Probably these last vestiges of independent organization and control were swept away at the time of the reorganization of the Rhine army in 70, after the rebellion of Civilis. From this date onward there are at any rate few traces here or elsewhere of any use of irregulars of this type by the military authorities. This militia, which might have proved invaluable in the days to come as a national reserve, fell a victim, together with the local autonomy on which it was based, to the growing tendency towards centralization which marks the first and second centuries. The supersession of local officials by the agents of a centralized bureaucracy in the civil administration coincides with the complete transference of the burden of the defence of the state to the shoulders of a professional army. It is the purpose of the following chapters to discuss one part of this army, the auxilia, to trace its organization and the part which it played in frontier defence, and to illustrate from this study the lines on which the military system of the Empire developed and the causes of its failure.
[1] Livy, xxii. 37 ‘Milite atque equite scire nisi Romano Latinique nominis non uti populum Romanum: levium armorum auxilia etiam externa vidisse in castris Romanis’. Cf. Polybius, iii. 75.
[2] Cf. Varro, _De Lat. ling._ v. 90 ‘auxilium appellatum ab auctu, quum accesserant ei qui adiumento essent alienigenae’. Festus, _Epit._ 17 ‘auxiliares dicuntur in bello socii Romanorum exterarum nationum’.
[5] Plutarch, _Vit. C. Gracchi_ 16; Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ ii. 7.
[6] The famous occasion when Caesar, distrusting his auxiliaries, mounted some of the tenth legion, proves conclusively that he had then no citizen cavalry in his army. Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ i. 42.
[9] See Dr. T. Ashby’s article in the _Classical Review_ for August 1909, and _A. E._ 1911, n. 126, for a further fragment of the text.
[10] Cf. Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ vii. 13 ‘Germanos equites circiter CCCC summittit, quos ab initio habere secum instituerat’, and c. 65 of the same book.
[11] _Auct. de bell. Afr._ 6 ‘Accidit res incredibilis, ut equites minus xxx Galli Maurorum equitum duo milia loco pellerent’.
[13] The First Mithridatic War is a very good example.