Ill] 



AND HISTORIC TIMES 



189 



horse with so-called Arab blood, whilst the Turks were probably 

 for the most part mounted on common unimproved Turcoman 

 ponies, although by the sixteenth century the horse known 

 in Europe as the Turk was a fine well-bred animal developed 

 out of the Turcoman pony by continual crossing with Arab 

 blood. In The Stable of Don John of Austria, the 'Turcus' here 

 reproduced (Fig. 60), is included, whilst Thomas Blundeville, 

 writing in 1580, says that the horses which he had seen " come 



FIG. 59. The Horse of Anatolia. 



from Turkey, as well into Italy as hither into England, be 

 indifferent faire to the eie, though not verie great nor strong 

 made, yet verie light and swift in their running and of great 

 courage" (cf. p. 377). 



When we go back to Roman times we find that the 

 Parthians had the best horses in Asia. Strabo 1 says that 

 they were not like the Greek or any other horses "in our 

 parts" (by which he means the countries lying around the 

 eastern Mediterranean) and elsewhere ; he also compares them 

 to the Celtiberian horses of Northern Spain, which were of a grey 



1 524. 



