24 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



dotus tells us that the Sigynnae, the only tribe 

 north of the Danube that he mentions by name, 

 had " horses with shaggy hair five fingers long all 

 over their bodies." These horses were "small 

 and flat-nosed and incapable of carrying men, 

 but when yoked under a chariot were very 

 swift." 



Consequently the natives drove them largely 

 in chariots. 



Though Herodotus does not allude to the 

 colour of these small, flat-nosed horses, there is 

 reason to believe that dun was the colour most 

 prevalent at about this time. With regard to 

 the horses of Northern Britain Dio Cassius says 

 that two of the chief tribes — namely, the Cale- 

 donians and the Maeatse — " went to war in 

 chariots, as their horses were small and fleet," 

 while when the Gauls passed into Italy, towards 

 the beginning of the fourth century B.C., they 

 drove chariots but did not ride, in which re- 

 spect they resembled the Sigynnae north of the 

 Danube. 



Thucydides, writing at the end of the third 

 century B.C., speaks with interest on the subject 

 of horses' hoofs, pointing out that the reason so 

 many of the cavalry horses of the Athenians 

 went lame towards the close of the Peloponnesian 

 War was not that they had been wounded, as 

 some historians have averred, but owing simply 

 to their not being shod. This was after the 



