The Empire is in such dire need of new centurions that

The Empire is in such dire need of new centurions that, as the Boston Globe reports, the Pentagon may

go international in its recruiting methods [hat tip: Lew Rockwell]:

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of

noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and

putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer — according to Pentagon

officials.

Which brings to mind this passage from Gibbon‘s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

The MBT SHOESlike states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race of soldiers;

exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage, multiplied their forces by regular evolutions, and

converted the iron which they possessed into strong and serviceable weapons. But this superiority

insensibly declined with their laws and manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and his

successors armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude valour of the Barbarian

mercenaries.