Peltasts and chariots at Cunaxa

[Sean Manning]

But if, of 100 charging horses,95 would decide to commit suicide on the spears of the hoplites, that would be good for the attackers? Would you throw your pony on a spear, even if you had barded it with a lorica squamata? I think not.

I don't think that hypotheticals and first principles are very useful here. We are too ignorant to pick the right first principles. Instead, I suggest that we use the radical method of looking at what happened on ancient, medieval, and early modern battlefields, and what experienced soldiers said could happen when cavalry charged infantry. When we do this, we find that it is perfectly clear that massed cavalry often charged massed infantry head on and sometimes got into stabbing distance, so we can move to considering why that sometimes happened. Let the theory be based on what happened, not what we say happened be based on the theory!

The ancient accounts of Thymbrara, Cunaxa, Dascylium, Gaugamela, and Magnesia make it pretty clear what scythed chariots were for, at least in my view. They certainly make it clear that driving a scythed chariot was a very dangerous job.