By a people who are accustomed to owe
their possessions to violence, and who despise fortune itself without the
reputation of courage, no umpire is admitted but the sword. Scipio offered
his arbitration to terminate the competition of two Spaniards in a disputed
succession: "That," said they, "we have already refused to our relations:
we do not submit our difference to the judgment of men; and even among the
gods, we appeal to Mars alone." [Footnote: Livy.]
It is well known that the nations of Europe carried this mode of proceeding
to a degree of formality unheard of in other parts of the world: the civil
and criminal judge could, in most cases, do no more than appoint the lists,
and leave the parties to decide their cause by the combat: they apprehended
that the victor had a verdict of the gods in his favour: and when they
dropped in any instance this extraordinary form of process, they
substituted in its place some other more capricious appeal to chance; in
which they likewise thought that the judgment of the gods was declared.
The fierce nations of Europe were even fond of the combat, as an exercise
and a sport.
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