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FLAVIUS
VEGETIUS RENATUS BOOK ONE INITIAL TRAINING The first thing the soldiers are to be taught is the military step, which can only be acquired by constant practice of marching quick and together. Nor is anything of more consequence either on the march or in the line than that they should keep their ranks with the greatest exactness. For troops who march in an irregular and disorderly manner are always in great danger of being defeated. They should march with the common military step twenty miles in five summer-hours, and with the full step, which is quicker, twenty-four miles in the same number of hours. If they exceed this pace, they no longer march but run, and no certain rate can be assigned. But the young recruits in particular must be exercised in running, in order to charge the enemy with great vigor; occupy, on occasion, an advantageous post with greater expedition, and prevent the enemy in their designs upon the same; that they may, when sent to reconnoiter, advance with speed, return with greater celerity and more easily come up with the enemy in a pursuit. Leaping is another very
necessary exercise, to enable them to pass ditches or embarrassing eminences of
any kind without trouble or difficulty. There is also another very material advantage
to be derived from these exercises in time of action; for a soldier who advances
with his javelin running and leaping, dazzles the eyes of his adversary, strikes
him with terror, and gives him the fatal stroke before he has time to put himself
on his defense. Sallust, speaking of the excellence of Pompey the Great in these
particulars, tells us that he disputed the superiority in leaping with the most
active, in running with the most swift, and in exercises of strength with the
most robust. Nor would he ever have been able to have opposed Serrorius with success,
if he had not prepared both himself and his soldiers for action by continual exercises
of this sort.
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