The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

ARMENIA, CAPPADOCIA, NORTHERN SYRIA ETC.

ABOUT 1200 B.C.

Another argument in favor of the wild and unknown regions east and north of the Caspian as the habitat of the horse has been urged with much more power and effect. It has been accepted and reiterated by so many learned men, one after another, that I doubted the wisdom of attempting to overthrow it, until I found the spot in which it was fatally weak. This view of the question seems to rest upon the fact that the successive hosts of Barbarians that overran Europe in the early centuries of the Christian era brought their horses, as well as their flocks and herds, with them, and it is assumed that these horses were the first brought into Europe. This involves a total misconception of dates; not of a few years merely, but of many centuries. All of Europe, including Britain, and all of Northern Africa, were abundantly supplied with horses, probably a thousand years before the first destructive wave of Barbarians touched Europe. Linguistic and ethnological facts clearly prove that those people came from Asia, and possibly from a part of Asia where there were horses running wild, but that does not prove that they came from the original habitat of the horse. With no dates, either definite or approximate, to support this theory, and with no specific portion of the earth fixed upon as the general locality from which they came, it resolves itself into a mere speculation with nothing to support it, except the fact that different writers have been copying it from one another, without throwing any additional light upon it, for a number of generations.

The most remarkable and at the same time the most untenable of all the claims that have been urged about the horse is that he was indigenous in Arabia. We can tolerate any number of foolish claims set up to show that the Arabian horse is superior to all others, for such assertions can be tested and disproved, as they have been a thousand times, but the claim that Arabia was the original habitat of the horse is so utterly preposterous, and yet so widely advocated by writers and others who know nothing about it, that we must consider it with some brief deliberation. When the maimed and crippled horses of De Soto were turned loose and abandoned on the plains of Texas, they had all around them the means of an abundant and healthy subsistence, and they multiplied and grew into an innumerable host that made the earth tremble when they moved in great masses. Under the same favorable conditions of water and pasture, the same results followed on the pampas of South America. Upon the early settlement of Virginia, as well probably as in some of the other colonies, and within two hundred years, many of the horses of the colonists strayed away, became wild and remained so, propagating and increasing for generations, and until the growing numbers of their former masters captured or exterminated them. The varied herbage of the forest and its grassy swales, and streams of pure water everywhere, made Virginia a paradise for the horse in his feral state.

Buffon, the French naturalist of a hundred and fifty years ago, notices the theory of the wild horses of Arabia, but he is careful not to commit himself nor indorse it in any form. In Vol. I., p. 237, he says: “According to Mannol, the Arabian horses are descended from the wild horses in the deserts of Arabia, of which, in ancient times, large studs were formed,” etc. In going further, to find where Mannol got his information, it appears that somebody, with an unpronounceable name that I have forgotten, told him so. Major Upton, a very intelligent but very credulous modern writer on what he saw and learned in the desert, says he never heard of this story of wild horses in Arabia, and pronounces it a “fallacy.” When we consider that Arabia never was conquered and the reason why, although Rome, at the very culmination of her power, followed by Assyria and Egypt, all failed of their purpose without meeting an enemy in battle, we must accept the fact that nature had interposed a barrier that military power could not surmount. The barrenness and aridity of the desert has always protected the Arabs against the most powerful armies of the mightiest nations. Now, to maintain that wild horses could not only live, but flourish and increase, in a country where there was not enough edible herbage on a thousand acres to keep a grasshopper alive, and not a running stream of water within five hundred miles, requires a measure of mental sterility that can be found nowhere but among a few of the writers on the Arabian horse. Of all the curiosities in which the literature of the Arabian horse abounds and in the multitudinous efforts to give him the primacy among horses, there seems to be nothing quite so absurd as this story about his being indigenous to the desert. Animals in a wild state are never found except in countries and districts where the conditions surrounding provide them with food and water. How long would a band of strong, healthy horses live if turned loose to seek their own subsistence in the desert of Arabia? Of all the countries on the face of the globe there is no one where the horse is so completely dependent upon, the care and support of his master as Arabia.

Fortunately, we are not left for data to unwritten traditions two thousand years old, nor to the fervid imaginations of a race of cutthroats and thieves of the very lowest order of civilization, but we can turn, with full confidence, to authentic contemporaneous history, from which we can settle this question, at once and for all time. Strabo, the great Greek geographer and philosopher, flourished in the reign of Augustus, at the very beginning of the Christian era. He describes Arabia just as we know it to-day, for all countries have changed in their boundaries and government except Arabia. He describes the people as chiefly nomadic, and as breeders of camels. The most remarkable thing in this description is the fact, found in his great work, Vol. III., p. 190, that they had no horses at that time. The exact language used in this statement will be found in the next chapter of this work. The question now arises, If there were no horses in Arabia at the beginning of the Christian era, when and how did they become possessed of them? Fortunately, again, written history supplies the answer to this question. In my next chapter will be found, quoted at some length, the circumstances bearing on this question. In brief, the facts are as follows: Philostorgius, a distinguished Greek theologian, wrote an ecclesiastical history in the fifth century which is no longer extant. Photius, at one time Patriarch of Constantinople, in the ninth century wrote an epitome of the work by Philostorgius and to this epitome we are indebted for the facts we here relate. Constantius, at the time of which Philostorgius wrote, was on the throne of the Eastern empire, and was exceedingly zealous in spreading and strengthening the Christian religion. He learned that the prince of Arabia Felix (that part of Arabia which we will designate by its modern name Yemen) was strongly disposed to come out with his people and embrace Christianity. Constantius thereupon determined to encourage both prince and people in the movement they were contemplating, and he sent them a grand embassy with many valuable presents, the most noted of which were two hundred “well-bred Cappadocian horses.” The embassy was completely successful, and Theopholis, who had been made a bishop and placed at the head of it, remained there several years. This was in the year 356 of the Christian era, and is the first intimation we have in all history of horses in Arabia. These are the facts, so far as any facts are known, upon the consideration of which I am not able to assent to the claim that either High Asia or Arabia was the original habitat of the horse.

I have been surprised at the number of coincidences that seem to point to ancient Armenia as the first habitation of the horse. This country at one time was a very powerful kingdom, extending from the mountains of Caucasus on the north to Media or Assyria on the south, and from the Caspian Sea on the east to the Euphrates on the west, and at one time even to the Mediterranean. It was intersected by several ranges of mountains and not only gave rise to the Euphrates and the Tigris, but to a number of smaller rivers. It was well watered everywhere, and produced in great abundance all varieties of herbage, cereals, and fruits. It was originally called Ararat by the Hebrews, probably after a range of mountains about central to the territory embraced, and because Noah’s Ark rested somewhere “on the mountains of Ararat.” It is also called Togarmah in Scripture, after Torgom, son of Gomer, who was the son of Japheth, the son of Noah. Japheth seems to have been the oldest son of Noah, and he chose this fruitful region as the future home of his descendants. The Rev. Michael Chamich, a native Armenian, went back into the old Armenian records, translated the language as originally used, and wrote a history of the country from its first settlement; and this history has been Englished by Johannes Adval, another native Armenian, and published in Calcutta in 1827. This work seems to be worthy of credence, and it clearly establishes the lineal descent of the governing family back to Japheth, the son of Noah. The order of succession as the head of the tribe continues through several generations unbroken, from father to son. Gomer, the son of Japheth, was succeeded by his son Togarmah, then followed Haicus, Armenac, Aramais, Amassia, Gelam, Harma, Aram, Arah, who was slain in battle, his son Cardus (at twelve years old), Anushaven, who died without issue and was succeeded by Paret, who reigned fifty years and during his reign the patriarch Joseph died in Egypt, B.C. 1635. These princes all had long reigns. Haicus was the first of the line to assume the title of king, and he was greatly distinguished for extending the boundaries of his kingdom. Gelam extended his borders to the Caspian. Aram was fifty-eight years on the throne, during which time he had a war with the Medes, and also with the Cappadocians, in both of which he had a large force of cavalry in the field. This was about seventeen hundred years before the Christian era, and is the first mention of cavalry that I have found in history, either sacred or profane. In both these wars his cavalry was met by the cavalry of the enemy, equal to or greater than his in numbers. How long before this troops may have been mounted on horses it is impossible to say, but from the numbers so used at that period of the world by the neighboring nations and tribes, as the Medes, the Cappadocians, etc., it is fair to conclude that the horse had then been an important factor in all military movements for many generations. When we consider two opposing armies, each provided with divisions of five thousand cavalry, the period being about B.C. 1700, with no dates beyond that are known as relating to the horse, we are shut up to our own reasoning as to the number of centuries that may have been required to produce these great numbers. It must have been at least one century, or it may have been three or four, and this would carry us back to the head of the house of Japheth.

If we accept Egyptian chronology, which still lacks much of being reliable, one of the Pharaohs, named Thutmosis I., invaded Syria, passing up through Palestine till he reached the latitude of Aleppo, and then turned eastward and crossed the Euphrates. His campaign was successful; he fought many battles and returned laden with spoils, especially horses and chariots of war. This was before the Israelites reached the promised land, and before Joshua’s battle with the “Northern kings,” in which they had “horsemen and chariots very many,” and which is the earliest Scriptural instance in which horses were employed in battle.

The territory embracing the ancient countries of Eastern Asia Minor, bounded on the north by the Black Sea and the Caucasian mountains, on the south by the thirty-seventh degree of north latitude, and extending to the Caspian Sea, has always been remarkable for the variety, value, and abundance of its agricultural products. Many of the very early historians have noted the fact that each one of the countries embraced in this territory was distinguished for the excellence and numbers of horses produced, and they appear in about the following order, namely, Armenia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Media. The last-named country embraced what is now the northern part of Persia, and as between the “Medes” and the “Persians” there is no little confusion in the public mind, as sometimes one was on top and sometimes the other. Then, to add to the confusion, the Assyrians came in, occupying the same country and the same capitals. For our present purposes it is not necessary to enter into the consideration of these successive dynasties. The Medes were comparatively newcomers, and as they were a great military people their prominence in horse history resulted more from the spoils of war and the tribute in horses that they collected from their neighbors than from their own production. Kitto says that in the time of the Persian empire the plain of Nissæum was celebrated for its horses and horse races. This plain was near the city of Nissæa, around which were fine pasture lands, producing excellent clover. The horses were “entirely white” (probably grey) and of extraordinary height and beauty, as well as speed. They constituted part of the luxury of the great, and a tribute in kind was paid from them to the monarch, who, like all Eastern sovereigns, used to delight in equestrian display. Some idea of the opulence of the country may be had when it is known that, independently of imposts rendered in money, Media (then the undermost dog), paid a yearly tribute of not less than three thousand horses, four thousand mules, and nearly one hundred thousand sheep. The races, once celebrated through the world, seem to exist no more.