Slave grooms and horses 419 



paces and their temper. Most mischievous is the recklessness 1 of slaves. 

 When the master is not there, they urge his horses to gallop, using 

 spur as well as whip, in matches of speed with their mates or in fiercely- 

 contested races against outsiders : it never occurs to them to halt or 

 check their mounts. For they give no thought 2 to what is their master's 

 loss, being well content that it falls on him. A careful owner will most 

 strictly forbid such doings, and will only allow his cattle to be handled 

 by suitable grooms who are gentle and understand their management.' 

 We must bear in mind that the horse was not used in agriculture or as 

 an ordinary beast of burden. Horse-breeding was kept up to supply 

 chargers for war, racers for the circus, mounts for men of the wealthier 

 classes in hunting or occasionally for exercise, for solemn processions 

 and such like. When Vegetius treats of a stable or stud of horses, he 

 has in mind the establishment of a gentleman of means, and it is worth 

 noting that such an establishment could be contemplated by a writer 

 of about 400 AD. This harmonizes with the picture of Italian conditions 

 that we get from the letters of Symmachus and other sources. A few 

 rich were very rich, the many poor usually very poor. The carelessness, 

 wastefulness, thievishness, of slaves is a very old story, and in the middle 

 of the fourth century had been bitterly referred to 3 by the emperor 

 Julian. That Vegetius does not advise the owner of these slave grooms 

 to make a vilicus responsible for seeing that his orders are obeyed, is 

 probably due to the rigidly technical character of the treatise : he is 

 not writing on the management of estates. 



1 seroorum impatientia. 



2 neque enim de damno domini cogitant, quod eidem contingcre gratulantiir. 

 8 Julian or at vn p 232 a-b. 



272 



