CHARIOT, AQUEDUCT, AND FULL-RIGGED SHIP
Technology as an idea is strongly associated with the modern era. Today the word makes us think of computers; a generation ago it probably evoked supersonic aircraft and spacecraft. Certainly the pace of technological change is more rapid now than in most past eras, but the impact of technology and technological change began with stone tools and the harnessing of fire. The following discussion will consider three major technological developments from three different past eras.
One is a military technology, the war chariot of the Bronze Age. Another is a civilian technology, the aqueducts of classical Rome. A third is a technology that had both civil and military implications, the full-rigged sailing ship evolved by Europeans during the 15th century. The first and third of these directly transformed the world into which they were introduced, while the second helped to make the Roman Empire possible by providing Rome itself and provincial cities with an ample, reliable water supply.
The use of wheeled vehicles in warfare goes back at least to the third millennium BCE. However, the early "war wagons" were just that - essentially oxcarts carrying soldiers. Fighting from a raised and moveable platform probably offered some advantages in archery and fighting off attackers, but the oxcart of war was not a decisive weapon. The true war chariot was a different matter. Developed around 2000 BCE, probably by peoples of the southern Eurasian steppe, it introduced high-speed tactical and even strategic mobility to warfare, and shook the societies of the ancient Middle East to their foundations (Drews Bronze Age 104-34).
The first domesticated horses were small, essentially ponies, too small for an armed man to ride. To employ them in war, the peoples of the steppe devised the first high-performance vehicle, the chariot. Instead of the heavy solid wheel of a cart, the chariot had...