16 FOREIGN BREEDS OF HORSES. 



open and large, his ears placed near each other, his mane strong and full, his 

 chest broad, his shoulders flat and sloping backward, his barrel round and com- 

 pact, his loins broad and strong, his tail full and bushy, his legs strait and even, 

 his knees broad and well knit, his hoofs hard and tough, and his veins large and 

 swelling over all his body *." 



Virgil, eighty or ninety years afterwards, gives some interesting accounts of 

 the horse, and particularly when taken from the pursuits of war and employed 

 in the peaceful service of agriculture. 



A few years after him followed Columella, who, in a work devoted exclusively 

 to agriculture, treats at length of the management of the horse and of many of 

 his diseases. 



To him succeeded Palladius on agriculture, the management of the vineyard, 

 and the apiary, &c. ; and he also describes at considerable length the treatment 

 and the diseases of the horse. 



About the same time, or somewhat before, the Roman emperors being con- 

 tinually engaged in foreign wars, and in many of these expeditions the cavalry 

 forming a most effective division of the army, veterinary surgeons were appointed 

 to each of the legions. The horse and his management and diseases were then 

 for the first time systematically studied. The works, or extracts from the 

 works of a few of them are preserved. There is, however, little in them that 

 is valuable. 



About the middle of the fourth century a volume of a different character on 

 the veterinary art was written by Vegetius, who appears to have been attached 

 to the army, but in what situation is unknown. His work, with all its errors, 

 is truly valuable as a collection of the best remarks that had been written on 

 veterinary matters, from the earliest age to his day, and including extracts from 

 the works of Chiron and Hippocrates, which would otherwise have been lost. 

 The history of the symptoms of various diseases is singularly correct, but the 

 mode of treatment reflects little credit on the veterinary acquirements of the 

 author or the age in which he lived. 



Almost in his time the irruptions of the Goths commenced, and shortly after 

 every record of science was swept away in both the eastern and the western 

 empires. 



CHAPTER II. 

 THE FOREIGN BREEDS OF HORSES. 



WE commence again with that country connected with which we have the 

 earliest history of the horse. 



THE EGYPTIAN HORSES. 



Notwithstanding the flattering reports of travellers, and the assertion of Dr. 

 Shaw that the Egyptian horses are preferable to the Barbary ones in size, beauty, 

 and goodness, the modern horse of this country had little to recommend him. 

 The despotism under which the inhabitants groaned altogether discouraged the 

 rearing of a valuable breed, for their possession was completely at the mercy of 

 their Turkish oppressors, and the choicest of their animals were often taken from 

 them without the slightest remuneration for the wrong. It was therefore a 



* Berenger, p. 82. 



