94 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



rarely over 13'2 hands. On a later page (321) these La Tene 

 horses will be identified with a breed well known in north- 

 western Italy and south-western France in the first century 

 B.C., whose descendants still survive in Provence, and it will 

 be shown that this race is Libyan in origin. 



The Sigynnae, who were the only tribe of all those to the 

 north of the Danube whose name is known to Herodotus 1 , 

 "had horses with shaggy hair, five fingers long, all over their 

 bodies, and which were small and flat-nosed, and incapable of 

 carrying men, but which when yoked under a chariot were 

 very swift, in consequence of which the natives drove in 

 chariots." This description of the appearance of the little 

 horses of the Sigynnae of central Europe agrees very well with 

 the skeletons found near Macon. The simous shape of the 

 head tallies well with the ugly-shaped skull and powerful jaws 

 of the bone deposits. 



We can hardly believe that we have here horses such 

 as those whose bits have been found in the later Lake- 

 dwellings of Switzerland. The depth of their hair forcibly 

 recalls the description of the winter coats of the tarpan, of 

 Prejvalsky's horse, and the Iceland ponies already cited, though 

 it has to be borne in mind that the last-named ponies have 

 often very small heads. 



Unluckily Herodotus does not give us any information 

 respecting the colour of these little horses, but we shall pre- 

 sently adduce evidence which will render it probable that they 

 were dun-coloured. 



The reason assigned by Herodotus for the practice of the 

 Sigynnae clearly explains why most early peoples yoked the 

 horse to a car long before they ever habitually practised riding 2 . 



It was apparently the same reason which induced the 

 Britons of Caesar's time to continue the use of chariots, 

 although by that date they had been given up for war by the 



1 v. 9, Tous 5e ITTTTOUJ avruv elvou \aatovs airav TO (rcD^ct, e?ri ir&re da.KTV\ovs 

 rb (Bddos TU>V rpLX&v, ff/j.iKpovs 8 Kai cri/Ltofts /ecu ddvvdrovs dvdpas $peiv t fevyvvfjit- 

 vovs d UTT' a/3/iara elvat d^vrdrovs' dp^a.Trj\a.r^i.v de irpbs raura roi)s eirixwpiovs. 



2 W. Ridgeway, "Why was the Horse driven before he was ridden?" 

 Academy, Jan. 3rd, 1890, p. 14. 



