It is well known that Cæsar's opinion of the value of chariots in war was, to say the least, rather inflated. His description of the action of war chariots during an engagement is of itself almost sufficient to prove this.
“At the first onset,” he writes, “they [the warriors] drove the cars in all directions, hurled their javelins, and by the din and clatter of horses and wheels commonly threw the ranks of the enemy into disorder.
“Then, making their way amongst the squadrons of the enemy's cavalry, they leaped down from the chariots and fought on foot.
“Little by little the charioteers withdrew out of the fight and placed their chariots in such a way that if they were hard pressed by the enemy they could readily retreat to their own side.
“Thus in battle they afforded the mobility of cavalry, and the steadiness of infantry.
“Daily practice enabled them to pull up their horses when in full speed on a slope or steep declivity, to check or turn them in a narrow space, to run out on the pole and stand on the yoke, and to get nimbly back again into the chariot.”
All of which sounds simple and delightful. In practice, however, it did not often “work out.” For too frequently the wheels of the chariots became clogged, sometimes they jammed in the wheels of other chariots—not necessarily the enemy's—and frequently the horses, driven to frenzy by pain and terror, stampeded on all sides.
Therefore the “steadiness of infantry,” of which Cæsar talks so glibly, must in many instances have existed purely in his imagination, and there can be little doubt that the warriors, carried away nolens volens by their frenzied horses, often “retreated readily to their own side” long before the enemy pressed them to do so, a regrettable incident which Cæsar passes over with perfunctory comment. And perhaps he is not to be found fault with for doing this, seeing that similar tactics have been indulged in by many of the most successful of our military strategists of modern times.
Probably by Cæsar's time the practice of placing a covering of some sort upon the backs of “saddle” horses had become quite common, at least amongst the Romans. Among German tribes the use of any sort of covering was still not merely laughed to scorn, but deemed to be actually effeminate, disgraceful and a mark of laziness.