scythe-bearing chariots
object · 2 works · 4 mentions · 6 anchored passages
chariots · chariots of war · enemy's chariots · scythed chariot · this military device
in the texts
Cyropaedia
Reformed war chariots with protective boxes and scythes designed for shock action.
After this, as Abradatas observed that Cyrus was busily engaged with the scythe-bearing chariots and the mailed horses and riders, he tried to contribute from his own cavalry as many as a hundred chariots like them;
For the ranks of his Persian horse were now filled up to the number of ten thousand, the scythe-bearing chariots that he himself had had constructed had now reached the full number of one hundred, and those which Abradatas of Susa had undertaken to secure like those of Cyrus had also reached the full number of one hundred more.
And as Cyrus constructed them at that time, such even to this day are the chariots in use in the king’s dominions.
Anabasis
Chariots armed with scythes intended to cut through Greek ranks, though they prove ineffective in the battle.
The enemy, it was reported, numbered one million two hundred thousand and had two hundred scythe-bearing chariots;
But of the forces just enumerated only nine hundred thousand, with one hundred and fifty scythe-bearing chariots, were present at the battle;
As for the enemy’s chariots, some of them plunged through the lines of their own troops, others, however, through the Greek lines, but without charioteers.