THE WAR-CHARIOTS OF THE BRITONS
‘Chariots,’ says Caesar,[3386] ‘are used in action in the following way. First of all the charioteers drive all over the field, the warriors hurling missiles; and generally they throw the enemy’s ranks into confusion by the mere terror inspired by their horses and the clatter of the wheels. As soon as they have penetrated between the troops of cavalry the warriors jump off the chariots and fight on foot. The drivers meanwhile gradually withdraw from the action, and range the cars in such a position that if the warriors are hard pressed by the enemy’s numbers, they may easily get back to them. Thus they exhibit in action the mobility of cavalry combined with the steadiness of infantry; and they become so expert from constant habit and practice that they will drive their horses at full gallop, keeping them well in hand, down a steep incline, check and turn them in an instant, run along the pole, stand on the yoke, and step backwards again to the car with the greatest nimbleness’ (Genus hoc est ex essedis pugnae. Primo per omnes partes perequitant et tela coiciunt atque ipso terrore equorum et strepitu rotarum ordines plerumque perturbant, et cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis desiliunt et pedibus proeliantur. Aurigae interim paulatim ex proelio excedunt atque ita currus conlocant ut, si illi a multitudine hostium premantur, expeditum ad suos receptum habeant. Ita mobilitatem equitum, stabilitatem peditum in proeliis praestant, ac tantum usu cotidiano et exercitatione efficiunt uti in declivi ac praecipiti loco incitatos equos sustinere et brevi moderari ac flectere et per temonem percurrere et in iugo insistere et se inde in currus citissime recipere consuerint).
M. G. Lafaye[3387] gathers from this description that the object of the warrior in running along the pole was to jump down in order to throw his javelin and to avoid being impeded in his movements by the proximity of the driver. M. Lafaye assures us that certain coins represent warriors moving on to the poles of their chariots in order to hurl their javelins: but they do not represent them as about to jump down;[3388] and Caesar says that the warrior, after he had run along the pole, stepped back again on to the car.
Caesar[3389] tells us that, after he had crossed the Thames in 54 B.C., Cassivellaunus dismissed the whole of his forces except 4,000 essedarii. Most commentators have inferred, I think rightly, from this statement that Cassivellaunus had 4,000 chariots; but it seems possible that by 4,000 essedarii Caesar may have meant 2,000 warriors and 2,000 drivers.[3390] Napoleon the Third,[3391] on the other hand, assumes that there were ‘six essedarii par char’. It is unnecessary to make any assumptions; for, according to Diodorus Siculus,[3392] who derived his information from Posidonius, every Gallic chariot carried a driver and one warrior. Furthermore, a coin of the Hostilian family, which was struck between 49 and 46 B.C.,[3393] depicts a chariot drawn by two horses, and driven by a charioteer, who is accompanied by one warrior, armed with an oblong buckler.
Professor E. B. Tylor,[3394] referring to Pomponius Mela,[3395] Lucan,[3396] and Silius Italicus,[3397] argues that the Britons used chariots armed with scythes: Tacitus,[3398] who derived his information from Agricola, says that the British army which encountered the latter in the Grampians included covinnarii, who, according to Pomponius Mela, were warriors who fought in scythed chariots;[3399] and Jornandes[3400] says that the chariots of the Britons were armed with scythes: but if the Britons whom Caesar encountered had used such chariots, he would certainly have mentioned the fact;[3401] and no scythes are to be seen on the Roman coins which depict war-chariots. Moreover, of the numerous interments of warriors with chariots that have been discovered in the department of the Marne not one showed any traces of scythes;[3402] nor have any such traces ever been found in Great Britain.[3403]
I have remarked in my narrative of Caesar’s second invasion[3404] that very few chariot-burials have been found in this country. It is noteworthy that of the whole number—not more than a dozen—all but two were in Yorkshire, and not one in Scotland; and also that whereas in many of the Gallic interments the chariot was placed in the grave entire, only the wheels and other detached parts were buried in Britain. The most famous of these discoveries was made nearly a century ago in a barrow on Arras Farm, close to the road between Beverley and York. Here in a large round grave in the chalk was found the skeleton of a man, inclining from which, one on each side, were two wheels, each two feet eleven inches in diameter.[3405] ‘Under and adjoining to each wheel,’ writes Thurnam,[3406] ‘were the remains of the skeletons of two small horses, neither of them exceeding thirteen hands.’[3407]
In the paragraph in which Caesar describes the tactics of the charioteers he says that ‘as soon as they have penetrated between the troops of cavalry, the warriors jump off the chariots and fight on foot’ (cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis desiliunt et pedibus proeliantur). The editors generally assume that equitum turmas means ‘the hostile troops of cavalry’; but von Göler,[3408] with whom Napoleon III[3409] agrees, rejects this view. He argues that in Caesar’s first campaign in Britain, in his account of which the passage in question occurs, the Britons were not opposed by any cavalry, for Caesar had none with him; and that the paragraph is not to be regarded simply as a general description of the tactics of the charioteers, but also as an explanation of the tactics which they had pursued in the combat described in the preceding paragraph. Moreover, he insists that if the warriors had jumped off their chariots when they had penetrated between troops of hostile cavalry, and had then allowed the drivers to turn round and move back, it would have been impossible for them to get on to the chariots again in case of need: hostile cavalry which allowed them to do this would have been worthless. ‘According to my interpretation,’ von Göler concludes, ‘we are to understand by et cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt that the warriors had penetrated within the intervals of their own cavalry ... the moment of jumping down, always hazardous, was protected by their own cavalry, just as nowadays cavalry protect the limbering up and unlimbering of the horse-artillery associated with them.’ See also pp. 136-7, and Taf. vii, fig 7, of von Göler’s book, and pp. 688-91, infra.