458 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



inanship. The finest horses of Greece and Thessaly, and even 

 neighboring countries, competed there, and the athletes and 

 boxers of the earlier times were wholly superseded by the gen- 

 eral interest in the more powerful animal, the horse. Orators, 

 poets, sculptors, and painters eulogized and extolled his power 

 and form, by eloquence, poetry, and art. When a nation should 

 in a short century become entranced with admiration of the 

 horse, his improvement must be marked. The Greek ideal of 

 the horse impressed itself on all the nations brought under the 

 influence of Greek civilization. 



The Olympian Races Lead to Improved Breed- 

 ing. If we consider the rank the Olympic games had attained, 

 while only athletes appeared in the games, and then reflect 

 that when the improvement of horses in Greece had become of 

 so grand proportions that princes and kings and men of highest 

 rank and wealth expended fortunes in obtaining and fitting 

 their horses for these contests, we may get a partial view of 

 the esteem in which breeding of good horses was held in 

 Greece. Homer has many examples wherein princes, heroes, 

 and great men distinguished themselves in the handling of 

 horses and the chariot. 



The owners were persons of considerable rank. Kings 

 themselves aspired to the glory of the victor at Olympian races, 

 and considered that the Olympic palm added new dignity to the 

 splendors of a throne. Gelon and Hiero, kings of Syracuse, and 

 later Dionysius, were among the competitors. In the Electro, of 

 Sophocles we have a vivid description of a chariot-race run by 

 ten competitors. In the twelfth and last round, Orestes, having 

 only one antagonist left the rest having been thrown out 

 broke a wheel against the boundary, and was dragged by his 

 horses and torn in pieces. Philip was equally delighted by 

 three couriers bringing him advices at the same time ; first, that 

 the Illyrians had been defeated by his general Palermo; second, 

 that he had won the prize at a horse-race in the Olympic 

 games; and third, that his queen was delivered of a son. When 

 Hiero sent horses to these races he caused a magnificent pavil- 

 ion to be erected for them. History tells us that no one ever 



