Early Assyrian horsemen rode in pairs with no saddles or stirrups
Riding a horse is one thing; fighting from one is far harder. Carvings of Assyrian cavalry from around 865 BC show riders working in pairs, one holding the reins for his neighbour so the other could shoot a bow, all without saddles, spurs or stirrups. Mounted warfare took centuries to master.
Before true cavalry came the chariot. It originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture of Central Asia and spread with Indo-Iranian peoples, becoming a prized weapon and status symbol for New Kingdom pharaohs from 1550 BC, as well as for Assyrian and Babylonian rulers. Early horses were small and struggled to carry armour, and raising large mounted forces was difficult. The real innovators of mounted combat were the steppe nomads and pastoral peoples such as the Parthians and Sarmatians, whose horse archers could shoot while retreating.
Bigger horses changed the equation. As early as 490 BC, breeders on the Nisaean plain in Media were raising large animals to carry armoured men, although such horses remained rare. By 331 BC, when Alexander defeated the Persians, the war chariot had become obsolete almost everywhere. Britain held on longer: Julius Caesar met chariots there in 55 and 54 BC, and their last recorded use was by the Caledonians at Mons Graupius in 84 AD.
Greek city-states relied on heavy infantry, leaving cavalry to wealthy citizens who could afford war horses. Thebes produced a great cavalry commander in Pelopidas, and a young Philip II of Macedon, held hostage in Thebes, absorbed his methods; the result was the Companion cavalry that carried Alexander's campaigns. Rome's early horsemen came from the equites, a landed class, and the Republic supplied their horses, which could be taken back if neglected. Hannibal exposed that cavalry's weakness in the Second Punic War, most famously at Cannae.
The basic split lasted for millennia. Heavy cavalry, from Byzantine cataphracts to medieval knights, delivered shock charges that could decide a battle, while light cavalry such as hussars and Cossacks scouted, screened and harassed. Firearms eroded the value of armour, and between the world wars many cavalry units became tank or motorised troops. The name survives in units doing reconnaissance in armoured cars and light vehicles, and in air cavalry flying helicopters.
Source: Cavalry
