EARLY HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 9 



a gallop and an amble.' The liorsemcn of the present day would decidedly 

 object to both of these things, and that which follows would be a still 

 more serious cause of objection : — ' They were subject to tire upon a lono- 

 march or journey, and then were of a temper which, unless awed and 

 subdued by discipline and exercise, inclined them to obstmacy and rebellion; 

 yet, with all their heat and anger, they wei^e not difficult to be pacified.' 



Both the soldier and the horse were often covered A\'ith armour from 

 head to foot. They adopted much of the tactics of the Parthians in their 

 pretended flight. Even when retreating in eai*nest, they annoyed their 

 pursuers by the continual discharge of their arrows. Arrian gives a 

 curious accou.nt of their manner of riding. They had no bridles, like the 

 Greeks ; but they governed their horses by means of a thong or strap, cut 

 from the raw hide of a bull, and which they bound across their noses. On 

 the inside of this noseband were little pointed pieces of iron, or brass, or 

 ivory, moderately sharp. In the mouth was a small piece of iron, in the 

 form of a small bar, to which the reins were tied, and with which the 

 noseband was connected. When the reins were pulled, the small teeth on 

 the noseband pinched the horse, and compelled him to obey the will of the 

 rider. The modern caveson was probably derived from this invention. 



It is time to proceed to the early history of the horse in Europe. Many 

 colonies of Egyptians emigrated to Greece. They carried with them the 

 love of the horse, and as many of these noble animals as their ships woiild 

 contain. It would appear that the first colony, about the time of the 

 birth of Moses, landed in Thessaly, in the north of Greece. Their ap- 

 pearance, mounted on horseback, according to the old fable, terrified the 

 native inhabitants, and they fled in all directions, imagining that their 

 country was attacked by a set of monsters, half horse and half man, and 

 they called them Centaui-s. • Such was the origin of the figures which 

 are not unfrequent among the remains of ancient sculpture. 



Another and a more natm-al interpretation offers itself to the mind of 

 the horseman. The Thessahans were the pride of the Grecian cavalry. 

 Before the other provinces of Greece were scarcely acquainted with the 

 name of the horse their subjugation of him was so complete, that, in the 

 language of another poet of far later days, but not inferior to any that 

 Greece ever knew, (Shakspeare, in his exquisite tragedy of ' Hamlet,') 



These gallants 

 Had witchcraft in 't — they grew unto their seat, 

 And to such wondrous doing brought their horse 

 As they had been incorpsed, and denii-natured 

 With the brave beast. 



Hence the origin of the fable and of all the expressive sculptures. Bu 

 cephalus, the favoui-ite war-horse of Alexander, was probably of this breed. 

 We are told by Plutarch that he would permit no one to mount him but his 

 master, and he always knelt down to receive him on his back. Alexander 

 rode him at the battle of the Hydaspes, in which the noble steed received 

 his death- wound. For once he was disobedient to the commands of his 

 master : he hastened from the heat of the fight ; he brought Alexander to 

 a place where he was secure fi-om danger ; he knelt for liim to alight, and 

 then dropped doAvn and died. 



Sixty years afterwards, another colony of Egy]3tians landed in the 

 southern part of Greece, and they introduced the knowledge of the horse 

 in the neighbourhood of Athens. Their leader was called Erichthonius, 

 or the hoi'se-breaker ; and after his death, like the first Centaur, he found 

 a place in the Zodiac under the name of ' The Archer,' Erichthonius 

 likewise occupied a situation among the constellations, and was termed 

 Aiirigcu, or the Charioteer. 



