ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON HORSEBACK, ABOUT 338 B.C. THE FIGURE IS BELIEVED TO REPRESENT BUCEPHALUS
From a bronze in the British Museum
An unknown writer in the “Geoponics” avers that in the centuries just before Christ many of the best horses had eyes of different colour—what we sometimes term a wall eye, and Americans a China eye—and from his own deductions he concludes that Bucephalus probably had eyes that did not match. There does not, however, appear to be direct evidence that this was so.
Plutarch sets the price paid for Bucephalus by Alexander's father, King Philip, at thirteen talents, while Pliny is of opinion that the price was higher still—namely, sixteen talents.
Now the sum that to-day would be the equivalent of thirteen talents is approximately £3500, and when we bear in mind the prices that in the second century frequently were paid even for the best horses obtainable, and recollect, in addition, that at the time King Philip bought Bucephalus the horse was probably aged—some writers aver that he must have been quite fourteen when Philip bought him—it is not possible to reconcile the statement that a fancy price in any way approaching the sum named could have been paid.
The story of the trial and subsequent purchase of Bucephalus is both pretty and picturesque. More, it would appear to be true in almost every detail. According to Plutarch, whose account probably is the most trustworthy, the horse was first brought before King Philip to be given a public trial, when, to the discomfiture of its owner, it showed itself to be apparently “a fierce and unmanageable beast that would neither allow anybody to mount him, nor obey any of Philip's attendants, but reared and plunged against them all, so that the king in a rage bade them take him away for an utterly wild and unbroken brute.”
At this juncture it was that Alexander—at the time a boy of twelve, and Aristotle not yet his tutor—came upon the scene. We are told that he “leapt suddenly forward and in an access of indignation cried out before the king and everybody assembled that the men attempting to ride the horse were 'clumsy clowns,'” adding, with the self-assurance of precocious boyhood, that “if they were not careful they would spoil the horse entirely.”
Philip at first paid no attention to his son's outburst, deeming it to be childish spleen, but upon the lad's refusing to be quieted he turned to him, suddenly nettled, and demanded in a sharp tone how he dare be so insolent as to criticise his elders. In no way abashed, Alexander retorted that in this instance he certainly did know much better than his elders, and that if his father would allow him he would prove it by himself mounting the horse at once and riding it round the ring.
“And what will you forfeit for your rashness if you are thrown off?” the king inquired, not troubling to conceal his anger.
To which young Alexander retorted with much spirit: