# The Cult of Youth ↓ ###### outline ## Highlights ### q1 > Eumenes’ Silver Shields were all 60 years and older when they marched up to Antigonus’ phalanx and stabbed it to pieces in a few moments of blood and horror - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhjfgt7d0tzjprsww34hay) ### q2 > Sir John Smythe says that all ancient and modern nations agree that soldiers should be at least 18 years old, but he thinks that might be too young - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhk032v0azcn0h3das9g0n) ### q3 > Polybius’ Romans and Thucydides’ Athenians relegated eighteen-year-old soldiers to easy duty such as skirmishing and guarding fortifications. And Timur destroyed Sultan Bayezid’s army in 1402 at the age of 66 and was on his way to invade China when he died three years later. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhk7v6z9dy58vgx5dh4cbt) ### q4 > soldiers before the 19th century think that as a rule of thumb men should not have to fight after an age between 45 and 60, but they are not absolute and do not think that is too old for a general. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhkj5rqnk0bpqf1ava6mds) ### q5 > their cult of youth is wrong for contexts before the 18th century. I trust the professional judgement of soldiers who lived and fought in that context over the judgement of people who never put on an iron cuirass or saw an arrow shot in anger. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhmekt0n1ca2gvf2vqj15m) ### q6 > I am interested to hear from Hollie McKay that during the wars in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s, she saw men in their 60s and 70s fighting with the peshmerga - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgfhmj0s6r7czxq9542brzwg)