FIG. 36.—SEAT WITHOUT STIRRUPS
FIG. 37.—SEAT WITH STIRRUPS
FIG. 38.—LEANING BACK
I may say here that the saddletree was not used until the Romans introduced it sometime in the fourth century, and the stirrup followed in the seventh century, first as an aid in mounting and finally as a support. The Greeks and their ancestors and the horsemen of the Euphrates Valley rode upon cloths and skins, without stirrups and without trees. The first mention of the horse that we find upon the monuments is supposed to date about 3800 years before our era. The first representation of the horse is upon a little wooden disk now in the British Museum, in which two horses attached to a chariot by harnesses that closely resemble those now in use are shown; and this work is ascribed to Aahmes I. (about 1700 b.c.) and suggests that the animal was introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos (possibly Bedouins), as they had possession of the country previously. I cannot find any representations of mounted men earlier than the sculptures upon the Assyrian monuments, attributed to the middle of the seventh century b.c. It would seem from the inscriptions and from historical writings that, both in war and in the chase, the horse was in very early times first and most frequently used in harness; and there can be no doubt that in ancient days chariots were employed in charging bodies of the enemy just as modern cavalry are used. The residents of mountainous countries, I venture to say, were the first to use cavalry. Wherever the ancient rider is shown upon the monuments, before the introduction of the saddletree, he has exactly the seat of the modern, the only possible seat upon a flat or treeless saddle.