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The Romans did not use war chariots, since they are basically useless in combat. They only used chariots for sports in the hippodrome.
by Svip 3y ago
The Romans did not use war chariots, since they are basically useless in combat. They only used chariots for sports in the hippodrome.
- masklinn 3y agoChariots are not “useless in combat”, but they are very expensive to field and only work in pretty narrow circumstances: wide, open, and relatively solid areas (aka not bogs). These circumstances were not a thing for Roman legions until they reached spain at least, possibly North Africa and the Middle East. As a result they were not part of Roman war doctrines. On the other hand they were very much part of bronze-age Egyptian and Hittite armies. An other factor to their lack of appeal tho may have been improvements in horse riding technique and gear, as well as training. Riders can also be heavily armed, but have less travel restriction, and you can field a warrior per horse rather than need two horses and a driver per.
- anthk 3y agoSpain is mountainous as hell; a chariout outside the Castille plains and Madrid would be scrap. Get a height map of Spain and you can obviously see that a chariot trying to ride at Picos de Europa would be a nightmare.
- r0b1n 3y agoThey used chariots not only in the hippodrome, also for processions and other "shows". But Roman warfare was a no-nonsense kind of affair, so no chariots. https://acoup.blog https://acoup.blog describes this really well.
- joncrane 3y agoThe chariots in this example were more for transport and logistics, not battle.