296 DISSERTATION ON THE 



in mechanics, which we of this enlightened day only 

 wonder at, but are at a lofs to account for. This ufe 

 of the chariots pradifed only by the Afiatics and Ly- 

 bians, v/as the peculiar art of war in which the Bri- 

 tons excelled, and was peculiar to them. Although 

 thefe colonies, and indeed almoft the remembrance of 

 them, had been, in the time of Julius Csefar, over- 

 whelmed by the barbarifm of the natives, and of other 

 uncultivated people, who had tranfmigrated from the 

 continent of Europe ; yet this peculiar Afiatic art 

 .<Sif war, the fame as that ufcd at the fiege of Troy, 

 continued to be ufed even fo late as the time of his 

 invafion, by the then inhabitants : in this manege wc 

 find they excelled to a very high degree of perfection. 

 Diodorits fays cxprefsly, that they ufed chariots in war 

 exatSlly in the fame manner as the heroes in the Tro- 

 jan war * are faid to have ufed them. They ufed the 

 fame method of forming the line of battle, the fame 

 method of attack, and particularly that of the tranj- 

 verfe attack, which is what Cicero, in the 6 th epiflle 

 of his 7th book, refers to in the caution he gives Tre- 

 batius to guard againft thefe fudden unexpeded mo- 

 tions. The Britifh order of battle, which Cafar de- 

 fcribes in the 24th chapter of his 4th book of the 

 Gallic war, ConcUio Romanorum cogntto, premijfo eguitatu et 

 ejjedariis quo plerumque genere in praliis uti confueverant, reliquis 

 copUs confeculi funt, is exactly the fame as that formed by 



* Lib. V. 



the 



