SADDLES AND BRIDLES. 285 



.mounting ; nor by Julius Pollux in his Lexicon^ 

 where all the other articles belono-in^^ to horse-fur- 

 niture are spoken of. The Roman youth, indeed, 

 were taught to vault into their saddles, 



" Corpora saltu 

 Subjiciunt in equos ; " * 



and in their public ways, stones were erected, as in 

 (xreece also, for such as were incapable of doing so. 

 As another substitute for stirrups, horses in some 

 countries were taught to bend the knee, after the 

 manner of beasts of burden of the East ; -|- and in 

 others, portable stools were used to assist persons 

 in mounting. This gave birth to the barbarous 

 practice of making captured princes and generals 

 stoop down, that the conqueror might mount his 

 horse from their backs ; and in this ignominous 

 manner was the Roman Emperor Valerian treated 

 by the Persian King Sapor, who outraged humanity 

 by his cruelty. The earliest indisputable mention 

 of stirrups is by Eustathius, (the commentator of 

 Homer,) about six hundred years back, who uses 

 the word stabia. 



Although the history of the saddle has not exer- 

 cised the learned world so much as the antiquity of 

 the stirrup, a good deal has been written and said 

 about it. Like all other inventions, it appears to 

 have been suggested by the necessity of making 



* Virgil, JEndd xii., 287. 



i" See Siiicus Italicus, lib. x., 4G5, — 



" I tide inclinatus colium, submissus et armoa 



De more, inflexis praibebat scandere terga 



Cruribub." 



