ORIGINAL HABITAT OF THE HORSE. 33 



Phoenician merchants and the products of their countries, in which 

 they traded. This catalogue was written five hundred and fifty- 

 eight years before the Christian era, and is very remarkable 

 for its extent and completeness. It not only shows what the 

 Phoenicians carried away to the West, in their "Ships of 

 Tarshish," but also what they brought back for distribution 

 among their customers in Western Asia. I willquote, from 

 the revised version, two or three of the classes of articles 

 enumerated, embracing both import and export trade. Of 

 foreign imports he says: "Tarshish" (Spain and beyond) "was 

 thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; 

 with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares." Of 

 articles for export he says: "They of the house of Togarmah 

 traded for thy wares with horses and war-horses and mules." 

 "Togarmah" here means "Armenia," and this is the only in- 

 stance in which horses are mentioned in the catalogue. I will 

 give another quotation, not because it is- conclusive in itself, but 

 because it is confirmatory of Strabo's statement that there were 

 no horses in Arabia in his day. He says: "Arabia and all the 

 princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of thy hand; in lambs, 

 and rams, and goats, in these were they thy merchants." Other 

 products from more southern portions of Arabia are enumerated, 

 but no horses. This is the initial step toward the general dis- 

 tribution of horses, by the Phoenician merchants, which will be 

 developed in the next chapter. 



In speaking of Media (Vol. II., p. 265), Strabo says: "The 

 country is peculiarly adapted, as well as Armenia, to the breed- 

 ing of horses." Of one district not far from the Caspian he re- 

 marks: "Here, it is said, fifty thousand mares were pastured in 

 the time of the Persians, and were the king's stud. The Nes- 

 saean horses, the best and the largest in the king's province, 

 were of this breed, according to some writers, but according to 

 others they were from Armenia." Again he says: "Cappadocia 

 paid to the Persians, yearly, in addition to a tribute in silver, 

 one thousand five hundred horses, two thousand mules, and fifty 

 thousand sheep, and the Medes contributed nearly double this 

 amount." 



Of Armenia he says, p. 271: "The country is so well adapted, 

 being nothing inferior in this respect to Media, for breeding horses 

 that the race of Nessaean horses, which the king of Persia used, 



