Soldier on a Rearing Horse with Supine Man Beneath (Horatius Cocles)

The subject probably is Horatius Cocles, the legendary Roman soldier whose heroism saved Rome from capture by the Etruscan forces of Lars Porsenna, who took his stand on a bridge across the Tiber - keeping the Etruscans at bay while the Romans demolished the bridge behind him (Livy 2, 10 and Plutarch 6, 16).

A similar drawing, showing a soldier on horseback fighting a group of foot soldiers as his horse rearing above a prostrate figure shielding himself, is in the Berlin print room (inv. 20636). The Metropolitan preserves a drawing by the Cambiaso school of the same subject as the Berlin one, which depicts the rider in a very similar pose to the one in the Morgan sheet (inv. 87.12.14).