88 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[ 



PERIOD I. 



lost, and turned in flight to his camp, f which he 

 again fled shortly after, on Csesar folio wii, the debris 

 of his army into their lines and storming them.^ 

 Pompey's loss in this action was 15,000 killed and 

 24,000 taken prisoners. Caesar lost about 200 soldiers 

 and thirty centurions. 



Csesar's dispositions to guard himself as much as 

 possible from the turning movement which he foresaw was 

 intended, a hich he had so much reason to dread, were 

 ably conceivx. and show great marks of genius. He 

 felt that all would depend upon the firmness and 

 steadiness of the six cohorts, and his refusing to let his 

 own cavalry come into action until after Pompey's horse 

 had made their charge upon the infantry proves that he 

 understood the value of the last reserves in a cavalry 

 action, and shows how ingeniously he contrived, with 

 only one-sixth of the enemy's force, to be virtually able 

 to throw 1,000 fresh horsemen into the fight to turn the 

 scale in his favour at the crisis of it. 



SECTION VT — FOREIGN CAVALRY IN THE ROMAN 



ARMIES. 



ml 



Before following the history of the Roman cavalry 

 further, it will be desirable at this point to refer briefly 

 to the cavalry of Gaul, Spain, and Germany, as those 

 nations produced mounted troops that both in alliance 

 with Kome and in the ranks of her enemies gained a 

 high reputation on many a hard-fought field. 



The Gauls were noted from the earliest times as 

 furnishing good cavalry. Strabo says that their cavalry 

 was much better than their infantry.^ They used war- 

 chariots at a very early period.^ According to Livy, 

 when Ambigatus sent his nephew Bellovesus to found 

 a colony in Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, he 

 set out with a large force of both horse and foot, and 

 established himself in the neighbourhood of Milan.* 

 Many years afterwards, when Brennus captured Rome, 



1 Plutarch. 2 Bardin, 3499. » Duparcq, 201. * Livy, v. 



