Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 103 



still retained the war-chariot, whilst with the original tribes 

 of the interior, who had none but very small horses, the chariot 

 apparently still reigned supreme. 



The monuments of northern Italy demonstrate likewise 

 that though the horse was in use in Italy from the beginning 

 of the Iron age, as is proved by the discovery of bronze horse- 

 bits associated with remains of that period both at Este and 

 Bologna, the chariot was still employed by the Umbrians, 

 though the art of riding on horseback was becoming known. 

 At Sesto Calende, near the point where the Ticino issues 

 from the southern extremity of Lake Maggiore, was found a 

 tomb of the Iron age. It contained a helmet made of plates 

 of bronze rivetted together, two bronze greaves, a very short 

 sword, a lance-head, arrow-heads, two horse-bits, two iron 

 circles (the tires of the chariot-wheels), two large hollow 

 objects, and other pieces of iron belonging to the chariot. 

 The horse-bits are bronze mounted in iron. There was also 

 a bronze bucket ornamented with horsemen, footmen, stags, 

 birds, and dotted circles, and dotted lines. This bucket is one 

 of a class well known in the region lying on both sides of the 

 head of the Adriatic, and may be assigned to the sixth or 

 seventh century B.C. ; from its evidence we may infer that the 

 peoples of those regions had learned to ride the horse at a 

 period much earlier than the tribes beyond the Alps, a conclusion 

 in complete harmony with the evidence of Herodotus respecting 

 the Sigynnae. To the question of the development of riding 

 in Italy we shall presently return. 



The evidence here stated makes it clear that the Umbrian 

 tribes who had passed down into Italy in the Bronze age and 

 had subdued or driven back into the mountains the aboriginal 

 Ligurians, employed the horse and the chariot from the early 

 Iron age onwards, and that when the Celts, the close kinsmen 

 of the Umbrians, crossed the Alps at a later date, they too 

 came as a chariot-driving and not as a horse-riding folk. We 

 have seen, that though by Caesar's time the Gauls were well- 

 supplied with cavalry, and the war-chariot was virtually extinct, 

 yet they never abandoned its use until they had obtained a 

 superior breed of horses from the southern side of the Alps. 



