The Roman writer Aulus Gellius (X.8) relates an interesting anecdote about his country’s military punishments in olden times. He says that if a soldier committed some offense, he would be “bled”: that is, he would be subjected to a ritualistic opening of a vein and be forced to lose some blood.
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The emperor Julius Valerius Maiorianus, known to English-speaking posterity as Majorian, was a vigorous and able sovereign. He is conceded to have been one of the last western Roman leaders who made an energetic effort to maintain and improve the empire’s institutions. Even Gibbon, who usually had only snide comments for the later occupants of the Roman throne, condescended to say a good word for him in chapter 36 of his History.
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Quintus Curtius 
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