rit of the
burgesses suffered from this conversion of war into a traffic in
plunder, may be traced in the campaigns against Perseus; and the
spread of cowardice was manifested in a way almost scandalous during
the insignificant Istrian war (in 576). On occasion of a trifling
skirmish magnified by rumour to gigantic dimensions, the land army
and the naval force of the Romans, and even the Italians, ran off
homeward, and Cato found it necessary to address a special reproof to
his countrymen for their cowardice. In this too the youth of quality
took precedence. Already during the Hannibalic war (545) the censors
found occasion to visit with severe penalties the remissness of those
who were liable to military service under the equestrian census.
Towards the close of this period (574?) a decree of the people
prescribed evidence of ten years' service as a qualification for
holding any public magistracy, with a view to compel the sons of
the nobility to enter the army.

Title-Hunting

But perhaps nothing so clearly evinces the decay of genuine pride and
genuine honour in high and low alike as the hunting after insignia and
titles, which appeared under different forms of expression, but with
substantial identity of character, among all ranks and classes. So
urgent was the demand for the honour of a triumph that there was
difficulty in upholding the old rule, which accorded a triumph only
to the ordinary supreme magistrate who augmented the power of the
commonwealth in open battle, and thereby, it is true, not unfrequently
excluded from that honour the very authors of the most important
successes. There was a necessity for acquiescence, while those
generals, who had in vain solicited, or had no prospect of attaining,
a triumph from the senate or the burgesses, marched in triumph on
their own account at least to the Alban Mount (first in 523). No
combat with a Ligurian or Corsican horde was too insignificant to be
made a pretext for demanding a triumph. In order to put an end to the
trade of peaceful triumphators, such as were the consuls of 574, the
granting of a triumph was made to depend on the producing proof of a
pitched battle which had cost the lives of at least 5000 of the enemy;
but this proof was frequently evaded by false bulletins--already in
houses of quality many an enemy's armour might be seen to glitter,
which had by no means come thither from the field of battle. While
formerly the commander-in-chief o