18 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



times horses of Asiatic- European breeds have 

 proved more or less unmanageable except when 

 bitted, the horses of Libya are known to have 

 been controlled quite easily by nosebands only. 

 Some of the nosebands, or rather halters, used in 

 early times were made of plaited straw, and to- 

 day halters of almost similar make and pattern 

 are still employed in certain of the more remote 

 parts of Ireland. 



The bits found most suitable for Asiatic- 

 European horses were made first of all of horn, 

 then chiefly of bone, later of copper, and finally 

 of bronze and iron. Homer, in his " Iliad, " 

 alludes to bits of bronze placed between the 

 horse's jaws, and this probably is one of the first 

 instances of literary evidence we have that a 

 thousand years before Christ's birth horses were 

 controlled by bits. 



Of course Xenophon has much to say upon 

 the question of bits and bitting, and his capital 

 treatise on horsemanship throws valuable light 

 also upon the horse in its relation to the history 

 of that epoch, as we shall see. Upon one point 

 in particular in this connection Xenophon lays 

 great stress. He maintains it to be imperative 

 that every horseman shall possess two bits for 

 his horse or horses, one with links of moderate 

 size, and one with sharp and heavy links, bidding 

 us at the same time remember that " whatever 

 sorts of bits be used, they should be flexible, for 



