roism, or the valour of his troops, on this memorable occasion, that excellent prince sung with his whole army the praises of the Lord of hosts, who disposes of the victory according to his pleasure. This conduct was becoming the descendant and successor of David, the man according to God's own heart, and a religious people, the peculiar inheritance of Jehovah. On some occasions the victor cut off the head of his enemy, and carried it in triumph on the point of a spear, and presented it, if a person of inferior rank, to his prince or the commander-in-chief. Barbarossa, the dey of Algiers, returned in triumph from the conquest of the kingdom of Cucco, with the head of the king, who had lost his life in the contest, carried before him on a lance. Mr. Harmer thinks it probable that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul, whom they found among the slain, on Gilboa, to carry it in triumph on the point of a spear to their principal city, according to the custom of those times; and that David, in a preceding war, severed the head of Goliath from his body, for the purpose of presenting it to Saul, in the same manner, on the point of a lance. words of the inspired historian do not determine the mode in which it was presented; we must therefore endeavour to form our opinion from the general custom of the east. The words of the record are: "And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand." It is scarcely to be supposed that the youthful warrior was introduced with the sword in the one hand, and the head of his enemy in the other, like one of our executioners holding up the head of a traitor; it is more reasonable to imagine, says Mr. Harmer, that he appeared The in a more graceful and warlike attitude, bearing on the point of a lance the head of his adversary. But it must be confessed that the other idea, after all that respectable writer has said, is more naturally suggested by the words of the inspired historian. It is a common practice in Turkey to cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, and lay them in heaps before the residence of their emperor, or his principal officers. In Persia Mr. Hanway saw a pyramid of human heads at the entrance of Astrabad. They were the heads of Persians who had rebelled against their sovereign. This barbarous custom may be traced up to a very remote antiquity; and it was probably not seldom reduced to practice in the various governments of Asia. When Jehu conspired against Ahab, he commanded the heads of his master's children, seventy in number, to be cut off, and brought in baskets to Jezreel, and "laid in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning." The renowned Xenophon says, in his Anabasis, that the same custom was practised by the Chalybes; and Herodotus makes the same remark in relation to the Scythians." The Roman conquerors used to carry branches of palm in their hands, when they went in triumph to the capitol; and sometimes wore the toga palmata, a garment with the figures of palm trees upon it, which were interwoven in the fabric. In the same triumphant attitude, the apostle John beheld in vision those who had overcome by the blood of the Lamb, standing "before the throne, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands."s • Harmer's Obs. vol. iii, p. 498, 499. P Part iii, ch. 43, vol. i, p. 201. Morier's Trav. vol. i, p. 180. $ Rev. vii, 9. When the Romans had, in their way of speaking, given peace to a nation, by extirpating the greatest part of the miserable inhabitants, they collected the arms of the vanquished, and setting them on fire, reduced them to ashes. A medal struck by Vespasian the Roman emperor, on finishing his wars in Italy, and other parts of the world, represents the goddess of peace holding an olive branch in one hand, and with a lighted torch in the other, setting fire to a heap of armour. The custom is thus alluded to by Virgil: "O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos! Qualis eram cum primam aciem Præneste sub ipsa, Stravi, scutorumque incendi victor acervos.' Æn. lib. viii, 1. 560. "O that Jupiter would restore to me the years that are past! Such as I was, when under Præneste itself, I routed the foremost rank of the enemy, and victorious set fire to heaps of armour." The same practice, by the command of Jehovah, prevailed among the Jews; the first instance of it occurs in the book of Joshua: "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them; for to-morrow about this time, will I deliver them up all slain before Israel; thou shalt hough their horses and burn their chariots with fire." It is also celebrated in the songs of Zion, as the attendant of peace, and the proof of its continuance: " He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire."" In the description which Ezekiel gives of the divine judgments upon Gog, we find this passage: "They that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth and shall set on fire, and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handt Josh. xi, 6. u Psa. xlvi, 9. staves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years." The sword, and the head of the spear, which, being of iron or brass, the action of fire could not reduce to ashes, they converted into the implements of industry; for the prediction of Isaiah certainly referred to a very general custom; "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more." This beautiful image of well-established peace has not escaped the taste and judgment of uninspired bards, if they were not indebted for it, either directly, or by means of others, to the sacred volume: V "falx ex ense Pax me certa ducis placidos curvavit in usus. Martial, xiv, 34. "A scythe forged from the sword of a general, profound peace has bent me into placid uses; now I belong to a husbandman, formerly I was the property of a soldier." The highest military honour which could be obtained in the Roman state, was a triumph, or solemn procession, in which a victorious general and his army advanced through the city, to the capitol. He set out from the Campus Martius, and proceeded along the Via Triumphalis, and from thence through the most public places of the city. The streets were strewed with flowers, and the altars smoked with incense. First went a numerous band of music, singing and playing triumphal songs; next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, having their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fillets and garlands; then in carriages were brought the spoils taken from the enemy; also golden crowns sent by the allied and tributary states. The titles of the vanquished nations were inscribed on wooden frames; and images or representations of the conquered countries and cities were exhibited. The captive leaders followed in chains, with their children and attendants; after the captives came the lictors, having their fasces wreathed with laurel, followed by a great company of musicians and dancers, dressed like satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold: in the midst of whom was a pantomime, clothed in a female garb, whose business it was, with his looks and gestures, to insult the vanquished; a long train of persons followed, carrying perfumes; after them came the general dressed in purple, embroidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch of laurel in his right hand, and in his left an ivory sceptre, with an eagle on the top, his face painted with vermilion, and a golden ball hanging from his neck on his breast; he stood upright in a gilded chariot, adorned with ivory, and drawn by four white horses, attended by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens, all in white. His children rode in the chariot along with him, his lieutenants and military tribunes, commonly by his side. After the general, followed the consuls and senators on foot the whole procession was closed by the victorious army drawn up in order, crowned with laurel, and decorated with the gifts which they had received for their valour, singing their own and their general's praises." The triumphal procession was not confined to the Romans; the Greeks had a similar custom, for the conquerors used to make a procession through the middle of their city, crowned with garlands, repeating hymns and songs, and brandishing their spears; the captives followed in chains, and all their spoils were exposed to public view.* Adams' Rom. Antiq. p. 389. * Potter's Gr. Antiq. vol. ii, p. 111. |