Note 19 — Chapter I · EARLY GREEK GAMES AND PRIZES.

See Boeckh, p. 319, on Pyth., II, 78. The same word occurs also in an inscription on a late relief from Smyrna, which shows horsemen pursuing bulls, leaping on their backs and seizing their horns; C. I. G., II, 3212; also in an inscription from Sinope: ibid., III, 4157 (line 5); an inscription from Aphrodisias calls such men ταυροκαθάπται; ibid., II, Add., 2759b. The evidence shows that Gardiner, p. 9, n. 2, is wrong in connecting the taurokathapsia with the hunting-field instead of with the circus. He cites the Smyrna relief above mentioned (in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, no. 219), which, however, should be interpreted as an acrobatic scene. See J. Baunack, Rhein. Mus., XXXVIII, 1883, pp. 293 f., who discusses bull-fighting in Thessaly and Rome and quotes five inscriptions of Hellenic times to show that beast fights were common in Asia Minor.