100 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



the remains of Gaulish chieftains, who were interred, seated 

 on their chariots, the horses and trappings being- buried 

 along with them. These interments, as is proved by the 

 swords and fibulae of the La Tene ^ type, cannot be earlier 

 than 400 B.C. and are probably to be set at least a century or 

 two later-. 



This evidence is completely corroborated by that of Livy*, 

 who narrates that in the great battle fought at Sentinum in 

 Etruria (292 B.C.), in the third Samnite War, when the Romans 

 under Fabius Maximus and Decius Mus overthrew the com- 

 bined Samnites and Gauls, the latter had a thousand chariots 

 (esseda) and cars (carri), the charge of which completely routed 

 the Roman cavalry, and would have decided the battle in 

 favour of the allies, had not Decius Mus, following the example 

 of his father at the battle of Vesuvius in the Latin War, dedi- 

 cated himself and the enemy's host to the infernal gods, and by 

 this act of devotion gave fresh courage to his legionaries to 

 make a stand which led to ultimate victory. 



It is therefore clear that when the Gauls entered Italy at 

 the end of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century B.C., 

 they like the Sigynnae on the north side of the Danube were 

 drivers of chariots and not yet riders of horses. 



How then did it come to pass that though the Gauls of 

 north Italy are still using chariots in 292 B.C., yet by Caesar's 

 day the peoples of Gaul had universally discarded the war- 

 chariot and were employing cavalry alone ? Fortunately suf- 

 ficient evidence has survived from antiquity to enable us to 

 trace the way in which this important change was effected. 

 I am now going to show that the Gauls of north Italy had 

 taken to horseback by the latter part of the third century B.C., 

 and probably much earlier, that the Transalpine Gauls had 

 fully adopted the same practice by the middle of the second 

 century B.C., whilst even the Belgic tribes of the Continent had 



1 Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, Vol. i. p. 410. 



2 Morel, La Champagne Souterraine, p. 23, Pll. i. x. etc. 



3 X. 28-30, " Essedis carrisque superstans armatus hostis ingenti sonitu 

 equorum rotarumque advenit, et insolitos eius tumultus Eomanorum conterruit 

 equos." 



