saddle-cloths are represented on the reserve-horses at Kouyunjik, without any housings. Saddle-cloths of the former shape are now extensively used in the East, made of velvet or fine woollen cloth, elaborately embroidered at the edges and corners with gold and silver thread.

"The horses of the Assyrians," as Mr. Layard observes, "were well formed, and apparently of noble blood. No one can look at the horses of the early Assyrian sculptures without being convinced that they were drawn from the finest models. The head is small and well-shaped, the nostrils large and high, the neck arched, the body long, and the legs slender and sinewy." The spirit, martial courage, and fleetness of the Chaldean war-horses, and the extent to which they were employed in battle, are alluded to by the prophet.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. Hab. i. 8.

Cavalry, however, seems to have been but little used until the latest period of the empire. A small band of mounted archers was sometimes employed in the early time, clothed in helmet and cuirass, and riding without either saddle or stirrups; and, strange to say, the archer having both hands engaged, was accompanied by another horseman, who riding by his side, held the reins both of his fellow's steed and of his own. Cavalry was used for pursuit of a flying foe; a horseman is represented pursuing, with

Nineveh and its Remains, ii. 359.

extended spear, an enemy mounted on a slender dromedary. The Assyrian pursuer has a saddle-cloth, but no stirrups, nor even a bridle.*

We are tempted to think in this case that the sculptor has omitted the bridle from oversight. But it may be that the Assyrian horseman was able to ride and govern his steed without one, like the desultor or equestrian performer of Numidia, who rode two horses alternately, without any bridle, guiding them merely by the whip. The Scythians, Armenians, and Indians also practised this art, which was not unknown to the Greeks (see Il. xv. 801). Megasthenes, indeed, asserts that the Indian soldiers were accustomed to ride without bridles.†

In the Khorsabad battle-scenes mounted troops are more common. Heavy-armed horse accompanied the royal chariot, always furnished with bow and quiver in addition to their other weapons.

But it is in the sculptures of the Kouyunjik palace that cavalry occurs most numerously. Long lines of horse, well accoutred with helm and corslet, spear and sword, and sometimes with bow and quiver in addition, are represented as accompanying the king in those expeditions into forest-covered mountainous regions, which seem to have been so characteristic of the reign of Sennacherib.

The main reliance was upon the foot-soldiers; and

The mode of fighting practised by the Lydians was on horseback; they were armed with long spears, and managed their steeds with great address. But their horses could not endure the sight of a camel. Herod. i. 79, 80.

+ Cory's Anc. Frag. 232. Ed. 1832

these, like the mounted corps, comprised archers and spear-men. Whether sappers and miners constituted a distinct body, we know not; most probably these offices were undertaken by individuals selected from the common ranks. Artillery men, who worked the mighty and ponderous engines, and who planted and mounted scaling-ladders, were also, of course, footsoldiers. The infantry in the later periods marched before the chariots, as the cavalry followed them. Their weapons were the bow and quiver, the sword, the spear, and the mace; their defensive armour the helmet, the cuirass, or the complete suit of mail, the round buckler, and the large target. These arms, which were not equally distributed to all the ranks, we now proceed to describe.

The bow has always been considered eminently characteristic of Asiatic warfare, and its prominence in the battle scenes of Assyria fully bears out what has been handed down to us from classic antiquity. Archers seem to have played the principal part in Assyrian warfare, and to have served not only on foot, but on horseback and in chariots.

The form of the bow was simple, consisting of a single arch, with the points slightly recurved; it was slender, commonly tapering to each extremity, and highly elastic, for when drawn, it formed a semiellipse. In some sculptures found at Khorsabad the bows were coloured red; which probably indicated that they were made of bronze.* And this agrees

Archæologists now divide antiquity into three periods, which they respectively distinguish, from the material chiefly employed for weapons,

with those passages of Scripture, as 2 Sam. xxii. 35; Job xx. 24; and Ps. xviii. 35, in which a "bow of steel" is spoken of; for the word, nachooshah, rendered steel in these passages, elsewhere signifies brass (or rather bronze, a compound of copper and tin), and is so rendered. Homer describes the bow of Pandarus as made of two goats' horns,

his polished bow,

The horn of a salacious mountain goat.

Full sixteen palms his measured length of horn
Had spired aloft; the bow-smith, root to root,
Adapted each, shaved smooth the wrinkled rind,
Then polished all, and tipped the points with gold."
Iliad, iv. 110.

The union of the two roots he speaks of, would. however require great skill in the artisan to make the weapon effective. The Assyrian bows when undrawn, but strung (as they are invariably represented), frequently formed an obtuse angle in the middle, rather than a curve, as if constructed of two pieces united. There was much diversity in the comparative elegance of their shape.

The bow-string formed a loop at each end, probably a thong of raw hide* so cut, and the extremities of the bow being knobbed had a notch on the upper

as the era of stone, of bronze, and of iron; a system of nomenclature first suggested by Thomsen, the founder of the famous Archæological Museum of Copenhagen. We doubt, however, whether it is applicable to Oriental archæology; we have no reason to believe that ever stone implements were generally used in the primeval seats of the human family; and bronze and iron were certainly used contemporaneously by both Egypt and Assyria.

Νεῦρα βόλια, Π. iv. 122.

side, into which the loop was slipped over the end. The ends of the bow were sometimes recurved more or less; and sometimes were fashioned into the head

BOWS.

of an eagle. In the later period the head of a duck was the favourite form, the beak laid upon the outer edge, and pointing towards the centre of the bow.

The string was drawn not to the ear, according to the custom of the Egyptians and our own forefathers, nor to the breast, in the ineffective manner practised by the early Greeks, but intermediately, to the right shoulder. When not in actual use the weapon was slung over the shoulder, the arm being passed within the string.