[16]
I want also to explain how one is least likely to be disappointed in the matter of size. The colt that is longest in the shanks at the time he is foaled makes the biggest horse.1 For in all quadrupeds the shanks increase but little in size as time goes on, whereas the rest of the body grows to them, so as to be in the right proportion.
1 “For his stature this is an infallible rule that the shinne bone...never increaseth, no not from the first foaling...insomuch that if those bones be long and large, we are ever assured that the Foale will prove a tall and large Horse.” G. Markham, Cavalerice, 1617.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 7. E. C. Marchant, G. W. Bowersock, tr. Constitution of the Athenians. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1925.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.