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Being in an enemy's country it is not enough simply to post sentries. A trench must be dug and a palisade erected round the camp, and for that purpose every soldier on the march has carried a couple of sharpened stakes and a sort of small pickaxe. It may therefore be readily understood that Scius is heavily laden.
The officer, of course, wears armour, cloak, and helmet of a more ornamental kind, and must have presented a very martial and imposing figure. Our friend Scius goes through the drill, the exercises, and the hard work already mentioned.
Those ideas would differ with the individual, being determined or varied by a number of considerations and influences by locality, education, and temperament. Silius would not hold the views of Scius and probably not those of Marcia.
The last, of course, is an extreme measure, and is only mentioned here as belonging to extreme cases. On the other hand, if Scius is a smart soldier he will gradually gain recognition as such. He may become the head man in his mess of ten; or be made an orderly, to carry the watchword round to the messes; or he may be chosen by the centurion as his subaltern.
The regiment in its turn consists of six companies or "hundreds," with a "centurion" at the head of each, and every pair of hundreds, if not every company, possesses a standard of its own, consisting of a pole topped with large medallions, metal disks, wreaths, an open hand, and other emblems. Let us imagine a certain Scius to become a private soldier in a legion.
Scius makes a practice of feeding them a modius of barley apiece for the month before they begin to breed, his purpose being to make them more productive. "Furthermore, he buys eggs and sets them under dunghill hens, transferring the young pea fowls so hatched to the shelter set apart for their kind.
In that case he may proceed to higher commands, as if he had been born in that order to which he has at last attained. But all this promotion is yet a long way off. One morning, while Scius is still a private, he hears, not the "taratantara" of the long straight trumpet which calls to ordinary work, but the sound of the military horn, which means that the legion is to march.
There is also the heavier "hurler," which works in much the same manner, but which, instead of arrows, throws stones and beams of from 14 pounds to half a hundredweight, doing effective damage up to a distance of some 400 yards. Scius joins his legion as a private infantry soldier. He is in the "hobnailed" service.
For his quarters he will be one of ten sharing the same tent under the supervision of a kind of corporal. There are no married quarters. Not only are women not permitted in the camp, but the soldier cannot legally marry during his term of service. Scius will meet with no gentle treatment while in his pupilage.
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