The second line of the maniples then in turn
marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third
line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and
was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks
and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single
mass incapable of manoeuvring; the general could form his lines
according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalae, where for the
first time the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman
legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with
hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not
remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw
themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx.
=Discipline.=--The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general
had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who
quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the
lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head;
or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves.
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