But I am assured that Metellus, in these difficult circumstances, no less than in his operations against the enemy, proved himself a great and wise man; so just a medium did he observe between an affectation of popularity and an excessive enforcement of discipline. His first measure was to remove incentives to idleness, by a general order that no one should sell bread, or any other dressed provisions, in the camp; that no sutlers should follow the army; and that no common soldier should have a servant, or beast of burden, either in a camp or on a march. He made the strictest regulations, too, with regard to other things.
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He moved his camp daily, exercising the soldiers by marches across the country; he fortified it with a rampart and a trench, exactly as if the enemy had been at hand; he placed numerous sentinels
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by night, and went the rounds with his officers; and, when the army was on the march, he would be at one time in the front, at another in the rear, and at another in the center, to see that none quitted their ranks, that the men kept close to their standards, and that every soldier carried his provisions and his arms. Thus by preventing rather than punishing irregularities, he in a short time rendered his army effective.
Bellum Iugurthinum. Sallust. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. (Translator). New York and London. 1899.
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