passed a cord to keep the pin in position. Such heavy pins may be seen in use to-day in country waggons on the Continent.
In modern times harness, like dress, has lost much of the colour and decoration formerly associated with it. Only in Southern Spain, in Sicily and in Northern Africa do the horse-trappings of to-day continue to display something of the richness which is illustrated on the monuments of Roman horsemen. These monuments were no doubt frequently coloured. Traces of the colour occasionally survive, though, as a rule, it has faded out of all recognition. A recently published drawing of the gravestone of Silius, a soldier of the Picentinian Ala, found at Mainz, reproduces the tints which were still fresh at the time of its discovery. In one panel, which shows the soldier leading his horse, we can see the high-peaked military saddle of yellow leather and the green saddle-cloth with red hanging streamers, while the broad red straps that form the breeching and run round the horse's breast are adorned with bright metal phalerae.[1]
Roman Horse Trappings
Some of the horses in the monuments from Cologne, preserved in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum there, are even more richly caparisoned. On the charger of Marcus Sacrilus of the Norician Ala, for example, the fringed saddle-cloth hangs almost to the ground, the bridle is decorated with what appear to be great tufts of wool, which we may suppose to have been brightly coloured, and on the horse's poll is fixed a large circular phalera with a head in relief. The breeching and the straps round the breast bear at intervals the usual phalerae,—circular metal plates from which streamers are suspended, and between which are attached smaller crescent-shaped pieces, probably of bright metal. Sometimes a band of cloth or leather with a deep fringe is worn round the shoulder beneath the straps as in the monument of T. Flavius Bassus, also of the Norician Ala, in the same collection. The figure of this soldier on his charger is reproduced in Fig. 42. Here too there is a richly decorated martingale, from which hangs a strap terminating in a small crescent-shaped pendant—a feature which may likewise be observed on the monument of the standard bearer Flavinus at Hexham. Both at Arlon and at Neumagen the heads of the horses harnessed to the lighter vehicles are adorned with a high crest-like ornament, no doubt made of bright-coloured wool and leather. Such ornaments are still in use in the South of Europe, and something of the kind, though on a smaller scale, forms part of the bridle of the horse of Bassus.
1 Lindenschmtt, 'Neuerwerbungen des Mainzer Altertumsvereins,' Mainzer Zeitschrift, 1908, p. 135, Taf. iii.
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