There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier, a light and agile cavalry force.  Such were the troops which, under Tissaphernes, harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such, it may be conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their cavalry.  The education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was directed to the formation of those habits of quickness and agility in the mounting and managing of horses, which have a military value only as furnishing a good training for the light-cavalry service; and the tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity, readiness, and ease of movement.

Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm of the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them.  Not only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops in person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and even inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in great battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field, and important consequences were expected from their employment.  The wheels of the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the chariot was set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great damage on the ranks of opponents.  Such hopes seem, however, to have been generally disappointed.  As every chariot was drawn by at least two horses, and contained at least two persons—­the charioteer and the warrior—­a large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light troops who were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically it was found that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole equipage into confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly checked before it reached the line of battle of the enemy.  Where this was not the case, the danger was escaped by opening the ranks and letting the chariots pass through them to the rear, a good account being speedily given of any adventurer who thus isolated himself from the support of his own party.

The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the Assyrian.  The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in diameter; and the body rose above them to a height from the ground of nearly five feet.  The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his middle by the curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides.  The axle-tree is said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a security against being overturned, and the whole construction to have been strong and solid.  The wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from a nave of unusual size.  The felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but were still composed, like them, of two or three distinct layers of wood.  The tires were probably of metal, and were indented like the edge of a saw. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 1.]