History
The scythed chariot was a modified war chariot. The blades extended horizontally for about 1 meter (3 ft) to each side of the wheels. The Greek general Xenophon (430−354 BC), an eyewitness at the battle of Cunaxa, tells of them: "These had thin scythes extending at an angle from the axles and also under the driver's seat, turned toward the ground".
Dismissing completely 17th to 19th century ideas of a Canaanite, Assyrian, Indian or Macedonian origin, Nefiodkin also challenges Xenophon's attribution of scythed chariots to the first Persian king Cyrus, pointing to their notable absence in the invasion of Greece (480−479 BC) by one of his successors, Xerxes I. Instead, he argues that the Persians introduced scythed chariots sometime later during the Greco-Persian Wars, between 467 BC and 458 BC, as a response to their experience fighting against Greek heavy infantry.
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