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The Romans thought of themselves as the chosen people, yet they built the greatest army on Earth by recruiting warriors from any background.

Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldiers' roll.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

The Roman Empire was very, very much like us. They lost their moral core, their sense of values in terms of who they were. And after all of those things converged together, they just went right down the tubes very quickly.

The Romans, we are told, were by nature a peculiarly warlike race.

The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.

Because civilizations are finite, in the life of each of them there comes a moment when the center ceases to hold. What keeps them at such times from disintegration is not legions but language.

Our army is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth.