594 
VERTEBEATA. 
ANCIENT PERSIAN WAR-HOKSES. 
the breeding of these animals has been an object of regard in Persia, and for several centuries 
past the Persian breeds 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 as its birth-place, to Northern Europe, and especially to England, where at present 
the finest race exists, we have no certain and steady lights. The Romans were never an eques- 
trian people. Csesar made his immense conquests in Gaul without cavalry. Soon after this pe- 
riod mounted troops were common in the Roman annies, but th.&j were chiefly supplied by the 
provinces. Whatever attention was paid to the breeding of horses among the Romans, no race 
of any 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 
Caesar's invasion. 
But 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 of these 
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-place of 
man ; the second is set aside by the fact that not Britain only, but the Celtic, Belgian, and Ger- 
man tribes of the continent had horses at the time of Csesar's invasion. 
The truth doubtless is, that Europe has been supplied Avith their breeds of this noble animal in 
two great streams ; first, the various tribes that peopled these regions — Cimbri, Celts, Saxons, 
Teutons, Huns, all proceeding from the great central plateau of Asia, which abounded in horses 
from the earliest times — no doubt took their native breeds with them. These populations passed 
into Europe, some 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 influence 
of blood, and partly, also, through the power of climate, feeding, and training, the established 
northern varieties of the horse — all, however, of a large and sturdy character — were produced 
and established. 
It appears from abundant historical evidence that at a very remote date the eastern part of 
Asia Minor, and especially Cappadocia, w^as a renowned mart for horses. This latter province 
lies contiguous to Armenia and Mesopotamia, and in fact was nearly in the center of those re- 
