102 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



Apparently an impression is prevalent amongst 

 historians that the horses of the centuries before 

 the Conquest, and therefore presumably also the 

 horses of the period that preceded the birth of 

 Christ, lived longer than those of later times. 



What can have given rise to this idea it is hard 

 to say, and that the belief most likely is fallacious 

 we are led to infer from the statements of those 

 early writers who state definitely the ages at which 

 their favourite chargers died. 



Yet at least two of our modern historians assert 

 that the horses of the early Greeks and Romans 

 lived to the age of thirty-five or more, upon an 

 average. 



That such misstatement should continue to be 

 handed down is very regrettable ; while equally 

 to be deprecated is the habit common more 

 especially among the younger school of French 

 historians of applying the principles of the 

 higher criticism in cases where such criticism 

 ipso facto cannot hold good, the result being that 

 conclusions are arrived at which in many instances 

 are wholly false. 



To take a single case in point rather a well- 

 known Continental antiquary mentions in his 

 historical essays that during the period approxim- 

 ately between the coming of Christ and the reign 



