Embraced for their strength and loyalty, equines were an important part of life in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. They appear in a wide variety of art forms, such as terracotta vases, gems, coins, and sculpture, and are highlighted in scenes that illustrate the integral roles they played, whether in sporting events, mythology, or daily life. The Athenian soldier and historian Xenophon, author of one of the earliest treatises on the care and training of horses, wrote that the graceful handling of these animals brings out the best in humanity.
So hang on while we take a quick ride through the galleries to admire the noble Equus ferus caballus.
A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service.
—Plutarch, Greek philosopher, historian, and biographer
A Symbol of Wealth
In the ancient world, horses were expensive to buy, care for, and to train, so ownership was a sign of wealth. Horses often appear alone, in pairs, or in groups of up to four on personal objects such as pyxides (containers for personal objects) or carved into gemstones (intaglios) in signet rings, reinforcing their importance as symbols of aristocracy.
Small votive horse figurines, also signaling wealth, have been found in abundance at gravesites. In their earliest forms in Greek art, their easily recognizable features were highlighted in an abstract form. The figure below was created around the time of the first Olympic games.
Fun fact: The Greek word for horse, hippos (ἵππος), forms the root of the word hippopotamus, which translates as “river horse.”
A Sporting Competitor
After the dawn of the Olympic games in 776 BCE, horses played an increasingly central role in athletic competitions and would carry a singular rider or pull a chariot. Coins were a particularly useful way to commemorate and record victories and often depicted the winning horses with the figure of Victory flying above to crown them with the winner’s wreath. In this time before the invention of stirrups, riding a horse would have been an exhausting feat and required a great deal of training for both animal and human participants.
King Philip II of Macedon was a lover of horses (and in Greek the name Philippos means just that). He commemorated the victory of one of his horses at the Olympic games in 356 BCE on his coinage, like the second example below.
A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace.
—Ovid, Roman poet
In the Roman world, chariots were raced at the hippodrome (Greek for “horse” and “course”), which was a large oval stadium specifically designed and used for chariot and horse races. The largest such stadium was the Circus Maximus in Rome, not to be confused with the Colosseum, the famous stage for gladiatorial contests, animal hunts, and mock battles.
Which brings us back to the “river horse.” Native to Egypt, the hippopotamus was also not known by most of the Greek and Roman populace outside of their occasional appearance in the gladiatorial arena. Their appearance on coins makes a connection to celebrations and games that featured such exotic animals.
A Frequent Figure in Mythology
In mythology, the role of horses was as important as their presence in everyday life. Chariots, both bigas (two-horses) and quadrigas (four-horses), feature heavily in mythological scenes, often pulling various gods and goddesses.
Greek; minted in Cyrene, North Africa
Ancient Greek
The goddess Persephone is often depicted riding in a chariot as she moves to and from the underworld, where she is held captive half of the year by the god Hades after he abducts her and carries her off to the underworld.
Some gods were more closely aligned with the animals on a regular basis, in particular the god Poseidon (Roman Neptune), who was the god of horses and horse-racing (among other things). The most well-known horse of Greek mythology is Pegasos, a winged horse born from the union of the sea-god Poseidon and Medusa. The relationship so angered the goddess Athena that she cursed Medusa to be the ugly snake-haired monster that we know of today.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Pegasos appears in a variety of artistic settings, including on coins of Corinth and her colony of Syracuse in Sicily. The winged horse was closely connected in Greek mythology to the city of Corinth and was said to have struck the ground with his hooves there to create the Pirene spring, so the appearance on coins and art of the region is not surprising.
And finally, the influence of horses can also be seen in the mythological hybrid animals that incorporate equine elements. There’s the hippocamp (“sea monster” or “sea horse”), a mythological sea creature that featured the front of a horse and the back part of a fish or marine serpent.
Centaurs combined a horse’s body with human foreparts and were often of a wild nature with a fierce temperament and frequently connected to the god Dionysos (Roman Bacchus). Satyrs (also called silenoi) were also followers of the wine-god Dionysos and appear in a wide variety of settings in Greek and Roman art, often with wine accessories. They characteristically had pointed horse ears, human bodies, and a horse’s tail and on occasion could have horse legs.
The list goes on, of course, but I hope this gallop through the history of horses in the ancient Mediterranean gives you a sense of their physical and metaphysical importance. Their abundant presence in art highlights both the horses’ utility and ubiquity, so much so that it might be impossible not to spot them on your next visit. They are, after all, a mane attraction.
—Elizabeth Hahn Benge, collection manager, Arts of Africa and Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
More horses in the stable
Painter of Tarquinia RC 2984
Amphora showing mounted cavalry, which displacing the earlier Bronze age use of chariots
Ancient Etruscan
Preparing for a hunt
Ancient Greek
Horses were bred for military or racing purposes while other equine animals like mules and donkeys were reserved for labor.
Ancient Greek
Warrior with equine companion in the afterlife
