85 Cataphora and Lack of Clarity in the Book of Revelation last coloured horse in Zech 1:8 is white, but this could not influence the Revelation discourse at this stage because by Rev 6:2 there are not enough markers in the text for the readers to identify a relationship be- tween Zechariah and Rev 6. However, by the time they arrived at verse 2, they had a relatively good understanding of the presupposition pools that John was using when choosing the colour white. It appears that the root significance of the colour is found in that the son of man in 1:13-15 is radiant (implicitly white), and the following promises to the churches that they will be dressed in white (3:4, 5, 18; 4:4) suggest that they will be radiant like Jesus. What is more difficult is ascertaining the significance of the whole image of a rider on a white horse. Swete, Mounce, Beckwith, Morris, Hughes and Roloff suggest that the white horse conveys the idea that the rider is a victorious conqueror.43 A conqueror would return to Rome in a procession on a white horse.44 This rider is armed with a bow and traver- ses the land ‘…as a conqueror bent on conquest’ (Revelation 6:2, NIV). The crown (or ‘victor’s wreath’45) also suggests that this cavalier is a victor in a war. This reading of the text is appealing in a Roman context, although these authors struggle to demonstrate from the text that this conqueror is evil. However, Swete argues, ‘A vision of the victorious Christ would be inappropriate at the opening of a series which symbolizes bloodshed, famine, and pestilence’46. Another similar proposal held by Ramsay, Bousset, Charles, Osborne, Boring, Caird, Krodel, Kiddle, Fiorenza and Metzger is that the rider on the white horse equates to the Parthians, the feared foe of the Romans47. H. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906, 84; 43 R. Mounce, The Book of Revelation. NICNT, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998, 154; I. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919; 517-18; L. Morris, The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (The Tyndale New Testament commentaries, 20; Leicester: IVP, 1987) 101-2; P. Hughes, The Book of Revelation Leices- ter: IVP, 1990, 84-85; J. Roloff, The Revelation of John, Trans. J. E. Alsup, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993, 86. Vergil, Aeneid, iii.537; Dio Cassius, Roman History, 43.14. Herodotus 7.40, 9.63. 44 However Ladd (G. Ladd, The Revelation of John Michigan: Eerdmans, 1972, 97) points out that the victor would not ride on a white horse, but sat in a four-horse carriage. Morris, Revelation, 101. 45 Swete, The Apocalypse, 84. 46 W. Ramsay, The Letters of the Seven Churches ed. M. Wilson, Massachusetts: Hen- 47 drikson, 1994, 41-2; W. Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, 1906) 265-66; R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John vol. 1 Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979, 163; G. Osborne, Revelation (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2002) 277; M. Boring, Revelation. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989, 122; G. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1973, 80; G. Krodel, Revelation. Augsburg Commentary on the NT; Minneapolis; Augsburg, 1989, 173;