Kitap 15
3.18
The youths are called to rise before day-break, at the sound of brazen instruments, and assemble in one spot, as if for arming themselves or for the chase. They are arranged in companies of fifty, to each of which one of the king’s or a satrap’s son is appointed as leader, who runs, followed at command by the others, an appointed distance of thirty or forty stadia.
3.18
They require them to give an account of each lesson, when they practise loud speaking, and exercise the breath and lungs. They are taught to endure heat, cold, and rains; to cross torrents, and keep their armour and clothes dry; to pasture animals, to watch all night in the open air, and to eat wild fruits, as the terminthus,Not the same plant as mentioned above, c. i. § 10, but the pistacia terebinthus. acorns, and wild pears.
3.18
[These persons are called Cardaces, who live upon plunder, for carda means a manly and warlike spirit.]An interpolation. The Cardaces were not Persians, but foreign soldiers. Barbari milites quos Persae Cardacas appellant, (Cornel. Nepos,) without doubt were Assyrian and Armenian Carduci. See b. xvi. c. i. § 24, and 3enoph. Anab. iv. 3. Later Gordyaei or Gordyeni, now the Kurds. Groskurd.
3.18
The daily food after the exercise of the gymnasium is bread, a cake, cardamum,Cardamum is probably the lepidum perfoliatum of Linnaeus, or the nasturtium orientale of Tournefort. 3enophon also, Expedit. Cyr. iii. 5 and vii. 8, speaks of the great use made of this plant by the Persians. a piece of salt, and dressed meat either roasted or boiled, and their drink is water.
3.18
Their mode of hunting is by throwing spears from horseback, or with the bow or the sling.
