The origin and influence of the thoroughbred horse . masters and renderingthem an easy prey to their foes^ We have noticed as weadvanced that extraordinary docility characterised the Libyanhorse and its derivatives, such as the Arab, the Turk of WesternAsia, and the little ponies of Java, and we are told by IbnBatuta^ that he saw horses (which were certainly Arab) dancingbefore the Arab sultan of Sumatra, and that he had already seen 1 Veg., Ars Vet. iv. 6, 2 : Cappadocum gloriosa nobilitas, Hispanorum parvel proxima in circo ereditur palma, nee inferiores prope Sicilia exhibet circo. 2 Athena
The origin and influence of the thoroughbred horse . masters and renderingthem an easy prey to their foes^ We have noticed as weadvanced that extraordinary docility characterised the Libyanhorse and its derivatives, such as the Arab, the Turk of WesternAsia, and the little ponies of Java, and we are told by IbnBatuta^ that he saw horses (which were certainly Arab) dancingbefore the Arab sultan of Sumatra, and that he had already seen 1 Veg., Ars Vet. iv. 6, 2 : Cappadocum gloriosa nobilitas, Hispanorum parvel proxima in circo ereditur palma, nee inferiores prope Sicilia exhibet circo. 2 Athenaeus, xii. 520; Pliny, H. N. viii. 157.^ Voyages, Vol. vi. pp. 236-7. in] AND HISTORIC TIMES 279 a similar performance taking place before a king of SouthernIndia, where, as we have seen, all the horses were importedfrom Arabia; again, the Iberian horses, the horses ofSouthern Spain, derived directly from Libya, were noted forthe same docility, and their descendants, the Pampas horses ofSouth America, retain that quality, whilst the dancing and. Fig. 78. Fragment of Sculpture from Tareutum (ith cent. ). performing horses in modern hippodromes seem always to beArabs. The extreme readiness of the Sybarite horses to learndancing itself points to their having in their veins a considerableinfusion of Libyan blood. Thurii, which was founded on the ruins of Sybaris in443 , revived the horse-breeding tradition of the older town,and it is most important to note that according to Tacitus^ ^ Jnn. XIV. 21. 280 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. the Romans first learned horse-racing (certaniina equormn)from that city. The Tarentines especially prided themselveson their horsemen, which formed their chief arm in war andone of which was the type on their coins from the end of thefifth century down to the Roman conquest in the best horses of Tarentum were well-bred with a largeadmixture of Libyan blood is put beyond doubt by a marblefiagment procured near Tarentum^ and
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