CAMP

In the art Military, a word of doubtful etymology-, signifying the station of an army, with its artillery, baggage, and other appendages, when it has taken the iield for the purposes of war. The history of camps involves that of the military art in all ages and in all countries; and in proportion to the skill displayed by any nation in the science of castrametation, may an accurate estimate be formed of its attainments in other departments of military tactics. The Lace daemon i ans appear to have been the first people in profane history who directed their attention to this subject. Their camps, whenever it was practicable, were of a circular form, which was said to po e the advantage that from the centre, where the general with the flower of the troops lay, help could soonest be afforded to any point menaced by the enemy. The other states of* Greece, Macedonia, and Carthage borrowed the grand principles of choosing and tracing their camps from the Lace daemon i ans; but accommodated the form, the arrangement, and disposition of the same to the nature and strength of the ground which they intended to occupy. It was from the Romans that the art of castrametation first acquired any systematic regularity. The form of the Roman camp was invariably quadrangular; It was surrounded by regular intrenchments, and was so admirably arranged that each cohort, legion, and individual knew exactly the point which he ought to occupy, and the part to which instant attention should be directed in the event of alarm. It would exceed our limits to give an account of the construction of the Roman camps, and of the arrangement of the troops in them. The reader will find ample details and comments upon this subject in the works of Polybius and Vegetius, and in General Koy's Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain. The Penny Cyclupcedia contains an able account of the difterent systems of castrametation. Camp. In Agriculture, a heap of turnips, potatoes, or other roots, laid up for preserving through the winter; in some places called a pie, and in others a bury. [s. 199]