Natural Htflory of the Ancients. 25 



Dogs frequently go mad during the thirty dog- 

 days, and the difeafe muft be counteracted by 

 fowls' dung being mixed with their food, adds 

 the grave hiftorian, or if they be already fuffering 

 they muft be treated with hellebore. According 

 to Columella, if the tip of a dog's tail be cut off 

 within forty days from its birth, it will never go 

 mad. A dog has been known to fpeak by way 

 of portent, juft as a ferpent ere now barked when 

 Tarquinius Superbus was driven from the throne. 

 " The beft of the whole litter is that whelpe that 

 is laft ere it begin to fee, or elfe that which the 

 mother carries firft into her kennel." 1 



Such were fome current Roman beliefs about 

 the dog. No more celebrated dog than Cerberus 

 appears in claffical mythology. Virgil fpeaks of 

 his " three gaping mouths," and calls him " the 

 gate-keeper of hell reclining in his blood-ftained 

 cave over half-eaten bones." Still more particular 

 is the portrait which the wretched Culex, when 

 untimely (lain and fent down to Orcus, draws of 

 him " Cerberus barks at me with loud bayings, 

 on both fides of whofe neck twifted fnakes briftle, 

 and his bloodihot eyeballs flam forth a blaze of 

 flame ;" and he adds, " Truftful indeed was he who 

 believed that Cerberus was ever mild-tempered." 2 

 Homer did not know his name, Cerberus, but 

 fpeaks of Hercules dragging into daylight " the 

 dog of mournful Hades," and in the Odyfley 

 Hercules in the Shades himfelf tells the ftory to 



1 Pliny, "Nat. Hift.," viii. 40 (Holland). 



2 "Georg.,"iv. 483 ; "^Eneid," viii. 296; "Culex,"2i9, 269. 



