318 PLINY'S NATTTEAL HISTORY. [Book VIII. 



would allow no one to mount but himself, and that its fore- 

 feet were like those of a man ; indeed it is thus represented 

 in the statue before the temple of Yenus Genetrix. 32 The late 

 Emperor Augustus also erected a tomb to his horse ; on which 

 occasion Germanicus Caesar 33 wrote a poem, which still exists. 

 There are at Agrigentum many tombs of horses, in the form of 

 pyramids. 34 Juba informs us, that Semiramis was so greatly 

 enamoured of a horse, as to have had connection with it. 35 

 The Scythian horsemen make loud boasts of the fame of their 

 cavalry. On one occasion, one of their chiefs having been 

 slain in single combat, when the conqueror came to take the 

 spoils of the enemy, he was set upon by the horse of his oppo- 

 nent, and trampled on and bitten to death. Another horse, 

 upon the bandage being removed from his eyes, found that he 

 had covered his mother, upon which he threw himself down a 

 precipice, and was killed. We learn, also, that for a similar 

 cause, a groom was torn to pieces, in the territory of Eeate. 36 

 For these animals have a knowledge of the ties of consanguinity, . 

 and in a stud a mare will attend to its sister of the preceding 

 year, even more carefully than its mother. 



Their docility, too, is so great, that we find it stated that 

 the whole of the cavalry of the Sybarite army were accustomed 

 to perform a kind of dance to the sound of musical instruments. 

 These animals also foresee battles; they lament over their 

 masters when they have lost them, and sometimes shed tears 37 

 of regret for them. When King Nicomedes was slain, his 

 horse put an end to its life by fasting. Phylarchus relates, 



32 This account is given by Suetonius, Life of Julius Csesar, c. 61. Cuvier 

 suggests that the hoofs may have been notched, and that the sculptor 

 probably exaggerated the peculiarity, so as to produce the resemblance to 

 a human foot. B. 



J3 The nephew of Tiberius and the father of the Emperor Caligula. B. 



34 -ZElian, Hist. Anim. B. xii. c. 40, states that three mares of Miltiades 

 and Evagoras, which had been victorious in the Olympic games, were buried 

 with sepulchral honours in the Ceramieus. B. 



35 Ajasson suggests, with much plausibility, that when connections of this 

 description are mentioned, the report originated from persons who had 

 significant names, as Leboeuf and Poulain ; analogous to our names of 

 Lamb, Bull, Ho.g, &c. B. 



46 See B. iii. c. 17. 



87 We here find Pliny tripping, for he has previously said, in B. vii. 

 o. 1, that man is the only animated being that sheds tears. See also c. 

 19 of the present Book, where he represents the lion as shedding tears. 



