The Dog | Page 8

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.
The translator of Arrian imagines that the use of the 'pugnaces' (fighting) and the 'sagaces' (intelligent)--the more ferocious dogs, and those who artfully circumvented and caught their prey--was known in the earlier periods of Greek and Roman history, but that the 'celeres', the dogs of speed, the greyhounds of every kind, were peculiar to the British islands, or to the western and northern continents of Europe, the interior and the produce of which were in those days unknown to the Greeks and Romans. By most authors who have inquired into the origin of these varieties of the dog, the 'sagaces' have been generally assigned to Greece--the 'pugnaces' to Asia--and the 'celeres' to the Celtic nations.
[The vertragi, 'canes celeres', or dogs that hunted by sight alone, were not known to the ancients previous to the time of the younger Xenophon, who then describes them as novelties just introduced into Greece:
"But the swift-footed Celtic hounds are called in the Celtic tongue [Greek: ouéztragoi]; not deriving their name from any particular nation, like the Cretan, Carian, or Spartan dogs, but, as some of the Cretans are named [Greek: diaponoi] from working hard, [Greek: itamai] from their keenness, and mongrels from their being compounded of both, so these Celts are named from their swiftness. In figure, the most high-bred are a prodigy of beauty; their eyes, their hair, their colour, and bodily shape throughout. Such brilliancy of gloss is there about the spottiness of the parti-coloured, and in those of uniform colour, such glistening over the sameness of tint, as to afford a most delightful spectacle to an amateur of coursing."
It is probable these dogs were carried, about this time, into the southern parts of Europe by the various tribes of Celts who over-ran the continent, and also occupied Ireland, Britain, and the other western islands, and ultimately took possession of Gaul.--L.]
Of the aboriginal country of the latter there can be little doubt; but the accounts that are given of the English mastiff at the invasion of Britain by the Romans, and the early history of the English hound, which was once peculiar to this country, and at the present day degenerates in every other, would go far to prove that these breeds also are indigenous to our island.
Oppian thus describes the hunting dog as he finds him in Britain:
"There is, besides, an excellent kind of scenting dogs, though small, yet worthy of estimation. They are fed by the fierce nation of painted Britons, who call them 'agasoei'. In size they resemble worthless greedy house-dogs that gape under tables. They are crooked, lean, coarse-haired, and heavy-eyed, but armed with powerful claws and deadly teeth. The 'agasoeus' is of good nose and most excellent in following scent [13]."
Among the savage dogs of ancient times were the Hyrcanian, said, on account of their extreme ferocity, to have been crossed with the tiger [14],--the Locrian, chiefly employed in hunting the boar,--the Pannonian, used in war as well as in the chase, and by whom the first charge on the enemy was always made,--and the Molossian, of Epirus, likewise trained to war as well as to the honours of the amphitheatre and the dangers of the chase. This last breed had one redeeming quality--an inviolable attachment to their owners. This attachment was reciprocal; for it is said that the Molossi used to weep over their faithful quadruped companions slain in war.
[Of all the dogs of the ancients, those bred on the continent of Epirus were the most esteemed, and more particularly those from a southern district called Molossia, from which they received their name.
These animals are described as being of enormous size, great courage and powerful make, and were considered worthy not only to encounter the wolf, bear, and boar, but often overcame the panther, tiger, and lion, both in the chase and amphitheatre. They also, being trained to war, proved themselves most useful auxiliaries to this martial people.
The learned translator of Arrian states that
"the fabled origin of this breed is consistent with its high repute; for, on the authority of Nicander, we are told by Julius Pollux, that the Epirote was descended from the brazen dog which Vulcan wrought for Jupiter, and animated with all the functions of canine life."
These were not the only dogs fashioned by the skilful hands of the Olympic artist, as we find Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, possessing golden dogs also wrought