u 



Xerxes, according to Herodotus, which induces an opinion, that their 

 eminence at least, in horsemanship, was of a subsequent date. 



In Armenia and Media, the Horses Avere of larger size and Avell 

 adapted to the chariot. The Scythians were famous to a proverb, for 

 their attachment to the Horse, of which they possessed an excellent 

 and hardy breed. The Sarmatians, both Asiatic and European, or 

 the modern Polanders, bred vast numbers of Horses, which they used 

 both in the chace and in war. Greece, and the surrounding nations, 

 became eminent for the excellence and numbers of their Horses, in a 

 progress commensurate with their civilization ; and of those countries, 

 Cappadocia and Thcssaly, seem to ha^e taken the lead, the Cappado- 

 cian Horses being celebrated among the ancients, both by poets and 

 historians, as having a just title to precedence above the whole species; 

 A\ hilst it was averred of the Thessalian, that they were the noblest 

 among Horses, as among women, the Lacedemonians were the most 

 beautiful. Theocritus, the poet, sings ^^ ith raptures of a cypress tree 

 in a garden, and a Thessalian tlorse drawing a chariot, as the most 

 graceful and deliglitful objects. Dalmatia had also acquired a valu- 

 able breed ot Horses, and the original southern breeds, both Asiatic 

 and African, extended themselves, in the early ages, as far towards the 

 north as Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the only countries in Europe pro- 

 bably, where the southern breeds have been long naturalized to any 

 considerable extent. 



Agragas or Agrigentum, a town of ancient Sicily, was a mart for 

 Horses of high reputation among the Romans. But Calpe, in Spain, 

 was still of higher repute on the same account. Calpe was situated on 

 a hill, in the farthest extremity of Spain, bounded by the Streights of 

 Gibraltar, and opposite Abi/la on the Barbary shore. The Horses there 

 bred, were held by the ancients to be of the finest and most generous 

 si)ecies, from which are descended the Gennets of Spain, so highly ce- 

 lebrated in modern times. From both ancient and modern descrip- 

 tions of this breed, they were doubtless originally derived from the 

 opposite coast of Barbary, bearing the most striking characteristics of 

 the Barb, \\\t\\ a certain degree of variation from change of soil, and 



probably 



