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Rh way through the regular grades of the magistracy to the highest which was known in the State, constituted a body, which, for more than a thousand years, for talent, for weight, for wisdom and experience, was unrivalled in the history of the world. The Roman from youth to age lived in the eye of his country. To gain the favor of the arbiters of his destiny was his perpetual study and his constant endeavor. Thus from the first, every faculty was put upon the utmost stretch, and nothing was omitted through the whole course of his education which could give him eloquence before the people, valor and conduct in the field, and wisdom in the Senate. The whole nation was a sort of military school. No man could be a candidate for office until he had served his country ten years as a soldier in the camp. The result was that, by thus bending all the powers of human nature in one direction, they excelled all mankind in that art to which they were exclusively devoted. They became a nation of soldiers, and, pursuing with steady aim and untiring perseverance one exclusive object for eight centuries, they naturally became the conquerors of the world. A Roman army was the most terrible object that ever trod the earth, it was a vast human machine contrived for the subjugation of the world, instinct with intelligence, shielded from assault by an almost impenetrable armor, and animated with a courage which was best displayed in the shock of battle. When we hear of a Roman camp, we cease to wonder how that nation carried conquest from the sands of Africa to the