At first, as in Babylonia, the soldiers when needed were recruited from peasants in the field. When the war was over, they would return to their usual tasks. However, Assyria with her many conquests felt the need of trained soldiers, proficient in military tactics. To the standing army which grew into a strong body, warriors taken captive in other lands were added. In course of a few generations a formidable army was thus brought into being, and the calling of a soldier became a regular profession. Men were required to give evidences of skill before they could take commands of regiments and even before they could command a company of ten. Maspero has made an extended study of military affairs in Assyria and we can do no better than follow the results he has reached in his investigation: "The Assyrian army is the best organized war machine that the world has yet seen.[5] It is superiority of weapons, not any superiority in courage and discipline, that has secured to the Ninevite kings since Sargon the priority over the Pharaohs of the Delta, of Thebes and Meroe. Whilst the Egyptians, as a rule, still fight without any protection, except the shield, the Assyrians are, so to speak, clothed in iron from head to foot. Their heavy infantry is composed of spearmen and archers, wearing a conical cap ornamented with two side pieces which protect the ears, a leather shirt covered with overlapping metal scales which protects the chest and the upper part of the arms, close fitting breeches, and boots laced in front. The spearmen carry spears six feet long, with an iron or bronze head, a short sword passed through their belt, and an immense metal shield, sometimes round and convex, sometimes rounded at the top and square at the bottom. The archers have no shields; they replace the spear by a bow and quiver, which hang over their back. Their light infantry also includes some spearmen, but they wear a helmet with a curved crest, and are provided with a small round wicker-work shield. The archers have no breastplate, and are associated either with slingers or with soldiers armed with clubs and double-edged axes. "The spearmen and archers of the line are usually of Assyrian origin or levied in the territories that have been subject to Assyria for a long time; the other troops are often recruited amongst tributary nations, and they wear their national costumes. They are arranged in companies, and manoeuvre with a regularity which foreigners themselves admire.... They march with extraordinary rapidity, leaving no stragglers or lame men behind them as they go, and their generals are not afraid to impose fatigues upon them to which the soldiers of other lands would quickly succumb. They either ford the rivers or swim across them upon inflated skins. In wooded countries, each company sends forward a certain number of pioneers, who fell the trees and clear a path.