After 450 B.C. we begin to hear of riding and of cavalry in Greece proper, side by side with charioteers. Books were written on the art, one of which, from the pen of Xenophon, is still extant.
The case is totally different when we turn to the history of Rome during the same period. In the early regal times, and in the first centuries of the Republic, cavalry was the most important arm of the military service. It was naturally composed of the aristocracy, who alone could bear the expense of a Horse. It was only when a rich middle class had sprung up, and were denied the aristocratic privilege of serving on horseback, that the heavy-armed infantry, which in later times won all the great Roman victories, came first into existence. As they increased, the cavalry decreased in importance, and the typical Roman soldier was what was called in mediæval times a man-at-arms.
The native breeds of Horses in Britain, before the Roman conquest, are known to us merely from a reference to them by Cæsar, that they were powerful and well suited for purposes of war by their stature and training. They were used in the battles of the Romans, yoked to the chariots. They were evidently considered of great importance, since they appear on some of the early British coins—as, for example, those of Cunobelin. After the conquest of Britain by the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, the Horses demanded more attention than before. Athelstan thought the preservation of the native breed of sufficient importance to call for a legal enactment to prevent the export of Horses, excepting as presents. Saddle-horses were employed, according to the testimony of Bede, in England in the early part of the seventh century, and from the notices in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is evident that they were frequently used by the Danes for purposes of transport from one part of the country to another; and in the song of the fight of Maldon, we read of Goderic flying from the field on a Horse, on which his lord had ridden down to the battle.
The first attempt on record to improve the native breed, by the introduction of foreign blood, was by the importation of “running Horses” from Germany in the time of Athelstan; in whose reign also many Spanish Horses were imported. William the Conqueror, who owed his success in the Battle of Hastings to his cavalry, paid great attention to the English breed. In his time, Professor Bell tells us, “Roger de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, imported the elegant and docile Spanish Horse, and bred from it on his estates in Powisland; and it is recorded that the Horses of that part of Wales were long celebrated for their swiftness, a quality which they had doubtless derived from this happy mixture of blood. The heavy panoply of mail, however, with which the warriors of this and of succeeding ages at once protected and loaded both themselves and their steeds, sufficiently attests that the cavalry must have been mounted on Horses of great strength and size; and there is no doubt that, until the universal employment of firearms rendered such a protection in a great measure unavailable, the speed and figure of the War Horse must have been sacrificed to the qualities of power and endurance. The beautiful Horses on which many of our light cavalry regiments are now mounted, although endowed with considerable strength, would have been crushed beneath the weight of metal by which both the knight of olden time and his Horse were so heavily laden.”
King John paid great attention to the improvement of the breed for agricultural purposes; and to him, according to Youatt, we are indebted for our Draft Horses. He imported no less than a hundred Flanders stallions, which probably laid the foundation of the strength and size which are the eminent characteristic of our Horses of war and labour. Edward III. was a zealous patron of the course, and in his reign the heavy native breed was crossed with lighter Horses of Spanish origin, the offspring of the Arabs, which had been introduced by the Moors. From this time forwards, great pains were taken by the English sovereigns to improve the breeds; races were regularly established in various parts of the kingdom, and various enactments were passed to secure excellence. James I. gave as much as five hundred pounds—an enormous sum, according to the value of money in those times—for an Arabian; and in the Protectorate of Cromwell, Horses were introduced from the south-east and from Morocco, by which beauty of form, and a degree of swiftness before unknown, were added to the stoutness which had hitherto characterised English Horses. In the time of Charles II., we may remark that the bell, which had hitherto been the prize of the successful Horse in racing, was exchanged for the cup, which has continued to be the prize down to the present day.
Mr. Darwin considers that the cause of modification in the forms of Horses greatly arises from their varying conditions of life; that, for instance, Horses living in mountainous regions, or on small islands, become reduced in size from want of a variety of food. Corsica and Sardinia have native breeds of Ponies; and the Puno Ponies living in the lofty regions of the Cordilleras are said to be strange little creatures. But Horses can withstand intense cold, as they live wild on the plains of Siberia, where they scrape away the snow in order to get at the herbage underneath. Not only do the wild Tarpans in the East possess this instinct, but also those that have run wild on the Falkland Islands, as well as the Horses in North America descended from those brought into Mexico by the Spaniards.
That the original colour of the Horse was dun may be gathered from evidence dating as far back as the time of Alexander the Great, and the wild Horses now in Western Asia and Eastern Europe are of the same colour. In Hungary and Norway, duns with a stripe down the spine are considered of an aboriginal colour.
DENTITION OF HORSE.
(A) upper, (B) lower, jaw.