They were men more completely trained in
every variety of accomplishment than have perhaps ever followed a general
into the field before or since. It was not enough that they could use
sword and lance. The campaign on which Caesar was about to enter was
fought with spade and pick and axe and hatchet. Corps of engineers he may
have had; but if the engineers designed the work, the execution lay with
the army. No limited department would have been equal to the tasks which
every day demanded. On each evening after a march, a fortified camp was to
be formed, with mound and trench, capable of resisting surprises, and
demanding the labor of every single hand. Bridges had to be thrown over
rivers. Ships and barges had to be built or repaired, capable of service
against an enemy, on a scale equal to the requirements of an army, and in
a haste which permitted no delay. A transport service there must have been
organized to perfection; but there were no stores sent from Italy to
supply the daily waste of material. The men had to mend and perhaps make
their own clothes and shoes, and repair their own arms. Skill in the use
of tools was not enough without the tools themselves. Had the spades and
mattocks been supplied by contract, had the axes been of soft iron, fair
to the eye and failing to the stroke, not a man in Caesar's army would
have returned to Rome to tell the tale of its destruction.
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