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adopt your own virtual pet!"Before the rest [of the horses in the first Nemean Games] Arion, marked by his man of fiery red, is led forth. Neptunus [Poseidon], if the fame of olden time be true, was his sire; he first is said to have hurt his young mouth with the bit and tamed him on the sand of the sea-shore, sparing the lash; for insatiable was his eagerness to run, and he was capricious as a winter sea. Oft was he wont to go in harness with the steeds of ocean through the Libyan or Ionian deep, and bring his dark-blue sire safe home to every shore; the Storm-Clouds marvelled to be outstripped, and Eurus and Notos (East and South Winds) strive and are left behind. Nor less swiftly on land had he borne Amphitryon’s son [Herakles], when he waged Eurystheus’ wars, in deep-pressed furrows o’er the mead, fierce to him also and impatient to control. Soon by the gods’ bounty he was deemed worthy to have Adrastus for his lord, and meanwhile had grown far gentler. On that day the chieftain allows him to be driven by his son-in-law Polynices, and much did he counsel him, what arts would soothe the horse when enraged, not to use too fierce a hand, nor to let him gallop free of the rein; ‘urge other steeds.’ Said he, ‘with voice and goad; but he will go, ay, faster than you wish.’ … By instinct had Arion guessed that another driver stood grasping the reins, and feared, innocent as he was, the dire son of Oedipus [Polyneikes]; from the very start he rages more fiercely than his wont, fretting angrily against his burden. The sons of Inachus [the Argives] think him fired by praises, but it is the charioteer that he is flying, the charioteer that he threatens in maddened fury, and he looks round for his lord [Adrastus] on all the plain … Arion defying control, dashes here and there in circles and strays rightward from the course … and the son of Labdacus [Polyneikes] in pale anxiety neither handles the rein nor dares the lash." - Statius, Thebaid 6.301