INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 7 



iiv)on those of a later date, while chariots are continually 

 represented. This seems to prove that when the custom 

 of engraving monuments and monumental tablets first 

 arose, there were only in use in armies chariots with 

 their combatants and attendants, and foot-soldiers, but 

 no cavalry, for in depicting armies the artist would 

 certainly h.ave illustrated all three branches of the service 

 if there were so many. It is just possible that after 

 generations of artists had been representing armies 

 by chariots and foot-soldiers alone, conventional rules 

 of art may have arisen, which have prevented the repre- 

 sentation of real horsemen for many years after they 

 were actually in general use. 



In reference to the difficulty of the word horsemen 

 being applied to charioteers, it is quite easy to under- 

 stand how, before the introduction of cavalry, it would 

 be applied to the only species of force connected with 

 horses, particularly when the word is used to distinguish 

 men fighting on chariots from those on foot. 



At the same time it is not impossible that when 

 horsemen really came into use, the same word might be 

 applied to signify cavalry which had formerly been 

 used to designate the men who fought in the chariots 

 and managed the horses. The Hebrew word had 

 evidently different meanings, for it sometimes is used to 

 indicate the horses themselves irrespective of their attend- 

 ants or riders. As the same word is used to designate 

 cavalry in the later books of the Bible, when cavalry 

 were employed in great numbers, it has led commen- 

 tators to translate it in the same way throughout ; but 

 there is no doubt that all the external evidence tends 

 ,to show that there were no real cavalry in the time of 

 Moses. 



In the Assyrian sculptures chariots appear first, and 

 as horsemen come into use they also are represented. 

 It is strange that cavalry could have been in use in 

 Egypt without any positive evidence appearing in the 

 inscriptions, especially when we remember how complete 

 their sculptured records are. 



It is impossible to fix with any certainty the period 



