THE DOG IN HISTORY, ART, AND LITERATURE. 13 



" As when dogs and swains 

 In prime of manhood, from all quarters rush 

 Around a boar, he from his thicket bolts, 

 The bright tusk whetting in his crooked 



jaws ; 

 They press him on all sides, and from be- 

 neath 

 Loud gnashing hear, yet firm, his threats 

 defy." 



Homer's most celebrated reference to the 

 dog, however, is, of course, the incident 

 in the Odyssey, in which Odysseus, after 

 long years of war and wandering, returned 

 in disguise to Ithaca to be welcomed by 

 his aged dog, Argus, who went up to him 

 with wagging tail and close-clapped ears 

 and straightway died of sheer joy at his 

 master's unexpected return. 



Ruskin, in writing of the dog in Art,* 

 says : " The Greeks seem hardly to have 

 done justice to the dog. My pleasure in 

 the entire Odyssey is diminished because 

 Ulysses gives not a word of kindness noi 

 of regret to Argus." This is true ; the 

 disguised king spoke no word, for he did 

 not wish to be recognised by Eumeneus. 

 But he did more than merely speak when 

 he saw his well - remembered hound yield 

 up its last fluttering breath at his feet. 



" Odysseus saw, and turned aside 

 To wipe away the tear ; 

 From Eumeneus he chose his grief to 

 hide. . . ." 



Certainly the Greeks did not do full 

 justice to the dog. Outside of Homer it 

 is rarely noticed in their literature, and 

 seldom favourably. In their sculpture also 

 it was not often introduced. In a work 

 attributed to Myron, one of the most 

 skilful artists of ancient times, there is a 

 dog closely resembling our Newfoundland, 

 said to have been the favourite dog of 

 Alcibiades. The two dogs in the familiar 

 "Actseon" group, as also the beautifully 

 modelled pair in the Graeco-Roman group 

 found at Monte Cagnolo, are small 

 hounds somewhat resembling our Lurcher. 

 Xenophon records two species of Spartan 

 dogs. Reference is made to their use 

 * " Modern Painters." 



in battle, for which purpose they were 

 sometimes provided with spiked collars, 

 so that the " dogs of war " was no mere 

 figure of speech. At Marathon one of 

 these dogs gave such assistance to its master 

 that its effigy was engraved upon his tablet. 

 Plutarch, in his life of Themistocles, has a 

 pretty reference to a dog which perished 

 in swimming after its master who had aban- 

 doned it, and who, in remorse, afterwards 

 gave it a decent burial. The Greeks made 

 sacrifice of dogs to the gods of Olympus. 

 The mythical three-headed dog Cerberus was 

 supposed to guard the entrance to Hades 

 and to watch at the feet of Pluto, to which 

 deity a dog and a youth were periodically 

 sacrificed. A great number of dogs were 

 destroyed in Samothrace in honour of the 

 goddess Hecate. 



Among the Romans, also, dogs were at 

 certain periods sacrificed to the gods. At 

 the festival of Robigalia, April 25th, a dog 



GR/ECO-ROMAN GROUP OF DOGS OF GREYHOUND 

 TYPE. FOUND AT MONTE CAGNOLO. NEAR THE 

 ANCIENT LANUVIUM. 

 (British Museum.) 



was offered at the fifth milestone on the 

 Via Claudia.* The Romans were fairly ad- 

 vanced in their knowledge of the dog and 

 his uses. So much so that a classification 



* W. Warde Fowler : " Roman Festivals of the 

 Republican Period." 



