Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/58

40 to aim at. The personal disqualifications which Sulla had attached to all who had ever held this office were removed by a law of the orator Cotta in his consulship 75 B.C.; and another ordinance of the Dictator was repealed by the renewal of the distributions of corn to the people.

In estimating the forces with which the government had to reckon, we must not forget the newly found power of a professional soldiery. During the three generations which elapsed between the first consulship of Marius and the battle of Actium the Roman armies were organised on a principle intermediate between the militia system of the earlier Republic and the permanent standing armies of the Empire. The soldier, during this period of transition, is a volunteer and not a conscript. He is no longer a citizen serving his time in the ranks, but a professional. On the other hand he is under no permanent contract with the State, and hardly feels himself to be its servant. He has enlisted under a particular general for a particular war, which now often extends over many campaigns, and to his general alone he looks for promotion and for reward. There now comes into prominence the personal "sacramentum "or oath of military obedience which the soldier swears to his own commander. The "sacramentum" and not loyalty to the State is his point of honour, and the circumstances under which this allegiance may be lent or recalled or