Who could be tougher? Most of these barbarians have no proper clothes and no shelter from the harsh weather. Yet Spanish and Gallic troops — even the soft Asian and Syrian soldiers — cut them down before our main army even arrives. Nothing kills them but their own rage. Give these people some intelligence and training for their bodies (which know nothing of vice, luxury, and wealth), and we would have to return to the old Roman way of life just to compete.
Who can be more hardened to undergo every hardship, since a large part of them have no store of clothing for the body, no shelter from the continual rigour of the climate: yet Spaniards and Gauls, and even the unwarlike races of Asia and Syria cut them down before the main legion comes within sight, nothing but their own irascibility exposing them to death. Give but intelligence to those minds, and discipline to those bodies of theirs, which now are ignorant of vicious refinements, luxury, and wealth,—to say nothing more, we should certainly be obliged to go back to the ancient Roman habits of life.