Note 174 — Chapter XVI · THE PRÆTORIAN CAMP. THE IMPERIAL WAR MACHINE

The Roman Empire has been rightly called a “military monarchy,” but was such only because the disarming of the civilian population and the extreme efficiency of the professional army put the former at the mercy of the latter. The imperial army and navy hardly exceeded 350,000 men, and may have been as small as 300,000. At the time this book was written the United States, with a population not greatly exceeding that of the Roman Empire, had a total of some 250,000 men in its standing forces (army, navy, and marine corps) not counting any organized militia. Almost nobody would have pretended that the addition of some 100,000 men to this force could have rendered a “military monarchy” possible in America except as very peculiar conditions favored it—as they did in the Roman Empire.