...eluded the charging beasts with the speed of their movements. These spectacles are among those Cicero describes to Marcus Marius in this manner: "But what delight can a man of politics find when either a helpless human is torn apart by a mighty beast, or a noble animal is run through with a hunting spear?" Seneca followed Cicero’s sentiment, and, detesting such displays, recorded the following: Recently, in a school for beast-fighters, a certain German, while preparing for the morning spectacles, withdrew to relieve himself—for no other place was granted to him in private without a guard. There, he took the wooden stick tipped with a sponge, used for cleaning away filth, and thrust the whole thing down his throat; by blocking his windpipe, he snuffed out his life. He later adds: Recently, as someone was being transported under guard to the morning spectacle, he lowered his head as if nodding off from sleep until he could wedge it into the spokes of the wheel, holding himself in his seat until the rotation snapped his neck. In a second instance during a naval battle, one of the barbarians plunged the spear he had received against his adversaries entirely into his own throat. Consequently, in our age, Christian princes have forbidden the people from celebrating spectacles of this kind, instituting in their place the "Game of Troy" and mock battles.

USE IN WAR

As soon as princes are provoked to a martial contest, or when they wish to wage war against another, they gather a multitude of men and conscript them as soldiers capable of fighting distinguished battles. From these, they select those renowned in military discipline and most skilled in maritime affairs to command the fleet, appoint others to leadership roles, and finally place others in charge of the cavalry units. These officers then divide all the soldiers into centuries, review the army, and organize full cohorts.

Furthermore, they select the safest location for their forces. They command some to perform night patrols and station others on sentry duty. In this way, once the battle lines are drawn and the troops deployed, they first test the waters of combat, and eventually strive to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat with the entire line. Indeed, when the opportunity arises, they augment the army and attempt to multiply their auxiliary forces until they either rout, cut off, or utterly destroy the enemy. Sometimes they send men to scout the layout of a city, then move camp toward it, surrounding and attacking it with a siege. Occasionally, they lay traps or drive tunnels against the city, and those who dare to occupy fortresses and gates reinforced with garrisons are ready at hand. Warlike women have not been lacking either, such as Cleopatra of Egypt, Artemisia the Queen of Caria, and the Amazons, who once fought fearlessly.

Furthermore, besides the military commanders and ordinary soldiers, men in battle are designated as cavalry, infantry, standard-bearers, surveyors, light-armed horsemen, trumpeters, drummers, measurers, skirmishers, shield-bearers, heavily armored troops, spearmen, and skirmishers who fight from a distance—namely archers, commanders of a thousand, raw recruits, and those who begin the fight with light skirmishing. There are also common soldiers and the *triarii*, the bravest of all, who occupy the rear of the army, as well as those who fight in two ways, those carrying blades, daggers, muskets, or javelins, and those who use engines called "scorpions."

There are also ballista-men, slingers who hurl stones with a sling, and those who hurl fireballs or incendiary rounds at the enemy. However, anyone who wishes to know the order of the light infantry, the number of spearmen, the prerogatives of the military tribunes and centurions, the division of the cavalry, the number of maniples, the position of the troops, and the duties of the prefects should consult Justus Lipsius, who treated all these matters with the greatest diligence in his book on the Roman military. Nevertheless, it seemed fitting to append, as a finishing touch to these accounts, the admirable use of men in war among foreign nations. The princes of the Cuman region used men as shields: four Indians would always precede the prince so that he would not be harmed, opposing their own bodies to the enemy's javelins, and when one of them fell, having been struck, another was immediately substituted.