Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
It was at this period probably that the clear line of demarcation became established between the subaltern officers, who as common soldiers had to gain their place at the head of the maniples by the sword and passed by regular promotion from the lower to the higher maniples, and the military tribunes placed at the head of whole legions six to each in whose case there was no regular promotion, and for whom men of the better class were usually taken.
Recital of Polybius: "Varro placed the cavalry on the right wing, and rested it on the river; the infantry was deployed near it and on the same line, the maniples drawn close to each other, with smaller intervals than usual, and the maniples presenting more depth than front. "The cavalry of the allies, on the left wing, completed the line, in front of which were posted the light troops.
All the fury of battle, all the madness of revenge overwhelmed him in an instant; despair was gone, thoughts of past and future were swept away by the surge of one overmastering idea: he must reach that man and kill him. He looked around at the scattered, reeling maniples.
The fierce beasts galloped through the syntagmata. Some, whose legs were broken, went hopping along like wounded ostriches. The Punic infantry turned in a body upon the Barbarians, and cut them off. Their maniples wheeled about at intervals from one another.
This was a serious struggle in which Hannibal's third line alone fought. It gave way only under the attack on its rear and flank by the cavalry. In the battle of Cynoscephalae, between Philip and Flaminius, Philip pressed Flaminius with his phalanx thirty-two deep. Twenty maniples took the phalanx from behind. The battle was lost by Philip.
The three ranks were formed in the traditional manner; the spaces between the maniples were filled by slingers and archers; the whole of the cavalry was placed on the flanks.
To repel the maniples in serried circles around them, they turned about on their hind feet as they advanced, with a continual rotatory motion. The Carthaginians felt their energy increase, and the battle begin again. The Barbarians were growing weak; some Greek hoplites threw away all their arms, and terror seized upon the rest.
A nodding forest of crests, red and black, rising a cubit above the uncovered helmets of the legionaries, seemed to fill the eastern plain and extend almost to where the Adriatic beat upon the shingle. "Look at his front! Look at how closely the maniples are crushed together! Gods! they are almost 'within the rails' already." Sergius looked, and the frown upon his brow deepened.
The soldiers of the first line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, who were distributed into fifteen companies, or maniples. Each company contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield; the remainder carried only a spear and light javelins.
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking