CMSARS INVASION. 237 



* Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this : 

 firstly, they drive about in all directions, and throw their 

 weapons, and generally break the ranks of the enemy with 

 the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels ; 

 and when they have worked themselves in between the 

 troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on 

 foot. The charioteers in the mean time withdraw some 

 little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with 

 the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the 

 number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to 

 their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed 

 of horse, together with the firmness of infantry ; and by 

 daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that 

 they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, 

 to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn 

 them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on 

 the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest 

 celerity to their chariots again.'' Thus they filled the 

 middle of the field of battle with their tumult and wheel- 

 ing and careering. The Britons appear to have been the 

 only people in Europe who fought from chariots, a cir- 

 cumstance which affords theearly British historian, Geoffrey 

 of Monmouth, an argum.ent to prove that they were of 

 Trojan origin. 



The immense number of horses they possessed may 

 be judged from the fact, that Cassivelaunus, the British 

 chief who was invested with the supreme command of 

 the forces of the island, in order to oppose Caesar, after 

 dismissing all his other troops, yet retained no fewer than 

 4000 war chariots about him. And their cavalry was 



* Ccesar. Op. cit., lib. iv. cap. ^2- 



