Comment on I feel betrayed...
Artyom@lemm.ee 4 months agoThis but unironically, horses are constantly being bred to be bigger. The reason people rode chariots in Greece is because horses were too small to ride horseback.
Comment on I feel betrayed...
Artyom@lemm.ee 4 months agoThis but unironically, horses are constantly being bred to be bigger. The reason people rode chariots in Greece is because horses were too small to ride horseback.
uis@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Wait, really?
nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Yeah one of the main causes of the downfall of chariot warfare in the ancient world was that horses were bred that could carry a fully armed rider with armour.
Disclaimer: I know very little about anything.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m not so sure. There’s plenty of accounts of ancient warriors using ridden horses as transportation. It probably has more to do with a chariot being more compatible with horse/soldier training and soldier gear at the time. Riding a horse into battle takes a lot of unique training and gear, and camels were the better option for a lot of the latitude around North Africa/Middle East, where you had ancient empires with the ability to research technology.
The idea that horses had to embiggen, I think, comes from the Persians. They wanted the world’s first heavy cavalry and they certainly needed bigger horses for a fully armored rider. But light cavalry has evidence dating back to at least 5,000 B.C. thanks to the proto mongols. (Central Asian tribes before they were united)