13. Covered wagons were used in the days of Moses; and the wandering Scythians, in the time of the Romans, had them covered with leather. The seat for the driver is said to have been invented by Oxylus, an Ætolian, who took possession of the kingdom of Elis, about 1100 years before Christ. Many of the nations of antiquity used chariots in the field of battle, and the axles were sometimes armed with scythes or some other sharp cutting instruments. Two persons commonly occupied one vehicle, one of whom drove the horses, and the other fought the enemy. The inhabitants of the promised land fought in chariots, even before the settlement of the people of Israel in that country; and the Greeks likewise employed them, for warlike purposes, at the siege of Troy. 14. The carriages used by the Romans were of various kinds, some of which were carried on the shoulders of men, and others, having two or four wheels, were drawn by horses, asses, mules, or oxen. Nevertheless, neither they, nor any other nation of antiquity, ever suspended the body of any carriage on leathers, or supported it on springs; and the use of almost every species of vehicle for the conveyance of persons, was banished by the policy of the barbarous nations that afterwards became masters of civilized Europe, the feudal lords conceiving it important, that their military vassals should serve them on horseback. 15. Even as late as the sixteenth century, ministers rode to court, and magistrates of imperial cities to council, on the back of this animal; and, in the same manner, kings and lords made their public entry on the most solemn occasions. In accounts of papal ceremonies which occurred during several centuries, we find no mention of a state-coach; but, instead of it, state-horses or state-mules. The horse for his holiness was required to be a gentle and tractable nag, of a gray color; and a stool with three steps was necessary to aid him in mounting. The emperor or kings, if present, held his stirrup, and led his beast. Bishops also made their public entrance on horses or asses richly decorated. 16. Covered carriages, however, were known in the principal states of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but they were at first used only by women of rank, since the men thought it disgraceful to ride in them. At this period, when the electors of the German empire did not choose to be present at the meetings of the states, they excused themselves to the emperor by stating that their health would not permit them to ride on horseback, and it was not becoming for them to ride like women.