The Ancients - Dogs in Ancient Greece

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Man's best friend has been at our side for thousands of years. Ancient Greece was no exception, and although some of the types of dog that were popular back then might seem unfamiliar to us today, tales of their loyalty, dependability and downright cuteness certainly are not.From dog names, to their function in Greek religion, to their usefulness–including their possible deployment on the battlefield–what do we know about dogs in Ancient Greece? In this episode Tristan is joined by Dr Owen Rees of Manchester Metropolitan University to find out just that.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, I'm really excited for this episode to finally drop because you are going to be absolutely blown away by it

because we're talking all things dogs in ancient Greece from dog names to their use in Greek religion to how they could be used for instance their possible use in sieges or in warfare what do we know about dogs in ancient Greece to answer all the questions surrounding this, I was delighted to get on the podcast to go and meet in person a couple of months back Dr Owen Rees. Owen, he works at Manchester Metropolitan University. He knows lots of things on ancient Greek history, particularly ancient Greek warfare. He's been on the podcast a couple of times before to talk about combat trauma and then to shine a light on the often overlooked important naval clash at artemisium during the persian wars owen is also a lovely lad it was great to go and

meet him in person finally and to talk all things dogs in ancient greece it was a really fun chat and i know they're going to absolutely love this one so without ado, to talk all things dogs and ancient Greece, here's Owen. Owen, great to have you back on the podcast and great to meet you finally in person. I know, finally, here we are. Thank you very much for having me back. I loved all the times I've been on before and it's great to meet finally. I know, enigmas. Enigmas and mysteries have now been cleared. Exactly. Best friends on earth. Well, soon, of course. You have been on the podcast a couple of times before to talk about the Battle of Artemisium

and to talk about combat trauma in the ancient world. Those podcasts rocketed when we did those well over a year ago now. So we had to get you back on. You've been asking to come back on to talk about this topic. And it is a huge topic because dogs in ancient Greece. Dogs, man's best friend, even back into ancient Greek times. Yeah. So this is it. I mean, dogs, I mean, I'm a dog lover. Many people are. I know it can be quite a divisive topic nowadays between cats, dogs, and no pets at all. But I am a dog lover.

I love dogs. And I also think dogs are a good insight into areas of human culture and human interaction that perhaps we don't see as often. We get to see a level of affection perhaps you're not used to seeing, or we see just close friendships between man and dog. You are right. I mean, the cliche is dog is man's best friend. You've always got to kind of temper that with, but are we its best friend? So I'm not going to spend today telling you how beautiful these relationships are and how amazing it is. Because even today, our relationship with dogs aren't brilliant. You know, for every person who has a pet they adore and love, there are people who are drowning puppies.

And there are people who are giving back dogs that they shouldn't have had at Christmas. And, you know, let's not pretend this is an idyllic relationship. We have quite a varied relationship with dogs. We have quite an eclectic use of dogs. Let's be honest, it's as much a use of them as it is a friendship with them. But that is also true in the ancient world. It's true in the ancient Greek world. You'll see a lot of comparisons. There were a couple of divergences, but it's the same sort of thing. These are mixed relationships with the animal. I think it's quite interesting, Owen, from what you were saying there. We

sometimes think of people in ancient history, ancient Romans, ancient Greeks, Mesopotamians or whatever, as being very different to the people we are today. Is dogs an interesting lens to reach to realise how, yes, on the one hand, they were very different culturally to the people we are today, but there are still similarities. They are still human. Absolutely. And you can't help, especially if you are a dog owner or a dog lover, you can't help reading some passages or looking at some imagery and smiling because it just looks so familiar. I mean, for myself, I've got two young children and I've got two small dogs. And there is a beautiful series. There's a couple of vases that show it, the classical Greek vase of a baby or toddler crawling on the floor face to face with a small sort of lap dog. And I can't help but smile because I have that exact same photo between my babies and my dogs. So yeah, there is kind of a, not a universality, but very much a common thread that you can associate with. Also true of the dog themselves. Dog behavior hasn't really changed very much.

They still want to please, they're still loyal. But you get things like, we have depictions of a dog and a child playing fetch from the classical Greek world. We have imagery of a boy taunting a dog with a turtle, sort of dangling above it, and you can see the dog kind of agitated whilst it looks at it. We get images of dogs watching as food gets passed around. You know, it's just so relatable. And it could easily just be a photo in the modern day, but it's not. It's a vase or a painting or whatever it is from two and a half thousand years ago. It's like one of those memes, you know, like how it's been, how it's going. Yeah.

How it started, how it's going. And it's identical. Exactly. So, like, I mean, you mentioned that a Greek vase is there. So let's talk about, let's say, I guess our source material that we have for looking at dogs in ancient Greece. I'm guessing we've got a mixture fictional literature. We've got a few manuals from the ancient world generally. Classical world in particular, we have the manual of how to hunt with dogs by Xenophon, which doesn't just go into the details of how to train your dog, but also how to breed them, how to control breeding, what to do with a dog who's not

doing as they should be doing. It even goes as far as what to name your dog for a good name that is short, sharp, and encourages a quick recall from the dog. So yes, we've got lots of literary evidence, but we've got an awful lot of archaeological evidence. So yes, we have paintings. We have, not just in Greece, there's the famous mosaic, the Roman mosaic of the dog, beware of the dog, just things like that, which again, brings a smile, very familiar. But there's also bones. We have dogs in the archaeological record in lots of different sites, in lots of different contexts. We also have epitaphs on basically tombstones erected to the dog. Beautiful, no doubt, talk about it later. But again,

a very different form of evidence. And what's so interesting about dogs is that we have all these types of evidence that all funnel in to give us a more nuanced understanding of Greek people's relationships with dogs. There's so many avenues we can go down now. You mentioned the lap dog, so we'll go to the lap dog soon. But another thing I know you want to talk about, you want to clarify very quickly, first of all, this whole idea of dog breeds in ancient Greece. Talk me through this. Yeah, the issue is we hear lots of types of dogs. So there's Laconian dogs, there's Locrian dogs, there's Indian hounds, and the like. Molossian hounds is probably one of the most famous types of dogs. And it creates the impression that these are breeds. And sometimes breed is the useful short term to use.

However, you can't look at it like a modern breed. So modern breeding comes pretty much from the Victorian period. So many things do. So during the Victorian period, dog breeders decided to divide species of dog by their form rather than their actual function. And this was not really seen before. So it wasn't what they did, it was what they looked like that mattered. And this is where certain characteristics of dogs became more pronounced. And that's how breeds become very drastically different. And that's only over the past 150 odd years. We also see the introduction of stud books. The bloodline of a particular breed becomes important to prove this. And in the ancient Greek world, that's just not it. There's none of that. However, what they do have is names that suggest

regional variation. So dogs in a particular region seem to be a particular way. So Locrian is a regional denomination, Indian, very logically. Laconian, that's the land in which Sparta sits. The famous one is the Molossian hound, which is this supposedly big alleged war dog. The Jennings dog at the British Museum is supposed to be one. To give you an idea of just how complicated this idea of breed is, Aristotle describes the Molossian hound. He describes it as a type of dog which there are those which are used to hunt, which do not differ from those anywhere else. And there are those which are used to guard sheep and are much

bigger and much more ferocious. That's two different dogs. He's just described two different dogs and called them both Molossian hounds. This doesn't make sense to a modern mind where we have specific breeds. Surely a sheep dog and a hunting dog, a hunting hound, thinner, faster, more agile, and the guard dog, bigger, more aggressive, more strong. Those are two different types of dogs. But in the Greek classical world, they're not. They can both be called Molossian. And then you need to appreciate that they might just be two different types of dogs as a result. And going back to Xenophon's manual about hunting, he mentions lots of types of dogs. And he says, you know, particular dogs are good for hunting boar, particular types of dogs are

good for hunting deer. But often when he's talking about particular quarry, he'll describe physical characteristics. So they want a small head, they want short legs, or they want long legs, or you want fast, or you want powerful. But when he does that, he doesn't actually then name the type of dog. So what you're getting is, pick the dog that has these traits, not there is a breed that has these traits. Does that make sense? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So in that respect, they're just not the same. So there are types, and you'll hear me talk about types, I no doubt will slip and say breed, because it is the way we talk about dogs. But this is not the same as a modern breed. And we shouldn't think of them like that. Don't think of them as set in stone. If we talk first about like house dogs, who are domestic dogs, what do we mean

therefore by this lap dog, which you mentioned earlier? The lap dog, yes. The lap dog. It's not the dog that springs to mind in classical Greece. The dog that comes to most people's minds is the hunting dog. Various forms, but ultimately the dog that hunts. Which we will definitely get to. Which we will definitely get to.

The lap dog is, the most prominent one we hear about is what's called the Miletian dog. Now, this is often translated into English as Maltese. And the Maltese dog now kind of looks a little bit like it. So you've got a small dog, probably about the size of a Shih Tzu or a Maltese, very fluffy, curly tail, pointy ears, and a very sharp snout that isn't fluffy. It's almost like a Pomeranian. What do you think about that? We see them quite a lot. So like I say, the image of the child or the baby crawling is next to a Miletian type dog. And we also see them described in sources quite a lot. So for instance, we see them going to gymnasiums. So if you're going to go to

the gymnasium in classical Greece, you take your little dog there. Aesop in one of his fables describes people going on a sea voyage and taking their dog, almost like a companion. What we have here is everything you associate with a lap dog. This is a friendly dog. This is a dog in the house. This is supposed to be a family dog, a dog you adore, a dog you dote on. We even start to see in some of the ancient evidence people complaining about spoiled Miletian dogs. And for anyone who does not like small dogs, you'll be happy to hear that even our ancient authors moan about their yapping and not barking properly, things like that. It's all very familiar. One of my favourites is there's an epitaph to a Myletian dog, we think

called Argos, possibly. There's a bit of debate on the translation. We think it's called Argos. But afterwards it says, and he was known as the Bull. And the reason why I love it is you've got this tiny little dog running around called Bull, which just kind of screams of having a chihuahua called Titan or Hercules. And I just love that they have that same kind of humour surrounding these kind of little dogs. Well, you see it like down through history. I mean, my mind instantly goes somewhere like Prince Rupert's dogpert's dog boy you know that one which became like the hellhound yes parliamentarians and all of that and it was just a very small little dog wasn't it yeah

absolutely absolutely and we do often see these little dogs with should we say masculine figures so there's no sort of sense of effeminacy with these dogs um which i think today we do hold that kind of misconception. He says, as an owner of two very small dogs, it's a misconception. So for instance, the Theban commander Epaminondas, there's a small story of him. He's coming out of court. I don't think we're told particularly why he's in court, but as he comes out, he's won, everyone's cheering, and this little Miletian dog jumps up to him and his tail is wagging like the clappers. And it's just a lovely moment where everyone's excited even the dog and you know it doesn't bring him down in any way perfectly normal and it's just quite lovely so yeah the myletian dog these kind

of lap dogs are there they're companion dogs they're loved dogs they're adored and they're doted on in just the same way modern pampered dogs are as well it's really nice and i mean if we went to the other end of the spectrum if if we talk briefly about mythology, because perhaps one of the most famous dogs from ancient history is this huge hellhound of mythology, isn't it? Cerberus. Yes. You mean Cerberus? Of course I do. Of course you do. Cerberus. Yes, I do love Cerberus. So you've got this multi-headed dog. The number of heads does vary between the different myths, but ultimately he's a guard dog. He's a guard dog of Hell itself, of Hades, of the underworld. Yes, absolutely. He is one of those kind of quintessential dogs. Interestingly, he's associated with death as the guardian of Hell,

or the Hellmouth. We do see dogs sort of associated with death quite a lot. One of the opening passage of Homer's Iliad, the famous passage about the rage of Achilles, anyone who knows much about it will know that kind of line. And what I think people overlook is at the end of that line is a passage about bodies being left on the battlefield to be eaten by the dogs and the crows. So whilst I've talked about friendly, lovely house dogs, there are wild dogs, there are feral dogs, shall we say, who are scavenging. And that's an imagery that carries through the entire classical period. You know, to leave people out, to be eaten by the dogs is the greatest offense.

And it's just interesting that dogs are associated with that and service, obviously, with his role. I don't know if he's the most famous dog. Is he? Okay, well, you know, Joe Bloggs here. Maybe he is. But for me, the most famous dog or the most poignant dog in the Greek world has to be the hound of Odysseus, Argos. It is a harrowing scene towards the end of the Odyssey where Odysseus has come home. And he's come home from not only the Trojan War, but his great, I don't know, gap year. Whatever you want to call it. His 10 years lost at sea.

So he's been gone 20 years and he comes home and he's in disguise and he's met a swineherd who knows him from a young man and he doesn't recognize him. And as he's walking up to the palace, he looks over and there in the corner is a flea-ridden mange dog. And it's Argos, his old hunting hound, the hound that he bred himself and he sort of ham reared but left as a pup to go for 20 years and it's possibly one of the most emotive moments where argos who has been kicked and ignored and battered and bruised for this 20 years because no one else cared about him no one else cared about him and there he is on his last legs in his bed and he looks up and he sees odseus in disguise. Dogs are not taken in by disguises, so he immediately recognises his master. And we're told that his ears drop and his tail starts to

whack, but he's too old, he's too tired, he can't get up. Odysseus, in disguise, can't recognise him, can't be seen to recognise him, and he sheds a tear that he immediately has to hide, which he does with success. And as he walks on, the Homeric epic is very clear. Argos watches Odysseus walk on and immediately dies, knowing that his role is complete. His role as the loyal dog is finished because his master is now home. This is the quintessential loyal dog in classical Greece this is everything that a dog is and a dog should be no matter what

lifestyle name no matter how long his master's away he recognises him and he's doing his duty to the last well I'm getting all choked up now

no it's a great story I mean we might not know but do we know if the name Argos remained a popular name for dogs during the Greek period yes

which is why I mentioned the Miletian because we think his name might be Argos it literally literally just means swift-footed. It just means fast. And if you go to Xenophon's list of dog names, they're often just characteristics. So, you know, quick, large bite, big bark, things like that. Obviously, they're a bit more dramatic in the Greek, but that's how they translate. So yeah, swift or fast is a desirable trait. Argos is described as a very fast dog. It just absolutely, it does stay as a popular name.

And so you mentioned that Argos was this hunting dog. We've got to talk about hunting dogs in ancient Greece, don't we? I mean, first of all, hunting dogs, what do we know about hunting dogs in ancient Greece? Who would normally own them? I guess I'm not going to mention the word breed, but I mean, does that kind of vary in all of that? I mean, you take it away. Yeah. So hunting dogs. Hunting has always predominantly been an elite pursuit in Greece. So we are talking, you know, you've got to be able to afford to have dogs specifically for hunting. I mean, if you haven't got time to hunt, you haven't got time for a hunting dog. So we are talking sort of wealthier people. The majority of the types of dogs we're told about,

whether it be sort of Cretan, Locrian, even Indian, they are described by Xenophon as hunting dogs. So numerous types. As I said, you wouldn't use the same dog necessarily for the same quarry that you're hunting. So if you're going for a deer, you need a slightly different type of dog than if you're going for a boar. I mean, if you think about the logistics of it, the deer is very fast. You need a very fast dog. We consider a deer hound versus a bulldog in the modern breeds. Very different shapes, very different types, very different reasons. You want different things from them. Or perhaps more like a bullmastiff, I suppose, would be a better comparison actually than a bulldog. So yes, so this is how we encounter hunting dogs. They are

the most prolific that we hear about and that we see. It can get a bit confusing because we do see hunting dogs in domestic environments, which doesn't quite fit with how we kind of visualize hunting dogs today, which are often kept outside because you want them to be slightly more aggressive than perhaps you want in the house. But there's issues with understanding the evidence and what we're actually looking at. But yeah, so the hunting dog is prominent. It is a marker of prestige. It's also used in art quite differently. So this is the problem with evidence. As soon as you've got something like a dog in a scene of art, you go ask the question, what's it doing there? And there's a couple of ways of looking at it. You can look at it from very much a WYSIWYG approach. What you see is what

you get. There's a dog there, because dogs are there. However, we do start to notice that dogs often appear, hunting dogs often appear in scenes of courtship, especially between men and boys. They also appear in scenes where young men are seemingly going through a transition of some sort. For instance, departure scenes, military departure scenes, where a young man's going to war. Sometimes we see the dog. And a lot of art historians associate dogs with the chase, hence courtship scenes. It's the chase, it's the sexual chase that's going on. But also with childhood and youth so you know why are we seeing dogs in military departure scenes that's when a boy becomes a man he's going

to perform his masculine duties you know perhaps there's something else going on there so hunting hounds yes there is a very literal use for them but they also serve other kind of more cultural meanings as well it's so interesting you mentioned that elite nature as well because i'm guessing therefore well you know me big alexander the great you know that kind of area because he has a named hunting dog doesn't he and he has that he has i think he names one of his cities after his dog too so he's always naming them after animals yeah it's either a horse or a dog or something isn't it? But it is quite interesting how the hunting dogs, we think of hunting with ancient Greece,

whether it's from Xenophon or whatever, but it must be key also to remember that very different to hunting dogs today, as it were. And actually, perhaps the majority of dogs in ancient Greece weren't these hunting dogs. Could we say they were more like these companion dogs? Well, that's an interesting question, actually. Where are the predominant types of dogs? See, this is the interesting question, actually. Where the predominant

types of dogs are. See, this is the problem where our evidence comes to an end, isn't it? I think for the evidence as it stands, you have to accept the hunting dog is the most prolifically mentioned and present. That's pretty much all that can really say. Really, the most prolific dog would have been the... That's really the most common dog you're going to come across. It's the stray dog. And this is the dog that's much maligned, looked down on, problematic. You know, these are your scavengers. So yeah, it's interesting you mentioned kind of Alexander the Great's dogs and their names.

I can't remember Alexander the Great's dog. It's Peritas, is it? Because as I said, Xenophon does go through a list of names. And they are quite just revealing because again it's a revealing understanding of their relationship with dogs so xenophon like gives us a couple you've got like they all translate as words like spirit raider growler hasty steadfast we've already mentioned swift-footed or fast barker slayer most is a great name they're not human names and They're not human names. And that's the bit that kind

of causes a small pause. They're not human names. They don't humanize animals. Whereas, at least in Britain, we do. A dog is a family pet. It has a name. Quite often, people do give their dogs human names. And it's even got to the point where people dress them, and they give them clothes, and it's very common to dress them up. And there's a real humanisation of dogs today that the Greeks do not do. Just as much affection, just as much love, they even bury them, much like they do humans, but there is not that humanisation of them. Let's go on to another of these big topics now. You mentioned it just before we started recording and it's one I didn't initially have down on my notes, I should have done. This is dogs and ancient Greek religion. Now this seems actually really interesting,

quite a big one, isn't it, Owen? Yeah, dogsy Greek religion is fascinating and it's also rather paradoxical. Firstly, we are told categorically by Plutarch and also by the travel writer Pausanias that the Greeks never sacrificed dogs to the gods of Olympus. Categorical. So you're kind of, okay, so they don't sacrifice dogs, which is not what they said. So actually we do see dogs used in sacrifice. For instance, we see them used and sacrificed to Hecate, who's not an Olympian goddess, but dogs are used as sacrificial victims for a process of purification. This is often where we see dogs used. We see them used in rituals of purification.

Sorry, so who was Hecate? Hecate is sort of a Chthonic goddess, goddess of the underworld, goddess of, you know, and often associated predominantly with magic and things like that. Fascinating in our own right. And we do hear of these purification rituals. Basically, you sacrifice a puppy and rub it all over the person who needs cleansing. So to the Greeks, pollution, the spiritual state of pollution, what they call miasma, is a serious problem that needs resolving, hence the purification ritual. Now you can be polluted through loads of different ways. So whether it's through killing someone,

you become spiritually polluted as a result. Even as normal processes like giving birth, you create a polluted state, someone dying in your family, your oikos, your household becomes polluted for a period of time until it's purified. Now, we shouldn't visualize every time a family member dies, everyone gets a dog rubbed on them. That's not what's going on here. This is a very specific example we're given. But it is there. So they are used for purification i mean we also see purification in military contexts for yourself macedonians and i think even the thebans are both described as marching armies through the dismembered elements of a dog as a purification ritual

so a dog is presumably sacrificed first and then quartered and an army is marched along a road either side of these bits. You are completely right there and I was actually going to bring that up because that happens in Babylon right after Alexander the Great's death when there's a huge crisis among the infantry. Well it's a bit more complicated but the sources label it between the infantry and the cavalry but basically the generals and Alexander the Great's veteran infantrymen and finally there's a reconciliation and the reconciliation event of the army is to cut a bitch dog in two and to march the whole army in between the two halves of this dog on this huge plain outside of Babylon. It's supposed to be a

ritual purification ceremony. It's a ceremony which actually ends with 30 of the leading troublemakers being crushed to death under the hooves of elephants. So it's not very much a purification ceremony in any way or form. It's completely bloodthirsty. It's a symbol of what follows next, but it's a nice linking to the next area we're going to go to after this, unless you want to say anything else. Yeah, so sticking with religion for a moment, we do also see it is alleged late source, so you've always got to take those with the pinchers up. It is alleged that the Spartans sacrificed dogs to the god Aenealius. So Aenealius is basically the god of the war cry. He's often strongly associated with Ares. Sometimes they're kind of synonymous with each

other and other times they're very distinct. So we do also get, it's not just Hecate, it's not just as one example. We do also see it referred with Enialius as well. In fact, Plutarch, late source again, however, himself very knowledgeable about the religious history of his sort of region. He's no idiot. He does know what he's talking about. He's a good researcher. So sometimes you do have to listen to him. And he actually says outright, nearly all the Greeks, nearly all of them used a dog as a sacrificial victim for ceremonies of purification. So, you know, whether or not we take these specific instances as factual, we have to accept this is probably highly likely. And with other elements of the use of dogs, it doesn't come as a great surprise.

In April 1982, armed forces from the United Kingdom and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands. This month, 40 years later, we are dedicating a special series of episodes to finding out what this conflict was all about and what it was like to fight on either side. The Seaharriers were flying over and they attacked us. They trusted us and we felt we had let them known. I really don't know whom I would be now if I had not gone through that experience when I was 19 years old. You can't take a submarine prisoner, you have to find it, you have to destroy it.

And if it goes wrong, it goes catastrophically wrong. To follow along, tune in every Friday to the Warfare podcast from HistoryHit. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. On to the next topic, which is dogs in warfare. Now, dogs in classical Greek warfare. You sent a paper across which is very enlightening on this topic beforehand, so I'm looking forward

to us talking about this now. You are, of course, ancient Greek military historian, first and foremost, shall we say? Yes, yes, absolutely. So talk me through dogs in ancient Greek warfare. The first thing you need to understand with dogs in classical Greek warfare is that they're not prepared to be there. And this is one of the misconceptions that you often come across. It's regularly touted that the Greeks had war dogs. Now, a war dog or a dog of war, shall we say, is a dog who is trained and prepared for the military environment. It's not impossible. We know enough examples in later history where it works and is used. The Greeks did not have this. What they did have was dogs in war. So some of our sources mentioned dogs being used. And whilst we're

going to talk about the different uses, you need to understand throughout this, they're not prepared for this. They're not trained for it. More often than not, dogs are used for their natural abilities. So what can dogs do better than humans? They can listen. They can smell. They can bark. They can create an alarm. So we do see dogs in war. We see them as guard dogs. We see them on almost sentry duty sometimes, ad hoc. There's no suggestion that there's a permanent body of dogs used for this. It's just very much, it's in Naxos, I think it is, where the commander sends men out with dogs just to walk the walls. So if the person doesn't spot it, the dog might, to raise the alarm. We also see dogs used in the most common place you'd expect to find dogs in war. You've

got to think, why would a dog be on a battlefield if you didn't train it to be there? One answer would be because you didn't bring them. These are the feral wild dogs or the stray dogs that I talked about earlier. They're just about because they're following camp, they're following food, they're following prospect of eating. The other reason is because you've brought war to where the dogs are, i.e. the civilian sphere, a siege. This is where we see dogs most prominently. I think we mentioned him earlier, Aeneas Tacticus, who wrote this treatise on how to defend a siege, basically. It has a few passages on what to do with dogs, and it's because dogs are going to be there. In it, we hear about using dogs for guard duty. We hear

about taking dogs and chaining them up outside the walls to basically create an alarm system. We also hear about an ingenious method. I love it. It's the first known example of a dog being used as a messenger. A messenger dog. A messenger dog. Yeah, exactly that. So he describes the people of Ephorus and the people of Thessaly use this system. So they take a dog, they put on what looks like a collar, but actually on the inside of it is sewn a little pouch. And inside that pouch is given a little message. And you send it out into the city. You don't send it out of the city, you send it into the city so that it'll return to its owner. That's the idea. The reason why you're doing that is because Aeneas Tacticus spends half of this book telling you the greatest threat in a siege is betrayal. So if you've got people who you think

might be feeding information to the enemy, you need to secretly pass messages through the city. He's very impressed with this method. So these are the different things we see. What's interesting about that example is, again, there's no single implication that that dog is trained. So what he talks about is you take a favourite dog from someone, take him to another point in the city, give him the message, and then release the dog. The implication being dogs are very loyal, dogs know where they should be, dogs will go home. The dog would then walk to its master. That's presuming that's a well-trained dog. I'll tell you now, my dog would not do that. It would sniff, it would get lost, it would start eating something.

So this is not a foolproof system. But this is what I mean, they're not trained. And this is made clear in Aeneas Tacticus because alongside how to use dogs, he has sections on what to do about them. So dogs have a great propensity to bark. This is fantastic. We want them to bark. We want them to raise alarms, unless it's going to give us away. So when you're planning a sally and you're moving men around to a particular area, if dogs start barking, that can alert the enemy camp that something's going on. Rather nastily, he describes how to solve that problem, which is to cauterize the dog. So he actually says to pre-empt this problem, cauterise the dogs. He doesn't say where, he doesn't say in particular

how, he just says cauterise them. And actually the idea of inflicting pain on an animal to keep it quiet is not unique to the Greeks. We see the Parthians do something similar with horses and their tails. They bind tails very tight to keep them quiet. I don't know if it works. You need to talk to an animal behaviourist about that. But the Greeks definitely thought it worked. The other issue he talks about is in a siege, you've got a problem of the garrison who are defending the walls getting tired. So he talks about, Aeneas Taxicus talks about having three deployments, basically. So you've got ones who are resting, ones who are actually on duty, and ones who are getting ready. So as a result, you've got a lot of men walking around, armor clattering about, as well as the sounds of war outside. This is a lot of chaos. This is a lot of noise. This is a scary environment. This is a

hectic environment. Dogs freak out. And he basically warns you of this the dogs will freak out so you need to tie them up i should point out for anyone who thinks oh that's nice it's nice of him to worry about the dogs he's not worried about the dogs at all he's worried about the chaos the dogs will cause by running around in a panic that's what he's trying to solve so yeah inner siege is where we predominantly see the most and it's probably the only time we hear about them that is believable. We have other instances where it's alleged that dogs are literally fighting on the battlefield. How you can envisage a dog fighting a heavily armoured hoplite in a phalanx, I'll leave that to your imagination. It's just not possible.

And consider it's very hard to get a dog to charge a line. If it is even doable, that takes a lot of training or a lot of conditioning at least. So yeah, we do see dogs used in war, but not in a professional capacity and not in a trained capacity. This is probably made clearer by the fact that in the Hellenistic period and the Roman period afterwards, and much later in the modern period, we know what a dog used in the military looks like. We know that they require specific handling. We know that they require specific training. And the Greeks do not have that. And they don't even suggest that they might. The one place you would look to combine dogs and war would be Xenophon himself. Xenophon,

as a writer, yes, he wrote about dogs, but he also wrote about warfare. He wrote about training cavalry. He wrote about his own memoirs, The Anabasis. It's his time as a mercenary. He's an experienced man of war. He is fascinated by how other cultures fight war, and he is intrigued by innovation. He also loves dogs. He loves handling dogs. He goes into ridiculous detail on how a dog's leash and collar should be made and how to stop a dog from breeding. He's really engrossed by dogs. He clearly likes them, maybe not in an affectionate way, but as a hunting tool, he definitely is enamored with them. He does not mention them in war at all.

Thucydides, the historian of most of the Peloponnesian War, does not mention dogs at all. Herodotus barely mentions them. And when he does mention them, it's highly suspicious, to the point where actually when you start to break it down, he mentions them once in the Persian army on a list of things Xerxes is bringing with him that show off how wealthy he is. He mentions lots and lots and lots of Indian hounds, status dog. This is about his wealth. The other time is a small battle between a Greek city-state and some peoples in the Balkans. And he mentions they actually had what's called monomachia, so solo duels. One-on-ones.

Dog fights, basically. Dog fights. Dog fight, horse fight, and man versus man. This is parenthesis, that's it today, versus... Pionians. Pionians, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, absolutely. It's often used as an example of, oh, see, because if you translate it loosely, it's man against man, horse against horse, dog against dog for the battle. But that's if you

very loosely translate monomachia, machia meaning battle, fight, mono, solo, single, one. It's one on one. This is what's going on. If you believe the story, always got to add that caveat. So if we believe the story at face value, we have to accept these are duels. They're not battles. So is it possible the Greeks had fighting dogs? Yes. Is it possible those dogs were used in combat? There's no evidence to suggest that's the case. It's so interesting with all that, when we think of perhaps one of the legacies, I'm just thinking, I grew up with the likes of Rome, Total War, and all that kind of thing. A legacy is sometimes you get is this idea of war hounds, war dogs. But when you look closer at the evidence, you see you have this evidence for dogs in war, but not exactly dogs of war.

Yeah, precisely that. And it is a really important distinction to understand because it changes the way we understand their experience. So the dogs who are in this environment are scared. The reason why they're so good as guard dogs, the reason why they're so good as sentries is because they're in a hypervigilant state. They are freaking out. They are not happy. They have been taken from their home environment or wherever it is they're kind of kenneled, if you want to use a modern term, and they are chained up outside. That is not where they're supposed to be. Or if they're used to being chained up outside, they've been moved to the outside of the walls. This is not where they live. This is not their norm. And that's why they're

such good guard dogs from a human perspective. Look at it from the dog perspective. This is horrific. Absolutely horrific. They are not happy about this. That's one aspect that we need to consider. The other aspect is it's possible that Greek men took dogs with them. The reason why I throw this out there is because a lot of, as I mentioned earlier, departure scenes, soldiers going to war, dogs are in those scenes. Not all the time, but they're often there. Face value, the dog's going with them. And there is some peripheral evidence or sort of indirect evidence that might corroborate that. So for instance, we hear of a guy preparing for the Battle of Salamis. So Athens has been evacuated. He's crossing over to Salamis. He's left his dog. Dog swims that channel, but dies, and he's buried there. The author who tells us about this tells us that the mound to

the dog is still there. So it's like this little tourist site. So again, plausible. There's also the Painted Stoa. Painted Stoa is this massive mural in Athens at the Agora. And it's basically the Athenians painted this mural to depict all the important mythological events in their history. It's the Trojan War. It's the Battle of the Amazons, stuff like that. But at the end is the Battle of Marathon, clearly aligning Marathon with the mythological past, the heroes of the past. That's about the importance of that battle. According to one of our sources who claims to have seen it, there's a dog in that image. And if you Google the Stoa, there are artistic reproductions. If you look

closer you'll find the dog. There it is. So yeah, there is allegedly a dog at the Battle of Marathon. Only one. It is interesting though. It seems that sometimes elite figures do bring their dogs to them on campaigns. We talked about Alexander the Great already, but another example, and this is going into the Hellenistic period, but we have Hallicimachus. He's 80 years old when he's fighting his last battle against Seleucus at Coropadium. And there's one story, because it might just be a story, but he's saying that his dog was there and his dog found his dead master's body and stayed by his master's body for a few days afterwards, basically,

as it was rotting out, that kind of thing. But I guess it's one of those examples where it might be facts, it might be fiction. Maybe there's an element of truth based on it, in the fact that sometimes people did take their dogs to war and that sometimes, you know, this did happen. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and it's not unique, is it? There's also a bit of a motif going on there.

You know, the loyal dog who'll never leave his master. You know, I think pretty much any town in Britain has a version of a similar tale with a dog that wouldn't leave the graveside. You know, it's such a common trope. And I'd love them all to be true. It's one of those where, you know, is the myth bigger than the reality?

But, you know, sometimes you're like, I don't care. I just don't care. Because it's just a beautiful image and it encapsulates the undying loyalty of the dog. You know, it kind of echoes Argos as Odysseus comes home. It's the same thing. It's that undying loyalty to the end and no one can break that bond.

You did mention actually earlier Xenophon, something which we haven't talked about, something which is sometimes overlooked. Collars. The ancient Greeks had collars for their dogs too. They did. Yeah, they did have collars. They had collars, they had leads or leashes.

They certainly did. Xenophon does describe an ideal collar. He describes it should be soft, it should be broad, and it should not spoil the hound's coat, which is just a really weird tidbit just to put in there. But yeah, and the leash should have a noose to hold onto, but ultimately nothing else, which suggests that there are some leads that have more things on them than that. But he doesn't tell us what they are. He just says it should be simple, simple noose attached to the collar, done. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Dogs do come with equipment. Dog handling has always been predominantly the same. The more you want from

your dog, the more you need to be able to control your dog, the more you need to be able to put it on a lead or take it off that lead for whatever you're using it for. So yeah, yeah, it's again, very relatable to today. i wonder if he struggled as much to put a lead on the dog as much as i do on my shitsy depends on the dog i think so i bet the hunting dog doesn't do this yeah some of it just depends on the nature of the dog doesn't it no yeah i do yeah i do think that's quite important actually because this is the other misconception people have with you know with enough breeding and enough training you can get any dog to do anything i mean you can get most dogs to do a lot but some dogs are just better at it than others there is a reason why you know guide dogs

go through such rigorous training and such rigorous betting because not all dogs are made equal for the task so that makes sense so yeah you know never you there's an average training you go and you can't remove the personality from the dog or Or if you have, you've killed the spirit of the dog. So we've talked about dogs in warfare, dogs as hunting, dogs as companions in the house, a bit about dogs as farming, helping the farmers as sheepdogs, and of course in religion and ritual. Now, are there any other key areas where dogs were used in ancient Greece? Yeah, it doesn't make for pleasant listening. Oh, okay. Well, we've got this far, so we might as well. This is it. If you do content warnings, this might be the time for it.

We see them used in medicine and this isn't pleasant. Dogs are still used in a medical capacity to this day, but usually as support dogs in whatever means it is. So of course, most people are used to seeing it with guide dogs, but you also get dogs that help people who have very severe allergies and can't be around certain chemicals. I've also seen some amazing stuff you see with dogs to help people with PTSD and help them when they become anxious and the like. So dogs used in a military capacity is not ancient and doesn't exist anymore. We still use it. We just don't use them in the same way. To give you a classic example, it's not Greek, but Pliny the Elder, so we're going into Rome, he talks about Miletian dogs, going back to them.

And if you've got a particular problem with your stomach, you've got pain that you need relief of in your stomach, he suggests a remedy where you put a Miletian dog on top of you, which creates this image of a dog pawing at the stomach to try and help. This is quite funny, really, to think about. It's not for a happy reason, though, because the idea being that the dog gets the ailment and the dog will die so that you don't. Kind of a transference kind of thing. Not pleasant. So we do sort of see these images. The Hippocratic Corpus, which incorporates a lot of classical Greek writing as well as later, does talk about the use of dog. And I say dog because it becomes more of an ingredient rather than Pliny, who's used it as an apparatus. So I'll give you an example. Puppies are used to solve a problem in gynecological medicine. are used to solve a problem in gynecological medicine. In ancient Greece, if a woman was struggling to conceive or having some other issue associated with the womb, we do hear one recipe where you're advised to cook and eat the fat of puppies as your medicine. Basically, puppies were

considered wet, they were considered moist, and many of the problems associated with the womb were considered to be because the womb was looking for moisture, or there was an issue with a balance of dry and wet in the female body. So the idea being, add something wet, solves the problem. So that's one example. Another one, which is a bit more graphic, this is associated with possibly the womb being out of place. So the Greeks do have this concept that the womb can move and it will move if necessary, usually on the search for moisture. This is associated with many different issues, infertility being just one of them. And so we hear of this recipe where you have a puppy, which you have to kill, disembowel, stuff with aromatic herbs and basically roast it.

And then that is used as the basis of fumigation. So the fumes are directed through the cervix to the womb. And the idea being that you're giving wet vapor directly to the womb and keeping it in place or bringing it down in place if it's moved or whatever the reason may be. They do have slightly different explanations to what it might resolve. So yes, we do see dogs used specifically as an ingredient. I can see the look on your face. So I should probably... Yeah, I should probably do the look on your face, because it is one of horror, absolute horror. You've got to ask the question, why? What was the logic? So I've mentioned the idea of the

puppy being wet. A counterpoint being, if the issue in the body is that there is too much moisture, you would use an old dog because old dogs are considered dry. There's that kind of simple explanation as to why you're doing it. But there's also other reasons. The dog is associated, well, the female dog in particular, so the bitch is associated very strongly with pregnancy, also sexual desire. So dogs have this reputation in Greece of being horn dogs, basically. They're constantly either having sex or have sex for a long time. They're also either having sex or have sex for a long time. The reason why they're associated with pregnancy is because they're considered the best

at giving birth, large litters, prolific breeders, if allowed to, to the point where the Greeks assume that they have more than one womb to explain why they can have so many. And actually, if you look enough into it, often dogs and human women are compared quite a lot. Pandora, for instance, in Hesiod, is described as having the mind of a dog as kind of a simple example. And it's to do with breeding or pregnancy. One of the verbs for pregnancy is kuein, which is dogging, to be a dog, or at least derived from the same word. This is why actually using dogs to assist something like pregnancy to focus specifically on the womb itself makes internal sense in their medical understanding of how the body works. So yeah, so dogs and motherhood, but also dogs with women in general. Strong comparisons. In the Greek mind,

I should point out very clearly, not in mine. This is a Greek conception. So in the ancient Greek world, if a dog is ever eaten, is it only mainly, I mean, do we know primarily for a medicinal purpose? Literary evidence, yes, it appears best in the Hippocratic corpses. But it appears in basically a list on like you're on diet, and it's listed as a dry meat along with pigeon. So these are good meats to eat if you need them. However, we do have evidence of dogs being eaten. The Greeks aren't massive meat eaters. They're not a huge meat eating culture during this period. But we do know that they did. And

we do know dogs would be roasted or more likely boiled. Dogs don't have a lot of fat on them. I'm talking like a chef now. Dogs don't have a lot of fat on them. So you know, you can't, if you roast them, you lose a lot of that moisture. It going to become very dry very tough you know it's like roasting venison but you can do it you gotta be careful because it has no sort of natural fat we do have i mean our best evidence for it comes from the bronze age actually that sort of sites like learner and castro i think it is where we have evidence of the bones and feasts and things like that we also have dog bones at sites of, going back to religion, the sanctuary of the sacred lands of Poseidon. We have them there, suggesting possibly

sacrificial feast. There's also one near a site of Apollo as well. So going back to the point about Plutarch, never used it for the Olympian gods. Archaeology might ask questions of that. It doesn't disprove it, but it might ask questions of that. The eating of dog is not alien. You do wonder, in severe circumstances, how long would you keep the dogs around in a siege that's going on for years? Or if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and no food, it's not beyond comprehension. But it's not talked about a lot. Let's put it that way. I guess perhaps the most obvious or interesting one which probably just highlighted there was you know like if it was a siege and it was really in dire straits wasn't it and people you know talk like you see it even in fictional fantasy stories and whatever you know first we ate the horses then we ate the dogs and

stuff like that so i can imagine like you know a last resort could be there as well couldn't it yeah absolutely and it's good you mentioned horses because that's a good comparison for this today we consider dogs so differently but if you consider it more like a horse you know horses today yes they're used for elite events they're also used as work horses they're also used as food so you know this is kind of where you should see dogs you know no you would not kill and eat your little lap dog but that doesn't mean you wouldn't eat a dog does that make sense yeah no exactly like you think you'd have to do a separate podcast

all about horses and their importance for ancient Greece and all of that. But as you say, it's nice to bring up that comparison, that personal connection

someone might have had to their horse as they did to their dog. We've covered all these areas, but let's also talk about dogs and burial in ancient Greece because we have some evidence

for this too, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. I've mentioned this a few times. I think this is a nice way to end it. So we've talked about all the different forms or uses of dogs. We've talked about hunting dogs. We've talked about guard dogs. We've talked about sheep dog and lap dogs and everything. And sometimes I can come across as quite cynical in many ways, but I think it's important to end on just how much affection was felt for these dogs by their owners. And we see this most clearly in burials. So I mentioned the guy at Salamis, whose dog died swimming over, and then the burial there. And it's not unique. We actually have a

remarkable amount of epitaphs, inscriptions, dedications to dogs that have died. I mentioned the one about the small lap dog who we find out his nickname was Bull. Little things like that, it's just nice, very poignant. It gives us a little bit of insight into the interactions between man and dog. But there's also quite some really heart-rendering ones that draw upon our image of Argos and Odysseus and the real pain that's felt at the loss of a dog. My favourite one has to be, we only have the epigram itself now, but it basically calls upon the viewer. So, "'You who passes me by, do not laugh. I pray, do not laugh, though it is a dog's grave, for tears fell for me and the dust has heaped above me by a master's hand who likewise engraved these words on my tomb. It is just a really emotive inscription where, one, the master is laying his heart out.

He creates the idea of him literally digging the grave himself, putting the sand on top, or filling it himself. This is all done by his hand. It shows the due affection and love he had for that dog. And what I find really sad about it is that line, don't laugh. And it's the idea that it would cause derision for people who don't understand, people who don't have dogs. Because it's not unique. This is just one of numerous epigrams and tombstones and things that we have that say very similar things, the love and the pain that is felt in the loss of that dog. So in that way, there is a real sense of continuity and familiarity with this relationship with dogs. I think death often brings that to the fore, because it's at that point that you see true feeling and true emotion.

Of course, as a piece of evidence, you wouldn't raise a tombstone of any sort to a dog you didn't like. But for this, I just don't think that's important. I think what's important here is that people love their dogs that much and that it was possible to love your dog that much. This is not a new phenomenon. This is not because we love dogs, but more than anyone else used to love dogs we've covered that at the beginning that's a gross misrepresentation of our relationship with dogs but there is always that strong undercurrent of this close affection with your dogs oh and i think it's really nice you ended with that as well because it's so relatable too and you know as we started talking about how you know these ancient people are different from us in so many ways, but there's also similarities.

We're all human after all in the end. And one of the clear ways to see that is sometimes through the treatment of their dogs. And like for me, you know, I've lost a dog. You might have lost a dog as well. And you can relate to those feelings of loss, of sadness. If ever I watch Marley and Me, one of the only movies where I do that is the ending of Marley and Me. I must admit, no shame on it at all. But as you say, it's that really nice, relatable feeling there,

especially when we're talking about people who lived more than 2,000 years ago. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up films like Marley and Me, because I must admit, I refuse to watch any film where a dog is killed. It's just wrong. The dog should survive. Marley and Me is a hard one, yeah. Two and a half thousand years plus, if you consider Homer, you know, these is the same emotions.

It's the same relationships in so many ways. And while there are differences and there are key differences, there is that keen relatability. Owen, this has been an awesome chat. Lovely to meet you in person. Last but certainly not least, tell us a bit about your work. And you've written a few books as well. Tell us all about it. Yeah.

So I'm trying to think. I think I've sold everything I had when I've been on here before. So more recently, I have a book coming out in February. It's an academic book. It's what my PhD has become, which looks at how men transitioned from the domestic sphere in classical Athens to war. So how were they prepared for, how did they leave, how did they depart? And also, how did they come home? And their interactions with their families, their dogs comes up. So, yeah, so that's the latest one that's coming out soon. And I've also just signed a contract to write a book of a global history of the ancient world.

Basically, how people lived away from the centres of culture. So rather than looking at Athens and Sparta for Greece, I'm looking at actually what did life look like at the Black Sea? What did it look like in the south of France as a Greek or as a Roman or as an Egyptian or Nubian or whatever it be? Very, very cool indeed. Keep in contact about that when it comes out in due time, Owen. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Thanks so much for having me. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Owen reese explaining all about dogs and their use in ancient greece that was a really fun chat and i really do hope you enjoyed it if you want more

ancient content in the meantime if ancient history is literally now spewing out of your body fantastic that's what we wanted you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter via a link in the description below if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a lovely rating on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts, that would be greatly appreciated as we continue to spread the ancient history love further and further afield, and I will see you in the next episode.