Page:The Art of Horsemanship.djvu/109

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THE GREEK RIDING-HORSE.
89

a common source now lost to us.[1] 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 description of a good horse with the best horses on the frieze of the Parthenon, we find a remarkable similarity. In fact, as "Stonehenge"[2] 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

  1. A lost work by the elder Pliny contained a description of the normal horse, generally accepted by his contemporaries. See his Natural History, viii, 162.
  2. In his book on the Horse, near the beginning of which he gives the most exact translation of Xenophon's description which I have ever seen.