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
Virgil, whose famous “Georgics” was published about the year 29 B.C.,
incidentally shows how close the connection was that in his time
existed between men and their horses—that is, in so far as the former
would probably have gained comparatively few victories and made but
little headway in civilisation had they not been materially helped by
“man's friend and ally, the horse.”
According to Virgil, in the years just before Christ the colour
least liked in horses intended for work was white. “Yellow” also was
objected to, the prevalent belief being that white or dun horses
must _ipso facto_ be of weak constitution. White markings were
not disliked, however, and we read that Virgil's Roman youth rode
“a Thracian steed of two colours,” it had a white fore foot and a
forehead with a white patch. The charger ridden by Turnus was also a
Thracian horse, with markings somewhat similar.
The following description in the third book of Virgil's “Georgics”
gives us most likely an approximate idea of some points that were
looked for in a good horse in the last century B.C.:—
“Choose with like care the courser's generous breed,
And from his birth prepare the parent steed.
His colour mark, select the glossy bay,
And to the white or dun prefer the grey.
As yet a colt he stalks with lofty pace,
And balances his limbs with flexile grace:
First leads the way, the threatening torrent braves,
And dares the unknown arch that spans the waves.
Light on his airy crest his slender head,
His belly short, his loins luxuriant spread:
Muscle on muscle knots his brawny breast,
No fear alarms him, nor vain shouts molest.
But at the clash of arms, his ear afar
Drinks the deep sound, and vibrates to the war:
Flames from each nostril roll in gathered stream,
His quivering limbs with restless motion gleam,
O'er his right shoulder, floating full and fair,
Sweeps his thick mane, and spreads its pomp of hair:
Swift works his double spine, and earth around
Rings to his solid hoof that wears the ground.”
Though chariots were still in use among the Belgic tribes who
inhabited the south-eastern portion of the island when, in 55 B.C.,
Cæsar invaded Britain, cavalry must have been coming into vogue with
them, for we read that “no sooner were these tribes warned to be
prepared for Cæsar's contemplated invasion than they sent forward
cavalry and charioteers, which formed their chief arm in warfare.”
The people of North Britain, however, still paid but little attention
to the advice of the more intelligent among their chiefs that
cavalry ought to be adopted and chariots entirely discarded, the
principle of ultra-conservatism which remains one of the most marked
characteristics of the British nation at the present day being
apparently in force even in Cæsar's time.
By this period the Gauls, as Cæsar soon found out, had become a nation
composed almost wholly of knights. Yet whether the aboriginal horse of
the first yeomanry of Kent that met Cæsar upon his landing belonged to
the breed believed to have been imported by the Celts or Germans, or
whether they were descendants of the horses known to have been largely
bred when Hannibal's warlike expeditions into Spain, Gaul and Italy
were over, is not known.
Of interest it is to be told that the men who invaded this country
under the banner of the White Horse greatly valued the particular
breed of horses they found here, and that in consequence their
descendants in later centuries cut upon the chalk cliffs of the
Berkshire downs near Ilsley and Wantage the rough figures of horses
that remain there to this day.
We have it on the authority of several of the most trustworthy of
our early historians that by about the end of the third century B.C.,
at latest, the Gauls of northern Italy had become a race of horsemen;
that by about the middle of the second century B.C. the majority of
the Transalpine Gauls had done the same; and that by Cæsar's time even
the Belgic tribes of the Continent had practically abandoned the war
chariot that the Romans had deemed so helpful.
Apparently the horses employed by the Roman warriors were of a better
stamp than those which belonged to the Gauls of Northern Italy.
It is well known that Cæsar's opinion of the value of chariots in war
was, to say the least, rather inflated. His description of the action
of war chariots during an engagement is of itself almost sufficient to
prove this.
“At the first onset,” he writes, “they [the warriors] drove the cars
in all directions, hurled their javelins, and by the din and clatter
of horses and wheels commonly threw the ranks of the enemy into
disorder.
“Then, making their way amongst the squadrons of the enemy's cavalry,
they leaped down from the chariots and fought on foot.
“Little by little the charioteers withdrew out of the fight and placed
their chariots in such a way that if they were hard pressed by the
enemy they could readily retreat to their own side.
“Thus in battle they afforded the mobility of cavalry, and the
steadiness of infantry.
“Daily practice enabled them to pull up their horses when in full
speed on a slope or steep declivity, to check or turn them in a narrow
space, to run out on the pole and stand on the yoke, and to get nimbly
back again into the chariot.”
All of which sounds simple and delightful. In practice, however,
it did not often “work out.” For too frequently the wheels of the
chariots became clogged, sometimes they jammed in the wheels of other
chariots—not necessarily the enemy's—and frequently the horses, driven
to frenzy by pain and terror, stampeded on all sides.
Therefore the “steadiness of infantry,” of which Cæsar talks so
glibly, must in many instances have existed purely in his imagination,
and there can be little doubt that the warriors, carried away _nolens
volens_ by their frenzied horses, often “retreated readily to their
own side” long before the enemy pressed them to do so, a regrettable
incident which Cæsar passes over with perfunctory comment. And perhaps
he is not to be found fault with for doing this, seeing that similar
tactics have been indulged in by many of the most successful of our
military strategists of modern times.
Probably by Cæsar's time the practice of placing a covering of some
sort upon the backs of “saddle” horses had become quite common, at
least amongst the Romans. Among German tribes the use of any sort
of covering was still not merely laughed to scorn, but deemed to be
actually effeminate, disgraceful and a mark of laziness.
To do the Germans justice, they thoroughly acted up to their theory
in this connection, for never, when riding bareback, did they fear to
attack cavalry equipped with the horsecloth termed an _ephippion_,
which means literally a horse cover.
Referring again to war chariots, Diodorus tells us almost in so many
words that the Celts of Gaul and of Northern Italy went to war in
two-horse chariots down to quite a late date, after the manner of the
Homeric Acheans. These chariots held each two warriors, or a warrior
and a charioteer. One of the occupants first hurled a spear at the
enemy and then quickly alighted to finish the attack on foot; the
other occupant managed the car.
Though Horace himself was not a practical horseman, the views which he
expressed upon the subject of horses and of horsemanship are for the
most part admirable. In common with Xenophon he deemed good hoofs to
be an essential. Listen to the following rather amusing though at the
same time quite sensible observations uttered by Horace in one of his
famous “Satires”:—
“Swells,” he writes, “when they buy horses, have a way of covering
them up when they look over them, for fear that a handsome shape set
upon tender feet, as often happens, may take in the buyer as he hangs
open-mouthed over fine haunches, small head, and stately neck. And
they are right.”
At this time the ancients did not shoe their horses, though it is
generally believed that the Romans often covered the hoofs of their
mules with a sort of cap made of leather, which they then tied about
the fetlock.
These caps or coverings were named _soleæ_, and in the majority of
cases had a thin plate or sole made of iron. Nero is said to have used
for his 2000 mules plates made of silver instead of iron, and Pliny
declares in his famous “Natural History” that Nero's ridiculous wife,
Poppæa, used plates of gold for the same purpose.
It seems more than likely that caps of this pattern may have been worn
by some at least of the horses of the immortal Ten Thousand, for it
is recorded that during the great retreat an Armenian explained to a
group of Greeks how best to protect their horses' feet when snow lay
thick upon the ground, and the way he recommended was to wrap them up
as described.
In the early history of Ireland we find references. There is an
Irish epic cycle said to be quite one of the oldest known—the cycle
of Cuchulainn—in which the warriors all fight from chariots and do
terrible things. In this respect the poems of the Ossianic cycle
are different, from which it has been inferred that the latter were
written later.
If this was so it helps to bear out the argument that chariots went
steadily out of use as cavalry came more and more into vogue. Various
dates have been assigned to the “Cuchulainn Saga,” but from the
records that exist it seems safe to say that the original poem must
have been written in Pagan times—the events referred to in it are
supposed to have occurred about the first century B.C.—though probably
it was revised and added to in later years.
Indeed it is beyond dispute that as early as the seventh century A.D.
some of these poems were already deemed to be of great antiquity.
Cuchulainn's horses are described at length in “The Wooing of Emer.”
They were “alike in size, beauty, fierceness and speed. Their manes
were long and curly, and they had curling tails. The right-hand horse
was a grey horse, broad in the haunches, fierce, swift and wild; the
other was jet-black, his head firmly knit, and he was broad-hoofed
and slender; long and curly were his mane and tail. Down his broad
forehead hung heavy curls of hair.”
We are further told “that was the one chariot which the host of the
horses of the chariots of Ulster could not follow on account of the
swiftness and speed of the chariot and of the chariot chief who sat in
it.”
These peerless animals were guided by “two firm-plaited yellow reins,”
and presumably the black with “long and curly mane and tail” was of
Spanish or Gaulish blood.
Soon after the coming of Christ, or probably about the year 60 A.D., a
tribe referred to as the Iceni is known to have lived on what is now
called Newmarket Heath, and to have owned horses, apparently in great
numbers.
Tacitus speaks of the Iceni, who must have been a greater and more
powerful people than the majority of modern historians lead us to
infer. Again, it is interesting to note that nearly all the gold
and silver coins of the Iceni bear upon one side the impression
of a horse. Cæsar refers to the Iceni as a race that dwelt in
Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Tacitus
wrote practically to the same effect.
Though horse racing is spoken of incidentally as having been indulged
in early in the Anglo-Saxon era, quite the earliest _bonâ-fide_ horse
races that took place in England, of which we have authentic record,
were those organised about the time of the Emperor Severus Alexander,
or towards the beginning of the third century A.D. The meeting was
held at Netherby, in Yorkshire.
These races were run apparently not long before the assassination
of the ill-starred emperor in 222 by the soldiers whom Maximus had
corrupted. At other stations as well horse races took place during the
Roman occupation, and Carleon, Silchester, Rushborough and Dorchester
are mentioned as being among the localities which had to do with the
very primitive “Turf” of that period.
Perhaps the undeniable superiority of the British thoroughbred over
the horses of other nations to-day may in a measure be due to the time
and attention the Romans of that era devoted to the importation of
horses of Eastern blood. This seems more likely still to be the case
when we remember that the majority of the best of the English mares
were crossed with Arabian stallions in the years that followed, and
that a succession of such stallions was imported throughout the early
and the Middle Ages, and from that time onward right down through
the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as we shall see
presently.
By the beginning of the era of the Saxon kings an Arab steed had
come to be looked upon as a recognised royal gift. According to one
authority, indeed, Boadicea, the intrepid queen who led the Iceni
against the Roman invaders, was greatly attached to her horses.
Most likely she was attached to them, however, only because they
helped her so materially in her raids upon her enemies. To pretend
that “the sturdy queen,” as one historian nicknames her, harboured
anything in the least approaching a sympathetic or a sentimental
affection for any particular horse would be the acme of all that is
grotesque.
Haydn has the misplaced gallantry to allude to Boadicea as “the heroic
queen.” That her good fortune in possessing horses with considerable
staying power enabled her to win her great victory at Verulam is now
common history. Therefore we read with the more interest that “this
relentless queen destroyed London and other places, slaughtering many
Romans, but at last she was overcome near London, by Suetonius, and
she ended by committing suicide.”
In the second century A.D. the Arabs probably had not begun to breed
horses, for at that time we do not hear of Arab horses being held
in the high esteem with which they later came to be regarded by the
British nation.
Yet even before this, or towards the middle of the first century A.D.,
the sport of chariot racing had become immensely popular, and the sums
spent upon organising the races, training the horses that were to be
entered for competition, and in purchasing prizes to be bestowed upon
the victors, may justly be said to have been enormous if we bear in
mind the purchasing value of the coinage of the period.
That the Romans were given to sacrificing horses to their gods,
Pliny the elder has made plain to us. He is said to have written an
exhaustive work upon steeds of a certain stamp, but unfortunately
the book must have been destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79
A.D., when Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried, and some 200,000 human
beings killed, among them Pliny.
As he points out in his “Natural History,” however, the sacrifices
of horses took place frequently, especially upon occasions of public
solemnity, and he mentions that horses to be immolated were not
allowed to be touched even by the Flamen.
Whether or no the Romans habitually sacrificed white horses, after the
manner of the Greeks, Illyrians and Persians, is not stated. They did,
however, harness white horses to their chariots upon these and other
state occasions, and thus we read that when Julius Cæsar returned from
Africa the quadriga in which he drove was, by order of the Senate,
drawn by milk-white steeds.
Tacitus tells us that on some occasions when a distinguished chief
died the dead man's horse was cremated on the funeral pyre beside
its master's body, and we know that the superstitious beliefs of the
Persians were upon a par with those of their Germanic kinsmen in so
far as the immolation of horses was concerned.
In some instances alleged divination of the future was brought about
by the aid of horses. Tacitus himself remarks that it was peculiar to
this people (the Germans) “to seek from horses omens and monitions.”
“Kept at the public expense in these same woods and groves,” he
continues, “are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labour.
These are yoked to a sacred chariot and accompanied by the priests
and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their neighings and
snortings. No species of divination is more to be trusted, not only by
the people and by the nobility, but also by the priests, who regard
themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses as acquainted
with their will.”
Amusing, but probably more or less fictitious, stories of Incitatus,
the notorious horse of the Roman emperor, Caligula, have been handed
down to us. That this beast had the absurd honour conferred upon it of
being elected priest and consul we must believe, and there probably is
truth in the statement that it ate regularly out of an ivory manger
and drank from a golden pail.
[Illustration: CALIGULA ON HORSEBACK. ABOUT 37 A.D.
_From a figure in the British Museum_]
But we must accept with reservation the story that the horse alone had
eighteen attendants in gorgeous apparel or livery to attend to it.
Almost equally fantastic are the tales told of the famous horse that
belonged to the Roman emperor, Verus, in the second century A.D. Celer
by name, it ate nothing but almonds and raisins, and its stable was
a suite of apartments in the emperor's principal palace. In place of
horse clothing it wore a garment of royal purple.
I need hardly repeat that these and similar stories that have been
handed down to us must be received with considerable scepticism.
A description, probably true, of what were deemed in the first century
A.D. to be the best points about a horse, is to be found in the
“Eclogues.” The lines, translated, run somewhat as follows:—
“My beast displays
A deep-set back; a head and neck
That tossing proudly feel no check
From over-bulk; feet fashioned slight,
Thin flanks, and brow of massive height;
While in its narrow horny sheath
A well-turned hoof is bound beneath.”
Towards the middle of the fourth century A.D. the popularity of what
must be described as circus riding would seem to have increased rather
suddenly, and we read that at about this time the Sicilian horses were
nearly as much in demand for public performances and processions as
the Cappadocian and the Spanish. Though such performances must have
been primitive indeed by comparison with even the simpler of the
feats we see performed to-day, they were then deemed marvellous in the
extreme, and people came from far and near to witness them.
This probably was in a measure due to the general love of riding that
prevailed amongst the wealthier classes at that period. Indeed the
possession of a large stud of horses was in many parts of Greece,
and especially in Athens, considered the hall-mark of what we should
term to-day a man of culture, in the same way that the possession
of horses, hounds and hawks was supposed to mark the aristocrat in
Mediæval times.
Thus a man often would be named after the class of horse he owned.
Xanthippus meant “He of the dun horses”; Leucippus, “He of the white
horses”; and Melanippus, “He of the black horses.”
* * * * *
By the close of the fourth century A.D. the Romans apparently had
outgrown their prejudice against the use of saddles, for at about that
time the saddle is referred to with some frequency. Certain it is that
in 380 A.D. the famous cavalrymen of Theodosius were mounted on horses
provided with true saddles—that is to say saddles with a tree, also
with a bow in front and behind.
Generally a cloth or numner was worn beneath saddles, but it is known
that at one time Roman horses suffered from sore backs owing probably
to the way the Roman soldiers sat their horses when saddles first came
into vogue. Soon after this it was that the saddle came to be known as
“the chair,” presumably because of the Latin word _sella_, from which
we have the French noun, _selle_, meaning saddle.
Some famous horses are referred to in the records of the sixth
century, but little is said of their history. Thus we have the Persian
steed of Chosroes, called Shibdiz, a name signifying “fleeter than the
wind.” Apparently he was a famous charger, for we read that he carried
his master safely through several important engagements. Yet he was
used for other purposes.
The story of King Arthur is so closely bound up with fable and fiction
that the truth is difficult to get at. He must have owned many good
horses, however, of which Spumador—a word signifying “the foaming
one”—and the mare Lamri were perhaps the most renowned. There are,
nevertheless, historians who maintain that these horses never actually
existed.
Sir Tristram's charger, Passe Brewell, mentioned in the “History of
King Arthur,” and elsewhere, is another animal around which “a web
of imaginative description,” as one writer terms it has been woven.
Consequently we shall be well advised to pass these fables by without
comment.
* * * * *
In the first half of the sixth century the practice of regularly
shoeing horses apparently came into vogue, for shoes are referred
to in the records of the ways and customs of the famous Emperor
Justinian. It seems certain, however, that the shoes fashioned at
about that period were clumsy in design, also needlessly heavy.
Specimens of them have from time to time been discovered, and it is
said one was found in the tomb of King Childeric, the date of whose
death is placed so far back as 460 A.D.
Though Tacitus, who wrote between 80 and 116 A.D., does not allude to
the horses of the Swedes, it is certain that about the sixth century
A.D. the Swedes had become not only a race of fine horsemen, but
owners of magnificent horses. Indeed in 550 A.D., or thereabouts,
Jornandes went so far as to compare them favourably with the race of
Thuringians.
Probably it was in a measure owing to the intense devotion of the
Swedish king, Adhils, to horses and to all that appertained to them
that the Swedish nation became so renowned for their horses and their
horsemanship. Then, though the Arabs had no horses at the beginning of
the Christian era, they probably were breeding them in great numbers
by the beginning of the sixth century A.D., for it was due mainly to
a quarrel at about that time over a famous horse named Dahis that two
formidable tribes entered into a deadly and long-drawn-out struggle.
At about this period the Romans began to pay almost fastidious
attention to the colour of their horses. The colour most preferred for
a war horse was dark brown, chestnut, or bay, with a white blaze up
the face, or a white patch or star upon the forehead. Light-coloured
horses were avoided as much as possible, except when the animals were
needed for processions, and so forth.
A graphic description is given of a fierce combat between
approximately 1000 of Justinian's cavalry, led by the renowned
general, Belisarius, and an equal number of Goths.
The latter, determined to enter Rome, had crossed the Tiber, when the
column of Belisarius came upon them suddenly.
The engagement began at once.
We are told that “Belisarius himself fought like a common soldier,” as
the bravest of the chiefs of that period sometimes did. He was astride
one of his favourite and best-trained chargers, a horse described as
having “all his body dark-coloured, but his face pure white from the
top of the head to the nose.”
An animal so marked was termed by the Greeks _phalios_, and by the
barbarians _balas_, words signifying “bald.” While the battle was in
progress a number of Belisarius' soldiers left his ranks and joined
the Goths'. Thus it came about that suddenly Belisarius heard shouts
from the enemy's lines, and the cries distinctly audible:
“Belisarius rides the bald-faced horse! Strike him! Slay it!”
And most likely the bald-faced horse and his gallant rider would have
been slaughtered had Belisarius' bodyguard not hastened to rally round
him and eventually succeeded in beating off his assailants, many of
whom, earlier in the day, had fought beside him.