Hoofs with thin horn (_sic_); hoofs full, fat, soft and flat—or,
as Xenophon termed them, “low-lying”; heavy fetlocks; shanks with
varicose veins; flabby thighs; hollow shoulder-blades; projecting
neck; bald mane; narrow chest; fat and heavy head; large ears;
converging nostrils; sunken eyes; thin and meagre sides; sharp
back-bone; rough haunches; thin buttocks; stiff legs, stiff knees.
Though among the horses of the ancient Greeks the hogged mane must at
one time have been seen often enough, there does not appear to be in
the works of the early writers any direct allusion to the hogging of
horses as a regular practice.
Probably if the custom did exist it was on the wane by the time
Xenophon began to write. There is evidence to show that in ancient
Greece the horses at about this period were rather smaller than
those of most other countries of which we have authentic records, a
characteristic still noticeable amongst the horses in several parts of
modern Greece.
The Greeks almost always used entire horses for all purposes. Even
in war they did not employ geldings, a custom that has given rise to
the belief that in the centuries before Christ all horses, with the
exception of the Libyan steeds, were far more savage than the horses
of to-day.
Emphatically we have no reason to suppose that the Greeks made friends
and companions of their horses as the Arab race is known to do or to
have done, though the fable of Achilles' love for his horse named
Xanthus makes a pretty enough story. On the other hand, it is quite
possible that Xenophon may have been fond of horses not merely because
of the amusement they afforded him or the pleasure he derived from
riding and hunting.
For the rest the Greeks, in common with the people of most of the
warlike nations in those early days, enjoyed possessing horses mainly
because they served to enhance life's pleasure, and were of practical
use in war.
Certainly it may be said of Xenophon that he did not preach the
doctrine of kindness to horses without himself practising it
thoroughly, also that he was ever ready to rebuke severely all who
ill-treated their own horses or his.
Apparently the Greeks of about this era did not keep what we should
term to-day pleasure horses, though they affected pleasure horses in
the sense that they kept race horses. With the death of Xenophon we
lose touch, to some extent, with the progress of the horse in history,
but the thread is taken up again in the Roman period when Varro,
writing in 37 B.C., furnishes certain details that are of interest,
Virgil adding to them a little later in his “Georgics.”
After that we find instructive comment in the writings of Calpurnius
and Columella in the first century A.D.; in those of Oppian and
Nemesian in the third century; and in those of Apsyrtus, Pelagonius
and Palladius in the fourth century.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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