Cynegeticus
, who attributes it to Pollux, about 200 years after the promulgation of the Levitical law.
Of the precise species of dog that prevailed or was cultivated in Greece at this early period, little can with certainty be affirmed. One beautiful piece of sculpture has been preserved, and is now in the possession of Lord Feversham at Duncombe Hall. It is said to represent the favourite dog of Alcibiades, and to have been the production of Myson, one of the most skillful artists of ancient times. It differs but little from the Newfoundland dog of the present day. He is represented as sitting on his haunches, and earnestly looking at his master. Any one would vouch for the sagacity and fidelity of that animal.
The British Museum contains a group of greyhound puppies of more recent date, from the ruins of the villa of Antoninus, near Rome. One is fondling the other; and the attitude of both, and the characteristic puppy-clumsiness of their limbs, which indicate, nevertheless, the beautiful proportions that will soon be developed, are an admirable specimen of ancient art.
| The Greeks, in the earlier periods of their history, depended too much
on their nets; [and] it was not until later times that they pursued their
prey with dogs, and then not with dogs that ran by sight, or succeeded
by their swiftness of foot, but by beagles very little superior to those
of modern days[12]. Of the stronger and more ferocious dogs there is,
however, occasional mention. The bull-dog of modern date does not excel
the one (possibly of nearly the same race) that was presented to
Alexander the Great, and that boldly seized a ferocious lion, or another
that would not quit his hold, although one leg and then another was cut
off. It would be difficult and foreign to the object of this work fully to trace the early history of the dog. Both in Greece and in Rome he was highly estimated. Alexander built a city in honour of a dog; and the Emperor Hadrian decreed the most solemn rites of sepulture to another on account of his sagacity and fidelity. |
translator of Arrian imagines that the use of the
pugnaces
(fighting) and the
sagaces