ARCHERY, the art of using the bow. It would be a hopeless attempt to trace the origin of an art which has been practised long before the date of any history now in existence. All that the ancients have said of its invention is manifestly fabulous. Claudian has fancifully told us, that the hint was borrowed from the porcupine discharging his quills against whatever animal ventures to attack or irritate him. This idea is at least more in genious than what we find in some of the other poets and philosophers, who eluded every difficulty, by cal ling in the assistance of supernatural powers. Callima chus, Plato, and Galen, ascribe the honour of the in vention to Apollo, by whom (says lsidorus) it was com municated to the inhabitants of Crete. Pliny ascribes it to another son of Jupiter, Scythes, from whom the Scythians were believed to have sprung. Another of the same mythological family, Perses, the son of Per seus, presents equal claims to the distinction. Some of the moderns, attempting to rival these exploded fic tions, have discovered, that the bow was known to La mech, and that with this weapon he killed his ancestor Cain.
The first notice of Archery in the sacred writings, occurs in the 21st chapter of Genesis, where it is said, that Ishmael, the illegitimate son of Abraham, " dwelt in the wilderness, and became an Archer." It appears that the Jews did not excel so much in this art as some of the neighbouring nations, by whom they were infest ed with perpetual hostilities. \\Then David succeeded to the throne, he found it necessary to issue an order, that Judah, the most warlike of all the tribes, should be taught the use of the bow. Jonathan, the son of Saul, appears to have been so expert in the practice of Ar chery, that he never drew his bow in battle, without drenching his arrows in the blood of the mighty ; but in that fatal encounter, in which he and his father fell, the Philistines manifested a great superiority over the men of Israel, in the use of that military weapon. From different passages of the Old Testament, and from other ancient books, we learn, that Archery was used not only in war, and as a pastime, but also as one of the means of.divination.
The Persians taught their children, at a very early age, to shoot with the bow ; and this exercise formed an essential branch of the education of their princes. The station assigned to the Archers by Cyrus, was in the rear of the , spearmen, who were placed behind the the first in order. As both the javelins and arrows were discharged over the heads of the heavy armed troops in front, the destruction in casioned by these missile weapons must have been n a great measure fortuitous, and tending rather to annoy the enemy, than to make any very fatal impression.
From the accounts transmitted to us by Herodotus, it would appear that the Scythians were superior to all other nations in the practice of Archery ; and that the Ethiopians and Egyptians also greatly excelled the Persians.
Among the Greeks, the bow and arrow appear to have been employed from the earliest times. If the de scriptions of battles given by Homer are to be admit ted as genuine representations of the mode of fighting in the heroic ages, we must conclude that the Archers were interspersed among the other troops ; and that, sheltering themselves behind the shields of their com panions, they took their aim deliberately and securely. In this manner, Tcucer on the one side, protected by the shield of Ajax, and Pandarus, the leader of the Ly cians, on the other, thinned the adverse ranks.
In latter tunes, the Archers formed part of the 'rear, or light armed troops, who were not held in such esti mation as the ZI-Arput. The Athenians, however, were indebted for some of their greatest victories to the feats of the archers ; and particularly for the success of the bloody engagement with the Lacedxmonians, near Pylos. The guards of the city of Athens were archers, a kind of troops which might undoubtedly be of great use in the case of a sudden alarm from without ; but as the preservers of internal quiet, we cannot admit them to have been so wisely chosen.