Note 382 — CANES VENATICI. Class II.

The dog, which sits at the foot of the noble statue of Meleager, is, probably, a representation of the animal which assisted the hero of Calydon in his attack of the wild boar—(Ovid. Metam. L. viii. vs. 272.“infestæ famulus, vindexque Dianæ”)—that had laid waste the domain of his father Œneus. (See F. Perrier, Tab. 51. and 52. ex Ædibus Pichiniis, and Montfaucon Antiq. Expliq. Tom. I.) He is apparently a boar-hound, and perhaps of the type of Etolia or Calydon—the names being indifferently applied to the same dog, from Calydon, (the rocky Calydon of the Homeric catalogue, Iliad ii. 640.) the capital of the state, over which the sons of Œneus once reigned.