Horses in antiquity

Cavalry of antiquity

If you ask, where for the first time it occurred to a man to climb onto the horse’s back, everyone will respond without hesitation, in the Great Steppe. And wrong.

The first mentions of horsemen are not connected with the nomadic peoples of Eurasia, but with the Assyrian army. In the X century BC, when the nomadic cattle breeding in the Eurasian steppes was still in its infancy, the Assyrians, taking into account the lack of patency of the chariots, invented to use the soldiers, who were directly on the backs of horses, to chase the enemy and reconnaissance. Continue reading →