But to none else but the Priests
is it allowed to exercise correction, or to inflict bonds or stripes. Nor
when the Priests do this, is the same considered as a punishment, or
arising from the orders of the general, but from the immediate command of
the Deity, Him whom they believe to accompany them in war. They therefore
carry with them when going to fight, certain images and figures taken out
of their holy groves. What proves the principal incentive to their valour
is, that it is not at random nor by the fortuitous conflux of men that
their troops and pointed battalions are formed, but by the conjunction of
whole families, and tribes of relations. Moreover, close to the field of
battle are lodged all the nearest and most interesting pledges of nature.
Hence they hear the doleful howlings of their wives, hence the cries of
their tender infants. These are to each particular the witnesses whom he
most reverences and dreads; these yield him the praise which affect him
most. Their wounds and maims they carry to their mothers, or to their
wives, neither are their mothers or wives shocked in telling, or in
sucking their bleeding sores.
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