256 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



with a body of eight hundred of the same bold horsemen who, 

 after the Roman conquest of North Africa, served with the 

 Romans in their campaign against the Ligurians, and saved 

 the Roman consul and his legions from a complete defeat. 

 Livy's graphic description of these Numidians and their small 

 slightly built horses has already been given (p. 241). 



Hannibal had committed the care of Spain to his brother 

 Hasdrubal, and had left him, in addition to a large body of 

 African infantry, a force of cavalry composed of three hundred 

 Libyphoenicians and eighteen hundred Numidians and Mauri- 

 tanians from the region bordering on the Atlantic 1 . Over two 

 thousand Libyan horses were thus at this time alone sent into 

 Spain and kept there permanently. As probably most of them 

 x were stallions, since the Numidians and Moors did not use 

 geldings and kept their mares for breeding, the influence 

 which these two thousand horses exercised on the native breed 

 within a short time must have been very great. For it is 

 more than likely that the Spaniards would have sought eagerly 

 to obtain the services of superior sires for their mares. 



We need not then be surprised that at the time when 

 Posidonius, the Stoic philosopher who travelled in western 

 Europe about 90 B.C., visited Spain, the Iberians and Celti- 

 berians possessed horses of fine quality more or less impregnated 

 with Libyan blood. He tells us that the Iberians used " cavalry 

 interspersed among their footmen, that their horses were 

 trained to traverse the mountains, and to sink down on their 

 knees at a word from the rider, in case of necessity. They 

 \ had also a practice not confined to them two men mounted 

 one horse so that in the event of an engagement one might be 

 at hand to fight on foot." He does not mention the colour of 

 the ordinary Iberian horses, but he gives us the very important 

 information that the horses of the Celtiberians, who occupied 

 northern Spain, were " rather starling-coloured " (i.e. dark grey 

 flecked with white), but that they lost that colour when 

 transported into southern Spain, and he compared them to the 

 Parthian horses, " for indeed they are superior to all other 

 breeds in fleetness and endurance." 



1 Livy, xxi. 22. 



