While this conflict was still going on, Darius had ordered his scythed chariots to charge, and his main line to follow them, calculating on the disorder which he expected that they would occasion. But the chariots were found of little service. The horses were terrified, checked, or wounded, by the Macedonian archers and darters in front; who even found means to seize the reins, pull down the drivers, and kill the horses. Of the hundred chariots in Darius’s front, intended to beat down the Macedonian ranks by simultaneous pressure along their whole line, many were altogether stopped or disabled; some turned right round, the horses refusing to face the protended pikes, or being scared with the noise of pike and shield struck together; some which reached the Macedonian line, were let through without mischief by the soldiers opening their ranks; a few only inflicted wounds or damage.[385] [385] About the chariots. Arrian, iii. 13, 11; Curtius, iv. 15, 14; Diodor. xvii. 57, 58. Arrian mentions distinctly only those chariots which were launched on Darius’s left, immediately opposite to Alexander. But it is plain that the chariots along the whole line must have been let off at one and the same signal—which we may understand as implied in the words of Curtius—“Ipse (Darius) ante se falcatos currus habebat, quos signo dato universos in hostem effudit” (iv. 14, 3). The scythed chariots of Artaxerxes, at the battle of Kunaxa, did no mischief (Xenoph. Anab. i. 8, 10-20). At the battle of Magnesia, gained by the Romans (B. C. 190) over the Syrian king Antiochus, his chariots were not only driven back, but spread disorder among their own troops (Appian, Reb. Syriac. 33).