CANES VENATICI. Class I.

CANES BELLICOSI or PUGNACES.

Gratii Halieut. vs. 98.

The type of this class is given by Gratius in the following lines, which must be taken as a general description, requiring some latitude in its application to individuals:⁠[336]

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 269.

By its side we may place its counterpart in Greek;—for, notwithstanding the Oppianic sketch has been appropriated by Bodinus to the Albanese, it certainly may be viewed in a broader light, as a picture in outline of the whole pugnacious family, without reference to individuals:

Oppian. Cyneg. L. i. 413.

The introduction of a third, more recent portrait, will be justified by the chaste Latinity of Peter Angelio, and the faithful accuracy of his pen:

P. Angelii Bargæi Cyneg. L. v.

The quarry of these savage hounds consisted of animals more ferocious than their assailants—such as

Gratii Halieut. vs. 73.

Following the order of the poetical manual, to which we are indebted for our first-cited outline of the race, the Mede and Celt arrest our earliest attention, followed by the Ser, Lycaonian, Hyrcanian, Briton, Molossian, and others:

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 155.

The Persian appears to have been a connecting link between the pugnacious and sagacious classes, though his neighbours of Media and Hyrcania were a purely savage breed. The Persian was a mongrel variety—

Ejusd. vs. 158.

The character of the “indocilis Medus” we may infer from Ælian’s description, already cited, of the men and horses of the country—which at the conclusion he also extends to the De Naturâ Animal. L. iii. c. ii.dogs—ταῦτά τοι καὶ περὶ τῶν κυνῶν ἔπεισι νοεῖν μοι. The latter were fierce, impetuous, and of great size.

There is evidently no connexion between the Celtæ of Gratius and κύνες Κελτικαὶ of Arrian, though deriving their name from the same source, and seemingly of the same country. The former were originally perhaps the only varieties of the canine species inmates of the kennels of Gaul,

Savary Venat. Cervin. Leges. L. i.

the sagacious and swift-footed hounds being subsequently admitted therein;—but not until the older mode of hunting ferocious animals with savage dogs had fallen into disrepute, from the superior attraction of the improved style; or into disuse, from the gradual extirpation of beasts of prey. As the latter disappeared, or were driven into remote fastnesses, we may suppose the more timid and fugacious creatures supplied their place; and, multiplying in the ratio of the others’ diminution, afforded abundant quarry to the Vertragus, and the archetype of the chien courant of modern France.

How beautifully are the more innoxious sports of sylvan life, and superior claims of the hare and deer hunt, touched by Ovid in the fable of Venus and Adonis. The goddess of love turns huntress:

Ovid. Metam. L. x. 537.

No wonder that the Celtic people by degrees discontinued the warlike chase, fraught with innumerable perils, and substituted the harmless pursuit of fugacious quarry, with keen-scented and swift-footed hounds, according to the injunctions of the meretricious queen to her disobedient “sweete boy;”

Sir A. Golding Ovid’s Metam. B. 10.

which, in the days of Arrian, constituted their principal field sport.

Julius Pollux, in his Onomasticon, mentions the Celtic war-dogs, and Oppian also includes Κελτοὶ in the muster-roll of his first cynegetic.⁠[339] It is probable that they were a-kin to those of ancient Britain; for we are told by Strabo, who lived soon after Gratius, that the exports from this island to Gaul consisted of Strabo L. iv. p. 138.δέρματα, καὶ ἀνδράποδα, καὶ κύνες εὐφυεῖς πρὸς τὰς κυνηγεσίας. Κελτοὶ δὲ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς πολέμους χρῶνται, καὶ τούτοις, καὶ τοῖς ἐπιχωρίοις. Whence it appears that the Celts had native Canes Venatici which they employed in war,⁠[340] as well as those imported from Britain.⁠[341] In this adaptation of canine ferocity the Celtæ were not peculiar; but as dogs, thus applied, can scarce be considered in their sporting character, it is unnecessary to multiply citations. Let the few instances hereafter adduced suffice on this head. Whether these Celtic dogs are the Gallic hybrids of the natural historian I cannot say: “hoc idem,” says Pliny,L. viii. c. 40. ex Vlitii Emend. “è lupis Galli, quorum greges suum quisque ductorem è canibus et Lyciscam habent. Illum in venatu comitantur, illi parent. Namque inter se exercent etiam magisteria.” There were whole packs of these dogs in every chase or forest, “that had for their leader some particular demi-wolf, which the rest accompanied in hunting, obeyed, and were directed by; keeping an order among themselves of government and mastership.”

Gratius mentions, in the next place, the Ser, the Lycaonian or Arcadian, the Hyrcanian, and the union of the latter with the tiger.

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 159.

The Seræ were a nation of Æthiopia near the origin of the Nile, and also of India between the Indus and Hydaspes: but “the famous Seræ were a people of Asia, the farthest to the east beyond China towards Scythia without Imaus,” according to Wase’s geography of Gratius. As the poet does not record the fame of the Canes Indici under their usual denomination, we may consider the Seric dog as the redoubted Indian—“genus intractabilis iræ.”

The Indian dog is noticed by Herodotus, Aristotle, Xenophon, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, Pollux, Ælian, Athenaeus, Themistius, and Phile, among the Greeks; and by Pliny, Solinus, and Quintus Curtius, among the Latins. The size, strength, speed, and courage of this dog induced Xenophon to recommend him for boar and deer hunting—Xenophon, de Venat. c. ix.εἰσὶ γὰρ ἰσχυραὶ, μεγάλαι, ποδώκεις, οὐκ ἄψυχοι, says this experienced sportsman; and Ælian adds to his good qualities keenness of sight or scent in tracking—Ælian. de Natur. Animal. L. viii. c. 1.εὐγενεῖς καὶ ἴχνη καταγνῶναι θηρίων ἀγαθαὶ, κ. τ. λ. J. Pollux, on the authority of Nicander, derives the Canes Indici from Actæon’s pack; who, when they had recovered from their madness, Ovid. Metam. L. iii. 140.“satiatæ sanguine herili,” passed the Euphrates, and wandered into India. Polluc. Onom. L. v. c. v. 39.He particularly distinguishes them from the Hyrcanian, with which they have been by some historians confounded. Both the last-mentioned authors, Ælian. de Nat. Animal. L. iv. c. 19.and also Plutarch, would have us believe that the lion was the only antagonist with whom this courageous dog would willingly contend:Plutarch. p. 1787. Ed. Steph.—τῶν δὲ ἄλλων ζώων ὑπερφρονοῦντα πάντων, says Plutarch; and Ælian affirms his victory over the lion; but Themistius adds the pard to his chosen antagonists, to the exclusion of inferior combatants, as wolves and foxes. Brodæi Annot. in Oppian. p. 43.Fable however and history are so closely blended in the records of canine biography, that we are compelled occasionally to doubt. And did we not relieve ourselves by incredulity, the marvellous tale of patient courage narrated by Ælian, as manifested by this fierce animal, would make us shudder at the bare recital. It is found in detail in the first chapter of his eighth book de Naturâ Animalium,⁠[342] and succinctly copied by Pollux in the fifth chapter of the fifth book of his Onomasticon.

The cruel experiment, transmitted to us by Dr. Goldsmith, as having been practised on the British Molossus, is quite eclipsed by this more barbarous exhibition of the innate fortitude of the dog of India. For in the latter case, the commencement of the inhuman test of patient courage was the amputation of the tail, and the conclusion decollation. The legs of the poor brute were successively cut off, one by one, without his quitting his hold of the lion, his chosen antagonist:—and when at last the neck was severed from the body, the teeth still adhered with the trunkless, but still mordacious head, (credat Judæus,) suspended to the wound. But let the credulous story-teller speak for himself:Ælian. de Nat. Animal. L. viii. c. 1.—καὶ τελευτῶντες τῆς κεφαλῆς τὸ λοιπὸν σῶμα ἀφεῖλον· ὀδόντες δὲ ἐκείνῃ ἤρτηντο τῆς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀντιλαβῆς, καὶ ἡ κεφαλὴ ἠωρεῖτο μετέωρος ἐκ τοῦ λέοντος, αὐτοῦ μέντοι τοῦ δακόντος ἐξ ἀρχῆς οὐκ ἔτι ὄντος. The dog like the British bull-dog was memorable for never quitting his hold—a feature in his ferocious character remarked by Phile in his iambic versification of Ælian’s marvellous tale.

De Animal. Proprietate. De cane Indico. p. 148.

Venationes Ferarum, &c. pl. iv.

In the scarce plates of Stradan, engraven by Galle, there is a picture of the Canis Indicus, as I conceive, fighting with the elephant and lion. The annexed quatrain, by Kilian Dufflæus, sufficiently explains it, but is not worthy of citation. The following poetical portrait, however, by a far better scholar, will be read with pleasure, whether viewed as delineating the Indian, or his congener, the Albanian:

Hercul. Strozæ Caesar. Borgiæ Ducis Epiced.

Bodin supposes Oppian to allude to the Canis Indicus in his 1st Cynegetic, vs. 413.; but as the poet does not mention any name, and particularly specifies a want of speed in the dogs he describes, I should rather refer his sketch to the Molossian or true Epirote, (if it must have a particular application,) than to the Indian or Albanian. I have no doubt, however, that it is, as already stated, a general description of the pugnacious type, and therefore includes both Indian and Molossian.

Many of the anecdotes of the Indian dog are promiscuously told of the Albanian, Iberian, and Hyrcanian; and it certainly is difficult to point out any distinctive characters between them. Of the latter I shall presently speak, in the rotation in which he is recorded by Gratius. The Albanian and Iberian are undoubtedly consimilars, strongly impregnated with the Molossian cast—natives of the Asiatic district indifferently called Iberia and Albania. They are celebrated by modern travellers as much as by classic historical and cynegetical writers. Hist. Natur. L. viii. c. xl.Pliny does not name the country of the dog “inusitatæ magnitudinis” given to Alexander by a king of Albania;⁠[343] though it would be a fair conclusion that the dog was of the same country as the king. Yet Strabo L. xv.Strabo, notwithstanding he commemorates the prowess of the Albanian race of dogs, particularly notes that those presented to the king of Macedonia were Indian; and he is supported by Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, and Julius Pollux, differing somewhat in the historical detail. Solinus, for the most part a copyist of Pliny and Strabo, is, on this occasion, it may be, mistaken in assigning to them an Albanian origin. Speaking of the Albanese, he says: C. J. Solini Polyhistor. c. xv.“Apud hos populos nati canes feris anteponuntur, frangunt tauros, leones premunt, detinent quid-quid objectum: quibus ex causis meruerunt etiam annalibus tradi. Legimus petenti Indiam Alexandro, à rege Albaniæ dono duos missos,” &c.—and again, “Hoc genus canes crescunt ad formam amplissimam, terrificis latratibus ultra rugitus insonantes.” Vide Bodini Comment. in Oppian. p. 63.May we not reconcile these statements by considering the Albanese dogs of the Latin historians—Pliny, Solinus, and Curtius—the Indians of the Greek authors—Strabo, Plutarch, Diodorus, Ælian, and Pollux—and the Albania of the former, the India of the latter? The inhabitants of Albania and India were both excessively addicted to hunting—Strabo L. xi.θηρευτικοί τε καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ οἱ κύνες αὐτῶν εἰς ὑπερβολήν.

The Iberian dog is mentioned by Julius Pollux, Oppian, and Nemesian—the latter poet merely saying the breed is not to be despised by sportsmen;

Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 126.

and the former recommending it to be crossed with Sarmatian blood,

Oppian. Cyneg. L. i. 397.

Darcius records the strength, courage, and velocity of the Albanian breed;

Darcii Venusini Canes.

and two lines below mentions the dogs, “quos dives Iberia pascit,” as if distinct from the Albanese—which, if Asiatic, they certainly resembled. It is, however, possible, that Darcius may allude to European Iberia, or Spain. Indeed, the geographical appropriation of Oppian’s Iberian dogs is doubtful in the opinion of commentators. Brodæi Annotationes in Oppian.Brodæus assigns the Iberian horse of Oppian (Cyn. i. vs. 284.) to Asia; but the people mentioned by the poet under the same name, in connexion with the Celts, in the episode at the conclusion of his second Halieutic, are evidently inhabitants of Western Europe. Jones’s Oppian’s Halieutics.And again—his description of the tunnies “rushing from th’ Atlantic deep,” into the Mediterranean, and of their subsequent capture along its shores, places the Iberians a second time in the West:

Oppian. Halieut. L. iii. 623.

however, whether Asiatic or European, it is sufficient for our classification that the dogs were of the pugnacious class.

The modern representative of the classical Albanese occupies a more extensive district than his ferocious prototype, who was confined to the region between Colchos and Armenia; whereas his descendant is found in Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus.

Of the classical Albanian, in his character of a dog of war, Valerius Flaccus has left us the following very animated description:

Valerii Flacci Argonaut. L. vi. 107.

And the fame of his tribe, as spread over these countries at large, is celebrated by the chaste poet of Barga in his 5th Cynegeticon, with the same song, decies repetita, of leonine and elephantine quarry:

P. Angelii Bargæi Cyneg. L. v.

Opportunity offers, in introducing the dog of Arcadia to the reader’s notice, of speaking of the semiferous race of lupine dogs, the demi-wolves of the ancient Cynegetica.⁠[344] The cross of the wolf and dog is of considerable antiquity; indeed the belief of its existence may be traced very generally through the popular works of the classic ages. Under the Spartan dog, in the second class, I shall again allude to hybrid dogs, and refer to Mr. Hunter’s paper on the subject in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. At present, it may be stated that the cross of the wolf and domestic dog is an established one, and that the breed, so obtained, has been carried forward for many generations. Aristotle, I believe, first remarked the sexual intercourse of these congeners in Cyrene; and, from the fact as stated by him, Cardan Vulgar Errors. B. i.(“a great inquirer after truth, but too greedy a receiver of it,” according to Sir Thomas Brown,) inferred the gradual degeneration of wolves into the canine type.⁠[345] “Ut lupos et canes,” says Brodæus in Oppianum, “mutuò coire fatear, Diodori, Ovidii, (‘Deque lupo concepta Nape,’) ac complurium facit auctoritas.” As the mule is born from the horse and ass, remarks Galen, so a mixed breed may be generated from the wolf and dog.⁠[346] The race of old reported to have been sprung from the latter connexion was that of Arcadia, the Lycaonian; thence called, peradventure, Lycas by Simonides, and Lycisca by Virgil and Ovid—Scaliger.“Mista lupo canis est signatâ voce Lycisca.”⁠[347] That the Lycas of the canine epitaph was of lupine origin, we may conjecture from the name; but the Cean poet specifying other localities as the scenes of his hound’s exploits in life, and Pollux calling her Λυκάδα τὴν Θεττάλην, some other kennel may put forward a claim, instead of that of Arcadia, for the honour of the breed; or the name may be merely an appellative distinction, unconnected with lineage;—still the monumental elegy is deserving of citation:

Simonides emendatus, ex Polluc. Onom. L. v. 47.

Gratius contrasts the docility of Lycaonian dogs, the Τεγεῆται of Oppian, with the intractability of the Indian,

Cyneg. vs. 160.

The breed of the northern part of Peloponnesus, having been of great note, and the son of Pelasgus Ovid. Metam. L. i. 198.(“notus feritate Lycaon”) having been converted into a wolf—the first subject, it may be, of lycanthropy—the dogs indifferently called Arcadian and Lycaonian, were probably, says C. Wase, Vide Pausan. in Arcad. c. ii.“heirs of his own body naturally begotten.” Many Arcadian hounds are found in the Ovidian pack, among the mistaken pursuers of the unfortunate son of Aristæus—

Euripidis Bacchæ.

possessed of great speed and resolution:

Ovid. Metam. L. iii. 209.

The poet elsewhere bestows on the hound of Arcadia the local epithet of Mænalian, from Mount Mænalus—

Artis Amator. L. i.

Is it not probable that some of the hounds of chase, bestowed by the Arcadian God on the Goddess of hunting, were culled by his goatish majesty from the kennels of the country of Lycaon, where Pan himself gratified his sporting ardour?—the brace of pie-balled—the leash of long-eared—and the spotted hound?

Callimach. H. in Dian. vs. 90.

The other seven which Pan contributed to Dian’s pack, being θάσσονες αὐράων, and destined for more timid quarry, are placed under the Spartan family, of which they were the fleetest members.

Whether all the dogs “of Arcas kinde,” as sings Golding’s Ovid’s Metam. B. iii.Sir Arthur Golding in his “worke very pleasant and delectable,” were demi-wolves, and “gaunt as any grewnd,” I cannot take on myself to decide; but it is a fair inference, from the evidence adduced, that lupi-canine crosses predominated, in all their ferocity, in the kennels of Arcadia—not indeed to the exclusion of canine indigenæ of pure blood, but enough to give a ferine character to the general type.⁠[348]

The Hyrcanian, savage as he was, is reported to have increased his natural ferocity by engendering with the tiger:

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 159.

And to the subsequent generations of this cross Bargæus gives speed in pursuit, and courage in attack:

P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. v.

The breed of Hyrcania, having escaped the notice of Aristotle and his copyist Pliny, is of course omitted by Solinus, (whose work entitled The Governour. B. i. c. xi.Polyhistor, however “mervaylous delectable” in the opinion of Sir Thomas Elyot, is a mere breviary of the twice-told tales of the too credulous Aristot. Hist. Animal. L. viii. c. 28.Roman naturalist,) but the same fabulous union with the tiger is recorded by them as the parent stock of the Indian dog. May not the Indian and Hyrcanian, though separated by Athenæus and Pollux, have been deemed identical by the Deipnosoph. L. v. c. 8.Stagirite?⁠[349]—To the tiger-cross of Irak, the compound epithet λεοντομιγεῖς is applied by the learned grammarianPollucis Onomast. L. v. c. v. 39. just cited, as if the “fera semina” of the first connexion were leonine. The ferocity of the breed, contrasted with the timidity of the stag, affords an argument to Lucretius against the Pythagorean doctrine of a promiscuous transmigration of souls:

Lucretii L. iii. 748.

By the archbishop of Thessalonica the Canes Hyrcani are mentioned amongst the ἐπίσημα κυνῶν γένη of his commentary on Homer (ad Iliad. ρʹ.) but they are not found in either of the poems; nor, indeed, do I remember in the Iliad or Odyssey any dogs distinctively marked by their geographical appellations.

The plaintive wailing of the old nurse, Carmé, over her daughter, the nymph Britomartis,

H. in Dian. vs. 190.

in one of Virgil’s minor poems, amended by Heyne, refers very pathetically to the companionship of the Hyrcanian dog in the mountainous chase—

Titus Andronicus Act ii. sc. ii.

though associates from a Cretan kennel would have been more in place—

Ciris vs. 307.

De Venat. c. x. 1.

The Locrian dog, much esteemed by Grecian sportsmen, is particularly employed by Xenophon in the boar-chase; but I know not to which of the territories called Locris he should be appropriated, nor whether common to all. Nor do I find in him properties sufficiently characteristic of the family of bellicosi to place him here with confidence—and yet I no where see him used in pursuit of timid fugacious quarry.⁠[350] Oppian (no authority for classification) introduces him between the Egyptian and Molossian—here then let him stand—Oppian. Cyneg. L. i. 374.βουκολίων οὖροι, Λοκροὶ χαροποί τε Μολοσσοί. The following beautiful little epitaph of Anyta is admitted, merely because its subject, the fleetest of musical hounds, bears the name of Locris—

Anyta Epidauria, apud Scriptores Græcos Minores. Oxford, 1829.

for I am by no means convinced that the title is any thing more than an individual appellative (unconnected with locality) bestowed by a Grecian lady, perhaps, on a valued pet. Darcius of Venusium places the Locrian with the Arcadian, and others of the pugnacious class.

Joan. Darcii Venusini Canes.

The Carthaginian poet alone has commemorated the “acres catuli” of Libya, his native country,

Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 128.

and from him probably, Fracastorius (a learned physician of Verona, who wrote a short poem of some merit, “de curâ canum,” eleven centuries later,) may have derived the Canes Libyci of his Alcon, recommended for the savage chase.

H. Fracastorii Alcon.

It cannot be granted to Conrad Gesner that the Libyan of the African poet is the Metagon of Gratius; nor is the resemblance between the former and the Egyptian of Oppian sufficiently clear to justify an inference of identity. Indeed our materials for forming a judgment are far too scanty. We know no more of the “Incola arundiferi Nili”De Venatione L. i. of Natalis Comes than we cull from the credulous historians of the Egyptian dog, Ælian and Solinus, relative to his fear of crocodiles. The former naturalist reports Ælian. de Nat. Animal. L. vi. c. 53.οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες καὶ ἑλεῖν, καὶ ἀνιχνεῦσαι τὰ θηρία σοφοί· οἱ δὲ Αἰγύπτιοι φυγεῖν δεινότατοι, κ. τ. λ. Polyhistor. c. xv.“E Nilo nunquam nisi currentes lambitant, dum à crocodilis insidias cavent,” adds the author of the Polyhistor.

The Pannonian breed of Canes bellicosi, of high courage, were employed in actual war, as well as its mimicry the chase. Παίονες stand at the head of Oppian’s long catalogue, and, upon his principle of omnifarious commixture, are recommended to be crossed with sagacious Cretans—

Oppian. Cyneg. L. i. 395.

The Veronese poet makes a twofold distinction of the dogs of Pannonia in his cynegetical effusion, entitled Alcon. In the first class, he places the Pannonii truces, as already cited, adapted for the chase of fierce prey; in the second, Pannonii agiles, for timid, innoxious quarry:

H. Fracastorii Alcon.

The Pannonii truces are noticed by Julius Pollux, and also their consimilars of Magnesia—both evidently of the Epirote breed. The former are also mentioned by Nemesian, Cyneg. v. 126.

Ælian characterizes the Magnesian war-hounds as φοβεροί τε, καὶ ἄγριοι, καὶ ἐντυχεῖν ἀμείλικτοι; and states that the horsemen of Magnesia,⁠[351] in the Ephesian war, were each accompanied to the field with a Canis Venaticus, the dogs collectively first assaulting the enemy, backed by the pedestrian soldiers, and lastly by the cavalry; who did not charge till the canine warriors Ælian. Var. Hist. L. xiv. c. 46.προπηδῶντες ἐτάραττον τὴν παρεμβολήν. The Μάγνητες are merely named by the poet of Anazarbus, in his first Cynegetic, vs. 372.

Of all the pugnacious dogs of the classic file, the most renowned were those bred on the continent of Epirus, and denominated, from one of its principal districts, Molossian: of which Aristotle records two varieties, the one for ordinary hunting, the other for guarding flocks, houses, and property. The fabled origin of the breed is consistent with its high repute in the kennels of antiquity. For, on the authority of Nicander, we are told by Onomast. L. v. 39.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—

Of this Molossian prototype the fortunate proprietors were, successively, Europa, Minos, Procris, and Cephalus; and, somehow or other, as he passed from kennel to kennel, amidst heroines and heroes, or whilst in the temporary keeping of Diana, (who seemingly bestowed him on Procris,) he was metamorphosed into a wolf-greyhound, under the name and character of the Ovidian Lælaps. See Class iii. Vertragus.

The prowess of the Canes Molossi rendered them most useful auxiliaries in the field of battle;⁠[352] and they were equally prized in the contests of the circus and amphitheatre. Their war praises are sung by the classic muse of Darcius, in a style worthy the purest age of Roman literature, nor are their other merits forgotten by this accomplished poet:

J. Darcii Venusini Canes.

But our citations must be made from writers of an earlier date, and the character of these dogs derived from coeval, or at least original, sources. The attachment and fidelity of Epirotes to their masters formed a remarkable feature of their tribe—so much so, that Statius tells us the soldiers of Molossia wept over their faithful canine companions, slain in war:

In Epiced. Pileti Ursi.

—a manifestation of kindly and affectionate feeling, of which their congeners of an earlier date, on the authority of Tryphiodorus, were totally unworthy:

Tryphiodori Ἰλίου Ἅλωσ. vs. 608.

In the capacity of dogs of war, they do not fall under my plan; nor indeed as οἰκουροὶ, nor as fighters in the Venatio of the amphitheatre, do they strictly come within this arrangement. On these points of their character the reader will find illustrative anecdotes in Julius Pollux, Pliny, and Solinus.

As dogs of the chase, their strength, size, and undaunted courage, enabled them to contend with the most terrific wild animals;⁠[353] and we are assured that the lion himself has been mastered by the dog of Epirus—the tiger, pard, panther, and boar, have yielded to him. The epithets applied to the Canis Molossus all indicate his fire and resolution. De Nat. Anim. L. iii. c. ii.Ælian calls him θυμικώτατος; Virgil, “acremque Molossum,” (Georg. iii.); and Seneca uses the same epithet, “teneant acres lora Molossos,” (Hippolyt. Act i.) But there is much difference of opinion whether he was an open or close hound, when employed in the field.⁠[354] To the latter conclusion I am induced to accede from the following passage of Statius,

Achill. L. ii.

On the trail of his game I believe him to have been a mute limier or limehound, (whence Venationis Aprugnæ Leges. L. i.Savary’s term echemythus,) and never to have opened until the quarry had started from its lair—being even at that time less noisy in his bark than the purely sagacious breeds. His silence or closeness is clearly indicated by Gratius, where he orders the yelping Etolian dam to be crossed with a Molossian sire,

Cyneg. vs. 196.

Will not the praises of Lydia, of Martial’s well-known epitaph, place her among the savage inmates of a Molossian kennel?

Martial. Epigr. L. xi. Epigr. 70.

—her education and her quarry will, at least, assign her to the muster-roll of our first class.

But of the Canis Molossus Venaticus, enough;—matchless as he was for stoutness, before Britain was discovered and its race of Canes bellicosi brought into competition with those of Epirus, he at last was compelled to yield the palm of ferocious hardihood to the British bull-dog, and to succumb to his superior prowess:

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 179.

The second variety of the Epirote noticed by Aristotle, though out of the pale of this epitome, is worth recording from its classical associations, and because it possesses in an eminent degree the canine qualities lauded by Luciani Fugitivi.Lucian, τὸ φυλακτικὸν, τὸ οἰκουρικὸν, καὶ τὸ φιλοδέσποτον—the De Naturâ Deor. L. ii. 63.“tam fida custodia, tamque amans dominorum adulatio, tantumque odium in externos” of Cicero. To this I give the name of Canis Molossus Villaticus, and include under the title the οἰκουρὸς, οἰκοφύλαξ, πυλαωρὸς, τραπεζεὺς, ostiarius, pastoralis, pecuarius, &c.; names derived from the different uses to which the dog was applied. Let the Villæ Custos of Columella be our type:—De Re Rust. L. viii. c. 12.“amplissimi corporis, vasti latratûs canorique, ut prius auditu maleficum, deinde etiam aspectu terreat, et tamen nonnunquam, ne visus quidem, horribili fremitu suo fuget insidiantem,⁠[355] &c.”—Here we place the sharp-toothed watch-dog of Hesiod’s agricultural injunctions;

Opera et Dies. vs. 602.

Metamorph. L. viii. p. 553.

—here, the “canes rabidos et immanes, et quibusvis lupis et ursis sæviores, quos ad tutelæ præsidia curiosè coloni fuerant alumnati,” of Apuleius;—here, the pastoral dogs of Varro (Geopon. L. xix. c. i.) Fronto (Geopon. L. xix. c. ii.) and Varro (De Re R. L. ii. c. ix.);⁠[356]—and here too those, in general, of the poet of Syracuse, the canine guards of flocks and herds, so prettily alluded to, in the instance of Lampurus, by the goat-herd boy of the eighth Idyllium,

Theocrit. Idyll. viii. 63.

and the milk-fattened ban-dog of Claudian,

Claudian. in Eutropium. L. i.

The notices in Homer of these dogs are numerous; (see Iliad. κʹ. 183. μ′. 302. ρʹ. 109.) and their watchfulness, as nightly centinels, is sung in classic hexameters by the poet of Venusium:

J. Darcii Venusini Canes.

Pitisci Lexicon Antiquit.

Pitiscus tells us, on the authority of Eustathius, that it was customary with the ancients to have porter-dogs⁠[357]—“moris erat atriensibus fores servari à canibus,”—such were the πυλαώροι and τραπεζῆες of Homer, the attendants at the door of Telemachus, κύνες πόδας ἀργοὶ, (Odyss. υʹ. 144.)—the house-dogs of Patroclus, nine in number—of whom two were slain, and offered on his funeral pile, (Iliad. ψʹ. 173.) and the κύνες ὠμησταὶ of Priam—whose anticipated reckless laceration of his dead body—πολίον τε κάρη, πολιόν τε γένειον—by the πυλαώροι, is pleaded by the aged king to deter his ill-fated son from contending with Achilles. (Iliad. χʹ. 69.)—Such too were the gemini custodes of Evander, which followed their rustic king to the dormitory of his Trojan guest. (Æneid. L. viii. 461.)⁠[358]

As an attribute of the porter-dogs, speed was utterly unnecessary, though given to those of Telemachus, above cited: and that they generally possessed it not is implied, I think, in the question of Ulysses to Eumæus, as to the character of the “unhoused, neglected” Argus;

Odyss. L. xvii. 307.

Ulysses Aldrovandus, Spelman, and Ducange, have left us the many titles of the watch-dogs of the classic and middle ages, in their respective works. See Aldrovand. de Quad. Digit. Vivip. L. ii. Canis Epitheta; and the Glossaria of Spelman and Ducange. The title οἰκοφύλαξ, derived from the office of the animal,

Aristoph. Vespæ.

occurs in a pretty epigram of the Locrian poetess on the picture of a Grecian lady; but is there probably applied to a domestic pet,

Nossis Locrissa. Apud Poetas Græcos Minores.

To the “hylax in limine” of Virgil (Ecl. viii.)—the “vigilum canum tristes excubiæ” of Horace (L. iii. Od. 16.)—I need not refer; nor indeed to the Catenarius of Seneca (de Irâ, L. iii.), nor the δέσμιος of Artemidorus (Oneirocrit. L. ii. c. xi.) To say that all these passages afford instances of Molossian Canes custodes, would be going too far. They merely exemplify the use to which trusty, vigilant individuals of the pugnacious canine race were applied, and the functions they performed, in the rural and domestic economy of Greek and Roman households. Satir. L. ii. S. vi. vs. 114.Horace, however, particularly specifies Epirotes in the capacity of house-dogs—“domus alta Molossis Personuit canibus”—as if they were the usual custodes of patrician houses. For much of the point of his pretty fable rests on the sumptuousness of the town-house, wherein dwelt the city-mouse, joint-tenant with a biped lord, “in locuplete domo,” the appointed place of rendezvous for the rustic friend.

To the same tribe, for want of a more appropriate one, (unless the reader would place them on a Libyan or Egyptian file,) I assign the “exquisitior custodia” of Massinissa, the canine guardians in whose protection he deemed himself more safe than in that of his fellow-men;

J. Darcii Venusini Canes.

L. ix. c. 13.

“Parum fidei in pectoribus hominum reponens,” says Valerius Maximus, “salutem suam custodiâ canum vallavit.”⁠[359]

But we are going beyond our prescribed bounds, and must return to our text-book, the Cynegeticon of the Faliscian; who next introduces to notice the Canes bellicosi of the British isles, a parent stock of native growth. We have no information of any source from whence these could have been imported into Britain, and, as Strabo states that they were exported from thence into Gaul, it is inferred that they were indigenæ. Whether the De Quad. Digit. Vivip. L. iii. c. viii.Canis bellicosus Anglicus of Aldrovandus, or the Canis Mastivus, omnium maximus, animosus et pugnax of Ray, be alluded to in the following lines of Hist. Animal.Gratius, is doubtful. Possibly the poet may include both breeds, as the animal combats of the Roman amphitheatre were supplied by the Procurator Cynegii with the finest specimens of our war-dogs, without reference to minute distinctions;

Gratii Cyneg. vs. 174.

Their hardihood in seizing the bull is celebrated by Claudian in the well-known verse,

De Laudibus Stilic. L. iii.

In the early authentic record of the Canes Venatici of Britain by the royal sportsman, Edmund de Langley, three sub-varieties of our Canis bellicosus are enrolled, in addition to the mastiff:

Mayster of Game. c. xvi. fol. 67.

“Alaunt is a maner and natre of houndes and the good Alauntz ben the which men clepyn Alauntz gentil. Other there byn that men clepyn Alauntz ventreres. Other byn Alauntz of the bocherie.⁠[360]

“Thei that ben gentile shuld be made and shape as a greyhounde evyñ of alle thinges sauf of the heved, the whiche shuld be greet and short,” &c. Mayster of Game. c. xvi. fol. 67^b.“Commonly Alauntz byn stordy of here owyn nature and have not so good witte as many other houndes have. For if a man prik an hors the Alaunt wil gladly renne and bite the hors. Also thei renne at oxen and at sheep at swyne and to alle othere beestis or to men or to othere houndes for men hav seyn Alauntz sle her maystir, and in alle maner wise Alauntz byn inly fell and evel undirstondyng and more foolish and more sturdy than eny other maner of houndes,” &c.

fol. 68.

“That other nature of Alauntz is clepid ventreres, almost thei bene shapon as a greyhounde of ful shap, thei hav grete hedes and greet lippes and greet eeris. And with such men helpeth hem at the baityng of a boole and atte huntynge of a wilde boor. Thei holde fast of here nature but thei byn hevy and foule and ben slayn with wilde boor or with the bulle and it is nat ful grete losse,” &c.

fol. 68^b.

“The Alauntz of the bocherie is soch as ye may alle day see in good tounes that byn called greet bochers houndis,” &c.—“Thei byn good for the baytyng of the bulle and huntyng of the wilde boore whedir it be w^t. greihoundis at the tryste or w^t. rennyng houndis at abbay with inne the coverte,” &c.

The first and second of the above sub-varieties appear to have had some commixture of Celtic blood in their veins—indeed the name of Ventreres receives a ready solution in the Latin term Ventraha, by which the greyhound is designated, according to Barthius, in an ancient MS. of Gratius, where the more usual reading is Vertraha—(Veltracha.)

Viewing the “canes gravioribus aptæ morsibus” of Britain to contain only two principal indigenous sub-varieties, the bull-dog may be adduced as an animal of the most ferociously brutal aspect, and most invincible courage in the creation.⁠[361] The mastiff surpasses his congener as much in size, as he is inferior to him in ferocity.⁠[362] See Caius de Canibus Britannicis.

Blount’s Ancient Tenures.

To these truculent dogs, εὐφυεῖς πρὸς κυνηγεσίας, according to Strabo (L. iv.), as well as resolute in war, our rude ancestors were beholden for the destruction or expulsion of beasts of prey from these islands. The wolf and the wild boar yielded to their prowess;⁠[363] and they are thence sometimes called Canes luporarii in ancient tenures.

Having mentioned the bellicosi of Molossia and Britain in verses already cited, Gratius compares others to them in the sequel;

Cyneg. vs. 182.

J. Vlitii Venatio Novantiqua.

These were perhaps very cunning and savage varieties of the dog of Laconia, and classed in consequence by the poet with the family of pugnaces; though more properly belonging to that of nare sagaces. The words of Gratius are of doubtful signification, and the passage may be corrupt. Wase’s Illustrations of Gratius.He either means, as the British dogs excel in courage, so do the Athamanian in cunning—which is his usual antithetical mode of stating opposite qualities—or else, as the British dogs surpass the Molossian in stoutness, so they equal the Athamanian, Thessalian, and Epirote in subtlety. This interpretation accords with the known properties of the British bull-dog. It is singular that dogs of two districts, Acarnania and Etolia, adjoining each other, and only separated by the river Achelous, should have been of such opposite qualities—the former so mute, the latter, in the sportsman’s phrase, so open.