THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 
369 
the Massylians, and it appears to have been the practice of 
several other nations—the Numidians, Getulians, and Libyans. 
Et gens quae nudo residens Massylia dorso 
Ora levi ilectit fraenorum nescia virga. 
Without a saddle the Massylians ride, 
And with a bending switch their horses guide. 
“ Afterwards bridles,” says Potter, ** came into fashion; of 
which the most remarkable were those called lupata , having bits 
of iron, not unlike wolves’ teeth, and therefore called in Greek 
A vkoi, in Latin lupi; whence Horace, 
“ Gallica nec lupatis 
Temperat ora franis.” 
“ Nor with the sharper bits 
Manage the unruly horse.” 
For saddles, the skins of wild beasts appear a very natural sub¬ 
stitute. Parthenopaeus’s horse is covered with the skin of a lynx, 
in Statius ; iEneas’s, in Virgil, with a lion’s— 
“ Quem fulva leonis 
Pellis obit.” 
“ Covered with a lion’s skin.” 
But the same poet makes mention of rich and costly clothing of 
horses, 
“ Adorn’d with costly trappings, to whose breasts 
The golden poitrels hang.” 
We find no mention of stirrups in any of the ancient writers. 
But in those early ages they supplied the want of such helps by 
their art, or agility of body, being able to leap on horseback, as 
the heroes in Virgil, 
“ Corpora saltu 
Subjiciunt in equos.” 
“ And by a leap bestride their horses.” 
Sometimes we find them leaping up by the help of their spears; 
whilst others, not so active, were mounted by the assistance of 
short ladders, or by getting up on the backs of their slaves; both 
which supporters were termed a \a£o*£t?- But for the conve¬ 
nience of some (portly gentlemen we opine), the horses were 
taught submissively to bow their bodies to the ground, and re¬ 
ceive their riders upon their backs. Hence Silius speaks of the 
horse of Claelius, a Roman knight, in this manner : 
“ lnde inclinatus collum, submissus ct armos 
De more, indexis praebebat scaudcrc terga 
Cruribus.” 
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VOL. V. 
