Corniger Idæi vacuam pastoris in aulam
Dux aries saturas ipse reduxit oves.
Lib. iii. El. 13.
The fold receives the sheep on Ida fed,
By the great ram, their horned chieftain, led.
Aristotle calls these rams “the leaders of the sheep,” and he states, that the shepherds provided for each flock such a leader, which, when called by name by the shepherd, placed himself at the head of the flock, and was trained to execute this office from an early age[321]. The employment of the manso was probably the ground, on which many of the Orientals adopted the ram as the emblem of military authority[322]. According to this supposition it would rather denote secondary than supreme command; and if so, the representation of the king of Persia by the symbol of a ram in the 8th chapter of Daniel is the more expressive, because it indicated that he was the agent of the supreme Deity. Probably also the same sentiment was intended to be conveyed by the enthusiastic Sapor, or Shahpoor II., King of Persia in the fourth century, when he rode to battle in front of his army wearing instead of a diadem a ram’s head wrought in gold and studded with precious stones[323].
[321] Hist. Animal. viii. 19.
[322] E. F. K. Rosenmuller, Bibl. Alterthumskunde, iv. 2. p. 83.
[323] Ammianus Marcell. xix. 1.
Any one, who has seen the collection of ancient bronze bells in the Museum at Naples, and compared them with those now worn in Italy about the necks of sheep and other cattle, will be struck with their similarity. We know also from various ancient laws and other evidence[324] that the shepherds fastened bells upon their sheep as they do at the present day.