taste usually
adorned the scabbard, which moreover exhibited occasionally groups of
figures, sacred trees, and other mythological objects.

[Illustration: PLATE 107]

Instead of the short sword, the earlier warriors had a weapon of a
considerable length. This was invariably slung at the side by a
cross-belt passing over the shoulder. In its ornamentation it closely
resembled the later short sword, but its hilt was longer and more
tasteful.

One or two instances occur where the sword of an Assyrian warrior is
represented as curved slightly. The sheath in these cases is plain, and
terminates in a button. [PLATE CVII, Fig. 5.]

The Assyrian mace was a short thin weapon, and must either have been
made of a very tough wood, or--and this is more probable of metal.
[PLATE CVIII., Fig. 7.] It had an ornamented head, which was sometimes
very beautifully modelled and generally a strap or string at the lower
end, by which it could be grasped with greater firmness. Foot archers
frequently carried it in battle, especially those who were in close
attendance upon the king's person. It seems, however, not to have been
often used as a warlike weapon until the time of the latest sculptures,
when we see it wielded, generally with both hands, by a certain number
of the combatants. In peace it was very commonly borne by the royal
attendants, and it seems also to have been among the weapons used by the
monarch himself, for whom it is constantly carried by one of those who
wait most closely upon his person. [PLATE., CVIII., Fig. I.]

[Illustration: PLATE 108]

The battle-axe was a weapon but rarely employed by the Assyrians. It is
only in the very latest sculptures and in a very few instances that we
find axes represented as used by the warriors for any other purpose
besides the felling of trees. Where they are seen in use against the
enemy, the handle is short, the head somewhat large, and the weapon
wielded with one hand. Battle-axes had heads of two kinds. [PLATE
CVIII., Fig. 1.] Some were made with two blades, like the _bipennis_ of
the Romans. and the _labra_ of the Lydians and Carians; others more
nearly resembled the weapons used by our own knights in the middle ages,
having a single blade, and a mere ornamental point on the other side of
the haft.

The dagger was worn by the Assyrian kings at almost all times in their
girdles, and was further often assigned to the mythic winged beings,
hawk headed or human-headed, which occur