“Ut fremit acer equus, cam bellicus, aere canoro
Signa dedit tubicen, pugnæque assumit amorem.”
Silius, lib. xiii.:
“Is trepido alituum tinnitu, et stare neganti,
Imperitans violenter equo.”
So Solomon says (Pr. xxi. 31), “The horse is prepared against the day of battle.” So in Zec. x. 3, the prophet says, God had made the house of Judah “as his goodly horse in the battle;” that is, he had made them like the victorious war-horse. (b) As a consequence of this, and of the conquests achieved by the horse in war, he became the symbol of conquest—of a people that could not be overcome. Comp. the above reference in Zec. Thus in Carthage the horse was an image of victorious war, in contradistinction to the ox, which was an emblem of the arts of peaceful agriculture. This was based on a tradition respecting the foundation of the city, referred to by Virgil, Æn. i. 442–445:
“Quo primum jactati undis et turbine Poeni
Effodêre loco signum, quod regia Juno
Monstrârat, caput acris equi: sic nam fore bello
Egregiam, et facilem victu per Secula gentem.”