FIVEThe New Warfare
HorsesWhat contributed most to the chaos of the period was the ad-
vent of a weapon that transformed warfare in the ancient world:
the horse-drawn chariot. The bare generalization is almost a
truism and would need no substantiation. The entire matter,
however, is both more complex and more significant than it
might at first glance appear and must be appreciated in some
detail.
Although horses have been horses for a million years, for
well over 99 percent of that period people did nothing with
them except eat them. During the Ice Age, horses were per-
haps the favorite game animal for hunters in both Eurasia and
northern Africa. After the retreat of the glaciers, other equids
flourished in the warmer regions: three species of zebra in
southern and central Africa; the ass (Equus asinus) in northern
Africa and southern Europe; and in southwestern Asia, from
India to Anatolia and Palestine, Equus hemionus, commonly
known as the onager or the Asiatic wild ass.
The horse, Equus caballus, preferred more northerly lati-
tudes. With its shaggy winter coat, its tendency to overheat
despite sweating profusely, and its relatively soft hooves, the
horse was at home in open steppes from central Asia to the
Carpathian Basin in central Europe. On the open steppes, the
horse was protected from wolves and other predators by its
keen eyes, its herd instinct, and its capacity for rapid and sus-
tained flight. Herds of wild horses dotted the steppes all
through later paleolithic and neolithic times. These wild
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