secure good commanders. It is conjectured that some time before the destruction of Carthage the enactment was made stricter, and it was declared conformably to Livy's Epitome, as some read it, that no man should be re-elected to a magistratus. In confirmation of this reading of the Epitome two passages are cited from the grammarians, which contain a few words from a speech of Cato the censor, apparently in support of such a lex, that no man should be elected consul twice (ne quis consul bis fieret; ne quis iterum consul fiat). Consistently with this we find no instance of a man being twice consul from Scipio's second consulship to the second consulship of C. Marius.

In B.C. 147 Scipio had been elected consul to conduct the war against Carthage though he was only in his thirty-eighth year and had not attained the age which the Lex Villia or Annalis required in a candidate for the consulship. Scipio was elected consul for B.C. 134 a second time without seeking the office, and his colleague was C. Fulvius Flaccus. As more than ten years had passed since he was consul for the first time, the enactment as to the ten years would not apply to him, and thus it seems conclusively settled that a man at this time was not re-eligible to the consulship. As far as we can discover the reason of this rule, it was not so much the fear of a citizen usurping power and destroying the constitution, as the mutual jealousy of the nobles and of all those who aspired to the highest honours of the state. Every man of noble family expected to be consul some time, and the reelection of a man better than himself or of a plebeian candidate would spoil his prospects. The Romans did not elect Scipio in violation of the law, which would have been a revolutionary act quite opposed to Roman notions of respect for constitutional rules. To render him eligible he was exempted from the restrictions of the law by a special enactment. 'Legibus solutus est,' as the Romans expressed it, which means that a man is exempted from the provisions of a certain Lex or certain Leges. Appian has here made a great mistake. He He says that Scipio at the time of his second election was below the age required in a consul; but this was only the case when he was elected for B.c. 147, and on that

occasion also he was 'legibus solutus.' When it was necessary, the Romans knew how to find the man whom they wanted and to make general rules bend to circumstances. Appian's conception of the way in which Scipio's second election was managed is very confused, and he appears not to have understood it.

The Senate gave the province of Spain to Scipio, and sent his colleague to look after the slave war in Sicily. All the rest of the empire was quiet. There had been disturbance in Macedonia, but it was checked by a victory which the praetor M. Cosconius gained over the Scordisci. The Senate would not allow Scipio to raise any new soldiers from those whose names were on the muster rolls: they said that men were wanted elsewhere; and it is likely enough that the supply of men was falling short, for the Spanish wars had for many years been devouring the children of Italy, and men were wanted for the slave war in Sicily. It is probable too that the Senate were afraid to take any more conscripts for the Spanish war, which had been so disastrous and was unpopular. It was true too that there were still soldiers in Spain, and a general was wanted there rather than men. Nor, it is said, did the Senate supply Scipio with any money except by giving him orders on the revenues which were not due, which probably means that he was empowered to draw on the Publicani in Spain. He was permitted however to take volunteers from any of the states and kings in alliance with Rome. He also took his own clients and friends from Rome to the number of five hundred, whom he formed into one company and named it the band of friends. It was in fact a body guard, which he needed for the difficult work that he had to accomplish before he could act against the enemy. Scipio raised in all about four thousand men, whom he gave to his quaestor, Fabius Buteo, the son of Scipio's brother Q. Fabius Maximus to conduct to Spain after him. Scipio set out immediately with a few men and hurried to his Spanish army, which was entirely disorganized. He knew well that he must be the master of his own men and reduce them to discipline, before he could conquer the enemy. Scipio's predecessors in Spain had destroyed the efficiency of the army by allowing

the Roman discipline to be relaxed. The war had often been conducted contrary to those principles which long experience and good sense had established among the Romans. Machiavelli in his seven books on the Art of War has explained what these principles are, by which a prudent general saves his own men and defeats the enemy. If we may form a conclusion from the space occupied in Livy's Epitome (57) with the notice of Scipio's reforms, the original must have contained several chapters on the severe measures which he adopted to restore discipline. Appian also has taken the pains to collect from his authorities many curious particulars on this matter. Scipio began by driving away all the merchants who followed the camp, for these were the men who helped to corrupt the soldiers by the sale of articles of luxury. He cleared the camp of two thousand women, who followed the army. They were prostitutes and we may assume, Spanish women. It is certain that the Romans never allowed Italian women to accompany their soldiers on foreign expeditions. He sent off the soothsayers also and the men who superintended sacrifices, for the soldiers after their numerous defeats had become superstitious and frequently consulted these cunning knaves. He ordered the waggons to be sold with all the useless things which were carried in them, and the beasts of burden too, except such as he allowed to be retained; for he rightly considered that an army could not be efficient, when it was encumbered with things which belonged to the men. Each soldier was allowed for his cooking a spit, a metal pot and a single cup. Their food was meat boiled and roasted. He allowed no bedsteads in the army. The men lay on hard mats, and Scipio set the example himself. On their marches they had been used to ride on mules, but Scipio dismounted them all, asking what was the use of a soldier who could not walk. Those who used baths and were rubbed with oil were compelled to do it themselves without the help of slaves. The general had a rough tongue and was fond of sharp sayings and jokes. He told his men that mules had no hands and must therefore be rubbed down by others, but men could rub themselves. He exercised his soldiers in marching, fording rivers and in hard

work. Every man was required to carry thirty days' food and seven stakes for the vallum of the encampments. He flogged the men who were found straggling: a Roman was beaten with a vine-stock; one not a Roman with a heavier stick. But he reformed his army less by punishment than by inuring the men to labour, sobriety, and obedience, and he himself was an example of the virtues which he required in others. He kept himself aloof and was slow to grant favours, especially against rule. He taught his men to respect and fear him. It was his maxim that severe commanders who adhered strictly to rules did the best service to their own troops, while those who were easy kind of men and liberal did the best service to the enemy; for the generals who were less strict pleased their men, it is true, but then the men would not obey them, while the others, though they did not keep their men in such good humour, always found them ready to obey orders and to undertake any thing.

The military discipline of the Romans made them the conquerors of the world, but we read occasionally of armies in foreign parts being entirely spoiled by the inefficiency of their commanders. This was one of the weak parts in the Roman system, the impossibility of preventing incompetent men from leading the troops of the Republic, for men, as already observed, were entitled to have military commands by virtue of their office. The reform of the army by Scipio under these difficult circumstances is a proof of his talent, and gives him one of the first places among the great soldiers of Rome.

Among those who accompanied Scipio to the Spanish war was P. Sempronius Asellio, who served as a tribune and wrote a history of the campaign. Asellio is probably one of the writers from whom the later historians drew, and Appian may have followed Asellio in describing the caution of Scipio in dealing with such an army as he had. He could not yet venture to fight with it. He moved about the open country, compelling his men to make their camp daily and then demolish it. He employed them in digging trenches and filling them up again, and in building walls and demolishing them. He was always looking on from morning to night.

He marched in the 'agmen quadratum,' a form in which straggling was nearly impossible and the army was always ready for battle. On the march he used to ride about, and was often in the rear, ordering those who were disabled by sickness to mount on horseback and the riders to dismount; and when the mules were too heavily loaded, he would distribute part of the burden among the men. He carefully observed the old Roman practice in choosing the ground for his camp. Those who first arrived at the place took up their position about the ground which was marked out, and a body of cavalry kept riding round it. The rest as they came had their work assigned to them: some dug the ditch, others worked at the vallum, and others again set up the tents. The time was fixed; every division had its work measured out; and so the whole was soon finished. When Scipio judged his men to be ready for action, he approached Numantia, but he did not divide his troops nor yet attack the enemy, who still despised the Romans. He waited for his opportunity and to see what the Numantini would do. He cleared all the forage out of the country that he passed through, and secured the corn by cutting it before it was quite ripe. As he was still advancing and wished to reach a certain plain country, his friends advised him to take the short road past Numantia; but Scipio said he was afraid, if he took that road, that he should not be able to return, for the troops of the Numantini would be unencumbered, they would sally from their town to attack him and then retreat to it, while the Romans would be embarassed by the material which they had got in foraging and exhausted by their labours and they would have their beasts and waggons and every thing else to look after thus the contest, he said, would be on disadvantageous terms to the Romans and unequal, for if they were beaten, the danger would be great, and if they got the victory, it would be neither glorious nor profitable: it was a foolish thing to run risk for a small matter: a careless general would fight a battle before it was necessary; but a good general fought only when he must fight. This was a maxim which Scipio had learned from his father Paulus, as Asellio quoted by Gellius reports it, that a good general did not