Horses were usually broken[1155] by professed grooms, who entered into a written agreement with the owners implicitly to follow their directions.[1156] The process was sufficiently simple. They began with the year-and-a-half colts,[1157] on which they put a halter when feeding, while a bridle was hung up close to the manger, that they might be accustomed to the touch of it, and not take fright at the jingling of the bit.[1158] The next step was to lead them into the midst of noisy and tumultuous crowds in order to discover whether or not they were bold enough to be employed in war.[1159] The operation was not completely finished till they were three years old. When, on the course or elsewhere, horses had been well sweated,[1160] they were led into a place set apart for the purpose, and, in order to dry themselves, made to roll in the sand. It was customary for owners to mark their horses with the Koppa,[1161] or other letter of the alphabet, whence they were sometimes called Koppatias, Samphoras, &c. ----- Footnote 1155: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 158. Footnote 1156: Xenoph. de Re Equest. ii. 2. Cf. Œconom. iii. 11. xiii. 7. Footnote 1157: Geop. xvi. i. 11. Footnote 1158: Xen. de Re Equest. 10. 6. Poll. viii. 184. Footnote 1159: The swimming powers of the war-horse were probably augmented by exercise, since we find them passing by swimming from Rhegium to Sicily. Plut. Timol. § 19. This feat, however, was nothing to that of the stags which swam from Syria to Cyprus! Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 56. Footnote 1160: Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 32. Cf. 25, 28. Footnote 1161: Aristoph. Eq. 601. Nub. 25. Spanh. in loc. Athen. xi. 30. ----- The mule and the ass were much employed in rural labours, the former both at the cart and the plough, the latter in drawing small tumbrils, and in bearing wood[1162] or other produce of the farm to the city.[1163] The wild ass[1164] was sometimes resorted to for improving the breed of mules, which, in the Homeric age, were found in a state of nature among the mountains of Paphlagonia.[1165] ----- Footnote 1162: In carting wood from Mount Ida in the Troad oxen are at present substituted for asses, and the bodies of the vehicles they draw, in form resembling ancient cars, are constructed of wickerwork. Chandler, i. 47. Footnote 1163: Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 43. Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 12. p. 97. Footnote 1164: Geop. xvi. 21. Varro ii. 6. 3. To account for this care it may be observed, that rich men sometimes rode, as they still do in the East, on asses superbly caparisoned and adorned with bells. Lucian. Luc. sive Asin. § 48. Footnote 1165: Il. β. 852. -----