20 The Dog Book 



pare also this Assyrian model with the photograph of the molossian dog of 

 Athens, in coat, muzzle and ears, for the molossus, although his ears are 

 broken, had them erect and had a square muzzle. It cannot pass observa- 

 tion that these dogs of Asiatic representation differ from the types shown 

 by the Egyptian artists, who went in for something more like the greyhound 

 in conformation. 



Asurbanipal brings us to 667-625 b. c, and by this time we also 

 have some beautifully executed gem cylinders in which dogs are shown 

 of what can best be described as boar-hound type and possessing good sub- 

 stance, probably a lighter form of the rnolossian type, for they would not 

 all run alike. 



We thus have in the land of the Assyrians dogs of the Thibet mastiff 

 type; another indicating what was later known as the molossian or mastiff; 

 a stout dog with a small drop ear, and a boar-hound style of dog. It seems 

 somewhat strange that we can find but one greyhound, but it is suggested 

 in one of the books on this country that only the truly kingly sports are 

 depicted : the killing of the lion and wild boar, antelope and hare-coursing 

 being left to inferiors. That being the case, of course the greyhound was 

 also omitted. Antelopes and such game were caught and kept in inclosures 

 and tended by specially appointed servants, but the kings and monarchs are 

 shown only when attempting or accomplishing the most heroic deeds. But 

 one greyhound model was found at Nimrud by Layard and in the act of 

 coursing a hare. 



Another author states that the hound in the leash with an attendant 

 must have been four feet in height. We have seen this bas-relief, and in- 

 stead of being over six feet tall, the man looks short and thick-set — more 

 like five feet seven inches in height. The dog at the shoulder (and he has 

 rather high withers) falls short of the man's thigh-joint by two or three 

 inches, which makes his height thirty inches at most. The dog on the 

 tablet appears to be a large an mal, but there is nothing to serve as a standard 

 of comparison in deciding the ^^oint. Dogs when put under the tape shrink 

 wonderfully, and the dog "as t^ig as a calf," Marco Polo's dogs "as large 

 as asses," and Chaucer's alauns "as big as any steers," are only immense 

 by reason of comparison with much smaller ones, while thirty inches would 

 doubtless have been too much for any one of them to reach. 



The dog next appears as a war adjunct, and on the sarcophagus of 

 Clazamanas is a representation of the battle between the Cimmerians and 



