CHAPTER 23
Breeding and Keeping a Warhorse
ANN HYLAND
THE history of the horse in war starts with availability, type or breed, and suitability, and as early as 1400 B.C. the tablets from Cnossus in Crete indicate the presence of chariot and horses, while Mycenaean frescoes show warriors equipped as cavalrymen (Hood 1953: 84–93; Worley 1994: 9f). The horse, domesticated on the Eurasian steppes well before 2000 B.C., was a partner in the lengthy second millennium B.C. migrations and raids of Indo-Europeans into western Asia, the Near East, India, and Europe (Piggott 1962: 250–1; Roux 1966: 202–6). Inevitably crosses and new acquisitions occurred in nomadic herds from territories en passant, coupled with time for breeding to be selective. Therefore well before Greek legal and military recordings appear Greece had access to a wide range of horses for racing and war. Within Greece certain areas produced excellent horses and cavalry. Over fifty-seven brands are shown in the fourth and third century Athenian cavalry archives. Some indicated breeders and owners in the horse trade, others horse breeding and/or raising areas. Brands include Pharsalus—ox head; Pherae—axe; Larissa—a centaur (Kroll 1977: 83–140). Other states that fielded cavalry probably had similar systems (see Figure 23.1).
Thrace had a significant horse culture, Thracians having been riders before the Greeks, who considered them lovers and breeders of good large stock. Horses symbolized power in military and economic fields, and were sacrificed to the Sun and before battle. Thrace also traded with horse-rich Persia. In the first century A.D., the Augustan poet Grattius Faliscus noted that Thracian horses were easy keepers and excellent performers, but had ewe necks and roach backs. Arrian in the second century A.D. commented that the Thracian Getae and the Scythians in Roman Moesia rode ugly, lean, but very enduring horses, and “for a hard day’s work they can hold out against anything.” Thracian horses, and later Thessalian stock via those from Thrace, received a genetic input from the steppe animals of the Cimmerians whose tribal roots were interwoven with those of the Scythians.1
Figure 23.1 Detail(s) of two riders, north side of Panathenaic frieze, Temple of Athena Parthenos, Athens, XLIII, 118–21. Elgin Collection, British Museum, London. Photo Credit: L. Tritle.
Greece was able to acquire superior war bloodstock via enemy incursions. In 479 B.C. during Xerxes’s expedition against Greece, Mardonius wintered in Macedonia and Thessaly with some sixty thousand infantry and thirty thousand cavalry. In such turmoil, local mares would have been crossed, either purposefully or accidentally, with Persian chargers. As breeders know, one prepotent stallion can strongly influence a whole strain of descendents. The year 479 culminated with the Persian disaster at Plataea where spoils in Persian horses were abundant. In Xerxes’s train the sacred chariot of Ahura Mazda was drawn by eight white mares, which were stolen by “up country Thracians” (Hdt. 1.131.2, 7.40.4). Undoubtedly these were purebred Nesaeans, as were any captured officers’ chargers. These windfalls would have influenced future generations of Greek and Macedonian horses in the quality and size of future progeny. Herodotus (Hdt. 7.40) notes the Nesaeans’ extraordinary size and bulk.
Most historians believe ancient horses were small, without quantifying small. But there are numerous significant finds of sizable horses: from Pazyryk 14.3 hands high; from 1675 B.C. Buhen about 15 hands high; the 16-hand animal came from an Achaemenid context, plus those of the Roman era noted below (Pazyryk and Buhen: Rudenko 1970: 56; Clutton-Brock 1974: 89–100; Persia: Azzaroli 1985: 177). At 15.3 1/2 hands, and of more refined conformation than the Nesaean, were the horses of Bactria and Ferghana situated in the swathe of ancient Turan (today comprising the “Stans” of central Asia; Creel 1965: 647–72; Hancar 1956). During Alexander’s conquests of the Zariaspians and Arimaspians he commandeered Bactrian remounts. Bactria was known as Zariaspa, a meaning derived from “golden horses,” since aspa was Persian for horse. The golden horses are linked to what later became known as the Akhal Teke of the Tekke Turks, one of many strains of the Turcoman breed. A first-century A.D. Chinese source noted Ferghana horses were “all of 7 chi high” (15.3½ hh), China first imported them in the second century B.C. and continued to do so for over a thousand years (Creel 1965; Jankovich 1971: 30).
ROME’S EQUID HERITAGE
Continuity of provenance from the classical age spilled over into the Roman era. By then enough time had elapsed to fix many breed/type characteristics and define performance potential. Roman literature outlines several merits and demerits. Nearly fifty breeds, the largest cluster being from Greece, were available. Additional types came from Rome’s expanding empire. The most desirable animals came from the old breeding grounds of Parthia, Persia, Media, Armenia, and Cappadocia, areas with some communal borders, and most of which were Persian satrapies in the formative years of breed evolution2 and had to supply annual equid tribute to the Great King. A general trait was large size, but Armenia also produced a smaller, more refined horse. The geographer Strabo gathered much data on horses:
As for the Nesaeans… some say they came from there (Media), others…from Armenia. They are characteristically different in form (conformation) as also are the Parthian [and] compared with the Helladic and the other horses in Greece. (11.13.7, C525)
On Armenia, it is good for horse pasturing and Nesaean horses are also bred there, and these are not inferior to those of Media. (11.14.9, C530)
The style of horsemanship in Armenia Thessaly and Media is similar. (11.14.12 C531)
New to our caballine map were Gaul, Burgundy, Thuringia, Frisia, Spain, and Libya/Numidia/North Africa, which Romans used interchangeably when discussing horses.
Rome used several ethnic alae from countries noted for horses. Initially these units would have been mounted on horses indigenous to the area in which the unit was raised. Over time there would have been a crossing of equids resident in a garrison’s locale, especially if a trooper got a small covert payment for his entire mount covering a local mare. Sarmatians came into the Roman sphere in the mid-70s A.D. when a punitive expedition went against them north of the Danube (Sulimirski 1970: 133–4). According to Strabo they rode small, swift, unruly geldings (7.4.8). Steppe ponies are tough; in A.D. 1241 the mounted Mongol invasion of Europe covered sixty miles daily in the snow-clad Carpathians (Hyland 1994: 137). In A.D. 175 the Iazyges’s price paid to Rome for peace was 8,000 cavalrymen and mounts, of which 5,500 were sent to Britain (Dio 72.16.2). The Iazyges, part of the Sarmatian tribal confederacy, initially came from the steppes north of the Caucasus, settling in the Hungarian plains around A.D. 20 (Sulimirski 1970: 7–8). Spain has a long history of breeding excellent horses. During the Hannibalic Wars there was an interchange of cavalry between North Africa and Spain, and Hannibal used Spanish cavalry at Cannae in 216 B.C. (Livy 23.46). The Frisian was also valued in antiquity and the medieval period and almost certainly had a genetic input onto the Fell and Dales, the larger of Britain’s native breeds, which have a marked resemblance to the Frisian.
North Africa and Egypt had a notable equestrian impact on the military during the Greek and Roman eras. In Scotland the Newstead excavations revealed bones of a variety of equids, some nearly 15 hands high, others of “the Libyan variety” on the lines of the finest kinds of desert Arabs. One “Libyan” skull was so close in its measurements to that of an Arabian mare held in the British Museum as to suggest these “Libyan” horses were Arabian (Curle 1911: 368). Strabo’s assertion that Arabia had no horses but only mules (16.4.18; 26) has to be discounted as mules are the product of horse and donkey cross-breeding, and fossilized horse bones were found in Eastern Arabia in 1983 (Arabian Horse Society News 1987). Written in the late second century A.D., Ps.-Oppian’sCynegetica noted that Aristarchus of Samothrace (217/215–145/143 B.C.) mentions the Erembian horse, equating it with the Arabian. Ps-Oppian (Cyn. 172 from B.I, from B.III lines 20–34) also mentions the Erembian Lion of Arabia Felix, home of the later well-documented Arabian. Whether they originated from Libya is open to question.
North Africa also produced the Berber (Barb) whose ancestors almost certainly derived from the Spanish Sorraia that had entered North Africa as early as 10,000 B.C. (Loch 1986: 50–1). Ps.-Oppian comments favorably on the Moorish (Barb) from Libya, especially those from Cyrene, and praises the good pastureland of Libya, saying both the Moorish and Libyan horses were superior in the charge and very enduring, with the Libyan being of greater stature (Cyn. B.I. lines 172, 289f, 291f, 298). In Flavian/Trajanic times North Africa provided Rome with many cavalry units, and at least two alae of African cavalry were posted to Europe (Holder 1980).
Finally we come to the Hunnish horse described by Vegetius, the author also of the fourth-century Epitoma rei militaris.3 It was a difficult, ugly, but utilitarian beast, enduring mileage, cold, and hunger, and it carried the Huns into the dying days of the Empire. “Hunnish horses are large headed, with staring eyes, a narrow nose, broad jaw, strong and stiff neck. The mane hangs down to the knees: long sides [i.e., long-bodied], a bent back [roach back], thick tail, strong cannons, small base [i.e., stands over little ground], dinner plate feet, and hollow flanks complete the features. The whole body is angular, with skinny haunches, scrawny muscles. In length it is great, in height of great stature, with a gaunt belly, big bones. He is thin and his beauty is distinguished by being deformed.” This was an unkempt horse much at variance to those that Xenophon or Pelagonius would have recommended. But serviceability was often more important than looks, and in cavalry ranks there were bound to be more ordinary than superior animals.4
THE IDEAL WARHORSE
The ideal warhorse is ably described by Xenophon, followed in the Roman era by many Greek and Roman authors with texts so similar as to suggest plagiarism (figure 23.2). Pelagonius’s text (late fourth century A.D.) is useful, as with his veterinary work he knew what worked and what did not. Indeed, apart from a few errors some texts are still relevant (Xen. Eq. 1, passim; for Pelagonius see McCabe 2007: 156–80). In what follows I have added corrections where necessary, and reasons for some aspects that were clear to Greek cavalrymen, but not necessarily to those with no equestrian background. Xenophon’s requirements and the modern explanations are apparent from the terminology:
The hooves should have thick horn and be high and hollow to keep the frog off the ground. Low hooves are to be avoided. Pasterns should slope and be springy. Upright pasterns jar the rider and are apt to get inflamed. The shank (cannon) should be strong and clean. If fleshy over hard ground the shanks’ veins would become varicose, the legs swell, the flesh recede, and often the back sinew gives way and the horse becomes lame.
Xenophon is describing a ruptured tendon with attendant swelling, the result of a severe wrench, which takes months to heal, often leaving the horse unfit for strenuous work. Too sloping a pastern predisposes a horse to bowed tendons, as well as allowing excessive strain and damaging contact with the ground: “the knees should be supple (i.e., free joint movement), the forearms substantial, the chest deep and broad to allow the limbs to be free of interference.” A wide chest allows good heart room; a base-narrow horse risks one hoof clipping the other, and in extreme cases “scalping” the lower limbs: “the neck should have a clean throatlatch and no thick muscle underneath.” This fault makes a horse a “stargazer,” harder to control, and as his eyes look upward more prone to tripping and stumbling.
Figure 23.2 The Points of the Horse. 1. Poll; 2. Eye; 3. Nostril; 4. Muzzle; 5. Chin groove; 6. Throatlatch; 7. Crest (of neck); 8. Withers; 9. Back; 10. Loins; 11. Point of croup; 12. Dock; 13. Hock; 14. Point of hock; 15. Chestnut; 16. Stifle; 17. Barrel; 18. Fetlock; 19. Pastern; 20. Coronet; 21. Hoof; 22. Cannon bone; 23. Knee; 24. Forearm; 25. Shoulder. After a drawing by A. Hyland.
Xenophon noted that a good neck position helped to guard the rider, allowing the horse to see properly in front of him. A high neck carriage may have guarded the rider in close contact maneuvers, but for missile weapon launch a lower head carriage gave a clearer sighting. “The head should be small, dry (bony) with small ears and small equal jaws, flexing at the poll which should be wide.” A wide poll, raised crest, and wider neck are marks of an entire, or uncastrated, horse. The polls of geldings and mares are narrower, and necks have less of a crest. “Nostrils should be thin, wide and flaring.” This together with a clean throatlatch enhanced respiration, vital for warhorses under pressure. The description of the body is what we would recognize as a short-coupled horse with wide, strong loins, a well-sprung ribcage, without a gross belly. “All these parts if firm (fit) ensured speed. The hindquarters should be broad, the hind legs set well apart which will enable him to gather himself in.” This describes the levade (i.e., a rearing horse, holding its front legs off the ground), the favored way of showing the enemy being trampled. From a levade a horse can spring, turn in confined spaces, spin to face the enemy, and launch an aggressive lunge and/or strike with forefeet and teeth. “The hind legs and hocks should be similar to the forearms, sinewy, strong, and with sloping pasterns. The stones (testicles) should be small.” Xenophon states the cannon bone “which grows least” is the indicator of the size of the mature horse. It can still be used as a rough guide to mature height. A high wither and double back were desirable. The former kept the rider in the proper sitting place; the double back meant a broad back with pads of muscle either side of the spine. Both attributes were helpful in the days of (originally) saddleless, stirrupless cavalry.
Xenophon is correct to warn against a low hoof, that is, a shallow hoof liable to stone bruising. Most terrain in Xenophon’s geographical sphere was stony, dry, sandy, or mountainous—all abrasive conditions. Thick horn abrades more slowly. A hoof grows between a quarter to a half inch a month and good nutrition aids growth. A small head and refined neck allowed the horse better balance; coarseness puts a horse on the forehand, impeding movement and balance.
Pelagonius’s ideal is similar, except he recommends “big straight shoulders,” a conformation defect as the ideal shoulder follows the angle of the pastern’s slope which should be approximately 45 degrees. Straight shoulders give a jarring ride, bad for concussive effect and the rider’s comfort. The ears were to be “small and the tail hairs long and not bristly.” Small ears and fine mane and tail hair go with good breeding. Black hooves were recommended. These are known to be of much harder consistency than gray or white hooves, so necessary in an age of barefoot riding. The recommended small knees are also wrong, a large, flat knee being desirable.
PSYCHOLOGY
A good temperament was vital in a warhorse. One too mettlesome, or a sluggard, took too much time checking or coercing (Xen. Eq. 3) when the rider’s priority was saving his skin. Kickers, and slow and vicious animals were to be rejected. The ideal was a horse amenable to his fellows, obedient, with a mental steadiness that via assiduous training gave it confidence to act at variance with its natural inclinations as an animal of flight which used speed to escape predators and other dangers. As a herd animal its speed had to be channeled into the aggressiveness of the massed charge, but subsumed into regimental order. Group training consolidated this at controlled speed, notched up by degrees, and maintaining cohesion, as displayed at the antihippasia sham fights in Athens’s hippodrome and in Arrian’s Ars Tactica maneuvers; solo action away from troop (herd) safety needed attention (Xen. Eq. 7.13–14, 17–19). Some troop horses display nappiness; amusing examples come from World War I; when using green American remounts the “Tins” were plagued with horses refusing to leave the ranks until cured by Trooper Lloyd and Lord Somers wielding long sticks on their rumps. Shortly they only had to walk behind balky mounts for them to shoot forward, to the pleasant surprise of the inspecting brigadier (Lloyd 1938: 254).
Some horses went willingly and repeatedly into battle. Several factors account for this. In earlier training they became used to swords, javelins, spears, lances, bows and arrows, maces, and, in the case of nomadic cavalry, to lassos, whirling around or by their heads; their natural fear decreased if they never got hurt. In battle the excitement, speed, and noise overrode any spookiness, and in massed work the herd instinct was uppermost. If wounded, unless immediately crippled, the horse(s) would have continued, and by the time battle ceased or cavalry withdrew any pain felt would not have registered as being caused by the earlier blow. However, pain inflicted in cold blood immediately registers as to cause and effect, and retaliation by the horse is not because of the pain, but anger and concern over who is going to win in any confrontation.
Xenophon advised that horses were to become accustomed to situations and objects that engendered fear or apprehension (Xen. Eq. 6.13–15). Fear transmitted to a horse by a quaking rider encourages the horse to balk. Indeed, I suggest that many routs were caused by rider fear triggering the same in the horse, who wheeled for the rear followed by its fellows. It is not uncommon for horses, no matter how well trained, to have an inordinate fear of strange animals: the visual, odiferous, and noise elements. For example, I have encountered a gelding that always panicked when he saw donkeys, even though he met them frequently. In war, horses met with camels and elephants, which were often used in the armies of the East. When Croesus of Lydia fought the Persians in 546 B.C. his cavalry horses bolted from Cyrus’s baggage camels turned cavalry mounts; some reared, some bolted, others panicked and knocked into their fellow chargers (Xen. Cyr. 7.1.27). Although Xenophon’s source was probably Herodotus (1.80), the understanding of horses’ reactions was pure Xenophon. When Perseus of Macedon fought the Romans, fearing that his horses would panic at the stench of the Romans’ elephants, he forced them into the proximity of an array of dummy elephants smeared with noxious unguents until they were desensitized. In the Civil Wars both Caesar and Pompey brought elephants in to defuse their horses’ fears (Dio 43.3.5–4.1). At the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C. Hannibal’s elephants caused Scipio’s cavalry to panic, but also his own horses (Polyb. 5.12–13). Indeed, elephants were often as big a danger to their own side, especially in Indian armies. At the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 B.C. Alexander fought Porus, King of the Pauravas; he feared that Porus’s two hundred elephants would disrupt his cavalry, but when the mahouts had been killed and the elephants had been injured, they wreaked as much injury on their own side as on the Macedonians (Arr. Anab. 5.8–20).
SEX OF CHARGERS
In the ancient world most chargers were entires, but geldings and mares were also used. Xenophon recommended gelding vicious warhorses in order to maintain their use in the cavalry ranks (Cyr. 7). In the Roman era it continued to be the norm to ride stallions. Varro comments that the army wanted spirited horses for battle but preferred more docile animals, and apparently castrated ones, for transportation (Rust. 2.7.15). But this was not a firm rule, as shown by the records of Cohors XX Palmyrenorum stationed at Dura Europos (A.D. 251). Of thirteen horses described, eight were male, three female, two not stated (Fink 1971: 18). At Krefeld Gellup, of thirty-one horse remains found half were male, half female. They were being used in the turmoil over the Batavian revolt in A.D. 69 (Nobis 1973: 251). Strabo (7.4.8) and Ammianus Marcellinus (17.18) noted how nomadic horsemen of the Sarmatians, Scythians, and Quadi gelded their mounts. Furthermore, all the Pazyryk animals were gelded (Rudenko 1970: 56). This was common practice in herds, otherwise there would have been infighting by entires competing for mares and very indiscriminate breeding.
CARE AT BASE AND ON CAMPAIGN
Xenophon advised: keep a good, clean stable; check the horse’s daily condition for over- or underweight; note the early onset of ailment or disease so preventative measures could be taken (ibid., 4–5); feed well to build stamina (11); care for his horses (4); groom assiduously (5–6); never handle or school if in a foul temper; at all times remain calm (6); give aids smoothly (9); reward good work with caress (9–10). Xenophon understood a horse’s mentality.
The Persian Persepolis Fortification Tablets from the reign of Darius I (622–486 B.C.) detail feeding horses in hard work. Most were used in the Angarium carrying dispatches, keeping the King and government advised of how the far-flung Persian Empire fared, so the animals were in effect part of the military. Many tablets cover travel rations. Varying amounts were issued to young stock, resting animals, and hard-ridden horses. The average for a Ber (mature) horse was three quarts per day, but in excessively hard work it received one bar. Mature horses held in reserve received six quarts per day. These would have been well exercised to maintain fitness and to ensure that they were ready to be used at constant speed. When carrying documents to Darius, horses were commonly fed five to six quarts per day. A Baris horse, his rider carrying sealed documents, got one bar daily. There are indications that dispatch riders on occasion rode seventy-five miles per day on four successive days using a four-horse relay. Special rations given toBarishorses doing hard stints included extra grain called mitli (millet?) and a ration of wine.5 Baris horses were probably those mentioned in the Book of Esther as bred for the Angarium (8.10). We can see the relevance of the Persian diet in the fact that my eight-year-old stallion Nizzolan consumed seventeen pounds per day during the last six months of training for his first hundred miles in one day race, which he won. As an older, maturer, endurance horse he only needed fifteen pounds per day. Considering that Persia and Greece were frequently militarily involved, as shown by Xenophon, Herodotus, and Arrian, it suggests Greek animals enjoyed a similar diet. However, a cavalry horse would not always need such high feeding as most of his work was a steady fifteen miles per day stint. But occasionally high feeding was advisable as shown by some of the exploits undertaken by Alexander and his Companion Cavalry. After Gaugamela in 331 B.C. Alexander’s seventy-five mile pursuit of Darius III achieved a forty-six-mile-per-day average. When again chasing Darius, Alexander covered about two hundred miles between Ecbatana and Rhagae in eleven days, stopped for five days, then resumed pursuit. Adding nights and part-days, in five days Alexander covered between 170 and 210 miles, arriving at Damghan or Sharud, riding largely through uninhabited waterless desert, to find Darius murdered. The daily mileage never dropped below thirty-three, one forty-five mile stretch taking twelve hours. As they were mostly without water he lost many horses. The survivors must have been superb endurance horses with at least sufficient pre-pursuit adequate diet and conditioning; no doubt horses of the Companion Cavalry had preferential treatment.6
Alexander’s early logistics were well thought out, and supplies shipped to ports en route were then off-loaded onto baggage animals which could carry up to thirty days’ provisions and other supplies. Each animal carried about 250 pounds. Once out of familiar zones and into landlocked territory problems began. The further his campaign went the less knowledge was available of climatic and harvest conditions. In his study of Alexander’s logistics, Engels used British cavalry rations to arrive at an approximation of the needs of chargers. However, the ten pounds hard and ten pounds long feed and eighty pounds of water per animal per day were based on a middleweight hunter of about 15.2 hands high to 16 hands high weighing about 1,200 pounds, far in excess of what an ancient army could consistently provide, and based on far larger horses than were the ancient norm. The baggage animals also ate into their load. Where possible Alexander made alliances, organized provisioning dumps, and reconnoitered supply. Forced marches conserved rations where supplies were meager, the army splitting to prevent resource depletion (Engels 1978: 15, 22, 26–9 passim, 145, 154–5).
Barley was the main grain fed to animals in the ancient world, with average yields about five hundredweight per acre (ca. 1,400 pounds per hectare), but in the heart of Alexander’s operations in Mesopotamia, the Lower Helmand Valley and the Indus, yields were far higher. Around Tehran it was double the average (e.g., Engels 1978: 3, 37, 64, 27, 55–6, 93–4, 107). Long feed—grass and hay—and water were too bulky to transport, other than the bare minimum. Considering that Alexander’s latter route was often in desert and mountainous regions, animals would often have been on starvation rations. However, much campaigning took place where Median clover, that is, alfafa/lucerne, grew. This is exceptionally nutritious, reducing the need for a heavy grain ration. Other grains were wheat and oats, the latter being considered a type of degenerate barley. The main wheat strains were einkorn (triticum monococcum)—protein circa 17.5 percent; emmer (triticum dicoccum), 20 percent; spelt (triticum spelta), 19 percent. The three main barley groups were hordeum distichum, hexastichum, also known as horse barley, and glabrum (White 1970: s.v. wheat and barley). Modern wheat has 8 to 9 percent and barley about 11 percent protein. Therefore the nutritional value of grain for horse and man was then far higher.
From the Roman era dietary information comes from army regulations and veterinary and farming treatises. A Roman cavalryman was allotted six bushels of barley per month. An allied trooper received four bushels, indicating the first had claims to more animals. The daily ration per horse was 3.5 pounds (Polyb. 6.39). Though not generous, it provided a basic diet. No doubt in plenteous times this was increased. However, total digestible nutrients (TDN) are approximately half the stated protein, so ancient grains gave more nutrition for less outlay. Lucerne/alfalfa hay protein approaches 20 percent, while good grass hay is about half that; poor hay has little nutritional value (Hyland 1980: 115). There were other additions to mixed feeds spelled out by various veterinary practitioners, but they formed only a modicum of value, and were generally not applicable to army diets. That rations remained constant is attested by a sixth-century A.D. Oxyrhynchus papyrus (No. 2046; see also Walker 1973).
HEALTH HAZARDS
Army animals risked many health hazards: lameness, injury, endemic diseases, and various common ailments. Pelagonius’s Ars Veterinaria has numerous cures (see McCabe 2007: 158–77). Great reliance was placed on herbal remedies, some echoing modern homeopathy. Most remedies had multiple constituents, some beneficial, some neither good nor harmful, others of doubtful benefit, some dangerous. Firings with a hot iron, blistering with caustic agents, and excessive bleedings were common and of little value. Nevertheless by observation and trial and error, the veterinarius, his army counterparts the immunes, and grooms managed to cope, aided by veterinary lore amassed over centuries. Greece was famous for producing veterinary practitioners.
Most attrition in cavalry stock would have been from lameness, mostly in the hoof and lower limbs, although shoulder and spinal lamenesses were a danger and the hardest to pinpoint. Working unfit animals, overstressing those past endurance, and wrenches to tendons, joints, and muscles and damaged hoof laminae, were among the most frequent lamenesses. Others arose from stone bruising, cuts to hoof soles, sore hooves from constant wear since they were unshod, corns, thrush, greasy and cracked heels, and “fever in the feet”—the latter often a symptom of laminitis, or, if higher up, of other lamenesses. Heat in an infected area was misunderstood and instead of letting circulating blood carry away and diffuse impurities, thus reducing infection, they resorted to severe debilitating bleeding (Hyland 1990b: 57).
Wounds
Among the most severe injuries were puncture wounds with resulting tetanus, and in those days almost certain death. Pelagonius admitted to not understanding it and his “cures” were pretty useless. Such injuries could come from arrows, javelins and lances, staking in pits, caltrops piercing hooves, or infantry crawling among horses and stabbing them, as described by Ammianus Marcellinus (16.12. 21) at the Battle of Strasbourg (A.D. 357). Any penetrating injury on a mailed horse was far more serious as the links would gouge into flesh, causing a massive wound, which, as infection set in, turned gangrenous. Slash wounds, although looking more horrific than puncture wounds, were less dangerous unless some vital artery or tendon was cut. Hamstringing the Achilles tendon was a frequent injury, which rendered the horse permanently useless. For treating wounds in humans Celsus stipulated cleanliness and stitching for those wounds easily drawn together, or secured by fibulae for those not easily stitched (Med. 5. 26.21–4; Hyland 1990b: 126). Arrows extricated by pulling through in the human could not be treated in this way in the horse except through the neck. Arrows drawn through a limb would destroy so much muscle and tendon tissue as to render the horse useless. Those not penetrating too deeply and without barbs could be extricated, though leaving scarring.
Endemic Illnesses
Equines en masse contract endemic and contagious ailments that swiftly run through the horse lines. Since contagion and infection were not understood, the mortality rate in the horse lines would have been high. Over the centuries the eastern provinces produced a greater number of communicable diseases than those of the west. This applied down the centuries. The most serious, with a high mortality rate, were equine infectious anemia, glanders, epizootic and ulcerative lymphangitis. Surra, due to a parasitic trypanosome in the blood and transmissible by biting flies, is nearly always fatal, as is dourine (horse venereal disease) in stallions, and with high mortality among mares (Hayes 1968: 220–62).
The commonest ailment in massed horses is strangles. It was recognized by Pelagonius and his description is fairly accurate under the heading “Tumor in the jaw,” “Parotitis,” and “Swollen glands.” Whereas most ailments and cures appear only once or twice, cures for strangles appear seven times, indicating its prevalence. Today rarely fatal, in Roman and Greek days it carried high mortality. Other common ailments spread by close proximity were colds, coughs, mange, and internal parasites, called “lice in the intestines” by Pelagonius. Some of his medicaments for worms, such as wormwood, have a beneficial effect, as does nigella sativa (black cumin), which is found as an anthelmintic for humans in the Dictionary of Assyrian Botany. As early as the fifteenth centuryB.C. at Alalakh, it was fed to horses on occasion, but at intervals such as to suggest that it was also used for worming them (Hyland 1990: ch. 3, 9, 15 passim; Hyland 2003: 61–70, veterinary practice, discussed in greater detail). Pelagonius recommends manual evacuation, but by that stage infestation is severe, and though the “lice” were extracted the eggs remained for re-infestation. Wormy horses are unthrifty and unable to perform to their best. Heavily dunged pasture grazed by a mass of horses ensures constant infestation.
TACK AND ARMOR
Tack gave the rider control over his horse and consisted first of bitting, secondly of saddlery. Other elements served to protect the horse.
Bitting
This is a complex subject with scores of designs comprising snaffles and curbs. The former act primarily on the tongue and bars of the mouth; if jointed the nutcracker action of long cannons acts on the palate and the tongue. Basic curbs, which did not appear until the Roman era, in addition act on the poll, and in a true curb on the chin groove via the curb chain or strap.
Snaffles
Snaffles are generally considered milder than curbs, but most in our period were severe. Xenophon advises a bit should be flexible to prevent the horse from grasping it and holding it against the bars to prevent its correct action. He defines flexible and stiff bits, the former with smooth cannons with mobile keys and disks, but notes that whatever the pattern of the bit it must be flexible (Xen. Eq. 10.7). The Romans realized much control was lost by the horse opening its mouth and used psalia (see below), and rigid metal bars under the jaw to prevent this (Hyland 1992, where I analyze the action of ten bits).
Curbs and Psalion
Curb mouthpieces can be jointed or of one piece, the latter usually with a port—a U-shaped rising; the higher it is the more severe (figure 23.3). A wide port gives more room for the tongue; where narrow the tongue is pinched. Some ports are almost solid, like a spoon. Externally there are long lower shanks to which reins are attached, and a shorter upper branch to which the headstall is buckled. Between the lower shanks a metal bar keeps the shanks from flying apart, thus equalizing action; it also acts as a crush control on the lower jaw when a psalion is used. An incredibly severe bit from the Roman era, found in Thrace, has everything possible jammed onto it: a very high port, crush bar, internal accretions, and, what most lack, a true curb chain so designed that it could not lie flat and so had multiple pressure points. When the rein is activated the port hits the palate, the upper branch rotates pressuring the poll via the headstall, and the crush bar hits the delicate bones above the chin groove where the curb chain bites. The Newstead curb is an exceptionally severe bit, and there is a distinct possibility that it too had a curb chain as on one of the upper branches is a loose ring, which could have worked itself up the branch if affixed to its opposite ring (missing). A tight chain would have remained in place at the spot decided by the rider.
Figure 23.3 The Roman curb from Thrace (a) and the Newstead curb (b).
Psalion
This is similar in action to a modern leather drop noseband, but it was very severe, being made of metal. It acted in conjunction with a bit pressuring the nose and under the jaw and stopped the horse opening its mouth to avoid or lessen bit action.
Other Nosebands
Aelian comments on the Indian spiked muzzle (noseband) which allowed a horse’s palate and tongue to go unpunished (NA 13.9), but in his Indica Arrian explains the Indian method of control by “a strap of leather fastened round the extremity of the jaw, with a rowel of brass or iron bent inwards and not very sharp.…The bit is a slender bar of iron to which the bridle is fastened; and when they tighten the rein the bar and the rowel bring the horse under command. For the whole bears upon him in such a manner that he cannot but obey” (Indica 23). This suggests a noseband round the whole of the nose with a central spike over the nose set to act in Psalion fashion, coupled with a simple bar snaffle. The whole would have been mild—for the era.
Muzzles
Xenophon advises use of a muzzle when handling a horse (Xen. Eq. 5.3). As most chargers were entires this is sensible as stallions are often mouthy. When ridden in the ranks muzzles prevented biting of neighbors. They fitted around the muzzle below the bit. Their open framework allowed adequate air intake. They had another use, which has escaped comment, in that they prevented a horse opening his mouth wide to neigh—dangerous when cavalry was springing an ambush. Neighing also excites unruly stallions to challenge their neighbors.
Saddlery
It is generally considered the ancients rode on a saddle pad or saddle cloth, but due to Peter Connolly’s reconstruction from archaeological finds we know Roman cavalry used a hard treed saddle with retentive front and rear horns to aid seat security. However, other early cultures used saddles. The Pazyryk horse burials had saddles constructed of two cushions with rigid bow arches to front and rear of each cushion with wooden spacers between cushions to prevent them splaying out; the whole was attached to a felt underpad (Rudenko 1970: 133). The Tien Shan mountains inhabited by Tocharians revealed a well-preserved saddle from the fourth century B.C., and the Chinese were using saddles with haunch and breast straps and front and rear retentive risings by the third century B.C. An Achaemenid bronze figure of a Persian heavy cavalryman shows a vestigial saddle and fringed blanket with breast and haunch retention (girth hidden by the rider’s leg).7 Xenophon had noted Persian saddlery during the march of the Ten Thousand described in hisAnabasis, and later when he observed the Persian cavalry of Pharnabazus, satrap of Phrygia (Hell. 3.2.11–20); his literary works were influenced by his experiences. He advised:
Above all the horse’s belly should be protected as being the most vital and the weakest part. It may be protected with the cloth. This cloth must also be of such material and so sewed together as to give the rider a safe seat and not gall the horse’s back.
The horse was to be armed with a frontlet (chamfron), breastplate, and thigh pieces: “the last to serve at the same time to cover the thighs of the rider” (Xen. Eq. 12.8). Such armor is seen on the sarcophagus of Payava found in Lycia. Another example is on a bas relief at Yeniceköy in the former Persian satrapy of Daskyleion in northwestern Asia Minor (Bernard 1964: 195–212). For such heavy metal (or cuir-bouilli, boiled or toughened leather) to be used, the “cloth” (saddle) had to have been of substantial structure to bear the armor’s weight as it is almost impossible that both breastplate and thigh pieces bore solely on the horse’s neck (Xen. Cyr. 8.1.2).
Figure 23.4 A reconstruction of the Roman four-horned saddle, which had retentive front and rear horns to aid seat security. Simon James, after Connolly 1986.
Without efficient tack a horseman was disadvantaged. Any fighting capabilities he and his horse had were reduced if he was unable to control his horse and his own body movements when armored and handling weapons whose weight had a very unbalancing effect, especially when weapons were backed with full poundage of rider’s delivery, be it long-range missile or close-encounter weapon. The development of the superior Roman four-horned saddle, especially those with horns curving over the rider’s thighs, locked the rider into his saddle (figure 23.4). But if a horse fell the rider had difficulty bailing out. From personal experience of both types, the small-horned and large curved-horned saddles, I found the latter really difficult to get out of, the more so as there were no stirrups to assist extrication. I found greater force could be put behind a sword thrust to right or left without losing balance, and greater velocity to missile weapons using front horns to brace against. The horse had to be trained to take the correct lead in any display maneuvers on the circle as wrong leads made the ride rough. This would have hampered weapon accuracy, although in actual battle there would have been no time for such niceties. Nor was subtle handling of severe bitting possible away from theHippika Gymnasia. The jaw-breaking bitting was designed for instant response, but as Aulus Atticus found at Mons Graupius the opposite happened when his horse bolted into the enemy (Tac. Agr. 37). Severity can have the opposite effect, the horse panicking and bolting from fear and pain. Too many such harsh bit handlings on a sensitive horse could have turned it into a dangerous rearer, preconfirmed bolter, useless as a charger. I rode my horse Katchina with replicas of the Newstead snaffle and curb bits. The curb, even gently used, upset him so much he felt as if he were going to bolt. The twisted snaffle he accepted well. Both were designed for cavalry use as full action did not happen until the reins were held about two feet above the withers, the height where a four-foot cavalry shield was able to protect the upper body and the lower torso and thighs (Hyland 1990a: 138–9, for the Newstead curb; Hyland 1994: 56–9, both with photographs).
ARMOR
The literary and archaeological evidence shows that Roman horse armor developed from the chamfrons and peytrals of Republican days to the later Roman Empire when nine units of clibanarii were attested in the Notitia Dignitatum (Eadie 1967: 161–73, 171). A major advance came when Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) formed the Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum Cataphractariorum (CIL 12.5632). In A.D. 136 he commissioned Arrian’s military manual; the equestrian section details equipment and performance for theHippika Gymnasia and regular cavalry action. Some cavalry were armored, both men and horses: men in scale, linen, or horn corselets, thigh guards, greaves, helmets, and shields, horses with “covers for their sides and chamfrons” (Rostovtzeff 1936: 445; Arr.Tact. 4.1). Weaponry included archer equipment, javelins, spears, pikes, lances, swords, and small spiked axes or maces (Arr. Tact. 4.1).
Cataphractarii and clibanarii were armored horse units. The first term could cover both types. The cataphract was an armored man on a horse usually but not necessarily armored. The clibanarius (“oven man”) and his horse were fully armored, the horse in a scale or leather housing. Ammianus Marcellinus’s several descriptions of a Persian clibanarius reveal horses clad in leather, men in scale armor, in which the only openings vulnerable to a weapon were nose- and eyeholes. He seemed so in awe of them that apparently clibanarii were still unusual in Roman cavalry ranks (Amm. Marc. 24.6; 25.1). Heliodorus describes a cataphract’s horse: “the horse is armored like its rider. On its legs are strapped estivals (greaves) and its head is completely covered by a chamfron. From its back to its belly on either side hangs a housing of iron mail which both protects it and by its looseness does not hinder its course” (Aeth. 9.15).
Two almost complete third-century A.D. mail bards from Dura Europos match Heliodorus’s description. Fragments found could have been neck crinets. One bard photographed on a “weedy” horse hung further down than it would have done on a robust cavalry horse, covering the forearm and hind-leg gaskin area. Estivals could only have been fitted around the cannon bones on all four limbs. The hind-leg shape made it impossible to strap to the upper limb. If any upper limbs were protected they had to have been forelimbs but their shape also precluded secure fit. The size of the bard without breast coverings accords with a modern blanket measurement suggesting the height and body mass of a 14.2 hands high to 15 hands high horse.8 The armored man and its own armor would not have overburdened a horse which can carry far more than is generally assumed, the stocky animal being a better weight carrier than its lanky “weed.”
There were finds of leather bards from “Newstead, Vindolanda and Carlisle, and with odd fragments coming from virtually every military complex of any size in Britain” (correspondence from Dr. van Driel-Murray to the author). These finds indicate that leather horse armor was more common than previously thought. Being leather they were cheaper to make and easier to work than costly mail, which was also extremely expensive in terms of the armorers’ time. For the Hippika Gymnasia the horse’s equipment was more ornate than for regular duties, especially chamfrons, which for business use could be either of plain metal or leather, or even merely eye protectors fixed to the bridle. Some chamfrons did not cover the entire frontal plane; some had holes at the lower extremity to which muzzles could be attached by thongs.
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