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On swept the roar of the advancing Pompeians. What must be done must be done quickly. Drusus drove the spurs into his horse, and approached the cohorts on a headlong gallop. "Forward! I will lead you against the enemy!" No need of second command. The maniples rushed onward as though the men were runners in a race, not soldiers clothed in armour.
Start up, rush forth with zealous will, And smite the mocking Christians down!" Everything that opposed their progress was overthrown. Two maniples of foot-soldiers who held the high-road across the Bruchium attempted to turn them, but the advance of the inflamed young warriors was irresistible and they reached the street of the Caesareum and the square in front of the Prefect's residence.
Several maniples of the praetorians and of the Macedonian phalanx were already drawn up in compact ranks, to relieve guard at the gate of the imperial residence, and stand at Caesar's orders. But more attractive to the girl than all this display were a number of altars which had been erected at the extreme edge of the great square, and on each of which a fire was burning.
The Latins called these manipla; and from this these companies are even at the present day called maniples in the Roman army. Now as Remus raised a revolt within, while Romulus assailed the palace without, the despot was captured and put to death without having been able to do anything, or take any measures for his own safety.
Thus it came about, as Hannibal had planned, that the Romans were caught between two hostile lines of Libyans thanks to their impetuous pursuit of the Celts. Still they fought, tho no longer in line, yet singly or in maniples, which faced about to meet those who charged them on the flanks.
The Roman maniples followed with spirit, and easily cut their way through the enemy's line; since the Celts had been drawn up in a thin line, while the Romans had closed up from the wings toward the center and the point of danger.
As the centurion might rise from the ranks by regular gradation through the different maniples of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held out to the soldiers. It would, however, appear that the centurion received only twice the pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not therefore so much difference in rank between a private and a captain as there is in our day.
It is not impossible that the subdivision of the army and the intervals between the maniples in front were arranged with a view to resist, as they did resist, its first and only dangerous charge; and it accords with this hypothesis that Marcus Furius Camillus, the most celebrated Roman general of the Gallic epoch, is presented in various detached notices as the reformer of the Roman military system.
In front and flanks, Africans, Gauls, and Spaniards charged in unbroken lines, and soon forced the deploying but weakened maniples back into their weltering mass; in the rear, the attack was less continuous, for Hasdrubal's horsemen were exhausted with slaying, and he hurled them in alternate squadrons, now on this point, now on that, wherever the Roman line showed relics of strength or firmness.
From one end of the year to the other, what brilliant and sacred marvels passed through her hands! She was always occupied with silks, satins, velvets, or cloths of gold or silver. She embroidered chasubles, stoles, maniples, copes, dalmatics, mitres, banners, and veils for the chalice and the pyx.
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