The Horse in History. Basil Tozer
they probably were then.
His advice on the vexed question of bits and bitting, to take but a single example, is very sound, while his strong objection to allowing horses' legs to be washed frequently is shared by plenty of horse owners at the present time.
Then, the old Athenian apparently disapproved of or disliked what we have come to call the “American” seat on a horse, for he declares that the legs of a man mounted should be almost straight, the body upright and supple.
Attempts have repeatedly been made to trace the life of Xenophon prior to the time when, in 401 B.C., he first joined the army of Cyrus, but in vain. He is, however, known to have been a close friend of Socrates from a very early age, and probably when he wrote the “Anabasis” he was a little over thirty. But when he died, about the year 355 B.C., he was quite an old man.
Historians are almost unanimous in declaring that at Marathon, in 490 B.C., the Athenians were without cavalry, though by that time many of the wealthy citizens undoubtedly owned horses, some of which they most likely used for racing. When, however, the Athenians came to realise what an amount of execution could be done, and to see the execution that was done by the Persians, with the help of cavalry, they set to work to organise in Athens, as quickly as possible, a powerful body of mounted warriors.
How formidable that cavalry later on proved itself to be is well known to all classical scholars, and the more surprising it therefore is that the Greek cavalry should not afterwards have risen to the level of that organised by Macedonians. Indeed, according to more than one historian, the Greek cavalry was employed chiefly to harass an enemy when marching, or to pursue a vanquished and retreating regiment, while one writer at least maintains that the Greek cavalry at best never approached within javelin range of an enemy's line of battle during an attack.
The cost of horses at about this time varied almost as widely as it does now. Thus it was not unusual to pay three minæ, the equivalent of about fifteen guineas, for quite a common hack—an extraordinarily high price when we bear in mind the purchasing value of money in those days—while for trained war horses, or for race horses, any sum from ten minæ upward was paid frequently.
Xenophon is known to have given approximately eleven minæ for a little war horse that, so far as one can ascertain, did not afterwards fulfil expectations, so perhaps it is hardly astonishing to read that some years later the terms “horse owner” and “spendthrift” came to be deemed more or less synonymous.
A list drawn up at about this time of the principal defects to be guarded against when inspecting a horse with a view to purchase is interesting, inasmuch as the points looked upon as faults three and twenty centuries ago are with only a few exceptions deemed to be egregious defects to-day.
The following is the list that was drawn up, so it is alleged, by Pollux:
Hoofs with thin horn (sic); hoofs full, fat, soft and flat—or, as Xenophon termed them, “low-lying”; heavy fetlocks; shanks with varicose veins; flabby thighs; hollow shoulder-blades; projecting neck; bald mane; narrow chest; fat and heavy head; large ears; converging nostrils; sunken eyes; thin and meagre sides; sharp back-bone; rough haunches; thin buttocks; stiff legs, stiff knees.
Though among the horses of the ancient Greeks the hogged mane must at one time have been seen often enough, there does not appear to be in the works of the early writers any direct allusion to the hogging of horses as a regular practice.
Probably if the custom did exist it was on the wane by the time Xenophon began to write. There is evidence to show that in ancient Greece the horses at about this period were rather smaller than those of most other countries of which we have authentic records, a characteristic still noticeable amongst the horses in several parts of modern Greece.
The Greeks almost always used entire horses for all purposes. Even in war they did not employ geldings, a custom that has given rise to the belief that in the centuries before Christ all horses, with the exception of the Libyan steeds, were far more savage than the horses of to-day.
Emphatically we have no reason to suppose that the Greeks made friends and companions of their horses as the Arab race is known to do or to have done, though the fable of Achilles' love for his horse named Xanthus makes a pretty enough story. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Xenophon may have been fond of horses not merely because of the amusement they afforded him or the pleasure he derived from riding and hunting.
For the rest the Greeks, in common with the people of most of the warlike nations in those early days, enjoyed possessing horses mainly because they served to enhance life's pleasure, and were of practical use in war.
Certainly it may be said of Xenophon that he did not preach the doctrine of kindness to horses without himself practising it thoroughly, also that he was ever ready to rebuke severely all who ill-treated their own horses or his.
Apparently the Greeks of about this era did not keep what we should term to-day pleasure horses, though they affected pleasure horses in the sense that they kept race horses. With the death of Xenophon we lose touch, to some extent, with the progress of the horse in history, but the thread is taken up again in the Roman period when Varro, writing in 37 B.C., furnishes certain details that are of interest, Virgil adding to them a little later in his “Georgics.”
After that we find instructive comment in the writings of Calpurnius and Columella in the first century A.D.; in those of Oppian and Nemesian in the third century; and in those of Apsyrtus, Pelagonius and Palladius in the fourth century.
When all is said, Xenophon's information most likely is by far the most trustworthy of any that has been handed down to us, in the same way that his descriptions certainly are the most accurate. Only a few fragments of the book by Simo, written probably about the year 460 B.C., remain; yet even those fragments contain peculiar statements.
Thus in addition to insinuating that Thessaly was the only region famous for horses in the centuries before Christ—an assertion indirectly gainsaid by Xenophon—he didactically remarks that the colour of a horse ought not to be taken into consideration when the animal's qualities are being summed up, a statement that the majority of the early writers openly repudiated, and that, as most of us know, is in every country deemed devoid of truth at the present day.
Though particulars are difficult to obtain, there is reason to believe that the horse named after the Thracian river, Strymon—owing to its having been bred in that vicinity—and that was immolated by Xerxes before his invasion of Greece, was, as usual, a white horse.
By exactly what route horses were introduced into Greece has not been ascertained for certain, but the fact that fossilised remains of horses have not been found in Greece as they have been in many other countries leads to the belief that the horse was not indigenous to the country.
From a very remote period, however, we find horses represented on vase paintings; and from these paintings too we are able practically to prove that the Greeks had not rowels in their primitive spurs, but that the spur consisted of a short goad attached to the heel of the boot by means of a strap passing over the instep and another that passed under the sole, almost as the modern hunting spur is strapped on. Spurs of this kind have been discovered in Olympia, also in Magna Græcia, and elsewhere.
With regard to the Greek bits and bridles of a later date, the former apparently had no leverage—certainly they had no curb chain—while the pattern of the bridle seems to have remained unaltered.
As we come nearer still to the time of Christ, we find the young men of Athens growing fonder and fonder of horse racing and taking more pains and spending much time and money in their attempts to improve the breed of horses. And though the soil of Attica was by no means adapted for purposes of horse rearing, it must in justice be said that their attempts met with reward.
Thus it happened that about this time—that is to say towards the close of the third or the beginning of the second century—the comic poet, Aristophanes, who died in 380 B.C., began to inveigh against the increasing popularity of horse racing, and against the spread of gambling consequent thereon.
In his immortal