From the earliest times throughout the Mediterranean, the horse has been a symbol of prestige, wealth and status. Social rank has often been defined in terms of the ability to own and maintain a horse: the hippeis in Greece, the equites in Rome, or the knights of medieval Europe. The English word, “knights”, has the same meaning.
In the Agora, the earliest evidence of the association of horsemanship and high social status is found in burials in the Iron Age cemetery that underlies the later civic center. The first is a tomb from the 9th century BC. C., with rich grave goods in the form of ceramics and an iron sword, at a time when said metal was still scarce. The burial was a cremation, and among the ashes on the pyre and the bone urn were found two iron bits from a horse’s bridle.
In the eighth century B.C. C., many of the tombs contained elaborately painted cosmetic boxes (pyxids) with lids with handles in the shape of one to four horses. In the Athenian society of the early sixth century BC. C., the second highest property classification was a group known as the knights (hippeis). Therefore, it now seems clear from the grave goods in these early burials that our recognition of the horse as a symbol of high social and political status must go back several centuries, to the 9th or 8th century BC.
Throughout the sixth century BC, Athens was ruled by several great aristocratic families who prided themselves on their nobility. One expression of that pride was the association of the proper name with horses, and several prominent Athenians had names beginning or ending with the word hippopotamus. Perhaps the oldest example is Hippothon, one of the ten eponymous heroes of Athens and son of Poseidon. The two sons of the tyrant Peisistratos were called Hippias and Hipparchos, and Pericles’ father himself bore the name Xanthippos.
These old aristocratic families do not disappear with the advent of democracy at the end of the sixth century, and the association with horses in Athenian nomenclature continues well into the classical period. There are literally hundreds of late examples of equine names. In his play The Clouds (423 BC), Aristophanes clearly and specifically addresses the deliberate use of some form of the word horse in a personal name as an indicator of aristocratic pretensions and breeding. Thus, he paints a revealing picture of the tensions between aristocrats and commoners in democratic Athens. Strepsiades opens the play with a discussion of his marriage and the birth of his son, Pheidippides:
Damn the go-between who made me marry your mother! She lived so happily in the country, an ordinary life, but good and easy, without problems, without worries, rich in bees, sheep and olive trees. So I really had to marry Megakles’ niece, Megakles’ son; I was from the country, she was from the town; she was a haughty, extravagant woman, a true Coesyra. On the day of the wedding, when I lay down next to her, I smelled like the stench of a glass of wine, cheese, and wool; she smelled of essences, saffron, voluptuous kisses, the love of spending, good humor and lascivious delights.
Later, when we had this child, what would his name be? It was the cause of many fights with my beloved wife. She insisted on having some reference to a horse in her name, which should be called Xanthippos, Charippos, or Kallippides. She wanted to name him Philonides after her grandfather. We argued a lot and finally agreed with Pheidipides… She used to pet him and cajole him, saying: “Oh, what a joy it will be for me when you are grown, to see you in your chariot driving your steeds towards the city.” And I said to him: “When like your father, you will go, dressed in a skin, to look for your goats from Phelleus.” Poor me! He never listened to me and his madness for horses has ruined my fortune.
This same class distinction, actually defined by horses, is found in a speech by Lysias. The defendant, in claiming an invalid’s pension, must show that the use of a borrowed horse is necessary and not an expression of wealth or a claim to prestige: But the strongest proof, gentlemen, that I ride horses for my misfortune and not for insolence, as this man alleges, is this: If I were a man of means, I would ride a saddled mule, and not ride other men’s horses. But as a matter of fact, since I cannot acquire anything of the sort, I am obliged, from time to time, to use other men’s horses.