Other weapons of the Babylonians, which we may be sure they used in war, though the monuments do not furnish any proof of the fact, were the spear and the bill or axe.  These weapons are exhibited in combination upon one of the most curious of the cylinders, where a lion is disturbed in his meal off an ox by two rustics, one of whom attacks him in front with a spear, while the other seizes his tail and assails him in the rear with an axe. [PI.  XXIII., Fig. 5.] With the axe here represented may be compared another, which is found on a clay tablet brought from Sinkara, and supposed to belong to the early Chaldaean period.30 The Sinkara axe has a simple square blade:  the axe upon the cylinder has a blade with long curved sides and a curved edge; while, to balance the weight of the blade, it has on the lower side three sharp spikes.  The difference between the two implements marks the advance of mechanical art in the country between the time of the first and that of the fourth monarchy. [PLATE XXIII., Fig. 4.]

Babylonian armies seem to have been composed, like Assyrian, of three elements—­infantry, cavalry, and chariots.  Of the chariots we appear to have one or two representations upon the cylinders, but they are too rudely carved to be of much value.  It is not likely that the chariots differed much either in shape or equipment from the Assyrian, unless they were, like those of Susiana, ordinarily drawn by mules.  A peculiar car, four-wheeled, and drawn by four horses, with an elevated platform in front and a seat behind for the driver, which the cylinders occasionally exhibit, is probably not a war-chariot, but a sacred vehicle, like the tensa or thensa of the Romans. [PLATE XXIV., Fig. 2.]

[Illustration:  PLATE XXIV.]

The Prophet Habakkuk evidently considered the cavalry of the Babylonians to be their most formidable arm.  “They are terrible and dreadful,” he said; “from them shall proceed judgment and captivity; their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly, as the eagle that hasteth to eat.”  Similarly Ezekiel spoke of the “desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned; all of them riding upon horses,” Jeremiah couples the horses with the chariots, as if he doubted whether the chariot force or the cavalry were the more to be dreaded.  “Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariot shall be as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles.  Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.”  In the army of Xerxes the Babylonians seem to have served only on foot, which would imply that they were not considered in that king’s time to furnish such good cavalry as the Persians, Medes, Cissians, Indians, and others, who sent contingents of horse.  Darius, however, in the Behistun inscription, speaks of Babylonian horsemen; and the armies which overran Syria, Palestine,