War Horses and the Art of Control — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne, no grammarian, opens on Roman relay horses called funales or dextrarios and the destriers that gave us post horses and extra hands along a march.

He catalogs trained war mounts that charged at drawn swords, seized enemies with teeth, and trampled without waiting for the rider's cue. Turks and others rode with scimitars fixed upright in harness; Germans fought with heels skyward and heads to the saddle. Numidian cavalry leaped between horses mid-battle; Livy marvels that men and horses were so active and docile together. Such partnership looks like one creature until a stumble proves it is two wills joined by training.

Caesar and Pompey were famed horsemen; Alexander and Hannibal were miracles of mounted art. Montaigne notes how firearms, changing tactics, and unfamiliarity altered cavalry's place: New World observers first thought horse and rider a single divine beast until they learned to separate them. What seems supernatural before explanation becomes dependency once understood.

He lingers on display and risk: a Sulmona prince held coins under his knees on an unbroken horse to prove his seat; knights performed vaults and tricks that turned the destrier into spectacle as well as weapon. The same mount that carries reputation can throw it away in a panic. He recalls how knights once prized horses for blood and training more than ornament, yet still built whole styles of war around them. Relay strings, barded chargers, and parade vaults each solve a different problem: endurance, shock, or reputation. When the rider trusts the mount to finish a charge alone, he gains reach and terror but loses the last say at the critical moment. A horse that bites on cue can also bite wrong; a seat that holds coins can still fail when the animal bucks for no audience. Montaigne's lesson is not to reject the destrier but to see that trained power extends the rider while keeping its own hungers, fears, and failures when the spectacle ends and the field turns messy.