Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 321 



since the horses of the Celtiberians, who occupied all Northern 

 Spain, were iron-grey, and as the horses of Southern Spain 

 were bay, and occasionally black, and as the Gauls were import- 

 ing horses of superior blood from the south from 172 B.C. and 

 probably much earlier, and in Caesar's time were paying large 

 prices for horses from southern lands, it is but reasonable 

 to expect that some of the oldest breeds in France should 

 show characteristics similar to those of the cross-bred horses 

 of Spain. 



All French authorities are agreed that the fine breeds 

 {races legeres), of which there were several of great antiquity 

 and excellence in France, are derived from the ' Oriental ' or 

 ' Arab,' or in other words from the Libyan horse. In Strabo's 

 time^ the Ligurians were noted for a particular breed of horses 

 called ginni, i.e. jennets, which the geogi-apher (probably 

 following Posidonius) mentions amongst the chief products 

 and exports of that region. That these jennets were not mules 

 but ponies is made absolutely certain by the statement of 

 Aristotle^ that "the animals called ginni are stunted horses 

 and bear the same relation to horses that dwarfs do to well- 

 grown men." It is therefore certain that the Ligurians had an 

 excellent breed of ponies before the Christian era, and as these 

 ponies were sent down into Italy, we can have little doubt that 

 they were the manni of the Roman writers of that period. The 

 Ligurians, who lived on the Italian side of the Alps, in their 

 struggle against the Romans seem to have had no cavalry, but 

 when in 125 B.C. the Romans undertook for the first time to 

 carve out a province on the Gallic side of the Alps, they came 

 into contact with the powerful tribe of Saluvii, whose capital 

 was Arelate (Aries), and who "vvere well mounted on the horses 

 which they bred in the plains east of the Rhone. 



To-day in the same district we meet the horse known 

 as the Camargue. It is reared in a half-wild state, and 

 its origin is ascribed " to the introduction of Arab or Numi- 

 dian blood in the neighbourhood of Aries in 125 B.C., when 

 Fulvius Flaccus, the Roman general, occupied the country." 



1 202. 2 fjigi^ Animal, vi. 24. 



R. H. 21 



