The saddle is also of ancient origin, for we read in I. Kings, xiii., 13.,—“And he said unto his sons, saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon.” And before that period, in the second generation after Noah, the Assyrian empire was established. In its commencement, even as early as the days of Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, the first Assyrian king, who built Ninevah, there were those articles of horse furniture, called packs and fardles; for in ancient historians we find the following passage occur in this respect. “Semiramis ascended from the plain to the top of the mountain, by laying the packs and fardels of the beasts that followed her, one upon another.” The same author informs us that this was Mount Bagistan, in Medea, and that it was seventeen furlongs from the top to the bottom.
In the first ages, among the Greeks and Romans, a cloth or mattrass, a piece of leather or raw hide, was all they used for a saddle. Such coverings afterwards became more costly: Silius Italicus says, they were made of costly skins.
It, however, appears, that after they were become common, it was considered as effeminate to use them; hence the Romans despised them: and in his old age, Varro boasts of having, when young, rode without a covering to his horse. Xenophon reproaches the Persians, because they put more clothes upon the backs of their horses than upon their beds. From the aspect in which hardy people viewed this practice, the warlike Teutones considered it most disgraceful, and despised the Roman cavalry.
In the fifth century, saddles were so magnificent, that a prohibition was issued by Leo I., that they should not be ornamented with pearls or precious stones. In the sixth century, the Emperor Mauritas directed that they should have coverings of fur, of large dimensions.
From every information we have been able to collect, we believe that the appendage of stirrups were not added to saddles before the sixth century. It is said, that previous to the introduction of stirrups, the young and agile used to mount their horses by vaulting upon them, which many did in an expert and graceful manner; of course, practice was essential to this perfection. That this should be afforded, wooden horses were placed in the Campus Martius, where this exercise was performed of mounting or dismounting on either side; first, without, and next with arms. Cavalry had also, occasionally, a strap of leather, or a metallic projection affixed to their spears, in or upon which the foot being placed, the ascent became more practicable. Respecting the period of this invention, Montfaucon has presumed that the invention must have been subsequent to the use of saddles; however, opposed to this opinion, an ingenious argument has been offered, that is possible they might have been anterior to that invention; because, it is said, they might have been appended to a girth round the body of the horse. Both Hippocrates and Galen speak of a disease to which the feet and ancles were subject, from long riding, occasioned by suspension of the feet without a resting-place. Suetonius, the Roman, informs us that Germanicus, the father of Caligula, was wont to ride after dinner, to strengthen his ancles, by the action of riding affording the blood freer circulation in the part.
The Latin names assigned them have been various, among which is scalæ; in which sense Mauritius, in his treatise on the art of war, is said to have named them. Now, this writer is supposed to have lived in the sixth century; but we conceive it is pretty evident they had an earlier existence in Arabia, Turkey, and Persia, as there is an alto, as well as bas-relief of this last country, still extant, which is believed to have been as ancient as the days of Darius, because it was brought from the city he built, Persepolis, having this representation.
The invention and name of stirrup is supposed to have been borrowed from the anatomy of the ear, where a band is found resembling it in form.
HORSE-SHOES.
When we consider the vast importance of security to the feet of that useful animal, the horse, we cannot but feel surprised that on account of the very rough roads the ancients must occasionally had to travel, that some metallic shoes had not been invented and introduced previously to the period when they appeared.