Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 307 



same, for the Patricians were Sabines in origin, the latter 

 being an Umbro-Sabellian tribe. But the terminology of the 

 chief offices of State under the Republic renders it probable 

 that in early days the leading men of the State rode in chariots 

 and not on horseback. The Consuls, Praetors, and Aediles 

 were termed Curule (from currus, a chariot), and they had 

 chairs called sellae curules (' chariot chairs '), and horses termed 

 Equi curules* (' chariot horses '), were supplied to them at the 

 public expense, even at a time when consuls and everyone else 

 rode on horseback. This seems to point to a time when the 

 chiefs went to war in chariots as did the northern Gauls down 

 to the third century B.C. In the fact that the victorious general 

 down to late times rode in a chariot to the Capitol we may 

 recognise a survival from the time when the chief who had 

 gone forth to do battle in his war car on returning victorious 

 drove his chariot in triumph through the city 2 . 



All this indirect evidence is strongly corroborated by the 

 fact that the Romans in their campaigns against Pyrrhus in 

 Lucania(278 B.C.) used two-horse chariots of peculiar equipment 

 against that king's elephants 3 . 



We have seen that not only the Illyrians, but also all the 

 Celto-Teutonic peoples of Upper Europe regularly sacrificed 

 horses. It is therefore but natural to find that the Romans, 

 whose upper classes at all events were closely related to the 

 Celto-Teutonic peoples, should have had the same practice, for 

 Pliny 4 especially points out that when a horse was sacrificed 

 on public solemnities the flamen was forbidden to touch it. 

 Whether the Romans preferred white horses for sacrifice like 

 the Illyrians, Greeks and Persians, we cannot say, but it is 

 absolutely certain that they used them to draw chariots on 

 solemn occasions. Thus the Senate decreed that Julius Caesar 

 after his return from Africa should ride in a quadriga drawn by 



1 Livy, xxiv. 18. 



2 The dismounted chariot seat would not unnaturally be used as a seat of 

 dignity. 



3 Vegetius, in. 24. 12. 



4 H. N. xxvni. 9: damnat equinum tantum inter venena, ideo flamini 

 sacrorum equum tangere non licet, cum Komae publicis sacris equus immo- 

 letur. 



202 



