The origin and influence of the thoroughbred horse . s and by various other peoples bothancient and modern was due not to any superiority in speed orother qualities, but rather to the sanctity attached to animalsof a white colour, as for instance to white elephants in FurtherIndia, and to white asses in Persia. At the dawn of history all the peoples of the Balkan penin-sula like those of the Italian seem to have kept horses, butthey all appear to have used the chariot and never mountedthe steed. The Upper Balkan was occupied almost wholly bythe closely related Illyrian and Tliracian tribes on
The origin and influence of the thoroughbred horse . s and by various other peoples bothancient and modern was due not to any superiority in speed orother qualities, but rather to the sanctity attached to animalsof a white colour, as for instance to white elephants in FurtherIndia, and to white asses in Persia. At the dawn of history all the peoples of the Balkan penin-sula like those of the Italian seem to have kept horses, butthey all appear to have used the chariot and never mountedthe steed. The Upper Balkan was occupied almost wholly bythe closely related Illyrian and Tliracian tribes on whom thefair-haired people known as Celts to the Greek writers of theclassical period, were constantly pressing down. These Celtswere distinguished from the indigenous tribes, not only bytheir xanthochrous complexion, but by the fact that whilstall the Illyrian and Thracian tribes tattooed, the Celts neverfollowed this custom. The Thracians tattooed themselves withfigures of animals such as deer, which were probably their 1 Livy, XXIV. 5. ^ xm. 106 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. tribal badges, or even totems. The wolf-brand used to markthe horses of the Veneti was probably the badge or perhapstotem of the clan which owned them. Though the Thracians were using oxen for draught (Fig. 46)in the sixth century , and thoughby that time the riding of horsesmust have been very familiar tothem from their Greek neighbourson the south and the Scythians onthe east, yet it seems certain thattwo-horse chariots continued to beused by certain peoples in Thracedown to late times. On the hills Fig, 46. Thracian coin showing Qj^^g^^,^ which surround the valley oi the Kritchma, the last affluent of theMaritza (ancient Hebrus) before the latter reaches Philippopolis,there are man}^ large tumuli, which have been partially exploredduring the last fifty years. In a pit close to the most remark-able of these, called Doukhova Moghila (The Barrow of theSpirit), in 1851 the brothers Shkorpil foun
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