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CURRUS.

lished two drawings of chariots with three horses, from Etruscan vases in the collection at Vienna. The yttttos irap^opos is placed on the right of the two yoke horses. (See woodcut.) We also observe traces passing between the two tiu/Tvyes, and pro­ceeding from the front of the chariot on each side of the middle horse. These probably assisted in attaching the third, or extra horse.

The Latin name for a chariot and pair was ligae. When a third horse was added, it was

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CURRUS.

called triga ; and by the same analogy a chariot and four was called quadrigae ; in Greek, rerpao-pia or TcOpimros.

The horses were commonly harnessed in a quadriga after the manner already represented, the two strongest horses being placed under the yoke, and the two others fastened )n each side by means of ropes. This is implied in the use of the epi­thets ffetpeuos or <T€ipa(f>6pos, and funalis or funa-rius, for a horse so attached. (Isid. Orig. xviii. 35.) The two exterior horses were further dis­tinguished from one another as the right and the left trace-horse. In the splendid triumph of Augustus after the battle of Actium, the trace-horses of his car were ridden by two of his young relations. Tibe­rius rode, as Suetonius relates (Tib. 6.) sinisteriore funali equo^ and Marcellus deocteriore funali equo. As the works of ancient art, especially fictile vases, abound in representations of quadrigae, numerous instances may be observed, in which the two middle horses (6 fjiecros 8e£jbs KaL 6 (j-effos apiare-pos, Schol. in Aristopli. Nub. 122) are yoked to­gether as in the bigae ; and, as the two lateral ones have collars (\e7rafiva) equally with the yoke-horses, we may presume that from the top of these

proceeded the ropes which were tied to the rim of the car, and by which the trace-horses assisted to draw it. The first figure in the annexed woodcut is the chariot of Aurora, as painted on a vase found at Canosa. (Gerhard, uber Liclitgottlieiten, pi. iii. fig. 1.) The reins of the two middle horses pass through rings at the extremities of the yoke. All the particulars which have been mentioned are still more distinctly seen in the second figure, taken from a terra-cotta at Vienna. (Ginzrot, vol. ii. pp. 107, 108.) It represents a chariot overthrown in passing the goal at the circus. The charioteer having fallen backwards, the pole and yoke are thrown upwards into the air ; the two trace-horses have fallen on their knees, and .the two yoke-horses are prancing on their hind legs.

If we may rely on the evidence of numerous works of art, the currus was sometimes drawn by four horses without either yoke or pole ; for we see two of them diverging to the right hand and two to the left, as in the cameo in the royal collection of Berlin, which exhibits Apollo surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. If the ancients really drove the quadrigae thus harnessed, we can only suppose the charioteer to have checked its speed by pulling up the horses, and leaning with his whole body backwards, so as to make the bottom of the car at Us hindermost border scrape the ground, an act

and an attitude which seem not unfrequently to be intended in antique representations.

The currus, like the cisium, was adapted to carry two persons, and on this account was called in Greek St^pos. One of the two was of course the driver. He was called fjvioxos, because he held the reins, and his companion Trapai€drr)s^ from going by his side or near him. Though in all respects superior, the TrapaiSdr^s was often obliged to place himself behind the ^vio%os. He is so re­presented in the bigae at p. 101, and in the Iliad (xix. 397) Achilles himself stands behind his cha­rioteer, Automedon. On the other hand, a per­sonage of the highest rank may drive his own car­riage, and then an inferior may be his irapaiGdTTjs, as when Nestor conveys Machaon (irdp* 5e Malawi/ /3aiVe, //. xi. 512, 517), and Hera, holding the reins and whip, conveys Athena, who is in full armour (v. 7"20—775). In such cases a kindness, or even a compliment, was conferred by the driver upon him whom he conveyed, as when Dion}^-sius, tyrant of Sicily, " himself holding the reins made Plato his TrapougarTjs." (Aelian, F. H. iv. 18.)

Chariots were frequently employed on the field of battle not only by the Asiatic nations, but also by the Greeks in the heroic age. The apioTrjes, j. e. the nobility, or men of rank, who were com-