The great Greek geographer, Strabo, traveled and wrote in the reign of Augustus, and died A.D. 24. For descriptions of all countries of that period and their industries and productions, he has been quoted for eighteen hundred years as the best if not the only authority. Writing as he did, at the very initial point of the Christian era, he gives us a landmark that fixes itself in the mind. He gives a brief, but quite satisfactory, description of Arabia, in which he notes the general topography and boundaries as they are understood to-day; and then he enters, somewhat, into the climate, productions of the soil, character and industries of the people, etc. Of one part of the country he speaks of the inhabitants as breeders of camels, and of another, that is more productive, he remarks: “The general fertility of the country is very great; among other products there is in particular an abundant supply of honey. Except horses, there are numerous herds of animals, asses and swine, birds also of every kind, except geese and the gallinaceous tribes.” Here we have from the very highest authority the pivotal fact that there were no horses in Arabia at the commencement of the Christian era. This does not rest upon argument, nor is it a deduction from some condition of things that might have existed; but it is a distinct declaration of what Strabo saw with his own eyes and wrote down when he saw it. It must, therefore, stand as an undisputed fact, until some reputable authority is brought forward to contradict it. This description from Strabo applies to that rich portion of Arabia, bordering on the Red Sea along its full length. With the fact established, circumstantially and historically, that there were no horses in Arabia at the beginning of the Christian era, it now remains to consider how and when they were first introduced in that country. Philostorgius, a distinguished Greek theologian, born A.D. 425, as related in the preceding chapter, wrote an ecclesiastical history, which is no longer extant, but fortunately Photius, at one time patriarch of the Eastern church, born A.D. 853, prepared an epitome of it. This epitome of Philostorgius comes down to A.D. 425, and is to be found in the Lenox Library of this city, bound up in the same volume with Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History. I will here quote literally from this epitome so much as is pertinent to the question before us. Constantius was then on the throne of the Eastern Empire, and labored for the promotion of the Christian religion.