saly, a herd of mad bulls descended from Mount Pelion, and ravaged the whole neighbouring country. In consequence of a large reward being offered by Ixion for the destruction of the bulls, certain adventurous young men turned their attention to the training of horses for the saddle; before that time they having been only used in chariots. These men having attacked the bulls on horseback, and cleared the country of them, soon became insolent, ravaged the plains of Thessaly, and even attacked Ixion himself. At their departure from these frays, the ignorant Lapitæ, as the inhabitants of that part of the country were called, seeing only the tails of the horses and the heads of the men, took them for monsters, half man half horse.

Having given these as forming the earliest records on the subject of horsemanship, mentioned in the best authorities of sacred and profane history, we will proceed to notice the first introduction of horse-racing, which took place at a very early period among the Greeks. Here we must be understood as not referring to chariot racing,-which already, in the time of Homer, formed a prominent feature among the games of the Greeks, upon all solemn festivals and occasions,-but to the establishment of races between horses ridden by men.

That the utility of public horse-racing was understood and appreciated by the Greeks, is sufficiently evident by the introduction of horseracing among the Olympian games, which were held at Elis every four years, about the time of the 24th Olympiad ; and it is a curious fact, that at the 71st Olympiad, such progress had been made in these races, that besides prizes instituted for aged horses, we find a race formed for mares only, called Calpe, much on the same principle as the Oaks of the present day.

The Olympian Hippodrome at Elis, where these races were held, is thus described by Pausanias: "This course was divided into two parts; the stadium for foot races and athletic exercises; the hippodromus, as the name implies, for equestrian trials. The barrier, or starting post, was in the shape of the prow of a ship, with the beak towards the course; and towards the other side, at which it became broader, it was connected with the portico Agnamptus, as it was called, from the name of its architect. A bar appears to have stretched across the course at the extremity of the beak, and upon this was fixed a brazen dolphin. The space on either side the beak extended 400 feet in length, and in it were various stands, both for horses and

chariots, distributed by lot to the competitors; in front of these was suspended a rope. About the middle of the prow stood an altar of unburnt brick, which was fresh plastered at every renewal of the games. Upon it was a brazen eagle, with outspread wings, which at a particular time, worked by some ingenious machinery, flew upwards, while the dolphin before mentioned sank below. At this moment the barriers were let down, and the horses and chariots moved forward from their particular stands, according to the order of their lot, till they were ranged in an even line at the point of the beak the race then began. One side of the course stretched along a hill; the other, which was the larger of the two, was formed by a causeway."

"We will here relate an anecdote of a mare called Aura, the property of one Phidolas, a Corinthian, which threw her jockey in the race, but continued her course as if he had kept his seat, increasing her pace at the sound of the trumpet, which was used as the signal of the coming in, and having been first at the winning goal, presented herself to the judges, as if conscious of having won. The Elians declared her the winner, contrary to the present custom in such cases. These judges, called Hallanodics,

regulated all matters at Olympia, exercising a power which would not be relished at the present day; for we find them not only excluding from the games, and imposing fines upon, such as were convicted of fraud, but even inflicting upon them bodily correction.

Having sufficiently shown the origin and progress of horsemanship and racing among the ancients, at least as far as we are borne out by creditable authorities, and as the limits of this work will allow, we will now conclude this introductory chapter by a glance at Zenophon's NEPI INNIKHΣ, (De Equitatu) the earliest known work among the Greeks, or in fact, among the ancients; for although the breeding and training of horses must have been cultivated, both by the Romans, and by those warlike nations of the north of Europe who at length subverted the Roman empire, no writers on these subjects, if any did exist, have descended to us: whatever knowledge was attained in those days has perished with them; and after Zenophon we have no writers on horsemanship until the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Not only is the work of Zenophon deserving of attention on account of its antiquity, but the reader will be surprised to find how superior it is, in almost every respect, to nearly all the

works on the same subject which have followed it, up to the eighteenth century.

Zenophon refers to a previous work by Simon of Egina, but of which nothing is now known, a matter of little consequence, as Zenophon professes to give all the passages in it that are worthy of notice. He commences with instructions to a purchaser, in which he recommends especial attention to the legs and hoofs. He then particularly commends the use of gentleness in breaking in and training; in which respect he differs from most of the later writers, great violence being the practice they generally advise. He then proceeds to refer to the teeth, as a sure criterion of a horse's age. His instructions for stabling, feeding, and exercise, show much judgment; and among other things, he recommends that an outer court should be strewed with small round stones, confined by an iron rim, so that by constant treading upon these, the hoofs may acquire hardness; a fact well worthy of remark, as it proves that at this period the Greek horses were not shod.

His duties of a groom being curious, we will briefly describe them. They are, to know how to fasten a horse properly to his manger, to keep the stalls clean, to curry the body, and wash the head, mane, and tail. The legs are