116 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



and had thus got into immediate contact with the Gauls, who 

 had already, from at least the beginning of the second century 

 B.C. (p. 101), been importing good horses and their caparisons at 

 great cost from beyond the Alps, and thus continually improving 

 their native strains. It has also to be remembered that from 

 s B.C. 150 the Gauls had practically abandoned the chariot and 

 become essentially a nation of knights, as Caesar found them 

 in his campaigns. These circumstances render it highly 

 probable that the reason why the Tencteri surpassed in horses 

 the rest of the Germans was the fact that their geographical 

 position gave them special facilities for improving their own 

 indigenous horses with which they had reached the Rhine 

 and surprised the Menapii in a night march, in Caesar's day, 

 as already described. 



The evidence hitherto adduced respecting the use of the 

 horse by the Germans referred only to the tribes of western 

 and central Germany, with whom the classical peoples first 

 came into contact. Tacitus, however, furnishes us with some 

 invaluable information respecting the tribes of eastern Germany, 

 whilst for the north-east we can draw upon native sources. 



We learn from the former 1 that Vannius, who had become 

 King of the Suevi by the help of Drusus, though well supplied 

 with native infantry, had to rely for cavalry entirely on the 

 neighbouring Sarmatian tribe of lazyges, whose strength, as 

 the same writer 2 tells us elsewhere, consisted solely in horse- 

 men. 



From the fortunate circumstance that Pausanias 3 , who 

 wrote in the second half of the second century of our era, 

 chanced to see a Sarmatian corselet in the sanctuary of Aescu- 

 lapius at Athens, the historian was led to give us a vivid 

 picture of the Sarmatians, their mode of life, their arms, and 

 method of warfare. " Here, among other things, is dedicated a 

 Sarmatian corselet : anyone who looks at it will say that the 

 barbarians are not less skilful craftsmen than the Greeks, for 



1 Ann. xii. 29-30, "ipsi propria manus pedites, eques e Sarmatis lazygibus 

 erat." 



2 Hist. in. 5, " vim equitum, qua sola valent, offerebant." 



3 i. 21. 5-7 (Frazer's trans. 



