The Most Famous Horse in History - Bucephalus the Legendary Horse of
Alexander the Great Ancient Greek / Roman Coins
Watch video, read history of Bucephalus and buy authentic ancient Greek
coins of Alexander the Great today! Bucephalus was the famous horse that
he tamed early in his life showing he can do the impossible. All coins
you purchase from my online store are professionally researched,
photographed and provided with a lifetime guarantee of authenticity.
They also come complete with a custom-made signed, full-color,
professionally researched CERTIFICATE of AUTHENTICITY, a $50-$100 value,
absolutely Free. Visit his website and explore a selection of thousands
of certified authentic ancient Greek, Roman, Biblical, Byzantine coins,
artifacts and beyond. A fun way to learn about and preserve history for
future generations. Ancient coins make a great gift, investment and
collection all in one. Find out for yourself what over 10,000 other
satisfied customers say about their experience and start your ancient
coin collection today.
Bucephalus or Bucephalas (//; Ancient
Greek: Βουκέφαλος or
Βουκεφάλας, from βούς bous,
"ox" and κεφαλή kephalē,
"head" meaning "ox-head") (c. 355 BC – June 326 BC) was Alexander
the Great's horse and
one of the most famous actual horses of antiquity. Ancient
accounts state that
Bucephalus died after the Battle
of the Hydaspes in 326
BC, in what is now modern Pakistan,
and is buried in Jalalpur
Sharif outside of Jhelum,Pakistan.
Another account states that Bucephalus is buried in Phalia,
a town in Pakistan's Mandi
Bahauddin District, which is named after him.
The taming of
Bucephalus
Alexander taming Bucephalus
A statue by John
Steell showing
Alexander taming Bucephalus
A massive creature with a massive head, Bucephalus is described as
having a black coat with a large white star on his brow. He is also
supposed to have had a "wall", or blue eye, and his breeding was that of
the "best Thessalian strain." Plutarch tells
the story of how, in 344 BC, a thirteen-year-old Alexander
won the horse. A horse dealer
named Philonicus the Thessalian offered Bucephalus to King
Philip II for the sum of
13 talents,
but because no one could tame the animal, Philip was not interested.
However, Philip's son Alexander was. He promised to pay for the horse
himself should he fail to tame it. He was given a chance and surprised
all by subduing it. He spoke soothingly to the horse and turned it
towards the sun so that it could no longer see its own shadow, which had
been the cause of its distress. Dropping his fluttering cloak as well,
Alexander successfully tamed the horse. Plutarch says that the incident
so impressed Philip that he told the boy, "O my son, look thee out a
kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for
thee." Philip's speech
strikes the only false note in the anecdote, according to AR Anderson, who
noted his words as the embryo of the legend fully developed in the History
of Alexander the Great I.15,
17.
The Alexander
Romance presents a
mythic variant of Bucephalus's origin. In this tale, the colt, whose
heroic attributes surpassed even those of Pegasus,
is bred and presented to Philip on his own estates. The mythic
attributes of the animal are further reinforced in the romance by the Delphic
Oracle, who tells Philip that the destined king of the world will be
the one who rides Bucephalus, a horse with the mark of the ox's head on
his haunch.
Alexander and
Bucephalus
As one of his chargers, Bucephalus served Alexander in numerous battles.
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."
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). The
modern-day town of Jalalpur
Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.
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.
The pair forged a sort of cult in that, after them, it
was all but expected of a conqueror that he have a favourite horse. Julius
Caesar had one; so too
did the eccentric Roman Emperor Caligula,
who made a great fuss of his horse Incitatus,
holding birthday parties for him, riding him while adorned with
Alexander's breastplate and planning to make him a consul.
In art and
literature
Bucephalus is referenced in art and literature. The horse himself and
Alexander is interpreted by some to be the subject of the ancient statue group The
Horse Tamers in the Piazza
del Quirinale in Rome.
Paintings of Charles
Le Brun'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.
Bucephalus was the name of the horse of Baron
Münchhausen in several of
his tall tales.
The French cellist and composer Paul
Tortelier based his Sonata
Breve "Bucéphale" on the
story of Bucephalus. In Franz
Kafka's story "The New Lawyer" (1916), Bucephalus is a bar approved
lawyer who immerses himself "in law books ... far from the tumult of
Alexander's battles."
A giant statue of Alexander and Bucephalus was recently erected in Skopje,
the capital of Macedonia.
In the 2004 film Alexander,
Bucephalus is portrayed by a Friesian,
though unlikely to have been precisely of that type, as the northern
European light draught breed did not develop until the 13th century AD.
| 
