“The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry,” says Wilkinson, “were divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,—­the former chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called upon to break through opposing masses of infantry.”  The infantry, when employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields, under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be attacked.  In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts.  The testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain several men.  The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the Romans a thousand years later.

It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns, were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the Europeans in the Middle Ages.  Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural pursuits.

More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies, or in military weapons.  The great difference between the Persian and the Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry.  From their earliest settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the guard of their kings.  Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of armed men.

The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led by Sesostris or Cyrus.  The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the races of men; they had a genius for war.  The Grecian States were engaged in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no standing armies.  They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas.  All armies in the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under constitutional forms of government.