1 1 6 Gleanings from the 



on horfeback. Grecian and Trojan civilization 

 as well were juft efcaping, in the ten years' war 

 before Troy, from thofe facrifices of horfes which, 

 as we have feen, were wide-fpread in the ancient 

 world. It now did not fo much worfhip as 

 reverence the animal. " The horfe in Homer 

 generally has not only a poetical grandeur," fays 

 Mr. Gladftone, "but a near relation to deity, 

 which I am unable fufficiently to explain; but 

 which, it feems poflible, may be the reflection or 

 analogue of the place affigned to the ox in the 

 Eaft. Several circumftances, and among them the 

 practice of defcribing a champaign country as one 

 fuited to feeding the horfe, combine to Jfhow how 

 completely for the Greek this noble creature ftood at 

 the head of the animal creation." 1 While agreeing 

 in the main with this lover of Homer, we believe 

 that the femi-divine honour paid to the horfe was 

 no reflection of ox-worfhip from the Eaft, but an 

 independent phafe of religious thought. How 

 clofely Homer deemed the horfe connedled with 

 the gods, may be feen in the curious narrative of 

 Hera giving Xanthus, one of the immortal chariot- 

 horfes of Achilles, powers of fpeech, which the 

 animal forthwith ufed to foretell its matter's 

 fpeedy death. 2 



The ancients chiefly knew of herds of wild 

 horfes about the river Hypanis 3 and in the vaft 

 tract which they termed Scythia, which anfwers to 

 the South of Ruffia, Turkeftan, and the deferts 



1 Gladftone, "Juventus Mundi," p. 360. 



* "Iliad," xix. 400^. 3 Herod., iv. 52. 



