The Coming of the Greeks
rectly related to the length of its legs. Kings were understand-
ably assiduous in acquiring the best specimens they could find.
Since the Fertile Crescent and Egypt were ill-suited for the
breeding of horses, kings in these areas regularly imported
horses from Asia Minor. That, however, was only the first step
in creating an effective chariotry. Elaborate exercise and train-
ing were essential for turning an ordinary draft horse into a
horse on which two men would depend for survival on the bat-
tlefield. In the voluminous Hittite "horse texts" there are sev-
eral references to the LU.asbsbusbsbani, the "horse-training
man," a respected professional. 42 We are fortunate to have a
manual, preserved on a series of tablets found at Boghazkoy,
that spells out in exquisite and day-by-day detail a seven-
month regimen for training chariot horses. The manual was
written by an expert named Kikkuli, the LU.ashshushshani in
charge of conditioning and training the horses of the Great
King of Mitanni in the fourteenth century B.C. Although Kik-
kuli dictated the manual in Hurrian, the tablets found at
Boghazkoy are not the original Hurrian text, but translations
(one in Hittite, another in Akkadian). The fact of translation
into other languages shows how great a value was put upon the
expertise of a famous trainer. Let us sample the text:
These are the words of Kikkulis, master horse-
man from the land of ... Mit(t)anni.
When the groom takes the horses to pasture in
the spring, he harnesses them and makes them pace
three leagues and gallop two furlongs. On the way
back they are to run three furlongs. He unharnesses
them, rubs them down, and waters them, then
leads them into the stable and gives them each a
handful of clover, two handfuls of barley, and one
- See Kammenhuber, Hippologia Hethitica, 6—7, and the same au-
thor's "Zu den hethitischen Pfetdetexten," Forschungen und F ortschritt 28
(1954): 119-24; cf. Hangar, Das Pferd, 526.
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