Heavy Armor, Light Warriors — The Essays of Montaigne

Gentlemen of Montaigne's time will not put on arms until the last extreme of necessity, then lay them by at the first show that danger is over. Each man bustles to buckle a cuirass when he should already be charging, and finds his companions already put to rout. Ancestors still sent the head-piece, lance, and gauntlets to be carried, but they never put off the other pieces while work remained. Troops now travel under a clutter of baggage and servants who cannot leave their masters, because those servants carry the arms. Livy says bodies most impatient of labour could scarce endure to wear arms on their shoulders. Many nations went with little proof, even cork-tree bark for a helm. Alexander, the most adventurous captain, very seldom wore armour, and Montaigne says those who slight it do not much harm the main concern: if some die for want of it, few less are crushed, cramped, or destroyed by the lumber itself.

Present armour is so thick it seems men only seek to defend themselves, and are loaded rather than secured. They are manacled and immured, as if they had to contend with their own arms. Tacitus's ancient Gauls could only stand, without power to harm or be harmed, or to rise if once struck down. Lucullus saw Median soldiers in the van of Tigranes' army, uneasy as in prisons of iron, and began his charge and his victory there. Now that musketeers are in credit, Montaigne believes some invention will immure men for safety and draw them to war in castles, such as those the ancients loaded on elephants. Younger Scipio sharply reprehended soldiers who planted caltrops under water in a ditch, saying those who assault should think of attacking and not of fear, because the stop would make them less vigilant. To a young man proud of a fine buckler he said a Roman soldier ought to repose greater confidence in his right hand than in his left.

The weight is intolerable only because men are not used to wear it. Ariosto's two warriors kept cuirass and casque night and day until long practice made the arms as light as a garment. Caracalla marched on foot, completely armed, at the head of his army. Roman infantry carried a morion, sword, and shield as if they were limbs, plus fifteen days' provision and stakes, sixty pounds in weight; Marius' soldiers marched five leagues in five hours at that rate. Younger Scipio in Spain ordered men to eat standing, and nothing that was dressed. A Lacedaemonian was jeered for being seen under a roof: hardship made any cover but heaven a shame. Marcellinus then describes the Parthians: scale mail like little feathers that did not hinder the body, darts that rebounded, horses in thick tanned hides, and men armed cap-a-pie in plates that bent with the limb, faces of iron with two holes for the eyes and chinks at the nostrils. The picture draws near French men-at-arms on barded horses. Plutarch closes on Demetrius, who caused two complete suits of six score pounds for himself and Alcimus, twice the ordinary weight.