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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sallent, post: 3575720, member: 76194&quot;]Ancient Roman horses were far smaller than most breeds of horses you see today. Remember that back then they did not use stirrups. Horses have to be small enough for a rider to securely grip himself around the horse using nothing but the pressure of his knees and thighs to keep himself secured to the horse. Also, without stirrups the horse couldn&#039;t be too large for another reason... you can&#039;t even mount the horse in the first place.</p><p><br /></p><p>Every time you see a reenactment or a movie or show, and the riders are riding massive Iberian stallions or other large breeds, you are seeing a distortion of history and getting the wrong impression.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a museum exhibit that accurately reflects the size of Roman horses, which we know well&nbsp; from finding bones, and also from mosaics and other ancient art.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]953352[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>and here&#039;s a horse from a Roman mosaic next to a person. Granted, this was a special breed for chariot racing and would have been a bit smaller and lighter than a calvary horse, but it&#039;s still a helpful illustration.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]953353[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>And look closely at Marcus Aurelius&#039; statue. As an imperial horse I&#039;d imagine it would have been one of the finest and largest specimens that the empire had to offer. Even then, you can see the horse is quite small relative to the rider by our modern standards.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]953354[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, there is a research published by Dr. Kyra Lyublyanovic titled &quot;<b>Size Variability In Roman Period Horses from Hungary&quot;</b>, produced in 2002 for the 9th Conference of International Archaezoologists, that found that the average Roman war horse in Hungary during the times of the empire was around 14.4 hands in height, which is basically around the <u>dividing line between a pony and a small horse.</u></p><p><br /></p><p>Quite simply, horses did not start to be bread for large size until stirrups became commonplace in Europe. After all, why breed a huge horse that&#039;s so massive you won&#039;t be able to ride him securely by using the pressure of your knees and thighs to keep yourself upright? Horses of similar sizes to what we see today did not first appear until around 800 or 900 years ago.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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