ANCIENT EGYPT, ASIA MINOR, AND CRETE 
were characterized by ruthless cruelty to the conquered, 
and they ruled almost entirely by terror. The atrocities 
described in their records, or portrayed in their art, are 
savage beyond words. Neither men nor women nor even 
children were spared from torture; dismembering, blind- 
ing, burning, impaling, and flaying alive were the regular 
accompaniments of their warfare. 
Yet in spite of their barbarity in war, in art their achieve- 
ments were far from primitive. The reliefs sculptured in 
stone or hammered in bronze on the walls and gates of 
their palaces throw a brilliant light on the life of the time 
and do not lack merit in drawing or even in composition. 
Probably the most widely known examples of the art of 
the Assyrians are the enormous and majestic winged bulls 
and lions of stone with which they flanked the approaches 
to the thrones of their kings. These, like the grotesque 
lions seen guarding Chinese gateways today, were not 
primarily decorative but were designed for the very prac- 
tical purpose of scaring away evil spirits (Plate 81). 
About the time that most civilized races had left the 
Bronze Age far behind and iron had come into general use, 
the two great Semitic kingdoms, Assyria and Babylonia, 
were overthrown by Aryan-speaking peoples, the Medes 
and the Persians. A combination of causes explains the 
superiority in war of the newcomers over their older and 
much more civilized foes: Abler leadership; a better mili- 
tary organization; more homogeneous national armies, 
united in passionate devotion to their kings by ties of 
blood, language, and faith, all contributed. Considerable 
credit, however, should also be given to their more ex- 
tensive and effective use of a new method of fighting— 
by companies of horse-archers. 
The Assyrians had such units, but they seem never to 
have developed them, depending rather on their infantry 
and the old and cumbrous war chariots. About such 
troops swarms of light and mobile mounted bowmen could 
hover, shooting them down from a distance until the sur- 
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