154 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



fo much wifer than the antient Scythians, would Ukewlfe wonder 

 very much if we faw the children of the Indians of North America 

 accuftoming themfelves to endure pain, by taking up burning coals 

 in their hands, and trying who fhall bear the pain longeft. 



The Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other nations, from the eaft, 

 which over- ran the Roman empire, and fettled in the feveral pro- 

 vinces of it, we cannot fuppofe to have been men of lefs fize and 

 ftrength than the Gauls and Germans, in the days of Julius Cae- 

 far, as all thofe nations appear to have come originally from the 

 fame officina gentium^ I mean the country about the Palus Moeotis ; 

 or, if they were degenerated, we cannot fuppofe but that the Ro- 

 mans were ftill more, or, atleaft, as much degenerated; fo that their 

 fuperiority in body would be ftill as great as it was fome hundred years 

 before. We cannot, therefore, doubt of what the hiftorians of thofe 

 times tell us, that they were much larger and ftronger than the Ro- 

 mans, which enabled them to ufe much heavier arms than the 

 Romans, fo that thefe could not ftand the fhock of them * j and, if 



it 



* See the defcription given by Ammianus Marcellinus, of a great battle fought 

 by Julian, afterwards Emperor, againft the Alemanni, (Lib. xvi. cap. 12) where 

 he tells us, that the firft line of the Romans was born down by the weight of the 

 armour of the Barbarians, as well as by the fuperior fize and ftrength of their bo- 

 bies ; and it was only the fecond line that could flop them, by the clofenefs of their 

 order, their excellent difcipline, and the advantage which their fliort flabbing fword 

 gave them in clofe fight. And Jornandes, Be Rebus Geiecis, Chap. 39. in defcri- 

 bing that moft famous battle, the bloodicfl we read of in hiftory, (for there 

 perifhed in it 250,000 men,) fought betwixt Artila the Hun, and -/Etius the 

 Roman General, who commanded, befidcs Romans, a very great army of ViTI- 

 goths, Alani, and other barbarous nations, obferves, that the Romans were fo weak 

 and effeminate, that they could bear and wield only very light arms, and were o- 

 vercome by the heat and duft, as much as by the arms of the enemy. This Jornan- 

 des makes Attila fay, in his fpeech to his men upon that occafion ; in which he de- 

 fires of them that, defpifing the Romans, they would fall with vigour on the Vif.- 

 goths and J/ani. And, from his account of the battle, it is evident that thefe auxi- 

 liaries of the Romans bore the brunt of it. 



