lj$9 Professor Low 07i the 



cavalry and destructive chariots by which he vi^as opposed. 

 At his landing) the Britons, spurring their horses into the 

 sea, assailed his legions ere they could reach the shore. In 

 his first expedition, he merely saw the country which he 

 came to subdue. In his second, he followed the Britons into 

 the interior, and, fording the Thames, he routed on its banks 

 their great leader Cassivelaunus, who, he tells us, having 

 lost all hopes of success by battle, disbanded the greatest 

 part of his forces, and retained about 4000 chariots, with 

 which he harassed the Romans as occasion offered. Sub- 

 sequent writers speak of the horsemen and charioteers of 

 the Celtic Britons. Tacitus, in describing the last great 

 battle which the Caledonii fought with Agricola near the 

 passes of the Grampians, states that their first line was in 

 the plain, and the next on the sloping ascent of the moun* 

 tains, and that the space between the armies was filled with 

 the cavalry and charioteers of the Britons rushing to and 

 fro with loud noise. They rushed, he tells us, in their armed 

 chariots at full speed, and mixed in battle with the infantry. 

 Their first impression struck terror, but their career was 

 soon checked by the thick ranks of their enemies, and by the 

 inequalities of the ground, and, crowding upon one another, 

 they were thrown into disorder. Chariots without a guide, 

 and horses without a rider, broke away in wild confusion, and 

 trampled upon the ranks. The horses of the country, it is 

 certain, must have been numerous, when they formed the 

 strength of an army in a country so wild and mountainous. 



Whatever was the character of these early horses with 

 respect to size, strength, and other properties, it is probable 

 that for many ages they underwent little change. Previous 

 to the fall of the Roman Empire, northern pirates had ravaged 

 the coasts of Britain, and fixed themselves in some of the 

 remoter islands. But it was not till the fifth century, that 

 Gothic hordes began those regular invasions which termi- 

 nated in the subjection of nearly all the island, and the im- 

 position of a new language and new customs on the people. 

 They seem first to have landed in numbers on the shores of 

 the Firth of Forth, although history usually refers their first 

 permanent settlement to an invitation of the Romanized 

 Britons of the south, for protection from the ravages of the 



