INTRODUCTION. O 



the Philistines and other idolatrous nations, that 

 David, their commander and king, caused the 

 greater part of the horses of the cavalry prisoners 

 to be cut down, from his ignorance of any use to 

 which he could apply them. In the reign of Solo- 

 mon, however, a cavalry force was established, but 

 to no great extent. 



In the infant state of all nations, indeed, we can 

 readily account for the restrictive use of horses. 

 A great deal of land that might be applied to the 

 production of human food is requisite for their 

 maintenance in all countries ; and, in hot and ste- 

 rile ones, the camel answered better, and was found 

 ready at hand. It is true they were used in the 

 armies of the ancient Greeks and llomans, which 

 were not considered as complete without them. In 

 Greece they were not so numerous ; but in a war 

 with the Italic Gauls, the Romans are said to have 

 had no less than seventy thousand horses, and 

 seven hundred thousand foot, to attack their for- 

 midable enemies.* The army of Xerxes, when 

 reviewed by him at Dorsica in Thrace, after it had 

 passed the Hellespont, is reported by Herodotus, 

 contemporary with him, to have contained eighty 

 thousand horse ; but the judicious reader will be 

 inclined to make considerable abatements from the 

 boasted amount of that celebrated but ill-fated ex- 

 pedition, resting, as it does, entirely on the autho- 

 rity of Grecian writers, who represented facts in 

 the light the most unfavourable to their enemies, 



* See Duncan's Discourse on the Rovian Art of War. 



