6 The History of the Spur 



being of the usual European pattern. A few had merely a 

 short iron point attached to the stirrup, but most of the 

 specimens I observed on sale in the shops at Pergos were as 

 shown in the illustration on Plate 2. This custom of attaching 

 the spur to the stirrup, and not to the foot, I found to be universal 

 all over the Peloponnesus — and it is also to be found in parts 

 of Northern Greece. It is chiefly occasioned by the proper 

 foot-gear of the old Greek national costume, now going 

 rather out of fashion, being a slipper, with the heel cut away, 

 much in the nature of an Eastern slipper, an arrangement 

 which does not lend itself very well to the attachment of the 

 spur to the foot. I believe, therefore, this fashion of having the 

 spur upon the stirrup, in Greece, to be of Eastern origin, and 

 to be an interesting remnant of Persian influence. 



Homer, although in the Iliad he gives elaborate descriptions 

 of arms and armour, does not mention spurs. But in those 

 early days, although riding is frequently mentioned, the chariot 

 was the principal means of locomotion in warfare, and hunting 

 was generally conducted on foot. Xenophon, and other writers 

 of his day, speak of spurs, using the word y.vio<r, literally a horse- 

 fly, or gad-fly. And many of these authors use the word in 

 so doubtful a sense as to render it an open question whether 

 the horse sprang forward on being pricked by his rider, or 

 by a fly. 



Theophrastus, however, a writer who flourished about 350 b.c, 

 sets the matter at rest, in his " Character Sketches," by saying, 

 when describing the man of petty ambitions, that he is the sort 

 of man who would walk about " eV rots /ti^wf t " (in his spurs); thus 



