Chariots as equid battering rams

[Duncan Head]

If British chariots never, ever, ever charged formed foot then the infantry would have no reason to fear them.

You are assuming that the infantry are aware of the history of British chariots in action.

Not quite: I conclude that since the infantry got the willies just from seeing chariots, they knew that those chariots were quite capable of charging them and had done so in the past.

But Caesar says "When our troops were thrown into confusion in this fashion by the novel character of the fighting" (BG. IV.34) - in other words, the infantry got the willies specifically because they had not fought chariots before.

What exactly is the novel character of the fighting that throws the troops into confusion? Not the danger of being charged by chariots - which they knew about otherwise they wouldn't have feared them - but the way the Britons used a chariot-cavalry combination to surround the Roman infantry and attack them with a combination of the solidity of foot with the mobility of mounted troops.

No, it's the experience of being attacked by chariots, which they feared precisely because they didn't know about them.

[Andreas Johansson]

Being charged by large animals is, I dare say, one of those things all normal human beings are instinctively afraid of.

Interesting, BTW, that we seem to have a number of references to British scythed chariots en passant in various texts that don't go into any tactical detail, yet they're absent in Caesar and Tacitus who do get into some details (if not as deeply as wargamers might like). Literary topos transferred from Hellenistic contexts?

[Justin Swanton]

No, it's the experience of being attacked by chariots, which they feared precisely because they didn't know about them.

The description of the battle makes it clear it went on for some time. What dismays the Romans isn't seeing chariots for the first time, but experiencing the peculiarly British chariot-cavalry mode of attack. If they feared a possible charge by chariots it was because they believed chariots could charge them - I don't see them manifesting the same fear in regards to cavalry. But what really puts them in a tiz is the ability of the British to form instant infantry lines anywhere around them, and then dissolve and withdraw those lines the moment the Romans tried to come to grips with them.

[Duncan Head]

Interesting, BTW, that we seem to have a number of references to British scythed chariots en passant in various texts that don't go into any tactical detail, yet they're absent in Caesar and Tacitus who do get into some details (if not as deeply as wargamers might like). Literary topos transferred from Hellenistic contexts?

A couple more references here, reinforcing Andreas' observation; none of the mentions of British or Gallic scythed chariots are by writers who give any impression of knowing what they're talking about.

[Erpingham]

Interesting, BTW, that we seem to have a number of references to British scythed chariots en passant in various texts that don't go into any tactical detail, yet they're absent in Caesar and Tacitus who do get into some details (if not as deeply as wargamers might like). Literary topos transferred from Hellenistic contexts?

I think we would need to see a bit more sophisticated reading of these texts and their interactions to work out origins of the topos, but a literary image of a Celtic scythed chariot seems well embedded among poets and familiar to the educated like Jordanes.

[Duncan Head]

No, it's the experience of being attacked by chariots, which they feared precisely because they didn't know about them.

The description of the battle makes it clear it went on for some time. What dismays the Romans isn't seeing chariots for the first time, but experiencing the peculiarly British chariot-cavalry mode of attack. If they feared a possible charge by chariots it was because they believed chariots could charge them - I don't see them manifesting the same fear in regards to cavalry. But what really puts them in a tiz is the ability of the British to form instant infantry lines anywhere around them, and then dissolve and withdraw those lines the moment the Romans tried to come to grips with them.

"They had killed a few, throwing the rest into confusion before they could form up, and at the same time surrounding them with horsemen and chariots."

The dismay and confusion is clearly caused by the initial chariot attack, and is explicitly separate from the being surrounded.

"First of all they drive in all directions and hurl missiles, and so by the mere terror that the teams inspire and by the noise of the wheels they generally throw ranks into confusion."

It's the chariots themselves that are frightening and confusing, largely because they are unfamiliar. The "instant infantry lines" play a part, but they are an integral part of unfamiliar chariot tactics - unfamiliar precisely because chariots are unfamiliar.

(And, of course, the "instant infantry" effect is because the chariots aren't being used to ride enemy infantrymen down, which I thought was supposed to be the main role of all Swantonian chariots?)

[Justin Swanton]

Interesting, BTW, that we seem to have a number of references to British scythed chariots en passant in various texts that don't go into any tactical detail, yet they're absent in Caesar and Tacitus who do get into some details (if not as deeply as wargamers might like). Literary topos transferred from Hellenistic contexts?

A couple more references here, reinforcing Andreas' observation; none of the mentions of British or Gallic scythed chariots are by writers who give any impression of knowing what they're talking about.

Fair enough, though I find it difficult to dismiss Frontinus' description of Gallic scythed chariots (and if Gallic, why not British?). As governor of Britain he had to be a practical, level-headed man who had ample access to any written records on the matter, and 76AD is just over a century after Caesar's invasion of Britain - too short a time for myth and legend to step into the picture.

[Justin Swanton]

No, it's the experience of being attacked by chariots, which they feared precisely because they didn't know about them.

The description of the battle makes it clear it went on for some time. What dismays the Romans isn't seeing chariots for the first time, but experiencing the peculiarly British chariot-cavalry mode of attack. If they feared a possible charge by chariots it was because they believed chariots could charge them - I don't see them manifesting the same fear in regards to cavalry. But what really puts them in a tiz is the ability of the British to form instant infantry lines anywhere around them, and then dissolve and withdraw those lines the moment the Romans tried to come to grips with them.

"They had killed a few, throwing the rest into confusion before they could form up, and at the same time surrounding them with horsemen and chariots."

The dismay and confusion is clearly caused by the initial chariot attack, and is explicitly separate from the being surrounded.

"First of all they drive in all directions and hurl missiles, and so by the mere terror that the teams inspire and by the noise of the wheels they generally throw ranks into confusion."

It's the chariots themselves that are frightening and confusing, largely because they are unfamiliar. The "instant infantry lines" play a part, but they are an integral part of unfamiliar chariot tactics - unfamiliar precisely because chariots are unfamiliar.

(And, of course, the "instant infantry" effect is because the chariots aren't being used to ride enemy infantrymen down, which I thought was supposed to be the main role of all Swantonian chariots?)

Swantonian chariots pulled by scraggly British ponies would need to choose when to go into shock mode.

(if they'd had Rhodesian army horses there would have been no such hesitation)



Notice that Caesar describes first their mode of fighting with chariots - genus hoc ex essedis pugnae - and then how that mode, taken as a whole - novitate pugnae - seriously bothers the legionaries, not just the fact they are seeing chariots for the first time (I grant they probably were seeing them for the first time).

Notice also that Caesar when describing the British mode of mounted combat uses the present tense, i.e. he is describing it in a general way which implies that chariots are intimidating whether their opponents are seeing them for the first time or not, which further implies that infantry feared the chariots' ability to charge them with an efficacy not matched by regular cavalry.

[Flaminpig0]

No, it's the experience of being attacked by chariots, which they feared precisely because they didn't know about them.

The description of the battle makes it clear it went on for some time. What dismays the Romans isn't seeing chariots for the first time, but experiencing the peculiarly British chariot-cavalry mode of attack. If they feared a possible charge by chariots it was because they believed chariots could charge them - I don't see them manifesting the same fear in regards to cavalry. But what really puts them in a tiz is the ability of the British to form instant infantry lines anywhere around them, and then dissolve and withdraw those lines the moment the Romans tried to come to grips with them.

"They had killed a few, throwing the rest into confusion before they could form up, and at the same time surrounding them with horsemen and chariots."

The dismay and confusion is clearly caused by the initial chariot attack, and is explicitly separate from the being surrounded.

"First of all they drive in all directions and hurl missiles, and so by the mere terror that the teams inspire and by the noise of the wheels they generally throw ranks into confusion."

It's the chariots themselves that are frightening and confusing, largely because they are unfamiliar. The "instant infantry lines" play a part, but they are an integral part of unfamiliar chariot tactics - unfamiliar precisely because chariots are unfamiliar.

(And, of course, the "instant infantry" effect is because the chariots aren't being used to ride enemy infantrymen down, which I thought was supposed to be the main role of all Swantonian chariots?)

Swantonian chariots pulled by scraggly British ponies would need to choose when to go into shock mode.

(if they'd had Rhodesian army horses there would have been no such hesitation)



Notice that Caesar describes first their mode of fighting with chariots - genus hoc ex essedis pugnae - and then how that mode, taken as a whole - novitate pugnae - seriously bothers the legionaries, not just the fact they are seeing chariots for the first time (I grant they probably were seeing them for the first time).

Notice also that Caesar when describing the British mode of mounted combat uses the present tense, i.e. he is describing it in a general way which implies that chariots are intimidating whether their opponents are seeing them for the first time or not, which further implies that infantry feared the chariots' ability to charge them with an efficacity not matched by regular cavalry.

As I look ahead to the future of this thread , I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood"

[Mick Hession]

My mistake - Frontinus was talking about Gallic, not British, chariots. But Caesar may simply have omitted to mention them in his Gallic Wars because they played no significant part in the fighting.

More likely that Caesar omitted them because they didn't exist. Are there any actual references to Gallic chariots of any kind in a military context after Telamon in 225BC, three centuries before Frontinus?

Mick

[RichT]

To summarise the state of play on this thread so far (which incidentally must set a record for speed of posting):
- artistic evidence all shows early chariots being used as archery platforms or to pursue routers
- literary evidence all shows non-scythed chariots fought in a skirmishing role or as transports
- evidence from other periods suggests horses were not used as battering rams
- no evidence or examples of non-scythed chariots being used as battering rams has been presented

British chariots were probably not scythed chariots by the sounds of it. But if the British had had scythed chariots, how would that help the theory? Scythed chariots are shock weapons (hence the scythes), but:
- that doesn't mean that non-scythed chariots were also shock weapons (quite the contrary)
- it also doesn't mean that scythed chariots were used as battering rams

There is a well established theory about how shock cavalry, chariots etc functioned. They could ride through or amongst non-closed-up infantry (who were in that state either because that's how they fought anyway, or because through fear or indiscipline they lost their original order) but could not penetrate formed infantry who stood their ground. They could try, by a fearsome approach, to scare the infantry into losing ther order (by giving them the willies).

Nothing has been presented to suggest that this theory is not broadly correct (NB 'broadly correct' does not mean 'has not even one counter-example').

To go back to the tank analogy from a few pages earlier in this thread (this morning), the Swantonian Chariot Theory is equivalent to asserting that as jeeps and Shermans are both internal combustion engine powered wheeled vehicles they must have had the same battlefield function.

[Justin Swanton]

To summarise the summary  :

- artistic evidence all shows early chariots being used as archery platforms only when pursuing routers
- literary evidence all shows non-scythed chariots fought in a skirmishing role or as transports unless the evidence all shows chariots charging enemy in the context of a battle (with the exception of British chariots)
- evidence from other periods suggests horses were not used as battering rams or evidence shows horses were used with monotonous regularity to charge infantry
- no evidence or examples of non-scythed chariots being used as battering rams has been presented except the accounts of the battles that describe chariot action in any detail

There isn't any conclusive evidence the British used scythed chariots but none either that they didn't, and I prefer to accept a primary source if there is no compelling reason to reject it. It is also odd that Caesar never describes Gallic scythed chariots or Gallic chariots at all, but Diodorus Siculus says that some Gallic tribes employed them:

For the purposes of war they [the Britons] use chariots for the most part, just as some of the Celti do - Library of History, 4, 5, 2

I think the best way of resolving this is that Caesar saw too few or any Gallic chariots in his campaigns to bother writing about them, but they did exist, and probably a few individual scythed versions with them.

- that doesn't mean that non-scythed chariots were also shock weapons (quite the contrary)
- it also doesn't mean that scythed chariots were used as battering rams

Chariots are much better suited to a shock role than cavalry and everything about them suggests that that is what they were primarily intended for. There is an example cited earlier of scythed and ordinary chariots being used for exactly the purpose in a battle - to charge enemy foot.

A scythed chariot was meant to plough into enemy infantry and kill/scatter them. This is how I conceive of a chariot being used as a battering ram.

[Andreas Johansson]

To summarise the state of play on this thread so far (which incidentally must set a record for speed of posting):
- artistic evidence all shows early chariots being used as archery platforms or to pursue routers

This is overstating the case a bit, I think. Most Egyptian reliefs show them being used as archery platforms while pursuing routers. I'm not sure there's any showing them shooting at, or doing anything else to, enemy who is even momentarily successfully resisting. (There are examples showing them using other weapons against fleeing enemy.)

The Assyrian situation, I believe, is similar to the Egyptian one. Sumerian battle-carts do not seem to have been used as archery platforms because the crew are not depicted with bows.

[Andreas Johansson]

There isn't any conclusive evidence the British used scythed chariots but none either that they didn't, and I prefer to accept a primary source if there is no compelling reason to reject it.

What compelling evidence do you have to reject Xenophon's statement that Cyrenaean chariots fought only at a distance?

[aligern]

Justin,
Caesar is describing the Gauls that he met ( similarly his Britons) . Diodorus is talking about  generic Gauls . He is not an original source in the sense that Caesar is.Diodorus  writes history in a Herodotean rather that Thucydidean manner, he incluses stories and interesting asides. We really cannot treat all ancient sources as equal. Diodorus likely conflates the scythed chariots of Persian design and style that were used by the Galatians with the light northern chariot drawn by ponies.
Had Caesar met scythed chariots in Gaul he would have said so, because it would emphasise the threats that he had to deal with c.f. his description of the ships of the Veneti or the soldurii bidyguards of the Aquitanians, or indeed the tactics of the Eburones or Vercingetorix' recruitment of archers to mingle with his cavalry.
Absence of evidence is not evidence. Find a source for a troop type before the period mentioned and after it and we might assume its existence between those points, without something rather better on the table .
Scythed chariots are a bogeyman weapon, they are the sort of thing that resurfaces from time to time, but are only believable when there is an associated tactic and a heavily built four horse chariot.
Xenephon!s Cyropaedia has an  interesting view on the Persian devision to invent the svythed chariot. Its likely unfounded, but is plausible.
Roy