05-20-2015, 07:35 AM
Although not Roman, I have this old image of US cavalry troopers who had thrown down their horses on exercises in 1900 to give them a low profile I suppose.
[attachment=12388]throwingdown.jpg[/attachment]
Renate Rolle in her book "The World of the Scythians" writes,
The pictures below are from an amphora found in the Certomlyk kurgan and they give a good idea of how the Scythians trained their horses. The ropes which seem to be missing were in fact small silver chains of which only small traces remain. Rolle adds that this type of training was very important on the battlefield as kneeling on command could mean the difference between life and death for a fallen and heavily-armed warrior who would be relatively immobile on foot and who could get back swiftly on a kneeling horse in an age before stirrups. She seems to think that most of the horses being trained in the scene were captured as the last horse on the bottom right seemed to have an inferior shape to its head and body and was probably a Tarpan type horse.
But it wasn't all beer and skittles for the Scythian horse trainer, as the image below the training scene is a carving from an ivory plaque showing a fallen Scythian getting dragged along by a runaway horse. :grin:
[attachment=12389]amphorafriezesmall2.jpg[/attachment]
The image below is from a royal Scythian neck ring in which the riders seem to be mounting horses which are kneeling
[attachment=12390]kneelinghorses.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=12388]throwingdown.jpg[/attachment]
Renate Rolle in her book "The World of the Scythians" writes,
Quote:Training horses to kneel down was a custom peculiar to the nomadic peoples and not practised among the Greeks. If it had been then Xenophon would not have left us such exquisite instructions on the mounting of a horse - by clutching the mane or using the lance in a kind of pole-vault in order to catapult oneself into the saddle.
The pictures below are from an amphora found in the Certomlyk kurgan and they give a good idea of how the Scythians trained their horses. The ropes which seem to be missing were in fact small silver chains of which only small traces remain. Rolle adds that this type of training was very important on the battlefield as kneeling on command could mean the difference between life and death for a fallen and heavily-armed warrior who would be relatively immobile on foot and who could get back swiftly on a kneeling horse in an age before stirrups. She seems to think that most of the horses being trained in the scene were captured as the last horse on the bottom right seemed to have an inferior shape to its head and body and was probably a Tarpan type horse.
But it wasn't all beer and skittles for the Scythian horse trainer, as the image below the training scene is a carving from an ivory plaque showing a fallen Scythian getting dragged along by a runaway horse. :grin:
[attachment=12389]amphorafriezesmall2.jpg[/attachment]
The image below is from a royal Scythian neck ring in which the riders seem to be mounting horses which are kneeling
[attachment=12390]kneelinghorses.jpg[/attachment]
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
