Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

ALEXANDER MOUNTS BUCEPHALUS. 37
And there was in the house of Philip a mare^
which was begotten with Alexander, and it fell out
that no one could draw nigh unto her/ and no Bucephalus
one could mount her, for she was exceedingly Alexander/
strong and powerful, and she was bound by day
and by night with seven fetters. Now when
Alexander knew what his father wished to do with
him in the matter of sending him to Darius, the
king of Persia, he went down from his chamber,
and girded on his sword, and cut through the
fetters^ which held the mare; then he leaped upon
her back, and fled while his father was looking on.
And Philip cried out, "My son hath let loose the
"mare." And it came to pass that when he had
done thus with the mare, his father sent horsemen
after him to bring him back to him, for in one
hour he had travelled a distance of three hundred
stadia ; and when the messengers saw the rate at
' The famous horse Bucephalus is, of course, referred to
here. According to the Greek text he was so called because
he had the head of a bull branded upon his side (eXKii9r|
be pouKeqjaXoi;, eTtetbri ev tuj uripuj eixev eKKauiaaroq Boog
qpaivovia KeqpaXriv, Meusel, p. 716), and the Syriac says that
he had upon his "right side a birthmark in the form of a
wolf, a sign that was born with him, and this wolf held a
bull in its mouth" (ed. Budge, p. 18). Colonel Tweedie
{The Arabiaii Horse, p. VI, note 3) holds that the name of
the horse was not Bucephalus, but BucephalaSj which was the
name of a famous breed of Thessaly.
^ See Pseudo-Callisthenes, Book I, Chap. 17 (Muller, p.
16, Meusel, p. 716).
3 Read '^l\h6'l •