Page 102 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

cnanged—it possible, tor horses. The elders think of their kins­
folk who three hundred years and more before (the distance in

time that separates the Pilgrim Fathers from ourselves) had mi­
grated to the north of Asia Minor and there founded a kingdom
of their own; and they dream of controlling the riches of the

south. And they talk to the young men of the opportunities be­
yond the mountains.
Opportunity there is indeed for charioteers in the settled

areas dotted with towns on the fringes of the great civilizations.
Oddly enough, the chariot is not an offensive weapon. Against
the walls of a town it is useless. But as a defensive weapon it is

revolutionary. A force of chariotry within a city wall can sally
out against a besieging force and shatter it, undefended as it is
by earthworks, to pieces. And from a city an organized chariotry

can dominate and control a very much larger portion of the sur­
rounding country than can be held by an infantry force.
So the princelings of the tribes and townships in the moun­

tains south of the Caucasus are eager to obtain 'horses and
chariots. But that is not enough. The training of horses and
their breaking to harness is a new art, a craft requiring very great

skill and experience, and the control of a horsed chariot in the
heat of battle is not a thing easily to be learnt. So the young men

of the Kuban, brought up with horses and chariots from their

THE SUN DISC, THE MAIN OBJECT OF WORSHIP OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN

SPEAKERS, FROM A SWEDISH ROCK CARVING.