The Legend of the Great Horse

One reason “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy is a worthwhile read is its exploration of history in chronological order — with time lines before each new era — as it traces the development in horsemanship in civilization.

Almost all of our modern ideas on history and mankind have been anticipated in Greek & Roman thought … human nature has not changed enough to make knowledge of our ancestors obsolete.

Horses may have pulled and carried humanity up the long ascent from primitive cultures, but it wasn’t a straight line. Human societies have been subject to cycles of  falling away from civilized life.
“Dark age” describes the lack of historical records from these periods, such as during the Bronze Age collapse about 1200 BC, which ended [...]

The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is filled with horses galloping through history — but the story is not about horses. It is about us: for it is ourselves we find in horses, for better or worse.

If history may be said to be the memory of the human race, it seems subject to many of the same failings of accuracy and interpretation. We see this even in our most recent history: for example a national self-image embraced by some which holds America to be a militaristic warrior-race which “won” WWII, rather [...]

History is an inexact science to be sure, relying at least partially on hearsay and filtered through the political whims of its era. History is also old in the physical sense of the word, an unattractive quality to some.
But the past isn’t dead. As William Faulkner said, “it isn’t even past.”
Yes, the actors are gone, [...]

Naufragia was the name Romans gave to crashes during a chariot race, the shocking pileups of man, machine and thrashing horses. Naufragia is the latin word for “shipwreck,” which conjures the shocking destruction and tangled ruin that so dismayed—and ultimately delighted—the screaming spectators of the Circus.
Naufragia was ultimate disaster, an end not only to hopes [...]

In our modern society we have celebrity athletes of different sports, but this is not simply a continuation of historical tradition. Rome was the society that first grew athlete-superstars was Rome. After their collapse, Europe endured a period of centuries known as the Dark or Middle Ages in which there were no celebrity athletes. It [...]

Oh no! He’s taken the corner wide!
What are you doing? The next chariot is crowding you.
What are you doing, you idiot? You’re going to lose what my girl’s prayed for!
Pull, please, PULL left as hard as you can.
We are rooting for a bum.
- Ovid (43 BC – AD 17) Amores
The idea that human nature does [...]