Xenophon, in his “Treatise on Horsemanship” and his “Instructor of Cavalry,” and Diodorus in his “Histories,” are among the Greeks who adduce the most numerous testimonies to the honour in which equestrian exercises were held. Among the Latins, Virgil, in reference to the funereal games celebrated by Acestes in honour of Anchises, tells us that the Roman youth were taught equestrian art as practised by the Trojans. The horse and chariot races, which took place at the solemn games in Greece, have always been justly celebrated; as were those which continued in Rome and in all the great cities of the Roman world until the fifth or sixth century.
We are disposed to believe that the use of the saddle-horse and the carriage-horse was introduced about the same time. But it seems that chariots were rarely mounted by any but chiefs, who fought from that ambulatory elevation while squires managed the horses.
Fig. 72.—The Carruca, or Pleasure-Carriage, drawn by a Pair of Horses, dating from the Fifth to the Tenth Century. (Taken from a MS. of the Ninth Century, in the Royal Library at Brussels.)
To Cyrus the Great is ascribed the first idea of arming chariots with scythes, which cut to pieces in every direction those who opposed the progress of the vehicle, or who were thrown down by the violence of the shock. The same war-carriages were found among the Gauls; for a king named Bituitus, having been taken prisoner by the Romans, appeared in his chariot armed with scythes in the triumphal procession of the general who had conquered him.
Fig. 73.—Cart drawn by Oxen, end of the Fifteenth Century. (Taken from the “Chroniques de Hainault,” MS. in the Royal Library at Brussels.)
Riding on horseback was not only practised, but was carried to the highest degree of perfection, among the nations of antiquity; and the use of chariots was, in former times, almost general in war and on certain state occasions. The Romans, and in imitation of them the Gauls who prided themselves on being skilful carriage-builders, had several sorts of wheeled vehicles. Those adopted by the Romans and the Gauls, but discountenanced by the Franks, who preferred to ride on horseback, were the carruca, or carruque, with two wheels and a pair of horses ([Fig. 72]), richly ornamented with gold, silver, and ivory; the pilentum, a four-wheel carriage with a cloth canopy; the petoritum, an open carriage suitable for rapid travelling; the cisium, a basket-carriage drawn by mules, and used for long journeys; and finally, various carts—the plaustrum, the serracum, the benne, the camuli (trucks), &c. These last, which were chiefly employed as field-carts, continued in use even after pleasure-carriages had entirely disappeared. There remained, however, independent of mule-litters, the basterna and carpentum, state-carriages of the Merovingian period, but only queens and ladies of high rank, who were unequal to long journeys on horseback, indulged in such means of locomotion, while men—even kings and high personages—would have blushed to be conveyed like “holy relics,” as picturesquely expressed by one of Charlemagne’s courtiers; but certainly not at the period of the “lazy kings,” when, as Boileau has well said,—