INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON HIPPOPATHOLOGY. 755 
to us on a greater variety of subjects, which he treats in a 
manner more tersely practical than his great predecessor. 
Regarding the horse with the eye and the mind of a great 
commander, Xenophon, in language at once elegant and 
correct, gives us an enumeration of his varied points of 
admitted excellence ; while in his description of disease, 
and in the instructions in all relating to the preservation of 
health or sanitary conditions, as also in all connected with 
the curative treatment of disease, more particularly of the 
organs of locomotion, he speaks with authority greater than 
the mere lover of the animal, or the experienced cavalry 
officer, we hear in his utterances the instructions of the 
accomplished hippiatrist. 
Rome, which succeeded to the literature and science of 
Greece, and which seized with avidity on so much of this 
inheritance as accorded with the tastes and necessities of an 
all-conquering people, could not afford to throw overboard, 
or refuse to be influenced by, the amount of knowledge, 
speculative and practical, in the healing art both as applied 
to men and animals which their masters had bequeathed 
them. During the earlier and more primitive days of the 
Republic, when habits were severe, and manners pure, when 
the practice of agriculture was not deemed derogatory to the 
greatest and most distinguished of their patricians—men who 
could be found at the plough or the threshing floor, and 
removed from them to the highest seat in the senate, or placed 
in command of their armies, everything so closely connected 
with this pursuit, as the rearing and successful management 
of animals, received abundant attention. 
As the boundaries of the empire extended, and distant 
countries and strange peoples owned allegiance to the city 
on the banks of the Tiber, and paid their tribute to Roman 
governors and consuls, the military force which had at first 
achieved these conquests gradually underwent some modifi¬ 
cation, so as to adapt itself to the altered conditions and 
circumstances in which it found itself placed. This was 
early noticeable as the Roman legions penetrated Asia and 
Africa, and met with such nations of horsemen as the 
Persians, Partheans, and Numideans. Invincible as the 
Roman legions were, they were too shrewd soldiers not to 
observe the great disadvantage at which they were placed in 
particular situations, from the great superiority of their 
Eastern enemies in the arm of cavalry. In this manner, 
first with a military object in view, and afterwards as a 
source both of pleasure and profit, the breeding and manage¬ 
ment of horses gradually became a matter of importance, 
