CHAPTERIV.PELEA DE NAVAJA.—THE OLD SPANISH SWORD.A Sevillian whom I was questioning about the frequent assassinations, astonished me by denying that there were any. “What you hear of,” said he, “as murders are duels.” I objected theknife;—he said, “Well, the knife; that is our weapon; we fence, we do not stab; the duel has its laws, the weapon its science.” I thought this must be a figurative manner of describing some rude point of honour, and asked him to show me in what consisted the science. “I am not expert,” he said; “but if you are curious I will take you to a friend of mine, whom you can engage, as he is the best player in Seville; and, since the death of Montez, in all Andalusia.”I begged immediately to be conducted to theyueçador, and was introduced to the inner apartment; which—as he united the calling of contrabandist to that of fencing-master—was filled with bales of tobacco. The subject was broached as a matter of business. He was willing to give me lessons, but would not undertake toteachme. If I had natural dispositions I might learn “to play” in three months, taking Time by the forelock. I proposed commencing at once; and next morning he came to me by day-light, at the inn—for it required a large room. A wooden dagger is used for a foil: it is about eight inches long, and in form like the old sacrificial knife: it is held by the closed fingers, the thumb stretching along the blade, and the edge turned inward. Round the left arm is wound the jacket as a shield. My teacher, putting himself in attitude, at once reminded me of the fighting Gladiator. He thus commenced: “You must hold your right hand down upon your thigh; you must neverraise it till sure of your blow. Your feints must be with the eye—the eye, hand and leg must move together. When you look here, you must strike there, and spring when you have cut,corta y huya. The left arm must be kept high, the right hand low, the knees bent, the legs wide, the toes forward, ready to spring back or forward. There are three cuts and three parries; one point,—the point is low and at the belly—St. George’sau bas ventre: the cut must be across the muscle on the shoulder or the breast, or down well into the groin, so as to let out the bowels. Unless you knowhow to cut, it is of no use knowing how to fence.”He knew nothing of our fencing, and was much surprised when I made application of it, and attributed the advantages it gave to a natural instinct for the art. The result was, that in a week he had gone through the whole course, and the last day of my stay at Seville, he brought two of the proficients, and we had a regularassault d’armes, the guests at the hotels being spectators. He honoured me at the introduction by saying, that he feared me more than either of his two compeers, because I sprang better than the one, and cut better than the other.The attitudes are a study for an artist. There are not the stiff figures and sharp angles of our fencing; but the rounded limb, the gathered-up muscle, the balanced body:—instead of the glance of the steel there is that of the eye. The weapon is concealed under the hand, and pointing down, so that not a ray betokens it. There is no boxer’s fist or cestus, no crusader’s helm or hauberk, no Roman’s sword or shield. It seemed as if the hands and the eye of the man were equal to the claw of the tiger, or the tusk of the boar. It was a combat of beasts rather than a contest of men. There was the ambling pace, the slouching gait of the panther or the lion, or, rather, it was a mixture of the snake and the frog; gliding like the one and springing like the other. This is the warofthe knife, thePelea de Navaja, falsely interpreted wartothe knife.After missing a blow with the right hand, the knife, by a dexterous player, may be jerked into the left; but this, if unsuccessful, is inevitable death. To jerk[335]it at your antagonist is not permitted by the rules of the game. By a sudden spring an adversary’s foot may be pinned after he has failed in a blow. The most deadly of these feints is to strike the foot of your adversary sideways and so bring him down. A celebrated Juccador named Montes (not theTorero), killed in this manner eleven men, and was at last so killed himself.The mantle or jacket round the left arm is used, not for the purpose of catching the blow, but of striking off the adversary’s arm so that he may not reach. The guarding arm is always within reach, but always avoided; for to strike at it would leave your side open, and the safety consists in keepingunderyour adversary. The arms of the players were all scarred; but that was in “love fights.” The edge of the knife is then blunted, or a shoulder is put to it, as in the case of the lances which they use with the bulls.The Sevillian was right. This is not simple assassination: it is not the stab given in the dark, though of course we could only so understand a man being killed by a knife. A popular song at Seville is, the lamentation of a man imprisoned for “stabbing” another:—he exclaims against the wrong; justifies his legitimate defence of hismaja; calls upon the gaoler to testify to his treatment; and, failing to obtain sympathy, rushes to the grates and appeals to the people:—“Si venga gente pora aca!”There is no song sung with more fervour by the ladies.This is the most deadly weapon I know; the dirk, the cama, the dagger, are grasped in the hand, and impelled by the leverage of the arm. The navaja may be so used, or plunged right on end like the Hindoo dagger, and also by the motion of the wrist alone: it more resembles mowing with the scythe than thrusting with a poniard: it is accompanied by the action of the sword, in which, as in fencing, the limbs come into play, and thus serves the purpose of a defensive weapon. It is the origin of our fencing; and against adversaries not acquainted with that art, or not armed for it, it still retains all its ancient superiority:—in all cases it would be a valuable accessory to other weapons, without being an incumbrance, and serving for all the ordinary purposes of a knife.navajaThe navaja (pronouncednavakha) is a clasp knife,—those worn by professed players are a foot long when closed. There is a spring to catch it behind, to prevent it closing on the hand. When opened there is the click as in cocking a pistol, and the sound is said to delight Andalusian equally with Irish ears. The art of fencing with it is calledpelea de navaja. Pelea has been derived fromπελέα, orπάλλος, of the Greeks; but I give it a higher origin. The Pelethites and the Cerethites served in the armies of Judæa; and though these were the names of two people, Hebrews seem to have borne subsequently that name. One of these passed into Greece as Cretan, and Creticus became synonymous with bowman. The Pelethites, doubtless, used some other weapon, and what it was theπελέαof the Greeks and the Pelea of the Spaniards plainly show. Not that the navaja came from Judæa: the word is Basque, an original term signifying to make smooth, as with a knife. Had it belonged to the Iberi it would have been Etruscan in all probability, and the Romans would not have called it Spanish. Manlius Torquatus, indeed, used it when the Romans had no connexion with Spain: so that it was in Italy, and of course amongst the remnants of the Siculi and Itali—if these, as I have supposed, were the same as the Hispani. It must have been preserved in the same manner as the Spanish cap and shoes of which Seneca speaks.The single combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul, occurred nearly two hundred years before the Romans set foot in Spain. The appearance of this barbarian in his armour appalled the Romans; and the champion, when found prepared for the combat, by laying aside his Roman armour, was armed by his companions with other weapons. The historian describes the combat as if—without understanding its peculiar feature,the mode of grasping the weapon—he were describing aPalea de navaja. “The Roman,” says Livy, “held his sword close to the thigh,with the point raised, getting under the Gaul’s shield, and too close for the stroke of his long sword; he then with a cut forwards and back, slit his belly and let out his bowels.”[336]This would have been impracticable with a sword held in the common manner, or with the “mucrone surrecto:” thus held it would merely have been plunged in; whereas it is the slicing of the navaja that he describes in the wound it made.Livy, writing four hundred years after, explains in the ordinary language, the use of an instrument with which he was unacquainted. It may be objected that a Roman must have been conversant with the sword of a country with which the Romans had been so long at war, but with our armies in Spain, with so many military and scientific men, artists, and philosophers studying its customs, the “Pelea di navaja” has not been so much as noticed, even as a curiosity. Elsewhere Livy says, that the Spanish sword was more fitted to wound by its point than its edge: from its shortness sprang their agility. This is incompatible with the ancient sword, or modern fencing.In the description of battles with the Spaniards, the sword is never mentioned as a weapon used by them, when attacking a heavy-armed body, or resisting its attack. On more than one occasion their defeat is attributed to their spears being broken, when they would be expected to draw their swords: no mention is made of their drawing swords, and having only the “navaja” and spear. They could not after the loss of the latter, stand against the united mass of the legion with their short swords, nor defend themselves against a charge of cavalry; but they appear to have been superior, man to man, to the Romans,[337]as these were to the Greek phalangite.It was not an exchange of one sword for another, but adopting the Spanish knife as a supplementary weapon. Machiavelli remarks, that by the distribution of the Roman legion into three ranks, it had three times to be beaten before a battle could be won; and thus it would seem that it possessed three kinds of weapons, and three manners of using them to be employed before any one of the ranks could be ultimately broken.This explanation meets all the difficulties of the case. The Spanish sword was adopted, yet the Roman is not laid aside, nor are these two swords spoken of conjointly. It accounts for the distinction between sword and knife, and explains the Greek term, as used by Polybius, and supports Dr. Arnold’s persuasion that in latter times the Pelites had a sword. A sword in the ordinary sense, they could not have had, for a sword requires a long shield, and then constituted the difference between the heavy and the light-armed. The nature of their tactics made swords superfluous. The Pelites advanced to skirmish and retreated through the intervals of the maniples, and formed again behind the legion. It was quite another thing to carry, as a protection for their persons, the Spanish navaja.I do not imagine that this “Spanish sword,” as adopted by the Romans, was the clasp-knife. It is likely that the model of it is preserved in the lath foil still used in teaching, and which is the sacrificial knife.[338]No instrument can be better conceived for ripping up the bowels of a man, or for cutting the throat of an animal.Spanish swordOn my return to England, I was one day in the room of the British Museum, when Mr. Warshaw, of Copenhagen, brought some bronze instruments from a Celtic cairn; one of these I at once recognized as the “Spanish sword,” although the form was new to me. Symptoms of incredulity, as was natural, manifesting themselves, I asked the gentlemen present to handle the weapon. It was tried all round, and no one could grasp it so as to use it, in consequence of a sharp-turned hook from the hilt which prevented it from being held, either as a sword or a dagger; but which left space for the points of the fingers, as the Spaniards hold the navaja. I showed it to be what I said it was, by taking hold of it in the manner in which it had to be used. There are now four at the British Museum: they are of the Roman period, in bronze—in case 46, of the Bronze-room. One of them is fitted to go into a wooden socket, or handle, and is but one step from the clasp-knife.coinNow at last, knowing what the Spanish sword was, I looked to the coins, and found one of the Carisia family, which, in the plates of Florey and Morel, have, together with other armour, an instrument resembling it. Fortunately, this coin is in the British Museum: it is in beautiful preservation, and there is the very weapon with the strange handle, which had been discovered by Mr. Warshaw. Here it is given as a Spanish weapon; and on the same coin are the other two distinguishing arms of Spain, theLanceandCetra. The name of the former was taken by the testimony of the Romans, from the Spaniard: the second is mentioned as a Spanish weapon, and Cæsar uses it as a distinguishing sign. The name also is Spanish.[339]On this one coin we have the complete ancient armour of the Hispani.In the centre of the cetra is a star withsevenpoints. The Basque names for the days of the week show also the division by seven.[335]“Taking the poniard, called Puntilla, by the blade, he poised it for a few moments, and jerked it with such unerring aim, on the bull’s neck, as he lay on his bent legs, that he killed the animal with the quickness of lightning.”—Doblado’sLetters,p.156.[336]“Pedestre scutum capit, Hispano cingitur gladio ad propiorem habili pugnam.”“Ubi constitere inter duas acies, Gallus velut moles superne imminens projecto lævâ scuto, in advenientis arma hostis vanum, cæsim, cum ingente sonitu ensem dejecit. Romanus mucrone surrecto, cum scuto scutum imum perculisset, totoque corpore interior periculo vulneris factus, insinuasset se inter corpus armaque, uno alteroque subinde ictu ventrem atque inguina hausit, et in spatium ingens ruentem porrexit hostem.”—Livy,vii.Τῶν δ’ Ἰβήρων καὶ Κέλτων ὁ μὲν θύρεος ἦν παραπλήσιος, τὰ δὲ ξίφη τὴν ἐνάντιον εἶχε διάθεσιν, τῆς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔλαττον τὸ κέντημα τῆς διαφόρας ἴσχυε πρὸς τὸ βλάπτειν, ἡ δὲ Γαλατικὴ μαχαῖρα μίαν εἶχε χρείαν, τὴν ἐκ καταφόρας, καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἐξ ἀποστασέως.—Polyb.iii.15.[337]The author of Murray’s “Handbook” makes the Spaniards such dastardly foes, as to fly from the Romans,before they come in sight, and he quotes authorities too. “The very aspect,” says Seneca, himself a Spaniard, “of a Roman Legion, was enough, 'Hispaniantequam legio visetur cedunt.’”—Handbook,p.312.What Seneca says is, that the Spaniards slaughtered the Germans before the Roman Legion came even in sight.“Germanis quid est animosius, quid ad incursum acrius?HostamenHispaniGallique et Asiæ Syriæque molles bello viri, antequam legio visatur cœdunt, ob nullam rem aliam opportunos quàm ob iracundiam.”—De Ira,lib. i. c.11.[338]In playing at lawn billiards, the Moorish children use the same for driving the ball, and hold it as the Spaniards do the navaja.[339]The Spanish (Castilian dictionaries) do not give the word. In the Basque, it is claimed as their own.“Cetra, voz antigua Española y por esso Bascongada, aunque oy se ignore sa raiz. Cetra significaba broquel de cuero.”—Larramendi,Dic. Triling.
A Sevillian whom I was questioning about the frequent assassinations, astonished me by denying that there were any. “What you hear of,” said he, “as murders are duels.” I objected theknife;—he said, “Well, the knife; that is our weapon; we fence, we do not stab; the duel has its laws, the weapon its science.” I thought this must be a figurative manner of describing some rude point of honour, and asked him to show me in what consisted the science. “I am not expert,” he said; “but if you are curious I will take you to a friend of mine, whom you can engage, as he is the best player in Seville; and, since the death of Montez, in all Andalusia.”
I begged immediately to be conducted to theyueçador, and was introduced to the inner apartment; which—as he united the calling of contrabandist to that of fencing-master—was filled with bales of tobacco. The subject was broached as a matter of business. He was willing to give me lessons, but would not undertake toteachme. If I had natural dispositions I might learn “to play” in three months, taking Time by the forelock. I proposed commencing at once; and next morning he came to me by day-light, at the inn—for it required a large room. A wooden dagger is used for a foil: it is about eight inches long, and in form like the old sacrificial knife: it is held by the closed fingers, the thumb stretching along the blade, and the edge turned inward. Round the left arm is wound the jacket as a shield. My teacher, putting himself in attitude, at once reminded me of the fighting Gladiator. He thus commenced: “You must hold your right hand down upon your thigh; you must neverraise it till sure of your blow. Your feints must be with the eye—the eye, hand and leg must move together. When you look here, you must strike there, and spring when you have cut,corta y huya. The left arm must be kept high, the right hand low, the knees bent, the legs wide, the toes forward, ready to spring back or forward. There are three cuts and three parries; one point,—the point is low and at the belly—St. George’sau bas ventre: the cut must be across the muscle on the shoulder or the breast, or down well into the groin, so as to let out the bowels. Unless you knowhow to cut, it is of no use knowing how to fence.”
He knew nothing of our fencing, and was much surprised when I made application of it, and attributed the advantages it gave to a natural instinct for the art. The result was, that in a week he had gone through the whole course, and the last day of my stay at Seville, he brought two of the proficients, and we had a regularassault d’armes, the guests at the hotels being spectators. He honoured me at the introduction by saying, that he feared me more than either of his two compeers, because I sprang better than the one, and cut better than the other.
The attitudes are a study for an artist. There are not the stiff figures and sharp angles of our fencing; but the rounded limb, the gathered-up muscle, the balanced body:—instead of the glance of the steel there is that of the eye. The weapon is concealed under the hand, and pointing down, so that not a ray betokens it. There is no boxer’s fist or cestus, no crusader’s helm or hauberk, no Roman’s sword or shield. It seemed as if the hands and the eye of the man were equal to the claw of the tiger, or the tusk of the boar. It was a combat of beasts rather than a contest of men. There was the ambling pace, the slouching gait of the panther or the lion, or, rather, it was a mixture of the snake and the frog; gliding like the one and springing like the other. This is the warofthe knife, thePelea de Navaja, falsely interpreted wartothe knife.
After missing a blow with the right hand, the knife, by a dexterous player, may be jerked into the left; but this, if unsuccessful, is inevitable death. To jerk[335]it at your antagonist is not permitted by the rules of the game. By a sudden spring an adversary’s foot may be pinned after he has failed in a blow. The most deadly of these feints is to strike the foot of your adversary sideways and so bring him down. A celebrated Juccador named Montes (not theTorero), killed in this manner eleven men, and was at last so killed himself.
The mantle or jacket round the left arm is used, not for the purpose of catching the blow, but of striking off the adversary’s arm so that he may not reach. The guarding arm is always within reach, but always avoided; for to strike at it would leave your side open, and the safety consists in keepingunderyour adversary. The arms of the players were all scarred; but that was in “love fights.” The edge of the knife is then blunted, or a shoulder is put to it, as in the case of the lances which they use with the bulls.
The Sevillian was right. This is not simple assassination: it is not the stab given in the dark, though of course we could only so understand a man being killed by a knife. A popular song at Seville is, the lamentation of a man imprisoned for “stabbing” another:—he exclaims against the wrong; justifies his legitimate defence of hismaja; calls upon the gaoler to testify to his treatment; and, failing to obtain sympathy, rushes to the grates and appeals to the people:—
“Si venga gente pora aca!”
There is no song sung with more fervour by the ladies.
This is the most deadly weapon I know; the dirk, the cama, the dagger, are grasped in the hand, and impelled by the leverage of the arm. The navaja may be so used, or plunged right on end like the Hindoo dagger, and also by the motion of the wrist alone: it more resembles mowing with the scythe than thrusting with a poniard: it is accompanied by the action of the sword, in which, as in fencing, the limbs come into play, and thus serves the purpose of a defensive weapon. It is the origin of our fencing; and against adversaries not acquainted with that art, or not armed for it, it still retains all its ancient superiority:—in all cases it would be a valuable accessory to other weapons, without being an incumbrance, and serving for all the ordinary purposes of a knife.
navaja
The navaja (pronouncednavakha) is a clasp knife,—those worn by professed players are a foot long when closed. There is a spring to catch it behind, to prevent it closing on the hand. When opened there is the click as in cocking a pistol, and the sound is said to delight Andalusian equally with Irish ears. The art of fencing with it is calledpelea de navaja. Pelea has been derived fromπελέα, orπάλλος, of the Greeks; but I give it a higher origin. The Pelethites and the Cerethites served in the armies of Judæa; and though these were the names of two people, Hebrews seem to have borne subsequently that name. One of these passed into Greece as Cretan, and Creticus became synonymous with bowman. The Pelethites, doubtless, used some other weapon, and what it was theπελέαof the Greeks and the Pelea of the Spaniards plainly show. Not that the navaja came from Judæa: the word is Basque, an original term signifying to make smooth, as with a knife. Had it belonged to the Iberi it would have been Etruscan in all probability, and the Romans would not have called it Spanish. Manlius Torquatus, indeed, used it when the Romans had no connexion with Spain: so that it was in Italy, and of course amongst the remnants of the Siculi and Itali—if these, as I have supposed, were the same as the Hispani. It must have been preserved in the same manner as the Spanish cap and shoes of which Seneca speaks.
The single combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul, occurred nearly two hundred years before the Romans set foot in Spain. The appearance of this barbarian in his armour appalled the Romans; and the champion, when found prepared for the combat, by laying aside his Roman armour, was armed by his companions with other weapons. The historian describes the combat as if—without understanding its peculiar feature,the mode of grasping the weapon—he were describing aPalea de navaja. “The Roman,” says Livy, “held his sword close to the thigh,with the point raised, getting under the Gaul’s shield, and too close for the stroke of his long sword; he then with a cut forwards and back, slit his belly and let out his bowels.”[336]This would have been impracticable with a sword held in the common manner, or with the “mucrone surrecto:” thus held it would merely have been plunged in; whereas it is the slicing of the navaja that he describes in the wound it made.
Livy, writing four hundred years after, explains in the ordinary language, the use of an instrument with which he was unacquainted. It may be objected that a Roman must have been conversant with the sword of a country with which the Romans had been so long at war, but with our armies in Spain, with so many military and scientific men, artists, and philosophers studying its customs, the “Pelea di navaja” has not been so much as noticed, even as a curiosity. Elsewhere Livy says, that the Spanish sword was more fitted to wound by its point than its edge: from its shortness sprang their agility. This is incompatible with the ancient sword, or modern fencing.
In the description of battles with the Spaniards, the sword is never mentioned as a weapon used by them, when attacking a heavy-armed body, or resisting its attack. On more than one occasion their defeat is attributed to their spears being broken, when they would be expected to draw their swords: no mention is made of their drawing swords, and having only the “navaja” and spear. They could not after the loss of the latter, stand against the united mass of the legion with their short swords, nor defend themselves against a charge of cavalry; but they appear to have been superior, man to man, to the Romans,[337]as these were to the Greek phalangite.
It was not an exchange of one sword for another, but adopting the Spanish knife as a supplementary weapon. Machiavelli remarks, that by the distribution of the Roman legion into three ranks, it had three times to be beaten before a battle could be won; and thus it would seem that it possessed three kinds of weapons, and three manners of using them to be employed before any one of the ranks could be ultimately broken.
This explanation meets all the difficulties of the case. The Spanish sword was adopted, yet the Roman is not laid aside, nor are these two swords spoken of conjointly. It accounts for the distinction between sword and knife, and explains the Greek term, as used by Polybius, and supports Dr. Arnold’s persuasion that in latter times the Pelites had a sword. A sword in the ordinary sense, they could not have had, for a sword requires a long shield, and then constituted the difference between the heavy and the light-armed. The nature of their tactics made swords superfluous. The Pelites advanced to skirmish and retreated through the intervals of the maniples, and formed again behind the legion. It was quite another thing to carry, as a protection for their persons, the Spanish navaja.
I do not imagine that this “Spanish sword,” as adopted by the Romans, was the clasp-knife. It is likely that the model of it is preserved in the lath foil still used in teaching, and which is the sacrificial knife.[338]No instrument can be better conceived for ripping up the bowels of a man, or for cutting the throat of an animal.
Spanish sword
On my return to England, I was one day in the room of the British Museum, when Mr. Warshaw, of Copenhagen, brought some bronze instruments from a Celtic cairn; one of these I at once recognized as the “Spanish sword,” although the form was new to me. Symptoms of incredulity, as was natural, manifesting themselves, I asked the gentlemen present to handle the weapon. It was tried all round, and no one could grasp it so as to use it, in consequence of a sharp-turned hook from the hilt which prevented it from being held, either as a sword or a dagger; but which left space for the points of the fingers, as the Spaniards hold the navaja. I showed it to be what I said it was, by taking hold of it in the manner in which it had to be used. There are now four at the British Museum: they are of the Roman period, in bronze—in case 46, of the Bronze-room. One of them is fitted to go into a wooden socket, or handle, and is but one step from the clasp-knife.
coin
Now at last, knowing what the Spanish sword was, I looked to the coins, and found one of the Carisia family, which, in the plates of Florey and Morel, have, together with other armour, an instrument resembling it. Fortunately, this coin is in the British Museum: it is in beautiful preservation, and there is the very weapon with the strange handle, which had been discovered by Mr. Warshaw. Here it is given as a Spanish weapon; and on the same coin are the other two distinguishing arms of Spain, theLanceandCetra. The name of the former was taken by the testimony of the Romans, from the Spaniard: the second is mentioned as a Spanish weapon, and Cæsar uses it as a distinguishing sign. The name also is Spanish.[339]On this one coin we have the complete ancient armour of the Hispani.
In the centre of the cetra is a star withsevenpoints. The Basque names for the days of the week show also the division by seven.
[335]“Taking the poniard, called Puntilla, by the blade, he poised it for a few moments, and jerked it with such unerring aim, on the bull’s neck, as he lay on his bent legs, that he killed the animal with the quickness of lightning.”—Doblado’sLetters,p.156.
[336]“Pedestre scutum capit, Hispano cingitur gladio ad propiorem habili pugnam.”
“Ubi constitere inter duas acies, Gallus velut moles superne imminens projecto lævâ scuto, in advenientis arma hostis vanum, cæsim, cum ingente sonitu ensem dejecit. Romanus mucrone surrecto, cum scuto scutum imum perculisset, totoque corpore interior periculo vulneris factus, insinuasset se inter corpus armaque, uno alteroque subinde ictu ventrem atque inguina hausit, et in spatium ingens ruentem porrexit hostem.”—Livy,vii.
Τῶν δ’ Ἰβήρων καὶ Κέλτων ὁ μὲν θύρεος ἦν παραπλήσιος, τὰ δὲ ξίφη τὴν ἐνάντιον εἶχε διάθεσιν, τῆς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔλαττον τὸ κέντημα τῆς διαφόρας ἴσχυε πρὸς τὸ βλάπτειν, ἡ δὲ Γαλατικὴ μαχαῖρα μίαν εἶχε χρείαν, τὴν ἐκ καταφόρας, καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἐξ ἀποστασέως.—Polyb.iii.15.
[337]The author of Murray’s “Handbook” makes the Spaniards such dastardly foes, as to fly from the Romans,before they come in sight, and he quotes authorities too. “The very aspect,” says Seneca, himself a Spaniard, “of a Roman Legion, was enough, 'Hispaniantequam legio visetur cedunt.’”—Handbook,p.312.
What Seneca says is, that the Spaniards slaughtered the Germans before the Roman Legion came even in sight.
“Germanis quid est animosius, quid ad incursum acrius?HostamenHispaniGallique et Asiæ Syriæque molles bello viri, antequam legio visatur cœdunt, ob nullam rem aliam opportunos quàm ob iracundiam.”—De Ira,lib. i. c.11.
[338]In playing at lawn billiards, the Moorish children use the same for driving the ball, and hold it as the Spaniards do the navaja.
[339]The Spanish (Castilian dictionaries) do not give the word. In the Basque, it is claimed as their own.
“Cetra, voz antigua Española y por esso Bascongada, aunque oy se ignore sa raiz. Cetra significaba broquel de cuero.”—Larramendi,Dic. Triling.