But, while these metal clothes, uncomfortable, hot, and heavy though they were, have been a necessary style of wearing apparel ever since the forgotten ages when men began to quarrel and to strive, it was not until a comparatively recent date that warriors rode to battle wholly incased in armor. The Assyrians and Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans of the earlier days were satisfied with such partial protection as would shield the most vulnerable parts of their bodies—helmets, or head-coverings; greaves, or shin-protectors; and the short oval breastplates that guarded heart and ribs. The stout old Roman legionaries, bronzed and scarred with exposure and fighting, laughed rather contemptuously at the fresh levies which, when sent into the field, wished to shield their bodies as much as possible. Indeed, the first use of the word armor, as we understand it, is found in the works of a military writer of the latter part of the fourth century A. D., one T. Vegetius Renatus, who refers to armor as a defense worn only by the _young_ troops; so you see that, after all, the boys were the first to incase themselves in armor and were the earliest of the knights. But gradually, as men grew more careful of their bodies, they increased the safety-coverings; breastplate and greave and helmet grew into coat-of-mail, and suit of plate, until in the days of the knights—the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—the men who couched lance or wielded sword and met in the terrific battle-shock _seemed_ to be men of iron, whatever they really were beneath their clanging clothes. Look at the picture (Fig. I, p. 938) of a knight in a splendid suit of armor, richly engraved. He lived and fought somewhere about the time of the heroic Edward of England, whom men, because of his sable armor, called the Black Prince. This warrior may have even followed the banner of Prince Edward; he may have fought with Bruce at Bannockburn, or against the cause of the people and Rienzi at Rome. Certainly here is an instance in which “dress makes the man,” as the old proverb declares. Not one of us could recognize the gentleman by his countenance on a second meeting, for even his face is concealed behind a decorated visor, or beaver,—a sort of face-door that works up and down on well-oiled hinges. The short cloth sack, emblazoned with his crest and worn over his armor, is the _tabard_, and from his plumed helmet to his pointed _sollerets_, or shoes of iron, he is one mass of metal. The two knights, alongside, in Fig. 2, are incased in somewhat less elaborate iron suits, though they also belong to the age of splendid armor. [Illustration: BRONZE STATUES AT THE TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN I., REPRESENTING ARTHUR OF BRITAIN, THEODEOBERT OF BURGUNDY, ERNEST OF AUSTRIA, AND THEODORIC, KING OF THE OSTROGOTHS.]