The chariot revolutionized ancient warfare. How so?

Beginning in Egypt and West Asia, then in China and India, charioteers dominated the battlefield. In 1274 BC at Kadesh in present-day Syria when the Egyptians fought the Hittites, more than 4,500 chariots did battle.

Homer’s Iliad tells of Greek heroes valiantly riding chariots. When Julius Caesar landed on a beach in Kent in 55 BC he was met by British chariots.

Chariots however were risky when driven at high speed. The boy pharaoh Tutankhamen probably died from injuries sustained in a chariot race.

Because of the danger involved, chariot racing attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators.

Roman emperor Nero, who was to gain infamy for setting Rome on fire, could not resist driving his own ten-horse chariot in harrowing races. At one epic contest, he fell out of the speeding war vehicle, but remarkably still won the prize.

Great charioteers like the Roman Porphyrius was a champion into his sixties, provoking the comment that ‘neither strength nor swift horses know how to win, but the brains of the charioteer.’

Source: Wagon, chariot and carriage: Symbol and status in the history of transport by Stuart Piggot

More at: History

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