The Horse in the Ancient World by Willekes Carolyn

Author:Willekes, Carolyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786720092
Publisher: I.B. Tauris

These elusive warriors rarely engaged in pitched battle or close-quarter combat. When Darius I invaded Scythia, the nomads reportedly ‘decided … not to directly resist by giving battle, but instead to withdraw, and as they retreated, to destroy whatever wells and springs they passed and obliterate the grass from the earth’.53 When an exasperated Darius sent a messenger to Idanthyrsos, the Scythian king, belittling him for avoiding battle, the king replied:

This is my situation, Persian. I have never yet fled from anyone out of fear before, and I am not fleeing from you now. What I have been doing is in fact no different from what I am accustomed to do in times of peace. I will tell you why I do not engage you now: it is because we have neither towns nor cultivated land to worry about being captured or razed, which might induce us to engage you in battle sooner.54

On those rare occasions the nomads did choose to engage in battle, they still remained difficult to catch:

The Macedonians and Scythian fought a pitched battle, and the Macedonians were victorious. A hundred and fifty Scythian horsemen perished; the rest had no difficulty reaching safety by slipping into the desert, where it was impossible for the Macedonians to pursue them further.55

To maintain the advantage of mobility the steppe horseman needed to sacrifice the protection offered by heavy armour, as any extra weight would slow him down. This lightweight armour necessitated the use of a primary weapon that would enable the soldier to fight from a distance, as well as tactics that would prevent the enemy from trying to close in. The weapon of choice was the re-curve composite bow, a small, lightweight and powerful weapon designed to be used efficiently and effectively from horseback (Fig. 5.2).

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