2o8 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



most and puts on muscle. Some say a colt may be 

 broken in after eighteen ^ months, but it is better to 

 defer it until he is three years old, when it is usual 

 to give him mixed green food (farrago^), as thin 

 purge is especially necessary for horses. It shoulc 

 be given him for ten days, and he must not b< 

 14 allowed to taste any other food. From the eleventl 

 to the fourteenth day give him barley, gradually 

 increasing the amount day by day. To the quantity 

 given on the fourth "^ (fourteenth?) day you must 



' Annum et sex menses. Columella (vi, 29, 4) distinguishes: 

 Equus himus ad usum domesticum recte domatur; certaminihus 

 autem triennio expleto. Sic tamen ut post quartum demum 

 annum labori committatur. So Pliny (N. H., viii, 42): Diversa 

 autem Circo ratio quaeritur. Itaque cum bimi in alio subiguntur 

 imperio non ante quinquennio ibi certamen accipit. 



The ancients did not race their horses until they were five 

 years old, and they seem to have lasted on that account longer 

 than our race-horses. A riding-horse, Pherenicos (cf. Pindar, 

 Pythia, iii), which was at least fifteen years old, won the 

 Pythian prize, and Pliny {loc. cit.) says that racers were sent 

 from the circus to the stud at twenty years, a circo post vicesi- 

 mujji annum mittantur ad sobolem reparandam! 



^ Farrago. Cf. Vergil (Georg., iii, 205): 



Tum demum Crassa magnum farragine corpus 

 Crescere iam domitis. 



But, Vergil goes on to say, farrago must not be given to them 

 before breaking, or else 



negabunt 

 Verbera lenta pati et duris parere lupatis. 



^ Quarto. Ursinus conjectures quarto decimo, and Cres- 

 centius in his paraphrase says quartum decimum diem et decern 

 diebus ultra. 



