FLESH-EATING HORSES 6 3 



Thrace, the tyrant whose grim humour, we are 

 told, led him to feed his horses on the strangers 

 who visited his kingdom, were alleged to be of 

 the breed of Thessaly, a statement made indirectly 

 in the description of Hercules' conquest of the 

 tyrant and his subsequent "casting of the tyrant's 

 quivering carcass to his own horses to be de- 

 voured." 



Spenser alludes to this incident in the fifth 

 book of his " Faerie Queene," in the following 

 lines : — 



" Like to the Thracian tyrant who, they say, 

 Unto his horses gave his guests for meat, 

 Till he himself was made their greedy prey, 

 And torn to pieces by Alcides great." 



Other mythical horses of the Thessalian breed 

 were those of Achilles, of Rhesus, and of Orestes 

 in Sophocles' stirring description of the race in 

 Electra. 



It seems safe to say that until about the 

 fourth century b.c. the Romans also did not use 

 saddles, at least saddles with trees. That some- 

 where about this period, however, they began to 

 adopt what we should call to-day saddlecloths, 

 and that these were kept in place by a strap or 

 bandage in the nature of a girth that passed 

 beneath the belly, appears to be certain. 



For some unknown reason this girth is more 

 often than not omitted on the works of art that 



