506 THE HORSE. 



ages afterwards, during the decline of the Roman empire, 

 that the really Gothic nations found their way in such num- 

 bers into Britain, as to reduce the greater part of it to sub- 

 jection, and impose upon it their customs, laws, and language. 

 At the time of our Saviour, and long afterwards, the inhabi- 

 tants of these Islands were essentially Celtic ; and that the 

 same race had inhabited the country from an early time, ap- 

 pears from innumerable remains of ancient forts, sepulchral 

 tumuli and cairns, rude altars, and circles of stones and other 

 monuments, which can be referred to no other race but the 

 Celtic ; and from the names of mountains, rivers, promon- 

 tories, and other natural objects, which to this hour retain 

 the designations imposed upon them by the Celtic inhabi- 

 tants. 



When these Islands, then, became the prey of Roman am- 

 bition, the horses of the country were those of the Celtic 

 natives, either brought in a state of domestication from the 

 East, or derived from the wild races existing in the wastes 

 of Europe. That they were in great numbers, we learn from 

 the Roman writers. Csesar continually refers to the daring 

 cavalry and destructive chariots by which he was opposed. 

 At his landing, the Britons, spurring their horses into the 

 sea, assailed his legions ere they could reach the shore. In 

 his first expedition, he merely saw the country which he came 

 to subdue. In his second, he followed the Britons into the 

 interior, and, fording the Thames, he routed on its banks 

 their great leader Cassivelaunus, who, he tells us, having 

 lost all hopes of success by battle, disbanded the greatest 

 part of his forces, and retained about 4000 chariots, with 

 which he harassed the Romans as occasion offered. Sub- 

 sequent writers speak of the horsemen and charioteers of 

 the Celtic Britons. Tacitus, in describing the last great 

 battle which the Caledonii fought with Agricola near the 

 passes of the Grampians, states that their first line was in 

 the plain, and the next on the sloping ascent of the moun- 

 tains, and that the space between the armies was filled with 



