this frantic search, the troops even of Belisarius forgot their caution and respect. ”

“ Up to this point he kept his men within their rampart, and now, only waiting till the fugitives could find shelter within the camp, the battle-shout was raised and the Romans burst forth from all the gates simultaneously. The enemy could not stand against this unlooked-for attack. They had come up to storm the Roman camp; now they could not even defend their own. Routed, put to flight, driven in a panic inside their rampart, they at last lost their camp. There were 9000 men killed that day, 320 taken prisoners, 112 horses and 37 military standards were captured. Out of the Roman army 109 fell. ”

“ Every camp was a center for the spread of the Latin language and Roman institutions and the number of Roman citizens was being augmented continuously by the stream of discharged auxiliaries whose term of service had expired. In the canabae, or villages of the civilian hangers-on of the army corps, sprang up organized communities of Roman veterans with all the institutions and material advantages of municipal life. The constant movement of troops from one quarter of the empire to another furnished a ready medium for the exchange of cultural, in particular of religious, ideas. ”

“ It was plain that they trusted that the Romans would banish the invaders who had poured down into Italy from the Alps.
Men left their work, women their homes, children their play—all were eager to see the Consul pass. To show their goodwill many of them brought food for the soldiers.
Thousands of men joined the army as volunteers, and they, and the regular soldiers, were so eager to reach the camp of Livius that they would hardly interrupt their march to eat and drink.
The Roman camp lay to the south of the river Metaurus, and not far off was the camp of Hasdrubal. ”

“ Near it, about midway between the Vallum and the Wall, an altar to Apollo was lately discovered, which will afterwards be described.
TEMPORARY CAMP. A road leads from the vicinity of the mile-castle to the town of Haltwhistle, in the sheltered valley of the Tyne, whither, should the shades of evening be approaching, the way-worn antiquary may be glad to bend his steps. At the point where the path joins the modern military road, a Roman camp will be observed. On the sides which are most exposed, double and triple lines of earth-works have been raised. ”

“ Thus the Roman camp was attacked on both sides; and crowding together, whilst they wheeled round their battalions from one post to another, they were unable either to confine the Veientians within their fortifications, or repel the assault from their own works, and to defend themselves from the enemy on the outside. The only hope was, if succour could be brought from the greater camp, that the different legions should fight, some against the Capenatians and Faliscians, others against the sallies of the townsmen. ”

“ When we come to deal with Roman remains we stand upon firmer ground. On the same plain of Dalginross, and a short distance to the north of these boulders we have referred to, is the site of the old Roman Camp, Victoria. ”

“ A hasty levy of their young men being made from all their cantons this raw and tumultuary army made its first onset with more vigour than perseverance. About four thousand of them were slain in the field; and the rest, giving over the war, fled in different directions to their respective states. Soon after, they sent ambassadors to the Roman camp to sue for peace, and then delivered up the hostages required of them. ”

“ Polybius has transmitted to us a description of a Roman camp, from which the annexed plan has been drawn up. It is such as would be formed at the close of an ordinary day’s march by a regular consular army consisting of two Roman legions with the full contingent of Socii. Each legion is calculated at 4200 infantry and 300 cavalry; the Socii furnished an equal number of infantry, and twice as many cavalry, so that the whole force would amount to 16,800 foot and 1800 horse. ”

“ For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the losses they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war. ”

“ The king is quite aware that Rome does not employ any legionary soldiers or cavalry except Romans and those belonging to the Latin nation, but he has seen foreigners serving as light infantry in the Roman camp. ”

“ When other men see only a wave of green rising ground, he calls up in his thought a bygone civilization, he sees the Roman soldiers relieving guard and exchanging gossip on the ramparts of a world-empire, he witnesses excursions and alarums, and hears the strange jargon of the long-haired prisoners brought captive into camp. ”

“ Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without allusion to the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman army never halted for a single night without forming a regular intrenchment capable of holding all the fighting men, the beasts of burden, and the baggage. When the army could not retire, during the winter months, into some city, it was compelled to live in the camp. ”

“ The whole camp was surrounded by a trench (fossa) , generally nine feet deep and twelve broad, and a rampart (vallum) made of the earth that was thrown up (agger) , with stakes (valli) fixed at the top of it. The labour of this work was so divided, that the allies completed the two sides of the camp alongside of which they were stationed, and the two Roman legions the rest.—In describing the Roman camp and its internal arrangements, we have confined ourselves to the information given by Polybius, which, of course, applies only to his age, and to armies constituted like those he witnessed. ”

“ The danger is near; the hostile camp lies only a twelve day's march from here; the refusal of the magistrates of Vannes and the imprisonment of the Roman officers—all that means speedy war—a merciless war, as only the Romans know how to wage! If we are vanquished it means to us death on the battle field, or slavery far away! The slave merchants follow the tracks of the Roman army; they are greedy after prey. ”

“ In later times this camp was, no doubt, occupied by Roman troops as summer quarters, its healthy position rendering it very suitable for the purpose. Perhaps, still later, it became the residence of some Roman magnate, [Pg 33] who selected that fine eminence for his country villa; at any rate, there should be no difficulty in accounting for the discovery of Roman coins and implements, or even of villas, on the sites of the camps and castles of the British. Many a hard fought battle must have raged around their earthen walls. ”

“ His camp, capable of containing two full legions, the number of which he had completed, all free-born men and Roman citizens, for he had refused the slaves who flocked at first to his standard in great force, was perfectly defended, and provided with all the usual tents and divisions; so that every cohort, manipule, and century, nay every man, knew his own station.
The sun had just sunk beneath the horizon and the night watches had been set by sound of trumpets, the horsemen had been appointed for the rounds, and an outpost of light-armed soldiers pushed forward in front of all the gates. ”

“ Immediately in front of this stern mountain gateway extended a small plain, midway between the Roman camp and the Macedonian lines, and here, after a fruitless parley and attempt at accommodation, from which both parties retired so much exasperated at their mutual pertinacity, that the river, which divided them, alone prevented their personal conflict, the light troops met in action from both armies.
It is scarce to be conceived how, with such obstacles against them, the Romans could have escaped destruction ”

“ A victorious state often communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favourite leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire. ”

“ They took me away through their camp, and a mile down the dingles, where the Roman legionaries were digging fosses and making their camp in the ruddy flicker of watch-fires, under the British oaks, to a rising knoll.
Here the main body of the invaders were lying in a great crescent toward the inland, and crowning the hillock was a scarp, where a rough pavilion of skins, and sails from the vessels on the beach, had been erected. ”

“ Led on thus by the tenth legion, the whole army mutinied. They broke up the camp where they had been stationed at some distance beyond the walls of Rome, and marched toward the city. Soldiers in a mutiny, even though headed by their subaltern officers, are very little under command; and these Roman troops, feeling released from their usual restraints, committed various excesses on the way, terrifying the inhabitants and spreading universal alarm. ”

“ Now men were fleeing and being cut down in all directions, and no one had yet reached the Roman camp with tidings of the disaster because those who fled thither fell into the hands of the king's troops who were waiting for them; more were killed by those who were blocking the roads than by those who had been sent in pursuit. ”

“ Had he gone four or five miles farther on up the valley, he might have occupied the old Roman camp of Bremenium, a strong position, not sheltered from arrow-flight by trees, it is true, but protected on two sides by what in old days must have been swamps, and surrounded by a heavy wall which, even in its present condition, would be, to a defending force, a considerable protection in hand to hand fighting. ”

“ There were bright eyes, and fair forms in their camp, dependent on their victory for life, and, yet dearer, honor. So great was the terror spread through those regions by the name of Catiline, and by the outrages committed already by his barbarous banditti, that all the female nobility of the provinces, wherein the war was waging, had fled to the Roman camp, as to their only place of safety.
For all that district was ripe for insurrection; the borough towns awaited only the first sunshine of success, to join the rebellion; the rural slaves were, to a man, false at heart ”

“ The most striking proof of the discipline of the Roman armies is that after every march they were required to construct a fortified camp, laid out according to fixed rules and protected by a ditch, a wall of earth, and a palisade for which they carried the stakes. ”

“ He placed them round about Alesia and the Gallic camp, caused to be dug a circuit of deep ditches, some filled with water, others bristling with palisades and snares, and added, from interval to interval, twenty-three little forts, occupied or guarded night and day by detachments. The result was a line of investment about ten miles in extent. To the rear of the Roman camp, and for defence against attacks from without, Caesar caused to be dug similar intrenchments, which formed a line of circumvallation of about thirteen miles. The troops had provisions and forage for thirty days. ”