Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms, or with such, at least, as were of very little proof:
"Tegmina queis capitum, raptus de subere cortex."
["To whom the coverings of the heads were the bark of the cork-tree."—AEneid, vii. 742.]
Alexander, the most adventurous captain that ever was, very seldom wore armour, and such amongst us as slight it, do not by that much harm to the main concern; for if we see some killed for want of it, there are few less whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being overburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock, or otherwise. For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness of the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to defend ourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it. We have enough to do to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if we were only to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same obligation to defend them, that they have to defend us. Tacitus gives a pleasant description of the men-at-arms among our ancient Gauls, who were so armed as only to be able to stand, without power to harm or to be harmed, or to rise again if once struck down. Lucullus, seeing certain soldiers of the Medes, who formed the van of Tigranes' army, heavily armed and very uneasy, as if in prisons of iron, thence conceived hopes with great ease to defeat them, and by them began his charge and victory. And now that our musketeers are in credit, I believe some invention will be found out to immure us for our safety, and to draw us to the war in castles, such as those the ancients loaded their elephants withal.
This humour is far differing from that of the younger Scipio, who sharply reprehended his soldiers for having planted caltrops under water, in a ditch by which those of the town he held besieged might sally out upon him; saying, that those who assaulted should think of attacking, and not to fear; suspecting, with good reason, that this stop they had put to the enemies, would make themselves less vigilant upon their guard. He said also to a young man, who showed him a fine buckler he had, that he was very proud of, "It is a very fine buckler indeed, but a Roman soldier ought to repose greater confidence in his right hand than in his left."
Now 'tis nothing but the not being used to wear it that makes the weight of our armour so intolerable:
"L'usbergo in dosso haveano, et l'elmo in testa,
Due di questi guerrier, de' quali io canto;
Ne notte o di, d' appoi ch' entraro in questa
Stanza, gl'haveano mai messi da canto;
Che facile a portar come la vesta
Era lor, perche in uso l'havean tanto:"
["Two of the warriors, of whom I sing, had on their backs their
cuirass and on their heads their casque, and never had night or day
once laid them by, whilst here they were; those arms, by long
practice, were grown as light to bear as a garment"
—Ariosto, Cant., MI. 30.]
the Emperor Caracalla was wont to march on foot, completely armed, at the head of his army. The Roman infantry always carried not only a morion, a sword, and a shield (for as to arms, says Cicero, they were so accustomed to have them always on, that they were no more trouble to them than their own limbs):
"Arma enim membra militis esse dicunt."