3 2 THE ART AND HISTORY 



during that long ficge, made ufe of chariots only ; for 

 it is not known; that they had any bodies of troops 

 v;hich ferved on horfcback : nor does it appear on 

 the other hand, from any writer of antiquity, why 

 chariots were preferred : and although it is but candid 

 to acknowledge that they were, and although the me- 

 thod of fighting on horfeback might at that time be 

 difufed ; yet, it does not follow, that the art of riding 

 and dreiling horfes, in its various branches, for^battle, 

 hunting, or exhibitions of pomp and pleafure, was not 

 known before that memorable cEra. 



It has been already obfervcd, that it is conjedlured, 

 that the colonies which came from Phoenicia and 

 Egypt, are fuppofed to have brought with them the 

 art of riding into Greece ; and it is likewife pro- 

 bable that the Grecians are not only indebted to them 

 for their knowledge of equitation, but likewife for 

 the animal which is the fubjeft of it; it being fuf- 

 pefted, that the horfe was not originally a native of 

 Greece, but tranfplanted thither from other parts. 

 Herodotus * tells us, that the Greeks learned to couple 

 horfes in a chariot from the Africans (Lybians) ; and 

 Pliny f the naturalift fays, that the Greeks compofed 

 no treatifes or natural hiftory of the horfe, becaufe 

 their country did not originally produce any, and they 

 knew nothing of them in their wild ftate ; de egui/ens 

 mji fcripferunt Graci, 



* In Melpom. •\ Lib. I. 



Let 



