Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/319

 STRATAGEMS, IV. i. 8-14

such a way that each man took his place where he wished, the most cowardly retiring to the rear, the bravest rushing to the front. He thereupon assigned to each man, for the campaign, the same position in which he had found him.^

Lysander, the Spartan, once flogged a soldier who had left the ranks while on the march. When the man said that he had not left the line for the purpose of pillage, Lysander retorted : " I won't have you look as if you were going to pillage. "

Antigonus, hearing that his son had taken lodgings at the house of a woman who had three handsome daughters, said : " I hear, son, that your lodgings are cramped, owing to the number of mistresses in charge of your house. Get roomier quarters." Having commanded his son to move, he issued an edict that no one under fifty years of age should take lodgings with the mother of a family. ^

The consul Quintus Metellus, although not pre- vented by law from having his son with him as a regular tent-mate, yet preferred to have him serve in the ranks. ^

The consul Publius Rutilius, though he might by law have kept his son in his own tent, made him a soldier in the legion.*

Marcus Scaurus forbade his son to come into his presence, since he had retreated before the enemy in the Tridentine Pass. Overwhelmed by the shame of this disgrace, the young man committed suicide.'^

In ancient times the Romans and other peoples used to make their camps like groups of Punic huts, distributing the troops here and there by cohorts, since the men of old were not acquainted with walls

« 105 B.C. s 102 B.C. Cf. Val. Max. v. viii. 4.

273

VOL. I. T