genealogy oe the horse, etc. 
17 
never refused. In Babylon the king possessed eight hundred 
stallions, to each of which twenty mares was assigned. Of the 
whole Persian kingdom Armenia was so rich in horses at that 
time that the Satrap sent twenty thousand fillies annually to the 
Mytra festival. White horses were sacrificed to the sun-god My- 
tra. The chariot of the sun-god was drawn by eight white horses 
and was the emblem of peace and justice. The royal chariot was 
drawn by four. 
The Scythians, north of Thrace, were wild horsemen of Mon¬ 
golian extraction. They sacrificed horses to their gods. They 
drew the blood from the femotal artery of the horse and drank it; 
also gave it to their children to drink, so that they would become 
valiant; they ate the flesh, drank the milk of mares and con¬ 
verted it into butter, cheese and koumiss, an intoxicating bever¬ 
age. The fleetness of their horses was so remarkable 'that a 
horse of a common Scythian soldier could overtake the noblest 
Persian. Phillip of Macedonia, who conquered the Scythians, 
took twenty thousand horses from them. 
The Italians or Homans also gave attention to all branches 
of culture, particularly to horse-breeding and horse-racing. Tar- 
quin the First, who laid the foundation of the Capitol, built the 
Circus Maximus, instituted national festivals, combined with com¬ 
bats, in which the horse assisted his master to win the laurel 
wreath and thus increased his own fame. 
From the beginning, horses were highly prized by the Ho¬ 
mans, and to the time of Marius, the horse’s head was their stand¬ 
ard of battle. Pompey had in his army a mounted elite distin¬ 
guished for its birth, wealth and bravery. At all times grand 
pageants and performances given in the circus were the principal 
amusements of the Homan empire. The Caesars had a passion 
for horses and chariots, and during Nero’s reign this passion was 
at its height. The aristocrats vied with each other in the splen¬ 
dor of their horses. “ They had their heart and soul in the man¬ 
ger,” and “ the way to fame and office led through the stable,” 
complained the non-riders. Caesar 100 B. C. buried his horse, 
which fell in the battle of Pharsalia, in the same temple which 
he had erected in honor of his mother. The horse of Yarns, 6 B. 
