ploits in war, for the convenience of
children and heirs, how perfect and accomplished soever. Nay, I make a
great question, whether Phidias or any other excellent sculptor would be
so solicitous of the preservation and continuance of his natural
children, as he would be of a rare statue, which with long labour and
study he had perfected according to art. And to those furious and
irregular passions that have sometimes inflamed fathers towards their own
daughters, and mothers towards their own sons, the like is also found in
this other sort of parentage: witness what is related of Pygmalion who,
having made the statue of a woman of singular beauty, fell so
passionately in love with this work of his, that the gods in favour of
his passion inspired it with life.

"Tentatum mollescit ebur, positoque rigore,
Subsidit digitis."

["The ivory grows soft under his touch and yields to his fingers."
--Ovid, Metam., x. 283.]

CHAPTER IX

OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS

'Tis an ill custom and unmanly that the gentlemen of our time have got,
not to put on arms but just upon the point of the most extreme necessity,
and to lay them by again, so soon as ever there is any show of the danger
being over; hence many disorders arise; for every one bustling and
running to his arms just when he should go to charge, has his cuirass to
buckle on when his companions are already put to rout. Our ancestors
were wont to give their head-piece, lance and gauntlets to be carried,
but never put off the other pieces so long as there was any work to be
done. Our troops are now cumbered and rendered unsightly with the
clutter of baggage and servants who cannot be from their masters, by
reason they carry their arms. Titus Livius speaking of our nation:

"Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant."

["Bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear
their arms on their shoulders."--Livy, x. 28.]

Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms,
or with such, at least, as were of very little proof:

"Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex."

["To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the
cork-tree."--AEneid, vii. 742.]

Alexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom wore
armour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm to the
main concern; for if we see som