¹ Page, D. L., Alcman: The Partheneion, p. 90Google Scholar; specifically identified as the steppe pony in Anderson, K. J., Ancient Greek Horsemanship, p. 36.Google Scholar

² Page (p. 90) rightly makes the latter identification depend on die identity of the ‘wild she-mules’ of Il. 2. 852Google Scholar. Devereux, G., ‘Homer's Wild She-Mules’, J.H.S. lxxxv (1965, in press)Google Scholar, proves that they cannot be wild equines, but must be half-wild range mules, pasturing, like Erichdionios' 3,000 mares, (II. 20. 220–1)Google Scholar. These noteworthy mules were presumably foaled by fine mares, of a breed known to Homer. Indeed, where fine mules were involved, the Greeks were prone to stress their descent from mares, rather than from asses (Simon, fr. 10P = 7B = 19D). Cf. id., Ant. Class, xxxiii (1964), 375–83, and ‘The Enetian Horses of Alkman's Partheneion’, Hermes (forthcoming).Google Scholar

³ St. Byz, s.v. (1. 3, p. 323M)Google Scholar, also Anderson, , p. 37Google Scholar. If, as some ancient authors state (discussion and literature in Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry ², p. 17), Alkman was of Lydian birth, dais might slightly favour the supposition that an Ionian Ibenian was meant.Google Scholar

⁴ I suspect that this dream horse is—presumably like the Kolaxaian (Bolton, J. D. P., Aristeas of Proconnesus, pp. 40 f.Google Scholar and passim)-derived from Aristeas' Arimaspea; supernatural horses of this type, belonging to mythical chiefs and shamans, are common in steppe-mythology (Róheim, G., ‘Hungarian and Vogul Mythology’, Monogr. Amer. Ethnol. Soc. xxiii, passim)Google Scholar. Edmonds's conjecture of seems implausible. Though the Asiatic kulan, capable of speeds up to 40 m.p.h. (Andrews, R. C., ‘The Mongolian Wild Ass’, J. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist, xxxiii [1933], 3–16)Google Scholar, and the fleet ‘Syrian hemione’ (X. An. 1. 5. 2), and Libyan wild ass (Arr. Cyn. 24) are handsomer than donkeys and mules, they are hardly suitable symbols of pretty girls. The bantering tone of the second part of the poem, so well brought out by Bowra's translation (p. 46), and the reference to a screeching owl (84–89) cannot justify Edmonds's emendation by analogy, especially since the owl passage should probably be taken in the sense of Thgn. 347, i.e., not as ‘being like’ but ‘in the manner of an owl. Moreover, the bantering tone appears long after the horse metaphor. The contrast between seriousness and banter is reminiscent, in a reverse order, of Theoc. 18, which, as the scholia suggest, owed some of its inspiration to Stesichoros. This might suggest that such contrasts of moods may have been a minor fashion in early maiden songs.Google Scholar

¹ Cf. Coleridge's reference, within three verses, to Kubla Khan, Xanadu, and the Alph river; the river Alph, being the least known, is adorned with an epithet.

² Commentary ad loc, P. Oxy. 2389, fr. 6, col. i. 8 f., and Bowra's discussion, p. 50.Google Scholar

³ This also militates against its being a Venetic horse, which, as an exhaustive search seems to indicate, was never mentioned as being ridden and—if it resembled the small pony of the neighbouring Sigynnai—could not be ridden (Hdt. 5. 9). By contrast, the real Enetic (Eust. 361. 10) and the Paphlagonian (X. An. 5. 6. 8 f.) were excellent mounts.Google Scholar

⁴ Bury, J. B. (C.A.H. iv. 502)Google Scholar: ‘She … will run with her as a Skythian with a Lydian horse.’ Bowra (p. 45): ‘She … will run like a Colaxaean horse for an Ibenian’ (setting the pace). Edmonds, , Lyra Graeca, i. 55: ‘She … shall run as courser Colaxaean to pure Ibenian bred.’ (With, for, and to are ambiguous.) Page (p. 22): ‘She … shall race but as a Colaxean steed against its Ibenian peer.’ (But and peer are difficult to reconcile.) The papyrus commentary (above n. 2) gives no real help. Anderson (p. 36) feels that the Kolaxaian is ‘not quite as good’ as the other breeds.Google Scholar

⁵ Il. 16. 152. Cf. p. 178, n. 5.Google Scholar

⁶ Hančar, F., Das Pferd in prähistorischer und früher historischer Zeit, gives the modern Mongol pony's height as 125 cm. (p. 369)Google Scholar and that of the average skeleton found in the Pontic Skythian kurgans (barrows) as generally under 138 cm. (p. 371). Cf. Anderson's description, p. 24. Even those ancient authors who recognized the pony's good qualities at best seek to excuse its un-prepossessing appearance (Arr. Cyn. 23Google Scholar; Amm. Marc. 31. 2. 6Google Scholar; Veget. Mulom. 3. 6. 5).Google Scholar

⁷ Antike Denhmaler, iv, pl. 146 = Anderson, pl. 12.Google Scholar

¹ X. Eq. 11. 1.Google Scholar

² Arr. Cyn. 23.Google Scholar

³ While being hardened, the horse is starved and kept thirsty. He is ridden until he is in a sweat and is then given icy water to drink. He is picketed out of doors and cold water is poured on him in the evening; in the morning die horse is sheeted with ice. When hungry, he is fed with the bit in his mouth, to slow up the feeding. Kler, J., ‘The Horse in the Life of the Ordos Mongols’, Prim. Man xx (1947), 15–25, esp. 17. Kler's account, based on years of observation, is reliable.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Hančar, , p. 366Google Scholar n. 39. Of the horses found in the Skythian kurgan V at Pazyryk in the Altai, only one had been well fed and stabled. The others, as the horny ridges of their hooves show, had starved, fending for themselves on the winter range; the kurgan dates from late spring or early summer (Hančar, , p. 365Google Scholar). Horses allow themselves to be ridden until they literally drop dead; exhausted donkeys and mules refuse to budge. The excessive compliance of the horse may explain why both Indo-Europeans (nag, haridelle, Schindmähre, Klepper) and Finno-Ugrians (Hungarian: gebe) have words for exhausted, overworked horses. HattuŠihš III complained that his fine horses had become old nags (Hančar, , p. 479).Google Scholar

⁵ Many steppe archaeologists, including Hančar (passim), seem to think that if a kurgan contains two horses only, this, even in the absence of wagon parts or wagon harness, means that the two were a harness team. It might be worth considering the alternative that the two are the principal saddle horse and the spare horse. Where one definitely finds four harness horses, one of which, as in a Pazyryk kurgan, is class III, while the other three are all class IV, one might think of the golden chariot of the third-century B.C. Oxus treasure (Hančar, , pl. 16), which shows one horse harnessed under a forked yoke, and the three others harnessed outside. Cf. the modern troika: one large trotter is harnessed under a forked yoke; the two matched outside horses are smaller, and they gallop. Cf. also p. 177, n. 5, regarding Achilles' team.Google Scholar

⁶ Plu. Alex. 32. 7.Google Scholar

⁷ Il. 23. 304 if. Cf. Anderson on turning, P. 37.Google Scholar

¹ Arr. Cyn. 23 is very definite on this point, which Anderson (p. 37) seems to have overlooked.Google Scholar

² C.l.L. xxii. 1122Google Scholar, D.C. 69. 10; cf. Hist. Aug. (Spart. Hadr.) 25. 12 and Anderson, p. 30.Google Scholar

³ The British in India did not use big Walers, but polo-pony-size horses, for pigsticking.

⁴ Opp. Cyn. 1. 171.Google Scholar

⁵ Arr. Cyn. 1.4.Google Scholar

⁶ Str. 7. 4. 8.Google Scholar

⁷ Hdt. 4. 5.Google Scholar

⁸ Hist. Aug. (Probus 8).Google Scholar

⁹ Cf. Xenophon‘s admittedly specious argument that the fine (Hdt. 7. 196) Persian cavalry horse is a means of running away. Archilochos’ (fr. 60D) taste in generals resembles Probus’ taste in horses: ‘I love not a tall general nor a straddling, nor one proud of his hair nor one part shaven; for me a man should be short and bowlegged to behold, set firm on his feet and full of heart’ (Edmonds's translation). This can hardly be cited as proof of a ‘bourgeois repudiation of the Homeric ideal’, since—despite a pro forma short compliment to tall Menelaos—Antenor obviously is more impressed by short-legged, big-torsoed Odysseus, whose eloquence makes one forget his churlish appearance. (Il. 3. 209–24Google Scholar; cf. Arr. Cyn. 23Google Scholar on Skythian horses.) The first man Priamos notices after tall and royal Agamemnon is, likewise, short and stocky Odysseus (Il. 3. 192 f.)Google Scholar. Also if Archil, fr. 59D ridicules a hornlike coiffure, so does Diomedes (Il. 11. 385Google Scholar). Moreover, Homer himself obviously admires stocky, surefooted (Il. 23. 770 f.)Google Scholar, somewhat slow (Il. 23. 770Google Scholar f.—victory due to Athene's unfair and indelicate help-cf. Od. 8. 230) Odysseus, who proverbially lives on his wits. Curiously enough, Plu. Symp. 2. 8. 1 (= 2. 641 f.) explicitly compares Odysseus'; prudence to that of a ‘wolf-torn’ (and therefore necessarily range-bred) horse.Google Scholar

¹ Justin 9. 2. 16.

² Str. 2. 14. 9.Google Scholar

³ Identification based only on skeletal material is not always reliable. Lundholm, B., Abstammung und Domestikation des Hauspferdes, p. 157Google Scholar, reports that a bone long identified as that of a horse turned out to be a human femur! Moreover, some ‘keys’, on which reconstructions and computations are based, are either not stated (Hančar, , p. 371, n. 53, in regard to Vitt's computation key), or are controversial.Google Scholar

⁴ This specification is made necessary by the inaccurate reporting of the gist of Rus- sian sources. The identical group of horses is called ‘stallions’ (Hengste) by Hančar, (p. 307 and passim)Google Scholar, ‘mares’ by Golomshtok, E. A., ‘The Pazirik Burial of Altai’, A.J.A. xxxvii (1933), 30–45Google Scholar (esp. p. 32), and (correctly) ‘geldings’ by Rice, T. Talbot, The Scythians ³, p. 71Google Scholar (confirmed by Rudenko, S. I., Kul'tura naseleniya gornogo Altaya v skifskoe vremya, p. 148). The actual facts were finally established by a letter from Mrs. Rice (8/7/64), and even so it is not certain that all the draft horses were geldings. As to colour, Golomshtok gives ‘yellow’; Hancar gives a list of colours (p. 367 and passim) whose common denominator is ‘reddish’.Google Scholar

⁵ The long neck and square contour are partly due to their having been gelded before the age of two, since gelding delays the calcification of the epiphyses of the forelegs and lengthens the vertebrae of the neck. For descriptions of the racers cf. Rice, , p. 71Google Scholar, Hančar, , pp. 307, 366–7, and passim.Google Scholar

⁶ Hančar, , p. 368.Google Scholar

¹ p. 364 n. 33.

² Hančar, , p. 364 n. 33.Google Scholar

³ Id., pp. 363–4.

⁴ Cf. differential Arab attitudes toward the selughi and toward other (‘unclean’) dogs; also English feudal legislation concerning mere working dogs. In medieval Hungary one might say that society was split in terms of whether one used the light steppe horse (native Hungarians, half-pagans, light cavalry armament) or the heavy Western horse (German and germanophile knights and lords, staunch Catholics, armoured cavalry).

⁵ Cf. Anchises' causing his mares to be covered by Laomedon's stallions widiout the latter's knowledge, Il. 5. 265 f.Google Scholar

⁶ Of course, if the harness horses were actually not gelded, as Mrs. Rice's letter states (with some reservations), this would further increase the difference in appearance between racers gelded young and harness horses which were ungelded or, perhaps, gelded late.

⁷ The average horse of the Tuyakhta (fourth or fifth century B.C.) and Kuray (third to first centuries B.C.) barrows was only about 137 cm. high and corresponds to the modern steppe horse (not pony). There were also some long-legged horses with narrow foreheads, 141-8 cm. high (Hančar, , p. 366).Google Scholar

⁸ Hančar, , p. 371.Google Scholar

¹ Rice, , pp. 71–73.Google Scholar

² Hančar, , pp. 358, 368.Google Scholar

³ Rice, T. Talbot, personal communication.Google Scholar

⁴ Arist, . H.A. 9. 47 fGoogle Scholar; Plin, . N.H. 8. 156Google Scholar; Varro, , R.R. 2. 7. 9Google Scholar; Ael, . N.A. 4. 7, etc.Google Scholar

⁵ One concludes from Kler's statement (loc. cit.)Google Scholar, that one Mongol stallion is assigned 5-6 mares, that 5 out of 6 males are gelded. In early twentieth-century Hun- garian horse herds the stallions were even less numerous, since they were not so badly needed as protection against wolves. (For stallions as wolf-fighters, cf. Kler, , loc. cit.)Google Scholar

⁶ Hančar, , p. 357 nn. 11 and 12.Google Scholar

¹ Grousset, R., L'Empire des steppes, passim.Google Scholar

² Hančar, , p. 130.Google Scholar

³ Bowra, , p. 27Google Scholar. Was the Arimaspea an account of a real journey? Dodds, E. R. (The Greeks and the Irrational, p. 162 n. 37)Google Scholar tentatively considered the possibility that it might be a shamanistic ‘soul voyage’ conforming to a pattern (p. 141 and passim), but does not deny that it might be a real travel account. Bolton, J. D. P. (Aristeas of Proconnesus, pp. 43, 188 n. 9 and passim) also shows that Alkman knew the Arimaspea and proves (passim) that this epic described a real journey. This finding is compatible with Dodds's observation that it fits the soulvoyage pattern. It suffices to assume that this travel account was written in the-presumably popular—manner of a soul-journey, viewed as a literary genre. Indeed, now that Dodds has proved the existence of this pattern in ancient Greece, it is easy for us to find further examples of it, especially in mythology.Google Scholar

⁴ Hdt. 4. 5 and 7.Google ScholarBolton, (p. 188)Google Scholar indicates that either or can give and suggests that Alkman might have known this name in the form of Cf. Bowra, , p. 28.Google Scholar

⁵ Bowra, , p. 28.Google Scholar

⁶ A modern example of a breed named after a person is the Morgan horse, and of a breed so closely associated with a royal house as to be practically its hall mark the Lipizzaner of the Habsburg dynasty.

⁷ Hungary provides a perfect example: the original royal family could only be called ‘the house of Árpád' or ‘the Árpád off-springs’, after the ninth-century conqueror of Hungary. The individual Hungarian tribes had tribal names; each was, however, sometimes also designated by the name of the chieftain who led that particular tribe duringÁrpád's conquest of Hungary.

⁸ Hdt. 4. 5 and 7.Google Scholar

¹ Scyl. 77. 78; Hecat. fr. 185; Hellan. fr. 109; Arist. Meteor. 1. 13; Hippon. fr. 3; Mela 1. 19, 3. 5 (= 1. 109, no). Skythian tribe: Ptol. 4. 14; Hesych. s.v.

² Cf. R.-E. Suppl. vii. 336–7.Google Scholar

³ The writer is indebted to Miss C. Ruggiero, M.A., for assistance, to Monsieur Alain Besançon, agrégé de l'université, for the translation of a Russian text, and to Mrs. Tamara Talbot Rice for a painstakingly accurate communication of the results of an interview with Mr. S. I. Rudenko.