THE HORSE IN HISTORY
[Illustration: THE KNIGHT, DEATH AND THE DEVIL
_From an engraving by Albert Dürer_]
THE
HORSE IN HISTORY
BY
BASIL TOZER
AUTHOR OF
“PRACTICAL HINTS ON RIDING TO HOUNDS” ETC.
WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1908_
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
After directly helping on the progress of the world and the
development of civilisation almost from the time when, according to
Nehring's interesting studies, the wild and primitive horses of the
great Drift began to exhibit distinct differences in make, shape and
individual characteristics, the horse has reached the limit of its
tether.
For with the dawn of the twentieth century, and the sudden innovation
of horseless traffic, any further influence that it might have
exercised upon the advancement of the human race comes rapidly to a
close.
That the horse's reign is over—though it is sincerely to be hoped that
horses will be with us still for many years—the statistics issued
recently by our Board of Agriculture in a measure prove. For in those
statistics it is stated that the number of horses in the United
Kingdom decreased during last year alone by no less than 12,312, and
later statistics show that the decrease still continues.
In the following pages, therefore, the writer has striven to trace
the progress of the horse from very early times down to the present
day mainly from the standpoint of the effect its development had upon
the advancement of the human race. For this reason though a selected
number of the most famous horses that lived in the centuries before
Christ, and between the time of Christ and the period of the Norman
Conquest, and that have lived within the last nine centuries, have
been mentioned, the horses of romance and mythology have for the most
part been passed over.
Every effort has been made to obtain information that is strictly
accurate, a task of no small difficulty owing to the mass of
contradictory evidence with which the writer has found himself
confronted in the course of his researches. To the best of his ability
he has winnowed the actual facts from the mass of fiction that he has
come upon in the writings of some of the earlier historians, and to
some extent in records, manuscripts and private letters of more recent
times to which he has had access.
B. J. T.
BOODLE'S CLUB, 1908.
CONTENTS
PART I
FROM VERY EARLY TIMES TO THE CONQUEST
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Rameses; early Egyptian chariots—Horses of Babylon and of
Libya—Erichthonius; horse of Job; horses of Solomon—Early
circus riding—Dancing horses of the Sybarites; the Crotonians'
stratagem—Homer's “Iliad”; Menesthus; early wagering—Patroclus;
Achilles; Euphorbus; Hyperenor—Horses and chariots of the
Thracians—Ancient Greeks and horsemanship; decline in the
popularity of war chariots; inauguration of cavalry—Xenophon on
horsemanship—White horses 1
CHAPTER II
Increasing interest in horses—Herodotus; Thucydides; war
chariots of the Persians—Horses represented on coinage—Wooden
horse of Troy—The Parthenon frieze; Greek art—Plato; white
horses—The procession of Xerxes; horses and men sacrificed—The
horse of Darius—Horse racing introduced among the
Romans—Xenophon and Simo—Early horseshoes, bits and bitting;
ancient methods of mounting 23
CHAPTER III
Xenophon disliked the “American” seat—Cavalry organised
by the Athenians—Cost of horses twenty-three centuries
ago—Aristophanes; Aristotle; Athenians' fondness for horse
racing—Alexander the Great; Bucephalus—Story of Bucephalus;
his death—Famous painters of horses: Apelles, Pauson,
Micon—Mythical flesh-eating horses of Diomed—Hannibal's
cavalry of 12,000 horse—Coins—Posidonius; horses of the
Parthians, Iberians and Celtiberians 45
CHAPTER IV
Virgil on the points of a horse—Cæsar's invasion—Abolition
of war chariots—Precursor of the horseshoe—Nero's 2000
mules shod with silver; Poppæa's shod with gold—The
Ossianic and Cuchulainn epic cycles; Cuchulainn's
horses—The Iceni on Newmarket Heath; early horse racing in
Britain—Horses immolated by the Romans; white horses as
prognosticators—Caligula's horse, Incitatus; Celer, the horse
of Verus; the horse of Belisarius 67
CHAPTER V
Mahomet encourages horse-breeding—Procopius; a
misstatement—Early allusion to horse races—Figures of horses
cut on cliffs—Roland and his horse, Veillantiff—Orelia,
Roderick's charger—Trebizond, Alfana; Odin's mythical horse,
Sleipnir—Horse fighting in Iceland—Some horses of mythology:
Pegasus, Selene, Xanthos, Balios, Cyllaros, Arion, Reksh—Arab
pedigrees traced through dams—Influence of the horse upon
history—Courage of Julius Cæsar's horses 86
PART II
FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE STUART PERIOD
CHAPTER I
The Conqueror's cavalry—Horse fairs and races at
Smithfield—King John's foolish fad—The Persians and their
horses—Relics of Irish art; what they indicate—Simon
de Montfort the first master of foxhounds—The king's
right to commandeer horses—Sir Eustace de Hecche;
Battle of Falkirk—Marco Polo and white horses; curious
superstitions—Edward III. and Richard II. encourage horse
breeding—Battle of Crecy 107
CHAPTER II
Richard II.'s horse, Roan Barbary—Thoroughbred English horses
characteristic of the nation—Chaucer; Cambuscan's wooden
horse—Don Quixote's Aligero Clavileno—Horse race between the
Prince of Wales and Lord Arundel—The Chevalier Bayard; his
horse, Carman—The Earl of Warwick's horse, Black Saladin—Joan
of Arc—King Richard's horse, White Surrey—Charles VIII.
of France's horse, Savoy—Dame Julyana Berners—Wolsey's
horsemanship—Queen Elizabeth's stud 127
CHAPTER III
Inauguration and development of the Royal Stud—Exportation
of horses declared by Henry VIII. to be illegal—Sale of
horses to Scotsmen pronounced to be an act of felony—Riding
matches become popular—Ferdinand of Arragon's gift of horses
to Henry VIII.—Henry's love of hunting—King Henry stakes the
bells of St Paul's on a throw of the dice—Some horses of
romance—Horse-breeding industry crippled in Scotland 148
CHAPTER IV
North America without horses when Columbus landed—Scarcity
of horses at the Conquest of Mexico—Francisco Pizarro; his
cavaliers terrify the Indians—Emperor Charles V. sends horses
to King Edward VI.—David Hume, “a man remarkable for piety,
probity, candour and integrity”; his practices in connection
with horse racing—Queen Elizabeth fond of racing; condition
of the Turf during her reign—Stallions fed on eggs and
oysters—Lord Herbert of Cherbury's antagonistic attitude
towards the Turf—Some horses in Shakespeare's plays—Performing
horse and its owner publicly burnt to death—Horses trained by
cruelty 168
CHAPTER V
King Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth passionately fond of
hunting—John Selwyn's remarkable feat in the hunting field;
the monument at Walton-on-Thames—Don Quixote and his steed,
Rosinante; Peter of Provence's wooden horse, Babieca;
Clavileno and the Cid's horse—Mary Queen of Scots' favourite
horses—Queen Elizabeth's retinue of 2400 horses—Arundel,
Aquiline, Brigadore—The horses of Anatolia and Syria—Sir
Robert Carey's historic ride from London to Edinburgh in sixty
hours—The horses of Napoleon I. 187
PART III
FROM THE STUART PERIOD TO THE PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER I
Arrival of the Markham Arabian, the first Arab imported
into England—Newmarket village founded by James I.—Decline
of the “great horse”—The Royal Studs—James I. organises a
race meeting on the frozen River Ouse—Superstitious beliefs
concerning horses—James I. meets with a grotesque riding
mishap—Prosperity of the Turf—Riding match between Lord
Haddington and Lord Sheffield—The Turf vigorously denounced as
“an evil likely to imperil the whole country's prosperity” 202
CHAPTER II
First races of importance run at Newmarket—Races in
Hyde Park—The Helmsley Turk and the Morocco Barb—Racing
introduced into Holland—Importation of Spanish stallions
into England—Prince Charles's riding master, the Duke of
Newcastle—Increasing cost of horses—Marshal de Bassompierre;
his loss through gambling, £500,000 in a year; Sir
John Fenwick—Sir Edward Harwood's pessimism—Cromwell's
Ironsides—Armour discarded—The opposition to stage coaches; Mr
Cressett's theory; Charles II. favours their adoption 222
CHAPTER III
The Commonwealth's “ordinance to prohibit horse
racing”—Revival of racing under Charles II.—The King
a finished horseman—The figure of Britannia—The Royal
Mares—Formation of the thoroughbred stud—Thomas Shadwell's
cynical description of life at Newmarket—Spread of horse
racing in Ireland—Jockeys at Newmarket entertained by Charles
II.—Sir Robert Carr; the Duke of Monmouth's connection with
the Turf—Annual charge for horses of the Royal household,
£16,640—Newmarket under the _régime_ of the Merry Monarch; the
Duke of Buckingham 242
CHAPTER IV
Arrival of the Byerley Turk—Roman Catholics forbidden to own
a horse worth over £5—Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, on the
manners of the age—King William III.'s death due to a riding
accident—The Duke of Cumberland's breeding establishment in
Queen Anne's reign—Arrival of the Darley Arabian—The Godolphin
Arabian—Royal Ascot inaugurated by Queen Anne—“Docking” and
“cropping” condemned by Queen Anne; attempt to suppress
these practices—The story of Eclipse—Some horses of
romance—Copenhagen and Marengo 261
CHAPTER V
A retrospective summary—The beginning of the end—Superstition
of the horseshoe—The Bedouins and their horses—Some classic
thoroughbreds of modern times—Horses hypnotised—The Derby and
the Oaks—Horse racing in Mongolia—Conclusion 281
INDEX 295
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Knight, Death, and the Devil _Frontispiece_
From an engraving by Albert Dürer.
Combat between Amazons and Attic heroes. Fourth century, B.C. 19
From a Greek vase in the British Museum.
Greek coins showing horses in the early centuries before Christ 27
The Emperor Trajan, showing Roman style of riding 33
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
The Emperor Theodosius, showing saddle 33
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
A Parthian horseman, showing Parthian style of riding bareback 33
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
Sarmatian horse and warrior, meant to represent horse and rider
in armour made of plates of bone or of horse-hoof 33
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
A portion of the Parthenon Frieze, executed by Phidias about the
year 440 B.C. 39
Roman soldier about to adjust “stocking” used in place of shoes 44
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
Roman soldier about to mount on off side 44
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
A Mauritanian horseman, showing how the Mauritanians and
Humidians rode without saddle or bridle 44
From Richard Berenger's “The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
Alexander the Great on horseback, about 338 B.C.
The figure is believed to represent Bucephalus 55
From a bronze in the British Museum.
Persians fighting with elephants against the Romans, about the
time of Pyrrhus, 280 B.C. This picture has been wrongly
attributed to Raphael 62
From an engraving.
Caligula on horseback. About 37 A.D. 79
From a figure in the British Museum.
Bayeux tapestry supposed to represent the Battle of Hastings,
1066 110
Statue of Colleoni by Verrocchio in Venice 203
From a photo by R. Anderson, Rome.
Van Dyck's famous picture of Charles I. on horseback in the
National Gallery, London 225
From a photo by Franz Hanfstængl.
Oliver Cromwell on horseback 233
After the painting by Van Dyck.
Horses of the Cavaliers, seventeenth century. From a painting in
the possession of his Majesty King Edward VII. 243
From a photograph by Franz Hanfstængl.
The Duke of Schonberg on a typical charger of the early
seventeenth century 257
After the painting by Sir G. Kneller.
Flying Childers, bred by Mr Leonard Childers in 1715, is said to
have been “the fastest horse that has ever lived” 269
From a photograph by A. Rischgitz.
Mr O'Kelly's Eclipse, the most famous thoroughbred stallion ever
foaled, 1764 273
After the painting by G. Stubbs.
Napoleon at Wagram 279
From the famous painting by Vernet at Versailles.
From a photo by Neurdein frères.
Wellington's famous horse, Copenhagen 280
From an engraving (Photo by A. Rischgitz).
Flying Dutchman, foaled 1846 285
From a life-size painting by Herring. By kind permission
of the Earl of Rosebery.
From a photograph by W. E. Gray.
SOME WORKS CONSULTED
Of the many volumes the writer has consulted whilst engaged in
compiling this book, the following are among the more important. The
list is arranged alphabetically, according to the authors' names. To
the authors or editors, as the case may be, and to the publishers
of these works, the writer here begs to acknowledge his very deep
indebtedness for the assistance he has derived from consulting the
volumes named.
ARRIAN (F.)—“The Anabasis of Alexander.”
AUREGGIO (E.)—“Les Chevaux du Nord de l'Afrique.”
AZARA (F. DE)—“The Natural History of the Quadrupeds of Paraguay
and the River La Plata.”
BERENGER (R.)—“The History and Art of Horsemanship.”
BLOUNT (T.)—“Antient Tenures.”
BLUNT (W. S.) “Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates.”
BOUSSON (M. A. E.)—“Etude de la Représentation du Cheval.”
CHARRAS (J. B. A.) “Histoire de la Campagne de 1815.”
CHOMEL (C.)—“Histoire du Cheval dans l'antiquité et son rôle dans
la civilization.”
CHURCH (A. J.)—“Roman Life in the Days of Cicero.”
COOK (T. A.)—“The History of the Turf,” and “Eclipse and O'Kelly.”
DARWIN (C. R.)—“Variation of Animals and Plants.”
ERMAN (A.)—“Life in Ancient Egypt.”
EWART (J. C.)—“The Multiple Origin of Horses and Ponies”; “A
Critical Period in the Development of the Horse”; and “The
Penicuik Experiments on Breeding between Horses and Zebras.”
FITZWYGRAM (Sir F. W. J.)—“Horses and Stables.”
FLOWER (Sir W. H.)—“The Horse.”
GAST (E.)—“Le Cheval Normand et ses Origines.”
GILBEY (Sir W.)—“Horses Past and Present,” and “The Great Horse,
or War Horse.”
GREENWELL (W.)—“British Barrows.”
HADDON (A. C.)—“The Study of Man.”
HALL (H.)—“The Horses of the British Empire.”
HAYES (M. H.)—“Points on the Horse.”
HOLM (A.)—“The History of Greece.”
HORE (J. P.)—“History of Newmarket.”
HUME (D.)—“Imperial History of England.”
HUME (D.)—“The History of the House of Douglas.”
JONSON (B.)—“The Alchemist.”
JOWETT (B.)—“Thucydides.”
LODGE (E.)—“Illustrations of British History.”
MAYNE (C.)—“Odes of Pindar.”
MITCHELL (T.)—“The Comedies of Aristophanes.”
MONTFAUCON (B. DE)—“Antiquities.”
MORGAN (H.)—“The Art of Horsemanship.”
MURRAY (D).—“Life of Joan of Arc.”
NEWCASTLE (DUKE OF)—“Observations on Horses.”
PETRIE (F.)—“History of Egypt.”
PIETREMENT (C. A.)—“Les Chevaux dans les Temps Historiques et
pré-Historiques.”
PLUTARCH—“Life of Alexander the Great.”
PRESCOTT (W. H.)—“The Conquest of Mexico.”
REYCE (R).—“Breviary of Suffolk.”
RIDGEWAY (W.)—“The Origin and Influence of the Domestic Horse,”
and “The Early Age of Greece.”
RUSKIN (J.)—“The Queen of the Air.”
SCHLIEBEN (A.)—“The Horse in Antiquity.”
SIDNEY (S.)—“The Book of the Horse.”
SOTHERBY (W.)—“Georgics of Virgil.”
SOUTHEY (R.)—“Iliad of Homer.”
STREET (F.)—“The History of the Shire Horse.”
STRUTT (J.)—“Sports and Pastimes of the People of England.”
TASSO (T.)—“Jerusalem Delivered.”
TAUNTON (T.)—“Famous Horses.”
TRIMMER (Mrs M.)—“Natural History.”
TWEEDIE (Mrs ALEC.)—“Hyde Park: Its History and Romance.”
TWEEDIE (W.)—“The Arabian Horse.”
UPTON (Capt. R. D.)—“Newmarket and Arabia.”
VAUX (Baron C. M. de)—“A Cheval. Etude des Races Françaises et
Etrangères.”
WHITE (C.)—“History of the Turf.”
WITT (C.)—“The Trojan War.”
YULE (Sir H.)—“Marco Polo.”
Standard classics consulted have for the most part been omitted from
this list. The writer wishes in addition to thank his friend, Dr
William Barry, the distinguished classical scholar, for the trouble
he has taken in helping to revise some of the earlier of the proof
sheets; Professor William Ridgeway, of Cambridge, the famous historian
and archæologist, for letters containing advice that has proved of
use; Mr Theodore Andrea Cook, the most trustworthy authority we have
upon the history of the Turf and the modern thoroughbred, for letters
of introduction, etc.; and the Directors of the British Museum and the
Directors of the National Gallery for allowing photographs to be taken
for reproduction. For the sake of convenience the centuries B.C. are
alluded to in the same way that centuries A.D. are alluded to, that
is, one century in advance. Thus 550 B.C. is spoken of as the fourth
century B.C.; 250 A.D. as the third century A.D., and so on.
THE HORSE IN HISTORY
PART I
FROM VERY EARLY TIMES TO THE CONQUEST
CHAPTER I
Rameses; early Egyptian chariots—Horses of Babylon and of
Libya—Erichthonius; horse of Job; horses of Solomon—Early
circus riding—Dancing horses of the Sybarites; the Crotonians'
stratagem—Homer's “Iliad”; Menesthus; early wagering—Patroclus;
Achilles; Euphorbus; Hyperenor—Horses and chariots of the
Thracians—Ancient Greeks and horsemanship; decline in the
popularity of war chariots; inauguration of cavalry—Xenophon on
horsemanship—White horses
Though according to the more trustworthy of our naturalists hoofed
animals do not occur until the Tertiary Period in the history of
mammals, there can be no doubt that from an epoch almost “so far back
that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” in the literal
meaning of that legal phrase, the horse has played a prominent part in
the development of the human race.
Reference is made incidentally to “the horses of Abraham” by the
author of a historical novel published recently; but then even the
most pains-taking of writers of fiction is apt to err in minute
points, and can one blame him when the lands over which he travels,
and the subjects of which he treats, are so numerous and vary so
widely? For we know from Genesis—also from certain other later sources
that may be depended upon for accuracy—that though the prophet had
creatures of divers kinds bestowed upon him, yet the horse probably is
one of the few animals he did not receive.
Many of the important and famous victories won by Rameses—Sesostris
as the Greeks termed him—and by other monarchs of the eighteenth and
nineteenth dynasties, most likely would have proved crushing defeats
but for the assistance they obtained from horses. As it happened,
however, Rameses—whom recent writers declare to have been a very
barefaced “boomster”—succeeded with the help of his horses in marching
triumphant through many of the outlying territories in Africa as well
as in Asia.
* * * * *
We have it on the authority of Professor Flinders Petrie and other
distinguished historians that Aahmes I.—a king of the seventeenth
dynasty who drove out the Hyksos—reigned from 1587 to 1562 B.C.,
and chariots do not appear to have been used in Egypt prior to his
accession.
Indeed, as Professor Owen himself has pointed out, horses are not
found represented on any of the monuments of the very early Egyptians,
so that apparently the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty, whose
monuments probably are the first to show horses and chariots,
must have been the first to turn their attention seriously to the
employment of horses for useful purposes.
And yet from further statements made in Genesis it seems certain that
a native Egyptian king who flourished somewhere about the time of
Jacob—that is to say between 1800 and 1700 B.C.—owned many horses and
chariots. The Egyptians apparently did not mount horses until a very
late period in their history, and even the chariots they constructed
were, until many years had passed, used only in time of war. The lower
classes, if one may call them so, used only the ass, a beast that must
have been popular amongst the Egyptians for centuries before horses
were even heard of in Egypt.
From Genesis we gather too that Pharaoh made Joseph drive in his
second chariot; but the Egyptians who bought corn from Joseph and gave
horses in exchange for it belonged probably to the well-to-do class
that in time of war was compelled to provide the king with almost as
many horses and chariots as he needed, or at any rate as many as he
asked for.
In the records of Babylonia it is stated that horses were first
employed in the great city about the year 1500 B.C. The Libyans,
however, must have broken horses to harness some centuries before
this, and indeed learnt to ride them with some skill, for it is proved
beyond all doubt that the women of Libya rode horses astride at any
rate so far back as the seventeenth century B.C., and that in addition
to this horses were at about that time being driven in pairs by the
Libyans, to whom even the four-horse chariot cannot have been quite
unknown.
It has not been proved, from what I have been able to ascertain,
that in Neolithic times horses were already tamed, but some remains
of horses discovered at Walthamstow, in Essex, are said to date back
approximately to that period and to indicate for that reason that
horses were domesticated in the Neolithic Age.
Evidence does exist, however, that in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages
horses of a type that closely resembled that of the horses of the
Palæolithic Age were to be found in several parts of Europe. The
Trojans, as most of us know, bred horses very largely indeed, so much
so that we read of King Erichthonius, who in the thirteenth century
B.C. was in his heyday, that he became “richest of mortal men” and the
possessor of “three thousand mares which pastured along the marsh
meadow, rejoicing in their tender foals,” a statement that indirectly
recalls the fine lines in Longfellow's “The Minnisink”:
“They buried the dark chief—they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaves its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose,—and on the dead man's plain
The rider grasps his steed again.”
Erichthonius, according to Virgil, was the first to handle a
four-in-hand, for in the third book of his “Georgics” we are told how
“Bold Erichthonius first four coursers yok'd
And urg'd the chariot as the axle smok'd.”
Rather a risky proceeding and one from which we may conclude that bold
Erichthonius would have flouted the axiom promulgated recently by the
more prudent members of a well-known coaching club that “no team ought
to be driven faster than ten miles an hour, upon an average”!
* * * * *
Though allusions to the horse are made repeatedly in the Bible, they
give us little or no insight as to the horse's influence upon the
nations and their development. The notorious steed of Job that when
among the trumpets exclaimed “Ha! Ha!” and then winded the battle
afar off and fretted itself unduly upon hearing “the thunder of the
captains and the shouting” has been described by several writers, but
no two descriptions appear to tally.
Solomon, according to the “Book of Kings,” must have owned quite a
large stud, for we read that he had horses brought out of Egypt, and
that a chariot came up and went out for six hundred shekels of silver,
a horse for a hundred and fifty, “and so for all the kings of the
Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did he bring them out.” The
Hittites, whom Professor Jensen assures us were Indo-Europeans, are
also shown to have had horses when they made their way into Northern
Palestine, probably at some period prior to 1400 B.C., but trustworthy
information about the horses and how the Hittites treated them is not
obtainable.
As for the horses in the Mycenean Period—the Bronze Age of Greece—the
monuments of that epoch bear testimony to the esteem in which they
were held. The indigenous people of Greece were presumably the
Pelasgians, and these monuments remain to bear testimony that such a
people once existed.
In a like manner do the gravestones of the Acropolis of Mycenæ bear
indisputable evidence, for upon three of them at least are to be
seen sculptured in low relief a chariot, a pair of horses, and a
driver, the date of this particular sculpture being approximately the
fourteenth century B.C.
* * * * *
It seems practically beyond dispute that before the year 1000 B.C. no
people rode on horseback except the Libyans, though chariots must have
been used quite 2000 years before that. Yet by the time Homer wrote
his poems horsemanship was becoming common amongst a section of the
Greeks.
Indeed by that time feats of skill on horseback upon a par with the
antics we see performed to-day in circuses were at least known, and
probably they were often watched and greatly liked. Listen, for
instance, to the following Homeric simile—the translation is almost
literal:—
“As when a man that well knows how to ride harnesses up four chosen
horses, and springing from the ground dashes to the great city along
the public highway, and crowds of men and women look on in wonder,
while he with all confidence, as his steeds fly on, keeps leaping from
one to another.”
There are two references at least in Homer to “four male horses yoked
together,” but the practice of driving four-in-hand certainly was not
common in the eighth century B.C., or probably until long after. The
above reference, however, to feats of skill performed on horseback,
recalls to mind a story, probably more or less true, that has to do
with the luxurious people of Sybaris, in Southern Italy.
In the early centuries before Christ, so it is related, this people
trained all its horses to dance to the sound of music, to the music of
flutes in particular. The inhabitants of Croton having heard of this,
and being sworn enemies of the Sybarites, determined to take advantage
of the information and attempt to conquer their foe with the aid of
strategy.
For this reason they provided all the musicians in their own army with
flutes in place of trumpets and the other instruments they had been
in the habit of using, and then without delay declared war upon the
Sybarites.
The latter, to do them justice, responded at once, in spite of the
condition of lethargy to which the life of luxury they had been
leading was supposed to have reduced them. No sooner did they approach
the Crotonian lines, however, than “a great part of the army,” as we
are told, “set up a merry tune,” which had the effect of stampeding
the Sybarites' horses, for “they instantly threw off their riders and
began to skip and dance.”
As a natural consequence the Sybarite army was taken at a disadvantage
and quickly routed with great slaughter, “very many horses being
killed during the engagement, to their owners' dismay and grief.”
* * * * *
This strange story may be in a measure exaggerated, but probably it
is based on truth, in which case it proves that the Greeks of Magna
Græcia at any rate made use of cavalry before the rest had attempted
to do so. Also we know that in the year 510 B.C. the Crotonians
destroyed Sybaris entirely.
The Assyrians too, at about this period, evidently had well-appointed
cavalry, for Ezekiel speaks of their being “clothed in blue, captains
and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon
horses,” and goes on to give particulars which, in so far as they
relate to the mode of life in vogue with these desirable young men,
are calculated to shock the susceptibilities of prudish persons, and
to amuse others.
In the light of the Higher Criticism Homer's “Iliad” is believed to
have been written by various hands, and incidentally the Criticism
throws useful light upon the horse in his relation to the history
of the nations known to have flourished in the very early centuries
before Christ.
One need not here describe such steeds as Agamemnon's mare, swift
Æthe, that was given to him by his vassal, Echepolus of Sicylon, and
subsequently driven in the chariot race by Menelaus; or Phallas, the
horse of Heraclios; or the horses of the Pylian breed of which Homer
speaks at length; or Galathe, Ethon, Podarge or any of the other
steeds of which Priam's eldest son, “magnanimous and noble Hector,”
was so justly proud. Also the horses of mythology do not possess great
interest for the majority of modern readers other than classical
scholars.
That Homer himself, however, had sound knowledge of the qualifications
which go to make up what in latter-day English we probably should term
a “finished charioteer” is shown by the following rather well-known
lines that here are translated almost literally:—
“But he who in his chariot and his steeds
Trusts only, wanders here and there
Unsteady, while his coursers loosely rein'd
Roam wide the field; not so the charioteer
Of sound intelligence; he, though he drive
Inferior steeds, looks ever to the goal
While close he clips, not ignorant to check
His coursers at the first, but with tight rein
Ruling his own, and watching those before.”
Menesthus, emphatically one of the finest of the many fine riders
spoken of in the “Iliad,” or, as Homer himself describes him,
“foremost in equestrian fame,” is typical of the horsemen of that
period.
In the “Iliad” too we find what I believe I am right in stating to be
the first direct historical allusion to wagering on horse races. But
the medium current on racecourses in those days was not coin. The odds
apparently were laid in “kitchen utensils”—as a lad with whom I was at
school once construed the line, to his subsequent discomfiture—namely,
cauldrons and tripods.
Such, at least, we are led to infer from the paragraph in the
twenty-third book of the “Iliad,” which, according to William Cowper's
blank verse translation, edited by Robert Southey, runs somewhat as
follows:—
“Come now—a tripod let us wager each,
Or cauldron, and let Agamemnon judge
Whose horses lead, that, losing, thou mayst learn.”
Or more euphoniously, as Lord Derby has it:
“Wilt thou a cauldron or a tripod stake
And Agamemnon, Atreus' son, appoint the umpire
To decide whose steeds are first?”
The cauldrons and tripods referred to were of course of great value,
and, as trophies, highly prized by competitors in the races and other
competitions calling for a display of skill and daring.
There is another allusion in the “Iliad” to the presentation of a
tripod as a great reward for valour. It occurs in the eighth book, and
the passage goes more or less like this:
“Let but the Thunderer and Minerva grant
The pillage of fair Ilium to the Greeks,
And I will give to thy victorious hand,
After my own, the noblest recompense,
A tripod or a chariot with its steeds,
Or some fair captive to partake thy bed.”
I recollect how at school this passage, with several others, used
to be rigorously excluded when Homer was being construed, with the
result that Kelly's famous “Keys to the Classics” used afterwards to
be produced surreptitiously, and the “censored” lines turned carefully
into English.
* * * * *
From what Homer tells us elsewhere, and from additional sources, we
may conclude that of all the races that bred horses and took just
pride in them in the early centuries before Christ the Thracians were
probably the most renowned.
The brilliant horsemanship of “noble Patroclus of equestrian fame,”
the amiable and staunch friend of Achilles, must not be passed
unmentioned; nor the deeds of prowess that are attributed to
Euphorbus, “famous for equestrian skill, for spearmanship, and in the
rapid race past all of equal age”; nor yet the deeds of Hyperenor
whose skill in handling horses may be likened to the skill of Rarey in
our own time.
The following lines from the “Iliad” are of interest here because
they serve to indicate to some extent the style of harness and useless
trappings that must have been in vogue amongst the wealthy in Homer's
day:—
“So Hera, the goddess queen, daughter of great Cronos, went her way
to harness the gold-frontleted steeds; and Hebe quickly put to the
car the curved wheels of bronze, eight spoked, upon their axletree of
iron.”
Then:
“Golden is their felloe, imperishable, and tires of bronze are fitted
thereover, a marvel to look upon; and the naves are of silver, to turn
about on either side. And the body of the car is plaited tight with
gold and silver straps, and two rails run round about it.
“And a silver pole stood out therefrom; upon the end she bound the
fair golden yoke, and set thereon the fair breast-straps of gold, and
Hera led beneath the yoke the horses, fleet of foot, and hungered for
strife and the battle-cry.”
It has been argued that about the time of Homer gold and silver were
deemed to be comparatively of small value, and that therefore the
trappings described were not so costly as one naturally would conclude
they must have been.
Upon this point opinions are about equally divided.
Professor Ridgeway tells us that by comparing the foregoing
description with actual specimens of chariots and horse trappings
that have been found in Egypt we can form an accurate impression
of the appearance that was presented by the original old chariots,
and form also an idea of the way they were put together, while the
plaiting with straps of gold and silver recalls at once the floor of
the Egyptian chariot with its plaited leather meshwork—probably the
forerunner of leather springs.
* * * * *
Though Odysseus and Diomede are known to have mounted their Thracian
horses, we have it on irrefutable evidence that at this period
chariots were still generally used, so that most likely horses were
ridden but seldom.
Indeed the Homeric poems provide us with probably as much authentic
information as to the methods of managing and breeding horses that
were in vogue in Greece, in Thrace, and in Asia Minor in the very
early years before Christ, as any half-dozen other volumes put
together that purport to deal with the ways and customs of a period of
which, when all is said, little enough is known.
Naturally the Thracians had in those days some of the best horses
that could be procured, while those they drove in their war chariots
are said to have been quite unrivalled. That they possessed very
many chariots is proved by Homer's realistic account of the slaying
of Rhesus, the Thracian king, with a dozen or so of his bravest
followers, and the episode in connection with that incident.
Indeed when Odysseus and Diomede had captured Dolon, the Trojan
spy, the latter at once declared that there were “also Thracians,
new-comers, at the furthest point apart from the rest, and amongst
them their king, Rhesus, son of Eioneus,” adding that his were “the
fairest horses that ever I beheld, and the greatest, whiter than snow,
and for speed like the winds. His chariot too is fashioned well with
gold and silver, and golden is his armour that he brought with him,
marvellous, a wonder to behold.”
Apparently most of the horses bred by the Acheans at about this time
were either dun-coloured or dapple. _Xanthos_ signifies Dun, and
_balios_ dapple; but then we have to remember that _xanthos_ was used
frequently to denote also the colour of gold.
Achilles' steeds were mostly dapple-dun, and they had more or less
heavy manes. They belonged most likely to the breed so popular among
the Sigynnæ of central Europe about the fifth century B.C. Certainly
Homer makes it plain that in the early Iron Age horses were bred in
many parts of Greece; that, though driving was a common practice,
riding was indulged in but rarely; that cavalry in battle was quite
unknown; and lastly that though the heroes, as they were called,
fought mainly in chariots, the great body of the army consisted of
well-trained infantry.
As time went on horsemanship apparently came to be appreciated more
and more, for we read that about the year 648 B.C.—the thirty-third
Olympiad—“a race for full-grown riding horses” was inaugurated in
addition to the chariot races, and there appear to have been plenty
of entries. Then though the war chariot had disappeared almost
completely, before the outbreak of the Persian Wars, its place was not
taken by well-appointed and well-equipped cavalry until some years
later.
* * * * *
Though little attention need be paid to the Greek legend that Pegasus
was the first horse ever ridden—a legend not mentioned in Homer—it
nevertheless is interesting to know that this historic animal was
supposed to have been foaled in the Bronze Age, and in Libya. That
naturally would have been prior to the arrival of the fair-haired
Acheans from Central Europe, so one need not be astonished, as several
writers obviously are, at finding that when these large-limbed Acheans
first appeared the Greeks already knew how to ride.
At the same time they seldom did ride their dun-coloured little cobs,
preferring, apparently, to drive them in pairs in chariots. That the
Libyans were finished horsemen centuries before the Greeks learnt how
to ride has already been mentioned; though whether or no the Greeks
were first taught horsemanship by the Libyans is a question still
debated by students of ancient history.
* * * * *
In the north-west of Asia Minor the Libyans had dark bay horses with a
white star upon the forehead about the year 1000 B.C., and a hundred
or so years later horses of this breed were largely imported into
various parts of Asia Minor.
Indeed some of the more enthusiastic of the modern historians who have
studied closely the descent of horses from generation to generation
persist in maintaining that even in Great Britain and Ireland modern
horses with this white star upon the forehead have in their veins some
Libyan blood! How this can well be when we know almost without doubt
that until towards the close of the Bronze or the beginning of the
Iron Age the horse was hardly made use of at all by the inhabitants
of these islands, I leave it to more learned men to decide among
themselves.
It is remarkable that whereas from very early times horses of
Asiatic-European breeds have proved more or less unmanageable except
when bitted, the horses of Libya are known to have been controlled
quite easily by nosebands only. Some of the nosebands, or rather
halters, used in early times were made of plaited straw, and to-day
halters of almost similar make and pattern are still employed in
certain of the more remote parts of Ireland.
The bits found most suitable for Asiatic-European horses were made
first of all of horn, then chiefly of bone, later of copper, and
finally of bronze and iron. Homer, in his “Iliad,” alludes to bits of
bronze placed between the horse's jaws, and this probably is one of
the first instances of literary evidence we have that a thousand years
before Christ's birth horses were controlled by bits.
Of course Xenophon has much to say upon the question of bits and
bitting, and his capital treatise on horsemanship throws valuable
light also upon the horse in its relation to the history of that
epoch, as we shall see. Upon one point in particular in this
connection Xenophon lays great stress. He maintains it to be
imperative that every horseman shall possess two bits for his horse or
horses, one with links of moderate size, and one with sharp and heavy
links, bidding us at the same time remember that “whatever sorts of
bits be used, they should be flexible, for where a horse seizes a
rigid bit he has the whole of it fast between his teeth ... but the
other sort is similar to a chain, for whatever part of it be taken
hold of, that part alone remains unbent—the rest hangs.”
So that apparently bits single- and double-jointed, and therefore
flexible, were used in the early Iron Age by the people of
North-Western Europe.
[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN AMAZONS AND ATTIC HEROES. FOURTH
CENTURY, B.C. _From a Greek vase in the British Museum_]
* * * * *
By the beginning of the fourth century B.C. many, though not all, of
the Greek and the Macedonian mounted soldiers had come to consider
some sort of covering for the horse's back to be necessary to their
equipment; and so long previously as the eighth century B.C. horse
cloths had been adopted by the Assyrians, a people sufficiently wise
to realise from the first that a horse with something on his back is
more comfortable to sit upon than one without.
These early races probably would have employed cavalry several
centuries sooner than they eventually did, but for the difficulty they
experienced in arming themselves to their complete satisfaction when
mounted. Such peoples, for instance, as the Egyptians, the Assyrians,
and the Greeks of the Mycenean or Bronze Age, habitually protected
themselves with the aid of large and oblong shields when they fought
on foot, but on horseback these shields proved cumbersome. Possibly
that was the reason that when the Normans and other Teutonic races
began to fight on horseback they so soon discarded their round and
clumsy shields in favour of a shield broad at the top and tapering
downward, the shape of shield we see on the Bayeux tapestry.
With regard to the war chariots in use before this time, we may be
quite sure that even the very first employed had not wheels cut from
solid blocks as some are represented as having, though possibly the
most primitive of the agricultural chariots were so constructed.
For the rest, the early chariots of the Egyptians of the eighteenth
dynasty, and in use in India under the Vedic Aryans, and amongst the
Hittites, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Libyans, the Mycenean
Greeks, the Homeric Acheans, the Gauls of Northern Italy and in Gaul
itself; also among the ancient Britons and the early Irish, had wheels
with a hub, a felloe, and spokes, the latter from four to twelve in
number.
And inasmuch as this information bears indirectly upon the horse in
his relation to early historical records, it is not out of place here.
To return again to the question of harness, we have it on the
authority of Herodotus that “the Greeks learned from the Libyans to
yoke four horses to a chariot,” and we know already that before the
time of Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century B.C., the Greeks had
found Libyans riding astride horses and driving sometimes two-horse
and occasionally four-horse chariots. At that time—about 632 B.C.—the
Greeks were planting Cyrene.
White horses were in ancient days at all times largely in demand
among the people of the various nations; and while Pindar alludes
incidentally to white horses being ridden by the Thessalians in his
time, Sophocles, writing half-a-century or so later, describes a
Thessalian chariot that was drawn by white horses.
One of the regions in which white horses were bred, probably in great
numbers, was the banks of the Caspian where the River Bug flows from
it, for Herodotus states clearly that “around a great lake from which
the River Hypanis (called now the Bug) issued, there grazed wild
white horses.” Those particular animals possibly may have been in
reality only tarpans in their winter coats, and not actually horses.
The point has been argued more than once, but has never been quite
settled. A white horse famous towards the close of the fifth or early
in the fourth century was Kantake, of the notorious Prince Gautama,
but nothing need be said about it here, trustworthy records being
unprocurable.
The great cities of Magna Græcia—Sybaris, Tarentum, Croton, and so
on—obviously had formidable cavalry in the sixth century B.C.; Sicily
and Southern Italy being almost equally renowned for the riding horses
obtainable there. The statagem to which the Crotonians had recourse in
510 B.C. to bring about the fall of Sybaris has been described, and it
is said that for some years prior to the destruction of the city some
five or six thousand of the inhabitants were in the habit of riding in
procession on horseback upon the occasions of the great festivals held
there.