Note 3401 — THE WAR-CHARIOTS OF THE BRITONS

M. Théodore Reinach (Rev. celt., x, 1899, pp. 123-30) points out that the testimony of Frontinus (C. Caesar Gallorum falcatas quadrigas eadem ratione palis defixis excepit inhibuitque [Strat., ii, 3, § 18]), if it is genuine, is negatived by Caesar’s silence, and that it is probably an interpolation; that it may be inferred from a passage in Martial (O iucunda, covinne, solitudo, | Carruca magis essedoque gratum | Facundi mihi munus Aeliani, &c. [xii, 24]) that a covinnus was simply ‘un cabriolet attelant à deux’; that Arrian (Ars tactica, 19) expressly distinguished British war-chariots from scythed chariots; and that neither Polybius, nor Livy, nor Diodorus Siculus, nor Dion Cassius ever describe the war-chariots of the Celts as scythed, although they often mention them. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (La civilisation des Celtes, pp. 339-41) quaintly argues that the silence of Caesar can be explained by the assumption that scythed chariots, being as dangerous to friends as to foes, were only used exceptionally.