It appears that occasionally the advance of the troops was along a road.  Ordinarily, however, they found no such convenience, but had to press forward through woods and over mountains as they best could.  Whatever the obstructions, the chariot of the monarch was in some way or other conveyed across them, though it is difficult to suppose that he could have always remained, as he is represented, seated in it.  Probably he occasionally dismounted, and made use of one of the led horses by which he was always accompanied, while sometimes he even condescended to proceed on foot. [PLATE CIX., Fig. 2.] Tile use of palanquins or litters seem not to have been known to the Assyrians, though it was undoubtedly very ancient in Asia; but the king was sometimes carried on men’s shoulders, seated on his throne in the way that we see the enthroned gods borne in many of the sculptures.

The first object in entering a country was to fight, if possible, a pitched battle with the inhabitants.  The Assyrians were always confident of victory in such an encounter, being better armed, better disciplined, and perhaps of stronger frames than any of their neighbors.  There is no evidence to show how their armies were drawn up, or how the troops were handled in an engagement; but it would seem that in most cases, after a longer or a shorter resistance, the enemy broke and fled, sometimes throwing away his arms, at other tunes fighting as he retired, always vigorously pursued by horse and foot, and sometimes driven headlong into a river.  Quarter was not very often given in a battle.  The barbarous practice of rewarding those who carried back to camp the heads of foemen prevailed; and this led to the massacre in many cases even of the wounded, the disarmed, and the unresisting, though occasionally quarter was given, more especially to generals and other leading personages whom it was of importance to take alive.  Even while the engagement continued, it would seem that soldiers might quit the ranks, decapitate a fallen foe, and carry off his head to the rear, without incurring any reproof; and it is certain that, so soon as the engagement was over, the whole army turned to beheading the fallen, using for this purpose the short sword which almost every warrior carried at his left side.  A few unable to obtain heads, were forced to be content with gathering the spoils of the slain and of the fled, especially their arms, such as quivers, hews, helmets, and the like; while their more fortunate comrades, proceeding to an appointed spot in the rear, exhibited the tokens of their valor, or of their good luck, to the royal scribes, who took an exact account of the amount, of the spoil, and of the number of the enemy killed.