112 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period I. 



Pannonian legions and securing that position through the 

 exertions and good will of the military forces, thought it 

 his policy about the year 193 to commence the evil 

 practice of relaxing discipline in the army.^ He in- 

 creased their pay beyond what it had ever been pre- 

 viously; he instituted the custom of giving them 

 donations on occasions of public festivity, and allowed 

 them to live idly in their quarters. The officers were 

 allowed to set an example of luxury, and the general 

 tendency was soon seen in the enervation of the troops, 

 in their incapacity to endure the hardships of military 

 life, and in their growing impatience of a proper 

 subordination. 



Caracalla carried out the principle of pandering to the 

 legions to a much ^greater extent, the state being ex- 

 hausted to enrich a useless and insubordinate soldiery.^ 

 The Emperor Alexander Severus saw the ruinous laxity 

 that had crept into the army, and was very anxious to 

 restore to it some semblance of that discipline which 

 had done so much to build up the Empire. So bad, how- 

 ever, was the state of affairs, that even he was obliged 

 to pay them vevy highly, to relax the old rule by which 

 each soldier on the march carried seventeen days' pro- 

 visions on his shoulders, and to form numerous trains of 

 mules and camels to wait upon their haughty laziness.^ 

 He found it impossible to put a stop to their luxury, and 

 therefore ingeniously tried to guide it usefully into a love 

 for good arms, fine trappings, well-bred horses, and 

 shields ornamented with gold and silver. 



The laziness and degeneracy of these troops was next 

 shown in their unwillingness to bear the weight of 

 defensive armour. Vegetius, who is supposed to have 

 written under Valentinian H. in the latter part of the 

 fourth century, gives a most melancholy picture of the 

 evils existing in his day, in reference to the arms of the 

 legionaries. 



He says that, from the foundation of Rome until 

 the time of the Emperor Gratian, the Roman infantry 

 had always worn the casque and the cuirass, but that 

 1 Gibbon, i. 146. ^ lyj. IGl. ^ Ibid. 180. 





