Re:Why They Lost The Wheel (1973)
by cafard on Saturday February 28, 2015 @06:17PM
(#9125415)
The curious thing about chariot warfare is that nobody seems to have a very clear idea of the tactics. The book The Coming of the Greeks offers a picture of the spread of Indo-European languages through a military elite that has mastered chariot tactics, but can't say what they were or how they declined. Homer is pretty shaky on chariot warfare. And when Darius tried to bring back chariots with scythed wheels to defeat Alexander, it just didn't work.
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I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/mis... has more details. "Although intermittently appearing on the battle field for six hundred years, the scythed chariot was curiously ineffectual. Their use by the Seleucid king Antiochus III at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, can serve as an example. ... Antiochus had expected that they would throw the enemy into confusion, but for Livy it all was a "silly show." Placed in front, the horses were terrified by the shouts and missiles directed at them and bolted wildly, without bit or bridle."