THE WILD HORSE. 169 



profound knowledge of the Latin traditions ; and if 

 their race of horses had been of late introduction, 

 his judgment would have rejected making it the 

 distinguishing character of the Ardean and Yolscian 

 horse. Since it has continued unimpaired from the 

 beginning of the Roman empire to the present time, 

 there is no reason to reject the belief that it was of 

 sufficient antiquity to belong to the stock of centaur 

 origin, and a companion of the Thraco-Pelasgian 

 colonists, among whom Mares was the first eques- 

 trian in Italy. 



Raphael, we have seen, displays his extensive in- 

 formation when one of these horses is introduced in 

 his Vatican fresco of Attila, and both Titian and 

 Guido have immortalized them in their pictures of 

 Aurora. * 



It is the most southern of all the original wild 

 forms, and probably also the most ancient that 

 invaded China; for on the square and perforated 

 coins of a very ancient dynasty, the figure of a 

 horse bearing the Tangum form is the distinguish- 

 ing token, either of the family or of the value. It 

 is less spirited and smaller in the southern pro- 

 vinces of the empire, and there used for an ambling 

 pony, as may be seen in Chinese paper-hangings, 

 where the cultivation of rice-grounds and the super- 

 intendence of tea-plantations is represented. On 

 our Indian frontier it is the parent stock of the 



* They are noticed by the troubadour poets, and Guillaume 

 de la Ferte, 1221, is figured with a pied horse, in stained glass, 

 at Notre Dame de Chartre's. 



