Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics) (17 page)

[1] So now the groom has handed the horse over and you are poised to mount.
^*
I shall next describe how a rider should go about his horsemanship to make things most comfortable for both himself and his horse. First, then, he should take the lead-rope, which is attached
either to the chin-strap or to the cavesson,
¹
in his left hand, and hold it ready with enough slack so that whether he intends to mount by grasping the mane near the ears or by vaulting on with the help of a spear, he will not jerk the horse. With his right hand he should take hold of the reins at the withers, along with a handful of mane too, to make absolutely sure that as he mounts he does not jerk the horse’s mouth with the bit.

In taking off from the ground to mount, the left hand should be [2] used to pull oneself up, while the right arm is kept at full stretch and helps the upward movement. This method of mounting will enable a rider to avoid presenting an unsightly figure even from behind by bending his left leg. The knee of the right leg should not touch the horse’s back, but the lower leg should pass cleanly over to the right side of the horse. Once the foot has been brought over, the buttocks can come to rest on the horse.

It may be that the horseman is using his left hand to lead the horse [3] and his right hand to hold his spear, and so it is advisable, in my opinion, to practise vaulting on to the horse from the right as well. There is nothing extra to learn for this; he just has to use the left side of his body for what his right side did before, and his right side for what his left side did before. The reason why I recommend learning [4] this method of mounting as well is that he would be fully prepared as soon as he is up on the horse’s back, in case he needed suddenly to engage the enemy.

Once seated, whether he is riding bareback or using a horse-cloth, [5] it seems to me that the typical posture of sitting in a chair is to be avoided. The position to take is as if he were standing upright with his legs apart. This position will enable him to get a firmer grip on the horse with his thighs, and since he has a straight back he will be able, should the need arise, to put more power into throwing a javelin or delivering a blow from the back of the horse.

The lower leg, along with the foot, should hang slackly from the [6] knee. A stiff leg could get broken if it was struck by anything, but a flexible lower leg will simply be pushed back by anything it encounters without altering the position of the thigh. A rider should also acquire [7] the habit of keeping the upper part of his body, from his hips upwards,
as relaxed as possible, because this will enable him to exert himself for longer and he will be less likely to fall off if someone pulls or pushes him.

[8] So now our rider is seated. The first thing for him to do is teach his horse to stand still while he draws out from under himself, if he needs to, any bunched-up clothing,
²
makes the
^*
reins of equal length and finds the most comfortable grip on his spear. The next point to note is that he should keep his left arm close in to his side, not just because in this position a rider is as trim as possible, but also because [9] there is no more powerful position for his hand. The best reins, to my mind, are of equal length, and are not weak or slippery or so thick that the rider cannot when necessary hold his spear in his hand as well.

[10] Now the rider gives the horse the signal to move forward. He should start the horse at a walk, because then the transition is as smooth as it may be. If the horse lets its head droop, the rider should make the reins shorter; if it holds its head too high, he should lengthen the [11] reins. That way he will allow the horse to look its most elegant. When the horse moves up from a walk to its natural trot it will do so with hardly any distress, its body will be supple and relaxed, and it will proceed comfortably to a pace where it can be urged into a gallop. Now, the approved way is to lead with the left, and the best way to make sure this happens is to use your stick to move the horse up from [12] a trot to a gallop
^*
just when it is rising with the right,
^**
because the next thing it is going to do is raise its left foreleg, so that is the side it will lead with; it will take the initial step of the new gait just when it turns back to the left. For a horse naturally leads with the right when turned to the right and with the left when turned to the left.
³

[13] I set a great deal of store by the exercise called the ‘chain’, since it gets the horse used to bending to both the left and the right. It is also a good idea to change the direction of your ride, so that both sides of the horse’s mouth are worked equally in the course of taking first [14] one and then the other direction. If the ends of the chain are squared off rather than rounded, it is even more valuable, because the horse will be happier to turn a corner when it has had enough of a straight line, and one and the same exercise will provide it with practice both [15] at following a straight course and at turning. You will have to check
the horse at the turns, because it is neither easy nor safe for it to make a tight turn at speed, especially if the ground is hard or treacherous. When checking the horse, the rider should make absolutely sure that [16] his use of the bit does not make the horse lean at all, and that he does not lean over himself either, because otherwise I can assure him that it will take hardly anything to bring both himself and his horse to the ground. As soon as the horse has come out of the turn and is facing [17] the straight, you should get it to speed up, because during a battle, obviously, such turns precede either the pursuit or the retreat. So it is worth having the horse practise taking a fast pace once it has completed a turn.

When you feel that the horse has had enough exercise, it is advisable [18] to let it rest for a while and then suddenly take it up to its top speed – away from other horses, of course, not towards them. Next you should rein it in from its gallop and bring it to a standstill again in as short a space as possible, and then wheel it round and urge it forward once more from the standing position. The point is that you are bound to meet with situations which call for either one or the other of these procedures.

When you come to dismount, you should never do so in the [19] vicinity of other horses or near a group of people or outside the area where you ride. The horse should be allowed to rest in the same place where it has to work.

There will be occasions when the horse has to gallop downhill, uphill [1] or along the face of slopes; there will be hazards it has to jump across or out of or down. It follows, then, that you have to teach and train both yourself and your horse in all these procedures, to enable horse and rider to keep each other safe and, generally, because that seems to be the way for them to increase their usefulness to each other. You [2] may think that I have discussed this before and am therefore repeating myself,
¹
but that is not so: what I was suggesting previously was that at the time of buying a horse you should test its ability to perform
these manoeuvres, whereas now I am talking about the importance of training a horse you actually own. And I will now describe the correct way to go about this training.

[3] If the horse you have acquired is completely unfamiliar with jumping across ditches, you must lead the way across yourself with the horse on a loose leading-rein and then pull on the leading-rein to make it [4] jump across. If it refuses, someone with a whip or a switch should give it as hard a whack as he can, which will make it clear the required distance and a lot more besides! And from then on you will never need to do that again; it will take the mere sight of someone coming up behind it to make the horse jump.

[5] Once it has got used to jumping across ditches with the leading-rein, you should mount up and introduce it first to narrow ditches and then gradually to wider and wider ones. Just as it is about to make its jump, you should spur it on. The same use of the spur is recommended for training it to jump up and down banks. The point is that the horse will perform all these actions – jumping across ditches or up or down banks – with a greater degree of safety both to itself and to its rider if it does them with its whole body rather than trailing its hindquarters.

[6] You should start the horse’s downhill training on soft ground; eventually, by the time it has got used to it, it will prefer taking downward slopes rather than upward slopes at speed. The worry some people feel that riding a horse downhill might cause it to dislocate its shoulders can be dispelled by the knowledge that although the Persians and Odrysians
²
always race their horses downhill, their horses are just as healthy as ours in Greece.

[7] It is also important for me to mention the part the rider plays in assisting each of these manoeuvres. When the horse makes a sudden forward motion, the rider should lean forward, because then the horse is less likely to slip from under the rider and throw him backwards. When the horse is being pulled up short, however, the rider should

[8] lean back, because then he will experience less of a jolt. When the horse is jumping a ditch or going uphill, it is advisable to grip the mane, because the terrain is already giving the horse enough problems without your pulling on the bit as well. When the horse is going downhill, you should lean a good way back and help the horse with
the bridle, to avoid a situation where both you and the horse are hurtling downhill out of control.

The correct way to go about your rides is to vary their length and [9] the kind of terrain you cover. Apart from anything else, this is less disagreeable to the horse than always covering the same ground
³
and going out for rides of a similar length.

Since the rider has to have a deep seat when riding flat out over all [10] kinds of terrain, and since he has to be able to manipulate his weapons properly from horseback, I recommend hunting as a method of improving your horsemanship, if you have access to suitable countryside and wild animals.
⁴
Otherwise, a good exercise is for two horsemen to come to an agreement whereby one of them flees on horseback over a variety of terrains and the other gives chase; the fugitive holds his spear reversed as he retreats, with the head pointing to his rear, while his pursuer wields blunted javelins and a spear which has been similarly treated. When the pursuer gets within javelin range, he lets fly at the fugitive with his blunted javelins, and then, once he has caught him up and is within striking distance, he stabs at him with his spear. If they get to close quarters, it is a good idea for one of them [11] to pull his opponent towards himself and then suddenly push him away, because this is the way to unseat him. The correct response to being pulled is to get one’s horse to move on, because by doing so the person being pulled is more likely to unseat the one doing the pulling than to fall off.

Imagine a situation where a skirmish is taking place between the [12] cavalry of two opposing forces, with one side pursuing their opponents up to the enemy lines, while the other is retreating back to their own army. Under these circumstances, it is worth knowing that as long as you are close to your own side, the proper and safe course of action is to be among the first to wheel round and charge the enemy, but that when you are near the enemy lines, you should keep your horse under control. This tactic makes it possible for you to inflict heavy losses on your opponents while in all probability avoiding losses yourself.

Whereas the gods have given us human beings the ability to use [13] reasoned argument to teach other people what to do, you can
obviously not use reasoned argument to teach a horse anything. The best way for you to teach a horse what it is supposed to do is to reward [14] it when it does what you want and punish any disobedience. It does not take long to state this rule, but it applies to every aspect of horsemanship. For instance, a horse will be more prepared to take the bit if something good happens whenever it does so; and it will not let you down when jumping across or out of obstacles, or in anything else, if it knows that after it has done its duty it will be allowed to rest.

[1] So far I have covered how to avoid being swindled when buying a colt or a horse, how to treat a horse so as to avoid spoiling it, and how, if necessary, to produce a horse with all the qualities a cavalryman needs in battle. This is probably the right moment to discuss the further topic of the best way of managing a horse in case it turns out to be either excessively lively or excessively sluggish.

[2] The first thing to appreciate is that spirit in a horse is the equivalent of anger in a human being. So just as the best way to avoid infuriating someone is not to say or do anything that will irritate him, you are least likely to arouse a high-spirited horse if you avoid annoying it.

[3] You should begin, then, right from the moment you mount up, by taking care not to do so in a way that will upset the horse. And then, once mounted, you should let it stand for longer than you would an ordinary horse before giving it the gentlest of aids to walk on. Next, you should start it off at a particularly slow walk before moving it so gradually up to a faster pace that the horse hardly notices that it is [4] going more quickly. But any abrupt aids, whether communicated by sight or hearing or touch, upset a spirited horse no less than they would a person.
^*

[5] Again, suppose a lively horse is starting to speed up too much and you want to check it; you should not give it a sudden wrench, but [6] gently rein it in, calming it down rather than forcing it to a halt. Long rides, not exercises involving frequent turns, calm horses down; a peaceful, extended ride quietens and calms a lively horse, rather than
exciting it. But the idea that a long, fast ride will tire the horse out [7] and make it calm is quite wrong. In fact, this is exactly the situation in which a spirited horse tries its hardest to seize control, and the upshot of such an outburst – as with short-tempered people – has often proved fatal for both horse and rider. You should stop a spirited [8] horse from ever
^*
reaching its top speed, and of course you should never let it race against another horse (remembering that the most high-spirited horses are also the most competitive).

Another point is that smooth bits are more suitable for lively horses [9] than rough ones.
¹
If you do put a rough one in the horse’s mouth, a slack rein must be used to make it simulate a smooth bit. It is also a good idea, especially for a lively horse, to get oneself used to sitting quietly and to making as little contact with the horse’s body as possible, beyond the contact we need to ensure a secure seat.

You should be aware of the precept that a horse can also be calmed [10] down by making kissing noises with the lips and roused by making clicking noises with the tongue. However, if right from the start you stroke the horse while clicking and treat it roughly while making kissing noises, the horse will learn to be roused by the kissing noise and soothed by the clicking noise.

By the same token, then, when surrounded by clamouring voices or [11] the sound of the trumpet, it is important not to let the horse see you discomposed and not to do anything to disturb it either. Instead, in a situation like this you should let the horse halt, if you can, and bring it its morning or evening meal, if possible. But the best piece of advice [12] I can give, if you need a horse for war, is not to get one that is too high-spirited.
²

All I need say about managing a lazy horse, I think, is this: always do the opposite of what I have suggested for a lively horse.