Chariot: War Horses or Horse Races 16cm Full Length Alabaster Statue, Ancient Greece

A chariot is a

Type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. It was a fast, light, open, two-wheeled conveyance drawn by two or more horses that were hitched side by side, and was little more than a floor with a waist-high guard at the front and sides. The chariot was initially used for warfare during the Bronze and Iron Ages, but after its military capabilities had been superseded by light and heavy cavalries, chariots continued to be used for travel and transport, in processions, for games, and in races. The later Greeks of the first millennium BCE had a cavalry arm, and the rocky terrain of the Greek mainland was unsuited for wheeled vehicles. Consequently, in historical Greece the chariot was never used to any extent in war. Linear B tablets from Mycenaean palaces record large inventories of chariots, sometimes with specific details as to how many chariots were assembled or not. Later the vehicles were used in games and processions, notably for races at the Olympic and Panathenaic Games and other public festivals, in hippodromes and in contests called agons. They were also used in ceremonial functions, as when a paranymph, or friend of a bridegroom, went with him in a chariot to fetch the bride home.

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