the Medic armies can have fought pell-mell, as
Herodotus declares, seeing that for two hundred years past the Medes
had been frequently engaged against such well-drilled troops as those
of Assyria: if the statement be authentic, it merely means that Cyaxares
converted all the small feudal armies which had hitherto fought side
by side on behalf of the king into a single royal army in which the
different kinds of troops were kept separate.

The foot-soldiers wore a high felt cap known as a tiara; they had long
tunics with wide sleeves, tied in at the waist by a belt, and sometimes
reinforced by iron plates or scales, as well as gaiters, buskins of soft
leather, and large wickerwork shields covered with ox-hide, which they
bore in front of them like a movable bulwark; their weapons consisted of
a short sword, which depended from the belt and lay along the thigh,
one or two light javelins, a bow with a strongly pronounced curve, and
a quiver full of arrows made from reeds.* Their horsemen, like those of
other warlike nations II of the East, used neither saddle nor stirrups,
and though they could make skilful use of lance and sword, their
favourite weapon was the bow.**

* Herodotus describes the equipment of the Persians in much
the same terms as I have used above, and then adds in the
following chapter that "the Medes had the same equipment,
for it is the equipment of the Medes and not that of the
Persians."

** Herodotus says that the Medic horsemen were armed in the
same manner as the infantry.

[Illustration: 298.jpg A MEDIC HORSEMAN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a cast of the Medic intaglio in
the Cabinet des Medailles.

Accustomed from their earliest childhood to all kinds of equestrian
exercises, they seemed to sit their horses as though they actually
formed part of the animal. They seldom fought in line, but, from the
very beginning of an action, hung like a dense cloud on the front and
flanks of the enemy, and riddled them with missiles, without, however,
coming to close quarters. Like the Parthians of a later epoch, they
waited until they had bewildered and reduced the foe by their ceaseless
evolutions before giving the final charge which was to rout them
completely. No greater danger could threaten the Assyrians than the
establishment of a systematically organised military power within
the borders of Media. An invader starting from Egypt or Asia Minor,
even i