The Soldier.
We cannot speak of the vocation of the soldier as we speak of the regular professions of men, but any account of Assyria which failed to give some idea of the army, the very support and strength of that great empire, would be incomplete.
At first, as in Babylonia, the soldiers when needed were recruited from peasants in the field. When the war was over, they would return to their usual tasks. However, Assyria with her many conquests felt the need of trained soldiers, proficient in military tactics. To the standing army which grew into a strong body, warriors taken captive in other lands were added. In course of a few generations a formidable army was thus brought into being, and the calling of a soldier became a regular profession. Men were required to give evidences of skill before they could take commands of regiments and even before they could command a company of ten. Maspero has made an extended study of military affairs in Assyria and we can do no better than follow the results he has reached in his investigation:
"The Assyrian army is the best organized war machine that the world has yet seen.[5] It is superiority of weapons, not any superiority in courage and discipline, that has secured to the Ninevite kings since Sargon the priority over the Pharaohs of the Delta, of Thebes and Meroe. Whilst the Egyptians, as a rule, still fight without any protection, except the shield, the Assyrians are, so to speak, clothed in iron from head to foot. Their heavy infantry is composed of spearmen and archers, wearing a conical cap ornamented with two side pieces which protect the ears, a leather shirt covered with overlapping metal scales which protects the chest and the upper part of the arms, close fitting breeches, and boots laced in front. The spearmen carry spears six feet long, with an iron or bronze head, a short sword passed through their belt, and an immense metal shield, sometimes round and convex, sometimes rounded at the top and square at the bottom. The archers have no shields; they replace the spear by a bow and quiver, which hang over their back. Their light infantry also includes some spearmen, but they wear a helmet with a curved crest, and are provided with a small round wicker-work shield. The archers have no breastplate, and are associated either with slingers or with soldiers armed with clubs and double-edged axes.
"The spearmen and archers of the line are usually of Assyrian origin or levied in the territories that have been subject to Assyria for a long time; the other troops are often recruited amongst tributary nations, and they wear their national costumes. They are arranged in companies, and manœuvre with a regularity which foreigners themselves admire.... They march with extraordinary rapidity, leaving no stragglers or lame men behind them as they go, and their generals are not afraid to impose fatigues upon them to which the soldiers of other lands would quickly succumb. They either ford the rivers or swim across them upon inflated skins. In wooded countries, each company sends forward a certain number of pioneers, who fell the trees and clear a path.
"The cavalry are divided into two corps, the chariot soldiers and the regular cavalry. The Assyrian war-chariot is much heavier and more massive than the Egyptian.... Like the Egyptian chariots, the Assyrians always charge in a regular line, and there are few troops in the world that can resist their first shock. When a battalion of the enemy sees them coming, rapid and light, their darts pointed, their bows strung, they usually disband immediately after the first volley of arrows, and run away. The line is then broken, and the chariots disperse over the plain, crushing the fugitives beneath their wheels, and trampling them under their horses' feet....
"Formerly the chariots were very numerous in the Assyrian armies. They are less used at the present day, but tradition gives them the post of honour and the king or the chief general always reserves for himself the privilege of leading them into the fight. It is the distinguished branch of the service, the one in which the princes and great nobles prefer to serve, and its weight often decides the fate of the battle.
"Yet now the cavalry commences to rival it, if not in numbers, at least in importance.... The horse was at first ridden bareback; now it is covered with one cloth, or with a complete caparison similar to that of the chariot horses. All the cavalry wear helmets and cuirasses like the infantry of the line, but they have no shields; they replace the floating petticoat by cotton drawers. One-half of them carries the sword and lance, the other half is armed with a bow and sword.
"The lance is eight or nine feet long, the bow is shorter than the bow used by the infantry, and the arrows are scarcely three feet long. Formerly each mounted archer was accompanied by a servant, mounted like himself, who led his horse during the battle so as to leave both his hands free. The art of riding has made such progress during the last few years that the servant has become useless, and has disappeared from the armies. Now lancers and bowmen are all trained to guide their steed by the pressure of the knees, and they may be seen galloping with flying reins, shooting their arrows as they go, or else halting suddenly, they quietly discharge the arrow, then turn and gallop off again....
"The proportion of the different services is always about the same. There are, on an average, one hundred foot soldiers to every ten cavalry and every single chariot; the infantry is really the queen of the Assyrian battles."[6]