142 Prof. Ridgeway, The Origin of 



thickset horse, from which sprang the cart-horse. The Mongolian 

 pony probably represents the Scythian horses, which continued 

 to be of a small size down to Strabo's time, and they were derived 

 either from the tarpan or Prezevalsky's horse. The Mongolian 

 pony, though surefooted and enduring, is slow of pace. Neither 

 China, Siam, nor Burmah has any indigenous horse answering 

 to the blood-horse. India could never breed horses, says Marco 

 Polo, in whose time India was supplied either with Mongolian 

 ponies from Yunnan, or with Arabs from South Persia, Aden and 

 other Arabian ports. These Arabs fetched enormous prices, equi- 

 valent to £200. It has hitherto been universally held that Arabia 

 is the original home of the blood-horse. This is a baseless as- 

 sumption. In the Old Testament the Arabs are never mentioned 

 as riding anything but camels and asses. Though the author of 

 Job knew of the war-horse, yet Job did not own a single horse, 

 his equine possessions consisting of 500 she asses. Herodotus 

 (VII. 87) enumerates the nations (including the Libyans) that 

 supplied cavalry to Xerxes' host, but the Arabs only furnish a 

 camel corps. Agatharchides (cited by Strabo) describes the Arabs 

 as camel keepers. 



Finally, Strabo (for. a.d. 1) expressly states that neither the 

 peoples of Arabia Felix nor those of Arabia Petraea bred horses. 

 Naturally then Scaurus after defeating the Arab king Aretas put 

 on his coins Aretas leading his camel. It is clear then that down 

 to the Christian era the Arabs bred no horses. It is therefore 

 clear that though the Persian kings in the 5th cent. B.C. bred the 

 largest and best horses in Asia, these were not of an Arab strain. 

 These horses were kept largely in Armenia, and are described by 

 Strabo as similar to the Parthian horses, and as differing from 

 the horses bred in Greece and the other kinds of horses known 

 in the Roman empire. There can be little doubt that they were 

 the same horses as Marco Polo found in great numbers in Armenia 

 (1270 A.D.) known as Turquans, the Turcoman ponies well known 

 in Persia to-day. The Persian horses cannot then have been the 

 ancestors of the thoroughbred, though it is quite possible that their 

 superiority was due to their having a cross of thoroughbred blood, 

 for already by 900 B.C. Solomon imported horses from Egypt 

 (1 Kings x.), and "so for all the kings of Syria and for all the kings 

 of the Hittites " Egypt could not breed horses, neither could she 

 have got them from the Arabs, who bred none even 1000 years 

 later. But she could and did get them from the Libyans, who 

 from the dawn of history are masters of the most famous horses. 

 Cyrene sent the best horses to the games of Greece (Pindar, Pyth. 

 IV. etc.). It is noteworthy that it was in the same century as 

 the founding of Cyrene that the four-horse chariot and the race- 

 horse were added to the Olympic events. The Phoenician settlers 



