It appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with death who had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Julian commanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in an encounter against the Parthians, to be first degraded, and afterward put to death, according, says he, to the ancient laws,—­[Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiv. 4; xxv. i.]—­and yet elsewhere for the like offence he only condemned others to remain amongst the prisoners under the baggage ensign.  The severe punishment the people of Rome inflicted upon those who fled from the battle of Cannae, and those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at his defeat, did not extend to death.  And yet, methinks, ’tis to be feared, lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate, and not only faint friends, but enemies.

Of late memory,—­[In 1523]—­the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant to the Mareschal de Chatillon’s company, having by the Mareschal de Chabannes been put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of Monsieur de Lude, and having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was for that condemned to be degraded from all nobility, and both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of bearing arms, which severe sentence was afterwards accordingly executed at Lyons.—­[In 1536] —­And, since that, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the Count of Nassau entered into it, underwent the same punishment, as several others have done since for the like offence.  Notwithstanding, in case of such a manifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all ordinary example, ’tis but reason to take it for a sufficient proof of treachery and malice, and for such to be punished.

CHAPTER XVI

A PROCEEDING OF SOME AMBASSADORS

I observe in my travels this custom, ever to learn something from the information of those with whom I confer (which is the best school of all others), and to put my company upon those subjects they are the best able to speak of:—­

               “Basti al nocchiero ragionar de’ venti,
               Al bifolco dei tori; et le sue piaghe
               Conti’l guerrier; conti’l pastor gli armenti.”

     ["Let the sailor content himself with talking of the winds; the
     cowherd of his oxen; the soldier of his wounds; the shepherd of his
     flocks.”—­An Italian translation of Propertius, ii. i, 43]

For it often falls out that, on the contrary, every one will rather choose to be prating of another man’s province than his own, thinking it so much new reputation acquired; witness the jeer Archidamus put upon Pertander, “that he had quitted the glory of being an excellent physician to gain the repute of a very bad poet.—­[Plutarch, Apoth. of the Lacedaemonians, ‘in voce’ Archidamus.]—­And do but observe how large and ample Caesar is to make us understand his inventions of building bridges and contriving engines of war,—­[De