ON SKULLS OF HORSES FROM THE ROMAN FORT AT NEWSTEAD. 569 



passage referring to the Sigynnae, one of a number of tribes occupying Central Europe 

 during the fifth century B.C. Of this tribe Herodotus writes : " They have horses with 

 shaggy hair five fingers long all over their bodies. These horses are small and flat- 

 nosed and incapable of carrying men, but when yoked under a chariot are very swift, 

 in consequence of which the natives drive in chariots." 



From the fifth century B.C. to the present day, horses in certain outlying parts of 

 Europe have, from a military point of view, continued to be too small to ride ; but 

 during the second century B.C., according to Ridgeway, horses of a riding type able to 

 carry men began to be imported from the south of Europe into Gaul, and from Gaul 

 they were eventually introduced into Britain. 



If the Sigynnae and other tribes of Central and North-Western Europe used 

 chariots because their horses, if not too small to ride, were at least too small to carry 

 men into battle, it may be assumed that when larger horses became available the war- 

 chariots would gradually disappear. 



This is apparently very much what happened. The Gauls by the middle of the 

 second century B.C. " had procured from Southern Europe horses of a size far superior 

 to their own and better adapted for riding." * In fact, on the Continent, cavalry soon 

 took the place of war-chariots, for ere Caesar's time the chief strength of the Celtic and 

 other inhabitants of Gaul lay in their horsemen. 



But while on the Continent the war-chariot had been superseded by cavalry, it 

 continued to be used in Britain for some time after Caesar's day. When Caesar reached 

 Britain his advance was opposed by both cavalry and war- chariots ; but the Belgic 

 tribes of Britain, having few mounted men, trusted almost entirely to their charioteers. 



From Caesar we learn that the small horses yoked to the British war-chariots were 

 so active and well trained that they could be checked and turned in a narrow space, 

 or pulled up when at full speed on a steep declivity, or made to stand while the 

 charioteers ran out on the pole and stood on the yoke. 



Though before Caesar's invasion the Belgic tribes of the south of Britain had 

 obtained from their kinsmen in. Gaul a number of horses large enough to carry men, 

 it seems that the tribes of Northern Britain had only small horses up to at least the 

 beginning of the third century, t 



Tacitus, in relating the doings of his father-in-law Agricola, refers to the war- 

 chariots of the Northern Britons, but says nothing of British cavalry ; and later still 

 Dio Cassius states that the Caledonians and Maeatae (the two chief tribes of Northern 

 Britain) went to war in chariots, as their horses were small and fleet. 



Since the country which these tribes inhabited would have been more easily 

 traversed by men on horseback than by wheeled vehicles, we may assume with Eidgeway 

 that the Caledonians used chariots because, during the second century, their horses were 



* Ridgeway, Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, p. 95. 



t Tacitus mentions that at the battle of Mons Graupius the horse of one of Agricola's officers became unmanage- 

 able and carried its rider into the British lines. In such ways, and by capture, a few foreign horses would fall into 

 the hands of the Caledonian and other tribes of Northern Britain. 



