AS we gradually approach the time of Christ we find increasing interest being taken in horses by the kings and great chiefs of different countries, for the value of cavalry in war was now quickly becoming manifest.

In the early days of the Homeric or Iron Age the Celts of Noricum and the Danube, though still retaining chariots, had begun to ride on horseback, and by the third century B.C. these Celtic tribes already possessed well-trained and very formidable cavalry. As a natural result the demand for still better horses grew steadily, and soon it became common to import horses into the Upper Balkan, and countries beyond the Alps, from the Mediterranean area.

Perhaps the best description of a chariot race at Delphi is to be found in the Electra of Sophocles—Sophocles flourished in the third century B.C. At about the same period Hero dotus tells us that the SigynnÆ, the only tribe north of the Danube that he mentions by name, had “horses with shaggy hair five fingers long all over their bodies.” These horses were “small and flat-nosed and incapable of carrying men, but when yoked under a chariot were very swift.”

Consequently the natives drove them largely in chariots.

Though Herodotus does not allude to the colour of these small, flat-nosed horses, there is reason to believe that dun was the colour most prevalent at about this time. With regard to the horses of Northern Britain Dio Cassius says that two of the chief tribes—namely, the Caledonians and the MÆatÆ—“went to war in chariots, as their horses were small and fleet,” while when the Gauls passed into Italy, towards the beginning of the fourth century B.C., they drove chariots but did not ride, in which respect they resembled the SigynnÆ north of the Danube.

Thucydides, writing at the end of the third century B.C., speaks with interest on the subject of horses' hoofs, pointing out that the reason so many of the cavalry horses of the Athenians went lame towards the close of the Peloponnesian War was not that they had been wounded, as some historians have averred, but owing simply to their not being shod. This was after the Spartans had occupied Decelea and suffered their heavy loss.

Alcibiades, in the third century B.C., had many horses, and in the sixth book of “Thucydides” he tells us in his speech that he sent into the lists no less than seven chariots, adding that “no other man ever did the like”; and later he goes on to mention that he won the first, second and fourth prizes.

Apparently Alcibiades knew his world, and if so it would seem that his world was not unlike the world we know to-day, for in another passage he sententiously yet philosophically tells us that we “must not expect to be recognised by our acquaintance when we are down in the world; and on the same principle why should anyone complain when treated with disdain by the more fortunate?”

This particular sentence is according to the translation of “Thucydides” by the late Professor Jowett, who leaves us to infer what we please concerning the sociological views held by Alcibiades.

Among the first to employ war chariots with scythes intended to mow down the enemy were the Persians, if historical records are to be trusted, and we read that the chariots they used in the battle of Cunaxa, in 401 B.C., were provided with sharp blades, while in after years the people of Syria had war chariots with spears as well as scythes.

Thus in the bloody battle fought between Eumenes of Pergamus, and Antiochus of Syria, to mention but a single instance, Antiochus had four-horse chariots with scythes and spears in his front line of battle, whereupon Eumenes purposely “created terror” amongst these horses, with the result that they turned suddenly and dashed back into the lines of Antiochus, spreading devastation and death on all sides in their own ranks.

Certain it is that upon that occasion many horses were cut to pieces by the scythes, but for a full and graphic description of what happened I must refer the reader to the thirty-seventh chapter of the immortal “Livy.”

The esteem in which horses, especially war horses, were held in the centuries that immediately preceded the coming of Christ may to some extent be gathered from the prominence accorded to them when coins to be used as the circulating medium began to come into general vogue. Thus on the first of the Carthaginian coins—they were struck in the third century B.C.—we find represented a horse upon one side, a palm-tree upon the other, while on the coins of the important Sicilian settlement, Panormus, a horse is shown.

I have tried to disentangle from a mass of only semi-trustworthy records the true origin of the well-known saying: “He has Seius' horse in his stable.” So far as one can ascertain, it is traceable to the fates of the various ill-starred owners of the horses of GnÆus Seius, from Seius down to Anthony. Plutarch says that the famous Philip II. loved to commemorate his Olympian victories by stamping the figure of a steed upon some of his coins, and certainly he was devoted both to horses and horse racing. We read too that between 359 and 336 B.C. he entered both chariots and riding horses for the Olympian competitions.

Similarly a proportion of the Sicilian coinage bore the impression of a horse, and many of the great chariot races are commemorated on coins. Several of the Agrigentine coins, for instance, show a quadriga driven by winged Nike, in commemoration probably of the victory of ExÆnetus, while some of the coinage of Syracuse dating back so far as 500 B.C., and even earlier, represents a four-horse chariot upon the face of the tetradrachms, and, on the didrachms, a man riding one horse and leading another. Some of the drachms show merely a man mounted.

Indeed we are told that Gela not only prided herself on her victories won on the race track, but upon what was, of course, of more importance—her splendid cavalry. A number of her coins represent a four-horse chariot, some a two-horse chariot, and occasionally a wounded foe being speared to death by a horseman, galloping or stationary. These coins probably are among the earliest of their kind ever struck.

The most ancient of all representations of Sicilian horses, however, which serve to prove that the Sicilians were beyond doubt a horse-loving race, is the quadriga on one of the metopes of the archaic temple of Silenus, believed to have been founded in 628 B.C.

While upon the subject of sculpture, casual reference must be made to the notorious Wooden Horse of Troy, described fully in Homer and alluded to centuries later by Virgil, the horse of which the famous sculptor, Strongylon, made a model in bronze towards probably the close of the fifth century.

The story of this horse hardly needs repetition, but briefly it is to the effect that soon after Hector's death Ulysses commanded Epeios to construct a wooden horse of great size that ostensibly was to be used as an offering to the gods to please them and thus ensure a safe voyage back to Greece.

Unsuspectful of treachery, the Trojans received the great effigy and brought it into their city; whereupon, in the dead of night, the Greek soldiers hidden within it crept cautiously out, pounced silently upon the Trojan guards and slew them before they could defend themselves; then opened the gates of Troy, let in their own soldiery, and finally set fire to the city.

Menelaus is said to have been among the Greeks concealed in the wooden horse.

If evidence in addition to that already given be needed to prove that the ancient Greeks held horses in high esteem, and that the Grecian conquests were probably in a great measure due to the help afforded by the possession of horses, notice has only to be taken of the vastness of the space occupied by the Athenian cavalry shown on the Parthenon frieze.

Indeed at about this period probably no accomplishment was quite so highly esteemed as horsemanship, with the result that the wealthy classes began to pay special attention to the training their sons received in it, while treatises were published upon the art and how best it might be acquired.

The first horsemen of whom we have indisputably authentic records invariably rode bareback, and, with the exception of the Libyans, used some sort of bit. According to Xenophon—and apparently no other historian of his time is so thoroughly to be trusted for strict accuracy—the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. were almost as fastidious upon the subject of bits and bittings as some hunting men of to-day are.

Some writers upon this subject have erred. Thus the impression is prevalent that the horses of the ancient Greeks were all much smaller than modern horses, and the steeds shown on the Parthenon frieze are sometimes said to afford proof that this was so. A proportion of the horses of those early times undoubtedly were smaller than the modern horse is, but on the other hand plenty were not. Probably the mistaken critics base their assertion upon the fact that the men shown on the Parthenon frieze and similar compositions, also on some of the vase paintings of that period, apparently are as tall as, or taller than, the horses beside which they are standing or on which they are mounted.

The reason men and horses are so represented simply is that according to a standard rule of ancient Greek art the heads of men and animals, and of all other figures shown on such compositions, must be as nearly as possible upon a level, even though some of the figures may be standing, some seated, some on horseback, some in chariots.

This rule, known as “Isokelismos,” is of course in direct opposition to the rule of nature, yet as it existed it had to be observed, and therefore no attempt should ever be made to compare the height of men or beasts shown in such representations as the Parthenon frieze merely by the appearance and the proportions they present. By observing how far below the horses' bellies the feet of the mounted men hang, an approximate idea of the height of the men by comparison with that of some of their horses may be arrived at.

Herodotus is of opinion that about the year 480 B.C. finer horses were owned by the NisÆan than by any other people of Asia, and he mentions that white horses were so highly valued by the Persians of about that period—who are known to have used many white horses for sacrificial purposes—that “some three hundred and sixty horses, or about one for every day in the year, and five hundred talents of silver,” was the tribute sent by the Sicilians. This statement leads to the conclusion that white horses must have been exceptionally plentiful in the region.

That Armenia had many horses, which were largely used even so far back as the fifth century B.C., can be gathered from the writings of Ezekiel, for the prophet does not hesitate to declare that the people of Togarmah, which presumably was part of Armenia, traded in the fairs in horses and mules.

Pindar, who so glorified King Arcesilas, tells us that Cyrene became famous as the city of steeds and goodly chariots, and later the poet Callimachus sang of his home “famed for her steeds.” Hiero II. of Syracuse owed practically all his great successes to the fact that he owned horses of considerable value, and to this day figures in marble of horses dedicated by him in commemoration of his victories at Olympia are to be seen in the local museum of Delphi.

Almost every year attempts are made by wealthy Americans and others to purchase some of these figures, but down to the present such attempts have proved of no avail.

Plato, again, has much to say upon the horse in its relation to the history of his epoch. Thus in one place he writes: “We must mount our children on horses in their earliest youth, and take them on horseback to see war, in order that they may learn to ride; the horses must not be spirited or warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had; in this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape.”

Agrigentum—until 405 B.C., when it was destroyed by the Carthaginians—was famous for its horses. It is said that on one occasion, when one of the best-known citizens, ExÆnetus, won the principal chariot race at Olympus, the entire population came forth to meet him, and that he was preceded into the city by 300 chariots drawn by pairs of white horses. Indeed some of the most gorgeous monuments ever erected to the memory of famous race horses were those raised in this city during the period of its splendour.

We have it on good authority that, some centuries before Christ, the Persian men of rank deemed it derogatory to be seen on foot, and that they habitually rode on horseback. Yet in common with the people of many other races they were addicted to immolating horses on festival days, while the practices in which they indulged upon these occasions are said to have been barbarous in the extreme.

In almost every age white horses in particular would seem to have been used for sacrificial purposes. The Persians sacrificed bulls as well as horses, a bull and a horse being sometimes bound together and then immolated. Arrian mentions that one horse at least was sacrificed to Cyrus every month, the ceremony being usually performed at Pasargadea, close to the famous tomb. Here again white horses were used for the sacrifices, for among the Persians in particular the white horse was for many centuries deemed sacred and pronounced “beloved of the gods.”

One of the descriptions that probably gives a true account of a triumphal march in the third century B.C. is that of Herodotus, where he describes the procession of Xerxes. The following order, he tells us, was observed.

There came first 1000 carefully selected horsemen, then 1000 carefully selected spearsmen, then ten sacred NisÆan horses “splendidly caparisoned.” These horses were called NisÆan, we are incidentally told, because they were especially reared on the plains of NisÆa, in Media, at that period famous for its great horses.

Next came the sacred car of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses “followed by charioteers on foot holding their bridles, for no mortal was allowed to mount the seat.” Xerxes himself brought up the train, usually in a chariot drawn by NisÆan horses, with his charioteer beside him.

The people of almost every nation of whom we have authentic records would appear to have been addicted in the centuries before Christ to the atrocious practice of sacrificing live horses to their gods. Particulars of the weird rites observed in connection with these sacrifices are for the most part too revolting to be described here, but one practice observed by the Scythians cannot well be passed unnoticed.

This people inhabited chiefly the treeless steppes of Asia, and is known to have sacrificed animals of many kinds, but horses most of all, and usually white or dun horses.

Thus we are told that when a Scythian king died, his favourite horse, his favourite concubine, and several important members of his establishment, preferably his cook and his cupbearer, were buried with him. When a year had passed, a further ceremony took place.

This consisted in the execution, generally by strangulation, of some fifty of the strongest, handsomest and generally most desirable young men—probably young men who had belonged to his suite—and in the strangulation also of an equal number of the best horses that had belonged to him.

Then, without delay, the bodies of men and horses were disembowelled, next they were stuffed with chaff or straw, and finally when the horses, supplied each with a bit and bridle, had been set up in a circle round the tomb of the deceased monarch, the bodies of the slaughtered men were set astride them.

And there the ghastly squadron remained until it fell away to dust.

That the literary records in which these gruesome details are to be found are accurate, has to some extent been proved by discoveries made from time to time—as for instance at the opening of the great tumuli in Russia about half-a-century ago.

Indeed during the thirteenth century A.D. ceremonies equally revolting are known to have been performed regularly among the Tartars, while at the funeral of Frederic Casimir, Commander of Lorraine, in 1781, a horse was killed, and then buried with its master, and at even so recent a date as the funeral of Li Hung Chang a horse and chariot made of paper were, according to the newspaper reports, burned at the grave-side—probably a last survival of some weird rite of a sacrificial nature observed formerly in China and Japan.

Another race known to have immolated live horses, especially white horses, was the Veneti. This people lived at the head of the Adriatic, and their name survives to this day in “Venice.”

The sacrifice of white horses was common too amongst the Scandinavian and the Teutonic races, and formed part of their religion. The Sicilian Greeks, again, are said to have set a high value upon white horses, and to have sacrificed them under the impression that by doing so they afforded additional gratification to their gods.

It would appear, indeed, that in all ages white animals were looked upon as sacred in a sense, for in parts of India the white elephant is deemed sacred to this day, and in parts of Persia the white ass. Then, in the fifth century B.C., the nomad Scythians, whose territories lay chiefly to the north of the River Don, owned immense herds of horses. These they used principally for food, while the milk of the mares they drank and made domestic use of in other ways, a practice long in vogue among the Turko-Tartaric tribes of Central Asia, and said to be still in vogue with them in remote regions.

Bearing upon early Persia is rather a well-known story that on the death of the famous Smerdis the seven princes who were his possible successors agreed to confer the throne upon the owner of the horse that should be the first to neigh when they all met on the following day. The groom of Prince Darius having been told of this, had recourse to a clever ruse, for on that same evening he led his master's horse to the exact spot where the horses were all to meet on the day following, and there showed the horse a mare. Upon arriving at this spot next day the horse, as we are told, “neighed furiously,” so that Darius won his kingdom!

We know that Hiero, King of Syracuse, who flourished towards the end of the third and during the beginning of the second century, B.C., won the great Olympic crown with his good horse Phrenicus. In simple language Tacitus describes how the people of Thurii—the city built on the ruins of Sybaris about the year 443 B.C.—first taught horse racing to the Romans.

Although towards the end of the second century B.C., bareback riding was still quite common, a covering of some sort for the horse's back was becoming much more popular among the Greeks despite the adherence to bareback riding by the jockeys at the principal festivals. Atiphanes, the “gentle humourist,” whose plays were performed in public for the first time towards the close of the second century B.C., alludes to “coverlets for a horse,” this being probably one of the first references we have to saddles among the early Greeks.

And now we come to Xenophon, one of the most finished of horsemen among the ancient Greeks, and apparently a true lover of horses. With the exception of an individual named Simo, or Simon, who wrote before Xenophon's time, there had not existed a man with deep and practical knowledge of horses or horsemanship, and the care of horses, who was able to write lucidly upon these subjects until Xenophon wrote with so much success his own exhaustive work.

Xenophon speaks of Simo—who, according to Suidas, was by birth an Athenian—on more than one occasion. Xenophon, however, did not hold Simo in high esteem, as we may gather from the former's tone of condescension when he states that though Simo wrote with some knowledge of horses, yet that he entertained an exalted opinion of himself that was unpardonable.

The truth of that statement is borne out by the evidence we have that when, on a famous occasion, Simo presented the brazen horse to the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, at Athens, he had the effrontery to engrave upon the pedestal his own works!

Though when expressing opinions upon the points of a horse the ancient Greeks differed rather widely in their views, yet most of the rules laid down by Xenophon are as applicable to-day as they were some three and twenty centuries ago.

We read, for instance, that “the neck of the horse, as it proceeds from the chest, should not fall forward, like that of a boar, but should grow upward, like that of a cock, and should have an easy motion at the parts about the arch.” That the advice was not overlooked, even by early artists, can be accurately conjectured if the Parthenon frieze be inspected, for there almost every horse shown has a neck “like that of a cock.” Xenophon then proceeds:

“If a horse has the thighs under the tail broad and not distorted, he will set his hind legs well apart, and will by that means have a firmer and quicker step, a better seat for a rider, and be better in every respect. We may see,” he continues, “a proof of this in men, who when they wish to take up anything from the ground do try to raise it by setting their legs apart rather than by bringing them together.”

These remarks are sensible, yet probably there are few modern horsemen ready to admit that a horse's hoof should be high and hollow, and the frog kept up from the ground “as well before as behind,” which was Xenophon's opinion. Then in his time saddles and stirrups had not, apparently, been thought of, for we read that when first introduced they were looked upon with scorn, all who used them being laughed at and deemed to take rank among what we should call in these days “muffs.”

As already noted, Xenophon had something to say upon bits and bitting, and he describes at length the advantages of the jointed over the rigid bit. Also he alludes to the custom of wearing spurs, and describes incidentally the construction of the prick spurs then in vogue.

In this connection it is interesting to note that a bit was discovered in the Acropolis of Athens some twenty years ago, which, so it is said, dates back to the early Persian wars of 490-479 B.C.

Certain modern writers of books upon subjects more or less historical speak of horse doctors. Some twenty-three centuries ago, however, even the acknowledged experts upon horses and horse breeding would seem to have possessed only crude anatomical knowledge of the animal, some of the advice they tendered in cases of illness amongst horses being grotesque.

Equally it is evident that professional horse breakers and trainers, also professional riding masters, were known in Greece in Xenophon's day, and possibly before his time.

There is something rather delightful about Xenophon's ingenuousness when he tells us quite seriously that “a horse that has no longer the marks in his teeth, neither rejoices the buyer with hope, nor is easy to be exchanged”! He speaks too with emphasis when assuring us that when carefully examining a horse with a view to purchase we ought to pay most attention to the hoofs—advice to some extent discounted by remarks he makes a few lines further on.

“To sum up all in a few words,” he says elsewhere, “whatever horse has good feet, is mild-tempered, sufficiently swift, and able to endure fatigue, and is in the highest degree obedient, will probably give least trouble to his rider and contribute most to his safety in military occupations. But horses that from sluggishness require a great deal of driving, or, from excess of mettle, much coaxing and care, afford plenty of employment to the rider, as well as much apprehension in time of danger.”

The ancients evidently had a rooted antipathy to adopting any kind of contrivance calculated to afford protection for their horses' hoofs. Upon several occasions attempts were made to introduce metal horseshoes, but in vain. The device most resembling a horseshoe, that they were willing to consider and of which we have a trustworthy description, was a covering not unlike a sandal made of reeds, or, in rare instances, of leather. In reality it resembled a boot rather than a horseshoe, but it was used only where the ground was very rough or exceptionally hard.

In parts of Japan boots of this kind, made of straw, are worn to this day. Berenger speaks of a horseshoe said to have been in use in the time of Childeric, whose date was 481, A.D., and most likely it was one of the first horseshoes, properly so called, of which any record is extant.

If the figure of it preserved in Montfaucon's “Antiquities” is to be relied upon for accuracy, then it somewhat resembled the shoe in use to-day.

It seems clear that Xenophon was not an advocate for docking horses' tails, at any rate to the exaggerated extent we so often see them docked to-day, also that he was not partial to the hogged mane, for in speaking of the horse's forelocks, “while these hairs,” he avers, “though of good length, do not prevent the horse from seeing, they brush away from his eyes whatever annoys them. Therefore we may suppose that the gods gave such hairs to the horse instead of the long ears which they have given to asses and mules to be a protection to the eyes.”

A question sometimes set when the subject of early horsemanship is under discussion is: How used the ancients to mount, seeing that they placed at best only cloths on their horses' backs, and that they had not stirrups?

Historical records contain information upon the point, and we read that in the centuries before Christ horses were mounted apparently in three ways—by the rider's vaulting without assistance on to the back; by his vaulting or mounting with the aid of a pole; by his making the horse crouch.

There was a fourth way, but for an obvious reason it was less often resorted to. This was by making a slave bend his back, or kneel on all fours, and by then stepping upon him—using him as a mounting-block, in short. The last-named method was common in Persia, where Sapor, when he had conquered the Emperor Valerian, forced him thus to debase himself to show his complete subjection.

I believe I am right in saying that the soldiery used sometimes to mount with the aid of a spear. Xenophon, in his seventh chapter, instructs the horseman to mount “by catching hold of the mane, about the ears,” a feat surely impossible to perform save when mounting a pony.

In the illustration of a Sarmatian on horseback, facing page 33, both a man and horse are shown in armour made of horse-hoof cut into little plates, which, Pausanias tells us in his Attics, were sewn together with the sinews of oxen and horses. Sometimes bone was used in place of horse-hoof, but iron never, there being no iron mines in the country, to the knowledge of the Sarmatians. The soldier shown holding up his horse's leg, in the illustration facing page 45, presumably is about to tie on one of the “stockings” used in place of shoes; and on the same plate a soldier is about to mount on the off (right) side.