Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Equus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EQUUS. A stallion; properly distinguished from equa, a mare, and from canterius, a gelding.

2. Equus publicus. The horse allotted by the state to each of the old Roman knights (equites), for the performance of cavalry duty, which was purchased and kept at the public expense. Liv. v. 7. Cic. Phil. vi. 5. Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 9.

3. Equus curtus. A horse which had its tail docked (Prop. iv. 1. 20.); not a common practice amongst the ancients. Horace applies the same epithet to a mule (Sat. i. 6. 104.), apparently in disparagement; but a crop-tailed horse was offered annually as a sacrifice to Mars (Festus, s. October equus); and possibly the small bronze cast, from which the annexed figure (Equus/3.1) is copied, was intended to commemorate that custom.

4. Equus Trojanus. The Trojan horse, by means of which the Greek soldiery enclosed in its belly were enabled, according to the fable, to open the gates of Troy to their comrades, and thus captured the city. (Cic. Muren. 37. Hygin. Fab. 108.) Many ancient representations of this stratagem remain in painting, sculpture, and engraved gems, corresponding generally with the figure annexed (Equus/4.1), which is copied from a miniature in the Vatican Virgil, showing the platform and wheels by which it was moved, the door which Sinon opens to let the inmates out, who descend to the ground by sliding down a rope, all as minutely detailed by Virgil, Aen. ii. 257 — 264.

5. Equus bipes. A sea-horse; a monster composed of the fore-hand and two front legs of a horse, with the body ending in a fish's tail; fabulously and poetically attached to the marine chariot of Neptune and Proteus. (Virg. Georg. iv. 389. Pervigil. Ven. 10.) The example (Equus/5.1) is from a Pompeian painting.

6. Equus fluviatilis. The river horse, or hippopotamus. Plin. H. N. viii. 30.

7. Equus ligneus. Poetically for a ship. Plaut. Rud. i. 5. 10.

8. A battering engine for beating down walls (Prop. iii. 1. 25.); subsequently, and better known by the name of the ram. (Plin. H. N. vii. 57.) See ARIES.

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  Equus/3.1
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  Equus/4.1
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  Equus/5.1