130 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



with copper breastplates, their bridles, bits, and trappings 

 being adorned with gold. They did not use either iron or 

 silver, as these metals are not found in their country, whilst 

 copper and gold were to be had in abundance. Plainly, then, 

 in the fifth century B.C. their culture was much the same as it 

 was at the beginning of the Christian era, except that by that 

 date iron was coming into use. 



The famous Nicopol vase (Fig. 52) and the coins of Olbia 

 probably offer us fairly accurate representations of the Scythian 

 and Sarmatian horses in the fourth century B.C. Both vase^ 

 and coins are probably the work of Greeks living in the Greek 

 towns of Southern Russia, such as Olbia and Pantacapaeum 

 {Kertch). The vase was found in 1863 in a tumulus at 

 Tchertomlitsk near Nicopol (government of Ekaterinoslav) with 

 many Scythian antiquities. The frieze on the vase shows that 

 it was made for a wealthy Scythian by an artist who had a 

 complete knowledge of the customs of the country. The scene 

 is laid in the steppe ; in one place we see a young mare, and 

 near her four Scj'thians, two old, two young and beardless ; in 

 another two horses moving quietly, whilst two others have just 

 been lassoed by two grooms, who are bending down in the 

 effort to restrain their captives : on the left is a groom lifting 

 up the left fore-leg of a horse with one hand, and grasping the 

 bit with his other ; on the right is a Scythian putting hobbles 

 on the fore-feet of a horse, which is standing quietly. It has 

 been remarked that this last horse is the only one of those 

 pourtrayed which resembles in type the Kirghis horses of 

 modern times. The large heads and thick shaggy manes of the 

 majority show them to be closely related to the little horses 

 of the Sigynnae of central Europe. It is possible that those 

 represented w^ith hog manes may be another breed, but it is far 

 more likely that the hogged manes are simply due to individual 

 taste in the owner or the artist. In Pliny's"^ time it was believed 

 that a mare was rendered less erotic by hogging her mane. 



1 Antiquites de la Russie meridionale, by Prof. Kondakof, Count J. Tolstoi, 

 and M. S. Keinach (Paris, 1891), pp. 88, 295 — 8 (from which my figure is 

 copied). 



- H. N. VIII. 164 : " equarum Ubido extinguitur iuba tonsa." 



