Il6 THE WONDER-BOOK OF HORSES 



idea of teaching the horses to dance, and, since 

 those creatures were as fond as their masters of 

 pleasure, he found it a very easy thing to do. It 

 was not long before the sound of a pipe would 

 set the heels of every war-horse in the country 

 to beating time with it. Imagine, if you please, 

 a whole nation of dancing people and dancing 

 horses — what a free-from-care time of it they 

 must have had ! 



But the pleasantest summer must come to an 

 end, even for grasshoppers. The Sybarites had 

 for neighbors a community of hard workers, 

 students, and tradesmen, called Crotoniates, who 

 lived temperately, drank water from the original 

 Croton River, listened to lectures by Pythagoras, 

 and looked with longing eyes upon the fair gar- 

 dens and stately white palaces of Sybaris. The 

 Crotoniates several times came to blows with the 

 Sybarites; but as their army was much smaller, 

 and they had no cavalry whatever, they were 

 beaten in every battle. Their foot-soldiers were 

 of no use at all when opposed to the onsets of the 

 Sybarite war-horses. 



But true worth is sure to win in the end. When 

 a spy reported to the Crotoniates that he had 

 seen all the horses in Sybaris dancing to the music 



