CHAPTER II 



Increasing interest in horses — Herodotus ; Thucydides ; war 

 chariots of the Persians — Horses represented on coinage — Wooden 

 horse of Troy — The Parthenon frieze ; Greek art — Plato ; white 

 horses — The procession of Xerxes ; horses and men sacrificed — 

 The horse of Darius — Horse racing introduced among the 

 Romans — Xenophon and Simo — Early horseshoes, bits and 

 bitting ; ancient methods of mounting 



A S we gradually approach the time of Christ 



^ we find increasing interest being taken in 



horses by the kings and great chiefs of different 



countries, for the value of cavalry in war was now 



quickly becoming manifest. 



In the early days of the Homeric or Iron Age 

 the Celts of Noricum and the Danube, though 

 still retaining chariots, had begun to ride on 

 horseback, and by the third century B.C. these 

 Celtic tribes already possessed well-trained and 

 very formidable cavalry. As a natural result the 

 demand for still better horses grew steadily, and 

 soon it became common to import horses into the 

 Upper Balkan, and countries beyond the Alps, 

 from the Mediterranean area. 



Perhaps the best description .of a chariot race 



at Delphi is to be found in the Electro, of 



Sophocles — Sophocles flourished in the third 



century b.c. At about the same period Hero- 



23 



