328 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



common soldier. "He happened to be riding at that moment 

 a horse well tried in war and who knew well how to carry his 

 rider through in safety. All his body was dark-coloured, but his 

 face from the top of his head to the nose was pure white. Such 

 a horse the Greeks called phalios ('bald') and the barbarians 

 balas ('bald'). This horse was recognised by deserters from Beli- 

 sarius, who had joined the Goths, and they immediately shouted 

 out, "Strike the bald-faced horse." Nothing but the devotion 

 of his body-guard saved Belisarius and his noble charger 1 . 



The gallant war-horse here described must have differed 

 essentially from the ordinary post-horses of the day, which were 

 kept at the public expense along the great roads of the Empire, 

 and on which Belisarius himself once made a memorable journey, 

 when Justinian, on hearing that the Persians had invaded his 

 dominions, sent Belisarius to oppose them. "Riding on the 

 public horses which are commonly known as veredi (German 

 Pferd), inasmuch as he had no army with him, with great 

 speed he reached Euphratesia 2 ." 



As we may assume that Belisarius' well-tried charger is 

 a fair representative of the best war-horse of the time, it is 

 now clear that already by the beginning of the sixth century 

 a dark-coloured animal, probably either dull black or dark- 

 brown with a white blaze on the face, features which we have 

 seen to characterise the large cross-bred horses of Asia, North 

 Africa, and Spain was already the typical war-horse of Europe; 

 and it is not improbable that the Thuringian, Burgundian, and 

 Frisian horses, so highly praised as war-horses by Vegetius, may 

 well have been of a similar dark colour, especially in view of 

 the fact that from before the Christian era the fine cross-bred 

 horses of Northern Spain were iron-grey, a colour which easily 

 passes into black. The Roman contorniates (Fig. 92) of the 



1 Procopius, de bello Gothico, I. 18 : 2ruxe ^ I'TTTTV rrjviKavTa 



\iav tfjnrelpy Kal 5ia<rw(ra<r0at rbv tTripdryv ^Trtora^i'y, ds Sr; 6\ov 

 /*]> rb (rw/ict 0cuds TJV, rb HTUTTOV de awav K /ce0a\^s dxpi es pivas Xeu/cds fj.d\t<TTa ' 

 TOVTOV "EXX'types ^aXidv, (Bdpfiapoi. d J3d\av xaXoOcri. 



2 Procopius, de bello Persico, n. 20: yvovs 5 TTJI> Hepcrwv g<f>odov 'lovariviavbs 

 /3a<rtXei)s, BeXiffdpiov a&0is tir' auro)s ^ire^ev. 6 5e IVTTOIS rols 



are ov (rrpdreu/xa %bv avrf 



