Units of History Mycenaean Chariots of the Trojan War DOCUMENTARY

Amidst the blood and dust of the Bronze Age battlefield, the appearance of a wheeled contraption drawn by powerful beasts would have been a terrifying sight to behold. In fact, these were the vehicles of heroes who clashed in epic duels before the armies. Here is one such vivid encounter brought to life in Homer's Iliad. Next, Diomedes killed two children of Dardanian Priam who were in a single chariot, as among cattle a lion leaps on the neck of an ox or heifer that grazes among the wooded places and breaks it. So the son of Tidius, held both from their horses hatefully in spite of their struggles, then stripped their armor and gave the horses to his company to drive to their vessels. This passage offers just a taste of what it may have been like to set foot on a Bronze Age battlefield. Today we will be diving into the history of the Mycenaean chariots from Homer's Trojan War. This video is brought to you by A Total War Saga, Troy. It's a brand new strategy game set during the Bronze Age Mediterranean, which dives into the legendary 20-year conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece. Dominate your enemies through a blend of grand, turn-based empire management and spectacular real-time battles. On August 13th, Troy will also be free to claim for 24 hours on the Epic Games Store. For more information, check out the link below or stick around to the end of the video. Horses were first domesticated around 6,000 years ago. Evidence suggests this had actually occurred across various parts of Europe and Asia independently. These original herds would have been much smaller than the horse breeds of Arabian descent we are familiar with today, and most closely resembled the more diminutive Swarovski horse found on the Asian steppe. It seems that initially these horses were simply used as beasts of burden who could be yoked to wagons and carts. In this capacity, they would have joined other teams of animals who would commonly be seen transporting army gear. It would have been natural for Bronze Age commanders to begin toying with the ideas of deploying these in battle. The ancient Sumerians appear to have been among the first to adapt such primitive battle carts for war. Given their heavy structure and the fact they were pulled by a team of onagers, it's likely that they would have been quite slow and cumbersome. However, the war chariot we are most familiar with, a light vehicle with two spoked wheels pulled by a team of horses, often stallions, does not appear in the ancient Near East until the early 2nd millennium BC. These were likely first designed for the quick transportation of leaders and officials, and perhaps even for recreational racing, but were soon deployed on the battlefield. By the late Bronze Age, say roughly the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC, chariotry had become an important part of the armies of the major kingdoms in the ancient Near East. The Egyptians, for instance, used chariots as mobile ranged platforms, with one driver and one archer. The rival Hittite chariots, meanwhile, operated more as shock forces, with one driver, one shield-bearer, who served mostly as a javelineer, and one man with scale armour and a long spear. These two weapons platforms would clash famously at the Battle of Kadesh, which featured a reported 5,000 to 6,000 vehicles, making it the largest chariot battle in history. During this time, chariots made their way to the ancient Aegean by way of Anatolia or Crete. As in the Near East, they would have been used for communication, recreation and, inevitably, warfare. The earliest evidence of their use consists of objects retrieved from Grave Circle A at Mycenae. Some have also suggested that the arrival of chariots also spurred the development of roads in ancient Greece, yet this idea is debated. Roads were often short and at most would have allowed envoys and officials to ride in chariots to outlying settlements. Either way, chariots had arrived and would now begin to be incorporated into armies of the Mycenaeans. As an indication of their growing prominence, evidence from Linear B tablets suggests that the number of chariots that could be fielded from different Mycenaean palaces numbered in the hundreds. Knossos even reportedly housed a total fleet of around 400. While not as large as the stockpiles of the Egyptians and Hittites, it is still quite an impressive scale, given the rather small size of Aegean polities. With this context in mind, let's now discuss what their equipment would have looked like. We shall begin with the horses. Our records indicate that Mycenaean chariots were always pulled by a team of two animals. Only in the first millennium BC do we encounter chariots with teams that consist of a larger number of horses, usually four. These horses were the size of what we today consider ponies. Horse armour is also rare and most animals would not have had much in the way of protection. This was partially due to the complexity of producing such pieces of equipment and the fact that chariots were meant to be light and fast. As for the chariots itself, these were also quite light in construction and were mostly made of perishable materials such as wood and leather. In terms of shape, there were four main types. The earliest is the Type I, or box chariot, which is characterised in art by a solid-walled box. A similar type of chariot is found in Hittite art, from earlier in the second millennium BC, and this must be the type that was introduced into the Aegean from the east. A little later we find the Type II, or quadrant chariot, which is also similar to those found in the Near East. As the name implies, it features a box that is shaped like one quadrant of a circle. By far the most common type of chariot encountered in Mycenaean art is the Type III, or jewel chariot. It is very similar to the box chariot with the main difference being the addition of a curved extension at the back. These chariots are commonly encountered in art that dates between roughly 1450 and 1200 BC. Unlike the box chariot or the quadrant chariot, however, the jewel chariot appears to be an entirely Aegean innovation. From the later 13th century BC onwards a new type of chariot appears, the Type IV, or rail chariot. This vehicle is open-walled without any extensions. We find very similar designs from later periods which seem to suggest that the rail chariots remained in use from the end of the Bronze Age all the way through the Dark Ages and into the Archaic Period. Almost certainly this was the type of chariot that Homer imagined for his heroes. In the case of the Mycenaean chariot crew, artistic representations are consistent in always showing two occupants, the driver or charioteer, and a warrior. For defense the warrior would likely have been protected by a helmet, a thick padded tunic or metal chest piece, and perhaps even a shield. Fascinating remains of a near-full-body dendro indicates that some riders may have been even more heavily protected. However, it is likely that this piece of equipment was not the norm given the obvious drawbacks of its weight and bulkiness. When it comes to offense, the warrior is often depicted carrying a long thrusting spear and probably also carried a sword as a sidearm. There are also some Mycenaean images that depict the use of the bow, however this imagery itself is borrowed directly from the ancient Near East where leaders hunting from chariots are a recurring motif. It seems unlikely that the Mycenaeans would have been able to deploy chariots as mobile platforms for archers given the limitations of the rough Aegean terrain. Let's now pivot to talk about the use of chariots in battle. Admittedly, we don't know much about how the Mycenaeans trained their chariot forces. Based on the actions of their contemporaries in the East, it seems likely that they devoted significant effort to breeding and training specialized horses for use with chariots. As for the crew, we again don't know much but it's fairly safe to speculate that competitive racing and other recreational activities would have helped hone their skills. Perhaps there were even obstacle courses and target practice dummies set up for specific wartime training, but again we don't have any direct evidence of this. So, regardless of how well they trained, how did the Mycenaeans actually use their chariots in battle? In terms of deployment, they actually didn't ride to the battlefield as one might expect. After all, chariots were quite fragile and armies were wary of subjecting them to excessive wear and tear. Therefore, these vehicles would actually have been disassembled and carried in pieces on wagons to their destination. Only once the army arrived at the field of battle would the chariots be reassembled. Okay, so now we are on the battlefield. What did they do? Well, depictions from shaft graves in Mycenae feature chariots apparently barreling directly towards their opponents. This suggests that they followed in the footsteps of the Hittites, who used lances and shock tactics to break the enemy. This interpretation would seem to align with palatial art, where we see chariots being associated with warriors armed with long thrusting spears. Unfortunately, however, we never see them engaged in combat and thus can't confirm this tactic. Many would actually argue against this interpretation given the murky nature of the evidence and the simple fact that the uneven terrain of Greece is just not well suited for large-scale chariot combat, as might be the case in the more open plains of the east. In addition, there is also no evidence that either the Mycenaean horses or chariot boxes were armored, which suggests that they were not suitable for use in the thick of battle for very long. Perhaps a more plausible hypothesis is that Bronze Age chariots of the Aegean were actually used to transport warriors to and from the battlefield. This practice is captured most famously in the Homeric poems. In the Iliad, for example, the chariot is used strictly as a mode of conveyance to taxi a hero to the battlefield. Once on the field, the hero, who is always a prince or a king in Homer's work, would dismount to fight on foot. Just before combat began, his driver would turn the horses around and position the chariot off to the side of the conflict, where he would remain until called by his master. We have a hard time imagining how such a system would work during actual massed combat. Perhaps the men may have simply dismounted within the safety of their battle line and joined the rest of the army before the engagement. Or perhaps, as in Homer's descriptions, the fighting was just more loosely organised, with a stretch of no-man's-land between the opposing forces that could have allowed the warriors more room to manoeuvre. However, many call into question the accuracy of Homer's work, which was written long after the events of the Bronze Age of which he wrote. Some have posited a sort of middle ground between the charging and the duelling models, by proposing that chariots bearing commanders would have been accompanied by skirmishers and spearmen. This combined arms tactic would have allowed the chariots to be used more flexibly in either role, depending on what the situation called for. Alas, much academic debate surrounds this topic, and we simply don't know exactly how the ancient Mycenaeans fought. When it comes to the service history of the Mycenaean chariot, we cannot say much for certain. Warfare was fairly endemic in this period, and tended to be rather small in scale. Thus, there were plenty of local skirmishes taking place across the Aegean which could theoretically have featured chariots. When the larger, more rare wars did occur, the chariots could have also made a showing. After all, these vehicles were symbols of status and power, and it makes sense that commanders would seek to flaunt these when attempting to But of these skirmishes and battles, we have no records of names and dates to go by, outside of the more famous events of the Trojan War, and even much of that story is mythologized. Eventually, however, the use of the war chariot seems to have fallen into decline. These vehicles were expensive to produce and maintain, which meant that the Bronze Age collapse made it less likely they could be supported in large numbers. That being said, chariots did survive the fall of the Mycenaean palaces around 1200 BC, and continued to be used through the Early Iron Age and into the Archaic period of the 700-500s BC. In the latter case, however, there is some discussion among scholars as to whether or not chariots were still used in actual combat, or if depictions of war chariots in art should all be interpreted as depictions of ancient heroic tales. Whatever the case may be, chariots would remain a fixture of history for thousands of years. On the battlefield, though, they would find new competition from the rise of mounted cavalry. A huge thanks is owed to our supporters on Patreon and the many talented researchers, writers, and artists who made this video possible. Please consider contributing to fund future content, and let us know what units of history you want to see covered next. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this episode, then definitely check out Total War Saga Troy, Creative Assembly's first entry of their award-winning series to be set in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Explore the epic 20-year Trojan War from the perspectives of the Trojans and Greeks through a blend of grand turn-based empire management and spectacular real-time battles, where you can lead armies with eight playable legendary characters, including the heroes Achilles and Hector. Get a Total War Saga Troy on the Epic Store for free if you claim it within the first 24 hours of launch by clicking the link in the description below.