DESULTOR, in Antiquity, the name given to a per-
son who leapt from one horse to another as a feat of dexterity. In the Iliad (xv. 679) a performer of this kind is represented keeping four horses at full speed and leaping from one to another like equestrian performers in the modern circus. These exhibitions were very popular among the Romans, who appear, however, to have used but two horses for the purpose. The Greeks and the Romans appear to have borrowed this kind of equestrian exercise from the Numidians, who, it seems, applied it to the purposes of war. Livy (xxiii. 29) mentions a troop of Numidian horse, of which each man was provided with two horses, which were used alternately as occasion required. The Scythians, Armenians, and some Indian tribes, were likewise noted for feats of this kind.