64 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



represent horses of that period. Some of the 

 animals of the Parthenon frieze lead us to 

 believe that on occasions horses were still made 

 to crouch when about to be mounted, though it 

 is not probable they crouched voluntarily, as 

 Bucephalus did. From impressions on the 

 Parthenon frieze we may also conclude that 

 the mounting block was not unknown in the 

 centuries before Christ. 



A good idea of the exact stamp of horse har- 

 nessed to the war chariots of those centuries may 

 be obtained by inspecting the bronze horse of the 

 quadriga from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, 

 the date of the Mausoleum being 331-341 B.C. 

 — the building took ten years to erect. This 

 bronze is to be seen in the British Museum. 



Hannibal's must have been the army the 

 best provided with cavalry down to the year 

 218 B.C., for in that year Hannibal advanced 

 into Italy with no less than 90,000 foot and 

 some 12,000 horse, many of the latter being 

 native horses mounted by Numidians who 

 persisted still in scorning to use either saddle 

 or bridle, though the cavalry division, which 

 consisted of Spaniards, employed bridles of an 

 elaborate pattern. 



How wholly superior Hannibal's cavalry proved 

 to be to the Gallic horsemen placed by Scipio in 

 the front line of his javelin throwers is well 

 known to students of history. Indeed it was 



