s; it hung in clouds on the enemy--assailed, retreated, rallied,
re-advanced--fled, and even in flight was formidable, since each rider
was trained to discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim.
against the pursuing foe. The famous skill of the Parthians in their
horse-combats was inherited from their Persian predecessors, who seem to
have invented the practice which the later people carried to perfection.

Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did
not wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela,
Darius Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he
expected the Greek cavalry to make its attacks. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 5];
and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian horse
by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
the devices which they employed against their enemies.

It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements
by the author of the "Cyrpoasdia," to the effect that engines were well
known to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from
the works of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually
employed them, either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of
Scripture, of Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of
Arrian, may fairly be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority
of the romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide
that such things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce--all
of which are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and
Babylonian monarchies--were wholly discarded by, or unknown to,
their successors in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will
conclude, that they were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians,
rarely and sparingly (if at all) employed by them, other methods
of accomplishing the ends whereto they served having more approved
themselves to this ingenious people. In ordinary sieges it would seem
that they trusted to the bank or mound, while sometimes they drove mines
under the walls, and sought in this way to effect a breach. Where the
place attacked was of great strength, they had