FLAVIUS VEGETIUS RENATUS "MILITARY MATTERS" BOOK ONE The Selection and Training of New Levies Table of Contents | The Library | Next AND TO CARRY BURDENS To accustom soldiers to carry burdens is also an essential part of discipline. Recruits in particular should be obliged frequently to carry a weight of not less than sixty pounds (exclusive of their arms), and to march with it in the ranks. This is because on difficult expeditions they often find themselves under the necessity of carrying their provisions as well as their arms. Nor will they find this troublesome when inured to it by custom, which makes everything easy. Our troops in ancient times were a proof of this, and Virgil has remarked it in the following lines: The Roman soldiers, bred in war's alarms, Bending with unjust loads and heavy arms, Cheerful their toilsome marches undergo, And pitch their sudden camp before the foe. Table of Contents | Next Home | The Library | The Temple | Top of Page Site Map Copyright © 1999 - 2004 Sonshi.com. All Rights Reserved.