320 
plesty's nattjeal histoet. 
[Book VIII. 
when a charioteer had been thrown from his place, in the ple- 
beian games of the Circus/^ the horses ran to the Capitol, just 
as if he had been standing in the car, and went three times 
round the temple there. Eut what is the greatest prodigy of all, 
is the fact that the horses of Eatumenna came from Yeii to 
Rome, with the palm branch and chaplet, he himself having 
fallen from his chariot, after having gained the victory ; from 
which circumstance the Eatumennian gate derived its name.^ 
When the Sarmatse are about to undertake a long journey, 
they prepare their horses for it, by making them fast the 
day before, during which they give them but little to drink ; 
by these means they are enabl-ed to travel on horseback, with- 
out stopping, for one hundred and fifty miles. Some horses 
are known to live fifty years ; but the females are not so long- 
lived.^* These last come to their full growth at the fifth year, 
the males a year later. The poet Yirgil has very beautifully 
described the points which ought more especially to be looked 
for, as constituting the perfection of a horse I myself have 
also treated of the same subject, in my work^^* on the Use of the 
Javelin by Cavalry, and I find that pretty nearly all writers are 
agreed respecting them.*^ The points requisite for the Circus 
are somewhat different, however; and while horses are put 
in training for other purposes at only two years old, they are 
not admitted to the contests of the Circus before their fifth year, 
CHAP. 66. THE GEIS-ERATION OF THE HOESE.^''^ 
The female of this animal carries her young for eleven 
months, and brings forth in the twelfth. The connection takes 
place at the vernal equinox, and generally in both sexes, at 
the age of two years ; but the colt is much stronger when the 
parents are three years old. The males are capable of cover- 
^2 The games of the Circus were divided into the Patrician and the Ple- 
beian ; the first being conducted by generals, consuls, and the cui'ule tediles, 
the latter by the sediles of the people. — B. 
^3 Related somewhat more at large by Plutarch, in his Life of Publicola. 
— B. 
Many of these particulars are from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. 
c. 22. — B. Georgics, B, iii. 1. 72, et seq. — B. 
See Introduction to vol. i. p. vii. 
*6 Yarro, de Be Bust. B, ii. c. 7 ; and Columella, B. vi. c. 29, have 
treated on this subject at considerable length. — B. 
The materials of this chapter appear to have been principally taken 
from Aristotle, Varro, and Columella. — B. 
