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XV. Caesar, having moved forward from Auximum, traversed the whole country of Picenum. All the governors in these countries most cheerfully received him, and aided his army with every necessary. Ambassadors came to him even from Cingulum, a town which Labienus had laid out and built at his own expense, and offered most earnestly to comply with his orders. He demanded soldiers: they sent them.
Two very simple observations will, perhaps, suffice to get to the bottom of such a specious argument: The first is that the Germans in early times wore, in imitation of the Romans, "a wide belt ornamented with bosses of metal," a baldric, by which their swords were suspended on the left side; and the second is that the chroniclers of old days, who wrote in Latin and affected the classic style, very naturally adopted the word cingulum in all its acceptations, and made use of this Latin paraphrasis cingulo militari decorare to express this solemn adoption of the sword.
When it is intended to signify that a knight has been created, it is stated that the individual has been girt with the cingulum militare. Here we find ourselves in full Roman parlance, and the word signified certain terms which described admission into military service, the release from this service, and the degradation of the legionary. When St.
Martin left the militia, his action was qualified as solutio cinguli, and at all those who act like him the insulting expression militaribus zonis discincti is cast. The girdle which sustains the sword of the Roman officer cingulum zona, or rather cinctorium as also the baldric, from balteus, passed over the shoulder and was intended to support the weapon of the common soldier.
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