is equally simple; and as it is interesting to compare the customs of different ancient nations, it may not be irrelevant to the subject to introduce a copy of one taken from the work of Sir R. Ker Porter.* The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry, were divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows: the former chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles, and in evolutions requiring rapidity of movement; the latter called upon to break through opposing masses of infantry, after having galled them during their advance with a heavy shower of arrows; and in order to enable them to charge with greater security they were furnished with a shield, which was not required for the other mounted archers, and a long spear was substituted on these occasions for the *It may be seen in the British Museum. Vide also wood-cut, No. 56. missiles they had previously employed. The lightarmed chariot corps were also supplied with weapons adapted to close combat, as the sword, club, and javelin; but they had neither the spear nor shield; and indeed this last was confined to certain corps, even of infantry, as the spearmen and others, already mentioned. But the heavy foot, and light troops employed in the assault of fortified towns, were all provided with shields, under cover of which they made approaches to the place; and so closely was the idea of a siege connected with this arm*, that a figure of the king, who is sometimes introduced in the sculptures, as the representative of the whole army, advancing with the shield before him, is intended to show that the place was taken by assault. SIEGES. In attacking a fortified town, they advanced under cover of the arrows of the bowmen; and either instantly applied the scaling ladder to the ramparts, or undertook the routine of a regular siege in which case, having advanced to the walls, they posted themselves under cover of testudos, and shook and dislodged the stones of the parapet with a species of battering ramt, directed and impelled by a body of men expressly chosen for this service: but when the place held out against these attacks, and neither a coup de main, * Conf. 2 Kings, xix. 32. "Nor come before it (the city) with shield, nor cast a bank against it." Isaiah, xxxvii. 33. See wood-cut, No. 60. the ladder, nor the ram, were found to succeed, they probably used the testudo for concealing and protecting the sappers, while they mined the place* ; and certainly, of all people, the Egyptians were the most likely to have recourse to this stratagem of war, from the great practice they had in underground excavations, and in directing shafts through the solid rock. The testudo was of frame-work, sometimes supported by poles having a forked summit, and covered, in all probability, with hides; it was sufficiently large to contain several men, and so placed that the light troops might mount upon the outside, and thus obtain a footing on more elevated ground, apply the ladders with greater precision, or obtain some other important advantage; and each party was commanded by an officer of skill, and frequently by those of the first rank.† The TρуTаvov or pike of the testudo arietaria of the Greeks and Romans, and the covering or vinea, which protected the men while they worked the battering-ram, were nearly on the same principle, and the Greeks most probably borrowed theirs originally from Egypt. They also endeavoured to force open the gates of the town, or hew them down with axes; and when the fort was built upon a rock, they escaladed the precipitous part by means of the testudo, or by * The testudo ad fodiendum of Vitruvius, which, he says, the Greeks call opvž, opvyɛs. Lib. x. c. 21. There was another, quæ ad congestionem fossarum paratur. Lib. x. c. 20. Vide Egypt and Thebes, p. 235. note †, and suprà, p. 67. + Wood-cut, No. 61. Four of the king's sons command the four testudos, a, b, c, d. |