For my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like so many beasts of burden, and turning them off, or selling them when they grew old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit which thinks that the sole tie between man and man is interest or necessity.  But goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice.  The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to creatures of every species; and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.  A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service.  Thus the people of Athens, when they had finished the temple called Hecatompedon, set at liberty the beasts of burden that had been chiefly employed in the work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any other service.  It is said that one of these afterwards came of its own accord to work, and, putting itself at the head of the laboring cattle, marched before them to the citadel.  This pleased the people, and they made a decree that it should be kept at the public charge so long as it lived.  The graves of Cimon’s mares, with which he thrice conquered at the Olympic games, are still to be seen near his own tomb.  Many have shown particular marks of regard, in burying the dogs which they had cherished and been fond of; and amongst the rest Xantippus of old, whose dog swam by the side of his galley to Salamis, when the Athenians were forced to abandon their city, and was afterwards buried by him upon a promontory, which to this day is called the Dog’s Grave.  We certainly ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away; and were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures.  For my own part, I would not sell even an old ox that had labored for me; much less would I remove, for the sake of a little money, a man grown old in my service, from his usual lodgings and diet; for to him, poor man! it would be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the buyer than he was to the seller.  But Cato, as if he took a pride in these things, tells us, that when consul, he left his war-horse in Spain to save the public the charge of his conveyance.  Whether such things as these are instances of greatness or littleness of soul, let the reader judge for himself.

From “Cato the Censor,” in the “Lives."

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THE HORSES OF ACHILLES.

The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal life, first clearly taught in the myth of Chiron, and in his bringing up of Jason, AEsculapius, and Achilles, but most perfectly by Homer, in the fable of the horses of Achilles, and the part assigned to them, in relation to the death of his friend, and in prophecy of his own.  There is, perhaps, in all the “Iliad,” nothing more deep in significance—­there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honor for the mystery of inferior life—­than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of gods.