Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/382

 44 A History of Art in Ciiald.-ka and Assyria. cavalry, the infantry, and the chariot-men of Sargon and Sen- nacherib, the progress is great and must have required many long- centuries of patient industry. In Assyria no trade can have occupied more hands or given rise to more invention than that of the armourer. For two centuries the Assyrian legions found no worthy rivals on the battlefields of Asia ; and, although their superiority was mainly due, of course, to qualities of physical vigour and moral energy developed by discipline, their unvarying success was in some degree the result of their better arms. Without dwelling upon this point we may just observe that when war is the chief occupation of a race, its arms are sure to be carried to an extreme degree of luxury and perfection. Some Fjgs. 220, 221. —Chariot poles ; from a bas-relief. idea of their elaboration in the case of Assyria may be gained from the reliefs and from the original fragments that have come down to us. It was from the animal kingdom that the Assyrian armourer borrowed most of the forms with which he embellished the weapons and other military implements he made. Thus we find the chariot poles ending in the head of a bull, a horse, or a swan (Figs. 220 and 22 i). 1 Elsewhere we find a bow no less gracefully contrived ; its two extremities are shaped into the form of a swan's head bent into the neck. 2 1 Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, &c, vol. i. pp. 408-410. 2 Botta, Monument de Ninive, plate 159. In this plate the chief types of weapons figured in the reliefs at Khorsabad are brought together.