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Augustus Caesar, with that large and liberal mind which became a patron of the arts and literature, feeling the great and lasting obligations of the State to her military population made ample provision to reward his veterans by the creation of a military treasury (serarium militare). (8) lie began by bestowing upon such as had been honorably discharged and obtained the missio honesta, a pension in money, instead of a grant of land; (9) and graduated the scale of pensions according to rank, so that all the emeriti might have a share in it. Perceiving, after some years, that soldiers were hardly compensated by the small pension they received, and that few cared to re-enlist after their term of service had expired, he thereupon increased the retiring pension, fixing it at 20,000 sesterces ($1,750 60) for pretorians), (10) and 12,000 sesterces ($860) for legionaries. This sum, it will be perceived, was large enough to support veterans without labor of any kind, and was in fact designed by the astute emperor to remove from them all necessity or incentive to return to the pursuits of civil life. His policy was to keep them as long as possible in the military service, by assuring them an entire independence after their retirement. (11) No monarch has ever emulated Augustus in this particular, nor sought, by so generous an expansion of pensions, to retain soldiers in the public service. The history of the pretorian cohorts, and the record of their mercenary character, is a sufficient commentary upon the policy of maintaining such bodies of soldiers. In the best sense of the term they were only hirelings, whom the hope of plunder and the prospect of gain held together by the cohesive ties of common dishonesty. Repeated in the character of Janizaries under the Turkish sultans, these pampered body-guards have long been discarded, as dangerous appendages to sovereignty, and serious disturbers of the stability of governments.

(9) Digest xlix., tit. xvi., leg. 13.

(10) The pretorians constituting a corps d'elite, or body-guard to the emperor, each member had the same rank as the centurions in the regular legions.

(11) Dezobry, Rome sous Auguste, vol. iv.

In the feudal ages grants of land, rather than sums of money, appear to have been bestowed in return for military services, although in some places, France in particular, convents were compelled to take in and maintain old and decrepid soldiers, they returning some nominal service for their support. In proportion, however, as commerce has increased, this style of pensioning has diminished, and special asylums have been created, for the purpose of supplementing the wants of those whose pension, being their sole means of support, was inadequate for that purpose. Hence, there have been out and inpensioners in all modern governments -- out-pensioners receiving a full gratuity for their maintenance, proportioned to their rank, and in-pensioners surrendering this gratuity on entering an asylum. By these means hundreds of thousands of men in Europe, who have become disabled in the public service, are kept from actual pauperism. And while the various governments thus provide against their suffering for the necessaries of life, they are at the same time careful not to render the pension a temptation to idleness, by affording a complete support to the recipient. He is always, when able, expected to exert himself in his own behalf, and for that purpose the incentive of a certain degree of necessity is never taken from him.

In all those governments where standing armies are the rule, the right to claim a pension is based not only on injuries received in the line of one's duty while in the service, but also, and independent of injuries, upon length of service. This acts as a stimulus to enlistments, keeps the army well supplied with volunteers, and renders the conscription necessary, in time of peace, only for the purpose of annually selecting those who have never yet discharged the debt of military service which every citizen owes to his country. This class, restricted to the youth of twenty, forms a portion alone of the whole army; from five to seven years being the term of service required. After this time, those continuing in the army are volunteers who have enlisted, and this they may repeat until they complete the time necessary to entitle them to a retiring pension. Even those in the civil service of the government are entitled, after from twenty to twenty-five years of duty, to pensions on retiring; a system which is found to secure both greater honesty and fidelity in the discharge of official duties, as well as more competency and efficiency in the officers themselves, by reason of the experience acquired in their several occupations, through the great length of time during which they have followed them.

It seems hardly necessary in this connection, to point out the advantages which must always rest with an army composed almost entirely of veteran troops. Where officers and men are habituated to the performance of their duties, time will only serve to confirm them in precision and efficiency. And should the return of a state of war compel such an army to take the field, the difference in ability to march and fight, will be all in favor of that side whose troops are confirmed in the discipline of active military life. Were this not so, the militia, or reserved force in every country, would be deemed a sufficient military power to obviate the necessity of maintaining a standing army. But precisely because veterans have always the advantage over raw levies, which latter require many months in order to pass into the category of well-disciplined soldiers, do governments generally maintain a permanent military organization, and employ, even while on a peace footing, this force as a nucleus for future armies. Once established, it is ready at the first call to break the shock of war, and may be relied upon to breast the earliest waves of invasion, holding them back until a newly raised and well-disciplined force shall in turn come to the rescue.