Inasmuch as we have had a long experience of cavalry, and consequently claim familiarity with the art of horsemanship, we wish to explain to our younger friends what we believe to be the correct method of dealing with horses. True there is already a treatise on horsemanship by Simon,1 who also dedicated the bronze horse in the Eleusinium at Athens and recorded his own feats in relief on the pedestal. Nevertheless, we shall not erase from our work the conclusions that happen to coincide with his, but shall offer them to our friends with far greater pleasure, in the belief that they are more worthy of acceptance because so expert a horseman held the same opinions as we ourselves: moreover, we shall try to explain all the points that he has omitted.First we will give directions how best to avoid being cheated in buying a horse.For judging an unbroken colt, the only criterion, obviously, is the body, for no clear signs of temper are to be detected in an animal that has not yet had a man on his back.
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1 A considerable fragment of this work survives in a MS. in Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The most recent editions are those of Oder and Ruhl. The “cavalry commander” named Simon referred to in Aristophanes' Knights 242, is just a member of the chorus, but the name probably recalls the author.
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.
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