For the food with which they were supplied, see Geopon. xiv. 1. 5. Occasionally when the birds were permitted to fly abroad, their owners sprinkled them with unguents, or gave them cumin seed to eat, in order that they might attract and bring back with them flights of doves or wild pigeons to their cells.—Id. xiv. 3. 1. So also Palladius: Inducunt alias, si cumino pascantur assidue, vel hirci alarum balsami liquore tangantur, i. 24. Cf. Plin. x. 52. Footnote 1127: Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 129. ----- Much pains was taken by the ancients to improve the breed of animals.[1128] Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, introduced into that island the Molossian and Spartan dogs, goats from Scyros and Naxos, and sheep from Attica and Miletos.[1129] The fineness and beauty of Merinos were also known to the ancients, who purchased from Spain rams for breeding at a talent each, that is, about two hundred and forty-one pounds sterling.[1130] ----- Footnote 1128: Cf. Arist. Hist. Anim. vii. 6. 5. Footnote 1129: Athen. xii. 57. Footnote 1130: Strab. iii. 2. t. i. p. 231. ----- Horses were at all times few, and, consequently, dear in Greece; they were, therefore, seldom employed in agriculture, but bred and kept chiefly for the army, for religious pomps and processions, and for the chariot races at Olympia. Originally, no doubt, the horse was introduced from Asia, and, up to a very late period, chargers of great beauty and spirit, continued to be imported from the shores of the Black Sea.[1131] Princes, in the Homeric age, appear to have obtained celebrity for the beauty of their steeds, as Laomedon, Tros, and Rhesos; and it was customary for them to possess studs of brood mares in the rich pasture lands on the sea-shore. That of Priam, for example, lay at Abydos, on the Hellespont.[1132] ----- Footnote 1131: Aristoph. Nub. 109. Suid. v. φασιανοὶ. t. ii. p. 1033. b. Thom. Magist. v. φασιανοὶ. p. 885. Blancard. Of the commentators on Aristophanes, however, some by the word φασιανοὶ understand horses, and some pheasants. The probability is, that they imported both, and that the poet means to play upon the word. Footnote 1132: Iliad. δ. 500. -----