Posts Tagged ‘horse’
I gave the old Bucephalos a bit of a scrub-up. Came up looking a lot smarter.
A Friesan was used to porrtay Bucephalus in the 2004 film, Alexander, and I learned that this horse breed is the closest we have to the destriers of yesterday. There’s a lovely video of Friesian Horses.
Added a little more about Alexander and his conquests. Amazing man, amazing times. It’s somehow sad to think of Alexander the Great degenerating into a bad drunk. And I mean a bad drunk. Someone should have warned him about the perils of Demon Drink.
It’s shocking, also, to think of horses used in battle but Cavalry were an important part of almost every ancient army. Alexander’s Companions, the elite arm of his Macedonian army, are regarded as the best cavalry in the ancient world and the famous Thessalian cavalry accompanied him into the depths of Asia.
Bucephalus lived through countless battles and long marches, extremes of heat and cold and heaven knows how many changes in fodder, but he lived for 20 years. That’s a good innings.
