Carthaginian cavalry

[Patrick Waterson]

Good detective work Peter, although the fragment seems to refer to five 5-horse and three 3-horse chariots, but no spare two-horse accompanying teams.

Look at the Greek text of the papyrus at the top of the page, and on line 7 you will see the word sunoridas! Lines 6-7 are surely something like:

.. for (the) vehicles (harmata) that accompanied him, five of five horses, and (the) sunoridas, three of three horses ...

Which suggests that the Perseus note is correct about the wagons being accompanied by additional teams, but not "trained to work in pairs".. And suggests that sunoridas doesn't always mean "pairs".

Very interesting, Duncan ... Richard, any thoughts on this?

[RichT]

Thoughts? Are we thinking it means five-horse chariots and three-horse chariots? That seems very unlikely - how would you yoke an odd number of horses? Are there any other examples of odd numbers of horses? Can't think of any.* It could be a four-horse plus spare and a two-horse plus spare, but that's pushing it really.

The commentary says 'the abbreviation [symbol] for horses was not known heretofore' so isn't certain anyway. Clearly there are eight vehicles, since there are eight drivers - I might guess that there were five harmata and three sunorides with these being two types of chariot (maybe four-horse and two-horse?) and that the symbol means '5 of 5 (delivered)', '3 of 3 (delivered)' or something like that, rather than '5 with 5 horses'. Just guessing.

* Edited to say I have thought of the Roman/Etruscan triga - two yoked plus a trace horse, but pretty uncommon.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Richard.

Are we thinking it means five-horse chariots and three-horse chariots? That seems very unlikely - how would you yoke an odd number of horses? Are there any other examples of odd numbers of horses?

Ashurnasirpal (II) of Assyria left reliefs of three-horse chariots (e.g. this, this and this, plus one can see more if one expands this picture and looks at the top relief on the right*) and the obvious way to yoke them would be using two poles.

(*Last time I was in the British Museum I looked for this gallery - and found the reliefs had been replaced with some from the reign of Ashurbanipal!)

As Richard points out, there are eight drivers in the Ptolemaic text and hence we may reasonably assume eight vehicles.  Looking back at Diodorus, do we conclude that he is telling us that the Carthaginians fielded both heavy chariots (harmata) and an assumed type of light chariot (sunoridas), the numbers of the latter running into the thousands?  This would rewrite a few Carthaginian army lists ...

In any event, whether we assume Diodorus meant a two-horse light chariot or a Numidian horse-pair, it looks as if the Perseus note-maker's idea of 'spare pairs' of chariot horses goes out of the window.

[Jim Webster]

Not Carthaginian cavalry but I suspect the people who know are looking here

Back in 2012 at some point I sent an article in to Slingshot on Numidian heavy infantry
Duncan did a follow up to it pointing out a few errors etc, and whilst I have my bit, I cannot find Duncan's article anywhere. Whether it was a guard room piece I don't know.

Any chance of somebody sending me a scan or photocopy or whatever of it?
Jim

[Duncan Head]

Thoughts? Are we thinking it means five-horse chariots and three-horse chariots? That seems very unlikely - how would you yoke an odd number of horses? Are there any other examples of odd numbers of horses? Can't think of any. It could be a four-horse plus spare and a two-horse plus spare, but that's pushing it really.

Not ancient examples, but just Google "three horse wagon" images (because i no longer believe the papyrus is referring to "chariots") and you can see quite a few troika-style teams. And the occasional five, here and there.

[Duncan Head]

Back in 2012 at some point I sent an article in to Slingshot on Numidian heavy infantry
Duncan did a follow up to it pointing out a few errors etc, and whilst I have my bit, I cannot find Duncan's article anywhere. Whether it was a guard room piece I don't know.

Your article was in issue 283, and my piece made it into the next issue: 284, in Guardroom, pp.4-5. Does that help?

[Jim Webster]

Back in 2012 at some point I sent an article in to Slingshot on Numidian heavy infantry
Duncan did a follow up to it pointing out a few errors etc, and whilst I have my bit, I cannot find Duncan's article anywhere. Whether it was a guard room piece I don't know.

Your article was in issue 283, and my piece made it into the next issue: 284, in Guardroom, pp.4-5. Does that help?

I am struggling to find some of my old slingshots and that is one of them 

You haven't still got it as a electronic document or a scan or something please

[Patrick Waterson]

While we try to locate our issues 283 and 284, we may as well review the current state of play.  It looks as if sunoridas is not a spare pair of chariot horses, but we are left with the following options and their concomitant implications:

1) The two-horse light chariot: if this is the case, then such a vehicle has to have been popular, at least for parades, in the 4th-3rd centuries BC in the Hellenistic world (including Sicily) and so much so that the Carthaginians initiated massed production of the vehicle in 345-341 BC.

2) A pair (or slightly more than a pair) of horses trained to stay together: if so, then the rider has to be designated by the same word as a chariot driver at least in Ptolemaic usage.  These would have to be popular for the aforementioned parades, usually in conjunction with harmata (unambiguous chariots), and the meaning would also represent the two horses alternately ridden by certain Numidians in battle.

Now the plot thickens.

Looking through the Perseus word frequency (and source referencing) checker, sunōris (singular) sunōridas (plural) appears to be usable for both applications.  Some cases clearly imply chariots, others look like pairs of horses without chariots, while some are enigmatic, e.g.

For there if any man, invites another
To any banquet, eighteen others come;
Ten chariots (harmata), and fifteen pairs of horses (sunōrides),
And for all these you must provide the food,
So that 'twere better to invite nobody

- Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 12.1

So the question seems to be: can sunoridas cover both options?  Is it used for two-horse chariots and two-horse teams?  And if so, to which is Diodorus referring in XVI.67 and XVI.77?

[Duncan Head]

While we try to locate our issues 283 and 284,

Sorted, don't worry 

[Jim Webster]

While we try to locate our issues 283 and 284,

Sorted, don't worry 

Yes job done :-)

[RichT]

So the question seems to be: can sunoridas cover both options?  Is it used for two-horse chariots and two-horse teams?  And if so, to which is Diodorus referring in XVI.67 and XVI.77?

That is (or those are) indeed the questions. I think the word means 'team' or 'pair' or something of that sort, but it is so far as I can see almost always used to mean 'chariot and pair' i.e. two horse chariot (or possibly 'vehicle and pair', since there is no necessity for the vehicle to be a war chariot). But 'so far as I can tell' isn't all that far, since there are plenty of cases where it could mean either - though I haven't come across any cases where I think it's likely to mean a joined pair of horses in the Numidian style (except possibly the Diodorus passages in question, but that is in my view a fairly unlikely possibility). If Akragas alone had 300 vehicles and pairs, 2000 isn't that many for Carthage - but then if there's no sign of massed Carthaginian chariots in battle, perhaps it means something else.

TL;DR - I don't know.

[Patrick Waterson]

For the Diodorus passages concerned I suppose we just guess which is more likely for the Carthaginians to have done at the time: produce a Ford Model T light chariot or begin enlisting the cream of mounted Numidians.

A little extra perspective might help.

Plutarch's Life of Timoleon 25.1 notes concerning the army of 341 BC:

"Meanwhile the Carthaginians put in at Lilybaeum with an army of seventy thousand men, two hundred triremes, and a thousand transports carrying engines of war, four-horse chariots (tethrippa), grain in abundance, and other requisite equipment."

Well ... no two-horse chariots, but no specific Numidians either.

"... the Crimesus came into view, and the enemy were seen crossing it, in the van their four-horse chariots (tethrippois) formidably arrayed for battle, and behind these ten thousand men-at-arms with white shields." - idem 27.2

Just as helpful as the previous mention, or rather absence thereof.

Neither Numidians nor two-horse chariots (or horse pairs) of any description are involved in Plutarch's account of the Crimesus battle.  One might expect that in the Carthaginian deployment two-horse chariots, if present, would follow the four-horse chariots, but the latter are followed directly by the picked Carthaginian infantry (Sacred Band).  Then again, one might expect Numidian cavalry, if present, to cross first and screen/reconnoitre, although omission of such activity might be explainable by the overconfidence or incompetence of the Carthaginian commander.

Plutarch's description seems to exclude two-horse chariots without necessarily including Numidians.  Given that we appear to have an either/or situation, this perhaps nudges the balance of probability towards the Numidians, who can be assumed to be present as part of the manpower total, while lack of mention of two-horse chariots when four-horse chariots (actually four-horse teams with 'chariots' understood) are specified can be seen as an actual absence of two-horse chariots.

[Duncan Head]

For the Diodorus passages concerned I suppose we just guess which is more likely for the Carthaginians to have done at the time: produce a Ford Model T light chariot or begin enlisting the cream of mounted Numidians.

Or just had lots and lots of spare horses.

Or, if the Ptolemaic papyrus sunorides are wagons, or teams for wagons, rather than chariots, could the Carthaginian ones have been something to do with the commisariat rather than the fighting forces?

[Jim Webster]

For the Diodorus passages concerned I suppose we just guess which is more likely for the Carthaginians to have done at the time: produce a Ford Model T light chariot or begin enlisting the cream of mounted Numidians.

Or just had lots and lots of spare horses.

Or, if the Ptolemaic papyrus sunorides are wagons, or teams for wagons, rather than chariots, could the Carthaginian ones have been something to do with the commisariat rather than the fighting forces?

for a Hellenistic army to provide a commissariat at this period, to the extent of the state providing teams for several thousand wagons, is probably a bigger military development that merely hiring Numidians

[RichT]

Which army - Ptolemaic or Carthaginian? A mid 4th C Carthaginian army is only loosely Hellenistic, at most, but anyway they provided:

"armour and missiles of every description, numerous siege engines, and an enormous supply of food and other materials of war"

which presumably had to be carried somehow.

But I think it's an impasse. Diodorus says (16.67) 300 'vehicles' and 2000 'pairs' or (16.77) 10,000 'horses' and 'vehicles' and 'pairs', Plutarch says 'four-horsers' (no numbers). Maybe the 'four-horsers' are what Plutarch understood the 'vehicles' (harmata) to be, or maybe he includes both 'vehicles' and 'pairs'. I suspect (cover your ears Patrick) that neither Diodorus nor Plutarch were careful enough with their terminology for us ever to be really clear what they might have meant (still less what the truth was).