4 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



In the records of Babylonia it is stated that 

 horses were first employed in the great city about 

 the year 1500 B.C. The Libyans, however, must 

 have broken horses to harness some centuries 

 before this, and indeed learnt to ride them with 

 some skill, for it is proved beyond all doubt that 

 the women of Libya rode horses astride at any 

 rate so far back as the seventeenth century B.C., 

 and that in addition to this horses were at about 

 that time being driven in pairs by the Libyans, to 

 whom even the four-horse chariot cannot have 

 been quite unknown. 



It has not been proved, from what I have been 

 able to ascertain, that in Neolithic times horses 

 were already tamed, but some remains of horses 

 discovered at Walthamstow, in Essex, are said 

 to date back approximately to that period and to 

 indicate for that reason that horses were domesti- 

 cated in the Neolithic Age. 



Evidence does exist, however, that in the 

 Neolithic and Bronze Ages horses of a type that 

 closely resembled that of the horses of the 

 Palaeolithic Age were to be found in several parts 

 of Europe. The Trojans, as most of us know, 

 bred horses very largely indeed, so much so that 

 we read of King Erichthonius, who in the 

 thirteenth century B.C. was in his heyday, that 

 he became " richest of mortal men" and the 

 possessor of " three thousand mares which 



