Note 234 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

Εἰ δὲ μή πω ἐθέλοις σκυλακεῦσαι. Schneider is of opinion that Arrian is here cautioning the courser against running a bitch, whom it has been deemed prudent to put aside from taking the dog, and whose milk-vessels are distended towards the close of the period of gestation, as if she were actually pregnant. This interpretation is ingenious, and may be tenable; but as I find no such caution in any ancient author, and have never seen any mischief accrue from running a bitch at the time alluded to, (though her speed is certainly impaired by the constitutional plethora of the period;) and, moreover, as it magnifies a very unimportant circumstance in the physical condition of the bitch, and is, on the whole, rather a far-fetched interpretation, I have followed Blancard and Zeune in the more usual acceptation of the verb σκυλακεύειν, i. e. catulos nutrire. No man in his senses would think of coursing a brood bitch while in the state described in the text.