Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

ALEXANDER AND ETANNA. XXXVII
and, curiously enough, she is said to have been
of the seed of Nectanebus and also to have been
conceived at "the exact time when the queen, the
"wife of Philip, conceived"; elsewhere (p. 121) she
is said to have been born "by sorcery at the same Bucephalus.
"time as himself". That Bucephalus should be
described as a mare is not to be wondered at,
for the estiniation in which mares are held among
the Semites is proverbial, and the translator may
be excused for assummg that such a wonderful
steed as that of Alexander must be a mare.^
In the Ethiopic histories of Alexander we find Alexander's
two forms of a very ancient story of the man whOf^"'",*^^
' For the modern ideas of the Arab about mares^ see
Tweedie, The Arabian Horse, p. 231; Layard, Nineveh and
Babylon, p. 220; and Yule, Marco Polo, vol. i. pp. \66, 291
(2nd. ed.). "There is no difficulty in buying Arab stallions
"except the price .... it is different with mares, whicli are
"almost always the joint property of several owners. The
"people too dislike to see a hat on a thorough-bred mare:
"'What hast thou done that thou art ridden by that ill-omen-
"'ed Kafir'? the Badawin used to mutter when they saw
"a highly respectable missionary at Damascus mounting a
"fine Ruwala mare. The feeling easily explains the many
"wars about horses occuring in Arab annals" Burton, Thou-
sand Nights and a Night, vol. v. p. 247. A curious story is
extant to the effect that Nectanebus sent to Lycerus, king
of Babylon, and to his 7pazir Aesop, telling them that he had
mares which would become with foal if they only heard the
neighing of the stallions which were in Babylon (see Meissner,
Qiiellennntersuchungen zur Haikargeschichte, in Z. D. M. G.,
Bd. xlviii. p. 180). For the story of mares being impregnated
by the wind see Burton, op. cit., vol. vi. p. 9.