are thus able to aim over the heads of their fellows.

The same sort of arrangement is shown in the Kouyunjik bas-reliefs, where also long lines of troops are represented in march. Cavalry appears here in large bodies for the first time, galloping in regular order over broad roads cut through mountainforests. Ranks of infantry are also introduced, one of which consists of men armed with the spear alone, another of men wielding nothing but the mace; and again, another rank armed with the spear and round shield.*

We have no evidence that the trumpet, used by the Egyptians to form the troops and lead them to the charge at the very earliest periods†— was ever so employed by the Assyrians; though the Hebrews carried the knowledge of it into Asia (Judg. i. and ii. and Sam. passim), and used it, under various forms, both in war and religion, abundantly. Homer alludes to it to construct a simile,—

As when fierce foes approach the city walls,

Shrill sounds the trumpet to alarm the town.

Il. xviii. 265.

Yet in battle he makes his heroes use their voices alone.

Among all the oriental nations of antiquity chariots were much employed in war. They

Thus Herodotus was mistaken when he asserts that Cyaxares, who finally overthrew Nineveh, "was the first who divided the Asiatics into cohorts, and first arranged them into spearmen, archers, and cavalry, whereas before they had been confusedly mixed together." Herod. i. 103. + Wilkinson i. 297.

form as prominent a feature in the sieges and battle scenes of Assyria as in those of Egypt. What number of war-cars the Assyrian monarch was able to bring into action, we have no means of knowing with certainty; the common proportion in the East seems to have been about one chariot to 100 horsemen. Thus Xenophon in the passage just cited (Cyrop. ii.) describes the Assyrian as bringing 20,000 horse and 200 chariots, as his own proper subsidy against Cyrus. This ratio would give for Temen-bar's great army 1,200 chariots. Solomon, in the height of his magnificence, had 1,400 chariots, but only 12,000 horsemen, whom, with the former, he bestowed in certain "chariot cities." (1 Kings x. 26.) "All the chariots of Egypt," wherewith Pharaoh pursued Israel to the Red Sea, amounted to but 600 (Exod. xiv. 7): Jabin, the powerful king of northern Canaan, had 900" chariots of iron;" which are spoken of as a large number (Judg. iv. 3, 13): Hadarezer, the King of Zobah, had 1,000 chariots (1 Chron. xviii. 4). These are the largest numbers mentioned in Scripture, with two exceptions (30,000 in 1 Sam. xiii. 5, and 32,000 in 1 Chron. xix. 7), in both of which cases there is probably some source of error, in the text or in the rendering.

The Assyrian chariot of the Nimroud period was a small light box, nearly square, open behind and at the top, with the posterior corner of each side rounded, and sometimes higher than the fore-part. In general form and appearance it almost exactly agreed with that of Egypt, but was panelled, instead of open, at the sides. The rim (ävru) was

L

generally ornamented with a handsome moulding. The axle was affixed to the body at or very near the hinder margin, so as to throw the weight upon the

NIM ROUD CHARIOT.

the Egyptian car, where the same contrivance was adopted, the effect was further secured by making the bottom of interlaced thongs, a strong but very elastic flooring.

The wheels had the felloe (or circumference) very deep, made of from three to six pieces; whether it was bound with a tyer of metal is not shown, but it probably was, like that of the Greek and Trojan chariot.* Its inner margin was strengthened by broad transverse bands, probably of metal. The spokes were six, slender, usually plain, inserted in sockets in a light nave, which was hollowed between them. No lynch-pin, for keeping the wheels on the

And that of the Hindoos also. "As the ring embraces the wheel," -is a simile of the Sâma Veda, a poem of the fifteenth or sixteenth century B.C. Stevenson's transl., p. 19.

axle, is represented, but a sort of button, or nut, seems to have answered the same purpose.

From the centre of the axle proceeded the pole, which, after passing beneath the body of the car, rose immediately in front of it with a salient curve, and passed on in a slanting upward line to the shoulders of the horses. The extremity appears to have been simple, generally, but sometimes to have curved upward in the form of a long neck, ending in the head of a bull or other animal.* A broad crescentic ornament, set on a foot-stalk, was usually attached to this end of the pole ; and between it and the front of the car passed a long elliptical apparatus, of which neither the use nor the material can be determined. It was elaborately painted or embroidered, and was generally divided transversely into three compartments, containing sacred emblems, such as the sun, moon, seven stars, and the horned-cap. Mr. Layard conjectures that it was a light wooden frame-work, covered with linen or silk, and intended as an ornament.† Something analogous to this is found in the eka, a canopied carriage for a single horse, or small ox, used in the Nizam, an example of which is in the Great Exhibition. The shafts are curved, arching outwards, and approaching at the horse's breast, where they are joined by another accessory pair of shafts proceeding from the upper part of the front of the car. To each of these

These parts are usually concealed by the horses, and when they are sculptured, the lack of perspective, and the confusion of the surrounding parts, render the structure intricate and uncertain.

Nineveh and its Remains, ii. 350.