forge really serviceable weapons from that metal. It was not from any inferiority in courage, accordingly, but in consequence of their very decided deficiency in both skill and experience in the armourer's art, that the Gauls were vanquished in Italy by the Romans, in the early days of Rome. Thus, when at Telamone, in alliance with the forces of the Samnites and Etruscans, for a moment the Gauls appeared to be in the very act of crushing the growing power of Rome, they eventually experienced a terrible defeat, which decided the fate of their colonies in Italy. This arose from the inferiority of the Gallic swords. At that period the Romans had yet to attain that eminence in discipline and military tactics, which afterwards became identified with their name; but, even then, in the character of their weapons they exhibited a judicious discernment unknown to their Gallic adversaries. Thus, the Gaul, whose badly-tempered blade had bent at the first blow which he had delivered, while in the act of straightening his sword beneath his foot, was instantly struck down by the sharp, firm, and ready steel of the Roman.

The Gauls were slow to adopt any species of defensive armour; nor did their chiefs conform in this matter to the usage of the Greeks and Romans, until after their relations with those great military powers had become, if not more amicable yet certainly much more intimate. The helm that at last the Gallic chiefs assumed, was identical with the Roman head-piece; but the Gauls added horns of goats and bulls, or the wings of birds, and various other objects-appendages, in some degree crest-like in their character and object, which after a very singular fashion changed the aspect of their helms.14

The cuirass, at no time in common use amongst the Gauls, when worn was formed, after the custom of both the Greeks and the Romans, either of two plates of metal, the metal being either bronze or iron, or of interwoven mail-work.

The shield, which was more generally in use, was constructed of a framework of wicker, covered over with leather; or it was made of wood; and in either case it was adorned by having the head of an animal nailed in the centre, after the manner of a boss; or a flower, or a mask executed with the hammer (repoussé) in bronze, was fixed in a similar position.

In the examples represented in the wood-cut, Fig. 6, from the triumphal arch at Orange, the shield of elongated form, in addition to its central boss, has a decorative conventional device, the whole being within a border. All this decoration appears to have been executed either in colour on a flat surface, or in low relief. It must here be observed, however, that the Romans in their representations of barbarous (foreign, that is) nations, while distinguishing very decidedly

between the barbarians and themselves, took but little care to discriminate between the different barbarous races; accordingly, the Gauls on the Orange arch, and the Dacians on the column of Trajan, appear almost in the same costume, and with scarcely any perceptible difference in their armour and weapons.15

SECTION III.

Greek Arms and Armour of the Heroic Ages.

Such representations of arms and armour as might have been represented upon monuments, do not exist to illustrate the heroic ages of Greece; but, on the other hand, we are able to appeal to HOMER, the most exact, the clearest, and the most minutely faithful of the ancient poets. At once, then, and with that profound respect which most justly is due to him, we bid Homer speak. Achilles begins the combat with Hector :

"He said and, poising, hurled his weighty spear; But Hector saw, and shunned the blow; he stooped, And o'er his shoulder flew the brass-tipped spear,

And in the ground was fixed: but Pallas drew

The weapon forth, and to Achilles' hand,
All unobserved of Hector, gave it back."

Then Hector spoke, and

"Poising, hurled his ponderous spear;
Nor missed his aim; full in the midst he struck
Pelides' shield; but, glancing from the shield,
The weapon glided off. Hector was grieved,
That thus his spear had bootless left his hand.
He stood aghast; no second spear was nigh:
And loudly on Deiphobus he called

A spear to bring; but he was far away."

Then other, and they bitter, words fall from the lips of the Trojan prince

...

"Thus as he spoke, his sharp-edged sword he drew,
Ponderous and vast, suspended at his side;
Collected for the spring and forward dashed.
Achilles' wrath was roused: with fury wild
His soul was filled: before his breast he bore
His well-wrought shield; and fiercely on his brow
Nodded the four-plumed helm.

Gleamed the sharp-pointed lance, which in his right
Achilles poised, on god-like Hector's doom
Intent, and scanning eagerly to see
Where from attack his body least was fenced.
All else the glittering armour guarded well.
One chink appeared, just where the collar-bone
The neck and shoulder parts, beside the throat.
There levelled he."

Il., xxii. 320.*

Nearly all the details of the ancient Greek military equipment are brought before us in this brief passage. By the aid of other passages we may be enabled very distinctly to develop their several characteristic peculiarities, and, as it were, to reproduce them, one by one, in their original identity.

The offensive weapons, as we here observe, are the sword and the lance or javelin. It is the latter weapon that plays the principal part in the Homeric combats; for, on every occasion, it is not until his lance has been lost, that the warrior, whether Trojan or Greek, draws his sword. This lance is long and ponderous; and, as a consequence of its weight, it was invariably thrown only at a very short rangealways, indeed, within conversation distance. In their single combat Hector and Ajax hurl their lances at each other, but without effect; then both warriors recover their lances, and renew the onset; and now their spears are used by them as

* The passages here given from the "Iliad " are from the Earl of Derby's translation, the sixth edition, published in London, in 1867, by John Murray, of Albemarle Street: the references denote the lines in this translation, and not those in the Greek

veritable lances, grasped in their hands, and in close conflict. Hector first throws his weapon :—

"He said: and, poising, hurled his ponderous spear; The brazen covering of the shield it struck,

The outward fold, the eighth, above the seven

Of tough bull's-hide; through six it drove its way
With stubborn force; but in the seventh was stayed.
Then Ajax hurled in turn his ponderous spear,
And struck the circle true of Hector's shield:

Right through the glittering shield the stout spear passed,
And through the well-wrought breast-plate drove its way,
And, underneath, the linen vest it tore;

But Hector, stooping, shunned the stroke of death.

66

Withdrawing then their weapons, each on each
They fell...

Then Hector fairly in the centre struck

The stubborn shield; yet drove not through the spear;
For the stout brass the blunted point repelled.

But Ajax, with a forward bound, the shield

Of Hector pierced; right through the weapon passed."

Il., vii. 273.

know to have

Thus, in the "ashen spear;"

The spear-head at this time appears to have been long, broad, and without barbs; and the shaft we been made of the tough wood of the ash. 6th "Iliad," Agamemnon is armed with an and the tree, from which had been obtained the shaft of the lance of Achilles, we are expressly told was an ash that grew on Pelion.

Thus we read :

"The son of Peleus threw

His straight-directed spear; his mark he missed,
But struck the lofty bank, where, deep infixed
To half its length, the Pelian ash remained.
Then from beside his thigh Achilles drew
His trenchant blade, and furious, onward rushed
While from the cliff Asteropæus strove

In vain, with stalwart hand, to wrench the spear,
Three times he shook it with impetuous force,