Kitap 10
8
THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind. Muretus, Var. Lect. xiii, p. 199, thought it was in order that they night lose with ignominy the blood which they had been unwilling to shed for their country.
9
In what way and in what form the Roman army is commonly drawn up, and the names of the formations.
