INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9 



alighted, and protected his chief with the buckler or 

 shield. 



In the later chariots the wheels were much higher and 

 the body raised about a foot above the axle, so that the 

 chief while in it dominated over the field, and had an 

 advantage over any assailant attacking him on foot. The 

 warrior also carried a small sword suspended at his left 

 side with a strap, but he is never represented as using 

 either it or the s]:)oar which was always nt hand. 



Isaiah describes the Assyrians in his day (7G0 b.c.) as 

 a people " whose arrows are sharp and all their bows are 

 bent, whose horses' hoofs should be counted like flint, 

 and their wheels like a whirlwind."^ Tlie allusion to the 

 hoofs being like flint is interesting, as showing the great 

 value that must have been placed on sound hoofs, in an 

 age when shoeing had not been invented. 



Xenophon tells us that the Assyrians used their chariots 

 in the front line somewhat as they were used in the 

 Trojan War, and that the warrioi's dismounted and fought 

 as skirmishers on foot in advance of the army, evidently 

 using their bows and arrows. ^ On the near approach of 

 the enemy, they mounted their chariots and retired to 

 their own lines. The foot-archers, the javelin men, and the 

 slingers, then discharged their weapons at the advancing 

 foe, and lastly, the heavy armed infantry, the main force 

 of the army, became engaged in close conflict. 



Cyrus the Great, king of Persia 559 B.C., was one of 

 the flrst military reformers, and if any reliance can be 

 placed upon the history of his life by Xenophon, the art 

 of war must have been much advanced by his wise im- 

 provements. The Cyreneans were accustomed to flght 

 from their war-chariots and to remain in them in the 

 field, although the chariot w^as simply used to convey the 

 warrior, and does not ever appear to have been itself 

 employed as a weapon or engine of war.^ The people of 

 Medea, Syria, Arabia, and other parts of Asia, used them 

 in the same way, and it is evident that they simply 

 performed a species of skirmishmg duty in front of the 



' Isaiah v. 28. ^ Xenophon, Cyropredia, iii. 3, 60. ^ Xenophon, 

 Cyropsedia, vi. 1, 27, 28, 2y. 



