Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 115 



enemies, now wheeling round their horfes, and 

 again feizing an opportunity when it offered. This 

 was peculiarly annoying to the heavy-armed Roman 

 foldiers, and when the Roman cavalry followed, 

 the chariotmen leapt out and confronted them on 

 foot. 1 



Here the manner in which the horfe was em- 

 ployed in war naturally deferves a word or two. 

 This feems to have been its ufe everywhere before 

 it was utilized for agricultural work, juft as the 

 paftoral ftate of life naturally preceded a more 

 fettled mode of exiftence. So in the Hebrew 

 Scriptures the horfe is exclufively confidered as an 

 animal ufeful in war. Oxen invariably precede it 

 as beafts of draught, juft as we are now feeing it 

 in its turn fuperfeded by fteam. But with regard 

 to the employment of the horfe in war, Lucretius 

 in a celebrated paflage (v. 1296) feems to have 

 mifapprehended its true fequence. " The cuftom 

 of a warrior mounting on horfeback," he fays, 

 " and guiding his fteed with reins and the right 

 hand, is antecedent in time to tempting the dangers 

 of war in a two-horfe chariot ; and this, again, to 

 the ufe of four-horfe chariots and chariots armed 

 with fcythes." As a matter of fact, chariots feem 

 to have been ufed before the art of riding on 

 horfeback had been learnt. The Lapithae were 

 the firft to invent breaking-in of horfes and the 

 ufe of the bridle, while Ericthonius firft introduced 

 the yoking of four horfes to a chariot. The heroes 

 before Troy always fought from chariots, and never 



1 Cajfar, "Bell. Gall.," v. 16. 



