THE CAT OF ANTIQUITY 13 



prefers being worshipped as a divinity, has yet con- 

 sented to live with many nations on easier terms ; 

 that, notwithstanding her gentle imperiousness, she 

 is, as a rule, willing to accord to humanity the free- 

 dom she demands for herself ; and that the beauty 

 of well-ordered life — as that fair life of Athens — 

 has ever appealed to her exquisite sense of smooth- 

 ness and moderation. Sparta, with its rigorous 

 study of discomforts, might have repelled her sadly ; 

 but in Athens every instinct of her little heart 

 would have been sweetly satisfied. It was her 

 home of homes, and the unkind fates barred her 

 way. 



When at last the cat entered Greece, the glory of 

 Greece had waned. Artemis remembered that, in 

 Egypt, Pussy had vaguely symbolized both moon 

 and sun, and took the small night-roaming creature 

 — furry as her old Arcadian emblem, the bear, — 

 under her protection ; but Artemis was no longer 

 the goddess "excellently bright." Her lustre was 

 dimming fast ; and the old myth, imported hazily 

 from the East, which represented the cat moon 

 devouring the grey mice of twilight, had faded from 

 the minds of men. As a plaything, as a pretty 

 household toy. Pussy was carried from Africa to 

 Europe a few hundred years before the Christian 

 era. Diodorus tells a strange story of a mountain 

 in Numidia which was inhabited by a common- 



