The Horse

Canon Taylor, in that most interesting book, "The Origin of the Aryans," haê raised once more a question which lm often attracted the attention of scholars, especially fhose interested in the Homeric poems, saya the Academy. Why is it that in the earliest records of the Greeks, Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, and Celts we find the horse used for drawing chariots, but not yet ior riding? Canon Taylor remarks: "It is curious to notice at how late a period men first rantured to mount 'the swift one;' " and ha goes on to say that there is nothing in the "Rig Veda" to show that the art of riding was practiced, and that our flrst notice of it is in the "Zend Avesta." The Homeric Greeks employed the horse almost exclusively for the chariot, riding being only alluded to in some two or three isolated passages, as when Odysseus and Diomedes rode to the ships the horses of Ithesus which they had captured. This, however, shows that it was hardly from fear that the Greeks did not habitually ride instead of drive their steeds. The same remark applies to the ancient Britons, who, according to the ancient accounts, performed wonderful feats of agility in running out and standing upon the pole of the chariot. The true solution may probably be this: The primitive honse that ranged over the plains of Europe and Asia was too small when he was first domestioated to carry a man for any great time or distancc on his back. This, of oourse, would render him practically useless for warfare. There is ampie evidence to prove that the primitive wild horse was of very diminutive size. Probably of all his descendants the Shetland pony is his best representative. Canon Taylor says (speaking of the enormous deposit of their bones found at Solutre, near Macon, which contains from twenty thousand to forty thousand skeletons): "This primitive horse was a diminutíve animal, not much larger than an ass, standing about thirteen hands high, the largest specimens not exceeding fourteen hands. But the head was of disproportionate size, and the teeth were very powerfnl. 11e resembledthe tarpán or wild horse of the Caspian steppes." Even long after he hnd been domesticated he remained vr-ry small, as is proved by the bits m: a of bronze and staghorn which have 1 en found at Moringen and Auvernk'i-. which belong to' the latest bronze age. "These bits are only three and one half inches wide, and could now be hardly used for a child's pony." Let us now turn to üerodotus, where, speaking of the unknown regions to the north of the Danube, he says that the only people he can learn of as inhabiting the región are called Sigyannae, who wear the costume of the Medes, and whose horses are shaggy all over the body, being covered with hair to a depth of five fingers, and are small and flat nosed and incapable of carrying men, but when yoked under chariots they are very swift, and that the natives aceordinly drive chariots. This description of the external appearance of the littie horses of the Sigyannae of central Búrope agrees very well with that of the sketches found near Macón. The simous shape of the head tallies wcll with the ugly shaped skull and powerful jaws of the bone deposits. We can hardly doubt that we have here primitive horses such as those whose diminutive bits have been found in the later lake dwellings of Switzerland. It seems to me then that the reason Herodotus here assigns for the f act that this tribe oí central Europe drove their horses instead of riding them is the true explanation why all early peoples alike employed the horse for driving long before they ever habitually practiced riáing. It was only after generations of domestication that, under oareful feedingend breeding, the horse became of sufflcient size to carry a man on his back with ease. That size was held to be of great importance by the Homerio Greeks is proved by Iliad x, 436.