chariots drawn by equids.^42 Later Iranian ideology may be reflected in
Xenophon’s account of a procession of Cyrus in which there appeared a white
chariot with golden yoke, consecrated to Zeus, and another belonging to the
Sun (Cyrop. 8. 3. 12; cf. Curt. 3. 3. 11).
There is no allusion in the Iliad or Odyssey to Helios’ horses or chariot,
though Dawn is given horses in one passage (Od. 23. 244–6). But they appear
in several of the Homeric Hymns, in Mimnermus and other archaic poets,
and in art perhaps from the first half of the seventh century.^43 In Hymn. Hom.
- 15 the chariot is χρυσο ́ ζυγον, ‘golden-yoked’, as in the Rigveda (1. 35.
2–5) Savitr
̇
’s is a golden car with golden yoke-pegs and pole. When Euripides
describes a shield-device of ‘the Sun’s shining wheel on the winged mares’ (or
‘chariot’: El. 464–6 φα ́ εθων κ3κλο UΑλοιο | πποι }μ πτεροσσαι),
we almost seem to be back with the horse-drawn wheel, but perhaps he is just
combining traditional images in a careless way.
An association of the Sun-god with horses is attested for other ancient
peoples. Herodotus (1. 216. 4) records that the Massagetai worship only the
Sun, and that they sacrifice horses to him, assigning the swiftest of mortal
creatures to the swiftest of gods. In Sophocles’Te r e u s (fr. 582) someone,
perhaps Tereus himself, addressed ‘Helios, highest object of reverence for the
horse-loving Thracians’. Xenophon in Armenia found himself in possession
of an elderly horse that was sacred to the Sun (Anab. 4. 5. 35). Sun, wheel, and
horse are variously associated on Celtic Iron Age coins.^44 An Irish legend tells
of one Eochaid Mairccend ‘Horsehead’ who had Wind and Sun (Gaeth,
Grian) as his steeds. Grian outran the fastest horses of the Ulstermen.^45
In Norse myth the Sun has two horses, Árvakr (Earlywake) and Alsviðr
(Allswift) (Grímnismál 37; Sigrdrífumál 15; Gylf. 11).
Tacitus knew the rumour of a Baltic region where the sun did not sink far
enough beneath the semi-frozen sea to allow the stars to shine (Germ. 45. 1).
When it rose, the sound was audible, so people believed, and the outlines of
horses (equorum: v.l. deorum, eorum) and the rays emanating from the god’s
head could be discerned.
Certainly the myth of the Sun’s horse or horses persists in the folklore of
Baltic and Slavonic peoples. In the Latvian songs the Sun travels on horseback
or in a horse-drawn carriage; the number of horses varies between one and
six (Jonval nos. 123–4, 168, 171–3, 179, 186). They are yellow (dzeltens, 123,
(^42) M. J. Mellink, Iranica Antiqua 6 (1966), 72–87; EIEC 258 f.
(^43) Mimn. 12; Hymn. Dem. 63, 88, Herm. 69, Hymn. Hom. 28. 14, 31. 9, 15; ‘Eumelus’ fr. 11
West; LIMC v (add.) Helios.
(^44) M. Green (1991), 57 f., 117 f.
(^45) Edward J. Gwynne, The Metrical Dindshenchas, iv (Dublin 1924), 182, 126; O’Rahilly
(1946), 291.
206 5. Sun and Daughter