Taraxippus

 ( Horse Behavior ) 

In Greek mythology, the Taraxippos (; plural: taraxippoi, "horse disturber", latinized as Taraxippus; Latin equorum conturbatorTranslated into Latin as equorum conturbator by Gerolamo Cardano, De subtilitate (Basil, 1664), Book 7 de lapidibus, p. 282.) was a presence, variously identified as a ghost or dangerous site, blamed for frightening at throughout Greece.John H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (University of California Press, 1986), p. 9. Some taraxippoi were associated with the Greek hero cults or with Poseidon in his aspect as a god of horses () who brought about the death of Hippolytus.Humphrey, Roman Circuses, p. 9. Pausanias, the ancient source offering the greatest number of explanations, regards it as an epithet rather than a single entity.Robert Parker, On Greek Religion (Cornell University Press, 2011), pp. 105–106; Robert Kugelmann, The Windows of Soul: Psychological Physiology of the Human Eye and Primary Glaucoma (Associated University Presses, 1983), pp. 90–91.

---

Origin The most notoriousRobin Hard, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology Based on H. J. Rose's Handbook of Greek Mythology (Routledge, 2004), p. 432; Pausanias (6.20.19) says the Olympian Taraxippos was the most terrifying. of the taraxippoi was the Taraxippos Olympios at Olympia. Pausanias describes the site:

Horse- and chariot racing were a part of funeral games from the Homeric era. The use of a hero's tomb or an altar as the turning-post of a racetrack originates in rituals for the dead.Humphrey, Roman Circuses, p. 258. In the Iliad, Achilles kills Hector in retribution for the death of his friend Patroclus, then drives his chariot around the funeral pyre three times, dragging the Trojan prince's body. This magical encircling may originally have been a binding propitiation of the dead, to assure their successful passage into the afterlife and keep them from returning.Gregory Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics (Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 219–220.

The horse had been established as a funerary animal by the Archaic Greece. Commemorative art in Greece, the Etruscan civilization and ancient Rome often depicts a chariot scene or the deceased riding a horse into the afterlife.Humphrey, Roman Circuses, p. 62. The design of the turning posts (metae) on a Roman race course was derived from Etruscan funeral monuments, and the far turn of the Circus Maximus skirted an underground altar used for the Consualia festival at which "Equestrian Neptune" (the Roman equivalent of Poseidon Hippos, Ποσειδῶν ῐ̔́πποs) was honored.Humphrey, Roman Circuses, pp. 15, 62. The turn of a racetrack is the most likely spot for a crash, and so the natural dangers of a sharp curve combined with the sacral aura of a tomb or other religious site led to a belief in a supernatural presence.Humphrey, Roman Circuses, p. 258; Paul Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 40. Race horses were often adorned with good-luck charms or to ward off malevolence.Eva D'Ambra, "Racing with Death: Circus Sarcophagi and the Commemoration of Children in Roman Italy" in Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2007), p. 351.

---

Examples Some said the source of terror at Olympia was the ghost of Oenomaus, harming chariot racing as he had harmed suitors of Hippodamia. Others say it was a tomb of Myrtilus, who caused the death of Oenomaus.William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Others said it was the tomb of an Earth-born giant, Ischenus.Lycophron, Alexandra 31, note on Ischenus.

At the Isthmian Games, the Taraxippos Isthmios was the ghost of Glaucus of Pontiae, who was torn apart by his own horses.Pausanias, Guide to Greece 6.20.19. The Taraxippos Nemeios caused horses to panic during the Nemean Games: "At Nemea of the Argives there was no hero who harmed the horses, but above the turning-point of the chariots rose a rock, red in color, and the flash from it terrified the horses, just as though it had been fire."Pausanias, Guide to Greece 6.20.19.

The comic playwright Aristophanes makes a joke in The Knights calling Cleon Taraxippostratus, "Disturber of the Horse Troops."Aristophanes, Knights 247; Lowell Edmunds, Cleon, Knights and Aristophanes' Politics (University Press of America, 1987), p. 5.

---

Further reading

• Monica Visintin, "Il misterioso Taraxippos," in La Vergine E L'Eroe: Temesa E La Leggenda Di Euthymos Di Locri (Edipuglia,1992), pp. 91–99 (in Italian)

Post Comment