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War
전쟁(戰爭)
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| The Technology of War |
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2 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY BEFORE THE MODERN ERA
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From the appearance of iron weaponry in
quantity during late antiquity until the fall of Rome, the means with which war
was waged and the manner in which it was conducted displayed many enduring
characteristics that gave the period surprising unity. Prominent features of
that unity were a continuity in the design of individual weaponry, a relative
lack of change in transportation technology, and an enduring tactical dominance
of heavy infantry. |
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Perhaps the strongest underlying
technological feature of the period was the heavy reliance on human muscle,
which retained a tactical primacy that contrasted starkly with medieval times,
when the application of horse power became a prime ingredient of victory. (There
were two major, if partial, exceptions to this prevailing feature: the success
of horse archers in the great Eurasian Steppe during late classical times, and
the decisive use in the 4th century BC of shock cavalry
by the armies of Philip II of Macedon and his
son Alexander the Great. However, the defeat of Roman legions by Parthian horse
archers at Carrhae in western Mesopotamia in 53 BC marked merely a shifting of
boundaries between ecospheres on topographical grounds rather than any
fundamental change within the core of the European ecosphere itself. Also, the
shock cavalry of Philip and Alexander was an exception so rare as to prove the
rule; moreover, their decisiveness was made possible by the power of the
Macedonian infantry phalanx.) Heavy infantry remained the dominant European
military institution until it was overthrown in the 4th century AD by a system
of war in which shock cavalry played the central role. |
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Classical technologists never developed
an efficient means of applying animal traction to haulage on land, no doubt
because agricultural resources in even the most advanced areas were incapable of
supporting meaningful numbers of horses powerful enough to make the effort
worthwhile. Carts were heavy and easily broken, and the throat-and-girth harness
for horses, mules, and donkeys put pressure on the animals' windpipes and neck
veins, severely restricting the amount they could pull. The yoke-and-pole
harness for oxen was relatively efficient and oxen could pull heavy loads, but
they were extremely slow. A human porter, on the other hand, was just as
efficient as a pack horse in weight carried per unit of food consumed. The best
recipe for mobility, therefore, was to restrict pack animals to the minimum
needed for carrying bulky items such as essential rations, tents, and firewood,
to use carts only for items such as siege engines that could be carried in no
other way, and to require soldiers to carry all their personal equipment and
some of their food. (see also military transportation) |
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On the other hand, mastery of wood and
bronze for military purposes reached a level during this period that was seldom,
if ever, attained afterward. Surviving patterns for the Roman military boot, the
caliga, suggest equally high standards of craftsmanship in leatherworking, and
the standards of carpentry displayed on classical ships were almost impossibly
high when measured against those of later eras. |
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The design and production of individual
defensive equipment was restricted by the shape of the human form that it had to
protect; at the same time, it placed heavy demands on the smith's skills. The
large areas to be protected, restrictions on the weight that a combatant could
carry, the difficulty of forging metal into the complex contours required, and
cost all conspired to force constant change. (see also armour) |
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The technology of defensive weapons was
rarely static. Evidence exists of an ancient contest between offensive and
defensive weaponry, with defensive weaponry at first leading the way. By 3000 BC
Mesopotamian smiths had learned to craft helmets of copper-and-arsenic bronze,
which, no doubt worn with a well-padded leather lining, largely neutralized the
offensive advantages of the mace. By 2500 BC the Sumerians were making helmets
of bronze, along with bronze spearheads and ax blades. The weapon smiths'
initial response to the helmet was to augment the crushing power of the mace by
casting the head in an ellipsoidal form that concentrated more force at the
point of impact. Then, as technical competence increased, the ellipsoidal head
became a cutting edge, and by this process the mace evolved into the ax. The
contest between mace and helmet initiated a contest between offensive and
defensive technology that continued throughout history. |
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The helmet,
though arguably the earliest focus of the armourer's craft, was one of the most
demanding challenges. Forging an integral, one-piece dome of metal capable of
covering the entire head was extremely difficult. The Corinthian Greek helmet, a
deep, bowl-shaped helmet of carefully graduated thickness forged from a single
piece of bronze, probably represented the functional as well as aesthetic apex
of the bronze worker's art. Many classical Greek helmets of bronze were joined
by a seam down the crown. |
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Iron helmets followed the evolution of
iron mail, itself a sophisticated and relatively late development. The
legionnaire of the early Roman Republic wore a helmet of bronze, while his
successor in the Empire of the 1st century AD wore one of iron. |
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Shields
were used for hunting long before they were used for warfare, partly for defense
and partly for concealment in stalking game, and it is likely that the military
shield evolved from that of the hunter and herdsman. The size and composition of
shields varied greatly, depending on the tactical demands of the user. In
general, the more effective the protection afforded by body armour, the smaller
the shield; similarly, the longer the reach of the soldier's weapon, the smaller
his shield. The Greek hoplite, a heavy infantryman who fought in closely packed
formation, acquired his name from the hoplon,
a convex, circular shield, approximately three feet (90 centimetres) in
diameter, made of composite wood and bronze. It was carried on the left arm by
means of a bronze strap that passed across the forearm and a rope looped around
the inner rim with sufficient slack to be gripped in the fist. In the 4th
century BC the soldier of the Roman Republic, who fought primarily with the
spear, carried an oval shield, while the later imperial legionnaire, who closed
in with a short sword, protected himself with the scutum, a large cylindrical shield of leather-clad wood that covered
most of his body. |
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Padded garments, and perhaps armour of
hardened leather, preceded edged metal weapons. It was then a logical, if
expensive, step to cast or forge small metal plates and sew them onto a
protective garment. These provided real protection against arrow, spear, or
mace, and the small scales, perforated for attachment, were a far less demanding
technical challenge than even the simplest helmet. Armour of overlapping scales
of bronze, laced together or sewn onto a backing of padded fabric, is well
represented in pictorial evidence and burial items from Mesopotamia, Palestine,
and Egypt from about 1500 BC, though its use was probably restricted to a small
elite. |
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By classical times, breastplates of bronze,
at first beaten and then cast to the warrior's individual shape, were
commonplace among heavy infantry and elite cavalry. Greaves, defenses for the
lower leg, closely followed the breastplate. At first these were forged of
bronze plates; some classical Greek examples were cast to such fine tolerances
that they sprang open and could be snapped onto the calf. Defenses for more
remote portions of the body, such as vambraces for the forearm and defenses for
the ankle resembling spats, were included in Greek temple dedications, but they
were probably not common in field service. |
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Bronze was the most common metal for
body defenses well into the Iron Age, a consequence of the fact that it could be
worked in large pieces without extended hand forging and careful tempering,
while iron had to be forged from relatively small billets. |
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The first practical body armour of iron
was mail, which made its appearance in Hellenistic times but became common only
during the Roman Imperial period. (Bronze mail was impractical because of the
insufficient strength of the alloy.) Mail, or chain
mail, was made of small rings of iron, typically of one-half-inch
diameter or less, linked into a protective fabric. The rings were fastened
together in patterns of varying complexity depending on the degree of protection
desired; in general, smaller, lighter rings fastened in dense, overlapping
patterns meant lighter, better protection. The fabrication of mail was extremely
labour-intensive. The earliest mail was made of hand-forged links, each
individual link riveted together. Later, armourers used punches of hardened iron
to cut rings from sheets: this reduced the labour involved and, hence, the cost. |
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The earliest evidence of mail is
depicted on Greek sculpture and friezes dating from the 3rd century BC, though
this kind of protection might be considerably older (there was some evidence
that it might be of Celtic origin). Little else is known about the use of mail
by the Greeks, but the Roman legionnaire was equipped with a lorica hamata, a mail shirt, from a very early date. Mail was
extremely flexible and provided good protection against cutting and piercing
weapons. Its main disadvantage was its weight, which tended to hang from the
shoulders and waist. In addition, strips of mail tended to curl at the edges;
the Romans solved this problem by lacing mail shoulder defenses to leather
plates. In the 1st century AD the legionnaire's mail shirt gave way to a
segmented iron torso defense, the lorica
segmentata. |
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While some early forged bronze armour
was technically plate, the introduction of the lorica
segmentata heralded the production of practical plate
armour on a large scale. In general, the term plate would imply a uniform
thickness of metal, and only iron could provide reasonably effective protection
with uniform thickness without excessive weight. |
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While the Republican legionnaire's lorica
hamata hung to the midthigh, his imperial successor's lorica
segmentata covered only the shoulders and torso. On the whole, classical
plate armour probably provided better protection against smashing and heavy
piercing blows, while a shirt of well-made mail covered more of the body and,
hence, afforded better protection against slashing blows and missiles. |
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Development of the offensive technology
of war was not as constrained by technological and economic limitations as was
defensive weaponry. Every significant offensive weapon was widely available,
while defensive equipment of high quality was almost always confined to the
elite. Perhaps as a consequence, a wide variety of individual offensive weapons
appeared in antiquity. One of the most striking facets of ancient military
technology is the early date by which individual weapons attained their form and
the longevity of early offensive weapons concepts. Some of the weapons of
antiquity disappeared as practical military implements in classical and medieval
times, and all underwent modification, but, with the exception of the halberd
and crossbow, virtually every significant pre-gunpowder weapon was known in
antiquity. |
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Limitations on the strength of bronze
and difficulties in casting and hafting
restricted the ax at first to a relatively broad blade mortised into a handle at
three points and secured with bindings or rivets. The hafting problem became
acute as improvements in armour dictated longer, narrower blades designed
primarily for piercing rather than cutting. This led to the development of
socketed axes, in which the handle passed
through a tubular hole cast in the ax head; both hole and head were tapered from
front to rear to prevent the head from flying off. This far stronger hafting
technique must have been accompanied by a significant improvement in the quality
of the metal itself. The pace and timing of these developments varied enormously
from place to place, depending on the local level of technology. Sumerian smiths
were casting socketed ax heads with narrow piercing blades by 2500 BC, while
simple mortise-and-tenon hafting was still being used in Egypt 1,000 years
later. |
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Though early man probably employed spears
of fire-hardened wood, spearheads of knapped stone were used long before the
emergence of any distinction between hunting and military weapons. Bronze
spearheads closely followed the development of alloys hard enough to keep a
cutting edge and represented, with the piercing ax, the earliest significant
military application of bronze. Spearheads were also among the earliest
militarily significant applications of iron, no doubt because existing patterns
could be directly extrapolated from bronze to iron. Though the hafting is quite
different, bronze Sumerian spearheads of the 3rd millennium BC differ only
marginally in shape from the leaf-shaped spearheads of classical Greece. |
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The spears of antiquity were relatively
short, commonly less than the height of the warrior, and typically were wielded
with one hand. As defensive armour and other weapons of shock combat (notably
the sword) improved, spear shafts were made longer and the use of the spear
became more specialized. The Greek hoplite's spear was about nine feet long; the
Macedonian sarissa was twice that
length in the period of Alexander's conquests and it grew to some 21 feet in
Hellenistic times. |
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Javelins, or throwing spears, were
shorter and lighter than spears designed for shock combat and had smaller heads.
The distinction between javelin and spear was slow to develop, but by classical
times the heavy spear was clearly distinguished from the javelin, and
specialized javelin troops were commonly used for skirmishing. A throwing string
was sometimes looped around the shaft and tied to the thrower's finger to impart
spin to the javelin on release. This improved the weapon's accuracy and probably
increased the range and penetrating power by permitting a harder cast. |
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A significant refinement of the javelin
was the Roman pilum. The pilum was relatively short, about five feet long, and
had a heavy head of soft iron that made up nearly one-third of the weapon's
total length. The weight of this weapon restricted its range but gave it greater
impact. Its head of soft iron was intended to bend on impact, preventing an
enemy from throwing it back. |
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Like the spear, the javelin was
relatively unaffected by the appearance of iron and retained its characteristic
form until it was finally abandoned as a serious weapon in the 16th century. |
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The sling
was the simplest of the missile weapons of antiquity in principle and the most
difficult in practice. It consisted of two cords or thongs fastened to a pouch.
A small stone was placed in the pouch, and the slinger whirled the whole affair
around to build up velocity before letting go of one of the cord ends to release
the projectile. While considerable velocity could be imparted to a projectile in
this way, the geometry of the scheme dictated that the release be timed with
uncanny precision to achieve even rudimentary accuracy. Almost always wielded by
tribal or regionally recruited specialists who acquired their skills in youth,
the sling featured prominently in warfare in antiquity and classical times. It
outranged the javelin and even--at least at some times and places--the bow (a
point confirmed in the 4th century BC by the Greek historian Xenophon). By
classical times, lead bullets, often with slogans or epigrams cast into
them--"A nasty present!"--were used as projectiles. |
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The sling vanished as a weapon of war in
the Old World by the end of the classical period, owing mainly to the
disappearance of the tribal cultures in which it originated. (In the New World,
on the other hand, both the Aztecs and Incas used the sling with great effect
against Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.) |
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The advantages of a long, sharp blade
had to await advanced smelting and casting technology before they could be
realized. By about 1500 BC the cutting ax had evolved into the sickle sword,
a bronze sword with a curved, concave blade and a straight, thickened handle.
Bronze swords with straight blades more than three feet long have been found in
Greek grave sites; however, because this length exceeded the structural
capabilities of bronze, these swords were not practical weapons. As a serious
military implement, the sword had to await the development of iron forging, and
the first true swords date from about 1200 BC. |
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Swords in antiquity and classical times
tended to be relatively short, at first because they were made of bronze and
later because they were rarely called upon to penetrate iron armour. The blade
of the classic Roman stabbing sword, the gladius,
was only some two feet long, though in the twilight years of the empire the gladius
gave way to the spatha, the long slashing sword of the barbarians. |
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The bow was simple in concept, yet it
represented an extremely sophisticated technology. In its most basic form, the
bow consisted of a stave of wood slightly bent by the tension of a bowstring
connecting its two ends. The bow stored the force of the archer's draw as
potential energy, then transferred it to the bowstring as kinetic energy,
imparting velocity and killing power to the arrow. The bow could store no more
energy than the archer was capable of producing in a single movement of the
muscles of his back and arms, but it released the stored energy at a higher
velocity, thus overcoming the arm's inherent limitations. (see also bow
and arrow ) |
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Though not as evident, the
sophistication of arrow technology matched that of the bow. The effectiveness of
the bow depended on the arrow's efficiency in retaining kinetic energy
throughout its trajectory and then transforming it into killing power on impact.
This was not a simple problem, as it depended on the mass, aerodynamic drag, and
stability of the arrow and on the hardness and shape of the head. These factors
were related to one another and to the characteristics of the bow in a complex
calculus. The most important variables in this calculus were arrow weight and
the length and stiffness of the bow. |
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Assuming the same length of draw and
available force, the total amount of potential energy that an archer could store
in a bow was a function of the bow's length; that is, the longer the arms of the
bow, the more energy stored per unit of work expended in the draw and,
therefore, the more kinetic energy imparted to the string and arrow. The
disadvantage of a long bow was that the stored energy had to serve not only to
drive the string and arrow but also to accelerate the mass of the bow itself.
Because the longer bow's more massive arms accelerated more slowly, a longer bow
imparted kinetic energy to the string and arrow at a lower velocity. A shorter
bow, on the other hand, stored less energy for the same amount of work expended
in the draw, but it compensated for this through its ability to transmit the
energy to the arrow at a higher velocity. In sum, the shorter bow imparted less
total energy to the arrow, but it did so at a higher velocity. Therefore, in
practice maximum range was attained by a short, stiff bow shooting a very light
arrow, and maximum killing power at medium ranges was attained by a long bow
driving a relatively heavy arrow. |
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The simple bow, made from a single piece
of wood, was known to Neolithic hunters; it is clearly depicted in cave
paintings of 30,000 BC and earlier. The first improvement was the reflex bow, a
bow that was curved forward, or reflexively, near its centre so that the string
lay close against the grip before the bow was drawn. This increased the
effective length of the draw since it began farther forward, close to the
archer's left hand. |
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The next major improvement, one that was
to remain preeminent among missile weapons until well into the modern era, was
the composite recurved bow. This development overcame the inherent limitations
of wood in stiffness and tensile strength. The composite
bow's resistance to bending was increased by reinforcing the rear, or
belly, of the bow with horn; its speed and power in recoil were increased by
overlaying the front of the bow with sinew, usually applied under tension. The
wooden structure of this composite thus consisted of little more than thin
wooden strips supporting the horn and sinew. The more powerful composite bows,
being very highly stressed, reversed their curvature when unstrung. They
acquired the name recurved since the outer arms of the bow curved away from the
archer when the bow was strung, which imparted a mechanical advantage at the end
of the draw. Monumental and artistic evidence suggest that the principle of the
composite recurved bow was known as early as 3000 BC. |
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A prime advantage of the composite bow
was that it could be engineered to essentially any desired strength. By
following the elaborate but empirically understood trade-off between length and
stiffness referred to above, the bowyer could produce a short bow capable of
propelling light arrows to long ranges, a long, heavy bow designed to maximize
penetrative power at relatively short ranges, or any desired compromise between. |
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Arrow design was probably the first area
of military technology in which production considerations assumed overriding
importance. As a semi-expendable munition that was used in quantity, arrows
could not be evaluated solely by their technological effectiveness; production
costs had to be considered as well. As a consequence, the materials used for
arrowheads tended to be a step behind those used for other offensive
technologies. Arrowheads of flint and obsidian, knapped to remarkably uniform
standards, survived well into the Bronze Age, and bronze arrowheads were used
long after the adoption of iron for virtually every other military cutting or
piercing implement. |
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Arrow shafts were made of relatively
inexpensive wood and reed throughout history, though considerable labour was
involved in shaping them. Remarkably refined techniques for fastening arrowheads
of flint and obsidian to shafts were well in hand long before recorded history.
(The importance of arrow manufacturing techniques is reflected in the survival
in modern English of the given name Fletcher, the title of a specialist in
attaching feathers to the arrow shaft.) |
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In contrast to individual weaponry,
there was little continuity from classical to medieval times in mechanical artillery.
The only exception--and it may have been a case of independent reinvention--was
the similarity of the Roman onager to the medieval catapult. |
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Mechanical artillery of classical times
was of two types: tension and torsion. In the first, energy to drive the
projectile was provided by the tension of a drawn bow; in the other, it was
provided by torsional energy stored in bundles of twisted fibres. |
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The invention of mechanical artillery
was ascribed traditionally to the initiative of Dionysius
the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, in Sicily, who in 399 BC directed his
engineers to construct military engines in
preparation for war with Carthage. Dionysius' engineers surely drew on existing
practice. The earliest of the Greek engines was the gastrophetes, or "belly shooter." In effect a large crossbow,
it received its name because the user braced the stock against his belly to draw
the weapon. Though Greek texts did not go into detail on construction of the
bow, it was based on a composite bow of wood, horn, and sinew. The potential of
such engines was apparent, and the demand for greater power and range quickly
exceeded the capabilities of tension. By the middle of the 3rd century BC, the
bow had been replaced by rigid wooden arms constrained in a wooden box and drawn
against the force of tightly twisted bundles of hair or sinew. The overall
concept was similar to the gastrophetes,
but the substitution of torsion for tension permitted larger and more powerful
engines to be made. Such catapults (from Greek kata,
"to pierce," and pelte,
"shield"; a "shield piercer") could throw a javelin as far
as 800 yards (700 metres). The same basic principle was applied to large
stone-throwing engines. The Jewish historian Josephus referred to Roman
catapults used in the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 that could throw a one-talent
stone (about 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms) two stades
(400 yards) or more. |
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The terminology of mechanical artillery
is confusing. Catapult is the general term for mechanical artillery; however,
the term also narrowly applies to a particular type of torsion engine with a
single arm rotating in a vertical plane. Torsion engines with two horizontally
opposed arms rotating in the horizontal plane, such as that described above, are
called ballistae. There is no evidence that
catapults in the narrow sense were used by the Greeks; the Romans called their
catapults onagers, or wild asses, for the way in which their rears kicked upward
under the recoil force. The Romans used large ballistae and onagers effectively
in siege operations, and a complement of carroballistae,
small, wheel-mounted torsion engines, was a regular part of the legion. The
onager and the medieval catapult were identical in concept, but ballistae were
not used after the classical era. |
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Fortifications in antiquity were
designed primarily to defeat attempts at escalade, though cover was provided for
archers and javelin throwers along the ramparts and for enfilade fire
from flanking towers. By classical Greek times, fortress architecture had
attained a high level of sophistication; both the profile and trace (that is,
the height above ground level and the outline of the walls) of fortifications
were designed to achieve overlapping fields of fire from ballistae mounted along
the ramparts and in supporting towers. Roman fortresses of the 2nd century AD,
largely designed for logistic and administrative convenience, tended to have
square or rectangular outlines, and were situated along major communication
routes. By the late 3rd century, their walls had become thicker and had flanking
towers strengthened to support mechanical artillery. The number of gates was
reduced, and the ditches were dug wider. By the late 4th and 5th centuries,
Roman fortresses were being built on easily defensible ground with irregular
outlines that conformed to the topography; clearly, passive defense had become
the dominant design consideration. (see also military
architecture) |
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In general, the quality of masonry that
went into permanent defensive works of the classical period was very high by
later standards. Fortifications were almost exclusively of dressed stone, though
by Roman times concrete mortar was used on occasion. |
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The main purpose of early field
fortifications, particularly among the Greeks, was to secure an advantage
by standing on higher ground so that the enemy was forced to attack uphill. The
Romans were especially adept at field fortifications, preparing fortified camps
at the close of each day's march. The troops usually required three to four
hours to dig a ditch around the periphery, erect a rampart or palisade from
timbers carried by each man, lay out streets, and pitch tents. During extended
campaigns the Romans strengthened the camps with towers and outlying redoubts,
or small forts, and used the camps as bases for offensive forays into the
surrounding territory. |
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For breaching fortified positions,
military engineers of the classical age designed assault towers that remain a
wonder to modern engineers. So large was one siege
tower used by Macedonians in an attack on Rhodes that 3,400 men were required to
move it up to the city walls. Another 1,000 men were needed to wield a battering
ram 180 feet (55 metres) long. The Romans constructed huge siege
towers, one of which Caesar mentions as being 150 feet high. The lower
stories housed the battering ram, which had either a pointed head for breaching
or a ramlike head for battering. Archers in the upper stories shot arrows to
drive the defenders from their ramparts. From the top of the tower, a hinged
bridge might be lowered to serve a storming party. To guard the attackers
against enemy missiles, the Romans used great wicker or wooden shields, called
mantelets, which were sometimes mounted on wheels. In some cases the attackers
might approach the fortress under the protection of wooden galleries. |
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In antiquity and classical times the
transportation technology of land warfare largely amounted to man's own powers
of locomotion. This was due in part to limitations in the size, strength, and
stamina of horses and in part to deficiencies in crucial supporting
technologies, notably the inefficiency of harnesses for horses and nonpivoting
front axles for wagons. A more basic underlying factor was the generally low
level of economic development. The horse was an economically inefficient animal,
consuming large quantities of food. Of more importance, keeping horses--let
alone selectively breeding them for size, strength, and power--was a highly
labour-intensive and capital-intensive enterprise for which the classical world
was not organized. An efficient pulling harness for horses was unknown, and
mules and donkeys fitted with carrying baskets, or panniers, balanced in pairs
across the back, were the most common pack or dray animals. The ox, the
heavy-duty dray animal of the Mediterranean world, was used for military
purposes when heavy loads were involved and speed was not critical. (see also military
transportation) |
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Because it was not possible to maintain
a breed of war-horses sufficiently powerful to sustain mounted shock action, the
horse was restricted to a subsidiary role in
warfare from the eclipse of the chariot in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC
until the rise of the horse archer in the 4th century AD. Evidence as to the
size of horses in classical times is equivocal. Greek vase paintings from the
7th century BC depict Scythians riding tall, apparently powerful horses with
long, slender legs, implying speed; however, this breed evidently collapsed and
disappeared. Later Mongolian steppe ponies, though tough and tractable, were
probably considerably smaller. |
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Horses were rarely if ever used for
drayage. This was partly because their rarity and expense restricted them to
combat roles, and partly because of the lack of a suitable harness. The
prevalent harness consisted of a pole-and-yoke assembly, attached to the animal
by neck and chest harness. This was developed for use with oxen, where the
primary load was absorbed by the thrust of the animal's hump against the yoke.
With a horse, most of the pulling load was borne by the neck strap, which tended
to strangle the horse and constrict blood flow. |
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The war elephant
was first used in India and was known to the Persians by the 4th century BC.
Though they accomplished little subsequently, their presence in Hannibal's army
during its transit of the Alps into Italy in 218 BC underscored their perceived
utility. The elephant's tactical importance apparently stemmed in large part
from its willingness to charge both men and horses and from the panic that it
inspired in horses. |
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The chariot
was the earliest means of transportation in combat other than man's own powers
of locomotion. The earliest known chariots, shown in Sumerian
depictions from about 2500 BC, were not true chariots but four-wheeled carts
with solid wooden wheels drawn by a team of four donkeys or wild asses. They
were no doubt heavy and cumbersome; lacking a pivoting front axle, they would
have skidded through turns. |
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Around 1600 BC Iranian
tribes introduced the war-horse into Mesopotamia from the north, along with the
light two-wheeled chariot. The Hyksos apparently introduced the chariot into
Egypt shortly thereafter, by which time it was a mature technology. By the
middle of the 2nd millennium BC, Egyptian, Hittite, and Palestinian chariots
were extraordinarily light and flexible vehicles, the wheels and tires in
particular exhibiting great sophistication in design and fabrication. Light war
chariots were drawn by either two or three horses, which were harnessed by means
of chest girths secured by one or two poles and a yoke. |
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That horses were long used for pulling
chariots rather than for riding is probably attributable to the horse's
inadequate strength and incomplete domestication. The chariot was subject to
mechanical failure and, more importantly, was immobilized when any one of its
horses was incapacitated. Moreover, the art of riding astride in cavalry fashion
had been mastered long before the chariot's eclipse as a tactically dominant
weapon. The decline of the chariot by the end of the 2nd millennium BC was
probably related to the spread of iron weaponry, but it was surely related also
to the breeding of horses with sufficient strength and stamina to carry an armed
man. Chariots lingered in areas of slower technological advance, but in the
classical world they were retained mainly for ceremonial functions. |
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