There's some proper looney tunes ideas in this thread. Hard to work out why people are so unhinged over such a relatively simple idea, but horses can be lots of different sizes (they still are today!) and still be used to carry riders. Do a simple google search and you can find horse sizes can vary quite a lot. People ride ponies all the time, quite happily.

Absolutely no idea why people are talking about breaking horses backs and stirrups and ancient paintings. Lay off the youtube videos for a little while.

if the horses were large enough to ride, chariots would be a pointless waste in battle, which in fact they were by Roman times.

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Considering how little Tiberius seems to have wanted to be Emperor, I put the entire blame of his death on Piso.

Ah, to live 4400 years ago when you could tell your idiot brother to “go milk a horse.”

Happy Wednesday! Just read Ross King's, The Bookseller of Florence: Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that illuminated the Renaissance. Picked it up in an airport kiosk and was hooked. Pitched perfectly in the sweet spot between deep scholarly work and pop history (IMHO). For anyone who loves books about books.

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Hey there, the closest I can think of would be A.R. Disney's A History of Portugal and the Portugese Empire. I know ot doesn't solely cover the medieval period, but what overlap exists is great. If you are into Andalusian history writ large, check out the works of Dr. Brian Catlos.

>simply because horses were too small, the weight of rider would break the horses back and throw the rider down and kill or injure him (and injury was death).

You have absolutely no evidence for any of this. Please show us a single source.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I just wrapped up James Deschuk's [Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life](http://Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life https://a.co/d/b8GzQ3M) and it was well worth the read. The book covers Canada's troubled past with its various indigenous peoples, and the policies and factors that contributed to their suffering.

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Yeah I understand that. The dude said "American history." When someone says "American history" in any context, do you immediately include and think of all North American history? No.

Although if Tiberius really did assassinate Germanicus, he would have done it whether Germanicus set foot in Egypt or not. Not only was Germanicus more popular than Tiberius's own son Drusus, he also has closer bloodline to Augustus himself, being the grandson of Augustus' sister Octavia.

The fun part is that this discovery is directly related to that one. They discovered this while constructing a visitor's centre about Richard III!

Stirrups make riding a lot easier, and safer.

It wasn't just Egypt, although Egypt was particularly key to the Emperor. Most Roman provinces were also not given to the senate to appoint a governor. Only a small subset of centrally located provinces along Italy itself and the Mediterranean were called "senatorial provinces". The key frontier provinces, where most of the troops are (Britain, Danube, Rhine, Syria etc) were imperial provinces, where the Emperor directly appointed governors, again to make sure only the people he trusts are given military commands.

> because if you look at the horses pulling chariots in paintings from the battle of Kadesh about 3500 years ago, they are clearly much smaller than modern horses

Cool of them to ensure everything was depicted to scale.

Pertaining to 'riding a horse' from the perspective of the 'horse' that is to be 'ridden'; The spirit is willing but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

> Remember, I'm suggesting horses were domesticated tens of thousands of years prior.

With absolutely no evidence.

> Before the introduction of stirrups you would have a lot less stability.

Stirrups are considered important for allowing you to fight more effectively while on horseback. Simply riding without stirrups is not a problem at all.

Oh wow I have had conversations with people like that. Archaeology and even geology are witchcraft to them !

Not by much. The average was lower, but people were still getting to more or less modern heights. A six foot tall man would have been considered tall, but not like a freak of nature or anything.

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Just go on Facebook. Some nutters think it already has 😁

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