J.G. Frazer pointed to a similar throwing away of food abundance as a background to the October Horse, which he saw as the embodiment of the "corn spirit". According to tradition, the fields consecrated to Mars had been appropriated by the Etruscan king Tarquinius Superbus for his private use. Accumulated acts of arrogance among the royal family led to the expulsion of the king. The overthrow of the monarchy occurred at harvest time, and the grain from the Campus Martius had already been gathered for threshing. Even though the tyrant's other property had been seized and redistributed among the people, the consuls declared that the harvest was under religious prohibition. In recognition of the new political liberty, a vote was taken on the matter, after which the grain and chaff were willingly thrown into the Tiber river.The story is told by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 5.13. The Greek word exagistos is used to describe the harvest as the equivalent of Latin sacer, "belonging to a god" and hence prohibited for human use, either "sacred" or "accursed, made taboo." The story is an aition for how the Tiber Island was created. Frazer saw the October Horse as a harvest festival in origin, because it took place on the king's farmland in the autumn.J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (Cambridge University Press, 2012 digital reissue of the 1913 edition), pp. 43–44. Since no source accounts for what happens to the horse apart from the head and tail, it is possible that it was reduced to ash and disposed of in the same manner as Tarquin's grain.Pascal, "October Horse," pp. 277, 285.
