the cart are decorated with reliefs, depicting Jupiter and the two Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. Probably the car is a tensa, used to convey images of the gods to and from the circus on the occasion of the games, and for other religious purposes. The relief formed part of a sarcophagus of about the third century after Christ.

Horse-trappings. Case 50 contains two interesting sets of bronze harness of an early date from Italy, probably of the eighth century B.C. (No. 493). They are mounted upon leather, and placed on models of horses' heads; the sidepieces of the bits are themselves in the form of horses. Of much later date, perhaps

FIG. 211.-GREEK BIT (No. 494). Width, ca. 9 in.

of the fifth or fourth century B.C., is the Greek bit from Achaea (No. 494; fig. 211). It is remarkable for its severe character, but was certainly not out of the ordinary, for a bit of precisely similar character is described by Xenophon in his treatise on horsemanship (early fourth century B.C.). He says there were two varieties of this type of bit, the mild and the severe. In the present example we may probably recognise the severe variety, which had "the 'wheels' heavy and small and the hedgehogs' sharp, in order

1 Xen., De re eq. x. 6: πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν χρὴ οὐ μεῖον δυοῖν χαλινοῖν κεκτῆσθαι· τούτων δὲ ἔστω ὁ μὲν λεῖος, τοὺς τροχοὺς εὐμεγέθεις ἔχων, ὁ δὲ ἕτερος τοὺς μὲν τροχοὺς καὶ βαρεῖς καὶ ταπεινούς, τοὺς δ ̓ ἐχίνους ὀξεῖς, ἵνα ὅποταν μὲν τοῦτον λάβῃ, ἀσχάλλων τῇ τραχύτητι διὰ τοῦτο ἀφίῃ.

that the horse when he got it into his mouth might be distressed by its roughness, and give up resisting." The "wheels" are clearly the central discs for pressing on the tongue, while the prickly cylinders at the sides were aptly termed " hedgehogs" by the Greeks. In this same Case there are also examples of the milder Roman bit, one in iron and another (curiously enough) in lead. Case 51 contains three examples of muzzles for horses

(No. 495), nearly complete, with a fragment of a fourth. These

muzzles are in bronze, but we can hardly expect that this was the usual material. Probably the bronze examples were reserved for state оссаsions, or else only used by the very wealthy.' The muzzles depicted on vases seem rather to be of some pliant material-leather, for example. Such а muzzle is seen on the mouth of the horse which is being led up to be harnessed in the chariotgroup from a vase-painting figured in the Frontispiece, though the material might possibly be bronze. It is probable that all the bronze examples in this Case belong to the Greek period, though the one.

here illustrated (fig. 212) has been assigned to as late a date as the fourth century after Christ. The muzzle was only used when the horse was being rubbed down or led (as in the vasepainting), not when he was ridden or driven. Xenophon 2 observes that "the groom must understand how to put the muzzle on the

1 Pollux, however (i. 148), gives the material as bronze: kai rò μèv ὅλῳ τῷ στόματι τοῦ ἵππου περιτιθέμενου χαλκοῦν ἠθμῶδες, κημὸς καλεῖται. 2 De re eq. v. 3.

horse, when he takes him out to rub him or to roll him. And, indeed, wherever he takes him without a bridle, he ought to muzzle him." The muzzles must have been fastened to the horse's head by straps attached to the rings seen on each side of them. The holes pierced in the bottom, to enable the horse to breathe freely, explain why Pollux calls the muzzle a "sieve-like" object.

It has been a subject of controversy whether Greek and Roman horses were shod. There is no mention of horse-shoes in Greek literature, and it seems improbable that they were used by the Greeks. Xenophon advises the use of a specially constructed stone floor for hardening the horse's hoofs, but in spite of such precautions, it is not surprising to hear that the Athenian cavalry

the Roman period (No. 496; fig. 213), for the most part found in the south of France. It is impossible to believe that these were ever used as ordinary horseshoes. The most plausible theory is that they were "hobbles," put on the feet of horses and other quadrupeds to prevent them straying. The upper part of this same Case contains a set of spurs (No. 497), most of them probably Roman. The arrangement for attaching the spurs to the heel vabies. Two have loops formed by the head and neck of swans, three have discs or knobs, while another has holes for laces.

(488) Cat. of Bronzes, 2695; (489) ibid., 2696 ff.; (490) ibid., 2520; cf. Ginzrot, Die Wagen d. Griechen u. Römer, II., pl. 44; (491) Cat. of Terracottas, C 612; (492) Cat. of Sculpt., III., 2310; (493) Cat. of Bronzes, 357; (494) Cf. Pernice, Griech. Pferdegeschirr, pl. ii. and iii. (56th Winckelmannsfestprogramm); (495) ibid., pl. i. and pp. 6-16; (496) Cf. Rev. Arch., 1900 (36), p. 296 ff.; Smith, Dict. of Ant.3, s.v. Solea.

1 Xen., op. cit., iv. 3. ? Thục., vii. 27, 5.

Suet., Ner. 30.

XX. AGRICULTURE.

(Wall-Case 52.)

Farming and the rearing of live stock were from remote antiquity among the Greeks and Romans the most natural and, as Cicero says, the most honourable means of earning a livelihood. Recent discoveries have shown that the early civilisation, which flourished on the coasts and islands of the Aegean, in the second millennium B.C., was well acquainted with agriculture. On one of the fine gold cups from Vaphio, which are probably of Cretan manufacture and represent in vivid fashion the bull-baiting of a primitive arena, is embossed a cultivated olive-tree; the remains

FIG. 214.-PLOUGH TURNING (No. 499). L. 5ğ in.

of an oil-press have been found in the very early settlements on the island of Thera, and olive-stones in Mycenaean graves. The olive, valuable for purposes of cooking, of lighting, and of bodily training, has been cultivated from that time in Greece, and especially in Attica, down to the present day, with the greatest

success.

The use of the plough was also known at that distant period. In this Case are shown three bronze ploughshares (No. 498), which belong to the Mycenaean Age, and were found in Cyprus. A plough in its most primitive form was merely the trunk of a tree which served as the pole, with two branches on opposite sides, one forming the share, the other the handle. This was the

plough in one piece spoken of by Hesiod. The Mycenaean ploughshare belongs to a later development, when the plough is made up of several parts, the "joined plough" of Homer and Hesiod. Such is the plough seen in the very primitive bronze Greek group (No. 499; fig. 214), where it is in the act of being turned at the end of the furrow. To effect the turning the two oxen are pulling the yoke in opposite directions. A black-figured vase of the sixth century, recently presented to the Museum and here exhibited (No. 500), shows the later plough in a simple form, which has changed but little for many centuries, as may still be observed in the East. The different parts can be seen more clearly from a bronze votive plough of the third century B.C. at Florence (fig. 215). It is made up of (1) a horizontal share-beam, to which is fastened the iron share, (2) a pole, at the end of which

FIG. 215. BRONZE VOTIVE PLOUGH.

is the yoke, (3) the vertical handle. This type of plough is exactly described by Virgil in the Georgics.1

The ploughman was followed by the sower, who is represented on the vase mentioned above (No. 500) with a basket from which he scatters the seed in the furrow. On another vase, in the Louvre (fig. 216), the plough is accompanied by a labourer who breaks up with a hoe the clods left by the share. At harvesttime a sickle was used to cut the grain, of which instrument two iron specimens are shown in the Case, from Lycia in Asia Minor (No. 501). Winnowing the grain was accomplished either by means of a shovel or a basket of peculiar shape (Aíkvov, vannus); on a terracotta relief in the Museum (D 525, Case 75, Terracotta Room Annexe) the infant Dionysos is being rocked in one of these objects instead of a cradle, by a Satyr and a Nymph.

Of fruit crops the vine and the olive were by far the most

1 i. 169 ff.