Til] AND HISTORIC TIMES 327 



horses and their finely organised cavalry (p. 115). It was pointed 

 out that their superiority in horses over their kindred was due 

 to the fact that they had been able to obtain a better class of 

 horses from their Gallic neighbours, who had been importing at 

 great cost fine horses from southern lands long before the time 

 of Caesar. By the third century the Tencteri, like the Ubii 

 and other tribes, who dwelt on the left bank of the Rhine, had 

 lost their identity under the common term of Franks, which 

 had gradually supplanted the older name of Germans 1 . But 

 their kindred on the other side of the Rhine from the Main 

 down to the sea maintained their autonomy in their ancient 

 seats from which they were one day destined to sally forth to 

 conquests pregnant with empire. Next to the Franks on the 

 east lay the Thuringians, whilst on the south from the Main as 

 far as Basel came the Burgundians. As the Tencteri had been 

 able to obtain superior horses and to organise a fine cavalry 

 in the first century A.D., it was but natural that some of the 

 other tribes should soon follow their example. It is not then 

 surprising to find that Vegetius 2 (circ. 380 A.D.), in his list of 

 breeds suited for war, places the Thuringian and the Burgundian 

 next after the Hunnish, and gives the third place to the Frisian. 

 Unfortunately, Vegetius does not mention the characteristic 

 colour or colours of these different breeds of war-horses, but it is 

 not improbable that many of them were already of a dark colour. 

 Certainly by the beginning of the sixth century a dark colour 

 with blaze on the face characterised the best Roman war-horse of 

 the day. This is rendered clear by the story of the famous fight 

 which took place near the Tiber, when Belisarius, Justinian's 

 great general, with a thousand of his cavalry came suddenly upon 

 a party of the Goths, who were bent on the capture of Rome and 

 had already crossed the river. Belisarius himself fought like a 



1 Procopius, de bello Gothico, i. 12: 'P^oj dt & TOV uKeavbv rets eKjSoXds 

 TTOiemu, \LfJLvai re tvTavOa, ov 5rj Tep^avol rb TrdXai&v $KI)I>TO, pdpfiapov {Qvos, 01) 

 TroXXoO X670U rb Kar' dpxas &ioi>, ot vvv Qpdyyoi /caXoOircu. 



2 Ars Veterinaria, iv. 6. 2 : ad bellum Hunniscorum longe primo docetur 

 utilitas patientia laboris, frigoris, famis. Toringos deinde et Burgundiones 

 iniuriae tolerantes. Tertio loco Frisiscos non minus velocitate quain continua- 

 tions cursus invictos. Postea Epirotas, Samaricos, ac Dalmatas, licet contu- 

 maces ad frena, habiles armis [ac bellis] asseverant. 



