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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



these hill tribes raided on the plain as hill tribes 

 always do ; probably they were continually being 

 pressed down upon it by the migratory move- 

 ments of other tribes behind them. Some of 

 them seem to have been in the habit of regularly 

 swarming, like bees, under the form of the Ver 

 Sacrum. On the north, again, were the Etruscan 

 hill towns, with their lords, pirates by sea, and 

 probably marauders by land ; for the period of 

 their degenerate luxury and frivolity may be re- 

 garded as subsequent to their subjugation by the 

 Komans ; at any rate, when they first appear 

 upon the scone they are a conquering race. The 

 wars with the yEqui and Volsci have been ludi- 

 crously multiplied and exaggerated by Livy ; but, 

 even without the testimony of any historian, we 

 might assume that there would be wars with 

 them and with the other mountaineers, and also 

 with the marauding Etruscan chiefs. At the 

 same time, we may be sure that, in personal 

 strength and prowess, the men of the plain and 

 of the city would be inferior both to the moun- 

 taineers and to those Etruscan chiefs whose trade ! 

 was war. How did the men of the plain and of 

 the city manage to make up for this inferiority, 

 to turn the scale of force in their favor, and 

 ultimately to subdue both the mountaineers and 

 the Etruscans ? In the conflict with the moun- 

 taineers, something might be done by superiority 

 of weapons which superior wealth would afford. 

 But more would be done by military organization 

 and discipline. To military organization and dis- 

 cipline the Romans accordingly learned to sub- 

 mit themselves, as did the English Parliamenta- 

 rians after the experience of Edgehill, as did the 

 democracy of the Northern States of America 

 after the experience of their first campaign. At 

 the same time the Romans learned the lesson so 

 momentous, and at the same time so difficult for 

 citizen soldiers, of drawing the line between civil 

 and military life. The turbulent democracy of 

 the former, led into the field, doffed the citizen, 

 donned the soldier, and obeyed the orders of a 

 commander whom, as citizens, they detested, and 

 whom, when they were led back to the forum at 

 the end of the summer campaign, they were ready 

 again to oppose and to impeach. No doubt all this 

 part of the history has been immensely embel- 

 lished by the patriotic imagination, the heroic feat- 

 ures have been exaggerated, the harsher features 

 softened though not suppressed. Still it is im- 

 possible to question the general fact. The result 

 attests the process. The Roman legions were 

 formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, 

 who yet had been made to submit to a rigid dis- 



cipline, and to feel that in that submission lay 

 their strength. When, to keep up the siege of 

 Veii, military pay was introduced, a step was 

 taken in the transition from a citizen soldiery to 

 a regular army, such as the legions ultimately be- 

 came, with its standing discipline of the camp; 

 and that the measure should have been possible 

 is another proof that Rome was a great city with 

 a well-supplied treasury, not a collection of mud 

 huts. No doubt the habit of military discipline 

 reacted on the political character of the people, 

 and gave it the strength and self-control which 

 were so fatally wanting in the case of Florence. 



The line was drawn, under the pressure of a 

 stern necessity, between civil and military life, 

 and between the rights and duties of each. The 

 power of the magistrate, jealously limited in the 

 city, was enlarged to absolutism for the preserva- 

 tion of discipline in the field. But the distinction 

 between the king or magistrate and the general, 

 and between the special capacities required for 

 the duties of each, is everywhere of late growth. 

 We may say the same of departmental distinc- 

 tions altogether. The executive, the legislative, 

 the judicial power, civil authority, and military 

 command, all lie infolded in the same primitive 

 germ. The king, or the magistrate who takes his 

 place, is expected to lead the people in war as 

 well as to govern them in peace. In European 

 monarchies this idea still lingers, fortified, no 

 doubt, by the personal unwillingness of the kings 

 to let the military power go out of their hands. 

 Nor in early times is the difference between the 

 qualifications of a ruler and those of a com- 

 mander so great as it afterward became ; the 

 business of the state is simple, and force of 

 character is the main requisite in both cases. An- 

 nual consulships must have been fatal to stra- 

 tegical experience, while, on the other hand, they 

 would save the republic from being tied to an 

 unsuccessful general. But the storms of war 

 which broke on Rome from all quarters soon 

 brought about the recognition of special aptitude 

 for military command in the appointment of dic- 

 tators. As to the distinction between military 

 and naval ability, it is of very recent birth ; 

 Blake, Prince Rupert, and Monk, were made ad- 

 mirals because they had been successful as gen- 

 erals, just as Hannibal was appointed by Antio- 

 chus to the command of a fleet. 



At Preston Pans, as before at Killiecrankie, the 

 line of the Hanoverian regulars was broken by 

 the headlong charge of the wild clans, for which 

 the regulars were unprepared. Taught by the 

 experience of Preston Pans, the Duke of Cumber- 



