294 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



styles furnish some evidence respecting chariots and horses 

 from the seventh century onwards. As the four-horse chariot 

 and the ridden horse had been added to the Olympic contests 

 in the seventh century, it is but natural that four-horse chariots 

 and horsemen as well as two-horse chariots often occur on the 

 black-figured and later vases. The horses on the archaic vases 

 are always rendered in black like the chariots and men, but as 

 time goes on we meet representations of chariots in which one 

 of the four horses is white. On a vase representing the death 

 of Hippolytus 1 the quadriga is drawn by two white and two 

 yellow horses. On another vase the quadriga of Helios is 

 drawn by two black and two white horses. On the earlier 

 vases the chariot wheels are either four-spoked or of an ancient 

 form which has no spokes, but has a diametrical bar crossed by 

 two others at right angles, whilst on the later vases eight-spoked 

 wheels make their appearance. 



When we remember that white horses were held sacred 

 among the Germans, Illyrians, and medieval Tartars, and that 

 the sacred chariot of the Persian Zeus was drawn by sacred 

 white horses, we are not surprised to find that in a representa- 

 tion 2 of a Gigantomachia Zeus is seen in a chariot drawn by 

 four horses of that colour. Moreover, just as the Illyrians and 

 Persians sacrificed white horses, so did the Greeks of the fifth 

 century B.C., in the ratification of solemn oaths 3 . 



As the vase-painters had no hesitation in representing 

 Achilles in a four-horse chariot 4 , although in Homer that hero 

 like all other Acheans drives only a pair, and as also the 

 painters pourtrayed ancient worthies in contemporary armour 

 rather than in the equipment of the Mycenean and Homeric 

 periods to which they were supposed to belong, so they took 

 for their models the chariots and horses of their own day. 

 The same, as we shall see, holds equally true of the great 

 dramatists, who had as little scruple as Shakespeare and his 



1 British Museum Cat., Vol. iv. nos. 279, 305, 258, 487. 



2 British Museum Cat., Vol. iv. no. 237. 



3 Ar. Lys. 1912 : rls &v ovv yfroir' &v op/cos ; KAA. ei \evxbis irbdev 'iinrov 

 \aj3ovffat rbfjuov 2vTefj.olfji.e0a. 



4 British Museum Cat., Vol. n. no. 239. 



