The Mauryan Polity c9.s4.8

c9.s4.8

With regard to the equipment of the cavalry Arrian remarks: "The horsemen are equipped with two lances like the lances called saunia, and with a shorter buckler than that carried by the footsoldiers. But they do not put saddles on their horses, nor do they curb them with bits like the bits in use among the Greeks or the Kelts, but they fit on round the extremity of the horse's mouth a circular piece of stitched raw ox-hide studded with pricks of iron or brass pointing inwards, but not very sharp: if a man is rich he uses pricks made of ivory. Within the horse's mouth is put an iron prong like a skewer, to which the reins are attached. When the rider, then, pulls the reins the prong controls the horse, and the pricks which are attached to this prong goad the mouth, so that it cannot but obey the reins."²