BOOK VIII. Lxni. 153-LXIV. 156 



as I have noted, of a dog talking and a snake barking 

 were when Tarquin was driven from his Idngdom. 



LXIV. Alexander also had the good fortune to Famous 

 own a great rarity in horseflesh. They called the ^^teu''encT 

 animal Bucephalus, either because of its fierce appear- 

 ance or from the mark of a buirs head branded on 

 its shoulder. It is said that it was bought for 

 sixteen talents " from the herd of Philonicus of Phar- 

 salus while Alexander was still a boy, as he was taken 

 by its beauty. This horse when adorned with the 

 royal saddle would not allow itself to be mounted 

 by anybody except Alexander, though on other 

 occasions it allowed anybody to mount. It is also 

 celebrated for a memorable feat in battle, not having 

 allowed Alexander during the attack on Thebes 

 to change to another mount when it had been 

 wounded ; and a number of occurrences of the same 

 kind are also reported, on account of which when 

 it died the king headed its funeral procession, and 

 built a city round its tomb which he named after it.* 

 Also the horse that belonged to Caesar the Dictator 

 is said to have refused to let anyone else mount it; 

 and it is also recorded that its fore feet were Uke those 

 of a man,<^ as it is represented in the statue that stands 

 in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix. The late 

 lamented Augustus also made a funeral mound for a 

 horse, which is the subject of a poem by Germanicus 

 Caesar. At Girgenti a great number of horses' 

 tombs have pyramids over them. Juba attests 

 that Semiramis fell so deeply in love with a horse 

 that she married it.'^ The Scythian cavalry regiments 

 indeed resound with famous stories of horses : a 

 chieftain was challenged to a duel by an enemy 

 and killed, and when his adversary came to strip 



109 



