200 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



CHAPTER VII 



OF HORSES AND MARES 



I Then said Lucienus, I too will take my turn, throw 

 open the barriers, ' and let my horses go, and not 

 the males only, which I, like Atticus, keep as 

 stallions, one to every ten mares. 



The brave Q. Modius Equiculus^ used to think 

 as much of mares as of horses even for military ser- 



^ Carceres. These were stalls or vaults in the circus from 

 which in the chariot races the horses with their chariots 

 started. They were closed by bars, or more probably by doors 

 of open woodwork {canceUi), which were thrown open simul- 

 taneously when the signal for beginning the race was given. 



There is a marble in the British Museum which figures very 

 clearly these cancelli. Here they are folding doors which open 

 inwards. 



' O. Modius Equiculus. Nothing is known of him. Is he 

 a Mrs. Harris? The words which follow in Kell's text, vir 

 fortissimus etiam patre militari^ are absurdly Irrelevant, and 

 need emendation. I have translated Urslnus's conjecture, 

 etiam in re militari, which makes good sense. It Is difiicult 

 to understand, however, if this be the true reading, how the 

 corruption arose. I would suggest etiam a parte militari 

 {^etid a parte). The second a a copyist would naturally omit, 

 and parte might easily have been changed to patre. 



Pliny (vili, 42) mentions the use of mares in preference to 

 horses in war. Scythae per hella faeminis uti malunt, quoniam 

 urinam cursu non impedito reddant, and the best horses which 

 went to the war against Troy were the mares of Pheretiades, 

 "swift as birds" (Iliad, ii, 763). 



