lOO XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. 



is a whole treatise in itself. But he has 

 not a single word of love for the horse any- 

 where, and does not even suggest that the 

 rider should try to win his horse's affection 

 for its own sake. All his teaching is practi- 

 cal : be kind to your horse and he will do 

 as you desire. The explanation of all this 

 may be that to the Greeks the horse sug- 

 gested war, with all the merciless qualities 

 which characterized it in antiquity. They 

 kept no riding-horses in our sense of the 

 word, and we never read of a Greek as taking 

 a ride for pleasure. Their horses were bred 

 and reared primarily to be machines of battle, 

 or for the scarcely less fiercely contested 

 struggles in the hippodrome. They had but 

 a slight place in the every-day life of men ; 

 to be sure, they were sometimes used on 

 journeys, especially over mountains ; but even 

 ambassadors generally travelled on foot, and 

 carriages were usually drawn by mules. The 

 pomps and processions on festive days were 

 so contrived as to be part of the horse's 

 training for war. His real business lay 

 among warriors ; for he was like the horse 

 in Job that '' saith among the trumpets. Ha, 



