Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 9 



Paternal Deity" proceeds to war, is filent (feeing 

 how little fpace in Hebrew hiftory the horfe filled) 

 about fteeds to draw it, but incorporates the grandeft 

 imagery of the prophets into one of his nobleft 

 defcriptions. 1 The two horfes of Achilles's chariot, 

 Xanthus and Balius, flew, fays Homer, like the 

 wind, and (in accordance with a fuperftition com- 

 mon throughout the ancient world) were begotten 

 of the weft wind, he adds, on Podarga, as me 

 was feeding in a meadow by the ocean ftream. 2 

 Similarly Mars has two horfes in his chariot in 

 the " Iliad," named Fear and Terror, though at 

 other times thefe are called his fons. Homer 

 reprefents Erichthonius as poffeffing 3,000 horfes, 

 and 12 foals of marvellous properties, able to 

 run over the ears of corn or the waves without 

 injuring or finking in them, were born of thefe 

 by Boreas ("Iliad," xx. 219). Four horfes were 

 {lain at the pyre of Patroclus, and the reft of the 

 warriors' chargers were led round the dead body 

 in a rite called by the Romans " decurfio " 

 ("Iliad," xxiii. 10). Horfes were caft alive into 

 the Scamander to propitiate the river (" Iliad," 

 xx. 1 30). Bochart in his " Hierozoicon " treats 

 of ancient horfes at large. 



Among the Anglo-Saxons no heathen prieft was 

 allowed to ride on a male horfe (Bede's " Eccl. 

 Hift.," ii. 13). None of the moft ancient gods 

 of Greece were imagined as riding on horfeback. 

 Zeus, Apollo, and the reft have two-horfe chariots. 

 It is Dionyfos, belonging to a different order of 



1 "Paradifc Loft," book vi. 2 "Iliad," xvi. 149. 



