I don't think that a chariot is a tank, for the simple reason that "tank" is typically defined as *ARMOURED* combat vehicle.
The chariot as described in that article is more along the lines of mobile artillery.
The chariot as described in that article is more along the lines of mobile artillery.
edit: meant this other article by the same author: https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...
nonsensical question to start with if you have ever read any story of roman battles involving chariots. A tank has an asymmetry on the battlefield: it's very powerful and very well protected. None of this is true for chariots.
The mobile ballista was more like a primitive field gun or crew-served mortar. Add black powder and a strong metal barrel and it served the same role through the 19th century.
An actual tank cannot exist without a powerful engine. They were literally designed as the battleships or destroyer of the land. They used big engines and small naval-inspired guns. The most successful have always mounted those guns on turrets just like a naval ship. The reason no primitive tank can be found is that nothing did serve quite the same role.
To be fair, at the time tanks were created and (not quite immediately, but rather soon) adopted the rotating turret for their main gun, that turret wasn't all that age-old a tradition at sea, either. Wasn't Ericsson's Civil War-era Monitor the first with that? (If not the very first, then among the first to deploy it in combat, I'm fairly sure.)
But yeah, their greatest proponent in WW1 Britain being the Admiralty is of course an amusing connection. (But I suppose if Churchill had been, say, Minister of Agriculture, then their greatest proponent would have been the Department of Agriculture.)
https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...