Ill] AND HISTOHIG TIMES 295 



contemporaries in committing anachronisms. As then both 

 dark, yellow, and white horses appear on the vases, we may 

 infer that not only the old dun, but also white and dark- 

 coloured horses of various hues were very common in Greece 

 by the sixth century B.C. This inference is fully borne out by 

 the literary remains. Thus not only are Castor and Pollux 

 described as riders of white horses by Ibycus' and Pindar^, but 

 the same epithet is applied to the goddess Persephone by Pindar'' 

 and to the Day by Aeschylus*. As I have already pointed out, 

 the sanctity of white probably gave to white horses a fictitious 

 reputation, and accordingly the epithet ' white-horsed ' is 

 applied to the Thessalians* and Thebans'^ by Pindar. 



The vase showing the death of Hippolytus makes it plain 

 that dun horses continued to be used as in Homeric days, an 

 inference fully borne out by the fact that Xanthippus (" He of 

 the Dun Horses ") was a regular name in the gi'eat Attic 

 family of the Alcmaeonidae, the father of Pericles the famous 

 statesman being so named. That horses of good blood had 

 raced and won at 01ymj)ia before the close of the sixth century 

 may be inferred with certainty from a group of sculpture — the 

 work of the famous artist Ageladas — dedicated at Olympia by 

 Cleosthenes of Epidamnus in Epirus, who was victorious with 

 the four-horse chariot in B.C. 516. He set up statues of his 

 chariot and horses, of himself and his charioteer. " The names 

 of the horses also are inscribed: Phoenix {Bay) and Corax 

 {Raven) and on either side* of them the side-horses Cnacias 

 {Dun) on the right and Sanius on the left." This Cleosthenes 

 was the first horse-breeder in Greece who dedicated his statue 

 at Olympiad The names of the two yoke-horses — the most 

 important and therefore the best — demonstrate that they had a 

 good infusion of Libyan blood. The description of the chariot- 

 race at Delphi given by Sophocles in his Electra^ affords some 

 information about the colours of horses in the fifth century, 

 for, as the poet introduces Ismene^ the daughter of Oedipus, 



1 Fr., 16. 2 pyi/j. J 66. 3 01 vi. 95. 



* Fersae, 386 ; cf. Soph. Ajax, 673. 5 Pyth. iv. 117. 



« Pyth. IX. 86. 7 Paus. vi. 10. 6—8. » 701 sqq. 



" Oed. Col. 312 : Alrvalas iiri iruXov ^epuiaav ; cf. Aristoph. Pax, 73. 



