dogs: ancient and modern. 401 



we are told that young Tobias with a companion was sent bj' his 

 father into Media to recover some money which he had lent to a 

 friend, and that " they both went forth, and the young man's dog 

 with them" (v. 16; xi. 4). 



The Persians, like the Assyrians, had a large breed of dogs 

 like our Mastiff, which they used in war as well as for the chase 

 (Fig. 4). In time of war they were furnished with spiked collars, 

 and savagely attacked the enemies of their owners when urged so 

 to do.* In the chase they were employed for hunting the lion, 

 the wild bull, and the wild ass. Doubtless they were allied to 

 the great Indian dog known to Alexander, and mentioned by 

 Herodotus, Aristotle, Xenophon, and Strabo amongst the Greeks, 

 and by Pliny and Solinus amongst the Latins. Models in 

 terra-cotta of some of these large dogs as used, about 660 b. c, 

 by Assurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon, may be seen in the 

 British Museum. 



The Greeks held their dogs in great esteem, and cultivated 

 two kinds, the large Mastiff-like dog to which I have referred, 

 and a fleeter hound which ran by scent. Xenophon, in his 

 ' Treatise on Hunting,' particularly mentions two kinds of dogs 

 (both Spartan), one of which he calls Castorian, the other Alope- 

 cian, or the fox-breed. He explains that the Castorian dogs 

 were so called because Castor, who delighted in hunting, had 

 most regard for them, and that the others were hybrids between 

 dog and fox, adding that " through length of time the natures of 

 the two animals had become completely amalgamated." f 



Whatever maybe said now-a-days as to the possibility of a 

 cross between dog and fox, it is worth notice that such a cross 

 was believed in by an authority on dogs who wrote about 400 

 B. c, and it also indicates the antiquity of a breed which even at 

 that day was believed to be very old. 



Coursing, as we now practise it, was unknown in Xenophon's 

 day, although the hare was constantly an object of pursuit; but 

 it was hunted by scent, by the kind of hound to which I have 

 referred, and not by the fleeter Greyhound running by sight 



* Pliny tells us how the people of Colophon and Castabala kept troops of 

 dogs for war pin-poses, which used to fight in the first rank and never 

 retreated (Nat. Hist. viii. 61). 



t Xenophon, ' Cynegeticus,' iii. 1. 



