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For other uses, see Bucephalus (disambiguation).

Bucephalus (/bjuː.ˈsɛ.fə.ləs/; Ancient Greek: Βουκεφᾰ́λᾱς, romanized: Boukephalas; c. 355 BC – June 326 BC) or Bucephalas, was the horse of Alexander the Great, and one of the most famous horses of classical antiquity.[1] According to the Alexander Romance (1.15), the name “Bucephalus” literally means “ox-headed” (from βοῦς, bûs, ‘ox‘ and κεφᾰλή, cephălē, ‘head‘), and supposedly comes from a brand (or scar) on the thigh of the horse that looked like an ox’s head.[2]

Ancient historical accounts[3] state that Bucephalus’s breed was that of the “best Thessalian strain”, and that he died in what is now Punjab, Pakistan, after the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC. Alexander was so grieved at the loss of his horse that he named one of the many cities he founded after him, as Alexandria Bucephalus.

Taming of 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.[citation needed] He is also supposed to have had a “wall eye” (blue eye),[citation needed] and his breeding was that of the “best Thessalian strain”.

Plutarch says[4] that in 344 BC, at twelve or thirteen years of age, Alexander of Macedonia won the horse by making a wager with his father: a horse dealer named Philonicus the Thessalian offered Bucephalus to King Philip II for the remarkably high sum of 13 talents.[a] Because no one could tame the animal, Philip was not interested. However, Alexander was, and he offered to pay himself should he fail.

Alexander was given a chance and surprised all by subduing the horse. He spoke soothingly to the horse and turned its head toward 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.”[4] Philip’s speech strikes the only false note in the anecdote, according to A. R. Anderson,[5] who noted his words as the embryo of the legend fully developed in the History of Alexander I.15, 17.

The Alexander Romance presents mythic variants of Bucephalus’s nature and origin, with the different recensions and manuscripts differing in their details. After returning from a campaign, Philip asked the Oracle at Delphi who would be king after him. The Pythia replies that the man who is to rule the whole world is the one who rides Bucephalus through the middle of Pella. In the manuscript A, Bucephalus is a man-eating horse (it does not state his origin) which Philip has ordered to be caged. Upon hearing Alexander’s voice the horse immediately becomes calm and acknowledges Alexander as his master. Alexander then leaps onto Bucephalus and rides him through the middle of Pella.[6]

In another manuscript Bucephalus is sent to Philip as a colt from a prince in Cappadocia. Here too he is man-eating, but also described as large, handsome, and having a head as round as a circle, which appeared as though gems protruded from his forehead and from the back of his head. In this tradition Philip is told in a dream that the man who could ride Bucephalus would be his successor.[7] Thus, the taming of Bucephalus serves to demonstrate that Alexander is fit to rule.[8]

Alexander and Bucephalus

Alexander and Bucephalus by Domenico Maria Canuti, 17th century
Alexander and Bucephalus in combat at the Battle of Issus portrayed in the Alexander Mosaic
Alexander the Great Taming Bucephalus by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1826

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 me.”[9]

Arrian states, with Onesicritus as his source, that Bucephalus died at the age of thirty. 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 was on the west bank of the Hydaspes river (modern-day Jhelum in Pakistan).[10] The modern-day town of Jalalpur Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.[11]

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.[12] Bucephalus appears in almost all versions of the Armenian Alexander Romance, and visual illustrations in the surviving manuscripts of this text sometimes represent scenes with Bucephalus.[2]

In some versions of the Alexander Romance Bucephalus devours Alexander’s assassin.[8]

Several novels use “Bucephalus” as the name of a horse, often in a symbolic manner. For example, in Colleen McCullough‘s novel Fortune’s Favorites (third volume in the Masters of Rome series), young Julius Caesar secretly owns a horse he names Bucephalus; and his mother reads through it as an indication of his future ambitions.[13]

In Franz Kafka‘s short story “The New Advocate“, the lawyer in the story is described as resembling Bucephalus.[14]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Loeb (1919) values one talent at £235, or $1,200; Thayer gives $15,600 (2007).[4]

References

  1. ^ Wasson, Donald (6 October 2011). “Bucephalus”. World History Encyclopedia.
  2. ^ a b Kouymjian, Dickran (2012). “Did Byzantine Iconography Influence the Large Cycle of the Life of Alexander the Great in Armenian Manuscripts?”. Byzantium and Renaissances. Dialogue of Cultures, Heritage of Antiquity, Tradition and Modernity. University of Warsaw Press. pp. 209–216.
  3. ^ The primary (actually secondary) accounts are two: Plutarch‘s Life of Alexander, 6, and Arrian‘s Anabasis Alexandri V.19.
  4. ^ a b c Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “Life of Alexander” 6 (ed. Clough 1859; ed. Loeb).
  5. ^ Anderson 1930:3 and 17ff.
  6. ^ Alexander Romance, Manuscript L (β recension) 1.15, 17.
  7. ^ Alexander Romance (Sefer Toledot Alexandros ha-Maḳdoni) 1.14-15.
  8. ^ a b Ogden, Daniel (2021). “‘The Mares of Diomede (and Alcestis)’“. In Daniel, Ogden (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Heracles. Oxford University Press. p. 121.
  9. ^ Homer, The Iliad, Book XXIII.
  10. ^ Rolf Winkes, “Boukephalas”, Miscellanea Mediterranea (Archaeologia Transatlantica XVIII) Providence 2000, pp. 101–107.
  11. ^ Michael Wood, “In the footsteps of Alexander the Great”.
  12. ^ Andrew Runni Anderson, “Bucephalas and His Legend” The American Journal of Philology 51.1 (1930:1–21).
  13. ^ McCullough, Colleen (1993). Fortune’s Favorites. New York: William Morrow. pp. 212–213.
  14. ^ Franz Kafka (1988). “The Complete Stories”.