FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 54: From the treatise, "On Horsemanship." Translated by J. S. Watson. Mahaffy says this treatise on the horse "shows an insight into the character of horses which would do credit to a modern book." Most readers of the treatise who are familiar with horses have remarked how true it all is of the horse as we know him to-day. One commentator has remarked that the book reads as if it might have been written by some educated man professionally attached to racing stables.] [Footnote 55: The ancients did not use the stirrup; nor did they have a saddle in the modern sense of the word.] PLATO Born in AEgina of aristocratic parents about 427 B.C.; died in Athens in 347; originally called Aristocles and surnamed Plato because of his broad shoulders; a disciple of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle; was the founder of the Academic school; in his youth a successful gymnast, soldier, and poet; traveled in Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Graecia; arrested in Syracuse by Dionysius, the tyrant, and sold as a slave in AEgina, where he was released and returned to Athens; revisited Syracuse in 367 and 361; lived afterward in Athens until his death, which occurred at a marriage feast.[56] I THE IMAGE OF THE CAVE[57] After this, I said, imagine the enlightenment or ignorance of our nature in a figure. Behold: human beings living in a sort of underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all across the den; they have been here from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they can not move, and can see only before them; for the chains are arranged in such a manner as to prevent them from turning round their heads. At a distance above and behind them the light of a fire is blazing, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette-players have before them, over which they show the puppets. I see, he[58] said. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying vessels, which appear over the wall; also figures of men and animals, made of wood and stone and various materials; and some of the passengers, as you would expect, are talking, and some of them are silent? That is a strange image, he said, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would see only the shadows. Yes, he said. And if they were able to talk to one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them. Very true.