143 



were divided by another 50 feet alley from the quarters of the allies, of whom the 

 cavalry were opposite to the Hastati, and the infantry beyond them, looking upon 

 the rampart. We have thus, as we pass up the central alley, on each side of us 

 three blocks of military quarters for men and horses, divided by two alleys in 

 addition to the central one, i.e., five in all, and we emerge on a transverse street 

 50 feet wide, running of course parallel with the Principia, called Via Quintana, 

 because the troop or maniple quartered next to it, was in each case the fifth of its 

 kind in the legion. We recognise the name under its French dress of confine, and 

 our own of canteen, though in a sense very different from that of the original, 

 though probably connected with it. Crossing the Via Quintana, and following 

 the central alley in the same direction as before, we find on each side an exact 

 repetition of the same arrangement as before, viz. : on each side cavalry and in- 

 fantry of the legions and of the allies in the same number of blocks, and ending, 

 of course, with the 10th troop and 10th maniple of each arm of the force, from 

 which cause the entrance at the further end on which we emerge bore the name of 

 Porta Decumana, and which was exactly opposite to the Porta Prsetoria by which 

 we entered the camp. 



Supposing that the force consisted of two legions with allies, the whole space 

 occupied would probably be about 92 or 93 acres of ground. 



The camp, which I ha\e attempted to describe, was an ordinary one of a 

 temporary kind, and the soldiers' tents were of canvas ; but when a longer stay 

 in camp was intended, the shelter was of a more solid kind ; tents covered with 

 skins, or even huts of turf or stone were erected, roofed with thatch, which, on one 

 occasion at least, as Ca>sar describes, was turned into a means of serious annoy- 

 ance and real danger to the defenders of a winter camp in Gaul, for the assailants, 

 like the Zulus at Rorke's IJrift, succeeded in setting the thatch on fire. Their 

 stationary camjis (castra stativa) sometimes developed into permanent stations, and 

 even grew into towns, but the care taken by the Romans in the original construc- 

 tion of their camp has left their mark on many places on which no permanent 

 buildings of Roman origin were subsequently, so far as we know, erected. 

 Stationary camps were fortified in a more solid manner than those which were 

 only temporary. Towers were placed at intervals witli military engines between 

 them, and these towers, Josephus tells us, were set on fire when the army broke 

 up its quarters for departure. 



Such was the Roman camp in its earlier form, but in later times many 

 alterations were introduced, thougli some of the most imjjortant features of the 

 original were preserved, and more attention appears to have been paid to the 

 health and comfort of the soldiers, and spaces allotted for various purposes of 

 which no mention is made in earlier times. In one most important point the later 

 fell far short of the earlier, viz., in the total space afforded to the troops, of whom 

 a much larger number were assembled in a much smaller enclosure. A writer 

 named Hyginus, by profession a Gromaticus, that is, a military surveyor, has 

 given in very crabbed language a minute description of what it was in the time 

 of Hadrian, that is, about a.d. 130. I shall not attempt to enter into any elucid- 

 ation of his treatise, which would occupy too much time to accomplish, except 



