C’EST vne façon vitieuse de la noblesse de nostre temps, et pleine de mollesse, de ne prendre les armes que sur le point d’vne extreme necessité: et s’en descharger aussi tost qu’il y a tant soit peu d’apparence, que le danger soit esloigné. D’où il suruient plusieurs desordres: car chacun criant et courant à ses armes, sur le point de la charge, les vns sont à lacer encore leur cuirasse, que leurs compaignons sont desia rompus. Nos peres donnoient leur salade, leur lance, et leurs gantelets à porter, et n’abandonnoient le reste de leur equippage, tant que la couruée duroit.
It is a vicious habit of the nobility of our time, and one full of softness, not to take up arms until the point of extreme necessity, and to lay them aside as soon as there is the slightest sign that the danger has passed. Many disorders follow from this. With everyone shouting and running for his arms just as the charge begins, some are still lacing up their cuirass when their comrades are already routed. Our fathers had their helmet, lance, and gauntlets carried for them, but did not give up the rest of their equipment as long as the expedition lasted.
Nos trouppes sont à cette heure toutes troublées et difformes, par la confusion du bagage et des valets qui ne peuuent esloigner leurs maistres, à cause de leurs armes. Tite Liue parlant des nostres, Intolerantissima laboris corpora vix arma humeris gerebant. Plusieurs nations vont encore et alloient anciennement à la guerre sans se couurir: ou se couuroient d’inutiles defences. Tegmina queis capitum raptus de subere cortex. Alexandre le plus hazardeux Capitaine qui fut iamais, s’armoit fort rarement. Et ceux d’entre nous qui les mesprisent n’empirent pour cela de guere leur marché.
Our troops are now all disordered and misshapen by the jumble of baggage and of valets who cannot leave their masters because of their arms. Livy says of our people: Their bodies, utterly unable to endure toil, could scarcely carry their arms on their shoulders. Several nations still go to war without protection, and did so in ancient times, or protected themselves with useless defenses: Their helmets were bark stripped from the cork tree. Alexander, the most daring captain who ever lived, very seldom wore armor. And those of us who scorn it hardly make their bargain any worse.
S’il se voit quelqu’vn tué par le defaut d’vn harnois, il n’en est guere moindre nombre, que l’empeschement des armes a faict perdre, engagés sous leur pesanteur, ou froissez et rompus, ou par vn contre-coup, ou autrement. Car il semble, à la verité, à voir le poix des nostres et leur espesseur, que nous ne cherchons qu’à nous deffendre, et en sommes plus chargez que couuers. Nous auons assez à faire à en soustenir le faix, entrauez et contraints, comme si nous n’auions à combattre que du choq de nos armes: et comme si nous n’auions pareille obligation à les deffendre, qu’elles ont à nous.
If one sees someone killed for lack of armor, hardly fewer have been lost through the encumbrance of armor: pinned under its weight, or bruised and broken by a jolt, or in some other way. For truly, judging by the weight and thickness of ours, it seems that we seek only to defend ourselves, and we are more loaded down than covered by it. We have enough to do just to bear its weight, hobbled and constrained, as if we were to fight only by the impact of our armor, and as if we were not as obliged to defend it as it is to defend us.
Tacitus peint plaisamment des gens de guerre de nos anciens Gaulois, ainsin armez pour se maintenir seulement, n’ayans moyen ny d’offencer ny d’estre offencez, ny de se releuer abbatus. Lucullus voyant certains hommes d’armes Medois, qui faisoient front en l’armée de Tigranes, poisamment et malaisément armez, comme dans vne prison de fer, print de là opinion de les deffaire aisément, et par eux commença sa charge et sa victoire. Et à present que nos mousquetaires sont en credit, ie croy qu’on trouuera quelque inuention de nous emmurer pour nous en garentir, et nous faire trainer à la guerre enfermez dans des bastions, comme ceux que les anciens faisoient porter à leurs elephans.
Tacitus gives an amusing picture of warriors among our ancient Gauls, armed like this merely to protect themselves, unable either to harm or to be harmed, or to get up again once knocked down. Lucullus saw certain Median men-at-arms forming the front of Tigranes’ army, heavily and awkwardly armed, as if in an iron prison. He concluded that he could easily defeat them, and it was with them that he began his charge and his victory. And now that our musketeers are in favor, I expect someone will invent a way to wall us in to protect us from them, and have us dragged to war shut up in bastions, like the ones the ancients had their elephants carry.
Cette humeur est bien esloignée de celle du ieune Scipion, lequel accusa aigrement ses soldats, de ce qu’ils auoyent semé des chausse-trapes soubs l’eau à l’endroit du fossé, par où ceux d’vne ville qu’il assiegeoit, pouuoient faire des sorties sur luy: disant que ceux qui assailloient, deuoient penser à entreprendre, non pas à craindre. Et craignoit auec raison que cette prouision endormist leur vigilance à se garder. Il dict aussi à vn ieune homme, qui luy faisoit montre de son beau bouclier: Il est vrayement beau, mon fils, mais vn soldat Romain doit auoir plus de fiance en sa main dextre, qu’en la gauche.
This humor is very far from that of the younger Scipio. He sharply reproached his soldiers for having laid caltrops under the water in the part of the moat through which the people of a town he was besieging could make sallies against him. Those who attack, he said, should think about attacking, not about fearing. And he rightly feared that this precaution would lull their vigilance in guarding themselves. He also said to a young man who was showing him his fine shield: “It is truly fine, my son, but a Roman soldier should put more trust in his right hand than in his left.”
Or il n’est que la coustume, qui nous rende insupportable la charge de nos armes. L’husbergo in dosso haueano, et l’elmo in testa, / Duo di quelli guerrier d’i quali io canto. / Ne notte o di doppo ch’entraro in questa / Stanza, gl’ haueanò mai mesi da canto, / Che facile à portar comme la vesta / Era lor, perchè in vso l’hauean tanto. L’Empereur Caracalla alloit par païs à pied armé de toutes pieces, conduisant son armée.
Now it is only custom that makes the burden of our armor unbearable to us. Hauberk on back and helmet on head / Two of the warriors I sing of wore; / Nor night nor day, since they came into this / Chamber, had they once put them aside, / For they found them as easy to wear as clothing, / So long had they been used to them. The Emperor Caracalla went about the country on foot, fully armed, leading his army.
Les pietons Romains portoient non seulement le morion, l’espée, et l’escu: car quant aux armes, dit Cicero, ils estoient si accoustumez à les auoir sur le dos, qu’elles ne les empeschoient non plus que leurs membres: arma enim, membra militis esse dicunt: mais quant et quant encore, ce qu’il leur falloit de viures, pour quinze iours, et certaine quantité de paux pour faire leurs rempars, iusques à soixante liures de poix. Et les soldats de Marius ainsi chargez, marchant en bataille, estoient duits à faire cinq lieuës en cinq heures, et six s’il y auoit haste. Leur discipline militaire estoit beaucoup plus rude que la nostre: aussi produisoit elle de bien autres effects.
The Roman foot soldiers carried not only helmet, sword, and shield—for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so used to having them on their backs that they hindered them no more than their own limbs: for they say that arms are a soldier’s limbs. Along with these they also carried as much food as they needed for fifteen days, and a certain number of stakes for building their ramparts, up to sixty pounds in weight. And Marius’ soldiers, loaded like this and marching in battle order, were trained to cover five leagues in five hours, and six if there was need for haste. Their military discipline was much harsher than ours, and so it produced very different results.
Le ieune Scipion reformant son armée en Espaigne, ordonna à ses soldats de ne manger que debout, et rien de cuit. Ce traict est merueilleux à ce propos, qu’il fut reproché à vn soldat Lacedemonien, qu’estant à l’expedition d’vne guerre, on l’auoit veu soubs le couuert d’vne maison: ils estoient si durcis à la peine, que c’estoit honte d’estre veu soubs vn autre toict que celuy du ciel, quelque temps qu’il fist. Nous ne menerions guere loing nos gens à ce prix là.
The younger Scipio, reforming his army in Spain, ordered his soldiers to eat only standing up, and nothing cooked. On this subject, here is a marvelous touch: a Lacedaemonian soldier was reproached because, while on campaign, he had been seen under the shelter of a house. They were so hardened to toil that it was shameful to be seen under any roof but the sky’s, whatever the weather. We would not lead our men very far at that price.
Au demeurant Marcellinus, homme nourry aux guerres Romaines, remerque curieusement la façon que les Parthes auoyent de s’armer, et la remerque d’autant qu’elle estoit esloignée de la Romaine. Ils auoyent, dit-il, des armes tissuës en maniere de petites plumes, qui n’empeschoient pas le mouuement de leur corps: et si estoient si fortes que nos dards reiallissoient venans à les hurter: ce sont les escailles, dequoy nos ancestres auoient fort accoustumé de se seruir. Et en vn autre lieu: Ils auoient, dit-il, leurs cheuaux fors et roides, couuerts de gros cuir, et eux estoient armez de cap à pied, de grosses lames de fer, rengées de tel artifice, qu’à l’endroit des iointures des membres elles prestoient au mouuement.
Moreover, Marcellinus, a man raised in the Roman wars, takes careful note of the way the Parthians armed themselves, and notes it all the more because it was so different from the Roman way. They had, he says, armor woven in the manner of little feathers, which did not hinder the movement of their bodies; and yet it was so strong that our darts rebounded when they struck it. These are the scales that our ancestors were very much in the habit of using. And in another place he says: They had strong, sturdy horses, covered with thick leather, and they themselves were armed from head to foot with thick plates of iron, arranged with such skill that at the joints of the limbs they yielded to the movement.
On eust dict que c’estoient des hommes de fer: car ils auoient des accoustremens de teste si proprement assis, et representans au naturel la forme et parties du visage, qu’il n’y auoit moyen de les assener que par des petits trous ronds, qui respondoient à leurs yeux, leur donnant vn peu de lumiere, et par des fentes, qui estoient à l’endroict des naseaux, par où ils prenoyent assez malaisément haleine, Flexilis inductis animatur lamina membris, / Horribilis visu; credas simulacra moueri / Ferrea, cognatôque viros spirare metallo. / Par vestitus equis: ferrata fronte minantur, / Ferratôsque mouent, securi vulneris, armos. Voila vne description, qui retire bien fort à l’equippage d’vn homme d’armes François, à tout ses bardes.
You would have said they were men of iron. Their headpieces were so neatly fitted, and reproduced the shape and features of the face so naturally, that there was no way to strike them except through little round holes matching their eyes, which gave them a little light, and through slits at the nostrils, through which they drew breath with some difficulty. The supple plate takes life from the limbs it covers, / dreadful to behold; you would think iron statues were moving, / and men breathing in the metal grown onto them. / The horses wear the same: with iron brows they threaten, / and, safe from wounds, they move their iron-clad shoulders. Here is a description that comes very close to the equipment of a French man-at-arms, with all his horse armor.
Plutarque dit que Demetrius fit faire pour luy, et pour Alcinus, le premier homme de guerre qui fust pres de luy, à chacun vn harnois complet du poids de six vingts liures, là où les communs harnois n’en pesoient que soixante.
Plutarch says that Demetrius had a complete suit of armor made for himself and for Alcinus, the chief soldier about him, each weighing a hundred and twenty pounds, whereas ordinary suits weighed only sixty.