The art of exhibiting various feats of horsemanship, which has been practised so much in modern times, seems to have come first from the East. At any rate, those performers in that way who, in the thirteenth century, were at the Byzantine court, and who travelled all over Europe, came from Egypt. They could stand on the horses when at a gallop; mount and dismount while on full speed at the chase; tumble on horseback, and do many other things equally extraordinary[316]. At the end of the sixteenth century, an Italian, who had learned this art while a slave in Turkey, went about exhibiting his dexterity in various parts of Europe. Montagne saw him at Rome in 1581[317]; and the year following he was at Paris[318]. Some of these feats were performed by the ancient _desultores_. Whether the ancients taught horses, dogs, birds, and other animals, to perform various tricks which are frequently exhibited at present for money, I do not know; but it is certain that what they made the elephant, which undoubtedly is the most sagacious and tractable of all animals, perform, exceeds everything yet known of the kind. Without repeating what has been so often related, I shall only mention the elephant which walked upon a rope backwards and forwards, as well as up and down; and which Galba first caused to be shown to the Roman people. After this, so much confidence was placed in the dexterity of the animal, that a person sat on an elephant’s back while he walked across the theatre upon a rope extended from the one side to the other. Lipsius, who has collected the testimonies, thinks they are so strong that they cannot be doubted[319]. The training of horses to obey a private signal, imperceptible to the most attentive spectator, and to perform actions which appear, to those unacquainted with the art, to display rational faculties, I have never found mentioned in the works of the ancients. That the Sybarites however taught their horses to dance to the sound of music, is asserted by a variety of authors[320]. In the sixteenth century, dogs trained in the like manner excited great wonder[321].