282 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



We are fortunately not without good evidence for the 

 colour of the best horses of Southern Italy in the fifth cen- 

 tury B.C., and by implication also of those of Sicily. A fresco 

 from Paestum now preserved in the Naples Museum l shows a 

 Samnite warrior on horseback (Fig. 79). The horse is bay with 

 white stockings. As the painter would take for his model 

 the most typical war-horse of his own time and country, it is 

 clear that the best horses of Southern Italy at that date were 

 good cross-bred horses full of Libyan blood, as we had already 

 inferred from the marble horse's head from Tarentum. We 

 shall soon find that the typical South Italian horses of to-day 

 are also bay in colour. It is most interesting to find that 

 Virgil represents as mounted on such a horse as that ridden by 

 the Samnite warrior in the fresco not merely the Roman youth 

 who took part in the Trojan game, but also Turnus, king of the 

 Rutuli, a fierce warlike tribe of the same Umbro-Sabellian 

 stock from which the Samnites were sprung 2 . In Virgil's day 

 this colour was closely associated with the best horses of 

 Thrace, where, as we shall soon find (p. 304), much fine blood 

 had been introduced from the south by the fourth century B.C. 

 The Roman youth described by Virgil " rode a Thracian steed 

 of two colours, as he had white markings a white forefoot 

 and a white mark on his forehead 3 ," whilst Turnus' charger is 

 also described as a Thracian steed with similar white markings 4 . 

 But, as we have seen that bay with white feet and a star in the 

 forehead is a regular concomitant of the North African horse 



1 E. Neville-Bolfe, Handbook to the Naples Museum, p. 19. I am indebted to 

 my friend Mr G. P. Bidder, M.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., for calling my attention to 

 this fresco. 



2 Eidgeway, Early Age of Greece, Vol. i. p. 257. 



3 Virg. Aen. v. 565-7 : 



quern Thracius albis 



Portat equus bicolor maculis ; vestigia primi 

 Alba pedis, frontemque ostentans arduus albam. 



4 Virg. Aen. ix. 48 : 



Improvisus adest, maculis quern Thracius albis 

 Portat equus. 



In Georg. in. 82 he puts bay first, grey second, and white and yellow-dun last : 

 Honesti spadices glaucique ; color deterrimus albis et gilvo. Cf. Varro ap. Non. 

 2, 87 : equi colore dispares item nati, hie badius, iste gilvus, ille murinus. 



