1000 BCE–1000 CE: (The Horse as an Enabling Factor of Empire — A Second Important Enabling Factor Being the Increasing Presence and Use of Horses Almost Ever…

1000 BCE–1000 CE: (The Horse as an Enabling Factor of Empire — A Second Important Enabling Factor Being the Increasing Presence and Use of Horses Almost Everywhere Climate Allowed Including as Far South in Africa as the Ethiopian Highlands and the Open Savannas of the Sudan Belt, Horses Allowing Much More Rapid Transport of People Materiel and Messages Supporting Military Campaigns and Governance Across Far Wider Areas, Along Overland Trans-Saharan Trade Routes Horses Passing from Carthage to the Western Sudan Belt as Early as the Middle First Millennium BCE, Initially Desired as Prestige Animals by the Wealthy but During the Later First Millennium CE Becoming the Basis for Cavalry Forces in Emerging Sudanic States and Empires Notably Wagadu or Ghana): There might also be a second important enabling factor at work. This was an age of the increasing presence and use of horses almost everywhere that the climate allowed, including as far south in Africa as the Ethiopian Highlands and the open savannas of the Sudan belt. Horses allowed the much more rapid transport of people, materiel, and messages — all factors that would have supported military campaigns and the maintenance of common governance across far wider areas than previously possible. Along the already existing overland routes of trade crossing the Sahara, horses passed as early as the middle first millennium BCE from Carthage to the western Sudan belt. Most likely initially desired as prestige animals by the wealthy, horses during the later first millennium CE became the basis for the creation of cavalry forces in the emerging Sudanic states and empires of that time — notably Wagadu (“Ghana”) in West Africa. The horse transformed the political geography of the Sudan belt as decisively as the chariot had transformed the ancient Near East. Before the horse, the vast distances of the West African savanna — hundreds of kilometers of open grassland between the Niger bend and the Senegalese coast — were barriers to political unification. After the horse, they became corridors of imperial power. A mounted warrior could cover in a day what an infantry soldier required a week to traverse, and a mounted messenger could carry the commands of a sovereign across distances that would have made centralized governance impossible on foot. The horse was the technology that made the Sudanic empires possible — Wagadu, Mali, Songhay, Kanem-Bornu — and it arrived in West Africa not through some diffusion from the civilized East but along the same trans-Saharan trade routes that carried gold northward and salt southward. The horse was a commodity of commerce before it was a weapon of war, initially prized as a status symbol by the wealthy before its military potential was realized and systematized into cavalry forces that would dominate West African warfare for a millennium.