The Assyrians fought in chariots, on horseback, and on foot.  Like most ancient nations, as the Egyptians, the Greeks in the heroic times, the Canaanites, the Syrians, the Jews and Israelites, the Persians, the Gauls, the Britons, and many others, the Assyrians preferred the chariot as most honorable, and probably as most safe.  The king invariably went out to war in a chariot, and always fought from it, excepting at the siege of a town, when he occasionally dismounted and shot his arrows on foot.  The chief state-officers and other personages of high rank followed the same practice.  Inferior persons served either as cavalry or as foot-soldiers.

The Assyrian war-chariot is thought to have been made of wood.  Like the Greek and the Egyptian, it appears to have been mounted from behind where it was completely open, or closed only by means of a shield, which (as it seems) could be hung across the aperture.  It was completely panelled at the sides, and often highly ornamented, as will be seen from the various illustrations given in this chapter.  The wheels were two in number, and were placed far back, at or very near the extreme end of the body, so that the weight pressed considerably upon the pole, as was the case also in Egypt.  They had remarkably broad felloes, thin and delicate spokes, and small or moderate sized axels. [PLATE LXXXIX.  Fig. 2], and [PLATE XC., Figs. 1, 2.] The number of the spokes was either six or eight.  The felloes appear to have been formed of three distinct circles of wood, the middle one being the thinnest, and the outer one far the thickest of the three.  Sometimes these circles were fastened together externally by bands of mental, hatchet-shaped.  In one or two instances we find the outermost circle divided by cross-bars, as if it had been composed of four different pieces.  Occasionally there is a fourth circle, which seems to represent a metal tire outside the felloe, whereby it was guarded from injury.  This tire is either plain or ornamented.

[Illustration:  PLATE 90]

The wheels were attached to an axletree, about which they revolved, in the usual manner.  The body was placed directly upon the axletree and upon the pole, without the intervention of any springs.  The pole started from the middle of the axle-tree, and, passing below the floor of the body in a horizontal direction, thence commonly curved upwards till it had risen to about half the height of the body, when it was again horizontal for awhile, once more curving upwards at the end.  It usually terminated in an ornament, which was sometimes the head of an animal—­a bull, a horse, or a duck—­sometimes a more elaborate and complicated work of art. [PLATE XC., Fig. 3.] Now and then the pole continued level with the bottom of the body till it had reached its full projection, and then rose suddenly to the height of the top of the chariot.  It was often strengthened by one or more thin bars, probably of metal; which united it to the upper part of the chariot-front.