The mares’ madness was attributed to their unnatural diet which consisted of the flesh[3] of unsuspecting guests or strangers to the island.

[5] The Mares, which were the terror of Thrace, were kept tethered by iron chains to a bronze manger in the now vanished city of Tirida[6] and were named Podargos (the swift), Lampon (the shining), Xanthos (the yellow) and Deinos (or Deinus, the terrible).

[6] After overpowering Diomedes’ men, Heracles broke the chains that tethered the horses and drove the mares down to sea.

Having scared the horses onto the high ground of a knoll, Heracles quickly dug a trench through the peninsula, filling it with water and thus flooding the low-lying plain.

[9] Roger Lancelyn Green states in his Tales of the Greek Heroes that the mares’ descendants were used in the Trojan War, and survived even to the time of Alexander the Great.