Thus far they listened with silence, at least with moderate murmuring; but
the moment he touched their sedition and questioned, "where now was the
wonted modesty of soldiers? where the glory of ancient discipline? whither
had they chased their Tribunes, whither their Centurions?" to a man, they
stripped themselves to the skin, and there exposed the seams of their
wounds and bruises of their chastisements, in the rage of reproach. Then
in the undistinguished voice of uproar, they urged "the exactions for
occasional exemptions, their scanty pay, and their rigorous labours;"
which they represented in a long detail: "ramparts to be reared,
entrenchments digged, trees felled and drawn, forage cut and carried, fuel
prepared and fetched," with every other article of toil required by the
exigencies of war, or to prevent idleness in the soldiery. Above all, from
the veterans arose a cry most horrible: they enumerated thirty years or
upwards undergone in the service; "and besought that to men utterly spent
he would administer respite, nor suffer them to be beholden to death for
the last relief from their toils; but discharge them from a warfare so
lasting and severe, and grant them the means of a comfortable recess.
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