[54] From the treatise, "On Horsemanship." Translated by J. S. Watson. Mahaffy says this treatise on the horse "shows an insight into the character of horses which would do credit to a modern book." Most readers of the treatise who are familiar with horses have remarked how true it all is of the horse as we know him to-day. One commentator has remarked that the book reads as if it might have been written by some educated man professionally attached to racing stables.
[55] The ancients did not use the stirrup; nor did they have a saddle in the modern sense of the word.
PLATO
Born in Ægina of aristocratic parents about 427 b.c.; died in Athens in 347; originally called Aristocles and surnamed Plato because of his broad shoulders; a disciple of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle; was the founder of the Academic school; in his youth a successful gymnast, soldier, and poet; traveled in Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Græcia; arrested in Syracuse by Dionysius, the tyrant, and sold as a slave in Ægina, where he was released and returned to Athens; revisited Syracuse in 367 and 361; lived afterward in Athens until his death, which occurred at a marriage feast.[56]
I
THE IMAGE OF THE CAVE[57]
After this, I said, imagine the enlightenment or ignorance of our nature in a figure. Behold: human beings living in a sort of underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all across the den; they have been here from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they can not move, and can see only before them; for the chains are arranged in such a manner as to prevent them from turning round their heads. At a distance above and behind them the light of a fire is blazing, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette-players have before them, over which they show the puppets.
I see, he[58] said.