Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The account appears in Revelation 6 of the New Testament, a vision traditionally attributed to John of Patmos (commonly dated to about AD 95). In the vision a sealed scroll in God's right hand is opened by the Lamb; opening the first four of the seven seals summons four beings who ride out on horses of four colors. The riders are part of the sequence of apocalyptic acts that lead toward final judgment in the Revelation narrative.

Revelation 6 describes four riders mounted on horses colored white, red, black, and pale. The text portrays the riders (other than the fourth, who is explicitly named) by their accoutrements: the white-horse rider has a bow and is given a crown (Greek: τόξον, στέφανος), the red-horse rider carries a sword, the black-horse rider carries a pair of scales and is depicted in later commentary as a food merchant, and the pale-horse rider is named Death and is accompanied by Hades.

John's vision states the riders were given authority over a quarter of the Earth and act to kill by sword, famine, plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth. In later commentary and popular usage the riders are read as personifications of large-scale historical or cosmic processes (commonly identified as Conquest or Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death), and they function as visible, authoritative executors of eschatological events rather than as local spirits.