Cyropaedia

Thus Cyrus spoke; and Chrysantas seconded[*](Chrysantas supports the proposition) him in the following speech: I, for one, am so eager to learn horsemanship, that I think that if I become a horseman I shall be a man on wings.

For as we are now, I, at least, am satisfied, when I have an even start in running a race with any man, if I can beat him only by a head; and when I see an animal running along, I am satisfied if I can get a good aim quickly enough to shoot him or spear him before he gets very far away. But if I become a horseman I shall be able to overtake a man though he is as far off as I can see him; and I shall be able to pursue animals and overtake them and either strike them down from close at hand or spear them as if they were standing still; and they seem so, for though both be moving rapidly, yet, if they are near to one another, they are as if standing still.

Now the creature that I have envied most is, I think, the Centaur (if any such being ever existed), able to reason with a man’s intelligence and to manufacture with his hands what he needed, while he possessed the fleetness and strength of a horse so as to overtake whatever ran before him and to knock down whatever stood in his way. Well, all his advantages I combine in myself by becoming a horseman.