"AMPW Seleucid Chariot" Topic

Currently designing a Seleucid Chariot.

Was wanting some opinion of the size and proportions of the Scythed Chariot listed in Armies of the Macedonian and Punic wars book.

It looks as though the chariot wheels would be larger than a typical mans hight. Taking the yoke into account.

Seams to me then that the box and charriot would be monstrous.

The scythed chariots in the Alexander film were two horse and allot smaller???

Any thoughts/opinions on this topic would be greatly appreciated, as I am building one too.

Mike

Ask on the Ancmed Yahoo group at link and Duncan Head or Jim Webster will answer. Between them those two know everything possible about Hellenistic warfare (and of course Duncan wrote the AMPW book).

The chariot is pretty well a copy of the ones in the Oxus treasure and/or the Alexander mosaic. These are obviously two man transport chariots so the scythed chariots may have been different.
However, the size of the chariot would presumably be an advantage if you wanted them hurtling into the enemy. They were probably quite high as one account mentions downward pointing scythes. For the Persian ones Curtius uses 'quadriga' and Diodorus's description mentions trace horses which is why they are shown as 4 horse.
I can't remember if there is anything else mentioned about Seleucid ones in, say, the Daphnae parade or 1 or 2 Maccabees.

I decided to post this here to pass on the links….

I think ancmed is the place to get answers, beyond what is in AMPW.

Some tangible reference is the Oxus gold chariot:

link

Others will talk about Babylonian chariots.

Xenophon says the Persian scythed cahriots were derived from the Medes…..

who probably got them at Babylon….

Biga or quadriga… could be both.

Seleucid coin:

picture

Good luck

Comparing the two images, I'd probably make the chariots wheel size in between. Looks like the hight of the chariot wheel is about 75% the hight of a man to at par.

Thanks JJ.