The Ancients - Scythed Chariots

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

What could be more terrifying than an army racing towards you? An army on chariots? What if those chariots had blades mounted on either side? In this episode, Tristan speaks to Dr Silvannen Gerrard about the use of this unconventional mode of transport during the Hellenistic period, particularly by the Seleucid Empire. They discuss the benefits and difficulties of using these chariots, and how they fit in with other unusual modes of troop transportation, from war-elephants to camel-archers. Silvannen is an Ancient Historian at the University of Manchester.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, well, it was wonderful to see how our recent episodes on the chariot in antiquity with the legendary Mike Lodes has been received. And we've got another chariot episode today because

one type of chariot we didn't really focus on. And this was the scythed chariot episode today because one type of chariot we didn't really focus on and this was the scythed chariot mainly of ancient persia of the ancient near east not really as much to do with late iron age britain or that the archaeology can tell us so far anyway we're going to be focusing in on the scythe chariot today if you were at chalk valley recently if you came to our incredible reenactment of the Battle of Galgamela, Alexander the Great's one of his most famous, most remarkable victories, you would have seen how we used a certain member of the audience to be a scythed chariot at the Battle of Galgamela and the infamous end they met that day. So today you're

going to be learning all about the scythed chariot in ancient warfare. And joining me, I have got back on the show Dr. Sylvannon Gerrard. Sylvannon has come on the podcast once before, really in our really early stages, to talk all about war elephants. She was fantastic. We particularly focused on the Hellenistic Near East, the greatest area of ancient history, if I say so myself. We looked at their use by Seleucids, and the Seleucids, once again, will play a key role in this discussion. Because the Seleucid Empire, this incredible, huge, ancient superpower, it had a wide array of unusual, shall we say, bizarre military units. And the Scythe Chariots was

definitely one of those. So I've been rambling on for long enough now. Here is the one and only Sylvanan. Sylvanan, it is great to have you back on the podcast. It's great to be here. So thanks for inviting me me again it's really fun to be on the show. No problem at all you're renowned for your focus on these incredible elements of ancient Hellenistic warfare last time we were talking about war elephants in the Seleucid army this time we're talking about mainly scythed chariots because Sylvanon we famously see the scythes on the buddhica statue on embankment in london but that's historically incorrect for iron age chariots however

we do hear of scythed chariots in the ancient near east yeah so scythed chariots are really really interesting weapons i obviously focus in the East, and that is where we see the chariots. And we're used to sort of dealing with sort of chariot powers from like the Assyrians and stuff. So it's that kind of conception that lingers on in the Near East. And scythe chariots are really, really fascinating units, as we will hopefully get to see. We will hopefully get to see, to visualise. They are super, super cool ancient contraptions. And Sylvannon, this is a tricky question, I know, but when and where do we think the scythe chariot originates? Right, yeah. So as you say, the question of the origin of the Scythe Chariots is a complicated

one. I mean, we're used to scholarship disagreeing. That's what we do as scholars, we disagree with each other and we say, no, that's not right. And we keep the debate going. The problem is we also have disagreements in the ancient sources as well. so it's not entirely sure what is going on. So Xenophon's Syropaedia tells us one thing, Ctesias' Persica tells us another thing. So Xenophon, his Syropaedia is sort of a semi-fictional story about Cyrus the Great. So we might want to question how far it's actually representing historical realities. And Xenophon tells us that Cyrus the Great invented the scythe chariots, and this is in the run-up to the Battle of Sardis in 547-546 BC. He credits him with inventing the chariot, and this

sort of fits with Xenophon's theme in this work, that Cyrus is the one who creates this Persian army. He is credited with lots of different inventions for the Persian army and really making it into this power. Now some of what Xenophon tells us is based on historical fact. So Xenophon had personal experience fighting against the Persians so some of what he describes is certainly true of later Persian armies, even if it's not true of the time for Cyrus the Great. And we know Xenophon did see Scythe chariots in action. So Xenophon served as a mercenary in the 10,000 Greeks who served for Cyrus the Younger. He was at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC, so he did see Scythe chariots. So when he describes them, you know, there's a good chance he's drawing on his real experiences, and that's more than we

can say for everyone else who describes them, because no one else actually saw them in action. But whether Cyrus the Great invented them, that's a more complicated question. I mean, it would tie in a little bit to Nefferdkin's article in 2004. He doesn't say that Cyrus the Great invented them, but he does credit the Achaemenid Persians with their invention. And he says, well, we don't hear of them in Herodotus' account of the Persian wars. Aeschylus doesn't tell us about them when he's describing the Persian army. So he says they didn't exist before then because if they did, we'd hear about them.

And we know they definitely existed at Cunaxa because we've got Xenophon's account of them. So he's like, well, they must have been invented in that time period. And he says, he credits Artaxerxes I for inventing them and says that this is when he's going to campaign against Egypt and specifically he wants a weapon that can fight against the Egyptians hoplite mercenaries so the Egyptians have got mercenaries from I think it's Athens but Greece in general and they're hoplites and he want something that can combat the hoplites. Because he says, cavalry can't charge hoplite phalanxes very well. I mean, horses do not want to charge spears.

If you're going to charge a phalanx, you're going to want to try and either get a gap in the line or take it in its unarmed flanks or rear. You're not going to want to charge the spears. Now, the jury is still out as to whether you can successfully charge a hoplite phalanx from the front. Sears and Willicks have suggested it is actually possible with regards to whether Alexander did that at the Battle of Chaeronea in 336 BC. Either way, even if you can do it, your horses are not going to come out very well from that. And horses are expensive, you're not going to want to risk your cavalry by charging the spear wall it's not going to end very well so he says cavalry can't do that so you create the scythe chariots and they're a lot more aggressive

they're better at this sort of shock value that's how you're going to puncture through the hoplites. There is a slight problem with that, though, that, well, if a horse that's acting as cavalry can't charge spears, I want to ask, well, why do you think that a horse that's pulling a chariot can charge spears? Because it's still a horse. It still goes with the limitations of horses. So I do have a problem when we say, oh, you know, they're meant to charge hoplites because it's like, that's not really how horses work. And when we do see the chariots engage hoplite phalanxes like at Cunaxa, they're ridiculously ineffective,

almost ludicrously so, they just do not work. And again, when we see them at Galgamela attack Alexander's army, again, they're not effective. So there are reasons for questioning whether Nefertikin's argument that that is why they're invented is actually correct. And when we move to our other ancient source so i mentioned ctesias he gives us a very different account he says that the um legendary babylonian king ninus who is the husband of the legendary babylonian queen semiramis that he had 10 000 chariots in his army. So this is sort of the Neo-Assyrian period.

It's much, much earlier. Now, there's lots in Ctesias that is like sort of semi-fictional, semi-mythical. Semiramis is believed to have been based on a Babylonian queen, I think, Shemiramat. So again, there's things we might want to question in Ctesias' work, and Ctesias is very, very fragmentary. This bit about the chariots is preserved in Diodorus. So again, there's preservation issues with this source. But this idea links to what Ropp in 2013

said. Ropp says, Nefferdkin's argument doesn't really work and says actually we should be looking much earlier at the neo-syrians these are a chariot power anyway but at this point in the reign I think of Shemurah we're moving into a case where the lighter chariots are being replaced by cavalry because cavalry can do the job much better than chariots and that's something we see across the ancient world that chariots are slowly overtaken by the cavalry because cavalry can do the job much better than chariots and that's something we see across the ancient world that chariots are slowly overtaken by the cavalry because cavalry can do much of the same jobs and they're much better but Rapp also says that at this period the chariots that do survive are becoming heavier and more for that close combat shock value so Rapp suggests that

it's here where we see the Scythe Chariot actually being invented. And he says that the reason you don't actually see it in the Persian Wars and it isn't mentioned is because the terrain of the Persian Wars and that campaign isn't suitable for Scythe Chariots. And that's one of the major things when we deal with Scythe Chariots, that you need very particular terrain for them to actually work. They need large open plains, it needs to be very flat, otherwise they're not going to work, and Greece is not suitable for that sort of thing. So you could argue, well, Darius and Xerxes didn't bring them because they just know that they're not going to work there, and no one wants to have to lug all

these chariots all the way to Greece if you can't even use them. So Rop says they're more suited for those large plains in Mesopotamia in the Middle East and that's where they were invented. But yeah, the question of their origin is incredibly complex. I mean, I'm interested in more from a Seleucid point of view so it doesn't matter to me too much when they were invented, I'm more interested that this is an Achaemenid thing they've inherited it's not a Greco-Macedonian thing it's something they've inherited from their Achaemenid and Middle East and predecessors. Silvanan it's all good I get the hint we'll be getting to the Seleucid as quickly as we can but just a little bit longer on this because it does sound Silvanan and as you've mentioned that the scythe chariot it really seems to be the epitome of the

heavy shock attack form of chariot yeah that if you are wanting a chariot for close combat this is the sort of chariot that you want i mean i'm not going to say it's the best kind of thing you can use because they have a rather limited success. So there are times when they're very useful. There are also times when they're just awful, as we will see. But if you are in, you know, you want chariots. That's what you really want in your army. And you want something that is going to look terrifying and also pack a punch,

assuming that you can actually engage properly with it. Then yeah, scythe chariots are the sort of thing that you're going to want. Other chariots tend more to be used where you would put arches on them and you can ride rapidly round and fire at them. But as I said, these very quickly get taken over by cavalry because cavalry can do the same thing

and they can move a lot easier because they're not lugging a chariot behind them that you don't want tipping over. I'm glad you mentioned that, Silvanna, because sometimes we think of chariots either as battle taxis or having a passenger or in some case two passengers but with the scythe chariot it sounds like those passengers they aren't really needed because if the cart itself is the weapon and like there's like an ancient porcupine of all these weapons spiking out of them like there's no need for the passengers like the only person you need is the driver and the deadly nature of it is the cart itself yeah so the question is is there a passenger

on scythe chariots is something we don't really know xenophon doesn't tell us when he when he describes them in the saripedia he just says you know it's got a box that's around the drivers to keep the driver safe and the driver will have some armor on but he doesn't say whether anyone else is in their chariot now some scholars think there are other people and you might want to put one or two other people on there as well but as you said like it's the scythes as well that are part of the attack so maybe you don't need other people there and we don't really know and the problem when we talk about scythe chariots is we've no iconographic and pictorial representations of them so we can't look at a picture and go oh so that's what they look like and that's again the problem when we

talk about the origin we've got lots of lovely Assyrian chariots and sculptures of them none with scythe so we can't say oh look scythe chariots so we only have the descriptions and xenophon who's the one who gives us the best description doesn't actually mention that so moving on we're getting closer to the seleucids i promise or seleucids i'll say both and it might confuse people but seleucids seleucids same thing now you mentioned earlier galgamela so let's go on toela. So let's go on to Alexander. Let's go on to his clash, his great clash against King Darius and the Persians at Galgamaela. Because Silvanan, Scythe, the chariots, they do play a part in the run-up to and during the battle.

Yes. So the Battle of Galgamaela is sort of like darius's last major attempt to stop alexander and it's where we get the whole persian army he's managed to mobilize like everybody i mean there are even elephants supposedly at this battle we don't think they do anything but so it's like this massive array of look at everything i've got and he has chariots with him and before this battle he's very careful that he picks a place where his chariots with him and before this battle he's very careful that he picks a place where his chariots can work and we're told that he makes sure he flattens all the ground to get rid of any obstacles because chariots need flat ground you don't want them

tipping over when you're attempting to charge your opponent that's not going to work and you're going to need you know nice dry conditions as well if it's wet and muddy your chariots are going to get stuck and that's something we see with porous chariots in India in the run-ups of the Hydaspers they're not scythe chariots but the conditions are very muddy they get stuck in the mud they don't do anything so Darius is very cautious about where he's going to use them and we're told that during the battle he gets a bit worried that the Macedonians are moving towards the more rougher ground and it's like well if they go there my chariots will be useless because they're just not going to work. In the battle

itself Arrian just tells us right the chariots are useless. Diodorus and Quintus Cursus though do tell us the chariots have some effect at first that they do cause some destruction in the front troops and these are probably the skirmish troops rather than the actual phalanx of Alexander's army because all of our sources agree that Alexander has you, he's anticipated that these chariots are going to be there, they're going to be a problem, and he has his men open up gaps in their phalanx so that the chariots can pass through them, and as they pass through them they fire lots of missiles at them, you know, upset the horses, and none of the phalanx is really killed by it because you've just opened a gap and let them come past. Now that does require a lot of discipline to be able to get your men to do that but it's something that works very

very well and that is the problem with scythe chariots. If you're against someone who knows what to do and has a disciplined army they can just open a gap and let them through and we see a similar thing at Zama with Hannibal's elephants that Scipio just deliberately leaves lanes in between his army and funnels the elephants through them so that they don't trample everybody, they don't have to fight against them, and just neutralize them that way. So yes, the chariots are at Galgamela, but they don't really do much. I think one of our sources, it's either Quintus Cursus or Diodorus, says they are a little terrifying. The Macedonians are a little bit worried about them, but they're

not overly worried. They have a plan to defeat them. In one of them, they make a lot of noise as well, like they bang their shields and that scares the horses and the horses fall back and then that causes chaos behind on them. So it's like, yes, they're there. They're not that great. And this is the problem, or the interesting thing with scythe chariots is their limited success. They do have sometimes spectacular successes. So the earlier Battle of Daskaleum,

Pharnabatsis uses them in 395 BC and completely annihilates the Greek infantry he's against. It is worth noting that these Greek infantry are not in formation at that time, so they're caught off guard. So they can have wonderful success. They can also be absolutely useless. And that's the really interesting thing that when we get into later periods, like why are we still using them? I thought everyone had agreed that they're not that great, but they're still being used. And that's one of the fascinating things about this weapon.

I'm glad you mentioned that event in 3952, because we said we've gone from Cunaxa to Galgamela, two events where it seems like the scythe chariots, they don't really cover themselves in glory, but you do have this other event where it seems that they perform much better. So following Galgamela, if we stay in the ancient Near East, you mentioned how Alexander does face chariots later in India, but they're not scythed chariots. So Silvanan, when do we next hear of scythed chariots?

I believe we're getting towards the time period that your main love is. Yes. So the first thing to note with scythed chariots is they appear very sporadically. We hear of them here, then they disappear, and then they appear again, and then they disappear. So as I said, we hear of them here, then they disappear, and then they appear again, and then they disappear. So as I said, we hear of them at Canaxa. Then we hear of them again at 395, so that's not too much of a gap. That's fine. And then we don't hear of them until Galganela, which is 331. So that's a big gap. You're like, okay. And then we don't hear of them again until

301 BC at the Battle of Ipsus. And we're told that Seleucus has brought some chariots, scythe chariots, with him. Now, unfortunately, we have absolutely no idea what they were doing at that battle, whether they were even used, because our battle description of Ipsus isn't very good. It's only in Plutarch, and there are problems with it. And our traditional reconstructions of that battle don't include the Scythe Chariots. It's hard to see how they would fit in that battle. So it's possible that they were brought up and weren't used, that they're just there. It's possible they were used and we don't actually hear about it. I think we should avoid Bar Kochva's argument that, well, Seleucus didn't

use them because they're superfluous. He doesn't think that they're any good. And it's like, well, they used them again, not that long later at the Battle of Sehestica in 285 BC. So he can't think that they're useless. Otherwise, why is he still using them? So we hear of them at Ipsus, but we don't actually know what they do. And then we hear of them again at 285 BC in the run up to Sehestica. we hear of them again at 285 BC in the run-up to Sahestica and again this is only recorded in Plutarch and all he says is that they charge Demetrius, Demetrius manages to move out of the way and Demetrius wins and that's all we hear so we don't really know what is going on there either and this is frustrating because it's the only instance where we hear of the Seleucids actually being able to attack with those chariots because the chariots then disappear again from the record until the battle against the

rebel satrap Molon in 220 BC so it's like that's again a very long time period of where we don't hear about them and you could say well to be honest we don't actually know very much in between Seleucus and Antiochus I and Antiochus III that we already have a silence in the sources there anyway. So maybe the Seleucids are using them. We just don't hear about it. But it does fit the sort of sporadic use of chariots elsewhere as well. And as I said, you need very particular battle conditions for chariots. you need very particular battle conditions for chariots so maybe it's a case that we haven't used them because there isn't anywhere to use them that they will actually perform well.

Alternatively you might say well maybe they all thought they were terrible and Morlon just thinks I like those I'm going to bring some of those because it's just really weird to see them pop up again when you've not heard them for so long. So Morlon has, he doesn't have many scythe chariots with him. And this battle is really interesting because this is two Seleucid armies against each other. So Morlon was the satrap of Media, which is sort of southwestern Iran in modern day place. And he's rebelled against the Seleucid king Antiochus III. And Antiochus has now brought his army to actually deal with this problem. And we're told that Antiochus has elephants, so he's put them across the front of

his army. And Polybius uses very, very similar words in his Greek to describe Molon's chariots across the front of his army. So I would say that they're possibly opposite each other in the line, but we really don't know. We don't know where they are. We're not told about what they do in the battle. So again, we know he's got chariots. We know they're at the front. We don't know what else he's doing. And then chariots disappear again until their famous appearance at Magnesia in 190 BC. So it is really weird to see chariots appear and disappear then appear then disappear and trying to work out what is going on there is something that is very interesting but hard to tell sylvana you mentioned a lot of names there so i think let's clarify a few of those quickly so

ipsus first of all the battle of ipsus the great climaxed and one of the most extraordinary battles of ancient history the great climax of the Wars of the Successors. The chariots you mentioned, they don't seem to play a part, but they're fighting in Seleucus' army. Seleucus commands that Babylon region, so the region of the Persians and all that, so where we normally associate the scythe chariots. You mentioned Demetrius a bit later in that next clash,

who's another one of these successors. So it's quite interesting you find Seleucus with scythe chariots fighting Demetrius from Plutarch that you mentioned. And course as you said we've gone on now to Antiochus III for a few generations later of the Seleucids and you've talked about Molon and how we have this mention of the scythe chariots again then. The Seleucid scythed chariots at this time let's say at the start of the second century BC so we've gone on quite a bit now just after Molon we're still in the reign of Antiochus III do we know anything about how they looked now are they still quite similar to how they would have looked previously I mean what's the description of them

now right so as I said when we talk about what the scythe chariots look like we are hampered by we don't have any pictures of them so we can't look and go oh so that's what the ancients knew what they looked like these are people who saw these chariots and this is how they depicted them so that is a problem i mean sure we have lots of depictions of chariots but not with scythes so we're limited to those who actually describe them and xenophon as i said is our best description you know that they've got four horses these are yoked side by side yes it is more efficient to yoke them one behind the other but the ancient world doesn't have very good harnesses for its horses like that so they yoke them side by side and that means not only do you need to be able to afford four horses and four very bulky strong horses because they've got

a polish chariot you also have to train those horses to work together because it's not going to work if some horses want to go one way and some want to go another way your chariot isn't just not going to work so you have to train those horses to work together as a team so already that's expensive and then xenophon tells us they've got strong timbers and strong axles because you don't want them tipping over it has like a box around the driver or you know something to protect the driver basically and it's got scythes either on the axles or the wheels and he says they're about two cubits long which is about 91 centimeters and they're poking out and then they've got scythes also that point towards the ground and Livy tells us later at the Battle of Magnesia this is to catch anyone who

falls underneath the chariot. So they look pretty terrifying and that psychological dimension is part and parcel of why you're wanting to use them because if you can terrify your opponent that they do not want to stand there and let them come towards them, you know, that's part of your battle one already. So that is our probably best description of them because we know Xenophon saw them. Everybody else is working off what they've heard and it starts to get a bit more confused. So if we fast forward to the Seleucid chariots, Livy describes them for the battle of Magnesia and on the whole the description is very similar but he says they also have these two horn-like projections attached to the yoke, so what holds the horses, and he says they also have these two horn-like projections attached to the yoke

so what holds the horses and he says that they're i think it's 10 cubits long which is about four and a half meters or something and that length is incredible when you think it's basically like you know tie sarissas to the chariot and because it's such an incredible length people have really been stuck over that detail i mean if the spikes are meant to point forwards, then maybe the length isn't too insane because they'd have to actually project beyond the horses if you want them to do anything. But personally, I think that's going to be a bit unwieldy. If you just imagine you've tied two spears to it, it's like, that doesn't seem very stable. It doesn't seem like a good idea.

I mean, it sounds like kebab skewers, at the same time completely unruly yeah so others have questioned that and i would question that i'm not entirely sure that that's right so some people have said that well rather than decum 10 in livia's latin it should say duo two and they should be two cubits long which would make them 91 centimeters that's a bit more reasonable. Now Xenophon doesn't mention any of those spikes so you could say well Livy's just making things up. Livy's got confused and it's not the first time that Livy gets confused about battles. His account of Kynoscephalae is just insane. He has the Macedonian phalanx put down their spears and to draw their swords which is just completely wrong but when we look at say the chariots that Darius has at Galgamela

Diodorus and Quintus Cursus do mention some kind of other spikes that are there and Diodorus mentions that they do have some spikes but these are three spans long, which would make them about 69 centimetres. So that would support the idea that Livy's 10 cubits is far too long, that they should be more about two cubits, which would make them 91, a lot shorter. And then these spikes possibly either project forwards or they might even project to the sides so that when you run the chariot, it can also catch anyone who's either side of the chariot and that would fit with what we see when mithridates later uses them and we've got this grisly detail in appian about them cutting men in half because that would then be like halfway up

you anyways rather than all the scythes being at the bottom which would just probably get your feet so it's possible then that those spikes that Livy mentions, they are genuine, they're just nowhere near as long as he tells us, or that the manuscript tradition tells us that they are. So this possibly means that the chariots have slightly evolved from when Xenophon saw them at Connaxer, that there's been some modifications to the chariot, but other than that we're very much limited in what we know about the chariots i would say that they're still probably very similar maybe some different spikes maybe some changes but we're not really told because we hardly ever see them on the

battlefield anyway absolutely absolutely i mean we've been talking about it we've been bigging up to this battle in particular that you mentioned magnesianesia, 190 BC. So we can lay the background to this battle, get the context for it. I mean, Silvanan, what is the Battle of Magnesia? Talk me through the run-up to this battle. Right, so this is part of the Romans are starting to look to the east. They're more interested in these eastern things. This is coming just after, I think, second macedonian war so the romans are campaigning in greece and macedon and they're turning their eye to the east and one of your

major powers in the east is the seleucid empire and antiochus has been dabbling in greece and interfering in greece so it's clear that these two powers are going to clash at some point. And in 191 BC, Antiochus does cross over into Greece and does fight the Romans. So there's a clash at Thermopylae where he's driven back by the Romans. I mean, Antiochus doesn't have a lot of troops with him in this creation campaign. He was hoping some of the Greeks and some of the Aetolians would actually come and join him and then they decide at the last minute they're not doing because they're probably scared of the Romans. He also hasn't brought everybody over because you don't want to bring your whole army to Greece and lose because that would be suicide.

So he's only got a few troops, but he started to clash with Rome and Magnesia is the culmination of those battles and skirmishes between the Seleucid Empire and Rome. It's the big fight that everybody knew was going to happen between the two. So Magnesia is in modern day Turkey or in that kind of area. It's got quite a nice big plain, so it's on paper, it's ideal for Hellenistic battles. So we're quite used to, like Polybius has this famous bit about how the Legion is so much better than a Hellenistic phalanx. But on paper, scholars have said that this is the ideal battleground for the Hellenistic phalanx and for the Hellenistic army

that had Antiochus stuck to standard procedures at this battle, he very possibly could have won it. Now, Magnesia is such an interesting battle, not just because it's this clash between the Seleucid Empire and the Romans, and has such important repercussions after this battle, when the Romans win and the Seleucids then lose Asia Minor, and it starts to be a problem for the Seleucid Empire. So it's not just an interesting battle from that perspective, it's an interesting problem for the Seleucid Empire. So it's not just an interesting battle from that perspective. It's an interesting battle because the Seleucid army is just so odd at this point. We have the chariots, which we haven't really seen elsewhere.

We've got camels in the battle. We've got the elephants doing strange things. We've got the cavalry on the right wing that's in an odd place. And you read this battle and you're like, what on earth is going on in this battle account the chariots though i think are probably the most notable aspect of the battle of magnesia and when you first read it you're like what on earth is going on here because this is probably the most infamous account of scythe chariots and the telltale of why scythe chariots can go very very badly if you don't use them right and if you aren't lucky that your opponent has never seen them before and doesn't

know what they're doing Have you heard of the teenage werewolf prosecuted in 1603? Did you know that the 17th century British government relied heavily on female spies? And do you want to know about chin-chucking and thigh sex? Of course you do. I'm Susanna Lipscomb, and my new podcast, Not Just the Tudors, is a deep dive into what I like to think of as the long 16th century. We'll be talking about everything from Aztecs to witches, Velazquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely

also the Tudors. Subscribe to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Silvanan, you've bigged it up. We're all really wanting to hear what happens then. So how does Antiochus deploy his scythed chariots? Right. So his scythed chariots are in front of his left wing. Now, if you intend to use your chariots in the battle, you typically put them in the front because you don't want to have to drive them through your own army to get to your enemy. So they tend to go in the front anyway and also they look impressive so you're going to want to you know scare your opponent

look at all these scary things we've got look at all these wonderful things we've got you know showcase your power and so much particularly of the Seleucid line at Magnesia is showing off to the Romans look at the extent of my power. And I think Livy and Appian tell us that this battle line stretches, that you can't see one end from the other, because it is just huge. So it's part of showing off to the Romans. So they're in front of the left wing, they're next to the camels, they're in front of the cavalry on that wing. So that's quite standard, there's nothing too unusual about that. Because they're at the front, and I think even Appian says it, they're intended to open

the battle. And as we see when we read those accounts, they are involved in the fighting at the beginning of the battle. The fighting, though, does not go the Seleucid's way. So they're told they were supposed to open the battle. Their opposite, Eumenes, who is the king of Pergamum, he's allied with the Romans. He's on the opposite wing of the Romans, and he sees them. And Appian tells us that, you know, he's not bothered about the others. He's concerned about the chariots.

And that's interesting that, you know, so Eumenes is taking this threat seriously, that he is concerned that the chariots are there. But he's, we're told he knows how to combat them. So he decides he's going to attack and he orders all his skirmish troops, his light cavalry, to pelt all those horses of the Seleucids that are with the chariots with missiles and cause them to panic. And that's exactly what they do. And this causes the horses to panic, they fall back, that panic spreads to the camels, it spreads to the other cavalry stationed behind them, who then starts to run away, and it causes absolute chaos in the Seleucid left wing. So that part of the wing very, very quickly collapses. That leaves the heavy cavalry on that wing exposed

for Eumenes to charge into. And this is only the opening stages of the battle, but very quickly the Seleucid's entire left wing has collapsed. So it goes very badly for the Seleucids, and it is the chariots that cause that chaos. They are the ones... Okay, they were attacked. They didn't flip over and accidentally cause that chaos, but they're the reason that this chaos spreads. And Livy is particularly harsh in his judgment about them. He says, you know, this was just ridiculous. He calls them a ridiculous sideshow. I think the Latin is ni Ludibrio and he says once this ridiculous side shows out of the way the chariots are off the battle the signal is given and the real battle the proper battle begins you know

that this is just some ridiculous thing that happened at the beginning and just get them out of the way because they're just pathetic and I can understand where he's coming from because they cause absolute chaos it is a complete fiasco at the the same time, by calling them this ridiculous sideshow, he does create this misleading impression that they weren't intended to be a proper part of the battle. So he gives this idea that this is just some sort of preliminary maneuver before the real battle starts, you know, the real troops actually get involved. And we can see that Eumenes did take their threat seriously, he doesn't think that they're ridiculous. And his attack is meant, he's deliberately causing that chaos. He wants those horses to panic so that he can strike a decisive blow against the enemy. This is a very calculated attack.

This isn't some preliminary move before the fighting starts. This is a serious part of his plan at this point. And also when Livy says, oh, they're a ridiculous sideshow, that also gives the impression that Antiochus doesn't think that they're any good and doesn't want to use them. And okay, we don't know what Antiochus actually planned. We have to guess what he planned. And with the usual caveat that commanders don't always act logically, as we see in his actions on the right wing,

where he just charges off and chases the Romans back to the camp and forgets what's happening on the battlefield and does exactly what he did at Raffia and loses the battle because he isn't there and you think he would have learned from that mistake but I would argue that he's brought those chariots for a reason he's certainly not stupid he does make mistakes on the battlefield but he's not stupid he has plenty of battle experience and he's put them in a very prominent position on his left wing. If he just wanted to bring them to show them off and then not use them, he didn't have to put them at the front of his army. troops on that Roman wing and route that wing with the support of the camels and the lighter cavalry that would support the chariots in their attack so that then the heavier cavalry on that wing can then charge the now exposed flank of the Latin Alla and the Roman legions. That was

intended as a very decisive attack, a nice combined arms sort of warfare attack on that wing whilst he also on the other Seleucid wing charges the Romans from the other side so I would say in theory he's got this sort of like maybe pincer movement of the two wings attacking at once that doesn't happen on either wing as I said on the right wing where he's stationed, he goes off charging the Romans to the camp and just doesn't turn into the exposed legion, which he should do. On the left wing with the chariots, okay, that might have been his plan. He wanted to attack the lighter troops on the Romans

and expose that wing. It doesn't happen because Eumenes acts first. He decides to do basically the same thing, but on the Seleucid's left wing and that entire wing collapses very very quickly and the panic created in those horses spreads to the other horses spreads to the camels and then spreads to the infantry on that wing that nobody really wants to be there and it just becomes chaos so that leaves the cataphracts and the companions on that wing. They no longer have that protection of the other troops on the side.

And sure, cavalry can move very fast, but heavy cavalry doesn't turn as fast as lighter cavalry. It's like, allows human ease to just charge straight into the side of them. And it is just then a complete mess. So when we talk about the chariots at Magnesia, it's like, well, they cause so much chaos. Why on earth were they brought there? What on earth is Antiochus doing? And as far as we know, this is the only instance he ever uses them anyway. So it's like, why did he use them? And I'd say, well, since he does bring them, he must have had a plan. And the only way I can see that his plan was to use that

combined attack to drive the opposing Roman wing and it just doesn't happen he just falls victim to the fact that Eumenes knows how to get around this and scythe chariots don't always work if they panic and fall back it's not just a horse falling back on your troops you've got that whole chariot and obviously if the horse panics the chariot is probably going to tip over and just cause absolute chaos i would argue that they're probably worse than elephants on the battlefield and elephants get a bad rep for panicking so i would say chariots okay chariots won't trample your own army but they can cause absolute chaos as they do at magnesia i mean sylvanan that description right

there is incredible i mean it's pretty horrific to visualize but as those chariots are turned around as they panic and just carving these carts which are complete with weapons that these ancient cart porcupine like as they go through their own lines causing incredible damage but it's so interesting what you say because actually sylvanan the amount of chaos which they cause the amount of damage which they inflict on their own army isn't this actually also a good example of actually how effective scythed chariots could be okay it was of antiochus's army but the amount of morale shattering damage they do and physical damage with all their weapons. If it had worked, it could have been really, really effective.

Yeah, and that's the thing. They didn't work and Livy is very dismissive of them. So we think, okay, they're useless. You know, look at the best they cause. But it is also, as you rightly say, it's one of those that if that had worked, we would have been like, okay, they have their problems, but they're actually not that bad. If you get them to work, they can cause a heck of a lot of damage. And the morale shattering thing is a very important thing. It's like psychological warfare is so important. If you can shatter your enemy's morale, they don't want to stand firm. They don't want to stay in formation that's part of

your battle one and that's the thing when particularly when you introduce animals to the battlefield that they can panic and that panic can spread to other humans so it's like eumenes has his cavalry if you could have terrified his cavalry that those horses don't want to be near those chariots that would have been very successful as i, Antiochus could have won the Battle of Magnesia, but it didn't happen that way. And it just shows, you know, how quickly things can go wrong when animals or even men start to panic. So it's one of those that they can cause a heck of a lot of damage.

They do have that battlefield potential. They're not necessarily the most reliable troop if you want to make sure it's the enemy that you're doing that to and not yourself and as i said that's why i drew the parallel with elephants because they have a similar potential that they can trample your opponent but if they panic they can trample you and that's something we talked about the last time we absolutely did and i love the also that the parallel of course with combined arms warfare this idea that of course elephants seem more effective if they've got light infantry protecting them as they advance an interesting that suggestion which you put forwards that as the chariots were advancing there maybe had the light cavalry

were intended to help support them which is really really interesting in itself but we've got to move on going to keep on to more Seleucids but after Magnesia because Magnesia does seem to be the high infamous point of the Scythe Chariots but we do hear of them in a couple of references in Seleucid armies in some way or form after Magnesia. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

We do, but it is a lot more problematic at that point. So I would argue that magnesia is the last serious attempt by the Seleucids to use them. We do hear of them in the Maccabees. So in the first book of the Maccabees, we're told that Antiochus IV has some in his campaign against Egypt in 170 BC. This is generally dismissed by most scholars because Egypt isn't the best terrain for these scythe chariots and we don't hear anything else of them so maybe he did but it seems unlikely that it's not going to be the best area to use the chariots. Then when we move into the Maccabean revolts, so Judas Maccabeus and his followers against the Seleucids, at the Battle of Beth Zechariah in 162 BC, the second book of the Maccabees tells us there are scythe chariots in the Seleucid army there as well. What is interesting

here is our other account, so the first book of the Maccabees and the two different accounts in Josephus, do not mention the scythe chariots at all. I would argue they were not used at this battle. The terrain, for one, is certainly not ideal. This is a very mountainous area. All of our accounts agree that we're sort of in between the mountains and in between the defiles of the mountains at this point. This is not chariot ground. You are not going to want to use chariots here. And I would say that this is just more part and parcel of this idea in the Maccabees of emphasising how terrifying and huge and weird the Seleucid army is. Because there's a lot of

biblical parallels, particularly in the Battle of Beth Zechariah with David and Goliath, that David stood against, you know, this terrifying giant, and you've got the small Jewish rebel army, and their bravery and courage to stand against this humongous, this terrifying Seleucid army. So I think it's part and parcel of that to emphasise how big the Seleucid army is, how brave Judas Maccabeus and his followers are for standing up to them, rather than that they were actually seriously used on the battle here. So we do hear of chariots, they do pop up a little bit, but I would argue they're not really being used. Now, once we move past the Maccabean revolt, our sources for the Seleucid empire become very, very fragmentary. So it's possible that we used after that and we just don't hear about it but I would argue personally that Magnesia has

probably convinced a lot of Seleucid kings not to bother with them to look at what happened at Magnesia that we don't need to do that again fair enough fair enough indeed I mean just as an overview because we're now going past the Seleucids, I mean, it seems like the scythe chariots, they've really become associated with the Seleucids. I mean, do we ever hear of the scythe chariots again anywhere, or is this where they really start to vanish? So we do hear of Mithridates of Pontus using them against the Romans. And I think there are two occasions in particular where they're mentioned. The first is the Battle of Amnias in 89 BC. And it's here where we get Appian's grisly details about them chopping men in half.

So they're very useful and very, very successful here, or it seems to be. And they terrify the Romans. The Romans are terrified that these chariots can just chop you in half and that people are all over the battlefield and it's just a mess and that this is terrifying so that shows again they can be very very successful they can cause absolute destruction and they can have that severe impact on the morale of enemy troops that this psychological aspect they're just terrifying to be against i mean it's bad enough to have horses charge at you it's natural human psychology to fear a horse that charges at you, even if you know the horse isn't going to stand on you, or it's going to do its best not to stand on you. It's still terrifying to have it charge towards you, and

there's comparative evidence from the Napoleonic period of a cavalry officer there saying you can see even veteran troops getting a bit nervous when the cavalry charges towards them even if they know how to deal with it even if it's not going to be a problem they naturally get a little bit nervous when these horses thunder towards them so if you imagine that it's not just a horse it's also this chariot with all these spikes and sides and you've just seen some people over there get chopped up by it you You're gonna, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to have to fight this. This is terrifying. So they're very, very successful there. We then hear of them a little bit later at the Battle of Carinia. This is not the same Battle of Carinia that Alexander's in, just to be confusing. So this is the Battle of Carinia in 86

BC. Again, Mithridates' army has chariots, but we're told they are useless. The Romans managed to combat them. In particular, I think they stopped them from getting up to speed. So that's another thing with chariots. You need enough space to get that chariot up to speed. That if it comes to a stop, it's pretty much useless. It is helpless. It can't do anything. And you can't turn it around very easily because, you know, you're likely to flip the chariot at that point so at Chironera again they're not very successful so again this ties into this limited success of the chariot that sometimes they can be useful other times they're just an absolute nightmare on the battlefield after that I'm not as sure about whether we see chariots after that it is moving out of my period.

As I said, there's some sort of indications that maybe the Britons have scythe chariots, but I really don't know much about that. So I think the hints that maybe they do as to how accurate that is, I couldn't say. The only other instance that I know that's not a Seleucid army, not one of the major armies where we're told that there are scythe chariots, is the so-called elephant victory of Antiochus I in the late 270s BC. The Galatians have invaded the Seleucid empire and Antiochus has brought his army up and we're told that the Galatians have scythe chariots in their army. Now the problem is with this battle

that it only survives in a much much later source, Lucian's Zuxis, so there are lots of problems with that source. It's not a historical account and it's generally felt that the Galatians didn't have scythe chariots. They probably did have chariots but it's highly unlikely they had scythe chariots. So I would say after Magnesiathe chariots so i would say after magnesia and other the mithridates this is where they start to drop out of use again or at least this is where we don't tend to hear about them that much and once rome manages to conquer like most of this region the romans are not interested in chariots in battle and this ties into a lot of powers in the ancient world are not using chariots on the

battlefield anymore they use cavalry chariots are still important ceremonially so they're great for processions they're great for triumphs you know they look great and they're nice and flashy but you don't use them on the battlefield because they're just not that great on the battlefield cavalry can do the same job and can do that job much better well there you go you go. It seems like we've covered everything from the Persians to what you mentioned there, the Galatians, the Gauls in central Anatolia and central Turkey in the Anatolian period, which is really interesting in itself. Now, this has been a fantastic chat. Let's do one last tangent before we finish, because I've got it here in my notes. And that is another quirky animal and a military method that we know the

Seleucids and others did use at this time and this Sylvanan we hear less of them but they did use camel archers yes so these are another really interesting unit I mean the Seleucids are a near eastern empire it's in the middle east so a lot of questions when people ask you is did they use camels you know we know like the arabians have camels did they use camels and yes i mean of course they're going to use camels in their baggage train camels have been used in baggage trains throughout history because they're notoriously good at endurance they don't need as much water as horses they're also less likely to panic under fire than other animals so they're very good for that sort of thing. They're only good in certain climates, they're very susceptible to changes of climate so

you can only use them in certain places but they're very very good in baggage trains and we've got plenty of evidence of that throughout lots of different armies. So I would say there's no reason to think the Seleucids are not using them in their baggage train. As for actually on the battlefield, as you say, this is something that we hear about, but it isn't very common. So the first instance we hear about camels being on the battlefield is again with Cyrus the Great. And Xenophon and Herodotus this time tell us that at the Battle of Sardis, Cyrus has camels and they scare Croesus's horses. The horses don't like the smell and the appearance of camels and they terrify the horses and that fits with what we know about horses like horses scared of elephants they're scared they don't like unusual smells and unusual appearances

so camels are great for that. They do very well there with Cyrus. Then we don't hear anything else of them until we get to this very strange battle of Magnesia, where everything just seems to be at Magnesia. It is just a very odd battle. And we're told that Antiochus has a contingent of Arabian camel archers there. And that fits, we know that these kind of camels come from Arabia and that sort of area, so that totally fits. And the question is, well well why has he got camel arches there has he decided you know he wants to use them or is it just coincidence I personally would argue because we don't hear of them elsewhere that he didn't one day wake up and went you know

what we need camels I would say he's more he's told the Arabians we're going to war you need to come with some men and they've just turned up on camels because that's what they ride. And he's like, okay, we've got some camels, what do we do with these camels? He didn't plan to use camels, they just arrived with camels, and it's like, right, well, now we need to integrate them into the battle line. So these are put on the left wing as well, they're next to the chariots. So when the chariots cause chaos, they're caught up in that chaos. So unfortunately, we don't actually hear much about them, we're chaos they're caught up in that chaos so unfortunately we don't actually hear much about them we're told they're on the left wing and that they're part of that chaos we get some descriptions about what kind of weapons they have so they're camel archers so

obviously they've got bows Livy also tells us that they have a very long sword he says it's four cubits long so that's about nearly two meters long. And that seems, okay, that's huge. Now, when you think that camels themselves are about two meters tall in the shoulder, you think, well, if you're going to hit anyone on the ground, you're going to need a long sword, because otherwise you're not going to be able to reach them. And we do know of swords that were two meters long. So there's the medieval sword, the Zwe Zweihänder that has a blade that is two meters long but to be honest to wield that kind of sword you tend to need to be on the ground and use both hands so it's not really feasible mounted wise so I would say maybe Livy isn't wrong that it is this

big but I would say it's a shorter blade on a longer pole a bit like a glaive or the naginata the sort of Chinese and Japanese weapons that we see so like the glaive or the naginata the sort of chinese and japanese weapons that we see so like the glaive it's a shorter blade on a longer pole so that you can reach the people below you so that tells us that these are very flexible troops they can skirmish from a distance they're archers at the same time they can have a sword so they can close in for close combat so this is as much as we know about them because after we're told that they're in the Seleucid front line we're not told about them again because obviously this wing collapses so we don't hear anything else about them and that's kind of frustrating when we try and work out well what were they supposed to do and I would

argue that because they're on this wing because they're not far from the Tarentines on this wing as well, the Tarentines are a very interesting cavalry unit that likewise specialised in skirmishing from a distance and then closing in for close combat. So we're told that they specialised in throwing their first javelin, then moving their second javelin to their other hand whilst charging in for close combat. And that needs a lot of training to be able to charge while moving a javelin to their other hand whilst charging in for close combat and that needs a lot of training to be able to charge while moving a javelin across your hands. So I would argue that because the Tarentines are this sort of flexible troop that they can skirmish from a distance and close for close combat and because the weapons of the camels seem like they could do a similar thing

my theory is that they're supposed to work together and possibly, as I said, protect the chariots. So they can protect the chariots from a distance, they can then close in for close combat as that fighting gets underway. Now obviously this is theoretical, this doesn't happen at Magmusia, the whole wing collapses and nothing happens, the camels don't do anything other than add to the chaos. And that's unfortunate unfortunate so we don't really know so it's our best guess as to what we think they were supposed to do we don't hear of them elsewhere in the Seleucid army so it's hard to know what they were doing and as I said I don't think it's a case that Antiochus went I need some camels for my army I think it's more a case of he tells the Arabians

we're going to war, bring your men. They arrive on camels. And he's like, great. Well, you know, this helps advertise how extensive my power is. Look at all these different troops in my army. I've got elephants, I've got camels, I've got chariots, I've got all these men. Let's over all the Romans with this. But I think it's more that they just turn up with them and he integrates them that way. Some people might suggest well does he just put them on the wing because oh those are weird we don't know what they are just put them out of the way and I would say well if he wanted to do that there were better places he could put them than right at the front of his army so my argument is that if he puts them

at the front in such a prominent position he did mean mean to use them. And I would say they're meant to work with that lighter cavalry for skirmishing and close combat. And that was the intention, even if that's not what happened in reality. Well, I mean, there you go. Yes, skirmishing capability, close combat capability. They sound like they may be almost like an Arabian elite, which they're sent to Antiochus, you know, which they have to send these elite units. And, of course, Tarentine's also sometimes seen as quite elite light cavalry. Silvanan, I also love the idea of Antiochus waking up one day and just saying, you know what we need? We need camels and we need them now.

But of course, as you say, it's probably not what happened. But I love that idea anyways. Right, Silvanan, a little extra bit on top of this podcast on chariots and camel archers, because there's one particular, I don't know if we can call this a chariot or wagon, that the Romans use against Pyrrhus, which just sounds absolutely the most bizarre of all. Yeah, so this is at the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC, and the Romans are really concerned about Pyrrhus' elephants at this point. They've seen them, they don't really like them, they're not that great with them and they come up with this really bizarre anti-elephant wagon

and we get the descriptions of them and they just sound completely insane. They've got like flamethrowers on them and torches and then spinning scythes or spinning blades and other spikes and they just sound incredibly bizarre. It's like, it's as if they've decided to stick every weapon imaginable on this i get this impression it's like you know if you asked a five-year-old to come up with this sort of like battle wagon it kind of feels like something that a little kid would do or like you ask them to draw it and it's exactly what they draw and needless to say in the actual battle these wagons are a mess they don't do anything they're just far too overly complicated but they are really really bizarre really really bizarre and shall we say this is the closest the romans ever come to creating a scythed chariot of their own yeah even though

this is not a chariot this is a wagon i think they're pulled by oxen and the sides are even i think they're supposed to be spinning it's like it's just so overly complicated it's like no no just simplify guys simplify sylvanan this has been a brilliant chat on all these incredible ancient salukids salucid methods of war thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show thank you very much for having me back it's been a pleasure i love talking about all these unusual and unconventional battle tactics and battle weapons and things. It's great. Thank you.