TSASOGB - reading list for brits

Any such settlement would have disqualified Cromwell from receiving the Blood-Money
promised him by the International Money-Barons through their agent E. Pratt, so Cromwell
struck again. He ordered Colonel Pryde to purge Parliament of those members who had voted
in favour of a settlement with the King. What then happened is referred to, in school history
books, as Pryde’s Purge.
When the purge was finished fifty members remained. They are
recorded as The Rump Parliament. They usurped absolute power. On January 9th, 1649,
“A HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE” was proclaimed for the purpose of putting the king of England on
trial. Two thirds of the members of the Court were “Levellers” from Cromwell’s Army. The
conspirators couldn’t find an English lawyer who would draw up a criminal charge against King
Charles. Carvajal, instructed an alien Jew, Isaac Dorislaus, Manasseh Ben Israel’s Agent in
England, to draw up the indictment upon which King Charles was tried. Charles was found
guilty of the charges levelled against him by the International Jewish money-lenders, not by the
people of England.
On January 30th, 1649, he was publicly beheaded in front of the Banqueting
House at Whitehall London. The Jewish money-lenders, directed by the High Priests of the
Synagogue of Satan, had had their revenge because Edward I had expelled the Jews from
England. Oliver Cromwell received his Blood-Money just as Judas had done.

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History proves that the International Jewish money-lenders had a purpose other than revenge for
getting rid of Charles. They removed him to obtain control of England’s economy and
government. They planned to involve many European countries in war with England. Great
sums of money are needed to fight wars. By loaning the Crowned Heads of Europe the money
required to fight wars they fomented, the Internationalists were enabled to rapidly increase the
National Debts of all European Nations.
The chronological sequence of events from the execution of King Charles in 1649 to the
institution of the Bank of England in 1694, shows how the National Debt was increased. The
International Bankers used intrigue and cunning to throw Christians at each others throats.

1649 Cromwell financed by Jews, waged war in Ireland. Captures Drogheda and Wexford.
British Protestants blamed for persecution of Irish Catholics.

1650 Montrose in rebellion against Cromwell. Captured and executed.

1651 Charles II invades England. Defeated and flees back to France.

1652 England involved in war with Dutch.

1653 Cromwell proclaims himself Lord Protector of England

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1654 England involved in more wars.

1656 Trouble started in American Colonies.

1657 Death of Cromwell — Son Richard named Protector.

1659 Richard, disgusted with intrigue, resigns.

1660 General Monk occupies London Charles II proclaimed King.

1661 Truth revealed regarding intrigue entered into by Cromwell and his cohorts Ireton, and
Bradshaw, causes serious public reaction. Bodies are exhumed and hung from gallows on Tyburn
Hill, London.

1662 Religious strife is engendered to divide members of the Protestant denominations. Non-
Conformists to the established Church of England are persecuted.

1664 England is again involved in war with Holland.

1665 A great depression settles over England. Unemployment and shortages of food undermine the
health of the people and the Great Plague breaks out.
[20]

1666 England involved in war with France and Holland.

1667 Cabal agents start new religious and political strife.

1674 England and Holland make Peace. The men directing international intrigue change their
characters. They become matchmakers. They elevate plain Mr. William Stradholder to the rank of Captain-General of the Dutch Forces. He became William Prince of Orange. It was arranged that he meet Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York. The Duke was only one place removed
from becoming King of England.

1677 Princess Mary of England married William Prince of Orange. To place William Prince of
Orange upon the Throne of England it was necessary to get rid of both Charles II, and the Duke of York, who was slated to become James II.

1683 The Rye House Plot was hatched. The intention was to assassinate both King Charles II and the Duke of York. It failed.

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1685 King Charles II died. The Duke of York became King James II of England. Immediately a campaign of L’Infamie was started against James II. The Duke of Monmouth was persuaded, or bribed, into leading an insurrection to overthrow the king. On June 30th, the Battle of Sedgemoor was fought. Monmouth was defeated and captured. He was executed July 15th. In August Judge
Jeffreys opened, what historians have named, “The Bloody Assizes”. Over three hundred persons concerned in the Monmouth Rebellion were sentenced to death under circumstances of atrocious cruelty. Nearly one thousand others were condemned to be sold as slaves. This was a typical example of how the Secret Powers, working behind the scenes, create conditions for which other people are blamed. Others are aroused to take active opposition against those they blame. They in
turn are liquidated. King James still had to be disposed of before William of Orange could be
placed on the throne to carry out their mandate. Every person in England was bewitched and
bewildered. They were not allowed to know the truth. They blamed everyone, and everything
except the “Secret Powers” who were pulling the strings. Then the conspirators made their next move.

1688 They ordered William Prince of Orange to land in England at Torbay. This he did on
November 5th. King James abdicated. He fled to France. He had become unpopular by reason of the campaign of L’Infamie, intrigue and his own foolishness and culpability.

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1689 William of Orange and Mary, were proclaimed King and Queen of England. King James did not intend to give up the Throne without a fight. He was a Catholic, so the
Secret Powers set up William of Orange as the Champion of the Protestant Faith. On February 15th, 1689, King James landed in Ireland. The Battle of The Boyne was fought by men of definite, and opposing, religious convictions. The Battle has been celebrated by Orangemen on the 12th of July ever since. There is probably not one Orangeman in ten thousand who knows that all the wars and rebellions fought from 1640 to 1689 were fomented by the International money-lenders for the purpose of putting themselves in position to control British politics and economy. Their first objective was to obtain permission to institute a Bank of England and consolidate and secure the debts Britain awed them for loans made to her to fight the wars they instigated. History shows how they completed their plans.
In the final analysis, none of the countries and people involved in the wars and revolutions
obtained any lasting benefits. No permanent or satisfactory solution was reached regarding the
political, economic, and religious issues involved. THE ONLY PEOPLE TO BENEFIT WERE THE SMALL GROUP OF MONEY-LENDERS WHO FINANCED THE WARS AND REVOLUTIONS, AND THEIR FRIENDS AND AGENTS, WHO SUPPLIED THE ARMIES, THE SHIPS, AND THE MUNITIONS

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It is important to remember that no sooner was the Dutch General sitting upon the throne of
England than he persuaded the British Treasury to borrow £1,250,000 from the Jewish bankers who had put him there. The school book history informs our children that the negotiations were conducted by Sir John Houblen and Mr. William Patterson on behalf of the British Government with money-lenders WHOSE IDENTITY REMAINED SECRET.
Search of historical documents reveals that in order to maintain complete secrecy the
negotiations regarding the terms of the loan were carried on in a church. In the days of Christ the money-lenders used the Temple. In the days of William of Orange they desecrated a church.
The international money-lenders agreed to accommodate the British Treasury to the extent of £1,250,000 providing they could dictate their own terms and conditions. This was agreed to.
The terms were in part :
1. That the names of those who made the loan remain secret; and that they be granted a Charter to establish a Bank of England.

2. That the directors of the Bank of England be granted the legal right to establish the Gold
Standard for currency by which —

3. They could make loans to the value of £10 for every £1 value of gold they had on deposit in their vaults.

4. That they be permitted to consolidate the national debt; and secure payment of amounts due as principal and interest by direct taxation of the people.
Thus, for the sum of £1,250,000, King William of Orange sold the people of England into
economic bondage. The Jewish money-lenders gained their ambitions. They had usurped the
power to issue and control the currency of the nation. And, having secured that power, they
cared not who made the laws.

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Just what the acceptance of the Gold Standard meant is best illustrated by citing a simple
transaction. — The directors of the Bank of England could loan £1,000 for every £100 worth of gold they had on deposit as security. They collected interest on the full £1,000 loan. At 5 per cent this amounted to £50 a year. Therefore at the end of the first year the bankers collected back 50 per cent of the amount they had originally put up to secure the loan. If a private individual wished to obtain a loan, the bankers made him put up security, in the form of property, stocks, or bonds, much in excess of the value of the loan he required. If he failed to meet payments of principal and interest, foreclosure proceedings were taken against his property, and the moneylenders obtained many times the value of the loan.
The international bankers never intended that England be allowed to pay off the national
indebtedness. The plan was to create international conditions which would plunge
ALL nations concerned deeper and deeper into their debt.
As far as England is concerned, in only four years, 1694 to 1698, the national debt was
increased from one to sixteen million pounds sterling. This debt accumulated because of wars.
It is interesting to note that John Churchill, 1650-1722, became the leading military figure
during this period of English history. Because of his military genius, and his services to Britain,
he was created the first Duke of Marlborough.

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The Secret Power behind the World Revolutionary Movement pulled the necessary strings and
brought about The Wars of the Spanish Succession. In 1701 the Duke of Marlborough was
made Commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Holland. No less an authority than the Jewish
Encyclopedia records the fact that FOR HIS MANY SERVICES THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH
RECEIVED NOT LESS THAN £6,000 A YEAR FROM THE DUTCH JEWISH BANKER, SOLOMON MEDINA.
The events leading up to the French Revolution show how between 1698 and 1815 the National
Debt of Britain was increased to £885,000,000. By 1945 the British National Debt had reached
the astronomical figure of £22,503,532,372, and for the years 1945-46 the carrying charges
alone amounted to £445,446,241. As an Irish economist remarked “Only a Jewish controlled
organization would insist on the odd pound.”

jesus-is-savior.com/Evils in Government/Communism/pawnsinthegame.pdf

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TAP. In 1815 paper money was introduced – all that “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of One Pound Sterling” stuff. A pound of sterling meant one pound or 16 ounces of sterling silver. 16 ounces of silver could also be exchanged for one ounce of gold. In other words, in 1815, a pound was worth an ounce of gold, payable in silver.
Two hundred years later, you need about 960 Pounds to buy an ounce of gold. Our currency has been inflated by 960 times. That’s the measure of our impoverishment. Add to that the arrival of Income Tax during the Napoleonic Wars, and Inheritance Tax in WW1, which is payable at 40% of whatever money we have left after our wealth’s been destroyed by inflation. Our enslavement is first of all financial, courtesy of Oliver Cromwell, and the continuing power of The Bank Of England to control our money.
If we ever get free of the EU, we should be rushing to introduce sound money and be free of the Bank Of England in the next phase. Since the 1640s the rest of the world has been so enslaved by the banks, apart from the very few countries who are left outside the central banking system, which are all war targets of the US/NATO. Some like Russia are trying to break free. Good luck to them. If they can make it out, then maybe others might follow. The Satanists will do everything they can to stop anyone breaking free.

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ok thats the first link out the way. time for the 2nd link. this one is of importance because it is important to understand the mind and philosophy of Julius Evola in regards to his work that is spoken.

What I am about to say does not concern the ordinary man of our day. On the contrary, I have in mind the man who finds himself involved in today’s world, even at its most problematic and paroxysmal points; yet he does not belong inwardly to such a world, nor will he give in to it. He feels himself, in essence, as belonging to a different race from that of the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries. — Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), Baron Julius Evola, Introduction.

This is an essay about Evola, but I’ll spare the biographical details save to say he was Italian, an aristocrat, and a dissident fascist.
He was a dissident fascist because his views on life and politics were idiosyncratic enough to anger both the Italian Fascists and the National Socialists.
As for the rest, well, you all know Wikipedia, you bovine conformists.

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Evola is currently a fasces to beat Steve Bannon with. Apparently, Bannon mentioned Evola in a political talk a while back, and the journalists are taking this as evidence Bannon is a blackshirt.
Whether or not this is true and what exactly Bannon said about Evola is not my concern. The significance lies in the fact that Evola has been brought up by the media at all. He also seems to be a hit with the alt-right and neo-reactionaries — and, of course, he was always a hit with the neo-fascists.
So, why Evola? Why now?
Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul
The title makes this book sound suspiciously like a self-help title: Black is the New Black: How Italian fascism can organise your love, life and work in under thirty days.
But it’s not.
It’s quite the opposite. A self-help book aims to show an atomised consumer how to become a more productive, happy (whatever that means), and well-balanced little utilitarian unit using the latest gimcrack ideas from psychology — or whichever social science is popular this week.
This very much not Evola. At all.
What is Evola interested in then? The answer comes from the musical Fiddler on the Roof — obviously.
As the milkman Tevye sings in the opening number:
“Tradition, tradition… Tradition. Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many, many years… Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”
Tradition, the Tradition that has been lost in modernity, is what Evola lives for.

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For Evola, Tradition (capital ‘T’) is a transcendental and hierarchical condition that takes many different civilizational and historical forms.
An illustration: If one thinks about the mediaeval knight and samurai warrior one quickly realises that these chaps had little in common in their costume, ways of making war, and religion. And yet, we can see there is a similarity in their warrior ethic and chivalry.
These are Traditional fellows.
But all that is Traditional has been wiped away by capitalism, revolution, secularism, liberalism, communism, socialism, industrialisation, democracy, the middle class, the working class, bureaucrats, feminism, two global mechanised wars, science, and the Enlightenment — by every movement that seeks to level down human experience to the mundane, the democratic, and the materialistic as opposed to the vital, elitist, and spiritual.
Yes, Evola is the original Italian Taliban.
Evola asks the question: What is a Traditional person to do standing among the ruins at a time when every bastion of Traditionalism has been stormed, ransacked, and looted?
His despair is profound. This is not mere conservatism. Evola does not look to the bourgeois for salvation. The bourgeois did away with the aristocracy, the bourgeois championed democracy and liberalism — and for Evola this is merely a dialectic that works towards communism.

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An Evola-ite would look at Margaret Thatcher and Vladimir Lenin and see them as two parts in the same dialectical movement — both revolutionary egalitarians of different sorts, both determined to uproot and destroy long-standing traditions. The tools — Marxian socialism and neo-liberalism — differ, but the movement is the same.
This is why Evola is hard to grasp for people used to thinking about politics through the contemporary media narrative. He does not fit within the left-right dichotomy where most people live. For him all those streneuous, vein bursting arguments on Twitter between the Corbynistas and Mayites or Trumpers and Hillary-bots are merely a family squabble.
Evola is so Olympian that when he looks down on Democrats and Republicans or Labour and Conservatives he sees not two deadly rivals but one organism.
That organism disgusts him.
He wants to bring a highly polished riding boot down upon it with exceeding force.
But he can’t do it. Tradition is too weak.

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Kali Yuga, not Cali Yoga
History is like a washing machine for Evola; it moves in cycles, and the bad news is that we have reached the dark ages.
Kali Yuga — a term taken from Hinduism — is where Evola sees the contemporary world.
It means “the age of vice”.
This is confounding, for Western societies are accustomed to think in terms of progress. Are not our cars better than three decades ago? Are not our drugs more potent? Are not women freer? Are not gays liberated? Have you seen Netflix? What about the Internet?
Evola quietly rolls his eyes at this so-called progress. It is true, he would concede, that we have developed many potent tricks.
Tricks are just tricks, though.
But modernity is really a solvent, which dissolves everything before us. The scientific method is powerful, but it is provisional — new evidence refines a theory decade-on-decade. Everyone is sceptical and provisional. This extends to our buildings, our disposable consumer products, and our inert one-night stands.
This is the Age of Aquarius, which is a fluid and formless state. The Internet itself embodies our formless age: a photo on Snapchat is there for a second before being wiped away. A drop down menu allows us to change our country location with a few clicks.

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There’s nothing to be done, says Evola. He is not suggesting that Traditionalists form political parties or take direct action to halt Kali Yuga.
That type of thinking in itself is only possible in the age of Kali Yuga.
Evola is inviting us to participate a political mindset similar to a terminal cancer patient in preparation for death. This is why it is slightly ridiculous to worry that Steve Bannon is influenced by Evola. Evola’s philosophy regards Bannon and Trump as being rather muscular arms of Kali, not agents of salvation.
There is nothing to be done, even if the Trump administration was thoroughly convinced that Evola’s analysis was correct. The analysis itself precludes constructive action to undo the world as it stands.
If Kali Yuga had a herald it would be Nietzsche. This wild mountain man looked at utilitarian, scientific Victorianism and despaired. The search for truth that started with the Christian commandment not to lie spawned science, democracy, and socialism.
And also spawned the idea that underlies that trinity: nihilism.
So thorough going has the moral commitment to truth-telling been that Christianity ate itself. Homer praised wily Odysseus the outrageous liar, while Christian societies sought only the truth – and nothing but.
Now the pursuit of truth has liquefied its own foundations by questioning the moral imperative to truth: Christianity itself.
What is left is the scientific worldview (which by its very nature is open to revision), utilitarian politics (also capricious), and the pursuit of animal pleasures with no higher purpose.
This is nihilism. This is Kali Yuga.

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Evola agrees with the Marxist Herbert Marcuse that even the secularised Christian religion of Marxism has ground to a halt. The proletariat have become bourgeois, the proletariat want an iPad – and they want it last week.
Marcuse and Evola saw the Soviet and capitalist worlds as head and tail to a common coin: the technocratic, planned, and bureaucratised system.
For Marcuse resistance to the system could come from marginalised racial groups, the lumpenproletariat, and the undeveloped world.
For Evola this is illusion. The revolution of Marcuse, the revolution of the ’68ers, is even more empty than the Bolshevik revolution; it is not carried out even to bring a new class to power.
It is destruction for the sake of destruction.
If we look at state of social institutions in the West that were subject to the ’60s social revolution we find Evola’s analysis vindicated. The family has collapsed, drug abuse (legal and illegal) is common, abortion legal, pornography commonplace, alcoholism unexceptional, overwork required, mindless consumerism venerated, and eating disorders almost required — a thousand pathologies blossom.
These are the flowers that were planted in the ‘60s by a generation whose revolution was the apotheosis of nihilism. It lacked the violent dignity and purity of the Bolsheviks and heralded a tacky social destruction so mundane it is barely evil.

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Who are you, Baron Evola?
Nietzsche proposes one solution to the nihilist age: “Become what you are.” What he means by this is that people can give up the ‘I’ in their heads that is their entire identity.
In the Homeric epics, the protagonists are pulled about by gods whispering in their ears and tugging on their souls.
Christianity changed this and created the illusion that ‘I’ is in control of a human’s actions. But we do not really know where our ideas and thoughts come from. There is no ‘I’ in control of us. Our self-directed action is an illusion similar to a computer operating system that allows us to function but it is all to often confused with being ‘a person’.
Nietzsche wants to strip away the ‘I’.
In the nihilist age we can do with the ‘I’ and simply ‘be’, transcending and re-transcending ourselves for our ‘self’ never existed to begin with.
We are rivers of thought and must flow where we will.
For Evola, Nietzsche’s injunction is anarchic and will lead only to a new slavery, for if a person cannot first control their illusory ‘I’ then the losing of it will have no value.
Tradition provides this outer discipline. Tradition is embodied in hierarchy. Evola believes that the Muslim Ismaeli sect followed Nietzsche’s injunction, as embodied in their saying: “Nothing exists, everything is permitted.”

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But it was only the higher members in the sect who implemented this saying. They could only do this after being forged in discipline, hierarchy, and a conviction that something (i.e. God) very much exists.
For Evola, the path away from nihilism requires people to first return to the archaic before transcending the contemporary nihilistic world.
At the sociological level people are wrapped up in illusionary individual identities, according to Evola.
We are categorised through market research, entertainment, education, work-life, and so on into a few utilitarian categories that are convenient for the nihilistic world’s administration.
This is the deindividualised individual. Contemporary societies are relentlessly atomised, anarchic, unconventional, and superficially novel — this is presented as individuality, as liberation
I would observe that it is this sociological identity, the mask imposed by society, that most people fall in love with. They are then disconcerted to find that they are not themselves. Hence the endless industry in ‘finding yourself’, a task that is futile for it is the infinite quest for a mask. This task is as illusive as seeking to finally extinguish sexual desire, or an addict having ‘just one last’ drink or hit.

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Evola observes:
The best illustration of these processes is that of Ernst Jünger, in his work Der Arbeiter. I can certainly agree with Jiinger when he says that these processes of the current world have caused the individual to be superseded by the “type,” together with an essential impoverishment of his traits and ways of life, and a dissolution of cultural, human, and personal values. In the vast majority of cases, the destruction is suffered passively: the man of today is the mere object of it. The result is an empty, mass-produced human type, marked by standardization and flat uniformity; a “mask” in the negative sense; an insignificant, multiple product. Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), Baron Julius Evola
The flip side to this process is that man thus processed is ideal for our contemporary machine-centric wars.
Could Evola and Jünger conceive of anything more ugly than the drone strike? This technologically mediated, cowardly act is without valour and honour.
These are bloodthirsty men, but they want to draw blood with the white of the eyes visible.
Whether it’s a production line building iPhones or corpses, there is no difference for the nihilist. The techniques are the same. A spreadsheet tracks the efficiency.

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And yet war — this is very much a fascist point — opens the possibility to escape nihilism, according to Evola. It is on the battlefield — even the contemporary techno-battlefield — that man “passes into a new form of exsitence”. Here there is an ‘objective’ and ‘lucid’ life where action is action, and the illusory ‘I’ has been banished.
The other words for this, though Evola does not use them, is regression to the animal state, with all the brutality attendant on that transition.
For Evola this is the ultimate ‘tiger ride’, and possibly only mountain climbing can offer a similar revelation. A moment that brings death before one and requires lucid action.
Cosmopolitans: We are everywhere and at home nowhere
The transcendent dimension may also become active in reaction to the processes responsible for a steady erosion of many ties to nature, leading to a rootless state. It is evident, for example, that the stay-at-home bourgeois lifestyle is increasingly and irreversibly affected by the progress of communication technology, opening up great expanses on land, sea, and air. Modern life takes place ever less in a protected, self-contained, qualitative, and organic environment: one is immersed in the entire world by new and rapid travel that can bring us to faraway lands and landscapes in little time. Hence, we tend toward a general cosmopolitanism as “world citizens” in a material and objective sense, not an ideological, much less a humanitarian one. At least the times of “provincialism” are over. Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), Baron Julius Evola

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Travel is a drug as far as Evola is concerned. We rush from Thailand to Japan to Australia to the United Kingdom to the United States. We lose ourselves, our pain — or rather we fail to lose either.
We have long been cosmopolitans. The Global Village is not new; it has only been enhanced as the Internet developed and air travel fell in price. And this is why the break in the cosmopolitan project represented by Brexit and Trump is so disturbing for many people, though an aristocrat such as Evola has little time for the smelly little nation.
An aristocrat owns estates. It was only with the French Revolution that people became anything so vulgar as nationalists. Evola would be sympathetic to the Norman aristocrats who invaded France from England to regain their great-grandfathers’ lands — not for anything so democratic and pathetic as the ‘nation’ of England.
The only solution travel offers is in its ecstatic speed. Here Evola is at one with Marinetti and the Futurist movement in art:
We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath — a roaring car that seems to run on grapeshot is more beautiful than The Victory of Samoth-race (1910).
‘Le Figaro’, 20 February 1909, as quoted in Futurist Manifestos, ed. Umbro Appolonio, Thames and Hudson, London, 1973

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And beyond travel is nature, but not the nature we find on the beach or on the forest cycle trails. The dichotomy between city and nature is artificial, according to Evola. For nature is itself corrupted by man:
In the end, the phase of nature for the plebeians arrives, with the breakout of the masses, the common people everywhere with or without their automobiles, the travel agencies, the dopolavori, and all the rest; nothing is spared. The naturists and nudists form the extreme of this phenomenon. The beaches — teeming insect-like with thousands and thousands of male and female bodies, offering to the glance an insipid, almost complete nudity — are another symptom. Still another is the assault on the mountains by cable cars, funiculars, chair lifts, and ski lifts. All this is part of the regime of final disintegration of our epoch. There is no point in dwelling on it. Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), Baron Julius Evola
It is only by going beyond nature that nature — and indeed the city — can be transcendent for Evola. Film director Werner Herzog once described the jungle as “overwhelming collective murder” — and this is the nature Evola believes can quicken the soul.
But the path cannot be the path that is marked as a path. Evola values the esoteric and the strange reversals. His thought is mirror thought, straightforward only in so far as it is crooked.

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The city then is not the antithesis to nature. The city is nature itself — and the division between nature and the city are a nihilist mirage.
Science, what is thought was the highest knowledge in our society, is not knowledge at all, says Evola. We have been blinded by technology, which we confuse for science. And because technology is powerful and successful we worship science.
But science is mathematical abstraction; it is not real, even when it allows us to visit space and massacre bacteria. These achievements merely show that it works in the same way a good recipe works to produce a meal to fill the stomach, but that does not mean the recipe reflects a deeper truth about food.
Our societies take science as the arbiter and make scientists a priestly caste. But science parodies religion by introducing constant change.
Today’s hypothesis supported by evidence is tomorrow’s rubbish. The real test, not often considered, is not whether what science says is true but whether it works — whether the theory fits the evidence and vice versa.
And so what proclaims enlightenment merely adds to the commercialised and atomistic confusion that is the modern world.
So says Evola.

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Withdrawal and affirmation
To depict Evola as a political thinker, as someone who wants to forge a party and a program, would be an error. There is no salvation in the political fray for Evola. A man may take sides for Islamism or against liberalism or vice versa, but this is no great concern. Both movements are already infected with modernity. One cannot step outside Kali Yuga.
Evola recommends detached action as the course for ‘aristocrats of the soul’ adrift in a time without hierarchy, order, and tradition. That marriage has become a legalised prostitution cannot be helped. The aristocrat makes his way as best he can with faith for the next turn on the cycle.
Death should be in the aristocrat’s mind. Memento Mori, remember you must die, but have faith that there will be a continuation. Evola says to meditate on death and live an adventure, and he meant what he wrote. When the bombs fell during World War II, he went out for a stroll among the shrapnel and lost the use of his legs for the trouble.
Life for Evola, as for Nietzsche, is a constant affirmation. We adventure on with the knowledge passed down from Seneca that we may choose suicide at any moment. This is the comfort that helps make our life meaningful.

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What does Evola mean for politics? He offers a critique of everything held sacred in contemporary society: capitalism, socialism, liberalism, feminism, science, modern art, and on and on. There are few thinkers who so totally renounce modernity, the world made from around 1500 onwards in the West.
But there is no program forward. And in this respect Evola is not like a Lenin or a bin Laden. He is not an intellectual organiser. He counsels withdrawal, idiosyncratic risk, and self-purification along with resignation that the world will not be purified for many years to come.
His attraction for the alt-right, neo-reactionaries, and neo-fascists lies in his prescription rather than his cure (a cure is itself probably far too corrupted by modernity for Evola’s tastes).
That does not mean it is impossible to build a political program on Evola’s work – even if the program could not succeed and even if it was essentially whimsical. If such a program were to be written it would be so distant from all existing polities – except perhaps (and this is a big perhaps) for Taliban controlled areas – that it would seem incomprehensible to the masses.

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Goddamn look at all those words I’m not gonna read. Take your meds schizo.

ok so that was the meat of the 2nd link. now we are on to the third link,
>De Re Militari
the importance of this is not all 3 books contained within the link. the focus is in the first book. the proceeding 2 books contained are useful knowledg eand should be read, however, remember to keep attention on the first book.
It is important you study it as if you compare the roman methods of selection, to the organisation of our power structures now, you will notice we have become far removed from the ways of the ancients. look at the british police force for instance, a band of misfits, homosexuals, outcasts and women. they have no physical authority over the streets, they possess only the permission and tools.

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The Military Institutions of the Romans
(De Re Militari)
By Flavius Vegetius Renatus
Translated from the Latin by Lieutenant John Clarke

Text written in 390 A.D. British translation published in 1767. Copyright Expired
Etext version by Mads Brevik (2001 )

• Introduction

• Preface to Book I

• Book I: The Selection and Training of New Levies

o The Roman Discipline the Cause of Their Greatness

o The Selection of Recruits

o The Proper Age for Recruits

o Their Size

o Signs of Desirable Qualities

o The Trades Proper for New Levies

o The Military Mark

o Initial Training

o To Learn to Swim

o The Post Exercise

o Not to Cut, But to Thrust with the Sword

o The Drill Called Armatura

o The Use of Missile Weapons

o The Use of the Bow

o The Sling

o The Loaded Javelin

o To be Taught to Vault

o And To Carry Burdens

o The Arms of the Ancients

o Entrenched Camps

o Evolutions

o Monthly Marches

o Conclusion

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Introduction
(This introduction was written for a British 1940 reprint of DE RE MILITARI. Author unknown.)

The most influential military treatise in the western world from Roman times to the 19th Century was Vegetius' DE RE MILITARI. Its
impressions on our own traditions of discipline and organization are everywhere evident.

The Austrian Field Marshal, Prince de Ligne, as late as 1770, called it a golden book and wrote: "A God, said Vegetius, inspired
the legion, but for myself, I find that a God inspired Vegetius." Richard Coeur de Lion carried DE RE MILITARI everywhere with him
in his campaigns, as did his father, Henry II of England. Around 1000 A. D. Vegetius was the favorite author of Foulques the Black,
the able and ferocious Count of Anjou. Numerous manuscript copies of Vegetius circulated in the time of Charlemagne and one of
them was considered a necessity of life by his commanders. A manuscript Vegetius was listed in the will of Count Everard de
Frejus, about 837 A. D., in the time of Ludwig the Just.

In his Memoirs, Montecuculli, the conqueror of the Turks at St. Gotthard, wrote: "However, there are spirits bold enough to believe
themselves great captains as soon as they know how to handle a horse, carry a lance at charge in a tournament, or as soon as
they have read the precepts of Vegetius." Such was the reputation of Vegetius for a thousand years.

Manuscript copies dating from the 10th to the 15th centuries are extant to the number of 150. DE RE MILITARI was translated into
English, French, and Bulgarian before the invention of printing. The first printed edition was made in Utrecht in 1473. It was
followed in quick succession by editions in Cologne, Paris and Rome. It was first published in English by Caxton, from an English
manuscript copy, in 1489.

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Flavius Vegetius Renatus was a Roman of high rank. In some manuscripts he is given the title of count. Raphael of Volterra calls
him a Count of Constantinople. Little is known of his life. It is apparent from his book that he had not had extensive practical
experience as a soldier.. He states quite frankly that his purpose was to collect and synthesize from ancient manuscripts and
regulations the military customs and wisdom that made ancient Rome great. According to his statement, his principal sources were
Cato the Elder, Cornelius Celsus, Paternus, Frontinus, and the regulations and ordinances of Augustus, Trajan and Hadrian.

The Emperor Valentinian, to whom the book is dedicated, is believed to be the second emperor of that name. He evidently was not
Valentinian I since his successor, Gratian, is named in the book. Between the reign of Valentinian II and Valentinian III, Rome was
taken and burned by Alaric, King of the Goths, an event that unquestionably would have been mentioned had it occurred before
the book was written. Vegetius mentions the defeat of the Roman armies by the Goths, but probably refers to the battle of
Adrianople where Valens, the colleague of Valentinian I, was killed.

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It is a paradox that DE RE MILITARI, which was to become a military bible for innumerable generations of European soldiers, was
little used by the Romans for whom it was written. The decay of the Roman armies had progressed too far to be arrested by
Vegetius' pleas for a return to the virtues of discipline and courage of the ancients. At the same time Vegetius' hope for a revival
of the ancient organization of the legion was impracticable. Cavalry had adopted the armor of the foot soldier and was just
commencing to become the principal arm of the military forces. The heavy armed foot-soldier, formerly the backbone of the legion,
was falling a victim of his own weight and immobility, and the light-armed infantry, unable to resist the shock of cavalry, was turning
more and more to missile weapons. By one of the strange mutations of history, when later the cross-bow and gun-powder
deprived cavalry of its shock-power, the tactics of Vegetius again became ideal for armies, as they had been in the times from
which he drew his inspiration.

Vegetius unceasingly emphasized the importance of constant drill and severe discipline and this aspect of his work was very
tiresome to the soldiers of the middle ages, the feudal system lending itself but poorly to discipline. "Victory in war," he states in
his opening sentence, "does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it." His first
book is devoted to the selection, training and discipline of recruits. He insists upon the utmost meticulousness in drill. "No part of
drill is more essential in action than for soldiers to keep their ranks with the greatest exactness." His description of the many arms

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which the Roman soldier was required to become expert in reminds one of the almost innumerable duties of the present day
infantryman. Recruits were to be hardened so as to be able to march twenty miles in half a summer's day at ordinary step and
twenty-four miles at quick step. It was the ancient regulation that practice marches of this distance must be made three times a
month.

The second book deals with the organization and officers of the legion, the ancient system of promotion, and how to form the
legion for battle. We find the Romans provided for soldier's deposits, just as is done in the American army today; that guard and
duty rosters were kept in those days as now; and that the Roman system of guard duty is only slig.htly different from our manual
for interior guard duty. The field music is described and is an ornamental progenitor of that in use in United States. The legion
owed its success, according to Vegetius, to its arms and its machines, as well as to the bravery of its soldiers. The legion had fifty-
five ballista for throwing darts and ten onagri, drawn by oxen, for throwing stones. Every legion carried its ponton equipment,
"small boats hollowed out of a single piece of cimber, with long cables or chains to fasten them together." And in addition were
"whatever is necessary for every kind of service, that the encampments may have all the strength and conveniences of a fortified
city." Trains of workmen were provided to perform all the duties now performed by the various services in armies.

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The third book deals with tactics and strategy and it was this portion of Vegetius that influenced war in the Middle Ages so greatly.
He explains the use of reserves, attributing this invention to the Spartans, from whom the Romans adopted it. "It is much better to
have several bodies of reserves than to extend your front too much" - an injunction as good today as when it was written.
Encircling pursuit is described. The terrain is not overlooked. "The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than
courage." The enemy should be estimated carefully. "It is essential to know the character of the enemy and of their principal
officers-whether they be rash or cautious, enterprising or timid, whether they fight from careful calculation or from chance."

Vegetius' work is filled with maxims that have become a part of our everyday life. "He, therefore, who aspires to peace should
prepare for war." "The ancients preferred discipline to numbers." "In the midst of peace, war is looked upon as an object too
distant to merit consideration." "Few men are born brave; many become so through training and force of discipline."

Vegetius was a reformer who attempted to restore the degenerate Romans of the 4th Century to the military virtues of the
ancients, whom he never ceases to laud. His little book was made short and easy to read, so as not to frighten, by a too arduous
text, the readers whom he hoped to convince. He constantly gives the example of the "Ancients" to his contemporaries. The result
is a sort of perfume of actuality, which had much to do with his success. It still is interesting reading and still is the subject of
modern commentaries. No less than forty have appeared in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Revue Mititare Generate
(France) and our own Infantry Journal carried articles on Vegetius in 1938. Dankfried Schenk published an interesting article in
Klio in 1930, which gives Vegetius the highest place among the writers of his time.

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The present edition includes the first three books of Vegetius' work, omitting only repetitions. The fourth and fifth books, both very
brief, deal with the attack and defense of fortified places and with naval operations. These are of interest only to military
antiquarians and for that reason have not been included. The present translation was made by Lieutenant John Clarke and
published in London in 1767. It is the best available in English and has been edited only to the minimum extent necessary to
conform to modern usage.

An excellent discussion of Vegetius can be found in Warfare, by Spaulding, Nickerson and Wright, page 294, et sequens,
Harcourt Brace & Co., 1925. Delpech, La Tactique au 13me Siecte, Paris, 1886, gives the best account of the influence of
Vegetius on European military thought. Hans Delbruck's discussion of Vegetius in Geschichte der Kriegskunft, Vol. II, Berlin, 1921,
although brief, is very acute.

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To the Emperor Valentinian
It has been an old custom for authors to offer to their Princes the fruits of their studies in belles letters, from a persuasion that no
work can be published with propriety but under the auspices of the Emperor, and that the knowledge of a Prince should be more
general, and of the most important kind, as its influence is felt so keenly by all his subjects. We have many instances of the
favorable reception which Augustus and his illustrious successors conferred on the works presented to them; and this
encouragement of the Sovereign made the sciences flourish. The consideration of Your Majesty's superior indulgence for
attempts of this sort, induced me to follow this example, and makes me at the same time almost forget my own inability when
compared with the ancient writers. One advantage, however, I derive from the nature of this work, as it requires no elegance of
expression, or extraordinary share of genius, but only great care and fidelity in collecting and explaining, for public use, the
instructions and observations of our old historians of military affairs, or those who wrote expressly concerning them.

My design in this treatise is to exhibit in some order the peculiar customs and usages of the ancients in the choice and discipline
of their new levies. Nor do I presume to offer this work. to Your Majesty from a supposition that you are not acquainted with every
part of its contents; but that you may see that the same salutary dispositions and regulations which your own wisdom prompts You
to establish for the happiness of the Empire, were formerly observed by the founders thereof; and that Your Majesty may find with
ease in this abridgement whatever is most useful on so necessary and important a subject.

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Book I: The Selection and Training of New Levies

THE ROMAN DISCIPLINE THE CAUSE OF THEIR GREATNESS

Victory in war does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it. We find that the
Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their
camps and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war. Without these, what chance would the inconsiderable numbers of the
Roman armies have had against the multitudes of the Gauls? Or with what success would their small size have been opposed to
the prodigious stature of the Germans? The Spaniards surpassed us not only in numbers, but in physical strength. We were
always inferior to the Africans in wealth and unequal to them in deception and stratagem. And the Greeks, indisputably, were far
superior to us in skill in arts and all kinds of knowledge.

But to all these advantages the Romans opposed unusual care in the choice of their levies and in their military training. They
thoroughly understood the importance of hardening them by continual practice, and of training them to every maneuver that might
happen in the line and in action. Nor were they less strict in punishing idleness and sloth. The courage of a soldier is heightened
by his knowledge of his profession, and he only wants an opportunity to execute what he is convinced he has been perfectly
taught. A handful of men, inured to war, proceed to certain victory, while on the contrary numerous armies of raw and
undisciplined troops are but multitudes of men dragged to slaughter.

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THE SELECTION OF RECRUITS

To treat our subject with some method, we shall first examine what provinces or nations are to be preferred for supplying the
armies with recruits. It is certain that every country produces both brave men and cowards; but it is equally as certain that some
nations are naturally more warlike than others, and that courage, as well as strength of body, depends greatly upon the influence
of the different climates.

We shall next examine whether the city or the country produces the best and most capable soldiers. No one, I imagine, can doubt
that the peasants are the most fit to carry arms for they from their infancy have been exposed to all kinds of weather and have
been brought up to the hardest labor. They are able to endure the greatest heat of the sun, are unacquainted with the use of
baths, and are strangers to the other luxuries of life. They are simple, content with little, inured to all kinds of fatigue, and
prepared in some measure for a military life by their continual employment in their country-work, in handling the spade, digging
trenches and carrying burdens. In cases of necessity, however, they are sometimes obliged to make levies in the cities. And these
men, as soon as enlisted, should be taught to work on entrenchments, to march in ranks, to carry heavy burdens, and to bear the
sun and dust. Their meals should be coarse and moderate; they should be accustomed to lie sometimes in the open air and
sometimes in tents. After this, they should be instructed in the use of their arms. And if any long expedition is planned, they should
be encamped as far as possible from the temptations of the city. By these precautions their minds, as well as their bodies, will
properly be prepared for the service.

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I realize that in the first ages of the Republic, the Romans always raised their armies in the city itself, but this was at a time when
there were no pleasures, no luxuries to enervate them. The Tiber was then their only bath, and in it they refreshed themselves
after their exercises and fatigues in the field by swimming. In those days the same man was both soldier and farmer, but a farmer
who, when occasion arose, laid aside his tools and put on the sword. The truth of this is confirmed by the instance of Quintius
Cincinnatus, who was following the plow when they came to offer him the dictatorship. The chief strength of our armies, then,
should be recruited from the country. For it is certain that the less a man is acquainted with the sweets of life, the less reason he
has to be afraid of death.

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THE PROPER AGE FOR RECRUITS

If we follow the ancient practice, the proper time for enlisting youth into the army is at their entrance into the age of puberty. At this
time instructions of every kind are more quickly imbibed and more lastingly imprinted on the mind. Besides this, the indispensable
military exercises of running and leaping must be acquired before the limbs are too much stiffened by age. For it is activity,
improved by continual practice, which forms the useful and good soldier. Formerly, says Sallust, the Roman youth, as soon as
they were of an age to carry arms, were trained in the Strictest manner in their camps to all the fatigues and exercises of war. For
it is certainly better that a soldier, perfectly disciplined, should, through emulation, repine at his not being yet arrived at a proper
age for action, than have the mortification of knowing it is past. A sufficient time is also required for his instruction in the different
branches of the service. It is no easy matter to train the horse or foot archer, or to form the legionary soldier to every part of the
drill, to teach him not to quit his post, to keep ranks, to take a proper aim and throw his missile weapons with force, to dig
trenches, to plant palisades, how to manage his shield, glance off the blows of the enemy, and how to parry a stroke with dexterity.
A soldier, thus perfect in his business, so far from showing any backwardness to engage, will be eager for an opportunity of
signaling himself.

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THEIR SIZE

We find the ancients very fond of procuring the tallest men they could for the service, since the standard for the cavalry of the
wings and for the infantry of the first legionary cohorts was fixed at six feet, or at least five feet ten inches. These requirements
might easily be kept up in those times when such numbers followed the profession of arms and before it was the fashion for the
flower of Roman youth to devote themselves to the civil offices of state. But when necessity requires it, the height of a man is not
to be regarded so much as his strength; and for this we have the authority of Homer, who tells us that the deficiency of stature in
Tydeus was amply compensated by his vigor and courage.

SIGNS OF DESIRABLE QUALITIES

Those employed to superintend new levies should be particularly careful in examining the features of their faces, their eyes, and
the make of their limbs, to enable them to form a true judgment and choose such as are most likely to prove good soldiers. For
experience assures us that there are in men, as well as in horses and dogs, certain signs by which their virtues may be
discovered. The young soldier, therefore, ought to have a lively eye, should carry his head erect, his chest should be broad, his
shoulders muscular and brawny, his fingers long, his arms strong, his waist small, his shape easy, his legs and feet rather nervous
than fleshy. When all these marks are found in a recruit, a little height may be dispensed with, since it is of much more importance
that a soldier should be strong than tall.

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TRADES PROPER FOR NEW LEVIES

In choosing recruits regard should be given to their trade. Fishermen, fowlers, confectioners, weavers, and in general all whose
professions more properly belong to women should, in my opinion, by no means be admitted into the service. On the contrary,
smiths, carpenters, butchers, and huntsmen are the most proper to be taken into it. On the careful choice of soldiers depends the
welfare of the Republic, and the very essence of the Roman Empire and its power is so inseparably connected with this charge,
that it is of the highest importance not to be intrusted indiscriminately, but only to persons whose fidelity can be relied on. The
ancients considered Sertorius' care in this point as one of the most eminent of his military qualifications. The soldiery to whom the
defense of the Empire is consigned and in whose hands is the fortune of war, should, if possible, be of reputable families and
unexceptionable in their manners. Such sentiments as may be expected in these men will make good soldiers. A sense of honor,
by preventing them from behaving ill, will make them victorious.

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But what good can be expected from a man by nature a coward, though ever so well disciplined or though he has served ever so
many campaigns? An army raised without proper regard to the choice of its recruits was never yet made good by length of time;
and we are now convinced by fatal experience that this is the source of all our misfortunes. So many defeats can only be imputed
to the effects of a long peace which has made us negligent and careless in the choice of our levies and to the inclination so
prevalent among the better sort in preferring the civil posts of the government to the profession of arms and to the shameful
conduct of the superintendents, who, through interest or connivance, accept many men which those who are obliged to furnish
substitutes for the army choose to send, and admit such men into the service as the masters themselves would not even keep for
servants. Thus it appears that a trust of such importance should be committed to none but men of merit and integrity.

THE MILITARY MARK

The recruit, however, should not receive the military mark* as soon as enlisted. He must first be tried if fit for service; whether he
has sufficient activity and strength; if he has capacity to learn his duty; and whether he has the proper degree of military courage.
For many, though promising enough in appearance, are found very unfit upon trial. These are to be rejected and replaced by
better men; for it is not numbers, but bravery which carries the day.

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After their examination, the recruits should then receive the military mark, and be taught the use of their arms by constant and
daily exercise. But this essential custom has been abolished by the relaxation introduced by a long peace. We cannot now expect
to find a man to teach what he never learned himself. The only method, therefore, that remains of recovering the ancient customs
is by books, and by consulting the old historians. But they are of little service to us in this respect, as they only relate the exploits
and events of wars, and take no notice of the objects of our present enquiries, which they considered as universally known.

INITIAL TRAINING

The first thing the soldiers are to be taught is the military step, which can only be acquired by constant practice of marching quick
and together. Nor is anything of more consequence either on the march or in the line than that they should keep their ranks with
the greatest exactness. For troops who march in an irregular and disorderly manner are always in great danger of being defeated.
They should march with the common military step twenty miles in five summer-hours, and with the full step, which is quicker,
twenty-four miles in the same number of hours. If they exceed this pace, they no longer march but run, and no certain rate can be
assigned.

But the young recruits in particular must be exercised in running, in order to charge the enemy with great vigor; occupy, on
occasion, an advantageous post with greater expedition, and prevent the enemy in their designs upon the same; that they may,
when sent to reconnoiter, advance with speed, return with greater celerity and more easily come up with the enemy in a pursuit.

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Leaping is another very necessary exercise, to enable them to pass ditches or embarrassing eminences of any kind without
trouble or difficulty. There is also another very material advantage to be derived from these exercises in time of action; for a
soldier who advances with his javelin, .running and leaping, dazzles the eyes of his adversary, strikes him with terror, and gives him
the fatal stroke before he has time to put himself on his defense. Sallust, speaking of the excellence of Pompey the Great in these
particulars, tells us that he disputed the superiority in leaping with the most active, in running with the most swift, and in exercises
of strength with the most robust. Nor would he ever have been able to have opposed Serrorius with success, if he had not
prepared both himself and his soldiers for action by continual exercises of this sort.

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TO LEARN TO SWIM

Every young soldier, without exception, should in the summer months be taught to swim; for it is sometimes impossible to pass
rivers on bridges, but the flying and pursuing army both are often obliged to swim over them. A sudden melting of snow or fall of
rain often makes them overflow their banks, and in such a situation, the danger is as great from ignorance in swimming as from
the enemy. The ancient Romans, therefore, perfected in every branch of the military art by a continued series of wars and perils,
chose the Field of Mars as the most commodious for their exercises on account of its vicinity to the Tiber, that the youth might
therein wash off the sweat and dust, and refresh themselves after their fatigues by swimming. The cavalry also as well as the
infantry, and even the horses and the servants of the army should be accustomed to this exercise, as they are all equally liable to
the same accidents.

THE POST EXERCISE

We are informed by the writings of the ancients that, among their other exercises, they had that of the post. They gave their
recruits round bucklers woven with willows, twice as heavy as those used on real service, and wooden swords double the weight of
the common ones. They exercised them with these at the post both morning and afternoon.

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This is an invention of the greatest use, not only to soldiers, but also to gladiators. No man of either profession ever distinguished
himself in the circus or field of battle, who was not perfect in this kind of exercise. Every soldier, therefore, fixed a post firmly in the
ground, about the height of six feet. Against this, as against a real enemy, the recruit was exercised with the above mentioned
arms, as it were with the common shield and sword, sometimes aiming At the head or face, sometimes at the sides, at others
endeavoring to strike at the thighs or legs. He was instructed in what manner to advance and retire, and in short how to take every
advantage of his adversary; but was thus above all particularly cautioned not to lay himself open to his antagonist while aiming his
stroke at him.

NOT TO CUT, BUT TO THRUST WITH THE SWORD

They were likewise taught not to cut but to thrust with their swords. For the Romans not only made a jest of those who fought with
the edge of that weapon, but always found them an easy conquest. A stroke with the edges, though made with ever so much
force, seldom kills, as the vital parts of the body are defended both by the bones and armor. On the contrary, a stab, though it
penetrates but two inches, is generally fatal. Besides in the attitude of striking, it is impossible to avoid exposing the right arm and
side; but on the other hand, the body is covered while a thrust is given, and the adversary receives the point before he sees the
sword. This was the method of fighting principally used by the Romans, and their reason for exercising recruits with arms of such a
weight at first was, that when they came to carry the common ones so much lighter, the greater difference might enable them to
act with greater security and alacrity in time of action.

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THE DRILL CALLED ARMATURA

The new levies also should be taught by the masters at arms the system of drill called armatura, as it is still partly kept up among
us. Experience even at this time convinces us that soldiers, perfect therein, are of the most service in engagements. And they
afford certain proofs of the importance and effects of discipline in the difference we see between those properly trained in this
branch of drill and the other troops. The old Romans were so conscious of its usefulness that they rewarded the masters at arms
with a double allowance of provision. The soldiers who were backward in this drill were punished by having their allowance in
barley. Nor did they receive it as usual, in wheat, until they had, in the presence of the prefect, tribunes, or other principal officers
of the legion, showed sufficient proofs of their knowledge of every part of their study.

No state can either be happy or secure that is remiss and negligent in the discipline of its troops. For it is not profusion of riches
or excess of luxury that can influence our enemies to court or respect us. This can only be effected by the terror of our arms. It is
an observation of Cato that, misconduct in the common affairs of life may be retrieved, but that it is quite otherwise in war, where
errors are fatal and without remedy, and are followed by immediate punishment. For the consequences of engaging an enemy,
without skill or courage, is that part of the army is left on the field of battle, and those who remain receive such an impression from
their defeat that they dare not afterwards look the enemy in the face.

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THE USE OF MISSILE WEAPONS

Besides the aforementioned exercise of the recruits at the post, they were furnished with javelins of greater weight than common,
which they were taught to throw at the same post. And the masters at arms were very careful to instruct them how to cast them with a proper aim and force. This practice strengthens the arm and makes the soldier a good marksman.
THE USE OF THE BOW

A third or fourth of the youngest and fittest soldiers should also be exercised at the post with bows and arrows made for that
purpose only. The masters for this branch must be chosen with care and must apply themselves diligently to teach the men to
hold the bow in a proper position, to bend it with strength, to keep the left hand steady, to draw the right with skill, to direct both
the attention and the eye to the object, and to take their aim with equal certainty either on foot or on horseback. But this is not to be acquired without great application, nor to be retained without daily exercise and practice.

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The utility of good archers in action is evidently demonstrated by Cato in his treatise on military discipline. To the institution of a
body of troops of this sort Claudius owed his victory over an enemy who, till that time, had constantly been superior to him. Scipio
Africanus, before his battle with the Numantines, who had made a Roman army ignominiously pass under the yoke, thought he
could have no likelihood of success except by mingling a number of select archers with every century.

THE SLING

Recruits are to be taught the art of throwing stones both with the hand and sling. The inhabitants of the Balearic Islands are said
to have been the inventors of slings, and to have managed them with surprising dexterity, owing to the manner of bringing up their
children. The children were not allowed to have their food by their mothers till they had first struck it with their sling. Soldiers,
notwithstanding their defensive armor, are often more annoyed by the round stones from the sling than by all the arrows of the
enemy. Stones kill without mangling the body, and the contusion is mortal without loss of blood. It is universally known the ancients
employed slingers in all their engagements. There is the greater reason for instructing all troops, without exception, in this
exercise, as the sling cannot be reckoned any incumbrance, and often is of the greatest service, especially when they are obliged
to engage in stony places, to defend a mountain or an eminence, or to repulse an enemy at the attack of a castle or city.

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THE LOADED JAVELIN

The exercise of the loaded javelins, called martiobarbuli, must not be omitted. We formerly had two legions in lllyricum, consisting
of six thousand men each, which from their extraordinary dexterity and skill in the use of these weapons were discingui.shed by
the same appellation. They supported for a long time the weight of all the wars and distinguished themselves so remarkably that
the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian on their accession honored them with the titles of Jovian and Herculean and preferred
them before all the other legions. Every soldier carries five of these javelins in the hollow of his shield. And thus the legionary
soldiers seem to supply the place of archers, for they wound both the men and horses of the enemy before they come within
reach of the common missile weapons.

TO BE TAUGHT TO VAULT

The ancients strictly obliged both the veteran soldiers and recruits to a constant practice of vaulting. It has indeed reached our
cimes, although little regard is paid to it at present. They had wooden horses for that purpose placed in winter under cover and in
summer in the field. The young soldiers were taught to vault on them at first without arms, afterwards completely armed. And such
was their attention to this exercise that they were accustomed to mount and dismount on either side indifferently, with their drawn
swords or lances in their hands. By assiduous practice in the leisure of peace, their cavalry was brought to such perfection of
discipline that they mounted their horses in an instant even amidst the confusion of sudden and unexpected alarms.

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AND TO CARRY BURDENS

To accustom soldiers to carry burdens is also an essential part of discipline. Recruits in particular should be obliged frequently to
carry a weight of not less than sixty pounds (exclusive of their arms), and to march with it in the ranks. This is because on difficult
expeditions they often find themselves under the necessity of carrying their provisions as well as their arms. Nor will they find this
troublesome when inured to it by custom, which makes everything easy. Our troops in ancient times were a proof of this, and Virgil
has remarked it in the following lines:

The Roman soldiers, bred in war's alarms,
Bending with unjust loads and heavy arms,
Cheerful their toilsome marches undergo,
And pitch their sudden camp before the foe.

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THE ARMS OF THE ANCIENTS

The manner of arming the troops comes next under consideration. But the method of the ancients no longer is followed. For
though after the example of the Goths, the Alans and the Huns, we have made some improvements in the arms of the cavalry, yet
it is plain the infantry are entirely defenseless. From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore
cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began
to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and
afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their
showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered,
notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities.

Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected
from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are
naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of
a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.

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But the case would be quite different, were they even heavier than they are, if by constant practice he had been accustomed to
wear them. But it seems these very men, who cannot support the weight of the ancient armor, think nothing of exposing
themselves without defense to wounds and death, or, which is worse, to the shame of being made prisoners, or of betraying their
country by flight; and thus to avoid an inconsiderable share of exercise and fatigue, suffer themselves ignominiously to be cut in
pieces. With what propriety could the ancients call the infantry a wall, but that in some measure they resembled it by the complete
armor of the legionary soldiers who had shields, helmets, cuirasses, and greaves of iron on the right leg; and the archers who had
gauntlets on the left arm. These were the defensive arms of the legionary soldiers. Those who fought in the first line of their
respective legions were called principes, in the second hastati, and in third triarii.

The triarii, according to their method of discipline, rested in time of action on one knee, under cover of their shields, so that in this
position they might be less exposed to the darts of the enemy than if they stood upright; and also, when there was a necessity for
bringing them up, that they might be fresh, in full vigor and charge with the greater impetuosity. There have been many instances
of their gaining a complete victory after the entire defeat of both the principes and hastati.

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The ancients had likewise a body of light infantry, slingers, and ferentarii (the light troops), who were generally posted on the
wings and began the engagement. The most active and best disciplined men were selected for this service; and as their number
was not very great, they easily retired in case of a repulse through the intervals of the legion, without thus occasioning the least
disorder in the line.

The Pamonian leather caps worn by our soldiers were formerly introduced with a different design. The ancients obliged the men to
wear them at all times so that being constantly accustomed to have the head covered they might be less sensible of the weight of
the helmet.

As to the missile weapons of the infantry, they were javelins headed with a triangular sharp iron, eleven inches or a foot long, and
were called piles. When once fixed in the shield it was impossible to draw them out, and when thrown with force and skill, they
penetrated the cuirass without difficulty. At present they are seldom used by us, but are the principal weapon of the barbarian
heavy-armed foot. They are called bebrae, and every man carries two or three of them to battle.

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It must be observed that when the soldiers engage with the javelin, the left foot should be advanced, for, by this attitude the force
required to throw it is considerably increased. On the contrary, when they are close enough to use their piles and swords, the
right foot should be advanced, so that the body may present less aim to the enemy, and the right arm be nearer and in a more
advantageous position for striking. Hence it appears that it is as necessary to provide soldiers with defensive arms of every kind
as to instruct them in the use of offensive ones. For it is certain a man will fight with greater courage and confidence when he finds
himself properly armed for defense.

ENTRENCHED CAMPS

Recruits are to be instructed in the manner of entrenching camps, there being no part of discipline so necessary and useful as
this. For in a camp, well chosen and entrenched, the troops both day and night lie secure within their works, even though in view
of the enemy. It seems to resemble a fortified city which they can build for their safety wherever they please. But this valuable art
is now entirely lost, for it is long since any of our camps have been fortified either with trenches or palisades. By this neglect our
forces have been often surprised by day and night by the enemy's cavalry and suffered very severe losses. The importance of
this custom appears not only from the danger to which troops are perpetually exposed who encamp without such precautions, but
from the distressful situation of an army that, after receiving a check in the field, finds itself without retreat and consequently at the
mercy of the enemy.

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