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but it does not follow that Greece was the first of the coun- 

 tries of Europe in which the Horse was subdued. On the 

 contrary, the legends of the Greeks themselves inform us, 

 that they had to maintain fierce contests with more early 

 horsemen under the fabled names of Centaurs, probably 

 from Thrace and the countries beyond the Danube. They 

 had contests, too, with the Amazons, so called, whom they 

 fabled to be women, but who were probably Kurds or other 

 Asiatics, clothed in the flowing robes distinctive of their 

 country. The Greeks never, in any age, became distinguish- 

 ed as horsemen. They did not, until a late period, learn 

 the use of the stirrup and the horse-shoe, which, from the 

 remains found in tumuli, there is reason to believe, were 

 familiar from time immemorial to the Tartar horsemen. But 

 the Greeks established, at an early age, the noble games 

 termed Olympic, which, by common consent, were held at 

 Elis, which became the theatre to which the warlike youth 

 of Greece resorted to claim the olive crown for victory in 

 the chariot race and athletic combats. Games at other 

 places were established, and continued after Greece had 

 ceased to be a country of warriors and freemen. The races 

 of the chariot were the first in order of time and pre-emi- 

 nence ; but about the fifteenth Olympiad, the simple horse- 

 race was added, and sculptured monuments remain to show 

 the Grecian Horse as he was caparisoned for either use. The 

 Hippodrome, in which the horse and chariot races took place, 

 was of narrow extent, and from the frequent turnings, all the 

 address and courage of the charioteers and horsemen was 

 called for. The horsemen, using no saddles or stirrups, the 

 difficulty of the exercise was increased, and the horses were 

 unshod. The Greeks derived their finest horses from Asia 

 Minor, but the races of the country were then, as now, of 

 mixed blood, partly derived from the countries south of the 

 Caucasus, and partly from Thrace and the countries of the 

 Danube. The sculptured representations of the Grecian 

 horse which have reached us exhibit much of what may be 



