![]() ![]() The Roman soldiers rendered them useless chiefly by the following contrivance: at the instant the engagement began, they strewed the field of battle with caltrops, and the horses that drew the chariots, running full speed on them, were infallibly destroyed. And if one of the horses be either killed or wounded, it falls into the enemy's hands. ![]() ![]() As a chariot of this sort does not always meet with plain and level ground, the least obstruction stops it. The armed chariots used in war by Antiochus and Mithridates at first terrified the Romans, but they afterwards made a jest of them. The late Roman writer Vegetius, referring in his work De re militari to scythed chariots, wrote: Caltrops were used in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. The former term derives from the ancient Greek word tribolos meaning three spikes. The caltrop was called tribulus by the ancient Romans, or sometimes murex ferreus, the latter meaning "jagged iron" (literally "iron jagged thing"). ![]() Traditional and explosive caltrops from the Mongol Empire ![]()
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