HOMER'S "ILIAD" 9 



killed during the engagement, to their owners' 

 dismay and grief." 



This strange story may be in a measure 

 exaggerated, but probably it is based on truth, 

 in which case it proves that the Greeks of Magna 

 Graecia at any rate made use of cavalry before 

 the rest had attempted to do so. Also we know 

 that in the year 510 B.C. the Crotonians destroyed 

 Sybaris entirely. 



The Assyrians too, at about this period, evi- 

 dently had well-appointed cavalry, for Ezekiel 

 speaks of their being "clothed in blue, captains 

 and rulers, all of them desirable young men, 

 horsemen riding upon horses," and goes on to 

 give particulars which, in so far as they relate to 

 the mode of life in vogue with these desirable 

 young men, are calculated to shock the suscepti- 

 bilities of prudish persons, and to amuse others. 



In the light of the Higher Criticism Homer's 

 " Iliad " is believed to have been written by 

 various hands, and incidentally the Criticism 

 throws useful light upon the horse in his rela- 

 tion to the history of the nations known to have 

 flourished in the very early centuries before Christ. 

 One need not here describe such steeds as 

 Agamemnon's mare, swift ^Ethe, that was given 

 to him by his vassal, Echepolus of Sicylon, and 



