“Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine, Marching below, and we still gulping wine?” From the sad magic of his fragrant cup The red-faced old centurion started up, Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said, “Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead, Dead in the first year of this damned campaign— The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again. Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die, But we need pity also, you and I, Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss, Who live to see the Legion come to this, Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot, Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot. O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh! Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by, The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine. Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!” “Strabo,” said Gracchus, “you are strange tonight. The Legion is the Legion; it’s all right. If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking, God damn it! you’ll not better them by drinking. They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands. The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands, And these same men before the autumn’s fall Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul.”

“HauntedGulp down your wine, old friends of mine,Roar through the darkness, stamp and singAnd lay ghost hands on everything,But leave the noonday's warm sunshineTo living lads for mirth and wine.I met you suddenly down the street,Strangers assume your phantom faces,You grin at me from daylight places,Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greetDead men down the morning street.”

“the death of a legend is the rise of a legion.”

“His name is Legion. He is the king of nowhere.”

“God is alone,-but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion.”

“By degrees, he joins that sorry legion of passive men who abandon their children in order to placate their second wives.”

“Percy imagined what that would be like: getting an apartment in this tiny replica of Rome, protected by the legion and Terminus the OCD border god. He imagined holding hands with Annabeth at a cafe. Maybe when they were older, watching their own kid chase seagulls across the forum...”