Another small mistake, which Pegge thought it worth while to notice, deserves also perhaps to be rectified. Dalechamp[1161] and Potter[1162] assert that Themistocles, while leading out his army, having heard a cock crow, declared this to be an omen of victory, and after beating the enemy he instituted cock-fighting in remembrance of that event. I shall here remark, that Dalechamp is not the first person who made this assertion. Peucer[1163], and at a period still earlier, Alexander ab Alexandro[1164] mentioned the same thing, but no one ever pointed out the passage in any ancient author upon which this assertion was founded; and I have been as unsuccessful in my endeavours to find it, as those who attempted to discover the sources from which Alexander derived his information. This author perhaps collected from manuscripts, in the fifteenth century, many things never printed, and which therefore have been lost. He may also have written many things from memory without remembering them all with accuracy.
It is indeed true, that the crowing of a cock was sometimes considered as a presage of victory. Thus Cicero quotes an instance[1165] where a Bœotian soothsayer promised victory to the Thebans from the crowing of a cock; and according to Pliny[1166], the same circumstance once served to the Bœotians as an omen of victory over the Lacedæmonians. How then could Themistocles make choice of a cock-fight to commemorate a victory announced by the crowing of a cock? Besides, Anacharsis in Lucian confirms the object of the institution assigned by Ælian. In the history of antiquity many things are often repeated, without any one taking the trouble to examine whether they can be proved by the testimony of the ancients. Those who wish to attain to truth and certainty in matters of this kind, will not consider such short examinations to be of so little importance as they may to others appear.
Dempster has assigned another reason for the cock-fights established by Themistocles, which, though adopted by many, is not even supported by probability. He conceives that these cock-fights were like a kind of permanent trophies or monuments of the conquered Persians, because the game-cock was indigenous in Persia, and conveyed thence to other countries[1167].
Athenæus[1168], indeed, quotes from a work of Menodotus some lines by which the latter part of this assertion is confirmed; and Aristophanes[1169] in two places calls the domestic cock a Persian bird. It is proved by more modern accounts, that this species of fowl is at present found wild in the East Indies and many neighbouring countries. Sonnerat[1170] found them in Hindostan; and they were seen by Cook and by Dampier on Pulo Condor and many islands of the South Sea. According to the testimony of Gemelli Careri, they were indigenous in the Philippine islands, and according to Morolla in the kingdom of Congo. That they are still found wild in Georgia is asserted by Reineggs[1171]. The account therefore of the Greeks, that they obtained domestic fowls from Persia, may be admitted; but as in cock-fights one Persian overcame another, how could these convey the idea of a victory of the Greeks over the Persians? Is the object, then, as stated by Lucian and Ælian not sufficient and intelligible?
That cock-fighting, in the course of time, became a favourite pastime among the people, is proved by the frequent mention which is made of it in various authors. Pliny says[1172] that it was exhibited annually at Pergamus, in the same manner as combats of gladiators. In this city, according to Petronius[1173], a boy was promised a fighting-cock; and therefore it appears that boys kept cocks there for this pastime. Æschines reproaches Timarchus with spending the whole day in gaming and cock-fighting. Plato[1174] complains, that not only boys but grown-up persons, instead of labouring, bred birds for fighting, and employed their whole time in such idle amusements.
Cock-fights were represented also by the Greeks on coins and on cut stones. That the Dardani had them on their coins we are told by Pollux[1175]; and this seems to prove that these people were as fond of that sport as their neighbours of Pergamus. Mr. Pegge caused engravings to be made of two gems in the collection of Sir William Hamilton, on one of which is seen a cock in the humble attitude of defeat, with its head hanging down, and another in the attitude of victory, with an ear of corn in its bill as the object of contest. On the other stone two cocks are fighting, while a mouse carries away the ear of corn for the possession of which they had quarrelled; a happy emblem of our law-suits, in which the greater part of the property in dispute falls to the lawyers and attorneys. Two cocks in the attitude of fighting are represented also on a lamp found in Herculaneum[1176].
That the Greeks employed various means to increase the irritability and courage of fighting-cocks is beyond all doubt. Besides the circumstance already mentioned in regard to the females, they gave them also food which produced nearly the same effect as opium does in India, and as brandy did some years ago on the European armies. Dioscorides[1177] and Pliny[1178] ascribe this effect to a plant which they call adiantum. The former says it was given to game-cocks and quails, and the latter that it was given to game-cocks and partridges, to incite them to fight. Garlick, allium, was employed also, as we are told by Xenophon, not only for game-cocks but also for horses and soldiers. That the Greeks, however, like the English at present, armed their cocks with steel spurs, in order to render their battles more bloody, is denied by Pegge; though the contrary seems to be proved by a passage in Aristophanes, now become a proverb, and the remarks of the scholiast[1179]. As the English procure the strongest and best fighting-cocks from other countries, and often from Germany, through Hamburg, the Greeks, in the like manner, obtained foreign game-cocks for the same purpose[1180].
Why the Romans showed more fondness for quail-fighting than for cock-fighting I do not know; but it is certain that they had not the latter, or at any rate only seldom and at a late period, which appears to be very singular, as they began then more and more to imitate the Greeks. Varro mentions the breeds which were chiefly sought for in Greece; but he adds, that though they might be good for fighting, they were not fit for breeding[1181]. Had the breeding of game-cocks been an employment, he would have spoken in a different manner. Columella also ridicules the breeding of these cocks, as a Grecian custom, and prefers the native race to all others. Eustathius, in the place already quoted, says expressly that the Romans preferred quails to game-cocks; yet in later times we find mention among them of cock-fighting, as has been before remarked.
There were cocks in England in the time of Julius Cæsar[1182]; but it is said that they were kept there merely for pleasure, and not used as food. The latter part of this account is not improbable. The inhabitants of the Pelew Islands, we are told, eat only the eggs of their hens, and not the flesh. But the question, how old cock-fighting is in England, cannot be determined. Pegge says, the oldest information which he found on this subject was in the Description of the City of London by William Fitz-Stephens, who lived in the reign of Henry II., and died in 1191[1183]. This writer relates that every year on Shrove Tuesday the boys at school brought their game-cocks to the master, and the whole forenoon was devoted to cock-fighting, for the amusement of the pupils. The theatre or cock-pit, therefore, was in the school-house, and the pupils seem to have had the direction of it. To this information I can add, that cock-fighting in France was forbidden by a council in 1260, on account of some mischief to which it had given rise[1184].
This pastime has been sometimes forbidden even in England, as was the case under Edward III. and Henry VIII.; also in the year 1569, and even later; but it was nevertheless retained to a late period. Even Henry VIII. himself instituted fights of this kind; and a writer worthy of credit relates, that James I. took great delight in them[1185]. In modern times this cruel amusement has been carried beyond all bounds; so that the cock-fights in China[1186], Persia[1187], Malacca[1188], and America[1189], are nothing in comparison of those called the battle-royal and the Welsh main. In the former a certain number of cocks are let loose to fight, and when they have destroyed each other, the survivor is accounted the victor, and obtains the prize. In the latter kind of battle, sixteen pair of cocks, for example, being pitted against each other, the sixteen conquerors are made to fight again; the eight of these which are victors, must fight a third time; and the four remaining a fourth time, till at length the two last conquerors terminate, by a fifth contest, this murderous game, after thirty-one cocks have successively butchered each other amidst the noisy exultation of the spectators, who however make a pretence to the character of magnanimity.