Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 3): The great transitional age in the northern and eastern sections of the Palace (London, 1930)

SURVIVAL IN THESSALIAN TAUROKATHAPSIA 229

under an altered form due to the use of the horse for riding purposes—in Survival
the feats of the Thessalian taurokatkaptae. Minoan

Except for the convenient use of the horse in place of the coigns of J%"L°aa~
vantage dear to the Minoan Cow-boys these feats were essentially the same. inThes-

. . . saly in

One of the particular objects of securing a good springing-off place had eques-
been to seize the bull's horns from above and to twist its head in such ?""J
a way as to overthrow the mighty beast.1 For this the Thessalian,
mounted on his fine native steed, had a great advantage and it remained one
of his principal tours deforce. It is interesting to note, moreover, that this
feat—which leads us on to the performance of the Spanish sobre salientes—
entered into the programme of the Circus sports of the ravpoKaBdnTcu intro-
duced by Claudius 2 and recorded in inscriptions.3 The Thessalian riders
first wearied the animals by driving them round the arena and then brought
them down by jumping on them and seizing their horns, in the Minoan
fashion, a method still practised in the ' Wild West' of America. At times
the Thessalian horsemen actually broke the bull's neck by their sudden
wrench.4 The best illustration of these Circus sports is to be seen in the The
Greco-Roman relief from Smyrna,5 in the Ashmolean Museum, illustrating Relief.
a scene of ' the second day of the taurokathapsia'. The riders are repre-
sented as boys, wearing round the middle part of their bodies the leather
bands, or fasciae, that distinguished the aurigae of the Roman Circus. The
relief is photographically reproduced in Fig. 161. The feats here depicted,
according to the expert authority quoted above, exactly answer to the
throwing of steers in the modern ' rodeo'.

The earlier practice, however, of tackling the bull on foot was still in Parallel
Hellenic times a recognized form of the sport. On the obverse of fifth- 0f earlier
century coins of Larissa and other Thessalian cities, though the national j°™of
emblem, a galloping horse, is seen on the reverse, a youth appears on foot grappling
grappling with a bull's horns and head and endeavouring to overthrow it.

What, in this connexion, is specially noteworthy is that the Greek

1 See Figs. 162-4. Cf. Max. Meyer (Jahrb. d. arch. Inst, vii,

2 Suetonius, Claud. 21 'Thessalos equites 1893, pp. 74, 75). See my Minoan Bronze
qui feros tauros per spatia agunt insiliuntque Group, &c.,J.H. S., xli (1921), pp. 257, 258.
defessos et ad terram cornibus detrahunt.' Cf. s C.I. G., iii. 114.

Dio Cass. lxi. 9. According to Pliny (II. N. * Pliny, H. IV., viii. 172 'Thessalorum

viii. 172), Caesar, as Dictator, first introduced gentis inventum est, equo iuxta quadrupedante

the sport. The action of the TavpoKaOaTTijs cornu intorta cervice, tauros necare'.

is described in detail by Heliodoros (Aethiop. '" Chandler, Marmora Oxoniensia, ii, p. 58

x. 30), writing in Theodosius' time, and in an (Michaelis, Ancient Marbles, c~r., p. 573,

epigram of Philippos(^«M.jPa/.ix. 543 Dind.). No. 136). See A. E.,/.M.S., loc. cit