Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology, but rather in accounts of natural history, for Greek writers of natural history were convinced of the reality of the unicorn, which they located in India, a distant and fabulous realm for them. The earliest description is from Ctesias who described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half in length and colored white, red and black.[1] Aristotle must be following Ctesias when he mentions two one-horned animals, the oryx (a kind of antelope) and the so-called "Indian ass".[2][3] Strabo says that in the Caucasus there were one-horned horses with stag-like heads.[4] Pliny the Elder mentions the oryx and an Indian ox (perhaps a rhinoceros) as one-horned beasts, as well as "a very fierce animal called the monoceros which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar,
while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep
lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the
middle of its forehead, two cubits in length."[5] In On the Nature of Animals (Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος, De natura animalium), Aelian, quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse (iii. 41; iv. 52),[6][7] and says (xvi. 20)[8] that the monoceros (Greek: μονόκερως) was sometimes called cartazonos (Greek: καρτάζωνος), which may be a form of the Arabic karkadann, meaning "rhinoceros".
Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant of Alexandria who lived in the 6th century, made a voyage to India and subsequently wrote works on cosmography. He gives a description of a unicorn based on four brass figures in the palace of the King of Ethiopia.
He states, from report, that "it is impossible to take this ferocious
beast alive; and that all its strength lies in its horn. When it finds
itself pursued and in danger of capture, it throws itself from a
precipice, and turns so aptly in falling, that it receives all the shock
upon the horn, and so escapes safe and sound."[9][10]
A one-horned animal (which may be just a bull in profile) is found on some seals from the Indus Valley Civilization.[11] Seals with such a design are thought to be a mark of high social rank.[12]
