OF FARRIERY. 



331 



femiliar, yet far more beneficial purposes of 

 draught in our streets, and husbandry in our 

 fields. A modern reader, therefore, must 

 enter somewhat into the sentiments and feel- 

 ings of antiquity, in order to perceive the 

 beauty or propriety of Theocritus's comparison 

 of Helen to a Horse, or of Solomon's likening 

 his love " to a company of Horses in Pha- 

 roah's chariots." The hght in which the 

 Horse is thus considered as an ornament of 

 royalty, or an appendage of war, not only 

 ornamental, but efficient, is explanatory of 

 many passages, not only in the Old Testa- 

 ment, but in the Greek and Latin Classics. In 

 the Psalms of David, 



" A Horse for preservation is 

 But a deceitful thing." — Psalra xsxiii. 17. 



And in Eccles. x. 7, " I have seen servants on 

 Horses." In Deuteronomy, chap. xvii. 16, 

 Moses forbids the Israelites, in the event of 

 tlieir electing from among themselves a king, 

 to allow liim " to multiply to himself Horses," 

 and thereby foster a lust of dominion and bel- 

 ligerent propensities, at the same time also 

 creating, what the Lawgiver wished much to 

 prevent, too frequent a communication with 

 Egypt. Egypt was undoubtedly, in the most 

 early times, tlie great breeder of Horses : the 

 Old Testament proves it by many references. 

 At Jacob's funeral in Judea, there came forth 

 from Egypt " chariots and horsemen a very 

 great company." The Hebrews were pursued 

 into the Red Sea by Egyptian Horsemen ; 

 Horse and rider were there overwhelmed. So- 

 lomon, several centuries afterwards, obtained 

 all his Horses from Egypt. With this testi- 

 mony concurs the account given by the Greek 

 writers; according to them, Sesostris (or Ses- 

 onchosis, as others write his name,) was the 



first who taught meo to tame Horses and 

 to ride them. In Solomon's days the price of 

 a single Horse from Egypt was loO shekels, 

 which according to Bishop Cumberland's cal- 

 culation of the shekel*, is about 111. lOs. of 

 our money ; a great sum in those times. In 

 the days of Xenophon, 600 years later than 

 Solomon, the price of a good Horse was about 

 50 danks, or 271. 12*.; at least such was the 

 price paid by Sentlies, the Thracian, to Xeno- 

 phon, for the steed whereon he rode during 

 his retreat from Babylon. Next after the 

 Egyptians, the Assyrians became the cele- 

 brated cavaliers of the ancient world. These 

 people are repeatedly alluded to by the Jewish 

 prophets, not only as excelling in the beauty 

 of their Horses and skill of their Horsemen, 

 but also in all the showy apparatus of eques- 

 trian garniture. Their proficiency, however, 

 in this branch of the military art, took place 

 long after the Egyptians had invented and 

 brought it to some degree of perfection, which 

 the Medes, Assyrians, and Persians, possess- 

 ing more gold and silver, from their more 

 enlarged empires, decked and bespangled 

 more with blue, with purple, and with gold, 

 " clothing their Horsemen most gorgeously." 

 Persia became latterly mo.st renowned for its 

 Horse-riding. Xenophon declares that, before 

 the age of Cyrus, Persia had, from its want of 

 wealth, or the mountainous character of its 

 soil, no Horses ; but that, after his time, from 

 the personal example, and encouragements, 

 and recommendations of their king, every man 

 in Persia rode on horseback : so much so, in- 

 deed, that it is understood that the very name 



* If we take Xenophon's valuation of the shekel, as con- 

 taining seven and a half aboii, as stated in Lib. I. of hi« 

 Expedition of Cjtus, it makes the price much less, abou^ 

 6/. is. 



4 M 



