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a, Egyptian; b, Phrygian; c, Dacian; d, Roman, Common Soldier; e, Do. Officer; f, Do. Imperial.

A

The rings were of various kinds and sizes, and variously disposed. Sometimes they were fixed independently of each other, as in the very fine specimen of Phrygian mail which our wood-cut exhibits: in other instances, the rings were twisted into each other, like the links of a chain; and, in some cases, the rings were set edgewise, as shewn in the Egyptian hauberks (fig. a of the above cut), which Denon copied from the walls of Carnac. and which affords the earliest known specimen of this kind of armour. similar suit, most elaborately wrought, occurs among the Sassanian sculptures at Takht-i-Bostan in the figure of a mounted king, which is also remarkable for the curious mailed dress by which the front of the horse is protected. The ordinary coat of armour among the Egyptians, although the same general form, was less thick and cumbersome than this. Its external surface presented about eleven rows of horizontal metal plates; and, when this cuirass had a collar, with another narrower row at the bottom of the throat, and above this two more completed the collar. The breadth of each plate or scale was about an inch, twelve of them sufficing to cover the front of the body: they were well secured by bronze pins. They are often without collars. Some of them have sleeves reaching nearly to the elbow, while others are without any. Many soldiers wore a quilted vest of the same form as the coat of armour, and intended as a substitute for it; and some had corslets, reaching only from the waist to the upper part of the breast, and supported by straps over the shoulder.

Scale armour was that which obtained the desired results, by arranging small pieces of metal, cut into the shape of leaves, scales, etc., in such a manner that they fell over each other like the feathers of a bird, or the scales of a fish.

This kind of armour had grown into extensive use long before it was adopted by the Romans, who regarded it as a characteristic of barbarians-that is, of all nations except themselves and the Greeks. In the time of the emperors, they were, however, led to adopt it from the Dacians and the Sarmatians. This scaled armour was not, however, always of metal for the last-named people had none such. They were without suitable metals, and therefore they collected the hoofs of horses, and, after purifying them, cut them into slices, and polished the pieces so as to resemble the scales of a dragon, or a pine-cone when green. These scales they sewed together with the sinews of horses and oxen; and the body armour thus manufactured was, according to Pausanias, not inferior to that of the Greeks either in elegance or strength. The Emperor Domitian had, after this model, a cuirass of boars' hoofs stitched together; and this, indeed, would seem better adapted to such armour than the hoofs of horses. With such armour as this of scales, or indeed that of rings, any part of the body might be covered; and, accordingly, we see figures covered with a dress of scale, ring, or chain armour, from head to foot, and even mounted on horses which have the whole body, to the very hoofs, clad in the same manner. Of this, our cut of a Dacian warrior on horseback is a curious specimen. The construction of such mailed armour had been brought to a state of astonishing perfection. In some instances, particularly in scale-armour, we see figures covered completely in suits fitted to the body with consummate accuracy, and displaying not only the shape of the wearer but even the muscular parts of the person; that is to say, the armour was so flexible that it yielded readily to the pressure of the muscles and to the various motions of the body. Now,

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Goliath's coat of mail' was of scales; and affords the most ancient specimen of scaled armour on record. That it was such, does not appear in our translation, which omits the descriptive epithet Depp kaskassim, which is found in the text, and which is the same that, in the feminine plural, is employed in Lev. xi. 9, and Ezek. xxix. 4, to express the scales of a fish. Whether this kind of scaled armour was adopted by the Jews does not appear. We should think it very probable; though it is certainly true that this is the only instance in which the word D is used in appli

cation to armour.

Having thus indicated the various methods in which ancient armour was made it is desirable to notice the parts of which it consisted.

The thorax or breastplate.-There is no question that this was the most ancient piece of armour for the protection of the upper portion of the body. When men began to extend to that the protection which the helmet had given to the head, a defence for the breast was naturally the first desired and attempted. This was the principal use of the thorar, which for a long time continued to be, under various modifications of form, the sole body-armour of ancient nations; and which, under further modifications, was used in addition to other pieces of armour, subsequently introduced. It probably originated with the Egyptians, among whom, according to Meyrick, it was the only body-armour; a statement which is now known to be incorrect. It hung over the breast and shoulders, in the manner of a tippet; and was made of linen, several times folded and quilted in such a manner as to resist the point of a weapon. These linen pectorals came into extensive use among the neighbouring nations; and those of Egyptian manufacture were particularly valued. A linen thorax of this kind seems to have been worn in the Trojan war by the Lesser Ajax, who

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rials we have described. It was a sort of waistcoat, sometimes consisting of two compact pieces, one covering the front and the other the back, and commonly fastened to each other at the sides. It was at first, whether compact or mailed, cut short round at the loins; as in the cut of the Greek warrior, which illustrates many of the details we are now giving. This is also seen in the figure of the outermost Roman soldier in the annexed cut; for these short corslets continued to be worn by certain descriptions of warriors long after that more complete cuirass had been introduced, which followed the line of the abdomen; and which, whether of leather or metal, was, as we see in the Roman cuirasses, hammered so as to fit exactly to the natural convexities and concavities of the body; with the natural marks of which, as of the navel, etc., it was often impressed. Such cuirasses were sometimes plain, but were often highly enriched with embossed figures, of common or precious metals, in wreathings, borders, animal heads, and other figures. The Romans, in particular, affected the Gorgon's head on the breast, as an amulet.

The girdle.-This was of more importance with the thorax only, or with the short corslet, than with the cuirass which covered the abdomen. Its use is seen in the cut of the Greek warrior; but it was often broader than it there appears. It was a part of their armour on which the ancient warriors set high value. It was often richly ornamented; and the gift of a warrior's girdle to another was a testimony of the highest consideration. Thus it is not forgotten to state that Jonathan gave his girdle to David; and we read in the Iliad (vii. 305), that when Hector and Ajax exchanged gifts, in testimony of friendship, after a hard combat together, the latter presented the former with his girdle; it is often mentioned in Scripture; and from its use in keeping the armour and clothes together, and in bearing the sword, as well as from its own defensive character, to gird' and 'to arm' are employed as synonymous terms.

The Skirt or Kilt fell below the girdle, and with the short cuirass covered only the hips and top of the thighs, but with the long cuirass covered great part of the thighs. It was sometimes a simple skirt, but often formed a piece of armour, and frequently consisted of one or more rows of leathern straps, sometimes plated with metal and richly bordered or fringed. In many of the Roman cuirasses, par

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GRECIAN WARRIOR IN ARMOUR.

ticularly those of superior officers, the shoulders were protected in a similar manner.

The long cuirass which covered the person from the throat to the abdomen, and, by means of the skirt, to the thighs, may be said to combine the several parts we have described, except the girdle, as may be seen particularly in fig. f of the miscellaneous cut. They were in fact defensive tunics; and having mentioned them above, we have only to repeat that they were, in different times and countries, composed of all the materials specified at the outset of this note. These several parts of armour when put on separately, or when united in such long cuirasses as this, together with helmet and greaves, left only the arms, the lower part of the thighs, and the face, unprotected-and not always the face, as some of the ancient helmets had visors. But some parts being exposed, a step further was made by investing the body from throat to heel in a complete dress of mail: this step, however, was never taken by the classical nations of antiquity, it being in their view the attribute of such 'barbarians' as the Sarmatians, Dacians, and Parthians.

We trust that this cursory statement will assist the general ideas of the reader when armour is spoken of in Scripture; which is the more necessary, as, in the absence of any distinct intimations concerning the Hebrew armour, we can only form our notions on the subject by considering the kinds of armour which were generally worn by ancient nations. It will be observed that the various words which occur in our version, as, coat of mail, brigandine, habergeon, harness, breastplate' (except that of the high-priest, which has a different word) are expressed by what is essen

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tially the same word, in Hebrew, with such variations of
orthography as occur in other instances. The most usual
form of this word is shirion. Sir S. Meyrick is of
opinion that this always or generally means the thorax of
which we have spoken, and which the Hebrews probably
derived from Egypt. He thinks that, in remote times, it
was attached to a short tunic, in the same way that the
sacred breastplate was fastened upon the ephod. Beneath
the pectoral were belts plated with brass or other metal, and
the uppermost of them was bound upon the bottom of the
tunic which connected the pectoral with the belts, and all
of them together formed a tolerably perfect armour
for the front of the whole body. These belts,' called in
Hebrew chagor, were generally two, one above the
other, and appear similar to those that are represented in
ancient Greek sculpture, though in some degree higher up.
This mode of arming properly explains the passage in
Scripture where Ahab is said to have been smitten with an
arrow
"between the openings" or "joints," that
is, of the belts,
"and between the thorax" or "pec-
toral." The pectorals of the Egyptians were made of linen;
and perhaps anciently those of the Jews were the same. In
after times they seem to have been covered with plates of
metal, and in the New Testament we meet with the words
Oúрakas σidпpoûs, or pectorals of iron (Rev. ix. 9). The
military sagum or cloak is called in our translation a "ha-
bergeon," but the original () is of doubtful significa-
tion, and occurs only twice (Exod. xxviii. 32; xxxix. 23).
But of whatever kind the garment may have been, it had

E

an aperture at the upper part through which the head was passed when it was put on the body. Strutt conjectures that it was the tunic upon which the thorax was put, and bore the same relation to the thorax that the ephod did to the sacred pectoral.' Meyrick is so high an authority on these subjects, that it is difficult to dissent from him; but we think his statement too restrictive. So far from supposing that the Hebrew shirion means only the thorax, we are satisfied that it has a more extended signification, and implies, perhaps, as understood by our translators, almost any kind of body armour, being rather a general than a specific term. Indeed, he himself states, incidentally, that the same word means a cuirass in the description of Goliath's armour. Doubtless the Hebrews did wear such armour as he describes; but surely not such exclusively. We rather imagine that they were at different periods acquainted with most of the forms of defensive armour which we have noticed.

Most of the same kinds of armour and arms assigned in the sacred text to Goliath still exist in the modern East. The annexed engraving, copied unaltered from Cassas, might seem as if intended to represent Goliath and his armour-bearer, though it really represents a manat-arms and his attendant (or armour-bearer) in Egypt at the end of the last century.

6. Greaves of brass upon his legs.-These were a kind of boots, without feet, for the defence of the legs made either of bull's hide or of metal, generally brass or copper. The ancient greave usually terminated at the ancle, and rose in front nearly to the top of the knee. It was open behind, but the opposite edges at the open part, nearly met when the greave was buckled, buttoned, or tied to the leg. There were some kinds that did not reach so high as the knee. This piece of armour was useful not only in combat, but for the purpose of guarding the leg against the impediments, such as iron spikes, etc., which the enemy strewed in the way, as well as to enable the warrior to make his way more easily among thorns and briers. It appears from

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ancient sculptures that greaves with the open part in front, and defending the calf rather than the shin, were-sometimes in use. Sometimes a greave was worn on one leg only, and that was the left; that leg, and indeed the left side generally, being advanced in action on account of the buckler, which was borne on the left arm. Homer's heroes usually wore brass greaves: indeed the Greeks are continually called brazen-greaved Achaians; whence some suppose that this defence was first, and for a time exclusively, used by that people. The instance before us shews the contrary; and besides, greaves were worn by the Trojans as well as the Greeks.

10. Give me a man, that we may fight together.'-Single combats at the head of armies are of continual recurrence in the history and poems of ancient times; and in many of these instances it was a condition, as in the one before us, that the result of such a combat should determine the national quarrel. A remarkable example of this is the combat between Paris and Menelaus, as described by Homer; to which, and other similar instances, we refrain from particularly adverting, in order to make room for the following striking illustration, drawn from the existing practices of the Bedouin Arabs, as described by Burckhardt (Notes on the Bedouins, p. 174): When two hostile parties of Bedouin cavalry meet, and perceive from afar that they are equal in point of numbers, they halt opposite to each other, out of the reach of musket-shot; and the battle begins by skirmishes between two men. A horseman leaves his party, and gallops off towards the enemy, exclaiming, "O horsemen, O horsemen, let such a one meet me!" If the adversary for whom he calls be present, and not afraid to meet him in combat, he gallops forward; if absent, his friends reply that he is not amongst them. The challenged horseman, in his turn, exclaims, "And you, upon the grey mare, who are you?" The other answers, "I am the son of ***." Having thus become acquainted with each other, they begin to fight; none of the bystanders join in the combat, to do so would be reckoned

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WARRIOR AND ARMOUR-BEARER.-MODERN EGYPT.

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