For a reason which will presently be more apparent, it is desirable now to give this turnout plainly to the reader.
There should be no difficulty in understanding the carriage known to us all as the chariot of classical renown.

One has but to picture to himself a dray with low wheels and broad axle, surmounted by a box open at the tail end.

Such was the primitive pattern.

Artistic genius came along in time, and, touching the rude machine, raised it into a thing of beauty--that, for instance, in which Aurora, riding in advance of the dawn, is given to our fancy.
The jockeys of the ancients, quite as shrewd and ambitious as their successors of the present, called their humblest turnout a two, and their best in grade a four; in the latter, they contested the Olympics and the other festal shows founded in imitation of them.
The same sharp gamesters preferred to put their horses to the chariot all abreast; and for distinction they termed the two next the pole yoke-steeds, and those on the right and left outside trace-mates.
It was their judgment, also, that, by allowing the fullest freedom of action, the greatest speed was attainable; accordingly, the harness resorted to was peculiarly simple; in fact, there was nothing of it save a collar round the animal's neck, and a trace fixed to the collar, unless the lines and a halter fall within the term.
Wanting to hitch up, the masters pinned a narrow wooden yoke, or cross-tree, near the end of the pole, and, by straps passed through rings at the end of the yoke, buckled the latter to the collar.

The traces of the yokesteeds they hitched to the axle; those of the trace-mates to the top rim of the chariot-bed.
There remained then but the adjustment of the lines, which, judged by the modern devices, was not the least curious part of the method.