Andrew Barton wrote:
> Andrew S:
>> Just FWIW--Roman chariots were mentioned earlier in the thread;
>> Romans, in fact, outgrew chariots just the way David describes.
>
> It's news to me that the Romans ever used them in warfare. Anyone
> know of a reference?
I'm not sure they did, either--I was eliding a certain amount. I meant just that while the Romans certainly had chariots as part of their cultural heritage, and might or might not have ever used them in battle (I didn't and don't know, but I'm sure our scholars do), they certainly didn't use them at the time when, say, your better gladiator movies take place.
>> Even in the Iliad, there's a sense that Homer knew what a chariot
>> *was*, but didn't really know what it was *for*--the heroes ride the
>> chariot out to the battlefield, park it, get out, and fight on foot.
>
> That was one style of chariot warfare in historical times - Caesar
> described the Britons as using them in much that style, with selected
> warriors using the chariot for mobility on the battlefield but doing
> their actual fighting on foot.
This I didn't know--thanks!
--AMS If I had to make a case for Roman war chariots it would be like this. The Roman army would be led by the king in a chariot, with a few other chariots scattered through the army. There would be a moderate number of cavalry in bronze breastplates armed with javelins and swords supporting each chariot. Most of the infantry would have no armour but fairly large shields and would be armed with javelins and unwilling to fight at close quarters with an enemy who wasn’t running away. Add a few skirmishers with javelins or slings.
Now that is a plausible early Roman army for the time of the kings sometime between the founding of Rome (753BC trad.) and the reform of the Roman army by Servius Tullius c.550BC which established the Roman army on a hoplite model. The Romans thought that they learnt about chariots from the Etruscans and the Etruscans used war chariots. Cavalry are described as the main arm of the Roman army prior to the use of hoplites. The infantry are similar to those of other Italian cities of the time.
Having said all this, I don’t believe it. I suspect that without an existing tradition of chariot use it would not have started. No other Italiot city appears to have used chariots, and despite Etruscan influence there is no proof Rome did. Livy makes no mention of Roman chariots and while he isn’t the best historian no one else does. I’d assume the king and other important men would be either cavalry or possibly part of a picked body of infantry.
Qui desiderat convivium, praeparet cenula
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