The History of Coaches

by George Athelstane Thrupp

to convey his body from Babylon to Alexandria, in Egypt, a distance of several hundred miles, which car perhaps has never been excelled in the annals of coachbuilding. It was prepared during two years, and was designed by the celebrated architect and engineer, Hieronymus. It was 18 feet long and 12 feet wide, on four massive wheels and drawn by sixty-four mules, eight abreast. The car was composed of a platform with a lofty roof supported by eighteen columns, and was profusely adorned with drapery and gold and jewels; round the edge of the roof was a row of golden bells; in the centre was a throne, and before it the coffin; around were placed the weapons of war and the armour that Alexander had used. This car was thought so much of that several historians have described it, and there are various plans of its appearance, one of which may be seen in Ginzrot’s work on ancient carriages in the British Museum library.

The second epoch of the history of carriages I take to commence at the invasion of Belgium and Britain by the Romans. The ancient Britains had used a car for warlike purposes which was evidently new to the Romans. [[Plate No. 2.]] It was on higher wheels than their cars, it was open in front, and was ascended in the front, instead of, as in their cars, at the back; the pole, instead of sloping up to the horses’ necks, went straight out between the horses’ bodies, and was broad, so that the driver of the car could stand on it, and if necessary, drive from the end of the pole, or leap out and stand before his horses. It was larger than a Roman car, and above all it possessed a seat, and was called essedum from this peculiarity. At times this car was furnished with scythes, which projected from the axle-tree ends. No doubt the same or a similar car was used by the Gauls and Belgians; but the British essedum was the best; and Cicero, writing to a friend in Britain, remarks “that there appeared to be very little worth bringing away from Britain except the chariots, of which he wished his friend to bring him one as a pattern.”

When Cassibelaunus was taken prisoner by the Romans, they also captured six hundred cars and four thousand essedarii, or car-drivers and warriors. I think we may look upon this vehicle as the origin of the curricle of later years. It is certain that it attracted great notice among the Romans, and under its own name, essedum, and with another of a smaller size and with still higher wheels called cisium, became the chief and most rapid vehicles upon the public roads, whether in Italy itself, or along the military roads already made into France, Spain, or Germany. Despatches and letters were conveyed with speed and punctuality to the more distant parts of the Roman Empire. The historian Suetonius mentions that the Emperor Augustus established on the military roads active young men at first, and afterwards carriages, to convey his despatches to the governors of the provinces. Besides these rapid conveyances along the public roads, there was the rheda, a slow sort of waggon drawn by six or eight mules. Buildings were erected along the main road where these different carriages could be hired. Cicero declares that a message was sent fifty-six miles in a cisium in ten hours. On a monumental column at Ingel, near Treves, is the representation of two persons riding in a cisium with one horse. The vehicle is very much like a gig.

Under the Emperors of Rome, the number of kinds and shapes of vehicles increased; but from the vague manner in which the writers of the period speak of them, it is difficult to enter into minute descriptions. The height of the wheels increased. At the capital of Rome, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius is represented in a car of triumph, the wheels of which are as high as the backs of the horses. Sir William Gell, in his work on the ancient city of Pompeii, which was destroyed in the year A.D. 79, mentions that three wheels had been dug out of the ruins in his day—very much like our modern wheels—a little dished, and 4 ft. 3 in. high, with ten spokes, rather thicker at each end than in the middle. Sir W. Gell also gives a well-known picture of a cart used for conveyance of wine in a huge skin or leathern bag; it is a four-wheeled cart, with an arch in the centre for the front wheel to turn under. The pole in this painting appears to end in a fork, and to be attached to the axle-bed. As the wealth of the Romans increased so did their desire to use comfortable and highly-decorated carriages. For many years what are called “sumptuary laws” existed, which regulated each citizen’s dress, furniture, and ornaments, according to his rank and consequence, and these laws restrained the decorations upon private carriages.

The Emperor Alexander Severus, however, issued a decree, “that anyone might decorate his car as he pleased;” and the number of vehicles in use rapidly increased. We find upon monuments many different shaped cars of the time of the Emperors, chiefly processional cars, lofty and highly ornamented, evidently adorned with embossed and chased work in metal, rich carvings, drapery and cushions. On the columns of Theodosius, at Constantinople, are some specially handsome cars on two and on four wheels, with door-like openings in the sides of a square shape. On the arch of Constantine, at Rome, are several cars. Sufficient evidence, however, exists, that for nearly 500 years, during the reign of the different Emperors of Rome, the art of Coachbuilding must have been a good and important business. Besides the ordinary artizans, the woodmen, the wheelwrights, and the smiths, there must have been plenty of employment for the carvers, painters, chasers, embossers, embroiderers, and trimmers.

Homer, as I have mentioned, tells us that the seat of Juno’s car was slung upon cords, to lessen the vibration and jolting attendant upon a car without springs or braces; and it is certain that the Roman Emperors were not better off for comfort and ease than Juno was, unless we except one sort of carriage which is described as borne on long poles, fixed to the axles. Now a certain amount of spring can be obtained from the centre of a long light pole. The Neapolitan Calesso, the Norwegian Carriole, and the Yarmouth Cart, were all made with a view to obtaining ease by suspension on poles between bearings placed far apart. In these the seat is placed midway between the two wheels and the horse, on very long shafts, which are thus made into wooden springs. In the old Roman carriages the weight was carried between the front and hind axles, on long poles or wooden springs. The under-carriage of the later four-wheeled vehicles used by the Romans was, in all probability, the same as is in use in the present day, both in this country and on the Continent, and in America, for the under-carriages of agricultural waggons. There is a work on the subject of ancient carriages which was published at Munich in 1817; it was prepared by John Christian von Ginzrot, who was an inspector in the office of the Master of the Horse of the King of Bavaria. A few copies of this work exist still, but only in the German language, and not easily accessible to the public. This author gives the Greek and Latin names for the pole, perch, wheel-plate, and other technical terms of carriages so fully as to leave no doubt that coach-building was well understood by the Romans. He also gives a plan of a four-wheeled dray [[Plate 4]], used by the Romans for conveying casks of wine, which is identical with the drays used now in Vienna and Munich. If his authorities be sound, we may be satisfied that the art of coachbuilding, as far as the under-carriage works, and the making of agricultural waggons, was as forward in the days of the Cæsars of Rome as it is to this day in central Germany.

We will, however, quit ancient carriages for those now used in Asia. In Hindostan are a great number of vehicles of native build. It has been frequently remarked that there is little change in the Eastern fashions, that tools and workmen are precisely as they were a thousand years ago, and the work they produce is precisely the same. In examining what is done now by Indian coachbuilders, we are probably noticing carriages of a similar, if not identical, sort with those in use three thousand years ago. The commonest cart in Hindostan is called “hackery” by Europeans; it is on two wheels with a high axletree-bed, and a long platform, frequently made of two bamboos, which join in front and form the pole, to which two oxen are yoked; the whole length is united by smaller pieces of bamboo tied together, not nailed. In France, two hundred years ago, there was a similar cart, but the main beams terminated in front in shafts; in neither the cart of India nor of France were there any sides or ends; the French cart is called “Haquet;” it is probable that the French, who were in India as well as ourselves, may have given the term “hackery” to the native cart, which was so like their own. The native name, however, is “Gharry.” Other carts have sides made by stakes driven into the side beams; the wheels are sometimes of solid wood, or even of stone. Wheels are also made by a plank with rounded ends, and two felloes fitted on to complete the circle. Again, wheels are made like ours, and also with six or eight spokes, which are placed in pairs, each pair close to and parallel with one another.