Bucephalus
Bucephalus (in Greek, Βουκέφαλος or Βουκεφάλας, from βούς (bous), "ox, bull" and κεφαλή (kephalē), "head", so its meaning is "ox head" or "bull head") is the name of the horse of Alexander the Great, and possibly the most famous horse of Antiquity.
Its name means in Greek Ox head, a nickname that the animal apparently received due to the rounded appearance of its face and the considerable width of its forehead, where a white spot in the shape of a star. Pliny the Elder and Pseudo Callisthenes say, instead, that this spot represented precisely a bull's head and that it was on its back.
Plutarch relates that Bucephalus was bought for thirteen talents by King Philip II of Macedonia from a Thessalian named Philonicus. It was then that, according to legend, the horse began to show itself rough and wild, neighing and kicking everywhere, without anyone being able to appease it. Only young Alejandro managed to mount the horse, and he realized that the horse was wary of his own shadow. Alexander turned the horse's head towards the sun, blinding him and jumping on the horse with a single leap, a moment that would make his father pronounce the famous phrase: "Son, find yourself a kingdom that is equal to your greatness, because Macedonia is small for you." It is said that from then on Bucephalus only allowed himself to be ridden by Alexander.
Faced with this description of the taming of Bucephalus made by Plutarch, the text of Pseudo Callisthenes on the life of the Greek conqueror gives a different version. There, it refers that Bucephalus was a horse with a beautiful figure, but dominated by a wild fury that took him to the extreme of anthropophagy, perhaps motivated by the belief that he was a descendant of one of the Mares of Diomedes, for which Philip decided to build him an iron cage where he would throw all those who disobeyed his laws. The Oracle of Delphi told Philip that he who could ride Bucephalus and cross the city of Pella would be king of the entire inhabited world. When, at the age of 15, Alexander discovered the animal's stable and approached the horse, it stretched out its front legs and neighed softly, as if it recognized him as its master, and the young prince was able to get it out without the help of the servants and ride with it. through the city, dominated by a complete docility.
In another version narrated by Diodorus Siculus, the horse had been a gift from Demaratus of Corinth.
He accompanied Alexander throughout his campaign in Asia against the Achaemenid Empire, until he died at the age of 30 during or after the Battle of the Hydaspes, fought by the Macedonian army in 326 BC. C against the army of the Indian king Poros. Although there are those who believe that he died in the battle itself, this is at least doubtful, since others believe that he died of exhaustion and old age in the place where Alexander founded, in his honor, the city of Alexandria Bucephala. that this site is located opposite the modern town of Jhelum, in the province of Punjab, northeast of present-day Pakistan.