The earliest archaeological remains of horses found in mainland Greece are bones dating from the Middle Bronze Age, no earlier than 1800 BC.

[1]: 2 The first known pictorial depictions of horses in Ancient Greece are in Mycenaean shaft graves dating from about 1650–1550 BC, where artefacts also document the use of the chariot.

[1]: 2 [2]: 52 The equestrian culture of ancient Greece is documented in two treatises on horsemanship from about 350 BC by the Athenian historian and soldier Xenophon: the Hipparchicus (Ἱππαρχικός, Hipparchikós), which deals mainly with the duties of the cavalry commander; and Περὶ ἱππικῆς, Perì hippikēs – often translated as On Horsemanship – which deals with the selection, care and training of horses in general.

[10]: 439 [11] There are also a number of feral populations, deriving from horses abandoned or escaped for reasons such as the depopulation of the countryside, the mechanisation of agriculture or the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949.

Among these are: a group of about 40 bay horses in the delta of the Achelous River in Epirus; a small number of horses of Pindos type on Mount Ainos, on the Ionian island of Cephalonia; a herd of some hundreds in the area of Amvrakikos in Epirus; about 90 head in the delta of the Axios River close to Thessaloniki, and on a nearby island; a herd of about 400 on Pagaio Mountain, near Drama in East Macedonia and Thrace, in north-eastern Greece; a group of about 30 in the delta of the Kalamas River, near Igoumenitsa in Thesprotia, Epirus; about 200 on the island of Petalas in the Echinades; approximately 1000 horses in the southern Rhodope Mountains in the north of the country; and a population of about 200 on Menoikio, in Serres.