44 THE HISTORY AND ART 



under thefe circumftances, they judged of their tempers 

 and charadlers. Such horfes as were worn out, and 

 unfit to ferve in the troops, were caft and turned out, 

 and, as a mark of difmillion, were branded in the jaw 

 with the figure of a Circle, or Wheel. It was alfo ufual 

 with private people to mark their horfes by burning 

 into their flefh certain figures and marks, as letters of 

 the alphabet, or the initial letters of names, denoting 

 their breed and country, or to whom they belonged. 



Thus Lucian mentions the practice of ftamping 

 horfes with the figure of a Centaur ; and Bucephalus is 

 faid to have been marked with the head of a Bull-, 

 whence he had his name. It is, however, more pro- 

 bable that this famous horfe owes his appellation to the 

 refemblance which his head really bore to that of a 

 j5m//, and not to the impreflion of one which was burnt 

 into his flefli ; and was a mark in no wife peculiar to 

 liim, hni common to all horfes, fo that he could not 

 have been particularly diftinguiflied by it ; and Aulus 

 Gellius, lib. v. c. 2. exprefly tells us that this was the 

 fa(5t, and that his head literally refembled in jQiape and 

 figure that of a Bull, as the name implies, Jlexandri 

 regii &? capite t^ nomine Bucephalus fuit ; and horfes of this 

 kind are fometimes fl;ill to be found. The moft fre- 

 quent and principal marks, however, were the letters 

 fgma and kappa ; and the horfes which bore them were 

 termed KiXTtzoLrioLi and I,Oiv<popcii, the ancient Greeks 

 calling the Jigma I,ocv or I,X[a. *. 



* Vide Sa'm. ad Solin. P. 891, 892. 

 7 Greece 



