28 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period I. 





In this war, the Greeks so felt the want of an effective 

 force of cavalry, that in the first general assembly of the 

 Athenians, held after the retreat of the Persians, Aristides, 

 proposed to raise in Greece 10,000 infantry and 1,000 

 cavalry, and 100 ■'/essels to be maintained to carry on the 

 war against the barbarians.^ 



After this period the Greek cavalry was soon put upon 

 a more efficient footing, and in the next conflict of which 

 we have a detailed and complete account, that is to say 

 the Peloponnesian War, the cavalry exercised an important 

 influence. At the opening of the war the Athenians had 

 13,000 heavy armed infantry, exclusive of garrisons, and 

 1,600, on the guard of the city ; " they had, including the 

 archers that were mounted 1,200 horsemen, 1,600 archers 

 and 300 triremes fit for the sea.' The cavalry were not of 

 a good quality, however, for in two skirmishes in the first 

 year of the war they were defeated and shut up in 

 Athens.^ In the third year of the war, in a battle under 

 the walls of Spartolus, although the heavy armed infantry 

 of the Athenians defeated the heavy armed Calchideans 

 and drove them into the town, the horse and light armed 

 Calchideans got the better of the horse and light armed 

 troops of the Athenians, and so harassed the Athenian 

 army in their retreat with missile weapons, as to cause 

 great loss, without coming to close quarters at all.* This 

 proves that up to this date the Athenian cavalry had not 

 acquired any reputation, and could not compete with the 

 horsemen of Macedonia or Thessaly. ' 



In the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War we see 

 that the Athenians had transport ships, especially to 

 convey cavalry, and that two hundred horsemen were 

 carried by sea in the attack made that year upon Corinth, 

 Thucydides, speaking of the battle which en8U(jfl, says 

 that the advantage to the Athenians from having this 

 small body of horse, while their opponents had none, gave 

 them the victory. ^ 



At the battle of Delium, 424 B.C., Pagondas won 



^ Plutarch, Aristides. * Thucydides, book ii., year i. ^ Ibid, 

 book ii., year 1. * Ibid, book ii., year 3. ^ Ibid, book iv., 



year 7. 





