Always beautiful and picturesque in his best estate, the horse is never more so than in connection with war. Here, more than elsewhere, except on the race-course, he has fame and a career. His interests no longer conflict with those of his master; the honor of each reflects credit on the other. As under different circumstances he might be an excellent carriage-horse, so now he is an excellent soldier, and knows “the keen delight of battle with his peers.”
Achilles had his Chestnut, his Dapple, and his Spry; Hector, too, had his favorites—Whitefoot and Firefly; but far more famous and certainly more authentic, is Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander. Plutarch relates the whole beautiful story: how Philip of Macedon paid a great sum for the horse, only to find it quite unmanageable. Just as he was ordering its removal, the young Alexander, who had been watching the futile efforts of the grooms, begged leave to try his hand. By a method similar to Rarey’s—by gentleness, confidence and a firm hand—he won Bucephalus. Henceforth, the two were fast friends and fellow-soldiers. They fought together in Asia, accompanied part of the time at least by Peritas, a great Molossian hound. Once Bucephalus was captured by a party of barbarians, but they wisely surrendered him in time to avert the king’s vengeance.
Wounded in the great battle with Porus, and worn out by age, this noble horse died in India on the banks of the Hydaspes. His monument was a city, built on the spot where he died, and named after him by his master. The pair are commemorated in various ancient works of art, of which the most notable is a great mosaic, now in Naples, representing the battle of Issus.
Next to Bucephalus might be placed the black horse which Cæsar rode during his campaigns in Gaul. It had curiously divided hoofs, whence the augurs predicted good fortune to its rider; and, as though to preserve that fortune for one alone, it would let no one mount but Cæsar. Its after-fate is uncertain—except that the master of the world was not ungrateful, and placed the statue of his good servant before the temple of Venus in Rome. Possibly its history is summed up in the story Suetonius tells—that Cæsar ordered the horses which had served him in Gaul to be consecrated and maintained without labor the rest of their lives. Among them, it is more than likely, was the nameless steed of good augury.
A thousand years later we find the famous Cid in Spain riding Bavieca to victory, and mindful of his horse’s welfare even in the hour of his own death. “When ye bury Bavieca, dig deep!” says Ruy Diaz, “for shameful thing were it that he should be eat by curs.”—“And this good horse lived two years and a half after the death of his master, and then he died also, having lived, according to the history, full forty years.”
Yet another group of centuries, and what equine hero is this, standing firm as a rock, small, but deep-chested, in color a rich chestnut, and gazing at us with large velvety eyes?—who but Copenhagen, the war-horse of Wellington!
A grandson of the great racer, Eclipse, he had wonderful powers of endurance, and combined good temper with sagacity. The Duke rode him for eighteen consecutive hours at Waterloo; and then, says he, “thinking how bravely my old horse had carried me all day, I could not help going up to his head, to tell him so by a few caresses. But, hang me, if when I was giving him a slap of approbation on the hind quarters, he did not fling out one of his hind legs with as much vigor as if he had been in stable for a couple of days!”
After the war was over he was taken to Strathfieldsaye, the Duke’s country-seat; and there, an object of general interest, spent the rest of his days in honorable leisure. It is true that this distinction had its drawbacks. Young ladies would entreat the “kind duke” or the “dear duchess” for a little of Copenhagen’s hair to set in a ring; until finally, his neck growing bare of mane, and his tail threatening to become a mere stump, his admirers were forced to content themselves with such stray hairs as might fall. A fine paddock was assigned him, with a summer house at one corner, opening into it by means of a wicket. Here he would come daily to receive bread and gentle petting from the duchess.
With age his eyesight partially failed, and his teeth grew so poor that he could not eat oats unless they were broken up beforehand. He was twenty-seven years old when he died, in 1835. He was buried in his paddock, with military honors, and a small circular railing still marks the spot. Some person—unknown—stole one of his hoofs, which poor memorial is now preserved in the same museum as Bobby, together with the skeleton of Marengo, the horse of Wellington’s great rival, Napoleon.