12 Chapter OneChariots were expensive, both because of the workmanship that
went into their construction and because of the costliness of feeding
horses on grain in landscapes where year-round grass was not to be
found. Societies dominated by chariot-warriors were therefore nar
rowly aristocratic. A very small warrior class was in a position to
control the lion’s share of whatever agricultural surplus could be
wrested from the peasant producers. Artisans and traders, bards and
even priests danced attendance on the ruling military élites. When
such élites were ethnically alien to the majority—as was often the
case—a pervasive lack of sympathy between ruler and ruled resulted.
Social balances swung the other way very sharply when the next
major change of weapons-systems brought a radical democratization
of war to the ancient world. The discovery of how to make serviceable
tools and weapons of iron occurred somewhere in eastern Asia Minor
about 1400 B.C., but the new skill did not spread widely from its point
of origin until after about 1200 B.C. When it did, metal became enor
mously cheaper, for deposits of iron were widespread in the earth’s
crust and the charcoal required for smelting was not difficult to make.
For the first time it became feasible for common people to own and use
metal, at least in small amounts. In particular, iron plowshares im
proved cultivation and allowed the expansion of tillage onto heavier
clay soils. Wealth increased as a result, slowly but surely. Ordinary
cultivators began to benefit for the first time from something they
could not make themselves. Peasants in other words began to profit
tangibly from the differentiation of skills that was the hallmark of
civilization. As this occurred, civilized social structures became far
more secure than previously. Overthrow of a ruling élite did not any
longer invite a nearly total collapse of social differentiation, as had
sometimes happened previously, e.g., in the Indus valley.
As far as warfare was concerned, the cheapness of iron meant that a
relatively large proportion of the male population could acquire metal
arms and armor. Ordinary farmers and herdsmen thereby achieved a
new formidability in battle, and the narrowly aristocratic structure of
society characteristic of the chariot age altered abruptly. A more dem
ocratic era dawned as iron-welding invaders overthrew ruling élites
that had based their power on a monopoly of chariotry.
where hills abound and fodder for horses is short, chariots had to remain few—too few,
perhaps to achieve decisive effect in battle. Yet, like Cadillacs of the recent past, the
prestige of the chariot after its victories in the Middle East was such that every local
European chieftain was eager to have one, whether or not he could use it effectively in
war.