1883.] THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 217 



hundred representations of horses. We have in the Art School of 

 Yale College casts of the better portions of these bas-reliefs, and 

 also other Greek representations of this animal. There are figures 

 of twenty-eight horses, all date earlier than 300 B. C, and some 

 are doubtless by Phydias himself, and represent the best days of 

 Grecian art. They all represent small, tough, "wiry" breeds, all 

 are dish-faced like the modern Oriental breeds, and all except one 

 are roached. This is also essentially the character of the horses 

 represented by ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician art. 

 The art is often very rude, but the breeds represented are essen- 

 tially the same type. 



Of more interest in this connection are the attitudes of these 

 ancient animals. Of the more than 200 horses sculptured by 

 Phidias on the famous frieze of the Parthenon, there is a great 

 variety of attitudes, but not one is represented as trotting. Youatt, 

 in speaking of these figures says (p. 211, Ed. 1831), "only four 

 are represented trotting, and these are wrongly made in that both 

 legs on the same side of the horse are raised at once." It seems 

 to me much more probable that the old Greek sculptors were right; 

 they studied their subjects faithfully and most probably intended 

 to represent ambling (or as we say pacing) horses. The horses of 

 ancient sculpture are almost universally in this attitude if not 

 represented as rearing, galloping, or prancing. In the famous 

 Cesnola collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New 

 York, the horses on the old sarcophagi, dating six or eight centu- 

 turies B. C, are all in pacing attitudes. In the Museum of Fine 

 Arts in Boston, there are many Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, 

 Greek, and Roman representations of horses; none are trotting, 

 but many are in ambling attitudes. 



The same thing is shown on numerous coins and medallions to be 

 found in collections. Modern artists have told us that this posi- 

 tion which I have called the ambling attitude (the two legs of the 

 same side moving together, or in the same relative position if at 

 rest), was a mannerism of ancient art. In a sense this is doubtless 

 true, because other animals are sometimes (not always) shown in 

 the same attitude, but, it seems to me, that this very mannerism 

 was founded on the fact that in those early times trotters were 

 despised and ambling horses more or less used, and that the prefera- 

 ble animals were represented in art. When we remember that 

 the ancients rode without stirrups, we need not wonder that they 



