]
Other modes he had of winning affection from the army; in particular that,
so often practised before and since, of accommodating himself to the
strictest ritual of martial discipline and castrensian life. He slept in
the open air, or, if he used a tent (papilio), it was open at the sides.
He ate the ordinary rations of cheese, bacon, &c.; he used no other drink
than that composition of vinegar and water, known by the name of _posca_,
which formed the sole beverage allowed in the Roman camps. He joined
personally in the periodical exercises of the army--those even which were
trying to the most vigorous youth and health: marching, for example, on
stated occasions, twenty English miles without intermission, in full armor
and completely accoutred. Luxury of every kind he not only interdicted to
the soldier by severe ordinances, himself enforcing their execution, but
discountenanced it (though elsewhere splendid and even gorgeous in his
personal habits) by his own continual example. In dress, for instance, he
sternly banished the purple and gold embroideries, the jewelled arms, and
the floating draperies so little in accordance with the-severe character
of "_war in procinct_" [Footnote: "_War in procinct_"--a phrase of
Milton's in Paradise Regained, which strikingly illustrates his love of
Latin phraseology; for unless to a scholar, previously acquainted with the
Latin phrase of _in procinctu_, it is so absolutely unintelligible as to
interrupt the current of the feeling.
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