io8 Gleanings from the 



footed," and the like, which Virgil follows in his 

 " wing-footed " horfes. 



It was probably due to fome connexion with 

 the fwift-flowing ftreams of rivers that the ancients 

 were often wont to facrifice horfes on their banks. 

 Thus Xerxes, on crofling the Strymon, when 

 about to invade Greece with his enormous hoft, 

 facrificed white horfes to propitiate it. 1 And in 

 much later times, while Vitellius offered the 

 cuftomary Roman facrifices by the Euphrates, its 

 ftream was appeafed by Tiridates with the facrifice 

 of a horfe. 2 Ten facred horfes of the celebrated 

 Nyfaean breed were led, gorgeoufly caparifoned, 

 before the chariot of Mithra on the march of 

 Xerxes, while after it the royal chariot in which 

 the King himfelf fat in ftate was alfo drawn by 

 Nyfaean horfes. The Nyfaean plain, whence came 

 the moft prized horfes of the Perfians, was fituated 

 to the fouth-weft of Ecbatana, on the high uplands 

 weft of Mount Zagros. The Perfians have always 

 been fond of horfes; indeed, their education, 

 according to Herodotus, confifted in three things 

 learning to ride, to fhoot, and to fpeak the 

 truth. 3 The pre-eminence of the Nyfasan horfes 

 has now patted to the Arabian horfes of the 

 Nedjd. 



Ariftotle ends a chapter about the age and 

 dentition of the horfe, which might pafs mufter in 

 a modern manual of farriery, with an account of a 



1 Herod., vii. 113. 2 Tac. "Ann.," vi. 37. 



3 Herod., vii. 40 and i. 136 ; and Rawlinfon, "Five Great 

 Monarchies," p. 145 and ii. p. 261. 



