V] THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUITATION 497 



occur and accordingly we hear little of scythed-chariots in the 

 armies of the civilised peoples of the Mediterranean from this 

 time forth. The war-chariot only lingered on among the more 

 barbarous peoples of the north-west of Europe, and amongst the 

 remote Libyan Phanisii, by the latter of whom also it was 

 now furnished with scythes. 



Riding. When men began to ride regularly on horseback 

 at first they sat simply on the bare back of the steed, which in 

 Asia and Europe, as we have seen, was from the first controlled 

 by some form of bit, though the Libyan used at most but a 

 noseband. The Greeks of the fifth century paid great attention 

 to the shape of the bit, as is made clear by the elaborate 

 directions respecting it given by Xenophon \ 



The Horse-cloth. The first step towards a saddle was 

 naturally some kind of cloth placed on the horse's back for the 

 greater comfort of the rider. The Assyrians had already made 

 this first advance by the eighth century B.C. (Fig. 64), and it 

 was certainly known to the Greek settlers in Egypt by B.C. 600 

 (Fig. 72), whilst it had become a fully recognised part of the 

 equipment of the Greek and Macedonian horse-soldier (Fig. 87) 

 by the beginning of the fourth century B.C., if not earlier. 



The earliest literary testimony is that of Antiphanes 2 , the 

 comic poet, who began to exhibit plays in 387 B.C., and his 

 contemporary Xenophon 3 . The former speaks of "the coverlet 

 for a horse." 



But bare-backed riding was still regularly practised, as we 

 know from the latter writer 4 , and apparently the jockeys in the 

 races at the great festivals of Greece rode bare-backed (Fig. 86), 

 as is the case in Mongolian horse-races held at temple feasts at 

 the present hour (p. 139). 



The cloth known as an ephippion (horse-cover) had come 

 into universal use amongst the Romans by the time of Caesar 

 (cf. p. 114), though the German tribes considered it disgraceful 

 and a mark of laziness to use it, and were always ready, riding 



1 De re equestri, 10, 6. 



2 Meineke, Com. Fragm., in. p. 3, TO t<t>Liriri.ov OTP&/J.O.. 



3 Eq. vii. 5, rb 



4 loc. cit. 



R. H. 



32 



