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Aniversity IBress : _Joun WILson AND Son, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE. AMONG technical treatises, that of Xeno- phon on Horsemanship is almost unique in one particular. Even after more than twenty- three centuries it is still, in the main, a sound and excellent guide for so much of the field as.it covers. This fact, together with the simple and delightful manner in which the subject is treated, has led me to think that some who are not able or do not care to approach the book in the original Greek, might like to read a translation of the earli- est known work on the horse and how to ride him. To be sure, there have already been versions in English; but these seem to me, and have seemed to others, unsatisfactory. My translation is made from the Greek text of Dindorf’s Oxford edition. Two well-known special editions of the treatise I vi PREFACE. have found very useful. These are by Courier, with notes and a translation into French, first published in Paris in 1813, and by Jacobs, with notes and a German version, Gotha, 1825. Hermann’s essay, ‘‘De verbis quibus Graeci incessum equorum indicant,” is indispensable for the study of certain parts of the treatise. I have also consulted the German translation of Ginzrot, with brief notes, in the second volume of his large work called “Die Wagen und Fuhrwerke der Griechen und Rémer,” Munich, 1817. Ginzrot’s book must be used with caution; the illustrations are often fanciful, and the statements need verification; but his transla- tion of Xenophon is sometimes helpful. In English I have seen three translations, — Berenger’s (in his ‘‘ History and Art of Horse- manship,” London, 1771, a somewhat rare book, for the loan of which I am obliged to — the Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum); an anonymous translation reprinted with the minor works of Xenophon in Philadelphia in 1845; and Watson’s, in Bohn’s Classical Library. The first is by far the best, but I have not found either of the three of much PREFACE. vii assistance. There has been no edition of the Greek text with English notes. The illustrations in this book are all selected from the antique, and are repro- duced from the best sources at my command. These sources, together with a brief descrip- tion of each picture, are given on page 158 ff. I might have illustrated almost every subject in the treatise by means of the Parthenon frieze; but I choose rather to omit all but a few of these well-known works, and to present others which are less generally known to the readers for whom my book is primarily in- tended. For it will be easy to see that I have not written for philologians. The brief essay on the Greek Riding-horse makes no pretence to completeness, and little to origi- nality. In it, and in the notes which follow, my chief intention has been to offer only what I thought would be necessary explana- tion or interesting information to those who do not profess to be classical scholars. Yet perhaps even such scholars may find here and there, especially in the notes, a few points which may be new, and, I hope, not unacceptable to them. And I sincerely wish Vili PREFACE. that this little book might lead some one to a more thorough study of the subjects of riding and driving in antiquity. They offer a fertile and interesting field for special investigation. Besides the German works already men- tioned, and the ordinary classical handbooks, the best books in which to find information about the Greek horse and horsemanship are Schlieben’s ‘‘ Die Pferde des Altertums,” 1867, Martin’s ‘“‘Les Cavaliers Athéniens,” 1886, and Daremberg and Saglio’s “ Dictionnaire des Antiquités,” under the words egzdtes, equus, etc. I have not seen Lehndorf’s “‘Hippodromos,” 1876, nor Piétrement’s ‘‘ Les chevaux dans les temps historiques et pré- historiques,” 1883. One of the most charm- ing of the works of Cherbuliez is his ‘‘ Cheval de Phidias,” 1864, in which the subject is considered from purely artistic and aesthetic points of view. Of course there is much information scattered through periodical liter- ature; but, in spite of all, the book of the ancient horse is yet to be written. M. Hi, M, May, 1893. CONTENTS. XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. . - + + + 13 THE GREEK RipING-HORSE. ..-... + 69 Poets oF THE HORSE. . . sss si = «OT NOTES . s . s . . . . . . ~ > . * a IIg ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS .. +--+ + «© « + I5Q Taree a) rats a oa Oe XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. CHAPTER I. T has been my fortune to spend a great deal of time in riding, and so I think myself versed in the horseman’s art. This makes me willing to set forth to the younger of my friends what I believe would be the best way for them to deal with horses. It is true that a book on horsemanship has already been written by Simon:* J mean the man who dedicated the bronze horse at the Eleusinion? in Athens with his own exploits « The numerals refer to the Notes, p. 119 ff. 14 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. in relief on the pedestal. Still, I shall not strike out of my work all the points in which I chance to agree with him, but shall take much greater pleasure in passing them on to my friends, believing that I speak with the more authority because a famous horse- man, such as he, has thought asI do. And then, again, I shall try to make clear what- ever he has omitted. To begin with, I shall describe how a man, in buying a horse, would be least likely to be cheated. In the case of an unbroken colt, of course his frame is what you must test; as for spirit, no very sure signs of that are offered by an animal that has never yet been mounted. And in his frame, the first things which I say you ought to look at are his feet3 Just as a house would be good for nothing if it were very handsome above but lacked the proper foundations, so too a war-horse, even if all his other points were fine, would yet be good for nothing if he had bad feet; for he could not use a single one of his fine points. The feet should first be tested by exam- ining the horn; thick horn‘ is a much better CHAPTER I. 15 mark of good feet than thin. Again, one should not fail to note whether the hoofs at toe and heel come up high or lie low. High ones keep what is called the frog’ well off the ground, while horses with low hoofs walk with the hardest and softest part of the foot at once, like knock-kneed men. Simon says that their sound is a proof of good feet, and he is right; for a hollow hoof resounds like a cymbal as it strikes the ground. As we have begun here, let us now proceed to the rest of the body. The bones above the hoofs and below the fetlocks should not be very straight up and down, like the goat's; for if they have no spring, they jar the rider, and such legs are apt to get inflamed. These bones should not come down very low, either, else the horse might get his fetlocks stripped of hair® and torn in riding over heavy ground or over stones. The shank bones ought to be stout, for they are the supporters of the body; but they should not be thickly coated with flesh or veins: if they are, in riding over hard ground the veins would fill with blood and become varicose, the legs would swell, and the flesh recede. With this slackening 16 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. of the flesh, the back sinew’ often gives way, and makes the horse lame. As for the knees, if they are supple in bending when the colt walks, you may infer that his limbs will be supple in riding; for as time goes on, all colts get more and more supple at the knees. Supple knees are highly esteemed; and justly, because they make the horse easier and less likely to stumble than stiff ones. Forearms® stout below the shoulders look stronger and comelier, as they do in man. The broader the chest so much the hand- . somer and the stronger is it, and the more naturally adapted to carry the legs well apart and without interference. The neck should not be thrown out from the chest like a -boar’s, but, like a cock’s, should rise straight up to the poll and be slim at the bend, while the head, though bony, should have but a small jaw. The neck would then protect the rider, and the eye see what lies before the feet. A horse thus shaped could do the least harm, even if he were very high- spirited; for it is not by arching the neck and head, but by stretching them out, that horses try their powers of violence. You Way ee. 9 4 a CHAPTER I. ) CaF should note also whether his jaws are fine or hard, whether they are alike or different.’° Horses whose jaws are unlike are generally hard-mouthed. ee 8 yi eueet Ms rn ae, Bhi oe 4% ae Ve ‘; Ra Tan ee OY Aaa . * ; , ¥ hy ane ray rire. Seca area? Be he A bi ee KT ; THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 77 seem low to us; but it should be remembered that the cheapness of a given article is rela- tive to the cost of other articles at. the time in question. In Greek antiquity, the neces- saries of life were in general to be bought for comparatively less money than at the pres- ent day. A house cost from three to one hundred and twenty minae ($54 to $2,160), according to its size, situation, and condition ; perhaps an average price was from ten to forty minae ($180 to $720). Barley cost two drachmae the medimnus (thirty-six cents for a bushel and a half); wheat, three drachmae (fifty-four cents). An ox could be had for from fifty to one hundred drachmae (nine to eighteen dollars); a sheep, for ten to twenty drachmae ; a sucking pig, for three drachmae; a lamb, for ten drachmae. For the usual garment of the working classes the same price was paid as for a lamb ($1.80); for a cloak, such as cavalrymen wore, twelve drachmae ($2.16). These prices are gleaned by Boeckh* here and there throughout the literature. A comparison of them makes it evident that a horse was an expensive piece * In “ Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener.” 78 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. of property; and indeed horse-owning, with all that was too apt to follow it, became a synonym for extravagance. Horse-raising was a pursuit for which the nature of the Greek soil was not well fitted; the countries were too rugged and mountain- ous, the plains in them few and small. Chief among the breeds for beauty, courage, and endurance was the Thessalian. It was re- nowned in the very earliest times, but then of course for driving and not for riding. The mares of King Diomedes which ate human flesh, the horses of Rhesus, of Achilles, and of Orestes in the race described by Sophocles in the “‘ Electra,” — finally, to come down from mythology to history, Alexander’s charger, Bucephalas, were all of this famous breed. Others in high favour were the Argive, Acarnanian, Arcadian, and Epidaurian ; but nothing is known of the differences between these breeds or of the peculiar merits of each. In spite of the natural disadvantages of the soil of Attica, the Athenian young men de- voted themselves with much zeal to the rais- ing and training of horses for the turf or for THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 79 war; and old Strepsiades * was not the only father who had to lament that he was ruined by a horse-complaint. The great space de- voted on the frieze of the Parthenon to the Athenian cavalry shows clearly what a high estimation was set upon the possession of beautiful horses, and on dexterity in the man- agement of them. Instruction in riding began to form a special branch in the educa- tion of the higher classes,t and it was there- fore natural that men should begin to write on the art of horsemanship. The celebrated rider Simon, of whom more hereafter, was the earliest writer on this art whose name is known to us. He was soon followed by Xenophon. From the latter's treatise we can discover the point which the art had reached in the first half of the fourth century before the Christian era. We learn from it that the only gaits of the horse were the walk, the trot, and the gallop with both leads; that he was trained in leaping as well as in the demi-pesade, the volte, and the oblong career with sharp turns at both ends; * In the comedy of the “ Clouds” by Aristophanes. t+ See page 169. 80 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. that the use of the jointed bit and of the spur was understood; but that curbs, saddles, and stirrups were not yet invented. We get also much information on the nature of the ani- mal himself, and on the care that was taken of him. I have found it more convenient to say what seemed necessary on all these mat- ters in the notes which follow this essay. But Xenophon’s first chapter is devoted to the physique of the animal; and in it he sets forth what, in his opinion, are the distinguish- ing marks of a good horse. This is a subject which may be better treated here than in the notes. | In the matter of judging the points of a horse, the ancient requirements were not in all respects like the modern. The advance in anatomical knowledge accounts for some differences; but it is also probable, as Schlie- ben * observes, that we, like the men of old, are prejudiced by habit in favour of the type with which we are familiar. If qualities which they thought beautiful seem ugly to us, it should be remembered that our stand- ard does not always conform even to that of the last century. * In “ Die Pferde des Altertums.” THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. si Our knowledge of the taste of the Greeks in this matter is drawn from two sources, — the literary and the artistic. Schlieben, in his interesting book on the Horse in Antiquity, seems to think that the three principal forms of art — vase-paintings, reliefs, and statues in the round—each exhibit peculiarities of treat- ment innate to the artistic form, which make it impossible to reach, from a comparison of them all, any distinct conception of the best type of Greek horse. Then turning to the writers, he is further confused by finding that points of excellence upon which they all agree are not apparent in the works of the artists. Hence he assumes different ideals for the artists and the writers. He even thinks that in one point, at least, the unani- mous agreement of the writers is reversed by as complete a contrary agreement in works of art. This point is the mane. He makes the common errors of believing that all the artists represent it as short, and that all the writers say that it should be long. Neither belief is more than an assumption, and a baseless one at that, as will appear later. The fact is, Schlieben seems to expect 6 82 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. to find in the works of all sorts of artists, good, bad, and indifferent, the same consen- sus that really is to be found in the writings of the authors. But the works of art have survived to us from different centuries by means of all kinds of accidents, and they were produced for all kinds of reasons. The books have survived, generally, for the reason that they were fittest for survival. The authors lived, none of them, before the classical period, and each of them undertook to describe a horse because he knew the animal himself, and had spent a good part of his life with horses, or because he could copy the words of authors of more practical experience than his own. There can be no question of the vast advantage of the books over the works of art in deciding such a matter as this. There would be nothing very surprising, therefore, in the want of agreement in art, if such want there be, upon a type of horse which we can take for the ideal animal. But nobody should thence proceed to argue that there was no such type already determined by judges of horseflesh and agreed upon even by artists. It would be much more THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 83 likely that it was the want of technical skiil which prevented the artist from representing what he had in mind to represent; then, too, he might be fettered by convention. When we look at a picture on an archaic vase, we are standing at the very cradle of the art of painting, —in order of time the last of the fine arts which the Greeks developed. And we see on vases of the more cultivated period many things which illustrate the power which lies in methods sanctified by custom —that is, in convention —to over-ride the real know- ledge of the art of painting and the greater perfection of technique which existed at the time of the production of such works. In criticising an equestrian statue or a relief for a frieze, one should always remember that it was intended to be placed at a considerable elevation and to be looked at from below, so that exaggeration of certain parts was often necessary, — such, for instance, as in the treatment of the eyes of the famous horse’s head by Phidias* in the eastern pediment of the Parthenon. But when all allowances are made, a perfect horse is as rare a thing in * See the opposite cut. 84 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. Greek art as he is in nature. Even on the Parthenon frieze, where there are finer horses than in any other works of Greek art, some animals have faults which are apparent to the veriest tiro. In fact, if we should judge altogether by what has survived to us, it must be admitted that in representing the horse in all the different forms of art the ancients have been surpassed by modern artists. By Phidias we have only the heads that were in the pediments; for the figures on the frieze, although designed by him, were certainly not carved by his own hand. But Phidias stood alone, and far above con- temporaries and successors. Still, in spite of the fact that many ancient representations of the horse have no claim to beauty or to cor- rectness in composition, there are others which will better bear criticism, some de- serve high praise,-and we read of: artists who won great fame in antiquity for the realism with which they depicted the animal. Apelles, to whom Philip and Alexander often sat for their likenesses, is said to have painted a horse 73 with such truth to nature that a live horse neighed at the picture! Pauson THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 85 was commissioned to paint a horse rolling,* but he painted him running with a cloud of dust about him. The man who gave the order naturally objected, whereupon the. master turned the picture upside down, and behold! the patron’s stipulations were ful- filled.4 Criticism could discover only one defect in a painting by Micon; the famous rider. Simon remarked that he had never before seen a horse with eyelashes on the lower lids. Such stories, in spite of mani- fest exaggerations, show that extant works are not a fair criterion of the skill of the great painters. Not a single work remains that can be traced to any of them; but doubtless to their art, in comparison with what survives, might have been applied lines like Donne’s, written of a contemporary of his own, — : “ A hand or eye. By Hilyarde drawne, is worth an history By a worse painter made.” In sculpture, both in the round and in relief, and in reliefs on coins, the extant works are far more satisfactory; for they rep- * See p. 131. 86 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. resent branches of art which had reached near to perfection before the Greeks really began to develop painting. But here again, as I have said, we lack complete examples of works illustrating the horse by the greatest masters, except perhaps by the best design- ers for the coinage. On the whole, it seems impossible, from a comparison of the works of art alone, to determine what shape of horse was generally approved by the Greek connoisseur. It remains to inquire whether the literature helps us in this direction. The oldest known description in Greek of a good horse was contained in Simon's trea- tise on Horsemanship, of which we have only fragments. One, however, is of considerable length, and this happens to contain his advice on the choice of a horse. Then comes Xenophon; but after him we find nothing professing exactness until the Roman period. Varro, writing in 37 B.C., and Vergil, who published his “ Georgics” a little later, are the only others before the Christian era. Then come in the first century Calpurnius and Columella, in the third Oppian and Nemesian, and in the fourth Apsyrtus, Pela- THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 87 gonius, and Palladius.” There are of course countless allusions to the points of the horse in numerous other authors, but I have here named all the extant writers who have de- scribed with any exactness and completeness the best type of the animal; and in another part of this book (p. 107) will be found translations which I have made from them all. . These writers are scattered through a period of nearly eight hundred years, but it is evi- dent that they all had in mind an animal of the same general stamp. Schlieben writes as though the descriptions given by the several writers really differed in essential particulars ; but this is very far from being the case, and his study of the passages cannot have been exact. Xenophon’s description is by all odds. the most complete; in his first chapter he touches upon over thirty points, many more than are mentioned by any other writer. A careful examination of them all shows that there are only five points mentioned by others but omitted by him; namely, shoulder- blades (large, Simon and Apsyrtus; broad, Varro; strong, Nemesian); teeth (small, 88 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. Simon); gaskins (not fleshy, Simon); veins (visible all over the body, Varro); coronet, (moderate, Pelagonius). On the other hand, the other writers never disagree with Xeno- phon in the points which they do mention. The only approach to such disagreement is the long barrel apparently required by both Simon and by Palladius; but Xeno- phon was speaking only of riding-horses, while there is nothing to show that these writers had not also in mind horses for driv- ing. It is true that we find some additions to Xenophon’s descriptions of certain points; but these are only additions and not contra- dictions, and he would doubtless have agreed with most of them. Such, for instance, are the muscles bulging out all over the chest (Vergil, Columella, Apsyrtus, Palladius), the jaw brought close to the neck (Simon, Oppian), the straight cannons (Columella, Oppian). It appears, then, that there is a very close agreement among the different writers; further, the resemblance in their language and the order in which they take up the various points show that they were frequently copying from one another or from - a ‘ Se Mee, - ipa * a“. fd sie d= mela cy tae i a THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 89 a common source now lost to us.* There can be little doubt, therefore, that even before Xenophon’s time an ideal or normal type had been established which was to find acceptance throughout the whole period of Greek and Roman antiquity. Now, when we compare Xenophon’s de- scription of a good horse with the best horses on the frieze of the Parthenon, we find a remarkable similarity. In fact, as ‘“‘ Stone- henge” ¢ remarks, “ here we have described a cobby but spirited and corky horse, with a light and somewhat peculiar carriage of the head and neck, just as we see represented on the Elgin marbles.” It has been thought by some that Xenophon based his description upon these very reliefs, and it is of course possible that they may have served as a sort of guide to his words. But from earlier works still, in vase-paintings of extremely * A lost work by the elder Pliny contained a de- scription of the normal horse, generally accepted by his contemporaries. See his Natural History, viii, 162. { In his book.on the Horse, near the beginning of which he gives the most exact translation of Xeno- phon’s description which I have ever seen. gO XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. rude workmanship, presenting pictures which to the Philistine are nothing but ridiculous caricatures, — even in these early productions and still more frequently on the later vases, there are traces which show that it was the artist’s hand that was at fault, or that he was governed by convention, and that there was present before his mind something very like the conception which the assistants of Phidias were enabled to work out,—some of them, it is true, without the full measure of success, others almost to perfection. It was, I believe, not the want of a type, but of the genius to give expression to the type, or again it was the power of convention, that prevented those artists whose works have survived from enabling us to settle from their productions the question which has engaged us. The type of horse portrayed on the frieze was a very old one, even in the fifth century; the minute description of the points given by Xenophon and confirmed by other writers, helps us to detect the faults which a Greek horseman would have seen in some of the figures on the frieze. To obtain, therefore, a correct conception of the Greek idea of a THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. OI good horse, one should compare the first chapter of Xenophon’s treatise with the best animals on the Parthenon. Some assistance may be had from the brief summary of the defects of a horse as given by Pollux * (1,191). These are as follows: — “Horn thin, hoofs full, fat, soft, flat, or, as Xenophon calls them, low-lying. Heavy fetlocks, varicose veins in the shanks, flabby thighs, hollow shoulder-blades, projecting neck, mane bald, narrow chest, head fat and heavy, large ears, nostrils converging, sunken eyes, thin meagre sides, sharp backbone, rough haunches, thin buttocks, stiff legs, knees hard to bend.” There is one point, however, which seems to call for special notice, and that is the mane. As I have already said, Schlieben has fallen into the common error of believing that the writers require the mane to be long, but that in works of art it is nearly always cut short. But a careful reading of the authors will show that the word “long” is never applied to the mane by any of them. The adjectives are ‘“‘thick,” “full,” “ fine- * See note 76. 92 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. haired,” “crinkly,” and it is said to fold over to the right. All these expressions might be applied to a short, and the first even to a hogged, mane. Xenophon comes nearest to calling the mane long when he uses the phrase ws av xoydow, which I have ren- dered ‘‘ while it is flowing” (chap. v, p. 32). But the context shows that it is there a question of mane or no mane, not of short or long. And there is nothing in the chapter to show that Xenophon disapproved of keep- ing the mane down by trimming; there must be plenty to take hold of in mounting, he says, and enough for beauty. On the other hand, it is evident that he would have had no hogging of the mane, and none of the other writers mention such athing. But Xenophon’s very insistence on the beauty of-a flowing . mane seems to me to show that not all the world agreed with him; he is as earnest about it as if he were a member of the Humane Society preaching against docking. It is not surprising to me, therefore, to find in works of art the portrayal of a different fashion. Probably most people, if asked to describe the mane of the Greek horse, would | THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 93 say that it was hogged; at least, that is the answer which I have almost invariably re- ceived on putting the question. There can be, I think, no doubt that the hogged mane was a fashion which existed in Greek anti- quity, silent about it though the writers may be; the difficulty is to discover whether it _ always existed side by side with the flowing ‘mane, or whether it went out of fashion after a certain period. Still harder would it be to determine whether hogging was practised only upon horses of a certain breed or size, as it generally is with us, or upon horses in- tended only for special purposes. Into these questions I have not entered, but I believe light might be cast upon them by a careful study and comparison of works of art.7 A mere glance through such a well-known book as Baumeister’s ‘‘ Denkmialer des Klassischen Altertums” shows a number of examples of hogged manes. Omitting for the moment the Parthenon marbles, striking instances will be found as follows: the Oropus relief, p. 69; Phigalia frieze, plate xliv; very ancient terra cotta from Melos, p. 1290; Dipylon vase, p. 1943; Mycene vase, p. 1941; black- 94 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. figured vase, p. 2081. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the hogged mane is the only fashion in art. In the same book examples of long straight or long curly manes are found as follows: black-figured vases, pp. 67, 725; Corinthian vase, p. 1962; * altar of Pergamon, p. 1257; Vienna cameo, p. 1390; Francois vase, plate xxiv; Trajan’s column, p. 2057. Short and curly manes are to be seen; for instance, on a late vase, p. 728, and a Pompeian wall-painting, p. 667. It is a dangerous thing to offer an opinion on such a point without much more exhaustive re- search than I have made; but I have been led to believe, from these and many pictures in other books, that the hogged mane was an old fashion, which in the time of Xenophon was passing away. Although I admit that much is to be said on the other side, yet I am strengthened in this belief by observing that out of nearly a hundred horses on the Parthenon friezes only about thirty have hogged manes, and that frequently these thirty have an unfinished look in other points, so that many of them, as works of * I give an illustration of this vase on page 22. THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE. 95 art, are of inferior quality. It should be said, however, that the manes of the pediment horses are all hogged. In size, it is clear that the ancient Greek horse was smaller and not so tall as ours. His descendants in their own country still — retain this characteristic feature. We might infer from the whole tone of the descriptions by the writers, that they were speaking of a small and compactly built animal, although we find no exact statements of size or height. But there is one passage at the beginning of Xenophon’s seventh chapter which is very significant. It appears that an approved method in mounting was to “ lay hold of the mane about the cars.’ We should need no further evidence than this to prove that Athenian cavalry horses were much less high than the ordinary saddle-horse is now; but it is supported by the illustrations in art, and especially by the reliefs of cavalry horses on the Parthenon. But just here let me say that I believe that most people fancy the Greek horse a great deal smaller than he really was. This is because they judge him from’ the Parthenon frieze and other compositions, 96 XENOPHON ON HORSEMANSHIP. such as vase-paintings, in which he appears side by side with men standing on the ground. The unthinking observer, comparing the height of the horses with the height of the men in the same composition, and finding that the men are usually as tall or even taller than the horses, concludes that the Greek horse must have been a very small animal indeed. But such a conclusion is made in ignorance or in neglect of an impor- tant principle of Greek art. By this it was required that in a composition of numerous figures the heads of all should be nearly upon a level, whether the men were walking, riding, or driving. This principle, called Tsokelismos, does not in practice offend the eye, which, recognizing the effect of the whole as a work of art, is not troubled by the exactness of levels, untruthful to nature though it may be. But of course it utterly forbids us to use the apparent height of the men in such a composition as any standard for the real height of animals. “ee a S or o % * ae OT 0 015 995 219 8 rgeesar a ts* eyes tee