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 molossian 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 animal, but there is nothing to serve as a standard 
of comparison in deciding the point. Dogs when put under the tape shrink 
wonderfully, and the dog “as big 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 
