20 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



large and oblong shields when they fought on 

 foot, but on horseback these shields proved 

 cumbersome. Possibly that was the reason that 

 when the Normans and other Teutonic races 

 began to fight on horseback they so soon dis- 

 carded their round and clumsy shields in favour 

 of a shield broad at the top and tapering down- 

 ward, the shape of shield we see on the Bayeux 

 tapestry. 



With regard to the war chariots in use before 

 this time, we may be quite sure that even the very 

 first employed had not wheels cut from solid 

 blocks as some are represented as having, though 

 possibly the most primitive of the agricultural 

 chariots were so constructed. 



For the rest, the early chariots of the Egyptians 

 of the eighteenth dynasty, and in use in India 

 under the Vedic Aryans, and amongst the 

 Hittites, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Libyans, 

 the Mycenean Greeks, the Homeric Acheans, 

 the Gauls of Northern Italy and in Gaul itself; 

 also among the ancient Britons and the early 

 Irish, had wheels with a hub, a felloe, and spokes, 

 the latter from four to twelve in number. 



And inasmuch as this information bears in- 

 directly upon the horse in his relation to early 

 historical records, it is not out of place here. 



