Roger Ascham Toxophilus 1545

fet on an heade as it apereth in Homer the. xxi.
booke Odyffei) where Penelope brought Vlixes bowe
downe amonges the gentlemen, whiche came on wow-
ing to her, that he whiche was able to bende it and
drawe it, might inioye her, and after her
folowed a mayde fayth Homer, carienge y^e-ai.

a bagge full of heades, bothe of iron and braffe.

The men of Scythia, vfed heades of braffe. The
men of Inde vfed heades of yron. The Ethiopians
vfed heades of a harde fharpe ftone, as aio

bothe Herodotus and Pollux do tel. Hero
The Germanes as Cornelius Tacitus doeth Polym

faye, had theyr fhaftes headed with bone, and many
countryes bothe of olde tyme and nowe, vfe heades
of home, but of all other yron and ftyle mufte nedes
be the fitteft for heades.

lulius Pollux calleth otherwyfe than we doe, where
the fethers be the head, and that whyche z Pol x. 10
we call the head, he calleth the poynte.

Fafhion of heades is diuers and that of olde tyme :
two maner of arrowe heades fayeth Pollux, was vfed
in olde tyme. The one he calleth oyKwoe defcrybynge
it thus, hauyng two poyntes or barbes, lookyng backe-
warde to the flele and the fethers, which furely we call
in Englilhe a brode arrowe head or a fwalowe tayle.
The other he calleth yXa>x<e? hauing. "• poyntes ftretch-
yng forwarde, and this Englyfh men do call a forke-
head : bothe thefe two kyndes of heades, were vfed in
Homers dayes, for Teucer vfed forked heades, fayinge
thus to Agamemnon.

Eighte good Jhaftes haue IJhotfithe I came, eche one wyth aforke
heade. Iliad. 8.

Pandarus heades and Vlyffes heades were broode
arrow heades, as a man maye learne in Homer that
tvoulde be curioufe in knowyng that matter. Hercules
vfed forked heades, but yet they had thre pointes or
forkes, when other mennes had but twoo. piutarchw
The Parthyans at that great battell where in Crasso