the earlier,
a light and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under
Tissaphernes, harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such,
it may be conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their
cavalry. The education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was
directed to the formation of those habits of quickness and agility in
the mounting and managing of horses, which have a military value only
as furnishing a good training for the light-cavalry service; and the
tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of
military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and
strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches
which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity,
readiness, and ease of movement.

Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm
of the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them.
Not only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops
in person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and
even inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in
great battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field,
and important consequences were expected from their employment. The
wheels of the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the
chariot was set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great
damage on the ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have
been generally disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least
two horses, and contained at least two persons--the charioteer and the
warrior--a large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light
troops who were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically
it was found that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole
equipage into confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly
checked before it reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this
was not the case, the danger was escaped by opening the ranks and
letting the chariots pass through them to the rear, a good account being
speedily given of any adventurer who thus isolated himself from the
support of his own party.

The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the
Assyrian. The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in
diameter; and the body rose above them to a height from the ground of
nearly five fe