National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

which I imagine this domestication to have been brought about and I shall treat
of it again later.

That this horse did not descend from the Anau horse, which was trained for
speed, is already shown in the remarks of Cæsar (Bell. Gall., IV, 2), Tacitus (German.,
6), and Appianus (d. r. Celt., 3), that the native horses, which were badly shaped,
not well-set and not fast, but of great powers of endurance through daily strain,
and in emergencies contented with the bark of trees, were nevertheless preferred
by the Germans to those imported.

Already Modi* has said that speed was the characteristic in a horse that
impressed most an ancient Iranian. He, therefore, in common with his Aryan broth-
ers, named this swiftest of the animals "aspa" from the old Aryan root "aç" (to
go rapidly). The word means one who goes rapidly. It seems that the speed of
the horse was the cause which connected horse-racing with the festivals in honor
of Mithras, the god of light. The primitive ancient Iranian, being much exposed
to influences of Nature and coming into greater contact with Nature, began to
clothe the greatest of Nature's objects with the ideas most common to him on the
surface of the earth. Just as he saw his swift horse cover long distances in a
short time, he saw the sun go over the immense vault of heaven in a short time.
So he called the sun, in his Avesta, by the name of "Aurvat-aspa"—the swift-
horsed.

Equus caballus fossilis Rütimeyer (its recent form is Equus przewalskii)

Equus caballus robustus Nehring Equus caballus pumpellii Duerst Equus caballus nehringi Duerst
(the type of the steppes) (the type of the desert) (the type of the woods)

Indian and Ancient Iranian and Bronze age horse
Chinese horses Babylonian horses of Europe Celtic pony

Hallstatt horse
of Europe Persian Arabian Egyptian Modern pony breeds
horses
Greek and
Roman horses Turkish

Berber Sardinian,
Corsican horse,
horses of la Camargue,
Frioul, etc.

Andalusian horse Thoroughbred
English race-horse

Thus, then, is the horse of Anau the first fleet, the first desert, the first oriental
domestic horse; and his genealogy, as well as his connection with the other Euro-
pean horses is shown instructively in the above diagram.