As one of his chargers, Bucephalus served Alexander in numerous battles. His legend fired the imagination of many artists from the ancient to the modern world. Paintings of Labrum's Alexandrine subjects, including Bucephalus, survive today in the Louvre. One in particular, The Passage of the Granicus, depicts the warhorse battling the difficulties of the steep muddy river banks, biting and kicking his foes.
The value which Alexander placed on Bucephalus emulated his hero and supposed ancestor Achilles, who claimed that his horses were "known to excel all others—for they are immortal. Poseidon gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself."[6]
Arrian states, with Onesicritus as his source, that Bucephalus died at the age of thirty,
an old age for a horse even in modern times. Other sources, however, give as the cause of death not old age or weariness, but fatal injuries at the Battle of the Hydaspes (June 326 BC), in which Alexander's army defeated King Porus. Alexander promptly founded a city, Bucephala, in honour of his horse. It lay on the west bank of the Hydaspes river (modern-day Jhelum in Pakistan).[7] The modern-day town of Jalalpur Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.[8]
The legend of Bucephalus grew in association with that of Alexander, beginning with the fiction that they were born simultaneously: some of the later versions of the Alexander Romance also synchronized the hour of their death.[9] The pair forged a sort of cult in that, after them, it was all but expected of a conqueror that he have a favorite horse. Julius Caesar had one; so too did the eccentric Roman Emperor Caligula, who made a great fuss of his horse Tacitus, holding birthday parties for him, riding him while adorned with Alexander's breastplate and planning to make him a consul.
The value which Alexander placed on Bucephalus emulated his hero and supposed ancestor Achilles, who claimed that his horses were "known to excel all others—for they are immortal. Poseidon gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself."[6]
Arrian states, with Onesicritus as his source, that Bucephalus died at the age of thirty,
an old age for a horse even in modern times. Other sources, however, give as the cause of death not old age or weariness, but fatal injuries at the Battle of the Hydaspes (June 326 BC), in which Alexander's army defeated King Porus. Alexander promptly founded a city, Bucephala, in honour of his horse. It lay on the west bank of the Hydaspes river (modern-day Jhelum in Pakistan).[7] The modern-day town of Jalalpur Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.[8]
The legend of Bucephalus grew in association with that of Alexander, beginning with the fiction that they were born simultaneously: some of the later versions of the Alexander Romance also synchronized the hour of their death.[9] The pair forged a sort of cult in that, after them, it was all but expected of a conqueror that he have a favorite horse. Julius Caesar had one; so too did the eccentric Roman Emperor Caligula, who made a great fuss of his horse Tacitus, holding birthday parties for him, riding him while adorned with Alexander's breastplate and planning to make him a consul.
No comments:
Post a Comment