594 



VERTEBRATA. 



ANCIENT PERSIAN WAR-HORSES. 



the breeding of these animals lias been an object of regard in Persia, and for several centuries 

 past theTPersian br< eds have been esteemed as among the best in the world. 



In attempting to trace the migrations of the horse from these central portions of Asia, which 

 we may regard a< its birth-place, to Northern Europe, and especially to England, where at present 

 the finesl race exists, we have no certain and steady lights. The Romans were never an eques- 

 trian people. Caesar made his immense conquests in Gaul without cavalry. Soon after this pe- 

 riod mounted troops were common in the Roman armies, but they were chiefly supplied by the 

 provinct s. Whatever attention was paid to the breeding of horses among the Romans, no race 

 v celebrity was ever produced in Italy. In their boundless conquests, however, they collected 

 the finest breeds, and doubtless some of them were sent to Britain, which may, in some degree, 

 have modified the original stock, which existed in large numbers in the island at the time of 

 < laesar's invasion. 



I >ut whence these original British horses '. The answer to this inquiry has been various : some 

 insist that these animals were indigenous to Britain; others that they came from the Levant in 

 that trade which is known to have existed between the British Islands and the Phoenicians first, 

 and the Carthaginians afterward, beginning as far back as the time of Homer. The first oft! 

 assumptions may be dismissed with the single remark that it is contradicted by tradition and his- 

 tory,both of which point to the East as the birth-place of the horse as truly as the birth-plac< 

 man ; the second i- sel aside by the fact that not Britain only, but the Celtic, Belgian, and G< i- 

 man tribes of the continent had horses at the time of Caesar's invasion. 



The truth doubtless is, that Europe has been supplied with their breeds of this noble animal in 

 two ims; first, the various tribes that peopled these regions — Cimbri, Celts, Saxons, 



I -. Huns, all proceeding from the great central plateau of Asia, which abounded in ho 



from the earlicsl times — no doubt took their native breeds with them. These populations passed 

 into Europe, BOme to the north and some to the south of the Caspian Sea, and eventually spread 

 themselves from Gaul to Scandinavia. Here, in the course of ages, partly through the influe 



of bl I, and partly, also, through the power of climate, feeding, and training, the established 



northern varieties of the hors< — all, however, of a large and sturdy character — were produced 

 and established. 



It appears from abundanl historical evidence that at a very remote datej.be eastern part"; 



Minor, and especially Cappadocia, was a renowned mart for horses. This latter province 



contiguous to Armenia and Mesopotamia, and in fad was nearly in the center of those re- 



