the ablest of the common soldiers who were provided with arms.' The
word _lectos_ belonging to _centuriones_, shows that Catiline had
appointed to the office of centurions only chosen men who were
personally known to him as able soldiers. _Evocati_ were those
soldiers in a Roman army who did not serve in the ranks of the other
common soldiers, but as a separate corps, and were exempt from
the ordinary military duties of standing as sentinels, making
fortifications, foraging, and the like. They derived their name from
the fact that they were invited (_evocare_) by the general to serve
in the army as volunteers; they, moreover, were generally more
advanced in years than the regular troops.
[340] _Curare_, 'to command.'
[341] Catiline himself stood nearest the standard (eagle) with his most
faithful followers, whose personal fate depended upon him; that is,
the freedmen of his family and the tenant farmers of his estates.
The Roman nobles, as early as that time, used to parcel out their
estates in small farms, which were tenanted especially by their
freedmen, who were thus patronised by their former masters.
[342] _Pedibus aeger_. He had the gout. Dion Cassius, a later historian
of Rome, who wrote in Greek, states that Antonius only pretended to
be ill, in order not to have to fight against his friend Catiline.
[343] A _legatus_, in this sense (for it also means 'ambassador'),
supplied, in a Roman army, the place of a commander possessing the
_imperium_. Accordingly, consuls and praetors, when intrusted with
the command of an army, had one or more legates, according to the
number of legions which they had under their command. The office of
legate was given by the senate to such men as had held a magistracy,
generally the praetorship, or at least the quaestorship, and the
senate appointed them on the proposal of the commander-in-chief.
When there were several legates, the commander-in-chief might