LEPUS 245 



between the methods of modern and ancient coursing. In both 

 periods the votaries were of two classes ; those who wished to 

 fill their pot, and those who wished to test their hounds. The 

 latter have always shown the true spirit of sport, and the words 

 of Arrian {pp. cit., 108-109) — " For coursers, such at least as are 

 true sportsmen, do not take their dogs out for the sake of 

 catching a hare, but for the contest and sport of coursing, and 

 are glad if the hare meet with an escape" — could not be 

 improved upon in our own time. Thus the spirit of the modern 

 courser breathed in Arrian, whose ideas are shown to have 

 advanced in no small degree as compared with those of his pre- 

 decessor and acknowledged master, Xenophon. 



In point of time others preceded Arrian, since several of the 

 great writers of classical Rome described or mentioned the 

 sport. It was, for instance, casually touched upon by the 

 poets Virgil, 70-19 b.c. (Georgics^ i., 307), Horace, 65-8 B.C. 

 {Epod., 2, 35), and Ovid, 43 B.C. — a.d. 17 ; the latter's descrip- 

 tions [Metamorphoses, i., 533, and vii., 780) of a single-handed 

 course being the first found in the literature of classical Rome. 

 Martial crowned the hare chief of all quadrupeds in the line — 

 inter quadrupedes inattea ^ prima lepus {Epigrammatica, xiii., 92), 

 and Julius Pollux {Onomasticon), Oppian [Cynegetica), and 

 Nemesian (Cynegeticori) each wrote special treatises on its 

 capture. The later Romans held it in great estimation, hunted 

 it with a special breed of hounds, and confined it, with other 

 animals, in special enclosures. Thus Varro [De Re Rustica, 

 bk. iii., chap, xii.) states that Pompeius formed a park 

 ("septum") in France (Gallia Transalpina), containing the 

 compass of four thousand paces, wherein he preserved, not 

 only hares, but also dormice and bees ; and the " leporarium " 

 therein was so constructed as to be impenetrable to cats, 

 badgers, wolves, and eagles. 



The honour surrounding hares, has, however, been very 

 unequally distributed, and there have been nations and sects, 

 such as the followers of Zoroaster, as well as the Mohammedans, 

 Copts, and Jews, to which their flesh was, or is, entirely 

 forbidden. 



' " Turn gruibus pedicas et retia ponere cervis, 

 Auritosque sequi lepores." 



^ In some versions ^/ci««. 



