he regular distance of three feet
was left between the files as well as ranks. [46] A body of troops,
habituated to preserve this open order, in a long front and a rapid
charge, found themselves prepared to execute every disposition which the
circumstances of war, or the skill of their leader, might suggest. The
soldier possessed a free space for his arms and motions, and sufficient
intervals were allowed, through which seasonable reenforcements might be
introduced to the relief of the exhausted combatants. [47] The tactics of
the Greeks and Macedonians were formed on very different principles. The
strength of the phalanx depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes,
wedged together in the closest array. [48] But it was soon discovered by
reflection, as well as by the event, that the strength of the phalanx
was unable to contend with the activity of the legion. [49

[Footnote 41: See an admirable digression on the Roman discipline, in
the sixth book of his History.]

[Footnote 42: Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 4, &c. Considerable
part of his very perplexed abridgment was taken from the regulations of
Trajan and Hadrian; and the legion, as he describes it, cannot suit any
other age of the Roman empire.]

[Footnote 43: Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 1. In the purer age of
Caesar and Cicero, the word miles was almost confined to the infantry.
Under the lower empire, and the times of chivalry, it was appropriated
almost as exclusively to the men at arms, who fought on horseback.]

[Footnote 44: In the time of Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
(l. v. c. 45,) the steel point of the pilum seems to have been much
longer. In the time of Vegetius, it was reduced to a foot, or even nine
inches. I have chosen a medium.]

[Footnote 45: For the legionary arms, see Lipsius de Militia Romana, l.
iii. c. 2--7.]

[Footnote 46: See the beautiful comparison of Virgil, Georgic ii. v.
279.]

[Footnote 47: M. Guichard, Memoires Militaires, tom. i. c. 4, and
Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 293--311, has treated the subject like a
scholar and an officer.]

[Footnote 48: See Arrian's Tactics. With the true partiality of a Greek,
Arrian rather chose to describe the phalanx, of which he had read, than
the legions which he had commanded.]

[Footnote 49: Polyb. l. xvii. (xviii. 9.)]

The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have remained
imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the first, as the
comp