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15Now about their race and their country and their peculiar customs many have written, and I have no intention of describing them. But I will describe their equipment of arms and their method of warfare; for the examination of these details properly concerns the present narrative, since it has come to a point where this knowledge is needed. 2The Parthians make no use of a shield, but their forces consist of mounted archers and pikemen, mostly in full armour. Their infantry is small, made up of the weaker men; but even these are all archers. They practise from boyhood, and the climate and the land combine to aid both horsemanship and archery. 3The land, being for the most part level, is excellent for raising horses and very suitable for riding about on horse-back; at any rate, even in war they lead about whole droves of horses, so that they can use different ones at different times, can ride up suddenly from a distance and also retire to a distance speedily; 4and the atmosphere there, which is very dry and does not contain the least moisture, keeps their bowstrings tense, except in the dead of winter. For that reason they make no campaigns anywhere during that season; but the rest of the year they are almost invincible in their own country and in any that has similar characteristics. 5For by long experience they can endure the sun’s heat, which is very scorching, and they have discovered many remedies for the dearth of drinking-water and the difficulty of securing it, so that for this reason also they can easily repel the invaders of their land. Outside of this district beyond the Euphrates they have once or twice gained some success in pitched battles and in sudden incursions, 6but they cannot wage an offensive war with any nation continuously and without pause, both because they encounter an entirely different condition of land and sky and because they do not lay in supplies of food or pay. Such is the Parthian state.
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