RomanArmyTalk

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Avete, 
 
Can anyone tell me if the Romans ever used chariots in warfare ? I know the Greek sucessor states to Alexander's empire used chariots as an attempt to compensate for their lack of cavalry. 
 
Or did the Romans use chariots purely for transportation, games, and triumphs ? 
 
Valete. 
-Theo

Perhaps before they expanded and had the oppurtunity of fine horses from their various parts of their provinces. They also hired cavalry at times from places outside their empire, such as the germans which Gaius Julius Caesar did in Gaul.

There's a beautiful example of a Roman light chariot in the Vatican museum. It was not armored so I doubt it was a war chariot, however -- it was gorgeous though. I'll post a pic when I get a chance. 
 
Rich K.

There is little evidence to suggest that the Romans used chariots as a fighting platform like the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians and some Chinese armies (Qin and Han for example). 
 
Contemporaries of the Republican Roman armies did use chariots on the battlefield. The most notable example is that of the British (Celtic) opponents of Gaius Julius Caesar and the Imperial Roman forces sent to conquer Britain by the Emperor Claudius. Gallic armies (of what is now modern France and environs) also used chariots; however, their use was limited by the time of Caesar's Gallic campaigns. The Galatians (eastern Celts) made use of chariots including some equipped with scythes. Similar chariots were included in the Pontic forces of Mithridates the Great and the Seleucid forces of Antiochus the Great. 
 
Chariots fitted with scythes were suppose to be driven towards a massed target at a furious pace with the driver abandoning the chariot before combat. The scythes were then suppose to be able to inflict casualties as the horses and chariot disrupted the target body. 
 
A much later form of chariot was suggested in the De rei bellicis (sic) by an anonymous author circa the fourth century AD. This was known as the currus drepanus and its use was probably limited to modern wargames armies to add some colour to later Roman armies. 
 
Perry

"Chariots fitted with scythes were suppose to be driven towards a massed target at a furious pace with the driver abandoning the chariot before combat. The scythes were then suppose to be able to inflict casualties as the horses and chariot disrupted the target body." 
 
I've done a lot of chariot research - mainly Bronze Age - but have never heard of this tactic. Could you supply a primary source indicating that this was how the scythed chariot was suposed to be used? It certainly was not how the Persians used it. How would you convince the horses to charge directly into a line of spears without a driver with a whip behind them? Even with a driver the odds are that the horses will shy away before impact. Horses aren't suicidal and no amount of training can change this. The whole point of heavy chariots was as shock units to lower morale. The idea is to convince the enemy to break and run before impact. The same as for medieval heavy cavalry. If the infantry stood its ground and was anchored at the flanks, the cavalry/chariots couldn't do much. Note the stalemate between the Greek phalanx and the Persian scythed chariots during the Battle of Cunaxa [Xenophon: Anabasis, Plutarch, Artaxerxes]. Heavy chariots are also useful for limiting the manoeuvreability of heavy infantry. If a formation moves enough to lose cohesion or open up a flank then the chariots can quickly exploit this. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=danielraymondhoward>Daniel Raymond Howard</A> at: 8/13/04 7:13 am

Hmm...interesting. 
 
So just about everyone except the Romans utilized war chariots . Most of their neighbors used them and their neighbors' neighbors. 
 
I guess that shows just how relatively ineffective they were in ancient warfare. If they were of any significant value you'd think the Romans would've adopted them (as they were famous for adopting tactics and equiptment from their enemies). 
 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=theodosiusthegreat>Theodosius the Great</A> at: 8/13/04 3:10 am

Chariots were rendered obsolete by cavalry. Bronze Age light chariots were used as archery platforms (Robert Drews has demonstrated this convincingly in "End of the Bronze Age"). These light chariots were superceded by horse archers. The chariot then evolved into a heavier vehicle for shock tactics. These were superceded by heavy cavalry (e.g. Macedonians). Only in isolated areas such as Britain did the chariot see extended use. Caesar noted that each time his cavalry attempted to catch the chariots the Celts would jump down and meet them on foot [BG 5.16]. This implies that chariots were no match for cavalry (better to fight on foot). If Caesar's cavalry caught the chariots before the Celts could dismount, the cavalry always prevailed. Therefore if the Romans had access to cavalry they had no need for chariots. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=danielraymondhoward>Daniel Raymond Howard</A> at: 8/13/04 7:15 am

also, 
 
youÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´ll need flat ground for chariots. I think that therefore chariots werenÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t very usefull in Italy. I donÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t recall that any of the civilisations in Italy ever used chariots (even the Celt in Northern Italy). ------------------------------------------------------- 
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings -- they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

A little off the topic of Romans use, but weren't Chariots used in Greece just before the Companion Cavalry of Alexander. THERE ARE NO STUPID PEOPLE, ONLY PEOPLE STUPID ENOUGH TO NOT KNOW WHEN THEY'VE MADE A MISTAKE

"Neither do they employ the scythed chariot any longer for the purpose for which Cyrus had it made. For he advanced the charioteers to honour and made them objects of admiration and so had men who were ready to hurl themselves against even a heavy-armed line. The officers of the present day, however, do not so much as know the men in the chariots, and they think that untrained drivers will be just as serviceable to them as trained charioteers. Such untrained men do indeed charge, but before they penetrate the enemy's lines some of them are unintentionally thrown out, some of them jump out on purpose, and so the teams without drivers often create more havoc on their own side than on the enemy's." 
- Xenophon, "Kyropaidia" 8.8.24-5

Duncan, 
 
This is what the legal folks would call hearsay .... not therefore evidence of sythed chariots. 
 
Conal

No, Conal, that's what the legal folks would call eye-witness evidence - the bit about current practice, that is, not necessarily the bit about how it was done in the good old days of Cyrus the Great. Xenophon is one of our few sources who actually faced the chariots in action.

So Xenophon is the only ancient source who doesn't exaggerate or change facts to suit his agenda? 
 
Xenophon wrote that the hoplites were able to defeat the chariots by simply opening their ranks and allowing the chariots to pass harmlessly through. [Anabasis, 1.8.20 ]. It is hard to believe that a tight formation would be capable of this - especially in this situation because the phalanx was hemmed in by the river on one flank. The hoplites would also have had to wait till the last minute so that the chariots would have no time to react. 
 
The likely scenario is that the peltasts, who had formed up on the other flank, moved out into the front of the phalanx and formed a screen. Just like Alexander's Agrianians did at the Battle of Gaugamela. Xenophon implies that the peltasts were well practised in this manoeuvre when, after the death of Cyrus, he describes how they defeated a charge of TissaphernesÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ cavalry [Anabasis, 1.10.7]. We also have Caesar's evidence suggesting that heavy infantry is useless against chariots [BG, 5.16] 
 
It is unlikely that Xenophon would want to credit the lowly peltasts with saving his skin so he "embellished" the facts a little. His agenda in this instance is to hide the fact that his hoplite phalanx was completely ineffectual during the battle. 
 
 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=danielraymondhoward>Daniel Raymond Howard</A> at: 8/13/04 6:08 pm

For examples of the use of scythed chariots in battle, I recommend any primary and secondary source that provides descriptions of the battles. I suggest examining accounts of Gaugamela or Arbela in which the Persians used chariots against the Macedonian infantry (and possibly levelled the ground prior to the battle to improve the probablities for success), and accounts of Magnesia in which the Seleucid army used chariots against the allied Roman and Pergamene army. 
 
The chariots failed to achieve much in both battles which has been cited by historians for why scythed chariots dropped out of use. 
 
Perry

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