ARMS AND ARMOR. The earliest arms were everywhere made of stone. Stone was succeeded by bronze in the manufacture of weapons of war. The commonest warlike relics of the bronze age that have come down to us are daggers and spear-heads. From the de scriptions of Homer we know that almost all the Grecian armor, defensive and offensive, In his time was bronze, although it is evident that iron was sometimes used in the time of Homer for making weapons, from the fact that he occasionally uses the Greek word for iron (sideros) for a sword. Not the sword, how ever, but the lance, spear and javelin, were the principal weapons of this age among the Greeks. The bow is not often mentioned, al though a bow belonging to Pandarus is de scribed in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey, Ulysses is represented as very expert in the use of this weapon. Among the most ancient nations the Egyptians seem to have been most accustomed to the use of the bow, which was the principal weapon of the Egyptian infantry. The Egypt ian bow was somewhat shorter than the height of a man; the arrow was usually made of reed, the head of bronze, but sometimes of flint. Peculiar to thetians was a defen sive weapon the object of was to catch and break the sword of the enemy. With the Assyrians also the bow was a favorite weapon; but with them lances, spears and javelins were in more common use than with the Egyptians. Most of the large engines of war, chariots with scythes projecting at each side from the axle, catapults, and ballista, seem to have been of Assyrian origin. All of those mentioned can at any rate be traced back to the Assyrians, to whom the invention of the catapult and the ballista was attributed by classical writers. During the historical age of Greece the charac teristic weapon was a heavy spear from 21 to 24 feet in length. The sword used by the Greeks was short, and was worn on the right side. The Roman sword was of Spanish origin, from 22 to 24 inches in length, straight, two-edged, and obtusely pointed, and as by the Greeks was worn on the right side. It was used principally as a stabbing weapon. On the Trajan column, belonging to 114 A.D., the sword appears considerably longer than that used at an earlier period. The Roman sword was originally of bronze, but like all other offensive weapons among the Romans was always of iron in the time of Polybius (2d century when bronze continued in use only for defensive armor. The character istic weapon of the Roman soldier was the pilum, a kind of pike or javelin, about five or six feet in length, with a wooden shaft and an iron head, the latter of which was about one third of the length of the whole. The pilum was sometimes used at close quarters both as an offensive weapon and as a means of parrying blows, hut more commonly it was thrown along with the other javelin, which every Roman spearman (hastarius) carried when within 10 or 15 paces of the enemy. The pilum, when thrown from this distance, would fix itself in the enemy's shield, where upon the Romans would rush up, and seizing hold of the shafts of their pila draw down the shields in which they were fixed, and follow up the attack with their swords. In addition to the large engines of war that have been al ready mentioned as of Assyrian origin (scythe chariots, catapults, and ballistm) the Romans made use of battering-rams for making breaches in the walls of fortified places. The Greeks are said to have used a sort of cannon made on the principle of the modern air-gun. The Romans also employed caltrops to embarrass the move ments of an enemy's cavalry.
The principal pieces of defensive armor used by the ancients were shields, helmets, cuirasses, and greaves. No shields were car ried by the Egyptian archers; but the Egyptian spearmen had large shields, rectangular below and semi-circular at the top, and with a round sight-hole in this semicircular part. In the
heroic age of Greece the shield is described as of immense size, so as to be capable of de fending the whole body. In the early monu ments the shield is still large, though not so large as it appears to have been in the heroic age. In shape it is round or oval, with a very considerable degree of convexity. At the time of the Peloponnesian War .a still smaller shield came into use. The Romans had two sorts of shields— the station, a large, oblong, rect angular, highly convex shield, carried by the legionaries — and the parma, a small, round or oval, flat shield, carried by the light-armed troops and the cavalry. In the declining days of Rome the shields became larger and more varied in form. The helmet was a character istic piece of armor among the Assyrians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. Like all other body armor it was usually made of bronze. The Assyrian helmet was frequently conical. Sometimes it had the form of a truncated cone, and sometimes the pointed extremity was curved forward. The helmet of the his torical age of Greece was distinguished by its lofty crest, which tapered downward to the back of the neck. The Etruscan helmet was also very high crested and sometimes had a wing rising to a considerable height on either side from points near the summit. The Roman helmet in the time of the early emperors fitted close to the head and had a hollow neck-guard and hinged cheek-pieces fastened under the chin, and a small bar across the face for a visor. The neck-guard and check-pieces were not peculiar to the Roman helmet, but were in common use wherever the helmet was worn. In later days the helmet of the Romans had a higher crown than that of the early emperors. The cuirasses of the Assyrians were close fitting tunics made of several layers of flax plaited or interwoven and glued together. This Lind of cuirass was introduced into Greece during the Peloponnesian War and was some times used even by the Romans. Before the Peloponnesian War the Greeks had the upper part of their body defended by bronze cuirasses. The defensive body armor of the Egyptian archers consisted of a quilted coat. The Egyptian spearmen had cuirasses of bronze scales or quilted with bands of metal. Under the Roman republic all the legionaries wore a bronze cuirass, consisting of a breast and back plate, with a border of pendent leather straps defending the lower part of the body. On the columns of Trajan and Antonine this cuirass is given only to officers, the legion aries wearing at that period only leather or linen cuirasses, on which circular plates of metal and metal shoulder-pieces were sewed, and to the lower border of which were attached oblong plates which served the purpose of the leather straps of the other cuirass. In the time of Trajan and Septimius Severus a flexible cuirass was added to the equipment of the Roman knight or horseman. This was made either of scales (lorica squamata) or of chains (lorica hamata). One of the latter kind has been found at Avenches in Switzerland, and is there exhibited. Greaves do not seem to have been worn by any of the eastern nations except the Persians, whose defensive armor resembled pretty closely that of the Middle Ages. The greaves of the Greeks (knarsides) were made in two pieces which were fastened together by clasps. The Roman greaves (ocrece) were made in one piece and were often worn only on one leg. The Samnite practice • was to wear the greave upon the left leg, which is the leg advanced in fighting with a shield on the kit arm; but Vegetius men tions that the greave was worn by the Roman legionaries upon the right leg. The greave reached only from the knee to the ankle. The Roman soldiers had their feet protected by shoes set with nails (calige).