Chap. II. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I G S. 77 



no life at all ; and, as to the exercife of arms, it is impolTible that 

 there could be any comparifon betwixt them. 



It was, I imagine, by the fuperiority which the pradlice of exer- 

 cifes gave the antient Greek heroes, that Thefeus, and the other he- 

 roes of the age before the Trojan war, overcame thofe barbarous' 

 mountaineers mentioned by Neftor * ; and it was by the fame fupe- 

 riority, joined, no doubt, with their fuperiority in arms and difci- 

 pline, that, in later times, the Romans conquered the Cimbers 

 and Teutons, the Gauls and Germans, men much fuperior to them 

 in fize and ftrength of body and in fiercenefs. Plutarch fays f, 

 that, in the great battle with the Cimbers, which was fought a 

 few days after the fummer folftice, the Romans had been fo ex- 

 ercifed by Marius, that not a man was that day fweated, or fo much 

 as blown, while the Barbarians were overcome by the heat, more 

 than by the fwords of the Romans. 



And here we may obferve, in palling, the neceffity of exercife, and 

 even violent exercife, in hot countries, without which it was im- 

 pofTible the Romans could have withftood the Barbarians, even wdth 

 all their advantages of arms and difcipline, and have fought, as Ju- 

 lius Caefar did with the Helvetii, hand to hand, from morning to 

 night J, if their bodies had not been rendered firm and ftrong by 

 conftant hard exercife ; the want of which made thofe great bodies 

 of Gauls and Germans, in hot weather, foft and JIuid, to ufe an ex- 

 preffion of Livy, efpecially when they came into fuch a warm coun- 

 try as Italy. For I am perfuaded, in their own cold country, they 

 would have flood much better againft the Romans ; and, if that ;^reat 

 battle with the Cimbers had been fought in the northern parts of Ger- 

 many, from whence they came, or even in Italy in the middle of 

 winter, inftead of the middle of furruner, I fhould have thoughr mat 

 the event of it would have been very doubtful. It was not thcjcfore 



without. 



* Iliad, i. Verfe 263. et fequen. 

 t In Vita Marii. 

 ■ t Caefar, De Bell. Gall. Lib. i. 



