Scythed chariot

The scythed chariot was a war chariot with scythe blades mounted on each side. It was employed in ancient times. The scythed chariot was a modified war chariot. The blades extended horizontally for about to each side of the wheels. The Greek general Xenophon (430−354 BC), an eyewitness at the battle of Cunaxa, tells of them: "These had thin scythes extending at an angle from the axles and also under the driver's seat, turned toward the ground". Serrated bronze blades for chariot wheels have also been excavated from Zhou-era pre-imperial Chinese sites. Dismissing completely 17th to 19th century ideas of a Canaanite, Assyrian, Indian or Macedonian origin, Historian Alexander K. Nefiodkin challenges Xenophon's attribution of scythed chariots to the first Persian king Cyrus, pointing to their notable absence in the invasion of Greece (480−479 BC) by one of his successors, Xerxes I. Instead, he argues that the Persians introduced scythed chariots sometime later during the Greco-Persian Wars, between 467 BC and 458 BC, as a response to their experience fighting against Greek heavy infantry. In addition, Nefiodkin has responded to the critic J. Rop, summarising that the ancient historian Ctesias of Assyria is unreliable, and that scythed chariots were developed in order to fight ancient Greek hoplite formations, or more generally, heavy infantry. The scythed chariot was pulled by a team of four horses and manned by a crew of up to three men, one driver and two warriors. Theoretically the scythed chariot would plow through infantry lines, cutting combatants in half or at least opening gaps in the line which could be exploited. It was difficult to get horses to charge into the tight phalanx formation of the Greek/Macedonian hoplites (infantry). The scythed chariot avoided this inherent problem for cavalry by using the scythe to cut into the formation even when the horses avoided the men. A disciplined army could diverge as the chariot approached, and then re-form quickly behind it, allowing the chariot to pass without causing many casualties.

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Scythed chariot