OF THE HORSE. H 



lynx, and that of Mneas with a lion's skin. In their religious or triumphal 

 processions the housings of the horses were particularly magnificent, being fre- 

 quently adorned with gold and silver and diamonds. Rich collars were also 

 hung round their necks, and bells adorned their crests. The trappings of the 

 young knight in the days of chivalry did not exceed those of the Grecian war- 

 rior on days of ceremony. 



The stirrup was likewise unknown. The adoption of that convenient assist- 

 ance in mounting the horse was of singularly late date. The first mention of 

 it occurs in the works of Eustathius, about the 1158th year of the Christian 

 era ; but it was used in the time of William the Conqueror, nearly a century 

 before that. Berenger gives the figure of a horse saddled, bridled, and with 

 stirrups, copied from the Bayeux tapestry, which was embroidered in the time 

 of the Conqueror by his wife, and describes the circumstances preceding and 

 attending his descent into England. The heroes of ancient times trusted chiefly 

 to their own agility in leaping on their horses' backs, and that whether standing 

 on the right side or the left. 



They who fought on horseback with the spear or lance had a projection on 

 the spear, or sometimes a loop of cord, about two feet from the bottom of it, 

 which served at once for a firmer grasp of the weapon, and a step on which the 

 right or the left foot might be placed, according to the side on which the war- 

 rior intended to mount, and from which he could easily vault on his courser's 

 back. The horse was sometimes taught to assist the rider in mounting by 

 bending his neck or kneeling down*. The magnates always had their slaves 

 by their horse's side to assist them in mounting and dismounting. Some made 

 use of a short ladder ; and it was the duty of the local magistracy, both in 

 Rome and Greece, to see that convenient stepping-stones were placed at short 

 distances along all the roads. 



The boot for the defence of the leg from the dangers to which it was exposed 

 was very early adopted, and the heel of it was, occasionally at least, armed with 

 a spur. 



The horses' feet were unshod, the paved or flinty roads, which are now so 

 destructive to the feet, being in a manner unknown. Occasionally, however. 

 from natural weakness of the foot, or from travelling too far or too fast over 

 the causeways, lameness then, as now, occurred. In order to prevent this, the 

 Greeks and the Romans were accustomed to fasten a sort of sandal or stocking, 

 made of sedges twisted together like a mat, or else of leather, and where the 

 owner could afford it, strengthened with plates of iron, and sometimes adorned 

 with silver and even with gold, as was the case with the horses of Poppa?a and 

 Nero+. 



There was a peculiarity in the Greek mode of riding, at least with regard 

 to the cavalry horses, and, sometimes, those used for pleasure. Two or three 

 of them were tied together by their bridles, and the horseman, at full speed, 

 leaped from one to another at his pleasure. This might occasionally be useful ; 

 when one horse was tired or wounded, the warrior might leap upon another ; 

 but he would be so hampered by the management of all of them, and the 

 attention which he was compelled to pay to them all, that it never became the 

 general way of riding or fighting ; nor was it practised in any other country 

 Homer, in his 15th Iliad, alludes to it as a feat of skill attempted in sport. The 



* Thus the Roman poet : — To give his rider a more free ascent.'' 



" Inde inclinatus col! um, su omissus et arrnos Silius Italicua. 



l)e more, inflcxis praebebat scandere terga 



Cruribus." [bent, + Appendix to the Translation of Xcno- 



" Pownwarda the horse his head and shoulders phon's Rules, p. 51. 



