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Short description

Pontic scythed chariots are ready to strike fear into the hearts of the kingdom's foes. A full-speed charge from one of these can turn even the bravest man into a coward. However, they expose themselves in doing so and are at the mercy of the enemy if those fail to rout. Use them carefully!

Description

Pontic scythed chariots are a purely offensive weapon designed to strike fear into the hearts of the king's enemies. They were a part of the kingdom's eastern military tradition, having been used by many ancient Eastern civilizations as early as the second millennium BC. The chariots are broad and stand on strong wheels with a tall box of timber covering much of the driver. They are pulled by powerful teams of four heavily armoured horses. The charioteers are likewise lavishly equipped with full body armour consisting of thick scale-reinforced linothorax and exquisite lorica musculata, laminar armour covering their arms, Phrygian and konos helmets, as well as imposing face masks. As Xenophon puts it, all but their eyes are covered. However, more impressive still are the weapons attached to the vehicle. Several five-meter-long spears jut forward past the horses from the yoke. The yoke also has two pairs of long cutting blades extending out from its sides, one straight and one angled downwards. Finally, there are the impressive two-meter-long scythes attached to the wheels of the chariots.

Both the charioteers and horses have been rigorously trained in order to work as one on the battlefield. This, along with the cost of providing and maintaining their equipment, makes this an extremely expensive unit to field. The Seleucid kingdom is one of the select few powerful states which can afford to deploy them. In battle, scythed chariots hurl themselves at the enemy. The charge alone would ideally instil great fear and would cause some to falter. Any gaps created because of this would be exploited. The impact would then cause chaos along their ranks and ultimately lead to a rout. A slaughter would then ensue. Enemies would find themselves impaled, beheaded, dismembered, cleaved through, trampled or crushed by the chariots. A truly horrific and violent sight. Yet, scythed chariots often proved outdated when facing the disciplined armies of the Hellenistic period. Generals who faced them typically knew how to counter them effectively. In some instances, chariots caused more chaos in their own ranks than in those of the enemy as they were driven back, such as at Magnesia. They should, therefore, be used with caution.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Xenophon attributes the creation of the Scythed chariot to the Persian king Cyrus II. However, the true origin of the weapon is not so clear. Chariots had a long history in the ancient Near East. There existed a tradition of vehicle construction in Mesopotamia as early as the fourth millennium BC (Moorey, The Emergence of the Chariot in the Near-East (1986), p. 202). Heavy block-wheeled war wagons pulled by horses or horse hybrids and carrying spear or javelin throwers seem to have been used there during the early bronze age (Moorey, p. 199, p. 209).

By the end of the third millennium, spoked wheels had appeared in Anatolia. Some scholars believe this to have been a local development, but it was likely introduced to the region from the steppes, possibly by Indo-Europeans. Light agile chariots with spoked wheels and bent wooden frames were then introduced and or developed there during the first quarter of the second millennium (Moorey, p. 202). Amorites, Hittites and Hurrians pioneered their use. By the 16th century BC, they became popular across the Near East and beyond. The Mitanni were considered particularly skilled in the arts of chariotry (Moorey, p. 212-213).

The speedy vehicles had many uses. In warfare, they served as mobile firing platforms and moved troops around the battlefield as "taxis". They were even used during sieges (Moorey, p. 204-205). However, they were just as important, if not more so, outside of war. Chariots became important symbols of prestige for those who could afford them (Moorey, p. 206). This tradition survived the fall of many great Eastern empires. During his invasion of Assyria in the 6th century BC, Cyrus II is said to have addressed the Assyrian host arrayed before him from atop a chariot (Xen. Cyr. 2.1.43). He also honoured his charioteers and made them "objects of admiration" (Xen. Cyr. 8.8.24). Darius III, the last of the Achaemenid kings, fought from atop a chariot at Gaugamela in 331 BC (Diod. Sic. 17.60.2).

The first millennium BC saw the rise of agile cavalry which increasingly took over the role traditionally occupied by the chariot on the battlefield. A new use had to be found for them. By the 7th century BC, Neo-Assyrian chariots had become heavier, wider and more heavily armoured, favouring direct engagements with the enemy. Charioteers were more heavily armoured and there could be up to three per vehicle in some instances (Moorey, p. 210). Similar changes are observed in other neighbouring states. This new type of chariot more closely resembled the scythe-bearing kind, both in appearance and use. The question is, who added the scythes? While it may well have been the Persians in the 6th century BC, as Xenophon claims, it could also have been another Near Eastern civilization (Rop, pp. 177-179).

The description of the scythed chariot provided above is constructed from the accounts of Xenophon and Plutarch (Xen. Cyr. 6.1.29, Livy 37.40.11). Some of the equipment used by the unit is taken from the Balustrade reliefs, originally found at the temple of Athena Polias Nikephoros in Pergamon. Note that while the in-game unit has three people on the chariots, two archers and a driver, scythed chariots appear to have only had one charioteer. Xenophon comments: "For three hundred chariots call for three hundred combatants" (Xen. Cyr. 6.1.28), referring to the Persians. It is assumed that this would have been the case for the Hellenistic kingdoms inheriting the military tradition as well.

It is high time we take a closer look at the chariots used by Pontos specifically. There are no references to Pontic kings using scythed chariots prior to the reign of Mithridates VI Eupator in the first century BC. Yet, it is reasonable to assume they were used before, given the kingdom's eastern heritage and their very existence at the time. Mithridates only used chariots during the first Mithridatic war with Rome (89-85 BC). The king had 130 chariots at the Battle of the River Amnias in 89 BC (App. Mith. 3.17). The Pontic force commanded by Archelaos had around ninety chariots for his battles against Sulla at Chaeroneia (86 BC) and Orchomenos (85 BC) (Plut. Sull. 15.1). Besides this, Mithridates had chariots with him at the Troad in 85 BC as mentioned above (Plut. Sull. 24.1), and a couple of other sources mention them as part of his forces (Memnon F 27.3, Iust. 38.1).

The battle of the River Amnias best demonstrates the weapon's terrible potential for inflicting death. It was fought between Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontos and the Bithynian king Nikomedes in 89 BC. After an initial engagement, Pontic forces under Neoptolemos were put to flight, and Archelaos engaged their pursuers. Once his comrade had rallied his troops, the chariots attacked. Appian gives a gruesome account of the damages inflicted by the scythes: "At the same time the scythe-bearing chariots made a charge on the Bithynians, cutting some of them in two, and tearing others to pieces. The army of Nicomedes was terrified at seeing men cut in halves and still breathing, or mangled in fragments and their parts hanging on the scythes." (App. Mith. 3.18, Frontin. Str. 2.3.17).

Indeed, many ancient authors emphasize the terrifying nature of the weapon. Diodorus Siculus describes them as "well designed to astonish and terrify the enemy" (Diod. Sic. 17.53.1). If the enemy line was to break in anticipation of a charge, it would only make it deadlier (Du Plessis, p. 232). It only meant the scythe-bearing chariots, hurling themselves into the midst of a panicked enemy, would meet no resistance as they shred through its ranks. Xenophon mentions a skirmish which occurred in 396 BC in which a hastily formed phalanx of 700 Spartans was scattered by the direct charge of only two chariots backed by cavalry (Xen. Hell. 4.1.17-19).

In spite of this bloody reputation, the scythed chariots at the battle of Chaeroneia incited laughter and ridicule from the Romans facing them (Plut. Sull. 18.3). Through clever manoeuvring, Sulla had rendered them useless. Indeed, the victory by the Amnias River was an exception to the general rule. By the Hellenistic period, a time of famous commanders and professional armies, chariots had become outdated. The first general to prove this was Alexander the Great at Gaugamela. Upon the enemy chariots’ charge, his forces opened their ranks, allowing most of the chariots to go through harmlessly. The vehicles were quickly disabled, and the charioteers killed, though some rode through all the way and survived (Diod. Sic. 17.57.6-17.58.4). Appian's account of the battle of Chaeroneia has Sulla use the same strategy to great success (App. Mith. 6.42).

On a more technical side note, Darius chose to fight at Gaugamela because the ground there had been levelled (Arr. An. 3.8.7). Chariots needed level ground to function properly. Something which also informed Archelaos' choice to make a stand at Orchomenos after his defeat at Chaeroneia (Plut. Sull. 20.3). There also needed to be a lot of space, which chariots needed to build up speed and momentum to mount a charge. The manoeuvre made by Sulla at Chaeroneia, referenced at the start of the paragraph, was to quickly advance and shorten the space between the opposing armies. Plutarch explains: "For these [chariots] are of most avail after a long course, which gives them velocity and impetus for breaking through an opposing line but short starts are ineffectual and feeble" (Plut. Sull. 18.2-3).

Sulla countered Archelaos' chariots in other ways. At Orchomenos, he constructed trenches on his flanks and placed stakes into the ground behind his first line. As the chariots approached, the men retreated and took cover behind them. Enemies either drove right into the stakes or were turned back by missile troops (Frontin. Str. 2.3.17).

Indeed, the vehicles were easy targets for light missile troops, given their size and ease with which they could be disabled. Xenophon has Cyrus II say: "a chariot would never go fast, I am sure, if slow horses were attached to it, nor would it be serviceable if horses unfit for service were harnessed to it" ( Xen. Cyr. 2.2.26). If even one of the four horses was killed, the chariot could no longer move, leaving the driver at the mercy of his enemy. Arrian's account of the Battle of Gaugamela states that Darius sent chariots to attack Alexander directly. Yet, they were stopped dead in their tracks by archers, javelinmen, and angry Agrianians (Arr. An. 3.13). This is also seen at the Battle of Magnesia, which was fought between King Antiochos the Great and a coalition led by Rome in 189 BC. Eumenes II, king of Pergamon, ordered his missile troops to aim for the horses of Seleucid chariots, killing many. However, far more problematic were those who were only wounded and lost control (App. Syr. 6.33).

There is one final glaring weakness to scythed chariots, which has yet to be mentioned. When the chariots were turned back at Magnesia, they drove into their own ranks. The terror mentioned above was now felt by their own men as panic spread through the army and significant casualties were inflicted. It also allowed Eumenes to charge a distracted foe and break the Seleucid right flank, giving his side the victory (App. Syr. 6.33-34). Magnesia is perhaps the most infamous example of this occurring, yet many battles brought up throughout this text mention chariots losing control and turning on their own men. Even at Gaugamela, Diodorus Siculus claims the Macedonians managed to scare the Persian horses by raising a great din, causing "most" of the chariots to bear into their own ranks (Diod. Sic. 17.58.4).

Chariots had a long history in the East. As warfare changed, so did their form and use. However, it seems that the great armies of the Hellenistic era, with their disciplined and heavily armoured soldiers, were perfectly equipped to deal with scythed chariots. A new use could not be found for them at this time. However, consider one dimension before dismissing them completely. Ancient sources tend to emphasize chariots’ failures, which were more numerous than their successes, at least by the Hellenistic period, yet they undoubtedly left a mark on those who came across them, one of pure fear. In On the Nature of Things, Lucretius paints a grim and violent picture of scythed chariots, one on which this lengthy description shall end:

“We hear how chariots of war, areek with hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythes the limbs away so suddenly that there, fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth, the while the mind and powers of the man can feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt, and sheer abandon in the zest of battle: With the remainder of his frame he seeks anew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks how the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged off with the horses his left arm and shield…” (Lucr. 3.624).