It was supposed that the dam swallowed this excrescence immediately on the birth of her foal, and that, if prevented doing so, she lost all affection for it.
However, the name Hippomanes was applied to two other things. Theocritus (II. 48.) uses it to signify some herb which incites horses to madness if they eat of it.
And again, Virgil (Geor. III. 280.), Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, &c., represent it as a certain virus:
"Hippomanes cupidæ stillat ab inguine equæ."
The subject is an unpleasant one, and H. P. is referred for farther information to Pliny, VIII. 42. s. 66., and XXVIII. 11. s. 80.
H. C. K.
This lump was called Hippomanes; which also more truly designated, according to Virgil, another thing. The following paragraphs from Mr. Keightley's excellent Notes on Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics will fully explain both meanings:
"Hippomanes, horse-rage: the pale yellow fluid which passes from a mare at that season [i. e. when she is horsing] (cf. Tibul. II. 4. 58.), of which the smell (aura, v. 251.) incites the horse.
"Vero nomine. Because the bit of flesh which was said to be on the forehead of the new-born foal, and which the mare was supposed to swallow, was called by the same name (see Æn. IV. 515.); and also a plant in Arcadia (Theocr. II. 48.). With respect to the former Hippomanes, Pliny, who detailed truth and falsehood with equal faith, says (VIII. 42.) that it grows on the foal's forehead; is of the size of a dried fig (carica), and of a black colour; and that if the mare does not swallow it immediately, she will not let the foal suck her. Aristotle (H. A., VIII. 24.) says this is merely an old wives' tale. He mentions, however, the πώλιον, or bit of livid flesh, which we call the foal's bit, and which he says the mare ejects before the foal."—Notes, &c., p. 273. on Georgic. III. 280. ff.
With regard to the plant called Hippomanes, commentators, as may be seen from Kiessling's note on Theocritus, ii. 48., are by no means agreed. Certainly Andrews, in his edition of Freund, is wrong in referring Virgil Georgic. III. 283. to that meaning. The use of legere probably misled.
E. S. Jackson.