In some instances alleged divination of the future was brought about by the aid of horses. Tacitus himself remarks that it was peculiar to this people (the Germans) “to seek from horses omens and monitions.”
“Kept at the public expense in these same woods and groves,” he continues, “are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labour. These are yoked to a sacred chariot and accompanied by the priests and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their neighings and snortings. No species of divination is more to be trusted, not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the priests, who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses as acquainted with their will.”
Amusing, but probably more or less fictitious, stories of Incitatus, the notorious horse of the Roman emperor, Caligula, have been handed down to us. That this beast had the absurd honour conferred upon it of being elected priest and consul we must believe, and there probably is truth in the statement that it ate regularly out of an ivory manger and drank from a golden pail.
CALIGULA ON HORSEBACK. ABOUT 37 A.D.
From a figure in the British Museum
But we must accept with reservation the story that the horse alone had eighteen attendants in gorgeous apparel or livery to attend to it. Almost equally fantastic are the tales told of the famous horse that belonged to the Roman emperor, Verus, in the second century A.D. Celer by name, it ate nothing but almonds and raisins, and its stable was a suite of apartments in the emperor's principal palace. In place of horse clothing it wore a garment of royal purple.
I need hardly repeat that these and similar stories that have been handed down to us must be received with considerable scepticism.
A description, probably true, of what were deemed in the first century A.D. to be the best points about a horse, is to be found in the “Eclogues.” The lines, translated, run somewhat as follows:—
“My beast displays