Hunting in the Ancient World 0520051971, 9780520051973

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HUNTING IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Abdalonymus and Alexander at the lion hunt (see 111. 30, p. 77)-

Hunting in the AncientWorld

J . K. A N D E R S O N

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1985 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Anderson, J. K. (John Kinloch) Hunting in the ancient world. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Civilization, Classical. 2. Hunting—Greece. 3. Hunting—Rome. I. Title. DE61.H86A52

1984

ISBN 0-520-05197-1

779.2'O937'6

84-72

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Preface

vii

xi

ONE

The Heroic Hunt

TWO

Hunting in the Greek City-State

THREE

i

The Technique of Greek Hunting

FOUR

The Royal Hunt

57

FIVE

Roman Hunting

83

SIX SEVEN

17

Hunting in the Age ofHadrian Hunting in the Later Empire Notes and Abbreviations Bibliography Subject Index

30

101 122

155

175 179

Index of Authors and Works

188

L I S T OF

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Detail of the François Vase (Attic, c. 560 B.c.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 3 2. Lions attacking cattle, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B . c . ) . Author's photograph. 6 3. Lions attacking cattle, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B . c . ) . Author's photograph. 7 4. Lion hunt. Detail of inlaid dagger from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (late sixteenth century B.c.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 8 5. King Ashurbanipal hunting. Relief from the North Palace of King Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B . c . ) . Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 9 6. Lion hunter in chariot (?). Tombstone from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (late sixteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 11 7. Boar driven by hounds onto spears. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century B.c.). Courtesy of Ms. Anne Stewart. 12 8. Huntsman with hound. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Ms. Anne Stewart. 13 9. Eros with bird snare. South Italian vase (late fourth century B.c.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 21

VII

LIST OF

ILLUSTRATIONS

10. Above, harnessing chariot; below, boar hunt. Attic hydria (c. 520 Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 24

B.C.).

11. Boar hunters on foot and mounted deer hunters. Attic lid (c. 520 B.c.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 25 12. Hare hunt. Attic skyphos (late eighth century B.c.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 32 13. Hunters with body of wild goat. Cretan plaque (c. 675—650 B.c.). Drawn by Miss Emma Faull. 33 14. Above, procession of chariot and horsemen; below, hare hunt. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.c.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 34 15. Above, lion hunt; below, hounds coursing hare. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.c.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 35 16. Return from hare hunting. Attic krater (mid-fifth century B.c.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 36 17a,b,c. Hare hunter following hound; hare and hound; net watcher. Details of Etruscan oinochoe (sixth century B.c.). Courtesy of Seattle Art Museum. 40, 41, 42 18. Deer hunters using javelins against doe. Attic lekythos (c. 500 B.C.). Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 50 19. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Apulian amphora (second half of fourth century B.C.). From E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder ties Königlichen Museums zu Berlin, pl- 954 20. Gazelles driven towards King Ashurbanipal. Relief from the North Palace o f Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.c.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 63 21. King Ashurbanipal crouching in pit. Detail of figure 20. Courtesy of the Trustees o f the British Museum. 64 22a,b. Servants of King Ashurbanipal with nets and stakes. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.c.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 65 23. Deer driven into nets. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 66

B.C.).

24. Servants returning from the hunt. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 66 via

L I S T OF

ILLUSTRATIONS

25a,b,c,d,e,f. Persian nobles hunting on foot and on horseback. Modern impressions of Greco-Persian gems (fifth to fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Professor John Boardman. 69 26. Persian noble at the hunt and banqueting. Tombstone from northwestern Anatolia (fifth to fourth century B.C.). Author's photograph. 72 27. King of Sidon and attendants hunting. The Satrap Sarcophagus (c. 4 3 0 Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 74

B.C.).

28. King of Sidon hunting. Detail of figure 27. Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 74 29. King Abdalonymus and attendants hunting panther. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 76 30. Abdalonymus and Alexander at the lion hunt. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 77 31. Hephaistion and other hunters. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 77 32a,b. Heroic mounted hunter. Mold for manufacture of Arretine pottery (mid-first century B.C.) and modern cast. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 95 33. Heroic lion hunt. Handle of silver pan from Pompeii (before A.D. 79). Drawn by Miss Nancy Conkle. 97 34. Hounds coursing hare and fox. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 200). Author's photograph. 98 35. Rough-coated hounds, followed by mounted hunter, driving hare into net. Glass bowl from the Rhineland (mid-fourth century A.D.). Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 109 36. Smooth-coated Celtic hounds coursing hares. Castor Ware beaker (second century A.D.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 112 37. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Roman sarcophagus (late second century Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 126

A.D.).

38. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 127

A.D.).

39. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 128

A.D.).

IX

LIST OF

ILLUSTRATIONS

40. The hunt as a symbol of Christian virtue. Mosaic from the Basilica of Doumetios at Nicopolis (c. A.D. 525). Author's photograph. 130 41. Hare hunt with tracking hounds and gazehounds. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 250). Author's photograph. 137 42. Boar hunt with hounds and nets. Mosaic from Carthage (c. A.D. 225). Author's photograph. 139 43. Country scenes, including hunting and wildfowling. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 150). Courtesy of the Musee du Bardo, Tunisia. 140 44. Country scenes, including fowlers and huntsmen. Mosaic from Carthage (c. A.D. 350). Courtesy of the Musee du Bardo, Tunisia. 142 45. Horsemen driving stags into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 144 46. Above, mounted hare hunter with bident; below, boar hunt. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 145 47. Above, fowlers with lime-rods; below, stags driven into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. 146 Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 48. Hounds driving hares into net; wild hawk swooping from above. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 300). Author's photograph. 152

x

PREFACE

Whether vanity mislead us or not in the choice of our pursuits, the pleasures or advantages which result from them will best determine. I fear that the occupation of few gentlemen will admit of nice scrutiny: occupations therefore that amuse, and are at the same time innocent; that promote exercise, and conduce to health; though they may appear trifles in the eyes of others certainly are not so to those that enjoy them. The apology offered by Peter Beckford in the first of his Thoughts on Hunting may perhaps serve as an excuse for the limitations of this book, which is concerned with hunting for sport among the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially the practical details described in the texts and illustrated by the archaeological evidence. Several related matters of greater importance are here only touched upon or altogether neglected. The hunt as a source of literary images; religious and funerary symbolism; the heroization of the hunter, especially of the monarch who hunts; the excitement offered to crowds of spectators by the killing of captive beasts—these are topics that the following pages do not attempt to cover adequately, though some aspects of them are mentioned in passing. Nor are professional hunters treated, except to distinguish them from amateur sportsmen. The poor countryman whose snares, nets, and lime-twigs supplied the city market with small game and wildfowl played a not unimportant part in the ancient economy, but fowling is here deliberately neglected. The ancients found neither merit nor excitement in taking birds on their roosts or on the ground, though they were glad enough to eat birds that had been so taken. To shoot flying birds was a feat for legendary heroes assisted by Apollo, the XI

PREFACE

archer god, not the practice of ordinary mortals, and though falconry, a sport of the barbarians, was enthusiastically taken up by the last of the Roman aristocracy, it does not really belong to the ancient world. As for fishing, whether for pleasure or profit, it has at all times been regarded as a separate topic. If "sport" is narrowly defined as physical activity undertaken solely for amusement, few of the ancients qualify as sportsmen. However, if hunters in antiquity enjoyed eating the flesh of their victims, so do many sportsmen of today, though such supplements no longer form an important part of most people's diets. The modern foxhunter justifies his sport on the grounds that it protects the farmers' hen-roosts; the ancient hunter, who defended his flocks from the wolf and his fields and orchards from the wild boar, should not be denied the title of sportsman because his hunting was a work of necessity. Modern, as well as ancient, authors have celebrated the "image of war without its guilt," and found in the hunting field the source not only of health and happiness but of manly virtue. It is certainly within the province of this book to consider how the sportsman appeared to himself; how he wished to appear in the eyes of the world; and how the rest of the world actually thought of him. But I have not probed deeply into these matters, leaving my authors to speak for themselves. Nor have I been overcurious in comparing ancient with modern practice. The modern big-game hunter obviously has little in common with King Ashurbanipal or the Emperor Hadrian, and Xenophon's method of hunting the hare might nowadays seem more proper to the poacher than to a country gentleman. Even where hounds and horses are concerned, William Somervile notes the absence in antiquity of "a regular and well-disciplined pack of hounds," and, after quoting Vergil, adds: "But it is evident that the art of hunting is very different now, from what it was in his days, and very much altered and improved in these latter ages." I have, nonetheless, frequently cited Somervile himself, and Beckford, judging that the works of both these authors enjoy the standing of classics, but I have not troubled the reader with more modern works on hunting, either with horse and hound or with firearms. In the same manner, and also because I consider that he judges Commodus and Honorius better than their more recent apologists, I quote Gibbon's work as a classic, not as an upto-date authority. Translations throughout are my own, unless another source is acknowledged. It remains to add that this book was written in the library of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, where I was Visiting Fellow for 1981—1982. I was at the time on sabbatical leave from the University of California at Berkeley, assisted by a travel grant from the university's committee on research. Dr. Hector Catling, the Director of the British School, and Mrs. Catling helped me in every possible way with kindness and generosity and read and commented on my first draft. Miss Emma Faull and Mr. Christopher Simon also read each chapter as it was typed. Miss Faull's knowledge o f natural history and experience in the hunting field and Mr. Simon's exact and wideranging scholarship were of the greatest help to me. Miss Christine Morris and Mr. Jan xii

PREFACE

Driessen also made valuable comments. Dr. Roger Just and Dr. Don Evely at the British School, Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Macgillivray at Knossos, Miss Virginia Grace, and Dr. Alexis Diamantopoulos are among the many others whose kindness helped to make my stay happy and, at least to myself, useful. Since my return to California, I have availed myself of Mrs. M. A. Littauer's unrivaled knowledge of all aspects of equestrianism in antiquity; Professor Emily Vermeule's vast learning and wise criticism; and the wide sporting experience and sound critical sense of General and Mrs. James Boswell. Of my colleagues at Berkeley, Professors Margaret Miles, Danuta Shanzer, Crawford Greenewalt, Oliver Nicholson, and Charles Murgia have all generously given help, and I am also indebted to the editors of the University of California Press. Mr. Peter Dreyer suggested numerous improvements to the text; and I am grateful to him for lending me his personal copy of Sport in Classic Times by Alfred Joshua Butler. Acknowledgments to institutions that have kindly supplied illustrations are made in the List of Illustrations, but I owe special thanks to Professor John Boardman and Dr. August Fruge for their generosity in sending me photographs from their personal collections and to the Max Hirmer Fotoarchiv for the generous loan of a transparency of the Lion Hunt Dagger from Mycenae. My wife typed and retyped, cheerfully tackling my almost illegible manuscripts and frequently improving the original text by her sensible observations. Finally, to Mrs. Jane Rabnett I am indebted for unfailing kindness extending over a third of a century. To her, therefore, this book is dedicated.

Xlll

1 The Heroic Hunt

But when the rosy-fingered dawn appeared, they set out for the hunt, both hounds and men, the sons of Autolycus and godlike Odysseus with them. They came to the steep mountain clothed in forest, Parnassus, and quickly reached the windy glens. And as the sun, risen from the softly flowing flood of Ocean, was newly striking the fields, the hunters came to the ravine. In front went the hounds, seeking the trail, and behind came the sons of Autolycus, and godlike Odysseus with them, close to the hounds, shaking his long spear. There in a dense thicket couched a mighty boar—a thicket through which the rainy force of the blustering winds did not blow, neither did the sun strike it with its rays, nor the rain penetrate it. So thick it was; but within was a great pile of leaves in abundance. And now the boar was encompassed by the footfalls of men and of hounds as they drew up to him, and he came to meet them from the thicket, bristling along his chine and flashing fire from his eyes, and stood at bay close to them. Then Odysseus was the first to run upon him, grasping his long spear in his mighty hand, eager to strike home. But the boar struck first, above the knee, and tore away much flesh with his tusk, as he rushed sidelong, but he did not reach the bone. And Odysseus hit him, catching him below the right shoulder, and the point of the bright spear went right through, and the boar fell screaming in the dust, and his life flew from him. But the sons of Autolycus cared for Odysseus in friendly fashion, and skillfully bound up the gash, and checked the flow of dark blood with an incantation, and quickly returned to the palace of their dear father.1

1

H U N T I N G IN T H E A N C I E N T

WORLD

The comradeship o f men and hounds; the upland woods high above the tilled fields; the bright spears; the valiant quarry valiantly confronted; the danger; and the victorious return home—the hunt in the ancient world was made up o f all these things, not only in Odysseus's day but a thousand years later. In the world o f the epic, however, the wilderness is not yet wholly on the defensive, and the goddess who rules it is no pretty patroness o f sportsmen, but a dark and dangerous power. Homer knows how golden-throned Artemis stirred up evil for the men of Calydon in her wrath when King Oineus neglected her sacrifices through forgetfulness or ignorance, and how she sent against him the white-tusked wild boar that lived in the wilderness, to lay waste his fields and uproot his orchards. "And the boar was slain by the son o f Oineus, Meleager, who gathered hunters and hounds from many cities. For it might not be overcome by a few mortals, so great was it; and many men it laid on the hateful funeral pyre." Homer knows also o f the strife that arose over the beast's spoils, its head and hide, though he does not name the huntress Atalanta, to whom they were given by Meleager as later poets relate.2 The boar hunt on Parnassus is essential to the story of Odysseus, because it was by the scar o f his wound that he was first recognized when he returned home after his wanderings. By contrast, lion hunts never form part of the plot o f the epics, though the lion is sometimes coupled with the boar as a symbol o f stubborn courage. Thus Hector, brought to a stand by the great ditch in front o f the Greek ships, is likened to a boar or a lion who turns about and glares in his might among the hounds and hunters. "And they, closing themselves like a rampart, withstand him and dart from their hands spears in great number. Yet never is his noble heart troubled or afraid; his valor is the death o f him. Wherever he makes a rush, there the ranks give way." 3 This is an ornament to the story, not part of it. Indeed, the poet's most famous lions are only pictures, fashioned by Hephaestus, the smith o f the gods, upon the shield o f Achilles. On it he made a steading of straight-horned cattle, and the cows were wrought o f gold and o f tin, and with lowing they hastened from the yard to the pasture along an eddying stream, beside the shivering reed-bed. Golden herdsmen went with the cattle, four o f them, and nine swift-footed dogs followed. And two terrible lions among the foremost cattle held a bellowing bull, which was dragged along. The hounds and stout herdsmen gave chase, but the lions, rending the hide o f the mighty bull, gulped his entrails and black blood. The herdsmen were pursuing and urging on the swift hounds, but they turned away from biting the lions, though they stood very close, and were barking and drawing back.4 The poet fails to mention the lion's roar, though in the excitement o f the scene he forgets that his cattle are mere inlays of gold and tin and makes them bellow. So it has been argued that he knew the lion only from works o f art and from travellers' tales. But to what age and part o f the world did those tales belong? The lion was often por-

2

THE HEROIC

HUNT

1. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Detail of the François Vase (Attic, c. 560 B.C.).

trayed by the artists of the Greek Late Bronze Age, whose brilliant civilization perished about the end of the thirteenth century B.C. with the sacking of the palaces round which it had developed. The stories that are told in the Iliad and the Odyssey are set in this age of "Sackers of Cities," but it was centuries later, perhaps in the late eighth or early seventh centuries B.C., that poets of genius (rather than a single "Homer") composed the epics. These poets must have used tales and ballads that, however much their form and substance had been changed over the centuries, preserved some memory of the vanished kingdoms and their glory. To these traditional materials they added much from their own age—an age of reviving civilization and renewed wealth, in which the Greeks were drawn into close contact with the Near East as they had been in the Bronze Age. Greek art, under the influence of Egypt and southwest Asia, entered upon an "orientalizing" phase, and among the Eastern motifs that are characteristic of this period, the lion is one of the most important. The Greek artists of the time copied their lions from Near Eastern prototypes, rather than from nature.5 They treat the lion not merely as a decorative motif but in a way that shows an understanding of the beast's nature. A snarling lion couched upon the tomb of a dead warrior did not need to be explained as a symbol of valor and ferocity. Nor did the poets need to explain to their audiences the symbolism of the lions in their similes. It was enough to say that Agamemnon rushed upon the helpless sons of Antimachus "like a lion."6 If the poet added details, he did so in order to make his picture more vivid, not because his audience needed to be told what lions are like. For example, the shipwrecked Odysseus comes out of the thicket where he has been sheltering "like a lion nurtured upon the mountains, trusting in his strength, who comes forth beaten by rain and wind, his eyes burning in his head. He goes among the cattle and sheep or after the wild deer as his belly bids him." 7 If the argument from the fact that "the Homeric lion . . . is never heard to roar" 8 is pressed, it would seem to lead to the conclusion that not only had the poets never heard lions, but that their sources of knowledge also omitted the lion's roar. That is, the poets were not drawing on the tales of travelers who had encountered lions, but solely on pictures. But Greek art of the time would not have shown the rain and wind upon the mountains, the burning eyes, and the empty belly. Perhaps we should not make too much of the lions' silence, and should remember that, however much the 3

HUNTING

IN THE A N C I E N T

WORLD

new influences from the Near East quickened Greek interest in lions, there must also have been a body of traditional Greek lion lore. In the tradition, Hercules stands first among Greek lion-slayers, and the killing of the Nemean Lion stands first among his exploits. Even in the late eighth century B.C., the Greek artists who reproduced in their own idiom the Eastern motif of the lion hunt may have been reinterpreting it as the story of Hercules.9 Indeed, pictures of the Nemean Lion might almost be imagined on the painted pottery of the Late Bronze Age. 10 At all events, there is more evidence than art and legend to show that a hero of the thirteenth century B.C. might have found lions to hunt among the hills of southern Greece. Nemea is no more than a long day's walk from Tiryns, the birthplace of Hercules according to the generally accepted story. And at Tiryns have been found fragments of lions' bones, in contexts dating from about 1230 B.C.—that is, perhaps a couple of generations later than a believer in the historic truth of the old traditions might place Hercules himself. One fragment, a heel-bone found in a man's grave, might be a treasured talisman brought from overseas. But a second, part of a shoulder, was found among a quantity of broken bones mainly from cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and dogs, some at least of which had been used for food. The discoverers raise the possibility that lions' flesh might have been eaten at Tiryns, perhaps as a magic source of heroic courage. 11 Some memory of the magic may have survived in the tale that Chiron the Centaur reared the infant Achilles upon the entrails of lions and wild beasts and the marrow of bears.12 Chiron's cave on Mount Pelion was not so far from the wild mountains of northern Greece where lions survived until historical times.13 But in the Homeric epics neither Achilles nor any other hero, Greek or Trojan, hunts lions. The poets introduce combats between lions and ordinary men as though they were something familiar in their own time, so that by comparing them with the heroic world they can not only ornament their story but illustrate the distant past.14 Perhaps the Greeks among whom the epics were composed, the Ionians of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, had more direct and recent knowledge of lions than is generally allowed. It has been remarked that in Homeric conflicts between lions and men, the men are generally on the defensive, except when the lion is almost casually bracketed with the wild boar. Thus Hector is compared not merely (as has been noted already) with the wild boar or lion enclosed by ranks of hunters, but also, when he pursues the Greeks, with the hound tearing the hindquarters of a wild boar or a lion in the chase.15 In the second of these similes, if not in both, the initiative is with the hunters, not with the quarry. Not so when Ajax threw his sevenfold shield behind him and retreated, looking about upon the throng like a wild beast, ever turning himself around and moving one leg after another little by little. As when a fiery-colored lion is driven from a steading of cattle by hounds and rustic men, and they do not allow him to 4

THE HEROIC

HUNT

take the fat of the cattle, watching all night long; and he, lusting for flesh, goes straight forward, but achieves nothing; for many javelins fly against him from strong hands, and burning faggots, and he retreats from them, eager though he is; and at dawn he goes away with sorrowful heart; even so did Ajax go from the Trojans, grieved at heart.16 Moreover, the herdsmen are not always successful in their defense. Diomedes falls upon the Trojans like a lion, whom a shepherd in the country, watching over the woolly sheep, wounds slighdy as he leaps over the sheepfold, and does not overcome. He has aroused the lion's wrath, and thereafter makes no more attempt at rescue, but shelters in the steading and fears the wasteland. The sheep, huddled together, are laid in heaps upon each other, and the lion in rage leaps out of the deep fold. 17 Shepherds and herdsmen receive no help from their lords, which is the more remarkable because Homeric princes are given regal perquisites—"the seat of honor, and portions of meat, and full cups"—for fighting in the front rank against human enemies.18 And the kings of Bronze Age Greece, upon whom the epic heroes are modelled, however remotely, may in fact have been the protectors of their people against wild beasts. More than three hundred years before the Trojan War, and more than eight centuries before the composition of the epics, the grave of a Mycenean prince of the early sixteenth century B.C. was marked with a tombstone on which a battle between lions and men was carved in relief. Presumably these men were not merely the rustics of the poet's similes. (See 111. 2, p. 6.) The central part of the composition was destroyed soon after its erection, when the stone was cast down and a slot cut through its middle so that it could serve as the base for another upright slab. To the left, a lion rears up to attack a large animal, possibly a bull, of which nothing is preserved except the hind feet. Behind the lion's head a man lies on his back with his legs and arms in the air—obviously the lion's first victim. But to the right the situation is reversed. A man advances victoriously from the upper right corner brandishing a club, or perhaps a huge slashing blade, and the lion that rears up in front of him is falling over backward, the victim of a mortal blow. On a second gravestone from the same group of royal graves are the roughly incised outlines of a bull charging from the left, a lion springing to attack him in front, and a man striking the lion from behind with what seems to be a spear.19 (See 111. 3, p. 7.) These tombstones may portray defensive battles, but the most famous of all Mycenean representations of lion hunts at least suggests that the hunters have taken the initiative, perhaps even out of sporting motives.20 This is a bronze dagger blade, found in the richer circle of royal graves, which dates from the later sixteenth century B . C . 2 1 The hunters, inlaid in gold and silver like the figures on the Shield of Achilles, are young men, beardless, tall, and slim-waisted. They are clothed only in short trunks; 5

H U N T I N G IN T H E A N C I E N T

WORLD

2. Lions attacking cattle, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B.C.).

but they are well armed, and seem to have sought out the lions, not merely to be beating them off. One is an archer, who crouches as he draws his arrow to his cheek. He keeps well back, behind three companions who are protected by huge shields, made of ox-hide and slung from the shoulder so that the bearer has both hands free to manage his long spear. A fourth shield-bearing spearman brings up the rear. The hunters have come up with a small pride of lions, of whom two are in full flight. But the largest springs upon the men and beats down the foremost, who falls headlong in front of his shield, while his companions press on to the rescue. Or did the artist perhaps intend the viewer to imagine the shield-bearers not following each other, but "closing themselves like a rampart," which gives way when the lion charges? (See 111. 4, p. 8.) For though there can be no direct connection between the epic similes and these works of art, buried and forgotten eight centuries before the poets' time, the Homeric lion hunts seem to be closer in spirit to the Mycenean past than to the contemporary Near East. Here, for instance, is Ashurbanipal of Assyria describing his own exploits in about 650 B.C.: The young of the lions grew up in countless numbers. . . . They became fierce and terrible through their devouring of flocks, herds and people. With 6

THE HEROIC HUNT

their roaring the hills resounded, the beasts o f the plains are terrified. They keep bringing down the cattle of the plain, they keep shedding the blood o f men. As if the plague had broken loose, there were heaped up the corpses o f dead men, cattle and sheep. The shepherds are in mourning day and night. O f the deeds o f these lions they told me. In the course o f my march . . . their lairs I broke up.22 We must o f course suppose that the shepherds and herdsmen did not merely weep and implore the king for help. There must have been nights when the lions were beaten back with empty bellies, retreating before the countrymen's javelins and blazing faggots. But the deeds o f kings might have been expected to attract more attention in distant Greece than those o f peasants—unless, o f course, there were Greek travelers who had themselves been benighted in lion-menaced steadings and lived to add this experience to their tales of foreign adventures. But surely the tellers would have insisted on the remoteness o f the lands in which their adventures were set? And o f this the poets make no suggestion at all. Ashurbanipal's pleasure in the hunt is explicit, brutal, and fed in part by selfcongratulation and contempt for his inferiors: I, Ashurbanipal, King o f the Universe, King o f Ashur, in my recreation on foot seized a raging lion of the plain by its ears, and with the help o f Ashur and Ishtar, lady of battle, I pierced its body with my own lance.

3. Lions attacking catde, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B.C.).

7

THE HEROIC

HUNT

5. King Ashurbanipal hunting. Relief from the North Palace of King Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.).

I, Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of the land of Ashur, in my royal sport, I seized a lion of the plain by its tail, and at the command of Ninurta and Nergal, the gods in whom I trust, I smashed its skull with my o w n mace. I, Ashurbanipal . . . scattered that pack of lions. . . . Urtaki, the King of Elam, w h o had fled, seized my feet . . . a lion sprang upon him . . . he was afraid, and implored my majesty for help. 23 If a sportsman is one w h o delights in dangerous physical activity for its own sake, the title cannot be denied to the "king of the universe" w h o grappled with the lions instead of leaving the task of clearing the land to his army. But we may find less sportsmanship in his enjoyment of the sight of the lion vomiting blood, the crippled lioness, the onager mare w h o looks back to see her foal seized by a mastiff. 24 T h e great royal hunts of Assyria, both in Ashurbanipal's times and centuries later, as well as the still older royal hunts of Egypt, have another feature, which is u n k n o w n t o the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey and only slightly attested by the art of the Greek Bronze Age. This is the use of the horse in the hunting field. At first, horses are 9

HUNTING

IN T H E A N C I E N T

WORLD

harnessed in pairs to light chariots, both in warfare and in hunting. In ninth-century Assyria, the royal chariot becomes heavier, carries as many as four men, is pulled by a team of up to four horses, and is accompanied by mounted outriders. Finally, in Ashurbanipal's monuments the king himself is actually shown on horseback as well as in the royal chariot, though over two hundred years earlier the chariot in which Ashurnasirpal (885—60 B.C.) hunted bulls was followed by a led horse, whose elaborately decorated saddlecloth seems to mark it as the king's own mount.25 Greece, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, has little flat land across which chariots could be driven at speed. By the late Bronze Age, most of the plains must have been cultivated or in pasture, and hunting must already have generally been what it is in the epic poems—a sport followed on foot in the mountains: Parnassus, where Odysseus was wounded by the boar, Erymanthus, and the long ridge of Taygetus, over which Artemis strides rejoicing in the boars and swift stags.26 However, the later royal grave circle at Mycenae provides evidence for the use of chariots in the hunt. On a gravestone a lion is shown fully extended in pursuit of a stag. The upper part of the stone is damaged, but certainly showed a chariot with horses at full gallop in the same direction as the lion and stag. Below the horses' hooves lies a prostrate man covered by a large shield.27 The interpretation of the scene is doubtful; perhaps a hunt, but perhaps a battle superimposed upon a chase—"the prince pursues the enemy as the lion his prey."28 It has even been suggested that the pursuing animal may be a large hound.29 In an adjacent royal grave was found a massive gold ring, on which is engraved a stag hunt.30 A pair of rough-maned ponies, with heads and tails raised high, gallop wildly to the left. Above them a stag, its forefeet lifted from the ground, looks back at a chariot. A beardless man wearing a tightly belted loincloth or pair of trews leans forward over the chariot's rail. His left hand is stretched forward to the full extent of the arm and holds a large bow. His right pulls back the arrow. A companion, no doubt the charioteer, leans back slighdy as though to restrain the horses, but the artist has omitted the reins, pole, yoke—in a word, all connections between chariot and team. We may guess that in reality the chariot might have halted to allow the archer to take a steady shot. Admittedly, Egyptian pharaohs are also shown hunting from chariots at full gallop,31 but these pictures cannot be entirely realistic. The pharaoh is always shown alone in his chariot, not accompanied, as lesser men invariably are, by the charioteer who in real life would have left him free to use his weapons without tying the reins round his waist and so running the risk of being dragged if he fell.32 Nearly three hundred years later than the royal graves at Mycenae, about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C., the artists who decorated the walls of the later palace at Tiryns showed chariots in the hunting field. Unfortunately, the scene must be reconstructed from scattered fragments of plaster whose relationship to each other is not always clear, but something of the composition can be made out.33 From a reed brake, a number of wild boars have been driven by hounds. One boar34 charges to the right, legs outstretched in the conventional Mycenean "flying gallop," while three hounds, their white coats pied with blotches of black, blue, or pink, snap at his flanks 10

THE HEROIC

HUNT

t

6. Lion hunter in chariot (?). Tombstone from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (late sixteenth century B.C.).

or leap upon his back to tear at his shoulders. They wear broad collars tied behind the head. The shock of the boar's charge is taken by two boar spears. The hunters to whom they belonged no longer exist, but must have been facing the boar on foot. One hand is visible above the boar's head, guiding the point of a spear downward for a mortal thrust in front of the right shoulder. The weight and impetus of the charging animal have already driven the spearpoint deep into its body. The second spear, belonging to a hunter of whom nothing is preserved, is aimed at the forehead. Other 11

H U N T I N G IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

7. Boar driven by hounds onto spears. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century B.C.).

fragments35 show boars charging into wide-meshed nets of strongly knotted rope, still more hounds, and hunters on foot with spears. Stags and hares also form part of the scene, and with one of the stags have been associated three fragments showing chariot harness and part of the neck of a horse, which may be galloping because the braids of its mane appear to be blown backward. This suggests a stag hunt like that shown on the ring from Mycenae, but the plaster fragments are small, and their relationship to each other very doubtful. 36 Much more can be made of a chariot drawn at a walk past an avenue of stylized trees by a carefully contrasted pair—the nearer horse red-bay; the further, almost obscured by its teammate, white. The chariot is driven by a girl (her face and arm are white; men's flesh, in this and other paintings, is dark red—a convention for distinguishing the sexes that may have been copied from Egyptian art). A second girl stands on the driver's left. Both have black hair curled over the forehead and descending in long ringlets at the right side of the neck. Their dress is plain and practical—a straight tunic, apparently ungirdled, with short sleeves. They are unarmed and have probably driven out together to watch the hunt. The heads of two other girls facing in the opposite direction on another fragment suggest that there were originally spectators on both sides of the hunt. 37 12

THE HEROIC

HUNT

But the girls do not merely watch. The scene included at least one other slowly moving chariot, and in front of both pairs of horses stood a dog handler holding a large hound in leash. One of these dog handlers was perhaps a girl.38 Most remarkably, fragments of white hands holding boar spears show that more than one huntress shared the danger and the glory of the hunt with the men.39 These are palace aristocrats trained to male sports, the painted counterparts of Atalanta who thrust herself into the Kalydonian boar hunt, of Kyrene who wrestled with lions with such suavity, of Phaidra who on her sickbed tamed imaginary Venetian racehorses.40 Is the whole scene in fact legendary? No other hunting scene from the Late Greek Bronze Age includes huntresses or female spectators. Moreover, one of the displaced fragments from Tiryns depicts part of a wide, flounced skirt41—a garment wholly unsuited to the hunting field and worn at ceremonies by the palace ladies of Crete and

«118®» * m

P m gag«pp^s -

8. Huntsman with hound. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century

13

B.C.).

HUNTING

IN T H E A N C I E N T

WORLD

Mycenae, as well as by the goddesses whom they worshipped. It has been suggested that, if the fragment is indeed part of the hunting frieze, the wearer (who was perhaps shown on a slightly larger scale than the other figures) may have been watching the hunters' departure. One might also conjecture that the goddess of the wild, by whatever name we like to call her,42 was shown here rejoicing in the boars and swift stags, and the play of her nymphs, together with her male devotees. Even if this guess has any merit, the picture could still represent the actual life of the Tirynthian aristocrats, to whom the hunt may have appeared as an offering to the goddess,43 just as Ashurbanipal's lion hunts were, in part, offerings to the gods in whom he trusted and ended in libations over the bodies of his victims. It seems likely that the later Greek myths did reflect to some extent the past and its half-forgotten customs. Indeed, the less liberal attitude of the classical Greeks towards women's participation in men's activities may explain why the stories of so many huntresses end unhappily—Atalanta turned into a lioness for gratifying her passion in the sanctuary of Zeus, Phaedra committing suicide to escape the torments of unlawful love, Procris killed by her husband.44 Hunters, hounds, boars, and stags (one of which falls victim to a spearman as he leaps a stream) all formed part of the great cycle of frescoes that decorated the palace of Pylos (destroyed rather later than Tiryns: c. 1 2 0 0 B . C . ) . 4 5 Pylos provides no evidence for huntresses, but huntsmen are not merely painted on the walls but mentioned in the palace archives—ku-na-ke-ta-i, "leaders of hounds."46 They receive an allowance of linen and so are presumably paid servants who make sport for the gentry or supply the palace with game, including perhaps, besides venison, small animals such as hares. There are a few representations of hares in Bronze Age art, but they are not the principal quarry of the Greek hunter, as they clearly are in later art and literature.47 The heroes of the epics disdain the "conquest o'er the timorous hare," but the poet uses hare hunting as an illustration drawn from his own familiar world. Diomedes and Odysseus, as they head the spy Dolon off from the Trojan camp, are likened to two sharp-toothed hounds coursing a roe or a hare.48 Beef, supplied by free-ranging but domesticated cattle,49 is the staple food of the heroes, but venison is accepted when they are forced to hunt for the pot. One of the gods took pity on me, lonely as I was [says Odysseus], and sent a stag with lofty antlers right in my way. He was coming down to a river to drink, from a glade in the forest, for the heat of the sun distressed him greatly. As he came out of the wood, I struck him in the spine, in the middle of the back, and the bronze spear went right through, and he fell screaming in the dust and his life flew from him.50 Stag hunting on foot with a spear is not infrequently shown in Bronze Age art. Hounds often join in the hunt, and at least once, on a Cretan seal of the sixteenth century B.C., a deer is taken in a net.51 Wild goats, too, provided a welcome feast to Odysseus and his men when they 14

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HUNT

beached their ships on a desert island, "and the nymphs, the daughters o f Zeus who bears the aegis, stirred up the mountain-bred wild goats, so that my companions might feast. At once we took from the ships the curved bows and long-shafted javelins and ordered ourselves in three groups and smote them. And God granted us hunting to our hearts' desire." 52 The monuments confirm that hunting the wild goat with bow and with javelin, and also with hounds, was common both in the Bronze Age and later.53 Homer also knows the ravening wolves, belching the blood o f the stag that they have slain even as they lap dark water from a spring,54 and the jackals who pull down a stag wounded by a hunter's arrow and devour his flesh until a god sends a mighty lion to drive them off and feed on the quarry.55 These beasts must have been hunted when they threatened the flocks, and perhaps also for their pelts. (Dolon cloaks himself in the hide o f a grey wolf before going out to spy by night upon the Greek camp.) 56 But there is no suggestion that wolves and jackals were hunted for sport, and certainly none that the heroes took pleasure in chasing lesser vermin such as foxes. Nor did they hunt the bear, though they knew that the constellation of "the Bear, which men call also the Wain, turns about itself and keeps its eye upon Orion," suggesting that even in the heavens the beast fears the mighty hunter.57 "Bears o f the wilderness, boars and bright-eyed lions, strife and battle, slaughter and manslayings" were wrought upon the golden baldric that the shade o f Hercules wore in the underworld.58 But in fact the bear hunt, whether as a theme for literature or as an artistic motif, is never common in Greece, though bears are still found in the north and must once have been widespread throughout the mountains of the mainland. Withdrawn among the woods and rocks, far from the haunts o f men, they were under the special protection o f Artemis, in whose honor the girls o f Athens danced the bear-dance at Brauron. The Great Bear itself was said to be Callisto, the companion of the goddess, who was transformed into a bear after she lost her virginity to Zeus, bore him the ancestor of the Arcadian kings, and was eventually set among the stars.59 T o sum up, it would seem that Homer's heroes were not "big-game hunters" in the sense o f deliberately seeking out and destroying large and dangerous beasts for amusement and the securing of trophies. They did take pleasure in hunting, and trophies were taken and valued. (The tusks of the Calydonian Boar were preserved in the temple o f Athena Alea at Tegea in Arcadia until Augustus carried them off to Rome.) 6 0 But men did not deliberately engage in combat with dangerous beasts except in defense o f themselves, their fields, or their flocks.61 When they hunted—that is, themselves sought out the game—their quarry was normally stags or boars, and though they took pleasure in the hunt, they did not follow it for its own sake, but in hope o f a good meal. The herdsmen who, in the epic similes, defend their homesteads against lions may reflect tradition handed down over generations, rather than travelers' tales about the contemporary East. In the main course o f the narrative, hunting is aristocratic—naturally, because the heroes are princes. The absence from the Homeric hunting field o f 15

H U N T I N G IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

horses, which in later times stand for so much of the aristocratic tradition of the hunt, is made up for by one splendid passage in which the hound appears not merely as a swift, sharp-toothed, keen-scented auxiliary, but as his master's friend.62 Thus they were talking to one another, and a hound lifted its head and pricked its ears where it lay, Argos, the hound of enduring Odysseus, whom he himself had bred, but got no good of, for first he went to holy Ilium. In former times the young men used to set the hound to hunt wild goats and roes and hares, but now he lay rejected, since his master was gone from home, in a great heap of dung of mules and oxen, which was heaped in front of the doors for the servants of Odysseus to manure his great estate. There lay the dog Argos, full of vermin. But then, when he recognized Odysseus as he stood near, he wagged his tail and flattened both his ears, but he had no longer the strength to come close to his master. But Odysseus looked aside and wiped away a tear, unseen by Eumaeus, and addressed him: "Eumaeus, a strange thing it is that this hound lies in the dung. He is beautiful in his body, but I do not know now whether indeed he is swift to run in addition to this beauty, or just like men's trencher-fed dogs, which their masters keep for their looks." Then in answer to him didst thou speak, swineherd Eumaeus: "It is too true that this is the hound of a man who has died far away. If he were what he was in body and in action when Odysseus went to Troy and left: him behind, you would soon be amazed to see his speed and courage. No wild beast used to escape him in the depths of the forest, for well was he skilled in tracking. But now evil encompasses him, and his lord has died far from his own country, and the heedless women do not care for him. Servants, when their lords lose control, are no longer willing to do their duty. For wide-ruling Zeus takes away half a man's virtue, when the day of slavery overtakes him." So saying, he went into the stately palace, and went straight through the hall towards the haughty wooers. But Argos was overtaken by the fate of black death, then and there, when he had seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.63

16

2

Hunting in the Greek City-State

"Hunting brings bodily health, improves sight and hearing, is an antidote to senility, and excellent training in the art of war." Xenophon, who wrote this sentence some time before the middle of the fourth century B.C., was a distinguished professional soldier and, like many other professional soldiers in all ages, a lover of field sports. He also had very definite ideas about the upbringing of the young, derived in part from his own association as a young man with Socrates. He continues: First of all, when men used to hunting make difficult marches under arms, they will not give in, but will endure hardships, because it is with hardship that they are accustomed to take wild beasts. Secondly, they will be able to sleep rough and to be good guards over whatever is committed to them. In offensives against the enemy, they will be able to make sudden attacks and at the same time to maintain discipline, because this is the way in which they are accustomed to capture their quarry. If they are drawn up in the front rank, they will not desert their post, because they are endowed with fortitude. If the enemy is in flight, they will pursue their adversaries directly and safely on all sorts of terrain, because they are used to it. If their own army meets with misfortune on ground that is wooded, or precipitous, or otherwise difficult, they will be able not merely to save themselves with honor but to save their comrades. For practice will give them an advantage in knowing the course of action. History provides examples of men of this character who, when a great mob of their allies has been routed, have by their discipline and courage renewed the fight and defeated a victorious enemy who has gone astray in diffi17

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cult country. For success is never far from men o f good physique and morale. Our ancestors knew that hunting was the source o f their success over their enemies and made the young men practice it. For though they were short o f agricultural produce in primitive times, they decreed nonetheless that hunters should not be restrained from hunting through any sort of standing crop; in addition, that there should be no hunting by night within many furlongs o f town, so that those who possessed this skill should not destroy the sportsmen's game. For they saw that the pleasure that young men take in hunting provides in itself many benefits. It makes them self-restrained and just, through education in true principles; and our ancestors recognized that to these they owed their success, especially in war. Moreover those who wish to practice other honorable pursuits are not excluded from them by hunting as they are by vicious pleasures, which should not be learned. From youths o f this character develop good soldiers and generals.1 Xenophon was writing for men who took it for granted that every citizen, from his eighteenth to his sixtieth birthday, was ready to serve personally, often at only a few hours' notice, in the armed forces of his state. Since he was required to equip himself at his own expense, it could also be taken for granted that the poor, armed only with cudgels and with stones picked up from the fields, would not matter much in land warfare. In maritime states, such as Xenophon's native Athens, their service as rowers in the war galleys was all-important. But Xenophon's praise o f hunting is clearly directed to the sport o f the upper classes. They might learn in the hunting field lessons that could form no part of the formal training and institutionalized sports o f the gymnasiums that in almost every Greek city prepared young men to take their place in the ranks o f the hoplite phalanx—the disciplined mass o f armored spearmen.2 Indeed, Xenophon suggests that the experienced hunter will be something more than a useful member o f the rank and file and will prove a natural leader at moments of crisis. Xenophon did not despise the skills of the hunter by night—the poor man who made his living by snaring small game for the market—even though he approved o f the law that preserved the game near the city for the benefit o f young sportsmen. He says elsewhere that Socrates advised his young friends to avoid vain scientific speculations but to study practical astronomy in order to fix the progress o f the seasons by the stars or to find one's way by night. This knowledge could be learned from "hunters by night, pilots, and many other people who are concerned with such matters." 3 The law that preserved the game near town for the benefit of young sportsmen might seem to have been designed for the benefit o f the sons of respectable craftsmen, owners o f urban property, and the like, who were certainly called upon, at Athens and elsewhere, for military service. But in another passage Xenophon shows that, as might be expected, he regards hunting as the sport of the countryman, and especially o f the country gentleman. 18

H U N T I N G IN THE GREEK CITY-STATE

Agriculture gives sufficient assistance in keeping a horse when one wishes to serve one's city on horseback, and when one wishes to serve on foot, it makes the body robust. And the land offers some additional inducement to the love of endurance in the form of hunting. For it provides facilities for keeping hounds and at the same time nourishes wild animals. Horses and hounds, being helped by agriculture, help the countryside in return, the horse by bearing the master who cares for it early in the morning to oversee the farm, and by making it possible for him to return home late; and the hounds by keeping wild beasts from spoiling the crops and herds and by helping to provide security in lonely places. Xenophon adds, with the experience of history to back him, that clear proof of the physical and moral advantages of country life would be found if, in the event of a hostile invasion, one were to divide the farmers from the craftsmen and poll each separately on the question of whether we should protect the countryside or abandon it and maintain the defense of the fortifications. In these circumstances, I think that those who are engaged in agriculture would vote to defend the land, and the craftsmen not to fight but, as they have been brought up to do, to sit still without effort or danger.4 Whatever sports he had practiced in his youth, the townsman in middle age was only too likely to be incapacitated from active military service by a belly that, as Iphicrates said, it would take three or four shields to cover.5 The educational value of hunting was not forgotten by Plato.6 The speakers in his Laws discuss education, and then the Athenian stranger who leads the argument remarks that there are some matters that must be mentioned, though to legislate on them would be absurd. These have already been shown to include the training of very young children, and now hunting is to be added to them. The lawgiver is to instill in the young a sense of honor, rather than to threaten them with legal penalties. Hunting, the Athenian observes, comprises under a single name many different subjects, including many ways of fishing and fowling, and greatest of all, a variety of ways to hunt game that walks on land. Not only the chase of wild beasts but that of men deserves consideration, both that which belongs to war and that which pursues men by way of friendship. The latter includes a praiseworthy variety and also one deserving of blame. Thievery, too, whether by robbers or by armies against armies, is hunting. Now if the lawgiver were to legislate about hunting, he would not be able to avoid defining all these matters and establishing a penal code. What, then, is to be done in these circumstances? He—the lawgiver, that is—must praise and blame different aspects of hunting with a view to encouraging the young in toil and endeavor; and the young man must hear and obey, and nei19

H U N T I N G IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

ther pleasure nor toil must hinder him. Rather than the threatened penalties of the law, he must honor the things defined as praiseworthy and keep their observances. Fishing and fowling are rejected: Let us address the young in form of prayer: "My friends, let no desire or passion for the maritime hunt ever seize you, whether it be by angling or, in general, the chase of the creatures that live in the waters! And may you not, whether waking or sleeping, occupy yourselves with idle hunting by means of fish traps; nor may a longing come upon you for hunting men upon the sea, and for piracy, and make you savage and lawless hunters! May the notion of thieving, whether in town or country, never occur to you, even remotely! May the insidious and illiberal desire of wildfowling never overcome any of the young!" It should be considered that a hunter armed with a bow or a sling could only hope to hit a flying bird by chance or by a miracle. At the Funeral Games for Patroclus, the archers' target was a fluttering dove tethered to a pole. Teucer, the best archer among the Greeks, failed to pray to Apollo, the archer god, before making his shot, and the arrow cut the cord and freed the bird; whereupon the less skillful Meriones vowed sacrifices and brought the dove down even as it soared to liberty.7 But this was not "wildfowling"; Plato has in mind the unsporting methods of the professional. These can be inferred from the equipment dedicated to the country gods by retired bird catchers. For example, listed in verses dating from two or three centuries after the time of Plato and Xenophon: This old scrap of mist net, and this triple twisted footsnare; these springes of stretched sinew; these broken bird cages and running neck nooses; these sharpened stakes hardened in the fire; the sticky ooze of the oak and the reed limed with mistletoe that catches the birds; the triple cord that pulls shut the hidden purse net, and the net that catches by the neck the clanging cranes; all these, Pan of the lookout places, are dedicated to you by old Craugis the hunter, son of Neolaidas, an Arcadian from Orchomenos.8 To return to Plato's Laws: This being said, only the hunting and chase of land animals remain for our athletes. And of this one part belongs to men who sleep by turns, which is called hunting by night. This is the sport of idle men, and deserves no praise. No more does that which offers intervals of relaxation, in which the savage force of wild beasts is overcome not by the triumph of a spirit that loves toil, but by nets and snares. There remains, then, for everyone, one only, and the best, form of hunting—namely, the hunting with horses and hounds and men's own bodies of 20

9. Eros with bird snare. South Italian vase (late fourth century

B.C.).

H U N T I N G IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

four-footed beasts, all of which men overcome by coursing them and striking them and throwing missiles at them, and taking them with their own hands. Those who hunt in this way have their thoughts fixed on godlike manhood. Nevertheless, the model community that the Laws seeks to establish is not to be wholly deprived of fish and fowl, Plato concludes: Let the praise and reproach that belongs to all these matters be as has been stated. But let the following be the law:—Those sacred hunters, who are so indeed, let no man hinder, wheresoever and in whatsoever way they wish to hunt. But the poacher by night who trusts in nets and snares, let no man permit to hunt at any time or in any place. As for the wildfowler, let him not be hindered in untilled land or in the mountains; but on tilled land and in the sacred wilderness, let whatever man encounters him restrain him. As for him who seeks his prey in the waters, he is excluded from harbors and sacred rivers, marshes, and pools. But elsewhere let him be permitted to hunt, only provided that he makes no use of poisonous brews. Plato's fishermen and fowlers must have been professionals, since he has made it clear that he considers their pursuits unworthy of the young sportsman whose moral development is the concern of his legislators. The business of the professionals is to supply the city with necessary food and make their own living in so doing, and the controls imposed on them ensure that they do this work without giving offense to gods or men. The sportsmen hunt in order to train themselves as leaders. Plato writes as a political theorist legislating for an imaginary city-state, not as a sportsman describing the normal practice of the hunting field. His contemporaries, including Xenophon, would no doubt have agreed that for those who were lucky enough to have the chance, "the hunting with horses and hounds and men's own bodies of four-footed beasts" was not only the best sport but the way to train up the young to rival the heroes of antiquity.9 But, though hunting on horseback might have been expected to be encouraged in states that, like Athens, maintained a cavalry force in which the richest young men served mounted on their own horses, opportunities for this sport seem to have been rare in practice in the fourth century B.C. In his praise of country life that has been quoted above, Xenophon notes that agriculture helps the would-be cavalryman to keep a horse, and that hunting, as well as farming, trains the body to be robust. Nonetheless, he makes it clear that he does not expect the hunt to be followed on horseback. Once again: Horses and hounds, being helped by agriculture, help the countryside in return, the horse by bearing the master who cares for it early in the morning to oversee the farm, and by making it possible for him to return home late, and the hounds by keeping wild beasts from spoiling the crops and herds and by helping to provide security in lonely places.10 So Ischomachus, the "perfect gentleman" who in Xenophon's Oeconomicus gives 22

H U N T I N G IN THE G R E E K

CITY-STATE

Socrates an account of his life, rides out to his farm, and practices his horsemanship over banks, ditches, and enclosures. But this is with a view to cavalry service, not hunting.11 In the same spirit, Xenophon recommends cross-country riding in his Art of Horsemanship, so that the rider and his mount may become accustomed to the obstacles that they will encounter on active service. Almost as an afterthought, he adds that "since the cavalryman must keep a safe seat at a gallop across all sorts of country and be able to make good use of his weapons on horseback, wherever suitable country and game are available I have no fault to find with the practice of horsemanship in hunting." 12 But it seems that the right conditions were rare in Xenophon's Greece. In the hunting of the hare, stag, and boar on which he advises in the Cyncgeticus (to be discussed in the next chapter), the horse plays no part. Nor does Xenophon mention horses in his quite detailed account of the hunting festival that he organized in honor of Artemis at Scillus, the estate near Olympia on which he was established by his Spartan friends between about 390 and 371 B.C., when he was in exile from Athens.13 For all that, it is likely enough that Xenophon, the greatest ancient Greek expert on horsemanship, did sometimes find opportunities for "the best form of hunting." The minor poet Perses records a hunt that must have taken place within a day's ride of Scillus towards the end of the fourth century B.C.: "Three heads of Maenalian stags, wondrous with their antlers, are laid up in thy temple, Apollo. Gyges, Dailochus, and Promenes, children of noble Leontiades, slew them from horseback."14 However, Xenophon's Oeconomicus is a Socratic dialogue and has an Athenian setting, and the laws that Xenophon praises in it were laws of Athens. The provision that "hunters should not be restrained from hunting through any sort of standing crop" is less surprising if we think of small parties of men on foot, with two or three hounds, moving through thinly sown barley on their way up to the scrub and rocks of the hillsides, where horses, especially the unshod horses of the ancients, could not have followed in any case. Such parties would certainly have done less damage than the boars and stags they were out to kill. But if the law was indeed ancient, and if Xenophon is quoting it correctly, it is surprising to find pictorial evidence that mounted hunters, too, were familiar in the Attica of "our ancestors." On Attic blackfigured vases painted in the second half of the sixth century B.C., young men, naked or wearing short cloaks, and obviously Greeks, not orientals, are shown hunting boar and deer on horseback.15 They are armed with light spears or javelins, which they throw at close range. These scenes sometimes form bands of secondary ornament on large vases whose main decoration consists of large pictures of quite unrelated subjects, and it seems much more likely that they are intended as vignettes of contemporary life than that the subjects are mythological.16 Perhaps Attica was less heavily farmed in the sixth century than in the fifth and fourth; on the other hand, there is a story that an old peasant digging with his mattock among the rocks of Hymettus told the tyrant Pisistratus that his holding produced only griefs and pains, and that even these griefs and pains paid ten percent income tax.17 This suggests that, more than a generation before the latest of these hunting scenes were painted, the farmers in Attica 23

10. Above, harnessing chariot; below, boar hunt. Attic hydria (c. 520 B.C.).

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IN THE G R E E K

CITY-STATE

11. Boar hunters on foot and mounted deer hunters. Attic lid (c. 520 B.C.).

had already fully utilized the plains and were working the marginal lands on the lower slopes of the hills. Perhaps the establishment of Athenian democracy after the expulsion of Hippias, son of Pisistratus, in 510 B.C., had something to do with the disappearance of an aristocratic sport, but the end seems to have come gradually, since at least one of these hunting sketches should probably be dated to the early years of democratic government.18 We may imagine a gradual shift in popular sentiment against this form of hunting, with its extravagance and annoyance to the farmers, rather than abrupt prohibition by decree of the people. The symbolic gesture of the young aristocrat Cimon, who dedicated his bridle to Athena on the Acropolis before joining the fleet at Salamis in 25

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480 B.C., might almost serve to mark the end of the sport.19 A cup painted a few years later has on its exterior two almost identical pictures, each showing a young hunter holding his horse by the bridle while he shakes a javelin at a large boar. There is something theatrical about their attitudes, which together with the fact that they have dismounted suggests that the artist was no longer familiar with hunting on horseback.20 "Suitable country and game" for mounted hunters were perhaps more often found in the lands west of the Adriatic Sea that had been settled by Greek colonists from the late eighth century B.C. onwards. To Stesichorus of Himera in northwestern Sicily, Aristotle ascribes the fable of the horse and the stag: When the people of Himera chose Phalaris supreme commander and were on the point of granting him a bodyguard [c. 570 B . C . ] , Stesichorus argued with them, and told them a tale. "A horse lived by himself in a meadow, until a stag came and ruined the pasture. Then the horse wanted to take revenge on the stag, and asked a man to help him. The man agreed to do so if the horse would accept a bit and allow the man to mount with his javelin. The horse consented; the man mounted; but instead of revenging himself on the stag, the horse from that moment became the man's slave."21 The political, social, and moral concepts of the Athenian aristocracy, which Xenophon and Plato represented in their own different fashions, were largely based on idealized views of life under the Dorian military aristocracies of Sparta and the Cretan city states. In his Republic Plato frequently cites the examples of Crete and Sparta, and his Laws are discussed by a Spartan, a Cretan, and an Athenian stranger. That hunting formed an important part of the upbringing of the future soldiers and rulers of Crete is attested by archaeological and literary evidence. For example, two figures, cut from a bronze plate and with details incised, were fashioned in about 675—650 B . C . , but have been thought with some probability to illustrate a custom that is first attested in the literary sources centuries later. A beardless youth carrying over his shoulders the body of a plump wild goat encounters an older man armed with a short bow—a characteristically Cretan weapon, which was neglected by most of the other Greeks.22 Strabo, the geographer of the Augustan period, describes on the authority of Ephorus (early fourth century B.C.) a custom by which noble boys were carried off by their lovers to spend two months feasting and hunting in the country together with the abductor's companions. Upon their return to the city, the boy was presented with costly gifts, including an ox, which was sacrificed to Zeus in order to provide a feast for the company; a cup; and the equipment of a soldier—clear proof that the boy had now become a man, fit to take his place among the warrior aristocracy. It should be noted, however, that though hunting and mock battles formed part of the training of all Cretan boys of this class, only a distinguished few underwent the ritual abduction, which was not a universal "rite of passage."23 (See 111. 13, p. 33.) In Sparta, as in Crete, a Dorian aristocracy was supported by the labor of a much more numerous body of serfs. Here, too, hunting formed part of the training of the 26

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military class, whose institutions puzzle and fascinate modern historians as much as they did the ancient political scientists. As in Crete, the boys of the ruling class were separated from their families, grouped together in "herds," and prepared for lifelong military service by an education whose chief features were severe discipline, physical hardship, and outdoor exercise. Hunting was part o f the system. Both children and grown men ate in messes which were supplied with official rations, but these were inadequate and we are told that the young supplemented theirs by stealing,24 and adults by hunting. 25 Inscriptions of about the beginning of our era, set up at a time when what passed for the old Spartan institutions were maintained to impress the Roman overlords o f Greece, record the award of prizes to young boys for what, on the face o f it, seems to be success in a hunting contest. But it has been suggested that the competition was really some sort o f miming dance,26 and in any case it is doubtful whether the evidence is really applicable to Sparta in the days o f its glory. Xenophon, who had perhaps more firsthand knowledge of the manners and customs o f the Spartan upper class than any other foreigner, says that since members o f the mess shared the products o f the hunt, the lawgiver established the sharing of hounds for the chase. So those who need them request them for hunting, and the owner, if he is not himself at leisure to hunt, sends them out willingly. They treat their horses in the same way. A man who is suffering from ill health, needs a mount, or wants to go somewhere quickly, if he sees a horse, takes it, makes use of it, and honorably returns it. Moreover the lawgiver instituted the following practice, which is not observed by other nations, in case any of them are kept out late in hunting and need provisions, and do not happen to have brought some ready prepared. He ordained that those who have prepared surplus food shall leave it deposited, and those who need it shall break the seals, take as much as they need, and seal up what is left and leave it behind.27 Obviously these hunters are gentlemen, who carry their personal signets and expect them to be recognized by other members of their own class. It is also clear that the passage does not refer to meets attended by a large field, but to parties o f two or three (we can imagine Xenophon being shown the customs o f the country by his Spartan friends), or even solitary hunters. Their sport takes them to remote places where not even a peasant's hut is to be found, and caches o f imperishable supplies are laid up in places known, perhaps, to members o f the same mess. It is again notable that, though the passage as a whole is concerned with hunting, Xenophon mentions horses only as a means of transport, just as he does when he is describing Attic country life in the Oeconomicus. The Spartans found their game not in the rideable vale o f "hollow Lacedaemon," but amid the woods and rocks o f Mount Taygetus, which still abounded in wild goats and boars, deer, and bears in the second century o f our era.28 Boar hunts, with hunters on foot, are painted on drinking cups made at Sparta in the mid-sixth century B.C. A bearded man and a youth lunge for-

27

H U N T I N G IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

ward and stab ferociously overarm at the hindquarters (all that the artist has included within the frame of his composition) of a passive boar. More in accordance with the usual convention of the hunt, a second youth meets a charging boar face to face and drives his spear through its forehead and out below the ear.29 Lest it should be doubted whether any Spartan ever hunted, or did anything else, for sport, Xenophon gives an intimate glimpse of his commander and friend King Agesilaus. When he received the news of the death of the much younger Agesipolis, the representative of the other royal house that shared the kingly power at Sparta with Agesilaus's dynasty, "he did not, as one might have thought, rejoice as over a rival, but he actually wept, and missed their companionship. For the kings were messmates when they were at home. And Agesipolis was well able to share with Agesilaus talk of youthful pleasures, hunting and riding and love affairs."30 Xenophon himself recognized a close bond between hunting companions of the same age, and also between older and younger men who hunted together.31 Even stranger than the double kingship in the eyes of the ancient world was the freedom given to Spartan women. If we are to believe the Roman poets of the Augustan age, who wrote more than three centuries after the time of Xenophon and Agesilaus, Spartan aristocratic society produced not merely hunters but Amazonian huntresses.32 Thus Propertius admires the Spartan maiden, who, after she has hurled javelins, endured the wounds of the cruel pancratium, and played with her hoop, "follows the hounds of her native land through the long ridges of Taygetus, her hair besprinkled with hoarfrost." 33 He continues by describing her on horseback, with sword strapped to her side and head protected by the hollow bronze. And Vergil makes Venus meet her son Aeneas in the woods, taking a virgin's guise and habit, and bearing the arms of a virgin, a Spartan girl, or like Thracian Harpalyce when she wearies her steeds and outruns swift Hebrus on her course. For from her shoulders she had duly hung the ready bow as a huntress and given her hair to the winds to blow. Her knee was bare, and the folds of her dress gathered by a knot.34 This seems to be merely a part of the romantic picture of ancient Greece that was fashionable at Rome in the late first century B.C. It is quite conceivable that some Spartan girls tried to live up to the image, just as their brothers endured what passed as traditional ordeals in order to impress Roman visitors. But there is no contemporary evidence that their ancestresses hunted in the classical age of Greece. Certainly, Spartan women engaged in athletics, shocking the other Greeks, who considered coeducational sport inconsistent with chastity.35 But no classical Greek author says that they hunted, not even Xenophon, though he approved of their athletic upbringing. The other Greeks bring up their girls in seclusion, as woolworkers. How can one expect that women brought up in this way could bear a master race? Lycurgus [the Spartan lawgiver] thought that even slave women were capable 28

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of producing clothing, but that the chief duty of free women was childbearing. Accordingly, he directed that the female sex, no less than the male, should practice physical training. He also established, just as for the men, contests of females against each other in running and feats of strength, thinking that if the parents on both sides were physically fit, the children would be stronger.36 Xenophon does confirm the information, which we have also from a much later source, that at certain festivals the Spartan women drove light carriages with wicker bodies and even two-horse racing chariots.37 But this does not suggest that they were horsewomen and huntresses. Nor does the archaeological evidence support the Roman poets. A few crude terra-cotta figures portraying women on horseback, seated sideways on packsaddles, have been found in Sparta. They date from the seventh century B.C., and were offered in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia.38 Whether they represent the goddess herself or her mortal worshippers, they are certainly not huntresses, and Artemis Orthia is established as "Mistress of Animals" rather than "of the hunt" by the puzzling evidence for her cult39 and by the equestrian and ornithological metaphors that fill the hymns (also dating from the seventh century B.C.) that were sung in her honor by choirs of young girls.40 If the nymphs, the daughters of Zeus who gladdened the heart of Artemis in the hunt on the long ridges of Taygetus,41 had no flesh-and-blood counterparts in ancient Sparta, there is little use in seeking huntresses in those Greek city-states whose institutions encouraged a less strenuous way of life. Hunting in archaic and classical Greece was, then, a masculine and, in the best sense, a manly activity. It was a sport, but one that made important contributions to the food supply, both directly and indirectly by protecting the fields from wild beasts. It was considered to have great educational value, particularly in training young soldiers. But the actual practice, both of hunting and of warfare, did not conform to the ideal described by the moral theorists. One would wish to imagine the youth of Greece, trained to overcome the beasts of the chase by their own bodily strength and skills at arms, going on to vanquish their cities' enemies Not by stratagem But in plain shock and even play of battle. But the hunter's cunning, as well as his strength, was useful to the soldier. The Spartan who stole a fox as a boy might hope to "steal a victory"42 as a grown man; and in fact Sparta's greatest victories—at Sepeia over the Argive army, and at Aegospotami, where Lysander annihilated the Athenian fleet—were won by tricks. Plato might well have had the Spartans in mind when he wrote of stealing by one army from another as a form of hunting.

29

3 The Technique of Greek Hunting

Xenophon wrote his essay on the Cynegeticus, or Hunting Man, so that it could be put into practice in the field, not studied in the library.1 But he insists on the educational value of the sport and begins with a list of mythical heroes who loved hunting and thereby acquired virtue. 2 The practical part of the treatise opens: I charge young men not to neglect hunting, or any other branch of education. For from these come men who are good at military affairs and other matters that entail excellence in thought, word, and deed. 3 "Other branches of education" intended to prepare rich young men for leadership in their cities included military training and, above all, rhetoric, the art of public speaking. Plato's Socratic dialogues and Xenophon's Memorabilia show something of the sophists, the professional teachers of these subjects, and the young men who studied under them. Xenophon says that Socrates encouraged his associates to learn from the sophists as far as their teaching had any practical value, but criticized their system for its moral inadequacy. Similarly, here in the Cynegeticus, the young man is not initially wholly forbidden these arts, only told to put hunting first. It is not until the final chapters that the author is worked up to attack the sophists for ruining the young body and soul. The young men whom the sophists taught, and for whom the Cynegeticus was written, were of what we would now consider university age. Xenophon himself, at the time he wrote, was passing on to these "younger friends" the fruits of his experience, 4 just as, so he tells us, he was doing in his essay on horsemanship. 5 We can imagine him as a distinguished retired soldier, exiled from his own city, 30

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but settled by his Spartan friends on a large estate whose sporting facilities he had himself improved. The Greek mercenaries of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger, whom Xenophon had led back from Babylonia to Europe, had consecrated a tithe of their booty to Apollo and Ephesian Artemis. When the wars were over and the money was restored by the priest with whom it had been deposited, Xenophon bought a piece of property for the goddess next to his own estate, where he built a temple resembling, as far as was possible on a small scale, the great one at Ephesus. In this property, he says, there is hunting of all manner of beasts of the chase. He built an altar and a temple out of the consecrated money, and thereafter he always tithed the harvest from the estate and held a sacrifice to the goddess. All the citizens and neighbors, both men and women, took part in the festival. The goddess provided barley, wheat bread, wine, dried fruits, and a portion of the sacrifices from the holy pasture, and from the hunted animals too. For a hunt was held at the festival by Xenophon's sons and those of the other citizens, and any of the grown men who wished to also took part. They took game, some from the holy ground itself and some from Pholoe, boars and roe deer and fallow deer.6 Boars, roe deer, and fallow deer might be hunted on special occasions, but the Greek hunter's usual quarry was the hare. Accordingly, Xenophon in the Cynegeticus launches into a description of hunting gear leaving the reader to assume that it is intended for hare hunting. He first mentions the hare itself almost incidentally towards the end of his description of hounds.7 Only when he comes to deer hunting and boar hunting does he think it necessary to begin the chapters dealing with each by definitely stating his subject. Hare hunting becomes a favorite subject with Greek vase painters from the late eighth century B.C. on.8 The artists seem to have in mind very much the sort of hunting that Xenophon describes three centuries later. A single hare is coursed by several hounds. The hunters, when they are shown, are on foot, and the hare may be driven into a net or turned by a hound that has outrun her. The Corinthian vase painters of the second and third quarters of the seventh century B.C. are particularly fond of using hounds coursing hares to fill up narrow bands of secondary decoration below the main picture on small scent bottles.9 Hare hunts are placed below lion and boar hunts and the still more heroic conquest of the Chimera by Bellerophon on his winged horse. More than once, they appear below battles of heavy infantry armed and ranged rank and file in accordance with the new discipline of hoplite warfare. One is tempted to wonder whether the artist is not deliberately using the amusements of contemporary adolescents as a foil, sometimes to the heroic past, sometimes to the martial qualities of the grown warriors of his own day.10 It may occasionally be so, but the motif of the hare hunt is sometimes separated by other friezes from the heroic pictures and is often found by itself on quite undistinguished little vases. It was because the 31

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12. Hare hunt. Attic skyphos (late eighth century B.C.).

motif had become commonplace, not because the sport itself had gone out of fashion, that the better Corinthian artists lost interest in it towards the end of the seventh century.11 Of these early hare hunts, the best were painted in about 640—630 B.C. by the artist whom we know as the Macmillan Painter. His masterpiece is the Chigi Vase in the Villa Giulia in Rome. 12 This small wine jug gave him more scope than the scent bottles on which he usually worked, but the figures of the hunt are still confined within a zone only two centimeters high, the lowest and narrowest of the three figured friezes that encircle the vase. Many pieces of the vase are missing, but different episodes of the hunt can still be made out. In one, a naked boy runs forward holding in his left hand a long knotted stick and the leash of a large hound, of which nothing is left except the rump and curly tail. The runner looks backward towards a small thicket, behind whose matted, leafless twigs a second naked boy crouches holding with both hands the collar of another large hound, which eagerly awaits the signal to join the hunt. The first boy stretches out his right hand, beckoning to his friend to follow. But the more patient hunter has had the better success. Over his back are slung the bodies of two hares, with hind legs sticking out stiffly and long ears brushing the boy's thigh.

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OF G R E E K

HUNTING

More hounds are shown behind the crouching boy, coursing in the opposite direction. They are not running riot, but form an entirely separate part of the hunt, perhaps merely a long frieze continuing round the back of the vase without any special incidents. But as we come to the front again, we see another hare running at full speed just ahead of the leading hound. It has almost reached the shelter of a leafy bush, but will not escape, for behind the bush yet another boy is waiting. The cramped space available to him forced the painter to show his human figures on a smaller scale than the hounds and hares. Still, it is clear that these are large hounds, perhaps as big as those identified by modern scholars as the ancient Molossians.13 But, as one would expect for the hunting of the hare, they have sharper noses than the true Molossian mastiff, and perhaps show in this, and also in their slightly

13. Hunters with body of wild goat. Cretan plaque (c. 675—650 B.C.).

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bushy tails, the influence of the Laconian alopekides—"foxhounds" not in the modern sense but called so because the ancients supposed that they were descended from a cross between dog and fox.14 But it will be better to do as Xenophon does, and postpone consideration of the breeds of hounds until hunting gear has been discussed. Of course, people did not hunt through the Greek thorn scrub naked and barefoot, though artists who studied athletes in the gymnasium might choose to show hunters in the nude. Xenophon himself seems not to have cared how people dressed, so long as they dressed sensibly: "Let the net keeper go out to hunt wearing light clothes," and "Let the huntsman take the field wearing simple light clothes and footgear, with a cudgel in his hand."15 Even this minimum advice comes casually, towards the middle of his book. At a later period, some people may have attached more importance to dress, though never approaching the formality of the modern hunting field.16 At all events, Pollux the lexicographer, writing in the time of the Emperor Commodus (A.D. 1 8 0 — 1 9 2 ) , begins his list of a huntsman's equipment as follows: His tunic [chiton] will be light and neat, coming down to mid-thigh, not white, and not conspicuous in any other bright color, so that he may not be

14. Above, procession of chariot and horsemen; below, hare hunt. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.C.).

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15. Above, lion hunt; below, hounds coursing hare. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.C.).

seen from a distance by wild beasts. Likewise his short cloak [chlamys], which he must wind round his left forearm whenever he runs after animals or fights against them. He should have a staff or cudgel and hollow footwear coming up to the middle o f the shin, bound round with a neat tie. The expression "hollow footwear" is puzzling, but may perhaps mean "fully enclosing the foot," like a modern boot, not a sandal, whose open straps would offer less protection. Pollux found his information in books, not in his own experience, as appears from the rather breathless way in which he pours out lists of words. Thus the huntsman should be "young, light, a good runner, keen, a lover of work, willing to work, enduring, a lover o f danger, competitive, bold, wakeful, one who will not grow tired first, will not give up first, will not give up before the kill." 17 Xenophon (as Pollux himself acknowledges) and other classical Greek authors are the sources from which he draws his information, and his description of the hunter's dress can best be illustrated by vase paintings o f the classical Greek period. These regularly show the chiton and the chlamys, worn either separately or in combination, as the dress of hunters, horsemen, 35

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16. Return from hare hunting. Attic krater (mid-fifth century B.C.).

and travellers. The chiton was a loose tube of linen or wool, fastened over both shoulders in such a way as to leave openings for the arms and gathered round the waist by a belt or girdle. The chlamys was a blanket of heavier wool, measuring perhaps six feet by three, folded in the middle round the left arm and shoulder and secured by a large brooch upon the right shoulder, leaving the corners, which might be weighted, hanging down, two in front of the body and two behind. It served the function of the modern poncho. 18 In the heat of action, the chlamys is often shown wrapped round the left arm, as Pollux describes it. For instance, on an oil bottle of the early fifth century, a bearded 36

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man chases a hare with his chlamys wrapped loosely round his outstretched left arm and a large stone in his right hand. An olive tree in the foreground suggests that he has just flushed the animal by chance while walking round his farm; this is not an organized hunt. A better-equipped hunter appears on a vase from the same workshop now in the National Museum at Athens. He is following a hound in pursuit of hares up a rocky, scrubby hillside. He carries two javelins on his shoulder, but perhaps in the hope of meeting deer or boar; at all events he has also picked up a stone to throw at the hare.19 The chlamys was also used as an improvised shield against human enemies—for example, by the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogeiton as they were represented in their memorial statues. Pollux omits one useful, though not essential, article of dress, perhaps because he was working from word-lists, not personal experience or even pictures. A soft, wide-brimmed sun hat, the petasos, which could be pushed to the back of the head and held there by a chin-strap, was the usual headgear of young Greeks engaged in outdoor activities. T o return to Xenophon: "First of all," he says, "one should take up hunting just as one is changing one's time of life from boyhood, and from it proceed to other forms of education." 20 This does not, I think, mean that hunting is exclusively a sport for young adults. The ancient Greek, who had to be ready to serve personally in his city's army at any time from youth to old age, had a special inducement to keep fit throughout his adult life.21 Xenophon was probably rather less than forty when he began to live at Scillus, and about fifty-five when he left. If he excludes himself by implication from the grown men who joined his sons and the other boys in the hunting at the festival of Artemis, it was probably because he was too busy acting as host and organizer to join in the sport. The young "Master of Hounds" 22 of the Cynegeticus must, I think, be presumed to have hunted as a boy under the guidance of older men before setting up his own establishment. Xenophon would not suggest that all one needs when taking the field for the first time is the proper equipment and the right handbook. He is writing, evidendy, for a young man who has come into a considerable estate and will be able to "do the thing in style," with servants to look after the hunting gear and assist in the field. In classical Greece these would be slaves, as much the master's property as were his hounds. "The hunter's fellow workers23 are hounds, horses, the kennelman, the groom, the net handler, the net watcher," says Pollux, putting the hunt servants on a par with the animals.24 "The man of property," Xenophon continues, "must consider his means. He who has sufficient should act worthily of the benefit that he receives; but the man whose resources are inadequate should at least supply enthusiasm and not fail to do anything in his power." 25 Xenophon begins his detailed description with the net watcher, who must be "keen on his work, Greek in speech, about twenty years old, agile and strong in body, and of sufficient spirit to overcome hard toil by these qualities and so to enjoy

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his work." That the man should be Greek in speech could be taken for granted if Xenophon were writing about one of the master's social equals, assigned to a particular place in the field for a particular day's sport. This net watcher is a slave, whose duties would no doubt include looking after and repairing the nets as well as watching them in the field—the part of his work for which youth, strength, agility, and ability to comprehend instandy the instructions that were shouted at him would be essential.26 After the net watcher, Xenophon describes the nets.27 They are made of the best flax, imported from Carthage or the Black Sea. Once again, we have the impression of a first-class establishment in which no expense is to be spared. High quality was necessary not for show but because very large nets had to be light enough to be handled easily, without sacrificing strength.28 Xenophon's largest nets were thirty fathoms (180 feet) long, and had to be packed into leather bags for transport both before and after the hunt.29 Xenophon classifies nets as purse nets (dictya.), road nets (enodia), and long nets (arcys).30 The purse nets were large bags, "five spans" in length—that is, about fortyfive inches; Xenophon would actually have used the distance between the tip of his thumb and the tip of his little finger, not a measuring tape. Similarly he would have used his hand to measure off "two palms' width" for the meshes—about six inches, presumably between knot and knot. For the purse nets, three threads were twisted together to make twine.31 Round the mouth of the bag was a large noose, nowadays called the skirting-line, which had to be without knots so that it could be pulled tight quickly when the hare had run into the net. The purse nets were supported by stakes thirty inches in length with small forks at the top. The hunter also provided himself with shorter stakes to be used on the uphill side when the nets were set up on uneven ground. The stakes would be needed not only to hold the mouth of the net open, but to prop up the bag so that the hare would have room to run in.32 Purse nets, being small, would not be set up at random, but at openings where the hares were likely to run. Part of the purpose of the larger nets was to turn the hares towards these openings, and the net watcher also carried, along with the packing bags, a billhook, so that he could cut brush in order to stop gaps where necessary. Road nets, as the name implies, were set up across roads (that is, game tracks; but only the main highways would have amounted to much more).33 They were made of heavier twine than the purse nets, with twelve threads instead of nine, because they were longer: two, four, or five fathoms—that is, up to thirty feet in length. The fathom was the distance between the hands outstretched at shoulder height. Obviously, it was easier to measure the net by armfuls than to lay it out flat and shuffle along it foot after foot. Xenophon says that the road nets should be "thirty knots" high, an expression that has given some trouble. The meshes were diamond-shaped and ran diagonally, so that if one counted knots on the same vertical line, across the meshes, thirty knots would mean twenty-nine meshes. If Xenophon's mesh of two palms' width is mea38

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sured from knot to knot (and this seems natural, since in making the net one would want to know where to tie the next knot), the mesh would measure about four inches across vertically, and the total height of the net would be roughly ten feet.34 But Xenophon says that the forked stakes supporting the road nets are to be twice the length of those used for the purse nets, or about five feet long, and that the stakes for the long nets (also "thirty knots" high) are to be five spans (forty-five inches) long.35 Perhaps we should count diagonally along a row and so take into account the knots at the end of the mesh as well as those at its top and bottom. If so, we come out with half as many meshes, or a height of about five feet. This method of counting may seem less strange if we suppose that Xenophon is telling us how large the net is to be made— that is to say, how many knots the maker is to tie in each row—not what the net is to look like after it has been made and set up.36 A different solution is as follows: The explanation of the apparent discrepancy between stakes and nets is very simple, and should have been clear from Xenophon's description of the purse-net for wild boar. Because the netting was much wider than the sticks were long, the excess was draped out back, that is, in the direction away from where the hare was coming. The excess material formed a fold or bosom. When the hare hit the netting, she would already have run across part of it lying on the ground. When the net pulled off the "sticks" (whose forks were small and smooth for this purpose) the whole thing would collapse on her so that she would be imprisoned between the upper and lower meshes of the bosom. This is precisely the way a modern poacher's net works, even though the discrepancy in dimensions is less today than it was in ancient Greece.37 This sounds convincing, but does not seem to be borne out by ancient representations of hunting with nets. We should not, perhaps, apply to Xenophon's day the evidence of the Roman imperial period, when we find long nets and road nets standing up straight, without a "bosom," 38 though with the ends, as viewed in plan, sometimes curving backwards to enclose the hunted animal between the horns of a crescent. More to the purpose are the hare hunts painted on archaic vases. The nets shown on these may either be roughly crescent-shaped, with the concave side towards the hare,39 or shaped somewhat like the quadrant of a circle, usually with the vertical radius facing the hare and the curved circumference away from her.40 The former type could well be road nets or long nets set up with a shallow bosom. The latter appear to be more probably purse nets, and this interpretation is supported by a remarkable hare hunt painted towards the middle of the sixth century B.C. upon an Etruscan wine jug now in Seattle. Though not a Greek, and separated by two centuries from Xenophon's Cynegeticus, the artist worked under strong Greek, and particularly Attic, influence, and it has been demonstrated that he is illustrating the type of hunting that Xenophon describes.41 Two hunters appear on the vase. They are shown back to back, but we must imag-

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V

17a, b, c. Details of Etruscan oinochoe (sixth century B.C.). 17a. Hare hunter following hound.

ine them widely separated, and follow the hunt from the first man round the whole circumference o f the vase before we come to the second. The first is the huntsman, or, if his brighter dress suggests high social status, Master of Hounds. He is young and beardless, and has just let slip three hounds, shown on a much larger scale than himself, which run one behind the other towards the left. The huntsman runs after them, carrying a curved stick in one hand. No fewer than seven similar sticks appear in the field above and below the hounds and their quarry. The curved throwing-stick for hare hunting (lagobolon) is mentioned by the Sicilian pastoral poet Theocritus, 42 one o f whose shepherds wishes that he had his lagobolon handy to take a crack at a sheep who is grazing where she should not. Xenophon was apparently not familiar with this form o f stick and recommends an ordinary cudgel. Perhaps the lagobolon was originally peculiar to Italy and Sicily. Just in front o f the leading hound, a hare, running at top speed, has almost reached the right-hand edge o f a large rectangular net, which fills the whole height o f the frieze from top to bottom. Beyond it is a tree or shrub with narrow, pointed leaves

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17b. Hare and hound.

growing in pairs on each side of a single straight stem. To the left of the tree is a net of the quadrant type, which, exceptionally, has its curved side turned towards the hare. To the left of the net is the net watcher. He is shown excitedly running to the right, the counterpart of the huntsman just behind him, but we must imagine him crouching in concealment until the hare actually falls into the net. His tunic is dark, camouflaged as Pollux recommends, and that of the huntsman, whose business it is to start the game, is white. Like the huntsman, the net watcher has a throwing-stick in one hand. With the other, he holds a length of cord, one end of which is fastened to the quadrantshaped net. This must be the skirting-line, which will be pulled tight after the hare has run into the net. Here surely we have a purse net used in combination with a road net or long net, which is intended not to catch the hare but to turn her towards the purse net. It seems that the pictorial evidence, though not conclusive, suggests that the road nets and long nets were rigged, if not straight up and down, with only a slight fold, and that the nets were therefore not much higher than the stakes to which they were attached. 41

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17c. Net watcher.

The long nets, measuring ten, twenty, or thirty fathoms in length, were to be of the same height as the road nets, though, as has been said, they were supported by slightly shorter stakes. From nets Xenophon proceeds to hounds, which in this chapter he classifies as either Castorian or vulpine {alopekides). Both were Laconian, "bred out of the Spartan kind." The former were named after Castor, brother of Helen of Troy, who traditionally had taken particular pleasure in preserving the breed. The latter were (impossibly) supposed to be descended from a cross between dog and fox that had bred true. Later writers confounded the two: "The Castorian hounds, the breed of Castor, the gift of Apollo. This same poet [Nicander of Colophon: third or second century B.C.?] says they are the alopekides (vulpines) because Castor cross-bred them with a fox." 43 But Xenophon distinguishes them and makes it perfectly clear which he prefers. Most of the vulpines were "small, swine-chopped, glass-eyed, nearsighted, misshapen, stiff, weak, thin-coated, long-legged, badly proportioned, spiritless, noseless, and without good feet,"44 and he proceeds to explain in detail just how each of these faults 42

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spoils a hound's work.45 He continues by noting that "hounds of the same breed vary considerably in their styles of hunting: some, whenever they pick up the scent go forward without a sign, so that you do not know that they are on the line; others move their ears only and keep their sterns still; others keep their ears still and wag the tip of the stern." Some run sullenly with their sterns between their legs; others rush around frantically barking over the scent, and foolishly trample out the traces that they have found; some cast forward, overrun the hare and, when they catch sight of her, quiver and do not go after her until they see her move. Some distrust themselves and rely on their mates; others mislead the rest of the pack. Some rush into roads and run astray, deaf to the huntsman's voice. Some give up the chase and run back to the huntsman because they dislike hunting, others because they like people—and so on: faults either inbred or the result of faulty training.46 Good hounds, says Xenophon, should be big, with light, flat-nosed, muscular heads; the lower part of the forehead sinewy; the eyes prominent, black, bright; the forehead broad and flat with a deep dividing line; the ears small, fine, and bare behind; the neck long, supple, and rounded; the breast broad and well-fleshed; the shoulder blades standing out slightly from the shoulders; front legs short, straight, compact, and firm; elbows straight; ribs not close to the ground but sloping obliquely; loins fleshy, in size between long and short, neither too soft nor too hard; flanks between large and small; quarters compact, fleshy behind, not tied together above, and on the inside tucked up: the part below the belly and the belly itself slim; stern long, straight, and flexible; thighs hard; lower legs long, rounded, and compact; hindlegs much bigger than forelegs, and wiry; feet round. Hounds of this type will be strong to look at, light, well-proportioned, fast, cheerful in appearance, and with good mouths. When they follow the scent, they should quickly get off the beaten paths, holding their heads slantwise to the ground, smiling over the scent, and letting their ears drop. In going forward to the hare's form, they should constantly move their eyes, feather with their sterns, and make many circles, all going together on the trail. When they are close to the hare, they should make it evident to the huntsman by going more quickly and tell him still more clearly by their excitement, by their heads, their eyes, by the change in their attitude, by looking up and looking into the covert, by their returning again and again to the hare's form, by leaping forward, backward, and sideways, by the fact that they are now truly excited and transported with joy. In all these ways they should tell him that they are near the hare. They should pursue vigorously and without a break, with a great cry, breaking covert on every side together with the hare. They should give chase fast and brilliantly, often casting about and giving tongue properly. They should not leave the scent and return to the huntsman. 43

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Along with their beauty and good behavior, they should have courage, good noses, good feet, and good coats. Their courage will be proved if they do not abandon the hunt in stiflingly hot weather; their good noses, if they own the hare's scent on bare, dry, sunny ground when the dog days draw on; their good feet, if at the same season their feet are not broken down when they are running in the mountains; their good coats, if they have fine, dense, soft hair. In color, hounds should not be entirely tan, black, or white. This is not a sign of good breeding; unbroken color and a savage strain go together. Accordingly, tan hounds should have a patch of white on the face; and so should black ones; white hounds should have a patch of tan. On the edge of the thighs, the hair should be straight and thick, also on the loins and the lower part of the stern, but on the upper part, of moderate length.47 Xenophon next advises taking hounds into the mountains more often than into cultivated land, where the beaten paths spoil the scent and hinder clean running. Hounds were to be taken into the hills whether they found or not, in order to harden their feet and bodies, and at every season of the year, though in summer only until midday; in autumn with a midday break, and in spring before the evening. In winter Xenophon hunted all day. He discusses scent at the different seasons of the year; how it lies longer in winter except during frost, when the earth is frozen and the hounds' noses are numbed until the sun revives the scent; the effects of dew and storm, of the south wind and the north; how spring flowers foil hounds; how scent lies thin on the parched earth in summer; how hounds are unimpeded in autumn after the harvests have been cut and the weeds have withered. He notes, too, how the line is confused in spring, when, even more than at other times, the hare is constantly doubling; how her scent lasts longer when she is going to her form than when she is running; and how it is stronger in the covert than in the open.48 This leads to a discussion of the hare herself: her habits when resting; the way in which she twitches her nostrils when sleeping; how prolific she is; and how true lovers of the chase leave the very young leverets to the goddess. Xenophon advises picking up the scent by leading hounds from cultivated ground and searching "the meadows, glens, watercourses, rocks, and woods" for the hares that do not come down into the tilled fields. And if she moves off, do not shout, for fear that the hounds may become excited and hold the line with difficulty. Hares, when found and pursued by hounds, sometimes cross watercourses, double back, and slip into ravines and dens. They are afraid not only of the hounds, but of eagles. For in crossing slopes and bare ground, they are snatched up until they are a year old. And the hounds run down the larger ones and catch them.49 That mountain hares run faster; that hares prefer to run uphill; that their natural

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coloration protects them amid rocks and scrub—all this is well observed. Xenophon, like Shakespeare, had noticed that "when hares are well in front o f the hounds, they stop, sit up, raise themselves and listen for the cry of the hounds or the noise o f their movement anywhere near." By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, T o hearken if his foes pursue him still: Anon their loud alarums he doth hear. Xenophon's observations that "hares jump this way and that over the same ground, laying one track upon another," and "the hare is not sharp-sighted, for many reasons," also have their Shakespearean echoes: And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshut his troubles How he outruns the wind, and with what care He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: The many musets through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.50 Xenophon, like the eighteenth-century Warwickshire squire Somervile, notes that the hare, "fetching a circuit, and loving the places in which she was born and bred, is taken." Now the poor chase Begins to flag, to her last shift reduc'd. From brake to brake she flies, and visits all Her well-known haunts, where once she rang'd secure. But Xenophon considers that "if she ran straight, she would seldom suffer this fate. . . . In a fair run she is not often beaten by hounds, because o f her speed." Somervile, following a faster pack on horseback, thinks differently: Huntsman! her gait observe; if in wide rings She wheel her mazy way, in the same round Pursuing still, she'll foil the beaten track, But if she fly, and with the favouring wind Urge her bold course, less intricate thy task: Push on thy pack.51 Xenophon distinguishes two species o f hare: The large ones are somewhat dark in color, and the white patch on the forehead is large. The smaller are light chestnut, with a small white patch. The former have spots round the scut, the latter at the side of it. The eyes o f the

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former are somewhat blue; those of the latter greyish. The black at the tips of the ears is extensive in the former species, slight in the latter. Most of the islands, both desert islands and those that are inhabited contain the smaller species. They are more plentiful on the islands than on the mainland, because there are no foxes on most of the islands to attack and carry off the hares and their young. Nor are there eagles, for they inhabit large mountains rather than smaller ones, and on the whole the mountains in the islands are quite small. Moreover hunters rarely come to the uninhabited islands, and in the inhabited islands they are few, and most of them not sportsmen. As for such islands as are sacred, one cannot even disembark hounds on them. Accordingly, since men exterminate by hunting few either of the old hares or of their offspring, they must needs be plentiful.52 Having described hounds and hares, Xenophon gives a warning that "when hunting in tilled fields, one should keep off the crops and let springs and streams alone, not only because to touch them is disgraceful and wrong but also so that those who see you may not be opposed to the law" (i.e., the law in favor of hunting). This shows that whatever the actual law or custom of the country, Xenophon himself had scruples about "hunting through all sorts of crops," just as he had scruples about destroying very young leverets. He does not actually specify which law he is talking about, so his meaning is not clear. I have proposed what seems to me to be most probable: but he may be warning the young Master of Hounds not to encourage by his own shameless conduct those who see him—and presumably, in view of his rank in society, look up to him—to go against the law in general.53 "When a close season falls," Xenophon continues, "one must remove all hunting tackle." This leads him to the subject of hounds' tackle. Collars, soft and wide so as not to gall the hound (Pollux suggests sewing a piece of sheepskin inside), and leashes, which should merely have a loop for the hand and not be made in one piece with the collar, are easily understood. (The reason for not making the collar in one piece with the leash was that unless they were made separately, the collar could not be left on when the hound was slipped.) Less obvious is the nature of the stdmoniai, which are to have "broad straps in order not to gall the flanks. They should have little spikes sewed onto them to preserve the breed." Pollux explains more fully: "The telmonia [sic] is a broad band extending from the collar round both sides crosswise so as to cover the part of the back as far as the points of the shoulder blades and the flanks. Nails or spikes are added to telmoniai. They are sometimes extended round the pubic region also so that the bitch may not conceive, because the spikes restrain the ardor of the hounds who wish to mount her." "Collars," "leashes," "belts," and "aprons" are the names used by the modern authority.54 Unless they were off their feed, hounds were to be taken out every other day, weather permitting. 'Take not out your hounds on a very windy or bad day" was a maxim with Xenophon as it was with the English authorities of the eighteenth and

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nineteenth centuries. Apart from the effect of the wind on scenting conditions, Xenophon was concerned that the nets would blow down.55 Other advice includes a warning against letting hounds run riot after foxes; the importance of frequently varying the hunting ground so that the hounds may become familiar with different grounds, and the master with the country; and the need for an early start, before the scent vanishes. Ere yet the morning peep, Or stars retire from the first blush of day, With thy far echoing voice alarm the pack, And rouse thy bold compeers.56 Xenophon now takes us through a typical hunting day, beginning with detailed instructions for setting up the nets, after which the huntsman is to vow a share of the spoil to Apollo, and to Artemis the Huntress, and then slip one hound, the cleverest at tracking, in wintertime just as the sun is rising, in summer before daybreak, and in the other seasons some time between. If this hound picks up a line from among the confused tracks, he should let slip another and if the line continues he should slip the others one at a time at short intervals and follow, not pressing hounds, calling each by name, but not often, so that they may not become excited before the proper moment. And they, full of joy and spirit, go forward, disentangling the tracks, double or triple, as they happen to be, casting forward now beside them, now across them, whether they are tangled, curved, straight, crooked, close, open, known, or unknown. The find, the run, how the huntsman is to encourage hounds, how to try back, or make a circular cast, when they have overrun the line, and what the huntsman is to do if he loses hounds, are all described. ("As you run along, shout out to anyone you come near 'Hi! Have you seen the hounds?'") Finally, when the hounds are growing tired, late in the day, this is the time when the huntsman must look for the exhausted hare, missing nothing that grows from the earth or lies upon it, constantiy retracing his steps for fear of missing something, for the little beast lies down in a small space and is too tired and frightened to get up. He must bring up the hounds and encourage them, speaking to the gentle one a lot, to the stubborn one a little, to the one in between in moderation, until he either kills her at his feet or drives her into the purse nets. After this take up the purse nets and the long nets, rub the hounds down, and leave the hunting ground. But at midday in summer, wait, so that the hounds' feet may not be burned on the road.57 Instructions on hound care follow: breeding; the diet of puppies; the naming of

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hounds ("Give them short names so that they can be called easily," with a string of examples, all of two syllables and with meanings—"Blueman," "Crafty," "Hasty"— that might seem appropriate today);58 the age at which hounds should be entered (eight months for bitches; ten for dogs); training, including the advice to feed young hounds at the purse nets when they are being lifted, so that if they stray through inexperience during the hunt, they may come back for their meal and be saved. The practice is to be discontinued when they have come to regard their quarry as an enemy and give their attention to it rather than to their food. Generally speaking, the master himself should give the hounds their food when they want it; for when they are not hungry, they do not know who is responsible for giving it, but when they want food and get it, they love the man who gives it to them.59 Xenophon concludes his account of hare hunting with some afterthoughts on winter hunting: Track the hare when a god sends snow so that the ground is completely covered. If there are black spaces, she will be hard to seek. In cloudy weather with a north wind, the tracks are clear on the surface for a long time, for the thaw comes slowly. But if the wind is southerly and the sun shines on the snow, the tracks last a short time, for they soon melt away. Xenophon explains that you should not go out while it is snowing continuously, for the tracks will be covered, or take out hounds, whose noses and feet will be frozen. The hunters are to disentangle the tracks themselves and find one that leads to an overgrown spot or a deep bank, under which the hare will be lying. They are not to disturb her, but set the long nets round her and look for others. Finally, the hares are to be started, and even if they wriggle out of the long nets they can probably be run down, because they tire quickly in deep snow and large lumps stick to their feet.60 Only the most dedicated sportsmen would have practiced winter hunting, with its hardship and actual danger, for pleasure. There were others who hunted not for sport but for a living. An old countryman's death amid the snow is mourned by an anonymous poet: Ye Naiads and chill cattle pastures, tell these tidings to the bees when they come on their springtime path. Old Leucippus has perished setting snares on a winter's night for the nimble-footed hares and no more is the tending of the hives dear to him. The pastoral glens lament him who was neighbor to the mountain peak.61 Xenophon gives only one chapter each to deer hunting and boar hunting, which suggests that these beasts of the chase mattered less than the hare to sportsmen in the fourth century B.C. The chapter on deer begins: "For hunting fawns and fallow deer 48

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use Indian hounds, which are strong, big, fast, and not without courage."62 It seems unlikely at first sight that Indian hounds were readily available in Greece in Xenophon's time, unless the name was given to some breed about which all that was definitely known was that they came from somewhere in the Far East. They might, for example, have been related to the mastiffs that helped Ashurbanipal in his lion hunts. 63 But Herodotus records that, a century before Xenophon's time, the king of Persia had so many Indian hounds that four large villages in Babylonia were excused all other tribute in return for looking after them.64 Some of the breed might well have been given to one of the great governors of Asia Minor, and so have reached Greece long before Alexander the Great unlocked the treasures of the Persian Empire. So there is no sufficient reason to see here the hand of a later editor of Xenophon's text. One could certainly wish that this chapter was not Xenophon's work. Xenophon spared the very young leverets "for the goddess," but his first recommendation on deer hunting is to hunt the fawns in spring, because this is the season when they are born. The hunter is to go before sunrise to the meadows that the hinds most frequent and at daybreak observe the places where they conceal their fawns. Then the hounds, which have in the meantime been tied up at some distance, are slipped, and the hunter returns, this time with javelins in hand, to the place where the first fawn was concealed. When he sees the fawn, let him approach it. It will hold still, pressing itself down onto the ground, and will let itself be picked up, crying loudly, unless it has been rained on. In that case, it will not stay, for the wet that it has on itself is rapidly condensed by the cold and makes it take off. But it will be taken by the hounds if chased hard, and when it is caught the hunter should give it to the net keeper. It will cry out. The hind, when she sees and hears what is happening, will run up to the man who is holding her fawn and try to rescue it. That is the moment to set the hounds on her and use one's javelins.65 Quite apart from considering this betrayal of the hind's finer instincts unworthy of a sportsman, we should nowadays deplore the destruction of the breeding stock. But ancient hunters were probably deterred neither by moral nor by practical considerations. On the shoulder of an oil bottle of about 500 B.C., now in Oxford, a hunter chases on foot after an andered stag and a doe. His right hand is drawn back to make an underarm thrust with a javelin; his chlamys hangs in approved fashion over his outstretched left arm, and he is otherwise naked. The end of a large scabbard appears behind the small of his back. The stag bounds away unharmed, but the hunter has had no qualms about attacking the doe. She is on the point of collapsing, with one javelin through her head and another through her right haunch.66 (See 111. 18, p. 50.) Fawns large enough to graze with the herd, says Xenophon, are hard to take, because when they are pursued, they make off, sometimes in front of the rest and sometimes behind, but rarely in the middle. The hinds will strike down the hounds with their hooves in defense of their young unless the huntsman manages to get in among 49

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18. Deer hunters using javelins against doe. Attic lekythos (c. 500 B.C.).

the herd and scatter it, and the fawns will escape, because at this age their speed is unequaled. But their young bodies cannot endure repeated effort, and the huntsman can take them by repeatedly renewing the chase. Grown deer Xenophon took by means of the footsnare, a crown of plaited yew into which were inserted spikes, alternately of wood and of iron, pointing inwards. On this was laid a noose attached to a wooden clog, twenty-seven inches long, and the device was concealed where the deer might be expected to pass, near streams and grazing grounds or on trails. The deer that put its foot through the ring was held by the spikes and hampered by the clog, and the hunter ran it down with hounds in the morning when he walked his line of traps.67

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In summer, deer could be run down even without the help o f footsnares, because they tired quickly and could be shot down with javelins when they came to a standstill. Xenophon notes that they take refuge in pools of standing water and also that they sometimes desperately throw themselves into the sea. Boar hunting was a much more sporting business, as dangerous as it had been in the Age o f Heroes. Elaborate preparations and equipment were called for—"Indian, Cretan, Locrian, and Laconian [Spartan] hounds, purse nets, javelins, boar spears, and footsnares." (This emphasis on careful preparation before facing danger is characteristic o f Xenophon, the old soldier, who praises his friend and former commander Agesilaus not for bravely facing impossible odds, but for raising,' training, and equipping an army that could meet, gleaming in bronze and scarlet, a coalition o f half o f Greece on equal terms.) 68 Xenophon continues: The hounds o f each breed must be o f exceptional quality, so that they may be ready to fight the beast. The purse nets must be of the same thread as those for hares, but o f forty-five threads twisted in three strands o f fifteen threads each. The size, counted from the cod end o f the bag, 69 should be ten knots, and the depth o f the mesh fifteen inches.70 The skirting-lines should be half as much again in thickness as the thread o f the purse nets. The nets should have rings on their edges. These should be put under the meshes, and the edge o f the meshes should extend outward through the rings. Fifteen rings are enough. The javelins should be o f all kinds. They should have broad blades, razorsharp, and sound shafts. The boar spears must in the first place have blades five palms (fifteen inches) long, with projecting teeth in the middle o f the socket, forged out o f the same piece o f bronze, and solid. The shafts must be o f cornel wood, as thick as a soldier's spear. The footsnares should be like those used for deer. Several hunters should cooperate, for the beast is taken with difficulty and by many men. How each o f these articles should be used for the hunt, I will proceed to explain. First o f all, then, the hunters should go to wherever they think the quarry is lying up, slip one o f the Laconian hounds, keeping the others tied up, and cast about with this hound. When the hound picks up the boar's traces, the field should follow the plain signs o f the trail in single file. The huntsman will have many clear indications o f the boar: on soft ground footprints, broken branches in thickets, and wherever there are trees marks o f his tusks. The hounds will generally come to a wooded place in the course o f tracking, for the beast usually makes its lair in such places, because they are warm in winter and cool in summer. On reaching the lair, the hound gives tongue, but the boar is not roused, generally speaking. Then one should take the hound and tie it up with the others, at a considerable distance from the lair. 51

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Next, put the purse nets in position. Throw the meshes over forked branches of trees, and from the net itself make a long extended bosom, setting twigs to prop it inside on both sides so that, as far as possible, the rays of light may penetrate into the bosom through the meshes, and the interior of the net may seem as light as possible to the boar as he rushes on. Fasten the skirting-line to a strong tree and not to a bush, for in bare places bushes are not strong. And above each net block up with brush even the places with bad footing, 71 so that the boar may run into the purse nets and not escape to the side. When the nets are set up, the hunters should go to the hounds and loose them all, take their javelins and boar spears, and advance. One of the most experienced should cheer on the hounds, and the rest should follow in good order, leaving wide intervals between each other so that the boar may have plenty of room to run between them. If he bolts and runs into a close-packed group of men, there is danger that somebody will be gored, for he vents his rage upon whatever he encounters. When the hounds are near the lair, they will rush in on him. Their clamor will arouse the boar, and if any of the hounds attacks him from the front, he will toss it. He will run and fall into the net, but if he does not you must give chase. If the place where the net catches him slopes down steeply, he will quickly get up out of it, but if the place is level, he will at once stand still with the net about him.72 At this very moment, the hounds will press their attack, and the hunters must watch out for them as they throw their javelins and pelt the boar with stones, standing around him from behind at a good distance until he pushes himself forward and pulls the strings of the net tight. It is notable that the skirting-line is not pulled tight by a net watcher, as in hare hunting. The end is securely tied to an immovable object, and the boar itself must tighten the noose by going forward while enclosed in the purse net. Then the most experienced and strongest man in the field should approach him from the front and strike him with his boar spear. If the boar, though attacked with javelins and stones, refuses to pull the skirting-line tight, but draws back, wheels round and makes at the man who is approaching him, one must in these circumstances take hold of one's boar spear and advance. Hold the spear with the left hand forward, the right hand back. The left hand guides, the right thrusts home. The left foot goes first, following the left hand, and the right foot follows the right hand. Go forward and hold the spear in front of you, keeping your legs not much further apart than in wrestling, and the left side turned towards the left hand. Look straight into the boar's eye and note carefully the movement of its head. Thrust your spear taking care that he does not knock it from your hands by jerking his head, for it follows the impetus of the knock. If this happens to you, fall flat on your 52

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face and hold on to the scrub underneath you. If the boar attacks a man in this position, the upward curve of the tusks prevents him from lifting up the man's body. If he does lift the body, the man will inevitably be gored. So the boar tries to lift him, and if he is unable to do so, stands over his body and tramples him. There is only one way to escape from these dangers. If a man is caught in this critical situation, one of his companions must come up close, holding his boar spear, and tease the boar as though he were about to throw it. But he must not throw, in case he hits the fallen man. When the boar sees this, he will leave the man beneath him and turn on the man who is teasing him, full of fury and rage. Then the fallen man must jump up quickly, but not forget to grab his spear as he rises, for safety is dishonorable unless it is attended with victory. Then he should bring forward his spear again in the same way, and thrust it inside the shoulder blade, where the throat is, and, pushing against it, hold on with all his might. The boar comes on, full of fury, and if the teeth of the blade did not prevent him, he would push himself forward along the shaft and reach the man who is holding the spear. So great is his strength that it gives him unimaginable qualities. For example, if, the moment he is dead, one lays some bristles on his tusks, they shrivel up. Such is the heat of the tusks. When the boar is alive, they become red-hot if he is provoked. If this were not the case, he would not singe the tips of the hounds' hairs when his blow misses the body. The boar, then, causes all this trouble, and even more, before he is taken.73 This admirable description requires litde in the way of either interpretation or comment. Works of art from all periods show hunters straddling their feet and thrusting forward their boar spears in the manner described by Xenophon. Most famous, perhaps, is the Calydonian boar hunt that forms the topmost of five friezes on the François Vase, the great mixing-bowl painted in about 560 B.c. by the Athenian artist Kleitias. Sir John Beazley's description cannot be bettered: Chief among the hunters were Meleager and Peleus, and Peleus and Meleager are shown in the front place. Peleus is beardless: this adventure is thought of as taking place when he was quite young, before his marriage. Next to these two was the virgin Atalanta, who with her arrow drew first blood. Here she has shot already, and is now wielding the spear, but her quiver is at her shoulder. She is dressed in a short tunic, and is the only figure on the vase to wear a wreath. The action is very orderly and symmetrical. The boar in the middle, pierced by four arrows, two from the left and two from the right; a hound on the back of the boar, another at its rump, a third disembowelled. Under the boar, Ankaios lies dead. The hunters attack in pairs, with short spears, long javelins and stones; archers also, wearing exotic Oriental hats—Kleitias is interested in hats—and two of them with Oriental53

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sounding names. The hounds are named, as well as the hunters. One ancient writer tells us that Atalanta's hound Aura (Breeze) was killed on this occasion, but Aura is not among the hounds named by Kleitias.74 (See 111. i, p. 3.) Kleitias does not show the teeth projecting from the socket of the boar spear, which were perhaps not yet used in Greece in the sixth century B.C. On some of the vases of the time, boar hunters are shown using tridents, probably to stop the boar from working his way forward along the shaft.75 In a Calydonian hunt painted in the later fourth century by a Greek of southern Italy, Meleager is shown using a huge boar spear whose blade has serrated edges. His companions use light spears with plain heads.76 The painted hunt from Tiryns that was discussed in the first chapter, and other archaeological evidence, including the famous Vapheio cups, prove that nets were certainly used for hunting in the Bronze Age. But they are never shown in pictures of the hunting of the boar of Calydon and were probably not mentioned in the old poem that first told the story.77 Ovid, who retold the story at about the beginning of our era, did not leave the nets out entirely. A forest, with crowded tree-trunks, which no past age had laid low, rose from the plain and overlooked the sloping fields. Hither the heroes came. Then

19. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Apulian amphora (second half of fourth century B.C.).

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some stretched the nets, some slipped the leashes from the hounds; some followed the impressed footprints and longed to seek out their foe, to their own peril.78 But the nets are not mentioned again. The heroes follow the procedure that Xenophon recommends, but, rather than supposing that Ovid had a Cynageticus open in front of him, we might suggest that he slipped in a personal reminiscence of some hunting morning before copying the ancient bard's account of the fate of the boar and o f the heroes who were laid on the hateful pyre. Xenophon continues: If the animal that has fallen into the net is a sow, run up and strike her, taking care that you are not knocked down. If you meet this misfortune, you are certain to be trampled and bitten. So do not fall down if you can help it. If you fall by mistake, you should be helped to rise in the same way as when dealing with the boar. Once you are on your feet, you must stab her with your boar spear until you kill her. Boars are also taken as follows: purse nets are set up for them at passages leading from glens into oak woods, hollows, and rough places, and at points of entry into meadows, swamps, and ponds. The man who is detailed for the purpose watches the purse nets, boar spear in hand. The huntsmen take the hounds and search the likeliest places. When the boar is found, he is pursued. If he falls into the purse net, the net watcher must take his boar spear, approach, and use it in the manner that I have described. If the boar does not fall into the net, you must pursue him. Boars are also taken in very hot weather by giving chase with hounds, for the beast, for all his superior strength, tires quickly, being very short-winded. In this type of hunting, many hounds are killed, and the huntsmen themselves are in danger, at least when, in the course of the chase, they are compelled to approach with their boar spears an animal that has stopped either in water or standing at bay on the edge of a cliff, or one that refuses to come out of a thicket. For he is not restrained by a purse net or by any other means from charging whoever approaches him. All the same, the hunters must go forward in these circumstances and display the valor through which they have chosen to bear the toils of the sport that they love. They must use their boar spears and adopt the forward stance that I have described. If one is going to come to grief, at least let it not be through doing things incorrectly. Xenophon concludes this chapter with brief notes on using footsnares in the same way as for deer and on the difficulty of taking young pigs.79 The practical part of his book ends with a short chapter on "lions, leopards, lynxes, panthers, bears, and all other beasts of this type. They are taken in foreign parts, round Mount Pangaeum and Cittus beyond Macedonia [in the region, that is, where the presence of lions in historical times has already been noted], on Mysian 55

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Olympus and Pindus, on Nysa beyond Syria, and on other mountains that are the habitat of such animals." Xenophon notes that they are killed by baits poisoned with aconite and laid down near watering places; by heading them off with parties of armed horsemen when they come down into the plains at night (a dangerous method); and by pitfalls baited with a goat tethered on a pillar of earth which has been left standing in the middle. The pitfall is camouflaged by building a brushwood fence around it. The beast of prey, hearing the goat bleat, jumps over the fence and lands in the pit, instead of in the goat pen that it no doubt expects.80 These brief remarks represent notes that Xenophon had picked up casually in the course of his campaigns, and obviously have more to do with the destruction of predators by countrymen than with the chase of noble quarry for sport. Alexander's conquests, a generation after Xenophon's death, made the Greek world familiar with a grander form of hunting.

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4

The Royal Hunt

Xenophon had, in fact, seen a little of the very different style of hunting that was practiced by the king of Persia and his satraps. The fact that he makes no mention of it in the Cynegeticus is, of course, an argument for supposing that he wrote the book early in his life, before he marched with the rebel Cyrus to Babylonia in 401 B.C. But there are better reasons for the omission. The Cynegeticus is concerned with methods actually employed for taking animals in the wild. The manner in which officers of an invading army had chased the game that they encountered on their line of march had nothing to do, as far as Xenophon knew, with the usual forms of the hunt. And park hunting in "a great paradise full of wild beasts"1 was an entirely separate topic. Moreover, the apparently capricious choice in the Cynegeticus of Mysian Olympus and "Nysa beyond Syria" among all the mountains of Asia may be accounted for by the fact that Xenophon had passed through north Syria with Cyrus's army and had later campaigned in the foothills of Mysian Olympus under the Spartan leader King Agesilaus. Macedonia, he had, as far as we know, only skirted when Agesilaus was marching back from Asia to Europe in 394 B.C., but there is no reason to be surprised that something was known in the south of Greece about hunting in the northern mountains. On the other hand, if the Cynegeticus had been written by an untraveiled young man who wanted to include a note on big-game hunting abroad, one would have expected a description, probably exaggerated, of the Great King's battues. The squire whose own experience was of hares and foxes and the hedges and ditches of his native Warwickshire could still tell how 57

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On the banks of Gemna, Indian stream, Line within line, rise the pavilions proud Their silken streamers waving in the wind, and how Imperial Delhi, opening wide her gates, Pours out her thronging legions, bright in arms, in order to drive From every covert and from every den . . . Boars, tigers, bears and wolves, a dreadful crew O f grim bloodthirsty foes.2 If Xenophon chose not to describe similar scenes in the Cynegeticus, it was not because he had never heard of them, but because they were foreign to his purpose. In the Cyropaedia, it was another matter. This, the most ambitious of Xenophon's works, is a long historical romance describing the upbringing and career of Cyrus the Great, who in the middle of the sixth century B.C. united the Medes and the Persians under his rule and extended his conquests from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of India. (It was after him that the prince whom Xenophon served more than a century later was named.) The book is not history; Xenophon is serving up his own ideas on education, military tactics, table manners, and the principles of government in an oriental curry to make them more palatable; and they were certainly swallowed with relish in antiquity, and during the Renaissance. They are less to the modern taste. Xenophon tells how the young prince, growing up at the court of his maternal grandfather, Astyages, learned as an adolescent to ride and to use his weapons on horseback. At first the other boys had an advantage over him; they had been brought up with horses, and Cyrus, whose father's Persians were still hillmen, had never ridden. But when he got the worst of it, he was the first to laugh at himself. He did not give up doing the things in which they beat him because he was beaten, but persisted in trying to do better next time, and soon equaled the boys of his own age in horsemanship, and soon after surpassed them through loving this activity. Soon after that he exterminated the animals in the park [paradeisos: the Persian word from which comes our own "paradise"]3 by chasing them and striking them with javelins, cutting them down at such a rate that Astyages was no longer able to collect game for him. Cyrus saw that, though he wanted to, the king could not provide him with many animals, and said to him: "Grandfather, why do you go to all this trouble in looking for wild 58

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beasts? If you send me out hunting with my uncle, I will think that every wild animal I see is being reared for me". So he was sent out with his uncle and an escort of older men on horseback to protect him from dangerous ground and any savage beasts that might appear. Cyrus eagerly asked his attendants which beasts he might not approach and which he might chase boldly. They answered that in the past many men who had attacked bears had been killed by them, and that the same was true of boars and lions and leopards. But fallow deer and roe deer for gazelles, in this Eastern context?] and wild sheep and wild asses offer no danger. They also said that he should watch out for dangerous ground as well as for wild animals, for many men had gone over precipices horse and all. Cyrus listened to all this eagerly, but when he saw a stag bounding away from him, forgot everything that he had heard and gave chase, watching nothing but the way the stag was going. Somehow or other, at a jump his horse came down on its knees and very nearly threw him over its head. All the same, Cyrus stayed on somehow, and the horse got up again. When he came to the plain, he brought the stag down with a javelin, a fine quarry, and a great one. Cyrus was simply delighted, but when his escort rode up, they scolded him for running such risks, and said that they would report him. Cyrus dismounted and stood still, and was sorry as he listened to them. But suddenly he heard a shout and vaulted onto his horse like a man possessed. He saw a boar charging him from in front, rode straight at it, aimed well, hit the boar in the forehead and laid it low. At this even his uncle scolded him, seeing his rashness. O f course, Cyrus got round him, and brought in the boar and gave it to his grandfather, saying that he had hunted it for him. He did not actually show him his javelins, but laid them down all bloody where he thought his grandfather would see them. Astyages said to him, "My boy, I am delighted to accept any presents you give me, but I do not want them so much that you must put yourself in danger." Cyrus answered, "Well, grandfather, if you don't want it, give it to me, so that I can share it with the other boys." 'Take it, my boy," said Astyages, "and share it with anyone you like, and anything else that takes your fancy." Cyrus took the boar and gave it to the boys, saying, "Boys, we were just fooling when we hunted the animals in the park." Here the character of Cyrus himself, though not that of the hunt, may owe something to Xenophon's memories of his own boyhood or of his sons'. The prince sounds like a liberated (and spoiled) young Athenian, rather than the child of an oriental despot.

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In due course, Astyages arranged another hunt for the pleasure of his grandson. He assembled a large force of infantry and cavalry and the other boys. He had the game driven into rideable country and held a great hunt. He himself was present in royal state and forbade anyone else to strike a blow until Cyrus had hunted to his heart's content. But Cyrus did not allow him to forbid them, saying "Grandfather, if you want me to enjoy my hunting, let all my friends give chase and compete, each as well as he can." So Astyages gave permission, and stood watching them racing after the wild animals, and competing, and giving chase and throwing their javelins. And he was delighted when Cyrus from sheer pleasure could not keep silent, but gave tongue like a well-bred puppy whenever he came near a wild animal, calling each of his friends by name.4 The war with the Assyrians, which eventually led to Cyrus's greatest victory, the capture of Babylon, began when the Assyrian crown prince, on the eve of his wedding, took an army up into the mountains that lay between the kingdoms in order to hunt and raided down into Media.5 And, of course, when Cyrus, having achieved all his conquests, set his kingdom in order, the royal hunt was among its institutions. The value of hunting for strengthening men's minds and bodies and as a school of horsemanship is emphasized in the Cyropaedia in terms that recall the Cynegeticus and the treatise On Horsemanship. Xenophon adds that "Cyrus took the members of his court out hunting whenever there was no compelling reason for him to stay at home. But when he had to, he hunted at home the animals that had been reared in the parks. He never used to dine himself until he had sweated or give his horses their corn until they had been exercised."6 Here as in many other places, the model for the great Cyrus is his descendent and namesake, whom Xenophon himself had served. In the Oeconomicus, Socrates tells a story of how Lysander the Spartan general, on a mission to the younger Cyrus, found the prince in his beautifully planted orchard and learned to his astonishment that Cyrus had not only laid out the plan, but had planted many of the trees with his own hands: "When I am in health, I never dine before I have sweated in the practice of some military or agricultural activity."7 The story may well be true, though it is given a fictitious setting. Xenophon had met senior Spartan officers, including his patron King Agesilaus, who had known Lysander well and could have heard the story from his lips. In his Anabasis, the story of the younger Cyrus's Greek mercenary army, Xenophon pauses to describe the prince's character, after giving an account of his death on the battlefield of Cunaxa near Babylon. Thus perished Cyrus, of all Persians since the time of Cyrus I the most kingly and the most worthy to rule, as is agreed by all who appear to have had any acquaintance with him. First of all, when he was still a boy and was being 60

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educated together with his brother and other boys, he was considered best of them all at everything. All the boys of the noblest Persians are brought up at the king's court. There one might learn the greatest moral virtue; there is nothing shameful to be seen or heard. The boys see and hear those whom the king honors and others who are disgraced. So right from boyhood, they learn how to command and how to obey. There Cyrus seemed in the first place to be the most modest among those of his own age, and most ready to obey his elders, though they were of inferior rank, and the one who best loved horses and was the best horseman. Moreover, he was judged to be the best student and practitioner of the martial arts of archery and javelin throwing. When he reached the proper age, he was the greatest lover of hunting and, moreover, most loved to meet danger in facing wild beasts. Once a bear attacked him, but he did not flinch. He closed with it, and was dragged from his horse, and carried the scars of his injuries ever after. At last he killed it, and the man who came first to his help, he rewarded, so that he became an object of envy.8 Xenophon does not say whether this bear hunt took place in the open country or in a "paradise." He had had a glimpse of Cyrus's game parks and of those belonging to other great Persians. At Celaenae in Phrygia, Cyrus owned a palace and a great park full of wild beasts, where he used to hunt on horseback whenever he wished to exercise himself and his horses. On his march, Cyrus destroyed "the palace of Belesys, governor of Syria, and the park, great and fair, that contained all the fruits of each season." Some years later, Xenophon was probably on the staff of Agesilaus when the Spartans made war on their former ally Pharnabazus and destroyed "the fair palaces and parks full of trees and game" that he had inherited from his father.9 Xenophon himself probably never hunted in these parks, but as Cyrus's army moved down the left bank of the Euphrates, there were fine opportunities for sport— at least for the mounted officers, who were not tied to the slow pace of the marching column. After fording the river, Cyrus marched on through Arabia, with the Euphrates on his right, five days' march through the desert, totalling thirty-five parasangs. In this area the country was all level, as flat as the sea, and full of wormwood. Such other scrub and reeds as were in it were all fragrant, like perfume. It contained no trees, but game of all sorts, mostiy wild asses and many ostriches. There were also bustards and gazelles. From time to time, the mounted men chased these animals. The asses, when they were pursued, ran ahead and stood still. They ran much faster than horses. When the horses approached again, they did the same thing, and it was only possible to take them if the horsemen were posted at intervals to chase them in relays. The flesh of those that were taken was much like venison, but more tender. Nobody caught an ostrich, and those horsemen who chased them soon gave up, for they set a great distance be61

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tween themselves and their pursuers, using their feet for running and their wings, which they lifted up, like sails. Bustards can be caught it one puts them up quickly, for they fly a short distance, like partridges, and tire quickly. Their flesh was delicious.10 Sir Henry Layard compares Xenophon's experience with his own, during his travels in northern Mesopotamia in the middle of the nineteenth century: As evening approached, we saw, congregated near a small stream, what appeared to be a large company of dismounted Arabs, their horses standing by them. . . . We approached cautiously, and were surprised to see that the horses still remained without their riders; we drew still nearer, when they all galloped off towards the desert. They were wild asses. We attempted to follow them. After running a little distance, they stopped to gaze at us, and I got sufficiently near to see them well; but as soon as they found that we were in pursuit, they hastened their speed, and were soon lost in the distance. Layard describes another journey as follows: Here and there grew patches of a shrub-like plant with an edible root, having a sharp pungent taste like mustard, eaten raw and much relished by the Bedouins. Among them lurked game of various kinds. Troops of gazelles sprang from the low cover and bounded over the plains. The greyhounds coursed hares; the horsemen followed a wild boar of enormous size, and nearly white from age; and the Doctor, who was the sportsman of the party, shot a bustard, with beautiful speckled plumage and ruff of long feathers round its neck. . . . We scanned the horizon in vain for the wild ass, which is but thinly scattered over the plains. The Arabs found many eggs of the middle bustard. They were laid in the grass without any regular nest, the bird simply making a form somewhat like that of a hare, and sitting very close, frequently not rising until it was nearly trodden under foot.11 Cyrus's love of hunting particularly distinguished him, in Xenophon's eyes, from his brother the king, who, so the rebel prince told his followers, "could neither keep his seat in the hunting field nor his throne in a crisis."12 At the end of the Cyropaedia, Xenophon attacked the degeneracy of the contemporary Persian court. In former times they went out hunting so often that hunting provided sufficient exercise for themselves and their horses. But once King Artaxerxes and his courtiers took to drink, they no longer went out themselves in the same way, nor led other men out to the hunt. If any of them did show an inclination for exercise and hunted frequently with their own cavalry bodyguards, the king and his friends obviously envied them and hated them as better men than themselves.13

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Though Xenophon in the Cyropaedia contrasts Cyrus the Great at all points with his enemy the Assyrian, it was, in fact, from the Assyrians that the Persian kings had learned the display of the royal hunt, along with much else of their court ceremonial. Ashurbanipal did not merely "hunt nobly on the plain," he had animals trapped and brought to him to be destroyed at his convenience. "I, Ashurbanipal . . . in my princely sport . . . with arrows I pierced at my feet a raging lion of the plain, which they had released from a cage, but he did not die. So . . . I then stabbed him with the iron dagger from my belt, and he died." Heavy wooden cages, from which the lion is released through a sliding door raised by a man on the roof so that the king can shoot the animal down as it charges appear among the bas-reliefs from Ashurbanipal's palace.14 H o w the lion was caged in the first place, the king's artists do not show, any more than Xenophon tells us how the servants of Astyages stocked the royal park for the prince's pleasure. The sculptors also show mounted beaters cracking their whips in order to turn the game towards the king—the lion whose tail he will twist and a herd of gazelles who move reluctandy towards the pit in which the king crouches concealed, bow in hand, with an attendant ready to pass him arrows. Other beaters on foot head the onagers that the king hunts on horseback with a pack of mastiffs. He is armed with a bow and is followed by mounted attendants carrying a quiver and light hunting spears and leading a spare horse. Nobody presumes to attack the game while His Majesty is hunting, though elsewhere attendants are shown capturing onagers with lassos. After the hunt, the slaughtered lions are laid out in rows for the king to pour libations over the corpses. 15 Another royal hunt takes place in the park at Nineveh before a crowd of spectators. The four horses that will draw the king's chariot are led between two files of

20. Gazelles driven towards King Ashurbanipal. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.).

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21. King Ashurbanipal crouching in pit. Detail of figure 20.

foot soldiers armed with spears and huge shields. Meanwhile the townsfolk, in hope of a good view, are hurrying up a wooded hill crowned by a small building containing a relief of a royal lion hunt. "One wife, too pressing, is thrust back by her husband, who carries their picnic in a bag. Another woman excitedly waves on her companions, who part the brushwood to see the sport." The horses are put to; the king, wearing his crown of state, mounts his chariot and proceeds to the slaughter of lions and lionesses crowded together and held in the killing-yard by lines of huntsmen, each carrying a short spear, which he does not use, and holding a large mastiff on a leash. The king's attendants do use their spears in defense when wounded lions leap up onto the royal chariot from behind. Mounted beaters and a lion being released from a cage are also 64

22a,b. Servants of King Ashurbanipal with nets and stakes. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.).

23. Deer driven into nets. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.).

24. Servants returning from the hunt. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.).

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shown. 16 And in a delightful garden planted with date palms and grapevines, tame lions and a lioness take their ease in the company o f the court musicians.17 O f course, it must not be forgotten that this display of royal prowess before the people's eyes was part o f the kingly function, not merely a sport to which the public were admitted as spectators. And it had also a religious character, shown most clearly in the pouring out o f drink-offerings over the bodies o f the slain lions. Yet another sequence shows the royal servants, mounted and on foot, bringing on their own shoulders or on mules long nets with their stakes and cords. Leashed mastiffs accompany the party. A herd of deer is driven into the net across a wooded, rocky landscape, and the return from the hunt shows how completely the country has been swept bare; the huntsmen carry home dead lions, but have not spared the hare that dangles head downward, the bird whose struggles are disregarded by the overweight, self-satisfied servant who holds its wings, or even the nestlings that are carried off nests and all.18 No comparable illustrations o f a Persian royal hunt exist. In the sculptures o f the palace o f Persepolis, Darius the Great and his successors chose to show a pacified world bearing tribute to the king's gates rather than the stricken fields and scenes o f sack and pillage that delighted the Assyrians. And though the Great King is represented destroying monsters, and in very much the same attitude as Ashurbanipal killing lions on foot, they are imaginary monsters only, the horned griffins that symbolize the powers o f evil. Nonetheless, many lesser works of art show the Persian nobility's delight in the chase, as well as the symbolic value o f hunting in the concept o f empire. The mighty hunter was still the protector o f his people, and an official seal shows the king hunting lions from his chariot in the Assyrian manner. Two date-palms, if they are not merely symbols of a prosperous reign, set the scene in a "paradise," and the god Ahuramazda gives his blessing from above.19 Glimpses o f Persians hunting arc given by other gems, mostly from the western provinces o f the empire, and personal, not official. These "Greco-Persian" gems include pieces engraved in purely Greek style, and apparently the work o f Greek artists, besides others showing varying degrees o f Greek influence.20 On one that has been assigned to the "Greek group," a hunter has jumped down from his horse and wields his spear against a boar, o f which only the tip of one ear and the bristles o f the head are preserved. He wears a long-sleeved belted tunic over loose trousers—the ridingdress that the Iranians had inherited from their nomadic ancestors—and on his head the Persian headdress, called a tiara, which was wrapped around the face and crowned with a sort o f bonnet. This hunter's tiara stands upright, a mark o f distinction reserved for the king alone. He has left the reins on his horse's neck; it paws the ground excitedly, with lifted tail. It wears a saddlecloth secured by a girth, and a breastplate, as was usual in Persia, but seems to be o f the Greek breed, more lightly built and with a finer head than the horses that were bred for the Great King on the Nisaean pastures. This

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is another conventional tribute to the royal prowess rather than a picture of hunting as it was actually carried on.21 Some of the gems appear more realistic.22 A Nisaean horse, ram-headed, heavyshouldered, and with solid quarters, appears on a gem of mixed Greek and Asiatic style. Its rider meets a charging boar at full gallop and, like Cyrus in Xenophon's story, spears it full in the forehead. He wears the usual flat tiara, and his horse has a fringed saddlecloth. Its tail is tied in a hunter's knot so that it will not become bedraggled or catch in bushes. Another Persian, assisted by his hound, faces a boar on foot in a stance that would be Xenophon's if the engraver had not, for artistic reasons, made the shaft of the spear pass behind the man's body. Lion hunting and stag hunting on horseback are also illustrated. The hunter may use a spear or a bow; if the latter, he may either shoot straight forward or swing round to deliver what was later known as a Parthian shot over his horse's tail. Foxes were speared with long-shafted tridents: on one gem a horseman gallops alongside a fox and turns to pin him with a vertical thrust; on another, a horseman faces a man on foot who stands over a dead fox holding his trident vertically downward above its head.23 Nets are not shown on gems, which of course do not have room for all the apparatus of the grand hunt, but this does not prove that the Persians did not use nets. (The human "dragnets" with which they "netted" Samos and other conquered territories represent a metaphor taken from sea fishing, not from hunting.) Xenophon describes the youthful Cyrus as hunting without nets at his grandfather's court. However, when Cyrus leaves home, his father Cambyses gives him advice making it clear that the boy is already familiar with wildfowling and with the sort of hare hunting that is described in the Cynegetkus, including the use of hounds to find hares by scent and others to run them down, and the stretching of concealed nets in places where hares are likely to run. Cambyses tells Cyrus that when he grows up, he must apply in warfare against men the lessons that he has learned from animals.24 This passage does not, of course, have much to do with the actual manner of hunting in Persia, but belongs to Xenophon's own world and that of his sons. It must be noted that Cyrus does not change from his father's method of hunting to the pursuit of big game on horseback because he is growing up. He is still only a child of twelve, much younger than the young men for whom Xenophon wrote the Cynegeticus. But he is going to a country where he will have the chance to follow a grander form of sport, which was not possible at home. At all events, Cyrus remembers his father's advice, and when he grows up explains an operation in which he proposes to divide his army so that one half may drive the enemy towards the other in terms appropriate to the Cynegetkus. Think of it as a hunt—that we will be the ones who seek out the game and you the net watcher. Remember that the gaps must be stopped before the game's afoot, and that the men at the mouths of the nets must be hidden if they are not to head the animals that are driven to them.25 68

25a,b,c,d,e,f. Persian nobles hunting on foot and on horseback. Modern impressions of Greco-Persian gems (fifth to fourth century B . C . ) .

HUNTING

IN T H E A N C I E N T

WORLD

Hunting nets appear in a story told by Herodotus, which, though set in Persia, seems more in place in the Greek world, and gives a glimpse of the wandering professional hunter rather than of the sportsman. Harpagus, a noble Mede who had been wronged by his king Astyages, wished to set Cyrus upon the throne in his place. But Cyrus was living among the Persians and the roads were guarded. So, having no other device by which to convey his message, he contrived as follows. He artfully slit the belly of a hare without disturbing its coat and inserted a paper upon which he had written his intentions. Then he sewed up the hare's belly and sent it to the Persians by the hand of his most faithful servant, giving him nets to carry as though he were a hunter. He ordered the man to give the hare to Cyrus and tell him by word of mouth to cut it open with his own hand, letting nobody else be present when he did so.26 The story of the death of Atys, son of King Croesus of Lydia (c. 560-546 B . C . ) , shows that the concept of the king as protector of his people against the beasts of the wilderness was widely held and long remembered. Herodotus tells how Croesus was warned in a dream that his son would be killed by an iron weapon, and therefore forbade him to go to war or to the hunt, and even removed all the weapons that were hanging on the walls of the palace, in case one should fall and kill his son by accident. But there came messengers from the Mysians, begging for help against a great boar that was ravaging their land, and Atys reproved his father for keeping him at home. Leadership in war and in hunting had hitherto been the chief glory of the royal house, and now the prince was deprived of both. Croesus told his son about the dream, but yielded to the argument that the boar had neither iron weapons nor hands to wield them, and therefore need not be feared. So Atys went to the hunt, under the special protection of Adrastus, a fugitive from Phrygia, where he had accidentally killed his own brother. Croesus had purified Adrastus of blood-guilt, and received him into his own household. In return the king now required of Adrastus that he should bring his son home safely. The fatal dream was fulfilled when Atys was accidentally killed by a spear thrown by his guardian, and the story ends with the suicide of Adrastus over the prince's grave.27 By the time that Herodotus wrote, about the middle of the fifth century B.C., the hunt was beginning to acquire a place in the symbolism of funerary art. In Greece, the mood at first is that of Flecker's Town without a Market. "Hard it is," Another cried, "to hear no hunting-horn. Ah me! the horse, the hounds, and the great grey morn When I rode out a-hunting." On Attic vases of the fifth century B.C., made specifically to be buried in the grave, young men are sometimes shown hunting hares among tombs. One is tempted to see 70

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a confrontation between the young athlete in the pride o f life and the dead men past and gone, like the "Three Living and Three Dead" of mediaeval imagery. But no Athenian would really have disturbed his ancestors' rest with the cry of hounds. "A itinerary scene, suitable to a dead youth who delighted in the hunt" is the right interpretation. 28 Hounds are carved on gravestones snuffing at their master's feet or jumping up to lick his hand. 29 They suggest the same bittersweet melancholy that is inspired by a marble relief o f a dead child feeding her doves from her own lips,30 though there is also present the notion, which becomes stronger as the fourth century goes on, that the dead man had something heroic about him.31 Thus the epitaph o f a soldier killed in battle also commemorates his horse, hound, and servant, not because they fell with him but in order to establish his rank and quality: The master's name was Hippaemon, the horse's Fleetfoot, the hound's Sleepy, the servant Babes. . . . He perished in the front ranks, marshalling keen war.32 But compare: Here, Pericles, son o f Archias, stand I, the stone pillar, a memorial to thy hunting. All are wrought about thy monument; horses, javelins, hounds, stakes and the nets upon them. Alas! all are stone, and the wild beasts run all around. Thou, but twenty years old, sleepest the sleep that knows no awakening.33 Very different ideas are suggested by hunting scenes carved upon monuments from the western provinces o f the Persian empire. The hunt is included among other aspects o f the dead man's magnificence not to recall the transitory nature o f his glory, but to suggest that his triumphs in this world have culminated in a triumph over death itself. A tombstone from the south shore o f the Sea o f Marmara, now in Istanbul, belongs to the same Greco-Persian world as the gems. It bears a relief o f a horseman in Persian dress—tiara, long-sleeved tunic, cloak floating from his shoulders, trousers, short boots. His norse, o f the heavy Nisaean breed, bounds to the right. The rider's right arm is uplifted to thrust his lance at a boar, which has been brought to bay by two hounds. A leafless and broken tree-trunk stands behind the boar, and behind this a stag is running. An attendant, also in Persian dress, carries two javelins on his shoulder as he walks behind the horse. A smaller register below shows a man reclining at a banquet. He is, no doubt, the hunter, but this time wears a Greek mantle, which has slipped from his shoulders, leaving his torso bare. He turns and holds out his hand to a woman who, seated behind the head o f the banqueter's couch, raises her right hand to take his, while laying her left on the shoulder of a small child who stands between them. A second woman sits near the man's feet; a third, perhaps a servant, stands behind her mistress and

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26. Persian noble at the hunt and banqueting. Tombstone from northwestern Anatolia (fifth to fourth century

B.C.).

THE ROYAL

HUNT

holds up a mirror. Opposite her, a manservant offers a cup of drink. There is nothing melancholy in this representation of a great lord hunting in his "paradise" and relaxing among his women, unless indeed the leafless tree suggests mortality.34 Greek customs, shared by the Carians and Lycians of southwest Asia Minor, required that founders and benefactors of cities should, like the great Mausolus of Halicarnassus, be buried in the marketplace and honored with cults and sacrifices. They were remembered as heroes, beings who had transcended the common lot of mankind, and their tombs, though in no way considered temples, sometimes deliberately recalled the temples of the gods both in their architectural forms and in their sculptured ornaments. Batdes, historical and mythical, hunting, sacrifices, processions, and banquets all served to establish that the dead man's glory was equal to that of his heroic ancestors and, like theirs, continued beyond the grave. This is the meaning of a splendid hunting scene carved about 430 B.C. on the sarcophagus, now known as the Satrap Sarcophagus, of a king of Sidon. In this Phoenician city, the hero-cult in its Greek form was unknown, and the kings were buried outside the walls of the city in the branching galleries of a deep underground vault. Until the middle of the fifth century B.C., the bodies were laid in huge stone coffins shaped in the Egyptian manner to resemble the human form. Why the custom was changed, we do not know, but for whatever reason, this particular king chose to be buried in a boxlike sarcophagus whose interior cavity was still shaped to fit the body, but whose exterior, by its rooflike lid and the architectural ornament that frames the four sides, suggests a hero-shrine. The material of the sarcophagus is Greek marble, and the sculptor was Greek, perhaps from Ionia.35 The architectural theme was not carried out consistendy in the scenes that are represented on the four sides. Only the banquet, at the head end, where the dead ruler reclines on his couch waited upon by attendants and with his wife seated in front of him, belongs indoors. At the foot four menservants in Persian dress stand in pensive attitudes, carrying spears. On one long side, the ruler, enthroned and with a footstool at his feet, reviews his horses and chariot as they are led past by his servants. The motif is freely treated by the Greek artist, but is derived from the palace of Persepolis, and the Persian dress worn by these Phoenicians confirms that this provincial court copied what was to be seen at the Great King's gates. That the king of Sidon should also have hunted big game on horseback in his park was to be expected. Accordingly, the fourth side of the sarcophagus displays the hunt at its dramatic climax. Four horsemen (no hounds are shown) have ridden down a stag36 and wounded it. As it collapses, one of the four, a beardless young man who has been galloping right at the quarry's heels, leans back and wrenches his horse onto its haunches with a downward jerk of his left hand, while his right delivers the final thrust with his spear through the stag's spine behind the shoulders. (The hunters' weapons and the bridles of their horses were painted upon the marble and must now be supplied by the imagination.)

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27. King of Sidon and attendants hunting. The Satrap Sarcophagus (c. 430 B.C.).

28. King of Sidon hunting. Detail of figure 27.

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But the kill is pushed to one side and its excitement is forgotten in that of a much more dramatic incident. The hunters, galloping with their eyes fixed on the stag, have unexpectedly ridden right over a panther, which is now snarling among the horses' legs. One horse has shied away, swinging round on its hind legs to the right, and has thrown its rider, whose desperate face appears under the animal's forelegs as he is dragged, with hands still gripping the reins, arms straining above his head, and legs trailing in the dust. His companions have kept control of their horses and close in on the panther from either side with spears uplifted. It is this symmetrical group o f the panther and its antagonists that fills the center of the composition, balanced on either side by the lesser dramas of the stag's death and the fallen rider. The horseman on the left of the panther, at whom the beast snarls over its shoulder, is distinguished by his venerable beard and by the richness of his dress. Besides tiara, tunic, trousers, and boots, he wears a candys, a short jacket, fastened at the throat and left to dangle at the wearer's back with empty sleeves like a hussar's dolman, to which it seems to be directly related. The candys is often mentioned as part of the dress of the Persian nobility, and this kingly figure must be the ruler whose body was eventually laid in the sarcophagus. It is tempting to see an incident in the ruler's life, remembered with pride, as the younger Cyrus remembered his adventure with the bear.37 Greek artists rarely show riders thrown by their horses, although saddles and stirrups were unknown and falls must have been frequent.38 The fall on the sarcophagus seems to be sketched from life, and to owe nothing to any earlier work of art that has come down to us.39 The sculptor must have been told to introduce this unusual subject; he would hardly risk offending his patron by what might have been taken as a hint that the Phoenicians could dress up like Persians and take the field, but were only Cockney sportsmen after all. If the king of Sidon had once saved from a panther a friend who had been thrown, the thing would be explained. But the banquet and the review on the other sides of the sarcophagus represent the general tenor of the ruler's life rather than specific incidents. The same must be true of the hunt, and we should see in the fallen rider a sharp reminder that there was real danger in the wars that the king of Sidon had waged against the beasts of the field. Perhaps he was slightly ashamed that his position as a vassal-king had limited his opportunities for fighting human enemies.40 The so-called Lycian Sarcophagus continues the series from Sidon and uses the hunt and the Greek myth of the battle against the Centaurs to symbolize the dead ruler's heroic status. But the hunters, some on horseback and others in chariots, and their cowering prey are treated purely conventionally. Conventional, too, though more varied and including the unusual subject of a bear hunt, are the hunting sketches (separate scenes rather than the continuous narrative of one great chase) round the basis of the Sarcophagus of Mourning Women from the middle of the fourth century B.C. Though this ruler gave the hunt only a minor part in the decoration of his sarcophagus, he must have loved the sport, for a favorite hound was buried with him.41

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Last and most magnificent in the series is the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus. This takes its name from the figure of Alexander the Great, wearing upon his head a lion's mask like his ancestor Hercules, that appears in the greatest of the battle scenes that decorate the gable ends of the lid and two sides of the chest. Alexander is shown wearing the lion's mask on coins struck by the generals who carved great kingdoms out of his empire after his death in 323 B.C. The sarcophagus must also have been made after this date, probably for King Abdalonymus of Sidon, whom Alexander raised to the throne in 333 B.C. There is a romantic story that when search was made for the last surviving member of the royal house to replace the tyrant and friend of Persia who had just been deposed, Abdalonymus was found weeding the little patch of suburban ground from which he made his living as a market gardener. Dressed in royal purple, he made a kingly figure, and his replies to Alexander's questions showed that he had a mind and spirit befitting his royal descent.42 Abdalonymus may have been killed in 312 B.C., fighting for the Macedonian prince Demetrius, surnamed the Besieger, against Ptolemy I of Egypt. 43 The battle scenes on the sarcophagus seem to show real events in Alexander's conquest of the East and the wars of his successors, though treated in heroic style, and the two hunting scenes that decorate the second long side and the end of the sarcophagus, unlike the one on the Satrap Sarcophagus, probably commemorate historic royal hunts. In both, a figure in Persian dress occupies the center of interest and clearly represents Abdalonymus himself. In the smaller, he has sprung down from his horse to dispatch a panther which has been wounded by his attendants. The frightened horse rears and strikes out with its front feet, trying to break away from the king's squire (his candys shows that he is no mere groom), who has seized the reins on both sides close to the bit and forces the animal's head down onto its chest as he struggles to control it.

»T*r

yiir I ' » '»»TT

I

29. King Abdalonymus and attendants hunting panther. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.c.).

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M

w

THE

ROYAL

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30. Abdalonymus and Alexander at the lion hunt. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century

B.C.).

31. Hephaistion and other hunters. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century

B.C.).

In the greater hunt, Abdalonymus is mounted and meets the shock of a charging lion, which fastens its teeth into the horse's chest and rakes the poor beast's shoulder with its claws. The king stays unshaken in his seat and searches out the vital spot into which he will thrust his lance. From either side, horsemen in Macedonian dress close in. Their features are individualized—portraits, not conventional examples of a general type. The man who gallops up behind Abdalonymus is further distinguished by a thin groove encircling his hair, which once contained a royal diadem. (This, like other

77

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WORLD

metal accessories that once completed the sculptures, was torn away when the vault was rifled in antiquity.) Men on foot, both Persian and Macedonian, and hounds, one of which has seized the lion's hind leg, crowd the scene, and the death of a stag to the right of the central group perhaps deliberately echoes the theme of the Satrap Sarcophagus. An interesting technical point is the use of battle-axes of oriental style, swung high with both hands by Persian hunters on foot to break the spines of the panther and the lion. Against the panther, Abdalonymus protects himself with a large military shield of Greek type. Who is the young prince whom Abdalonymus shields from the lion's charge? His features have been thought to resemble Demetrius the Besieger, but Demetrius had no business to be wearing the diadem before 306 B.C., when Alexander's successors formally recognized each other as kings, and indeed was only crown prince until his father's death in 3 0 1 B . C . 4 4 SO it has been suggested with more probability that the royal hunter is Alexander himself, and the second Macedonian horseman his friend Hephaestion, the man who, if the story is true, actually found Abdalonymus and presented him to Alexander.45 Alexander's royal hunts were long remembered. Plutarch recounts that after his victories had placed the wealth of Persia at the disposal of the Macedonians, he saw his courtiers given over to luxury and vulgar in the extravagance of their daily lives. Hagnon of Teos wore silver-studded boots; Leonnatus had many camel-loads of dust brought from Egypt for his gymnastic exercises; Philotas had nets a hundred furlongs in length for his hunts; they anointed themselves with more myrrh than they had once used olive-oil, and took about with them a train of masseurs. Alexander rebuked them . . . because they did not realize that luxury is most slavish and it is most royal to bear hardship. "Indeed," he said, "how can a man look after his own horse or burnish his spear and helmet if he has forgotten how to use his hands on his own body?" [relying instead on masseurs] . . . Accordingly, he exerted himself still more in his own campaigns and hunting expeditions, suffering injury and exposing himself to danger. Once a Spartan ambassador was present when he slew a great lion, and exclaimed: 'That was a fine batde that you had against the lion, Alexander, with your empire at stake." A monument to the hunt was dedicated at Delphi by Craterus, who commissioned bronze figures of the lion and the hounds, the king grappling with the lion, and himself coming to help. Some of these figures were the work of Lysippus and some the work of Leochares.46 Plutarch's story suggests, from its context, that the hunt took place in Iran. But the monument's inscribed base, which has been found at Delphi, boasts that when Craterus followed Alexander to the conquest of Asia, "he met the lion at close quarters and slew it within the frontiers of the pastoral Syrians."47 This indicates that the hunt took place close to Abdalonymus's country, but works of art that are believed to be 78

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inspired by the statues at Delphi (which are themselves lost) show a very different hunt from the one represented on the sarcophagus. On a statue base from Messene, now in the Louvre, a lion facing to the right has been brought to bay by hounds. One lies prostrate beneath his paw; a second stands back with forelegs stiffly propped. Close to the lion's head, a splendidly muscled young man, naked, but with a lionskin wrapped round his left arm, brings his right arm across his body in order to swing a great axe above his head for a backhand blow. (It is a double-headed European axe, unlike the Asiatic axes of the sarcophagus.) But the lion turns away and looks over his shoulder at a young horseman, dressed in chiton, chlamys, and petasos, who gallops up on the other side with spear uplifted. This group is easily interpreted as Cráteras riding up to help Alexander—only Plutarch fails to mention the horse.48 A mosaic found at Pella, the ancient capital of the Macedonian kings, and dating from perhaps no more than a generation after Alexander's death, has also been connected with Craterus's dedication. It shows a lion between two hunters. The one on the left poises his lance in his right hand and holds a sheathed sword at the full length of his left arm, from which his cloak hangs like a shield. The one on the right swings a great slashing cudass above his head, but holds the scabbard of a straight sword in front of him. His cloak flies behind him.49 Of course these works of art make no more pretense to realism than does the hunt depicted on the sarcophagus—and if Abdalonymus had been present and had helped Alexander when he was in difficulties, the Macedonians would probably have preferred to forget that their king had been rescued by a barbarian. Alexander is said by the Latin historian Curtius to have held another great hunt in "the region that is called Bazaira" in Central Asia, somewhere near Samarkand. Of the wealth of the barbarians in those parts, there are no greater proofs than the herds of noble beasts of the chase they keep shut up in great woods and parks. For this purpose, they select extensive forests made pleasant by many springs of water that flow all year long. They surround the woods with walls and have towers as shelters for the hunters. For four successive generations, so it was agreed, the park had remained undisturbed. Alexander now entered it with his whole army and gave orders for the game to be driven from all directions. Among the other animals, a lion of exceptional size charged the king himself. It so happened that Lysimachus, the future king, was standing next to Alexander, and began to aim his hunting spear at the beast. But Alexander pushed him aside and told him to get out of the way, saying that he could kill a lion single-handed as well as Lysimachus. For in time past Lysimachus, when he was hunting in Syria, had in fact killed a monster of exceptional size single-handed, but his left shoulder had been torn to the bone and he had thereby been in extreme danger. This was what the king referred to in his rebuke; and his deeds were still braver than his words, for he not only received the lion's charge, but killed the beast with a single blow. I 79

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would suppose that the story, which has been put about without any evidence, that the king threw Lysimachus to a lion, arose from the incident that I have just related. However, although Alexander had finished the business successfully, the Macedonians none the less decreed in the manner of their nation that he should not henceforth hunt on foot or without a chosen bodyguard of nobles and Companions. He killed four animals in that park and held a banquet with his whole army.50 Whether Lysimachus killed his lion at the same hunt in which Craterus helped Alexander, and whether Abdalonymus was present, does not really matter; there were lions to hunt both in Syria and in Central Asia in those days, and the Macedonians hunted them. If the Macedonians were concerned for the king's safety in the hunting field, Alexander was concerned for theirs. He wrote a letter to his friend Peucestas blaming him for not letting him know that he had been bitten by a bear and telling him to inform him if any of his hunting companions had left him in the lurch, so that they could be punished.51 Big-game hunting was, in fact, in the Macedonians' blood. None of their nobles who had not killed a boar without using nets was permitted by custom to recline at banquets. Cassander, who later became a king, at the age of thirty-five still sat in a chair beside his father, as adolescents were expected to do. He had not yet killed his boar, though he was a brave man and a skilled hunter.52 Evidently nobody was considered to have attained full manhood until he had achieved this feat, but it does not follow that nets were never used by grown men, and the story of Alexander's rebuke to Philotas proves that they were. It is possible that the Macedonian nobles, before they conquered Asia, hunted the lions of their own country by more sporting methods than the pitfalls and poisoned baits of which Xenophon had heard. Coins of King Amyntas III (393—370 B.C.) show on one side a young horseman wearing chlamys and petasos, with spear uplifted, and on the other a lion snapping a spear shaft between its teeth.53 Consequently, we may place in a European setting the lion brought to bay in the splendid hunt that decorated the facade of the royal tomb recently discovered at Aegae, the ancient capital of Macedonia. The preliminary reports of the excavator, Professor Manolis Andronikos, and the illustrations that formed part ofthe recent exhibition "The Search for Alexander" have shown that, when fully published, this may prove to be the greatest of all the works of art that use the hunt to symbolize the heroism of a dead ruler.54 It is noteworthy that, even in this context, nets are depicted. Alexander's successors and their descendents kept up the forms of the royal hunt and copied the great "paradises" of the Persian kings. Demetrius the Besieger once surprised some ambassadors to whom his father, Antigonus, was giving audience by coming straight in from hunting with his javelins still in his hands, going up to his father, kissing him, and sitting down by his side. This put a stop to the rumors that 80

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Antigonus did not trust his son. Many years later, Demetrius's career came to a sad ending amid the beautiful parks full o f game in which he was held in luxurious captivity by his rival Seleucus. Here he "grew accustomed to his misfortunes and began to bear them more easily, and at first took bodily exercise in one way or another, by hunting, as far as was possible, and running a little. But gradually he became indifferent to these sports and disgusted with them, and turned to wine and dice," and so drank himself to death. 55 When Seleucus's own dynasty was beginning to decay, his descendent Antiochus I V (175—164 B.C.) added "athletic contests and duels and hunts" to the extravagant reviews and processions by which he displayed his magnificence and his folly. Marcus Fulvius Nobilior had already in 186 B.C. staged lion and leopard hunts at Rome—perhaps the first mention o f hunting as a spectator sport since Ashurbanipal's hunt at Nineveh—so Antiochus may, in fact, simply have been introducing his subjects to Roman "games," including gladiatorial combats, the duels (monomachiai) mentioned above. 56 Antiochus Cyzicenus (Antiochus IX, c. in—95 B.C.), whose wars with his halfbrother Antiochus V I I I hastened the ruin o f the kingdom, "was mad on hunting at inappropriate moments and often used to leave his palace at night without his friends' knowledge, accompanied by two or three servants, and go out into the country to hunt lions, panthers, and wild boar. Grappling recklessly with brute beasts, he often came into extreme danger o f his life." 57 A procession organized by Ptolemy Philadelphus o f Egypt (283—247 B.C.) excelled even those o f Antiochus and included hunters with gilded spears, 2,400 hounds o f the Indian, Hyrcanian, and Molossian breeds, trees with beasts and birds dangling from them, and caged parrots, peacocks, guinea fowl, pheasants, and "Ethiopian birds," whatever they may have been. Sheep o f exotic breeds, white Indian and Ethiopian oxen, a large white bear (an albino presumably, not a polar bear), leopards, panthers, and lynxes followed; and this section o f the procession was closed by a giraffe and a rhinoceros. N o staged hunt took place on this occasion. 58 Hunting made a valuable contribution to the royal economy, and elephants, trapped in the Sudan and the Red Sea region, formed an important part o f the Ptolemaic armed forces. 59 Ptolemy I, as befitted a former companion o f Alexander, continued to hunt in person after he became king; and a picture o f Ptolemy hunting by the painter Antiphilus is mentioned among the lost masterpieces o f antiquity. 60 His descendent Ptolemy V (205—181 B.C.) once sent an ambassador to Greece who boasted at a banquet o f his master's skill and daring in the hunt and ability in handling horses and weapons. As an instance, he mentioned that Ptolemy had killed a bull (more probably a captive in the royal park than wild) with a javelin while hunting on horseback—and at this point the anecdote breaks off. 61 It may have ended with some crushing retort from the ambassador's host, the great soldier Philopoemen, who had as a young farmer in the south o f Greece hardened his body for war by hunting in the oldfashioned way and remained a fit and vigorous horseman and soldier down to his death in action at the age o f seventy.62 81

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Young Ptolemy (he came to the throne as a child and died at twenty-nine) played at hunting, but by this time the court of Alexandria was notoriously luxurious and debauched. A Greek who in the previous reign had brought some war horses as a present for the king was told that dancing-girls would have been more to the point.63 Nonetheless, the Ptolemies encouraged learning and literature as no other kings had done, and it was for Philadelphus that Callimachus wrote his hymn to Artemis. The poet tells how the young goddess took the nymphs whom her father Zeus had appointed as her companions to the Cyclopes' forge and placed an order for her bow and arrows; how the nymphs were frightened by the roar of the furnaces and the sight of the one-eyed giants—no wonder; mothers still scare naughty children with these bogeymen. The poem continues by describing the hounds that Pan gave to Artemis; the stags, worthy first-fruits of her hunting, that draw her chariot; her progress; how her arrow, shot in anger against a wicked city, causes the women to miscarry; her blessings on the virtuous; how she returns triumphant to Olympus amid the happy laughter of the gods. And so on through a string of literary allusions to Britomartis, Atalanta, the Amazons, and the great temple of Ephesus. It is all delightful, and carries as much conviction as a play hunt in the king's park.

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5 Roman Hunting

It was from the princes of the Hellenistic kingdoms that the great Roman nobles learned to hunt in the grand manner.1 The typical hero of the history of the early Republic tills his own fields and, after saving the state, returns to his oxen and his plough. Cincinnatus cannot be imagined as the possessor of hounds, huntsmen, and extensive, well-filled stables. Not that hunting of a sort was unknown; legends told how Romulus and Remus, in the days before the City was founded, had supported themselves by hunting and by recovering from robbers plunder, which, like Robin Hood, they shared with the poor shepherds.2 No doubt in primitive Italy the herdsmen battled to save his animals from wolves; the peasant proprietor avenged himself on the wild boars that trampled his fields; and venison, or more often hare, was sold by the hunter who tracked The stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill. In the third century B.C., when the influence of Greek literature was making itself increasingly felt at Rome, allusions to the hunt in epic poetry and on the tragic stage were readily understood. 3 But it was in the next century that hunting as a sport really began, after the wars against Hannibal and the defeat of the Macedonian and Syrian monarchies had established Rome as the leading power in the whole Mediterranean basin. The wars had brought immense wealth to Rome. They had also left at the disposal of the conquerors extensive territories in Sicily and in Italy itself that had belonged to cities that had sided with the Carthaginians. But the old agricultural economy had 83

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been ruined. During the last century of the Republic, repeated attempts were made to distribute the public land among peasant proprietors, and all failed. It was not only the territory of the defeated cities that was left empty, as farmers from other areas also gave up their holdings and drifted into Rome. Once there, they stayed, crowding into many-storied tenement buildings and finding what jobs they could. Lavishly staged spectacles, which included from 186 B.C. onward the slaughter of vast numbers of wild beasts under the name of hunting (venatio), were provided to keep them amused. Those who went back to the land found that farm life was not, after all, idyllic. Horace tells how a politician for a whim gave a farm to a petty auctioneer who had attracted the great man's attention by his independent spirit. But: Thieves took his sheep, murrain his goats, and now His harvest failed, his ox died at the plough. He was distraught and ruined, and one night Jumped on his nag, and to his patron's sight Presented himself, dirty and unshaved. His patron said: "I think you have behaved With scant respect, and are too rude." "Not so! Too miserable, if you did but know! By all that you hold sacred, please restore Me to the status I enjoyed before."4 So the farms stayed empty and were bought up wholesale by the rich, who turned them into vast cattle ranches, where slave herdsmen "carried about with them clubs and spears and prodigious staves, covering their bodies with skins of wolves and wild boars. Their appearance was terrifying and suggested an actual state of war. Each of them was followed by a pack of savage dogs." 5 This state of affairs threatened brigandage, and even rebellion; but it also gave ranchowners the scope and the personnel for organizing hunts on an Asiatic scale if the fancy took them. Instruction in the sport was available from the noble hostages who were being held in Italy to guarantee the good behavior of the Greek cities that had placed themselves under Rome's protection, and of the kings whom Rome had defeated. Among them was the great historian Polybius, who as a youth had carried to the grave the ashes of his countryman Philopoemen and by 170 B.C. had risen to high military office in the Achaean League, the confederation of the city-states of southern Greece. Though allied to Rome, the League showed enough independence of spirit to make its leaders politically suspect during the war of 1 7 1 — 1 6 8 B . C . , in which the Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus crushed Perseus, the last king of Macedonia. After the decisive battle of Pydna, Polybius, with other prominent men, was deported to Italy. Meanwhile the Romans were enjoying the fruits of victory. Scipio Aemilianus, the twenty-seven-year-old son of Aemilius Paullus (he had been adopted into the Scipio family), had distinguished himself by his bravery at Pydna and now sought to consolidate his reputation. Polybius describes how he took up hunting: 84

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A reputation for valor carries weight in every city, and especially at Rome. It was therefore necessary for him to pay the greatest attention to this side of his character. Fortune aided his endeavors. The royal family of Macedonia used to display great enthusiasm for hunting, and the Macedonians reserved places full of amenities for the preservation of game. It so happened that these had been carefully maintained, as in times past, throughout the war, but had never been hunted over during those four years because of the disturbances. In consequence, they were ready, full of game of all kinds. After the war had been decided, Lucius, knowing that the finest physical and moral training for young men was provided by hunting, made over to Scipio the royal huntsmen, with full access to the hunting grounds. Scipio accepted, and thought himself as happy as a king, and spent all his time in this pursuit as long as the army remained in Macedonia after the battle. He was filled with enthusiasm for the sport, as one would expect, seeing that he was in the flower of his youth and naturally disposed to it, like a well-bred young hound. His impulsive love of hunting persisted; accordingly, after his return to Rome, he shared Polybius's enthusiasm for the sport. Other young men busied themselves in the law-courts and at levees and spent their time in the Forum, endeavoring by these means to make themselves familiar to the people. But Scipio occupied himself in hunting and was always achieving some brilliant and memorable feat. So he won a fairer reputation than the others. They could only gain distinction by injuring one of their fellow citizens, as was the natural consequence of suits at law. But he, without harming anybody at all, won a universal reputation for bravery and by his actions surpassed his rivals' words. Consequently, in a short time, he so far excelled his contemporaries that Roman history provides no comparable example, although he went the directly opposite way to all those who followed the established custom of the Romans.6 It was perhaps fortunate for Polybius that the hero of the hour was his friend. In about 162 B.C., the historian became an accomplice in an affair that might otherwise have brought him into trouble, when his friend Prince Demetrius of Syria escaped from Rome under cover of a pretended hunting expedition.7 The story implies that Demetrius kept a considerable establishment, with nets and kennels, in the country near his hunting grounds,8 and thereby confirms that this sort of hunting was a sport for the rich. Not all the rich approved. Scipio's love of hunting was only one aspect of the admiration for Greek culture that marked him and his circle. Aemilius Paullus had given his sons a Greek education even before the Macedonian war; "not only the grammarians and sophists and teachers of rhetoric that attended on the young men were Greek, but the sculptors and painters, and masters of the horse, and keepers of hounds, and instructors in hunting."9 Old-fashioned Romans looked askance, especially the politicians who were trying to make their mark in the traditional way. 10 85

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In the next century, the opposition to hunting seems to be given a voice by Sallust, the old Caesarian officer turned historian, who expresses his intention of writing "the deeds of the Roman people" rather than "wasting his retirement in idleness and sloth or passing his life in those slavish occupations farming and hunting." 11 Taken out of context, this seems to condemn not merely the Greek ideal of manly exercise, but the robust toil that had given Italy its warrior peoples—the keen race of Marsian heroes, the Sabine youth, the Ligurian, accustomed to hardship, and the Volscian spearman. Ancient as well as modern authors have protested indignantly. But Sallust is thinking of the pastimes of other retired politicians—for example, the speakers in Varro's dialogue on country life.12 After the latter have discussed the keeping o f hares in a lepomrium, or warren,13 the conversation continues: "Boars, too, can be kept in a warren with very little trouble, both captives and tame animals born on the premises, and, as you know, Axius, it is customary to fatten them. O n the estate at Tibur that Varro here bought from Piso, a trumpet was sounded at regular hours and you saw boars and wild goats come for their food, which was thrown down from the exercise ground above, mast for the boars, and for the goats vetch or something else. Indeed, when I was at Hortensius's place at Laurentum, I saw the thing done more in the manner of the Thracian bard. There was a wood of more than fifty acres, so our host told us, surrounded by a park wall, which he called not a warren but a chase [ tberotrophium—a place for keeping wild animals; it is significant that Hortensius used a Greek word]. There on high ground dinner was laid, and as we were banqueting Hortensius ordered Orpheus to be summoned. He came complete with robe and lute, and was bidden to sing. Thereupon he blew a trumpet, and such a multitude of stags and boars and other fourfooted beasts came flooding round us that the sight seemed as beautiful to me as the hunts staged by the aediles in the Circus Maximus—at least, the ones without African beasts."14 It was, in fact, the spectator sports of the Roman inner-city mob that were slavish. The office of aedile was an important step in a politician's career, leading on to the praetorship and consulate, and one of the duties of the aediles was to provide at their own expense public shows, including displays of wild animals and mock hunts.15 If the thing was done well, the voters would remember at the next election. The hunts and gladiatorial combats that Julius Caesar staged when he was aedile greatly advanced him in popular favor.16 Senior statesmen, too, provided these spectacles; at Caesar's triumph in 46 B.C. the display included elephants, 400 lions, Thessalian bulls, and a giraffe. 17 Pompey the Great had in 55 B.C. given a show of this kind which moved the Romans to pity the animals for perhaps the only time in history. Five hundred lions were expended in five days, and eighteen elephants fought against heavily armed men. Some of them were killed on the spot, but others rather later. For the crowd took pity on them, contrary to Pompey's inten86

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tions. They stopped fighting when they were wounded and went round holding up their trunks to heaven and lamenting bitterly. This gave rise to a story that their behavior was not accidental, but that they were protesting against the violation o f the oaths in which they had trusted when they had crossed over from Libya and were calling on the divine power to avenge them. For it is said that they did not embark on the ships until their drivers promised under oath that they would suffer no harm.18 Cicero, who was in the audience, writes as follows to a friend: The hunts were . . . magnificent; nobody denies it. But what pleasure can it give to a civilized man when either a weak human is torn to pieces by a powerful beast or a noble beast is pierced through and through by a hunting spear? Perhaps one must watch these things, but you have often seen them; and we, who were the audience on this particular occasion, saw nothing that we had not seen before. The last day was that of the elephants. This amazed the vulgar crowd but delighted nobody. Indeed the affair was attended by a sort o f compassion, and a feeling that these huge animals have something in common with the human race.19 Cicero again appeared to advantage when as governor o f Cilicia he refused to force the provincials to contribute to the collection o f leopards for his friend Caelius's forthcoming show at Rome. 20 Cicero was no hunting man, but as a moralist he pays formal tribute to hunting as an exercise that imitates the discipline o f war and accustoms the body to bear the cold o f winter nights amid the snow.21 To Varro this sort of thing seemed silly. Why should a man who could afford to have the animals brought to his park go scrambling through the woods himself? Fragments of Varro's satirical skits preserved by the grammarians make unkind fun o f all sportsmen, ancient and modern, and o f the old legends. We catch a sympathetic glimpse o f the farm manager turned out o f bed before daybreak, bareheaded, frostbitten, and breakfastless, to assist at his master's hunt. For the hunter himself, Varro has only scorn: "There you go, chasing wild boars on the mountains with your spear, or stags, which never did any harm to you, with your javelin. What a splendid art!" Varro turns Melcager from a tragic hero into a figure o f fun. Somebody asks him: "What is the point of running round, missing your night's rest and your dinner? D o you hunt for profit or for pleasure? I f for profit, sell your game; if for pleasure, watch the sport in the Circus and keep your legs whole instead o f scratching them to bits as you jog through the woods." 22 Further evidence o f the popularity o f hunting among young men in, or at least on the fringes of, good society during the last generation of the Roman Republic is that Cicero's enemy Catiline attracted supporters by gifts o f "girls, hounds, and horses." 23 When the Emperor Augustus established peace and order after civil wars that had lasted a generation, hunting was a favorite occupation o f noble Romans. The emperor himself did not hunt, as far as we know, though in the latter part o f his life, he amused

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himself with angling, an unostentatious sport in keeping with the constitutional fiction that the Republic had been restored and that Augustus was no more than its "first citizen." But the quiet encouragement of hunting and of other manly sports was suited to a policy aimed at restoring the moral fiber o f the Roman people, and especially o f the upper classes.24 So when Vergil, soon after the final defeat o f Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 30 B.C., addressed his great poem on agriculture to the emperor's minister Maecenas, he did not forget the country sports that followed the harvest: Strip yourself to plough and sow stripped; winter is the farmer's time o f idleness. . . . Then you should set footsnares for cranes and nets for stags and chase long-eared hares; then strike down roes, whirling the flaxen sling from the Balearic islands when the snow lies deep and the rivers drive down the ice floes.25 A few years later, Horace, who had risen from a humble origin to a secure position at the very heart o f the emperor's circle, wrote a letter to a friend. Young Lollius, apparendy a gentleman of fortune and family, had been taken up by some great man, and the poet gave him some advice on how he should conduct himself towards his patron: Don't praise your own tastes, criticizing those O f others; when he hunts, don't you compose. Amphion and Zethus were twin brothers dear, But quarrelled until Amphion in his fear Concealed his lyre and yielded to the will O f his rough brother. Though your patron still Is gentle, yield to him and put away Your idle verse until another day When he takes out his hounds, and loads upon His mules nets fit for Boars o f Calydon. At dinner, share his sandwiches and pay For them by exercise; for that's the way O f the old heroes o f the Roman nation. Besides, the sport will help your reputation, Your health, your muscles, and your circulation.26 A contrast is provided by a young man who has just inherited a fortune and tells his crowd o f attendants to Sleep out amid the snows on mountains hoar; That's your job; as for me, I'll dine on boar.27 The shortcut to the dinner table lies through the supermarket, especially as the bestequipped sportsman may meet with a blank day—

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If the good life means dinner, then indeed We'll let our appetite give us a lead And hurry off as soon as it is day To hunt and fish in old Gargilius' way. He sent his servants, nets and spears and all, Through crowded markets to the butcher's stall. Before astonished eyes, one and no more Of all his mules brought home the purchased boar.28 Petronius, writing in the next century during Nero's reign, describes a similar grand hunt. The man who tells the story has been dining with a multimillionaire shipowner: In came the servants and put covers over the couches, on which were embroidered nets and men lying in wait with hunting spears and all the equipment of the hunt. We still did not know what to expect, when a great halloo was raised outside the dining room, and lo and behold! Laconian hounds! which actually began to run round the table. They were followed by a serving dish, on which was placed a boar of the largest size. He was wearing a cap of liberty, and from his tusks hung two little baskets woven from palm leaves, one containing dry dates and one fresh. . . . To break up the boar came a huge bearded man wearing leggings and an embroidered huntsman's coat. He drew a hunting knife and dealt a mighty blow to the boar's side, whereupon thrushes flew out. Fowlers were ready with lime-twigs and caught them in a moment as they fluttered round the dining table. The host explains the cap of liberty by saying that the boar had been sent away uneaten by the guests when he was brought to the table the day before.29 Gentlemen, of course, really practiced the sports that the vulgar newly rich could only parody. Horace says that one should discuss the blessings of the simple life not at a polished dinner table loaded with silver, but when one is tired after hare hunting or breaking an untamed horse. If these martial Roman pursuits weary one who is accustomed to affect Greek ways, hold the discussion after playing ball or throwing the discus.30 The Greeks who ministered to Roman luxury in those days were very different from Polybius, and indeed the Romans themselves had greatly altered, so that no aspiring young man would now seek, as Scipio had done, to catch the eye of the voters by his skill at field sports. He might, however, still hope to commend himself to the ladies: Cytherea's winged boy steals from you your wool basket, Neobule, and your shuttles, and all the toil of industrious Minerva, as soon as splendid Hebrus from Lipara washes his anointed shoulders in the waves of Tiber. A better rider he is than Bellerophon himself; unbeaten in boxing and running; skilled 89

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to shoot down the fleeing stags when the herd is driven through the glade, and swift: to take the boar that lies hidden in the tall thicket.31 So says Horace. Ovid describes how the enchantress Circe (who gave her name to Circaeum, where Polybius used to hunt) let fall her magic herbs at the sight of young Picus out after boar on his spirited horse. On the other hand, Ovid also tells how Jupiter was ravished by the sight of the nymph Callisto in hunting dress.32 Circe and Callisto are mythical; but Horace's Neobule and Hebrus are real people, though under disguised names. We have Cicero's testimony for mixed bathing parties on the shores of the Tiber;33 but did society women hunt? Or did they only watch? When you bend the resisting neck of your savage steed, I marvel that his hooves are turned in so small a compass. When you hurl your heavy spear with your mighty arm, the fierce arm holds my gaze fixed on it. When you grasp the dogwood boar spears, with their broad blades—but, in a word, my eyes are delighted by your every action; so Ovid makes Phaedra write to Hippolytus.34 Or, finally, did Augustan ladies neither hunt nor watch, but merely listen admiringly to their lovers' descriptions of the chase and accept presents of game accompanied by learned allusions to the story of Meleager and Atalanta? Varro's Atalanta, strutting about showing a lot of leg and even a bit of bottom, may or may not have been sketched from life.35 At least her story is mythical. More than a century after Varro, Juvenal could not contain his indignation at the thought of Maevia, bare-breasted and grasping her hunting spear as she stuck a Tuscan boar.36 Maevia was not mythical, but she seems to have been exceptional. Further evidence is provided by Tibullus (died 18 B . C . ) , among whose elegies is the entreaty of the rich and beautiful Sulpicia, begging her Cerinthus to give up the boar hunting that keeps him from her side: What madness is it to wish to hurt my tender hands while enclosing wooded hills in the encircling net? What pleasure is there in stealthily entering the lairs of wild beasts and scratching my white legs with hooked briars? Yet, could I wander with you, Cerinthus, I would myself carry the twisted nets through the mountains; I would myself seek the footprints of the swift stag and slip from the quick hound the iron chains. Then, then would the forests delight me, light of my life, if I were disclosed lying beside you right in front of the nets. Though the boar were to come to the toil, he would depart unharmed without interrupting the joys of love's desire. Clearly Sulpicia did not hunt, had no intention of hunting, and, if she had come out with hounds, would have made a thorough nuisance of herself. In fact, she concludes the poem as she began it, by telling Cerinthus to stop running after boars and come home to her. But first she shows that she knew somebody else who did hunt. 90

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Without me, may Venus not exist, but in accordance with Diana's law, chaste boy, lay your hand chastely upon the nets. May she, whoever she may be, who has thievishly stolen you from my love, fall among wild beasts and be torn to bits!37 In a sense, it is true that the rival who has stolen Cerinthus is the goddess herself. But Sulpicia, who elsewhere shows herself jealous of other women, is thinking of a mortal rival. The Mistress of Animals could not be torn to pieces by her own subjects; nor would the poet make a Roman girl wish for such a thing, if it were possible. It would seem, then, that a few Roman women did take the field, suitably dressed for the chase in which they were engaged. But there can only have been a very few of them. Ovid recommends, with considerable grasp of technical detail, hunting as an alternative to gardening for the young man who has been disappointed in love and wants to take his mind off it: Oft has Venus beaten a shameful retreat, conquered by the sister of Phoebus. Hunt with a clever hound the cowering hare. Stretch your nets upon the long ridges. Terrify the stags with many-colored deer scares or let the boar fall pierced by the spear with which you have met him. At night slumber, not longing for your girl, will take you in your weariness and ease your limbs with rich repose.38 Ovid does not suggest the possibility that the young man may meet another girl on the hills; the place for that sort of hunting is the auditorium of the theater.39 Horace, too, indicates that women normally stayed at home: "The hunter abides beneath the icy heavens forgetful of his tender wife whether a deer has been viewed by his faithful hounds or whether a Marsian boar has broken the twisted meshes."40 The fatal hunt that leads to the betrayal of Vergil's Dido by Aeneas has little relevance to the life of Augustan Rome. It is mentioned here because it shows knowledge of the grand hunt in the manner of the Cyropaedia, in which the game is driven down from the hills to be dispatched by horsemen on the level ground. Meanwhile Dawn rises and leaves the Ocean. With the sun's first ray, a chosen band of youths sallies from the gates bearing fine-spun nets, and cords, and broad-bladed hunting spears. The Massylian horsemen gallop on, and the keen-scented hounds. The queen tarries in her chamber, and the noblest of the Phoenicians await her on the threshold. Splendid in purple and gold, her spirited steed champs the foaming bit. At last she comes forth, with a great throng about her, wrapped in a Sidonian cloak with painted border. Gold is her quiver; her hair is bound in gold; a golden brooch clasps her purple tunic. N o w the Trojan comrades and happy lulus approach. Himself before all others, and most handsome of all, Aeneas joins their company and unites their bands. . . . Now they have come to the lofty mountains and pathless glades, and lo! the wild goats, driven from the summit of the rock, run 91

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down the ridges. On another side, stags run across the open fields, herding together in flight through the dust, as they leave the mountains behind. The boy lulus, in the middle of the vale, rejoices in his swift horse and gallops past one herd after another, praying that among these unwarlike beasts a foaming boar may be granted to him or that a tawny lion may come down from the mountain. 41 One would like to think that Vergil had actually attended such hunts as a spectator. His description is written from the spectator's point of view; the wild beasts run down from the hills and nothing is said about the beaters who must be somewhere up there among the rocks. Though the whole episode of the hunt is planned on Olympus and directed by the gods, the poet does not even follow the Homeric precedent and make the mountain nymphs send the wild animals down. It is not easy to determine how much of Vergil's description is borrowed from books; perhaps the whole thing. When horses are mentioned in connection with hunting in the Georgia, it is in a bookish and obscure manner. "Cithaeron summons me with a great cry, and the hounds of Taygetus, and Epidaurus, tamer of horses. A voice, re-echoed by the assenting glades, sounds again." War and racing are stated to be the objects of horse breeding.42 The hunting that Vergil knew was on foot, with hounds, nets, and deer scares {formidines), whose nature and purpose are explained by the philosopher Seneca: "The greatest herds of wild beasts are held and driven into the toils by a cord made conspicuous with feathers, which from its actual effect is called a scare."43 Vergil compares Aeneas pursuing his enemy Turnus, whose escape is blocked on all sides, with a hound following close on the heels of a stag caught between a river and the scare.44 Hounds, not horses, are for Vergil, as for Xenophon, the hunter's chief helpers: Do not leave to the last the care of hounds, but rear the swift whelps of Sparta, and with them the Molossian, on rich whey. With them to guard you, you will never fear the thief who comes by night to the steading, or the inroads of wolves, or Iberian brigands at your back. You will often course the wild asses and with your hounds chase hares and roe deer. Often you will rouse by the baying of hounds the wild boars from their wallows in the woods and with great outcry push the huge stag through the mountains to the nets.45 The reference to wild asses once more suggests that Vergil is relying on books, but this may be deceptive. Xenophon had found the meat of the wild ass as good as venison, but more tender, and the Romans still accounted it a luxury. Rich men may perhaps have kept wild asses in their parks and hunted them. In the Augustan period, however, the flesh of wild asses was less esteemed than that of the ordinary donkey. "To dine on the foals of donkeys was a custom established by Maecenas, and at that time they were greatly preferred to wild asses. After his day, the donkey lost its reputation for flavor."46 92

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The general impression conveyed by all this evidence is that in the late republican and Augustan periods, hunting for sport generally meant hunting boar on foot with nets and hunting spears, and with the help of hounds, as Xenophon had done it, but on a grander scale. Hounds were, as in Xenophon's day, essentially of two types, with the light, keen-scented Laconian, or Spartan, hound used to track the quarry, and a heavier mastiff to bay it. For the mastiff, the Molossian breed was coming into increasing favor. Its qualities had, in fact, been noticed in classical Greece, though Xenophon does not mention it. It was derived from the guard dogs employed by the shepherds among the mountains of northwestern Greece; "sheep dogs" would be a misleading term, because the Greek shepherd did not, and does not, use his dogs to herd sheep, but to protect them from wolves and robbers. Horace compares a cowardly lampoonist to a house dog that barks at inoffensive guests but is afraid of wolves. He himself, "like a Molossian or tawny Laconian, the strong friends of the shepherds, with pricked ears will drive through the snowdrifts whatever game is before me." (A traveller of the early nineteenth century warned his readers that in Albania "the ancient Molossian breed seems to be preserved, in all its purity, to the great discomfort of European travellers.")47 After boar hunting, stag hunting was next in esteem. The hunter was again normally on foot, and with the help of his hounds sought to drive his quarry into nets. For stag hunting, light javelins were preferred to the heavy boar spear. Hare hunting was obviously held in less regard by the Romans, but may have been the common sport of those who could not afford the amusements of the rich. Hunting on horseback still seems to have been the exception rather than the rule, at least in Italy. But in North Africa and Asia, the young men who served on the staffs of proconsular governors may have enjoyed different forms of sport. On the coins of Augustus's contemporary Juba of Mauretania, a horseman is shown spearing a boar. For hunting on horseback in the East at this time, Tacitus provides a curious piece of evidence. Gotarzes, king of Parthia, threatened in A.D. 49 by an invasion led by a Roman-backed pretender, was offering vows to the local deities upon Mount Sanbulos: The cult of Hercules is the most important. At the appointed season, he instructs his priests in a dream to station near his temple horses equipped for hunting. The horses carry quivers full of arrows and run loose through the glades, returning at nightfall whinnying loudly and with the quivers empty. Once more the god appears in a dream, and shows where he has wandered through the woods. All along his route are found strewn the bodies of wild beasts.48 This evidence from scattered sources is consistent with a poem on hunting written by an acquaintance of Ovid's, Grattius. (Ovid mentions him in a poem written in A.D. 8 from his exile on the coast of the Black Sea.)49 Grattius, after an elaborate and not very convincing address to Diana and Reason, begins the practical part of his 93

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work, as Xenophon had done, with nets. He is not, however, just turning Xenophon into Latin verse; for example, he notes the use of hemp cords, which Xenophon does not mention, and says that hemp nets, though troublesome to look after, are strong enough to hold bears.50 For scares Grattius recommends a mixture of swans' feathers, to dazzle by their whiteness, and vulture feathers, which have a frightening smell. That will be good enough for stags, but if you dye the feathers scarlet, they will turn almost any animal.51 Here again Grattius reflects a Roman practice that was quite independent of Greek tradition, and at first one is surprised that Xenophon never thought of stretching through the bushes a cord with feathers tied to it, instead of going to all the trouble of cutting brush to stop the gaps, and very likely leaving one open after all. But these scares would work best against large animals such as deer. Hares would run under them unless they were set close to the ground, and then they could be jumped. As for Philotas, with all the resources of the East at his disposal, he never thought of looking for cheap substitutes for his hundred-furlong long nets. Grattius describes boar spears, recommending, as Xenophon does, that they should be made with projecting teeth to stop the animal forcing its way forward along the shaft. He also suggests forked points and blades furnished with points all round so as to work within the wound. He writes of javelins; of bows and arrows; and of the trees that furnish the proper wood for the shafts. Thence he proceeds to hounds, noting the high reputation of the different Celtic breeds, of which more will be said in the next chapter.52 On the whole, his list of breeds seems to have been drawn up in the library rather than in the kennel, and his whole work is overloaded with literary ornament. It is all very well to advise that puppies should be reared on their mother's milk and a light mash and not given extravagant tidbits. But the subject does not really demand a denunciation of human luxury— This is the fault that broke the Egyptian kings, When from gemmed chalices they drained the wine O f Mareotis, and to serve their vice Garnered nard harvested on Ganges' banks.53 And so on through Lydia and the degenerate Greeks to the better example of the stern heroes of old who established Rome as head of the world. No doubt such sentiments pleased after-dinner audiences, who liked to hear about Trinacrian grottoes and Vulcan's acknowledged realm rather than to be told simply that sulphur is good for mange.54 Rabies, on the other hand, was too serious a matter for literary embellishment. Grattius's belief that the disease is caused by a small worm at the root o f the tongue, his proposed preventatives and remedies, and the charms and incantations that he rejects all serve to make us grateful that we live in an age when these things are better understood. All in all, Grattius seems really to have known something of his subject. It is a pity that the literary conventions that the Romans had inherited from the Alexandrian

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poets and the example of Vergil's Georgia encouraged him to write his elaborately studied poem instead of a plain prose handbook telling how the sport had progressed since Xenophon's time. For this the world had to wait more than a century longer. The end of Grattius's poem is lost. He has begun to describe the breeds of horses that he recommends for hunting, and one would like to know how, and in hunting what animals, Grattius used horses.55 As it is, this passage, like the rest of the book, contains good sense buried beneath tiresome literary allusions. The advice that showy racehorses do not always make good hunters is applicable today. And since he seems to be leading up to the praise of Italian horses, his evidence might have contradicted the view that hunting on horseback was not practiced in Italy at this time. The pictorial evidence, which might have supplied the information that is lost from Grattius's text, proves disappointing. The art with which wealthy Romans of the first centuries before and after our era loved to surround themselves tried to indicate that its patrons were men of classical culture and literary taste, and to suggest a relationship between their world and the heroic age or the time of Alexander the Great and his successors. A contemporary hunting scene had, therefore, less value as a status symbol than a picture of Meleager or a pair of silver cups embossed with the Labors of Hercules. Even when the artists treated sport humorously, they did not show the misadventures of contemporary Italians in the hunting field or on the racecourse, but mis-

32a,b. Heroic mounted hunter. Mold (b) for manufacture of Arretine pottery (mid-first century B.C.) and modern cast (a).

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proportioned Pygmies battling with crocodiles and hippopotamuses, or, in a lighter vein, Cupids whipping up crabs and guiding teams of dolphins. So, though combats of horsemen and lions were represented on the table silver of the rich and on the molded pottery that imitated precious metal for the benefit of those who could afford nothing better, we learn nothing about the Roman hunt from such works of art.56 Two examples will suffice. On a mold of the Augustan period from the factory of M. Perennius Tigranus in Arretium (Arezzo), a young horseman gallops towards a fallen companion, of whom only one leg and part of a shoulder are preserved. The horseman wears a Greek petasos on his head and a Greek chiton, and the animal skin that he uses instead of a saddlecloth gives him a heroic quality. He points his spear downward (since this is a mold, the figures are reversed and the spear appears to be in his left hand) for a thrust at the wild beast, now lost, but probably a lion, that has pulled down his friend.57Another lion hunt, on the handle of a silver pan found in the Casa del Menandro at Pompeii, has even closer connections with the heroic sport of the Macedonian kings.58 A lion charges towards the left as it attempts to break through the encircling ring of hunters. Above the lion, a wounded man sprawls awkwardly, and an injured hound limps off to the right. Another hound stands barking below a horseman who, sword in hand, urges his mount to meet the lion's charge. The horse's head is turned to the right, suggesting that only its rider's resolution keeps it from swerving away. A second horseman has come to grief in attempting to attack the beast from behind. His horse has jibbed, and he tumbles headlong with his arms flung wide, his left leg doubled up awkwardly, and his right kicked high in the air. On the far right, a hunter on foot holds up his chlamys protectively over a fallen comrade, whose left hand still clutches the handgrip of the shield that has failed to save him. Above them, an archer, standing in front of a small tree, has just shot his arrow. On the far left, behind the charging horseman, are two figures of heroic size, of whom one gestures imperiously with his right hand, while his left holds a short spear, carried head downward, with the shaft vertical. The other wears a plate cuirass, distinguishing him from his fellow hunters, who are all naked except for their chlamydes—a heroizing convention. He bestrides a wounded companion and holds high over him a round shield of the Macedonian type, which is characterized by a markedly convex profile and a single central handgrip. The blazon, an encircling wreath, can be made out despite the small size of the engraving and the fact that the shield is seen in profile. The shield of the fallen figure on the far right, though seen from a different viewpoint, is clearly of the same type, as are two other shields that appear in the field, one above the falling horseman and one in the lower left part of the picture. The Macedonian shields and the heroic setting indicate that the work must be derived from one of the famous portrayals of the hunts of Alexander the Great or of his successors. The attitude of the charging horseman recalls the hunting Alexander on the Alexander Sarcophagus, but one might rather suggest that the two heroic figures at the left: represent the king and his friend Hephaestion. Their features are, however, practically obliterated, and guesses as to their identity are little more than wishful thinking.

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Such was the mounted hunter as he was idealized, and as he may still have been found in the outposts of the empire. Italy and the more settled provinces showed tamer sport. Seneca (c. 5 B . C . - A . D . 65), whose work abounds in images drawn from the hunt, demonstrates real knowledge, not just book-learning.59 He illustrates the courage born of despair as follows: A moderate fear restrains the passions, but let fear be continuous and sharp and bring the threat of extreme danger; then it stirs the sluggish to action and convinces them to try the last resort. In the same way, wild animals may be hemmed in by a cord of feathers, but let a horseman attack them from behind with his weapons, and they will attempt to flee through the very things from which they fled previously, and trample down the object of their fear.60 This is presumably a stag hunt; but the horsemen, by a reversal of roles, are the beaters. It is their business to drive the game steadily towards the nets, helped by the scares, which turn the deer in the right direction. Once the deer are really on the move, the horsemen will probably enjoy a good run. But if somebody, either through inexperience or because he wants to impress his Neobule, gallops into the herd while the animals are still hesitating and starts laying about him with his spears, a panicstricken stampede will follow and the sport will be spoiled. During the first century of our era, hare hunting rose in esteem as an aristocratic sport, because hares were now hunted on horseback. The evidence is supplied by the poet Martial, who came to Rome from Spain as a young man some time towards the

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34. Hounds coursing hare and fox. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 200).

end of Nero's reign, perhaps in A.D. 64. Sixteen years later he published a collection o f epigrams describing some of the nastier incidents at the wild beast hunts that celebrated the opening o f the Colosseum. The book attracted the attention o f the emperor Titus, and by A.D. 85 Martial was famous. But he was never rich, and in A.D. 100 he went back to Spain, where he seems to have spent his last few years regretting the literary life of the capital and annoyed by small-town gossip. Early in his career, Martial addressed a short poem to Licinianus, a rich fellow countryman who was going back home. The poet describes the pleasures of aristocratic life in the Spanish countryside, including hunting in summer among the upland woods, but more especially in winter, when Licinianus would return to the sunny Mediterranean coast and there "slaughter roe deer enmeshed in yielding nets, and home-bred boars, and on your strong horse break up the cunning hare. The stags you will leave to the bailiff"—presumably because hunting them was too much like hard work. The reference to "home-bred boars" suggests a game preserve like that o f Hortensius, but it was a very rustic one, with the forest coming right down to the hunting lodge, where dirty children gathered round the hearth, and the huntsman would be called in for a drink, and everybody would dress informally.61 Martial himself, when he was about to return to Spain, looked forward to enjoying better sport than the friends whom he was leaving behind in Italy. Better sport,

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that is, from the gourmet's point of view; he shows much more interest in the edibility o f the quarry than in the pleasures of the chase, let alone the moral virtues that it should inculcate. But by this time, he and his friend Maternus, whom he addresses, were both old men, the one still a struggling man o f letters, the other a successful lawyer with a place in the country at Laurentum. The lawyer will catch ugly angler-fish and dine on mussels and a tasteless lobster imported from Sicily while Martial is throwing back any mullet that weighs less than three pounds and enjoying the native oysters. Maternus will halloo into the nets a stinking vixen, and the dirty vermin will bite his hounds; Martial will catch his own hares with the very net that has just come dripping from a sea teeming with fish. At the same moment his friend's fisherman returns with an empty basket and his huntsman enters, proud that he has captured a badger. At seaside resorts, dinner always comes from the city market.62 In fact, this poem really says nothing about hunting as a sport. Martial's "own" hares must be captives, reared in an enclosure where they are easily caught by throwing a fishing net over them. Maternus has not taken up fox hunting; he wants a hare for dinner and catches a vixen by mistake. He is not even present when his huntsman takes the badger. However, Martial had a patron who did hunt for sport—Priscus, a fellow Spaniard to whom he had dedicated a book o f epigrams written in his retirement. When the nets hang empty and the baying Molossian hounds are silent; when the wood has been drawn blank and the boar has not been found, Priscus will be able to bestow his leisure on this little book. A winter hour is short and will not be wholly wasted.63 A chilly hour it must have been; but this sort of boar hunting was less dangerous than galloping after hares. Martial warns Priscus: Dear Priscus, don't ride on that hard-pulling mare, Or gallop so fast in pursuit o f the hare. T o o often the hunter turns victim and lies Where he fell off his horse, nevermore to arise. Though you still skirt the ditch and the hedge and the wall, The plain's hidden perils may give you a fall. You'll see lots o f fellows come off, every meet. Let's hope they are lucky, and land on their feet! I f you must have blood-sports, take a tip from a friend; The most dangerous game is most safe in the end. Let's hunt boars! Your rash galloping, so I declare, Will break up yourself far more than the hare.64 Martial does not mention the use o f hounds for this type o f hare hunting either in this poem or in the one that he addressed to Licinianus. It can, however, be assumed that both were following hounds—not a large pack following by scent, but individual hounds coursing a viewed hare. The sport is described by Arrian, who lived in the next century and whose account is given in the following chapter. Martial may be de-

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scribing a hunt in a game preserve, but not necessarily; the fields were not enclosed, and even when riding across country, the sportsman would seldom be compelled to jump. He was, in fact, not really equipped to do so. Heavy saddles with high pommels and cantles had been introduced as cavalry equipment,65 but they did not take the place of the traditional saddlecloth in the hunting field. Stirrups were still unknown. The Roman horseman must have found Xenophon's advice on jumping still applicable after more than four centuries—use your spurs to bring your horse's hind legs under him, so that he will jump off his hocks, and hang onto his mane to avoid jerking his mouth with the bit.66 Varro, Horace, Ovid, and Martial all show that, however seriously some members of the hunting set may have taken the claim that the chase was the school of morals and the martial arts, the attitude of society as a whole was more frivolous. The example set by some of the emperors did not help. When the degenerate Nero opened a show in the amphitheater by killing wild beasts with his own hand and the gloomy tyrant Domitian amused himself in his private hunting park by slaughtering driven game, it was hard to equate skill in the chase with virtue.67 In the next century, times were altered. The topic calls for a fresh chapter; the present one may close by noting that if Priscus did take a book with him to pass the time while he was waiting for boars to be driven into his nets, he was not the only Roman to hunt in this way. Pliny the Younger (c. A.D. 6I-C. 115), a distinguished administrator and man of letters, writes to his friend Tacitus: You will laugh, and you have my permission to do so. I myself, your old acquaintance and none other, have taken three boars, and splendid ones at that. "Yourself?" you ask. Yes, I myself. However, not altogether departing from my lazy and peaceful habits. I sat by the nets. Close at hand, instead of boar spear and lance, I had my pen and notebook. When a thought occurred to me, I jotted it down, so that if I came back with empty hands, it should at least be with full tablets. There is no reason for you to despise this sort of study; it is wonderful how the mind is aroused by the activity and motion of the body. All round you are the woods, and solitude, and the deep silence that is observed in hunting. From now on, whenever you hunt, you have my full permission to bring your notebooks as well as your sandwich case and flask. You will learn by experiment that Minerva roams the mountains as well as Diana.68 Pliny himself combined hunting and study not infrequently, and particularly notes among the attractions of his country house the abundance of game in the neighboring hills.69 One wonders whether Plato's Laws ever accompanied him to the hunt, and if he noticed the philosopher's condemnation of the hunting that "offers intervals of relaxation in which the savage force of wild beasts is overcome not by the triumph of a spirit that loves toil, but by nets and snares."70 100

6 Hunting in the Age of Hadrian

As consul in A.D. IOO, Pliny returned thanks to the emperor Trajan (A.D. 9 8 — 1 1 7 ) in a lengthy speech in which he contrasts him at all points with the cruel tyrant Domitian (A.D. 8 1 - 9 6 ) . The difference between the two emperors was illustrated by the manner of their hunting. Domitian's sport, which is also described by his biographer Suetonius, copied the cruelty and extravagance of the worst form of Asiatic royal hunt. At his country estate a few miles outside Rome, the emperor had a game park in which "many people often saw him slay a hundred wild beasts of different kinds." Domitian's weapon was the bow. He neglected the traditional Roman arms, and his skill in handling those of the barbarians did not win the respect of his subjects. He must have shot driven beasts from a stand, for he was no horseman. "He would even deliberately plant two arrows in the heads of some of his victims in such a way as to give the effect of horns." 1 This feat, too, belongs to the folklore of the East; it was by a similar display of archery that "Bahram, that great hunter" astounded the Greek lute-girl Azada. Trajan's hunting had been very different. As Pliny put it: What form of relaxation have you, save to range the forest glades, rouse the wild beasts from their lairs, ascend the huge ridges of the mountains, and set your feet upon the beetling crags? No hand of man assists you; no human footprint guides you; and in the midst of these occupations you visit the sacred groves and present yourself before the divine powers. Once this was the training of the young and their delight. These arts were the education of future generals—to compete against fugitive beasts in swiftness, against the 101

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bold in strength, against the cunning in skill. It was considered no mean honor, in time of peace, to keep off from the fields the invasions of wild beasts and, as it were, to deliver from siege the works of the countrymen. A false claim used to be laid to this glory by emperors who could not rightly assert it. Their usurpation took the form of having wild beasts tamed and broken by imprisonment and thereafter (what else?) turned loose for their own disport. Then, with feigned skill, they finished them off. But Trajan gives as much effort to the chase as to the kill, and the greatest labor, that of finding the game, brings him the greatest pleasure.2 While he was still only a distinguished general, with no prospect of becoming emperor, Trajan had assumed the wardship of a young orphaned cousin. The boy paid such attention to the study of Greek literature and philosophy that he was nicknamed "Greekling." In A.D. 91, when he was fifteen years old, his guardian, perhaps disapproving, sent him to the south of Spain, where both their families, though of Italian stock, had been settled for nearly three hundred years. The intention was that the boy should undergo military training, but he took up hunting "so enthusiastically as to call for reprimand," and was accordingly recalled to enter upon the junior administrative and military posts in which a young man of high rank normally began his career.3 This was Trajan's eventual successor, the future emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117—138). Hadrian's love of Greek culture lasted all his life,4 and was magnificently displayed in his generosity to his favorite city, Athens, and to the rest of Greece. His beard, which distinguishes him from all earlier emperors, appears to project the image of a philosopher-king rather than a pattern of the old Roman virtues. Similarly, his love of hunting big game on horseback seems to mark one small step in the gradual process by which the emperor was transformed from "first citizen" to a monarch in the Asiatic style, a remote, glittering figure hedged about by the pomp of the "sacred" court. To Hadrian himself, and to his contemporaries, things may not have appeared in this way. It is true that he failed to keep up the excellent relationship between emperor and senate that Trajan had established. His reign was spent in constant tours of inspection of the provinces and armies, from Britain, where Hadrian's Wall stands as an enduring memorial of his visit, to the Euphrates frontier. When Hadrian returned to Italy between journeys, he did not regularly attend the debates in the Senate House, but withdrew to his villa at Tibur, twenty miles from Rome, a vast complex of porticoes, galleries, ornamental pools, baths, and gardens, which seems to realize architecturally the fantasies that had in former times merely been painted on plaster. But great country houses, even if not on this scale, had long been part of the Roman way of life. Hadrian's strict observance of traditional forms, particularly the wearing of the toga, was remarked by his biographer, and his original purpose in growing his beard was to cover some natural blemish on his face.5 So his hunting may not have seemed to himself the sport of an oriental monarch. It may be significant that his passion for the sport first showed itself in Spain. Seneca and Martial, the writers 102

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of the previous century who particularly mention hunting on horseback, had, like Hadrian, Spanish backgrounds. The variety of game available in Spain—wild goats, stags, boars, wild (or feral?) horses—and the fact that it was hunted on horseback as well as on foot are also attested by an inscription in which Tullius Maximus, commander of the legion stationed in Spain, consecrates to Diana the spoils of the chase. But the inscription dates from Hadrian's reign, and we cannot, therefore, be quite certain that it does not point to developments inspired by the emperor's example after his accession.6 Hadrian did not, however, just amuse himself with unwarlike beasts. "He rode, he walked a lot, he constantly exercised himself with weapons and the military javelin. He hunted very frequently and killed a lion with his own hand. However, while hunting, he broke a collarbone and a rib. He allowed his friends to take part in the hunt" (or perhaps "gave them a share of the game"). It was further remembered that "he was so skilled in hunting that he once brought down a huge boar with a single blow," 7 and that he had founded a city in Mysia (western Asia Minor) named "Hadrian's Chase" (Hadrianoutherae) in a place where he had once hunted successfully and killed a bear.8 Hadrian's three achievements—against the lion, the boar, and the bear—are represented in a series of sculptured medallions that now, with the emperor's portrait altered, are incorporated into the Arch of Constantine in Rome. 9 A more generalized "Departure for the Hunt" is a fourth member of the series, and each of the four is paired with a medallion showing a sacrifice to an appropriate deity. Thus the emperor's piety and the favor with which the gods reward it are illustrated, as well as his courage and manliness. The lion-hunt medallion shows the beast already dead and stretched out at the feet of the emperor and two admiring friends. The emperor wears a large chlamys, and the friends, too, are in Greek hunting kit. Slighdy behind the party, on either side, two attendants hold horses, and trees are sketched in the background. The accompanying sacrifice is, appropriately, to Hercules. A figure of the hero, smaller than life-size, nude, seated, and shown frontally, is placed upon a ledge high above a small altar. Altar and statue have been garlanded. The emperor has pulled his chlamys up over his head, in extempore fulfillment of the ritual requirement that men should cover their heads while sacrificing. He offers a pinch of incense while his friends wait, respectful but eager to be up and doing. The bear and boar hunts show the moment of the kill. In both, the emperor is on horseback, galloping to the right, and accompanied by two mounted friends, but the composition is skillfully varied. The boar, huge indeed, has just emerged from a thicket and stands with legs straddled and wickedness in his eye, obviously debating whether to wheel round and charge. The emperor gallops up beside him to dispatch him with a single vertical spear thrust. The two other hunters remain discreetly in the background. One of them has been recognized as Hadrian's young favorite, Antinous. The boar hunt is paired with a sacrifice to Diana. Silvanus, god of the forest, is associated with the bear hunt. The bear is running to the right. The emperor gallops 103

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close behind it and as he draws level stoops forward and raises his right arm for the spear thrust. One of his friends, in the background, has ridden past him, perhaps intending to turn the beast, but as he looks round, he sees that no help will be needed. A second horseman emerges from an oak wood in the left background. The imperial departure for the hunt is paired with a sacrifice to Diana's brother, Apollo. It is, of course, uncertain whether this does represent the original pairing, and indeed whether Hadrian's monument did not have more medallions, which are now lost. Lion, bear, and boar are not directly associated in the literary sources; indeed, Dio, who notes the boar, omits the bear; and Spartianus, who tells us about the bear, leaves out the boar. This suggests that the tale of the three hunts was not made up merely to explain the monument to which the reliefs must originally have belonged. At all events, the hunt is now given a special place in the symbolism of official art. Not all the emperor's subjects would see the monuments of Rome, and so the coinage, which circulated throughout the empire, was used much as postage stamps are used by modern governments, to convey to the public, by graphic images and short messages, particular aspects of imperial rule. No emperor made more skillful use of coinage for propaganda purposes than Hadrian.10 To the images of the commander-inchief taking the salute of his loyal legions and of the benevolent ruler bringing relief to distressed provinces and welcomed by the prosperous, he added that of the heroic hunter, the embodiment of manly virtue.11 The Muses, as well as the arts, celebrated the imperial hunts. Hadrian visited Alexandria in A.D. 130, accompanied by his young Greek favorite, Antinous, destined soon to drown in the Nile in mysterious circumstances. They hunted and killed a lion, described as "a monster which for a long time had laid waste all Libya and made many places uninhabitable." This information is derived from a poem written in the grand heroic style, of which a considerable fragment has been recovered from an Egyptian rubbish dump. Seated upon a horse swifter than the steed of Adrastus, which once bore its master to safety as he fled through the din of battle, Antinous awaited the man-eating lion, holding the bridle-rein in his left hand and in his right the steel-tipped spear. First did Hadrian cast his spear, fitted with bronze [a Homeric touch], and smote the lion. But he did not slay him, for he missed the vital spot, on purpose [of course], wishing to make full trial of the marksmanship of the gready beloved Antinous, son of Argus-slaying Hermes. The anger of the lion is then described. He lashes his sides with his tail, tears up the earth until the dust obscures the sun, and foams at the mouth, but, like a good descendent of Homeric lions, does not roar. The papyrus then becomes too fragmentary to be intelligible, though we seem to get a glimpse of the lion prostrate in the dust and trampled by the horses' hooves. From its blood, said the poet, sprang a new rosy strain of lotus. Four lines that list other favorite flowers are not without charm, and the au104

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thor was duly rewarded with a fellowship in the Alexandrian Institute of Advanced Studies. A century later the Alexandrians still named the rosy lotus and the wreaths made from it after Antinous.12 This must be a different lion from the one that the emperor killed with his own hand. To allow Antinous to take part in the lion hunt was an act of grace and favor; this form of hunt seems to have been reserved by law for the emperor alone. An imperial decree of A.D. 414 states that "the safety of Our provincials must take precedence over Our personal amusement," and grants a general license to kill lions, though not to hunt them for capture and sale. The restriction on lion hunting that was thereby lifted (by an emperor whose "personal amusement" was, in fact, to feed his pet poultry) went back to Hadrian's century and very likely to his reign or earlier. In A.D. 189 a certain Julius Alexander of Homs in Syria was condemned to death for usurping the imperial privilege by killing a lion while hunting on horseback.13 Hadrian was a fluent versifier in both Latin and Greek and two of his own short poems give more intimate glimpses of the emperor at the hunt. On a stone found at Thespiae in central Greece: Winged boy of the clear-voiced Cyprian goddess, thou that dwellest in Heliconian Thespiae by the flowery garden of Narcissus, graciously accept the gift that Hadrian gives you, the spoils of the bear. He slew it with his own hand, striking it from horseback. Do thou in return temperately breathe grace upon him from heavenly Aphrodite.14 Hadrian here elegantly adapts his personal tastes to an ancient local cult, which is mentioned in a "Description of Greece" written a generation afterwards: "Of all the gods, Love is most honored by the people of Thespiae, and has been from the beginning. They have a most ancient image of him, an unwrought stone." 15 But there remain some questions about the bear. Thespiae stood at the foot of Helicon, the mountain of the Muses, whose forests were renowned in Hadrian's day for their fruitbearing trees and the sweet berries of the local variety of arbutus. There were also wild animals. But no Greek mountain affords good country for hunting on horseback. A level plain, excellent riding country, lies at the mountain's foot, but to bring Hadrian's bear down onto the plain probably required the help of a large force of beaters, whom the emperor ignores in his epigram, just as Vergil ignores the beaters who drove the game for Dido. From a stone now lost, supposedly found at Apt in the south of France, comes another short poem, the epitaph of an imperial favorite: Borysthenes the Alan, The emperor's own hunter, Was once a horse that galloped Through plains and marshy meadows, Past old Etruscan barrows, And in Pannonian boar hunts. 105

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No boar, when he pursued it, Dared harm him with its tushes, Or, foaming in its anger, Sprinkled him to the tail-tip, As is the wild beast's fashion. Still in his youthful vigor And with his legs unblemished, He met his fate appointed And in this field lies buried.16 Borysthenes was famous. "Hadrian's enthusiasm for hunting is shown by the tomb that he made for his horse Borysthenes, his favorite hunter, and the inscribed gravestone upon it."17 But the inscription, too, raises questions about the way in which Hadrian's hunts were managed. He is known to have been in the frontier province of Pannonia on the Danube as governor under Trajan in A.D. 107, and there is no evidence that he visited the province again. Hadrian's journeys to different parts of the empire were commemorated by special issues of coins, and Pannonia only appears on the coinage late in the reign. Even then the issue does not celebrate a visit by the emperor himself, but the appointment of his adopted heir as governor.18 If Hadrian rode Borysthenes in Pannonia in A.D. 107, the horse was no longer young in A.D. 117 when his master became emperor. It has accordingly been suggested that Pannonian boars were brought to Italy for Hadrian to hunt. But, though blank days had not been unknown even a generation earlier, in Pliny's time,19 there is no real reason to think that the various famous strains of Italian boar could no longer provide Hadrian with the sport he wanted. If he did have captives turned loose for him to hunt, he would hardly have boasted of it. Moreover, though the emperor's special fondness for Borysthenes might have developed during a season or two, it would be more intelligible if the horse was an old favorite. If the Latin phrase {integer iuventa), here translated "still in his youthful vigor," but literally "whole in his youth," can be made to bear such a meaning, it might seem preferable to suppose that Borysthenes had kept his youthful spirits and his soundness to the end of a career that began in A.D. 107 and ended more than ten years later, after his master's accession. Borysthenes was named after the river Dnieper, in the plains north of the Black Sea, through which tribes of nomadic horsemen still roamed. The Alans were one of these tribes; so Borysthenes was a nomad's horse, a tough, intelligent pony, not much to look at, but a handier mount for pig-sticking than the prancing steeds represented on the medallions of the Arch of Constantine. Near the end of Hadrian's reign, the Alans crossed the Caucasus and invaded the Roman province of Cappadocia. They were defeated by Arrian, a personal friend of Hadrian's, descended from a noble family of Nicomedia on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. As a young man, Arrian had been hailed as "the young Xenophon" 106

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at Athens, where he was studying philosophy. He gave himself the codename "Xenophon" in the order of battle that he drew up (and which is still preserved) for his campaign against the Alans, and his writings, of which the most important is a history of Alexander the Great, include a monograph on hunting named, like Xenophon's, Cynegeticus ("The Hunting Man"), and expressly designed to supply information on those branches of the sport that had been developed since Xenophon's day.20 Arrian begins by summarizing the contents of Xenophon's work, which discusses, the benefits that man obtains from hunting; Chiron's pupils in this art, and how they were beloved by the gods and renowned through Hellas; the resemblances between military science and the science of hunting; the age at which a man should take up hunting, and the physique and character appropriate to the hunter; the proper preparation of purse nets, long nets, and road nets; the setting of snares for those beasts that are taken by snares; the nature of hares, with manner of feeding, their forms, and the manner of tracking them; hounds, including those that are clever at hunting and those that are vicious; how to tell both sorts by their appearance and by their performance. Xenophon also offers some remarks on boar, stags, bears, and lions, and their capture by craft and cunning. However, [Arrian continues] Xenophon has omitted certain matters in his account, not through carelessness, but because he knew nothing about the Celtic breed of hounds or about the Scythian and Libyan breeds of horses. I shall describe these. I bear Xenophon's name and come from the same city. [Arrian was an honorary citizen of Athens and in A.D. 147-148 was archon, or chief magistrate.] Moreover, since my youth I have occupied myself in the same matters—namely, hunting, the art of war, and philosophy. And I am copying his own example, since he thought it necessary in his writings to supply what Simon had omitted from his account of horsemanship, not in rivalry with Simon, but to place his own knowledge at the service of mankind.21 Arrian's "Scythian" horses came, like Hadrian's Alan, Borysthenes, from the nomads; indeed, Arrian calls the Alans "Scythians" in his Order ofBattle. These ponies and those of Libya, and the Celtic hounds, made possible a completely different style of hunting. Arrian does not, in fact, try to bring Xenophon up to date; he dismisses his methods entirely. Arrian's hunting is carried on purely for sport, and at first sight Xenophon, with his nets and cruel footsnares, cuts a very poor figure beside him. But for Xenophon and his Spartan friends a successful hunt might make the difference between a good meal and a supper of cheese, onions, and barley cake. Arrian could count on coming home to a dinner fit for a Roman senator. Besides, Xenophon's hunting really did call for self-denial, endurance, and hard physical effort—at least on the part of those who actually followed hounds, and Xenophon, unlike Pliny, left the net watching to slaves. Arrian's hunting meant a good morning's gallop, and he very honestly does not claim too much for the hunting field as a school for character. 107

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Arrian says that if Xenophon had known any hounds that could match the Celtic breed for swiftness, he would never have written that hounds never catch hares except by luck. On the contrary, if Celtic hounds fail to run down their hare, this must be blamed on luck—broken ground, a thicket, a deep cleft in the ground, an unexpected ditch. But Xenophon knew nothing o f these hounds, and this is why he discusses so fully the necessity o f driving the hare towards the purse nets, and of giving chase if she runs past the nets, and of finding her by scent, until she fails through exhaustion and is taken. Nowhere does Xenophon indicate that a man who has good hounds has no need o f purse nets or of tracking the fugitive hare; he describes only the sort o f hunting that the Carians and Cretans practice nowadays. The Celts, at least those of them who do not hunt in order to make a living, but for the sheer pleasure o f the chase, hunt without purse nets. Arrian acknowledges that there does exist among the Celts a breed, the Segusians, skilled in tracking like the Carians and Cretans, but wilder, and ugly and savage in appearance. He criticizes their shrill yapping; the way in which they do not distinguish between the trail o f a running hare and one in her form; their slowness. "It is a matter for congratulation if they catch a single hare in wintertime, since they give her so much time to rest; unless, that is, she is driven out o f her wits by the noise o f the pack and caught that way." Everything worth saying about this sort o f hunting has been said already by Xenophon long ago; Arrian has only to add that these hounds are shaggy and have a wretched appearance, and the better bred they are, the more wretched, so that a favorite saying among the Celts compares them with wayside beggars. Their voice is mournful and pitiable; they give tongue on the trail not as though they were in eager pursuit o f the quarry, but in lamentable entreaty. About hounds like this, I really think that nobody could write anything worth saying.22 So Arrian proceeds to the pleasanter topic of the fast Celtic hounds, the vertragi as they were called in the Celtic language, not after a nation, like Cretan and Carian and Lacedaemonian hounds; but, just as among Cretan hounds the "workers" are named for their love o f work, and the "hasty" for their keenness, and the "mixed" for the combination o f these qualities, so the vertragi are named for their swiftness. In appearance, they are splendid animals, the best bred o f them, with fine eyes, fine bodies all over, fine coats, and fine appearance. On those that are dappled, the dapples give a bloom to the coat; and on those whose color is unbroken, the coat shines; and no sight could be more delightful to a hunting man. I will myself state the proofs by which one can tell their speed and good breeding, and to what signs one should pay attention in order to weed out slow and ill-bred hounds. 108

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35. Rough-coated hounds, followed by mounted hunter, driving hare into net. Glass bowl from the Rhineland (mid-fourth century A . D . ) .

First of all, they must be long from head to tail. You can find no single proof of speed and good breeding that counts more when you are picking a hound on general impression than length. Conversely, a shortness points to slowness and ill breeding. I have before now seen hounds with many other faults; but because they were long they were fast and spirited. Larger hounds, other things being equal, are better by nature than smaller ones simply on account of their size. But among large hounds those with loose, misshapen legs are bad, and large hounds of this type would be worse than small ones if their other faults were equal. They should have light, muscular heads. Whether they are flat-nosed or hook-nosed will not make 109

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much difference, nor should one pay great attention to whether they have sinewy lower foreheads. But heavy-headed hounds are bad on that account alone, as are those whose muzzles are broad and do not end in a point, but are cut off short. The eyes should be large, prominent, clear, and bright, and should astonish the man who sees them. The best of them flash fire and cast lightning, like the eyes of panthers, lions, and lynxes. Second to these are black eyes, if they sparkle and look fierce. Third are grey eyes. Not that grey eyes are bad either or signs of a bad hound if they are clear and look fierce. I myself once bred a grey-eyed bitch, as grey-eyed as could be, yet she was fast, and enduring, and brave, and had good feet, so that she could oudast four hares when she reached maturity. In other respects, she is most gentle (I still own her, at the time of writing) and very fond of people. I never before had a bitch that loved me as much as this one. And she loves my friend and hunting companion Megillus just as much. When the hunt is over, she never leaves us—one or the other of us, that is. If I am at home, she stays at my side, and when I go out anywhere she escorts me, and follows at my heels when I go to the gymnasium, and sits watching while I exercise, and runs in front when I am going back home, constandy turning round, to see that I have not turned off the road somewhere. When she sees me, she smiles at me and runs on ahead again. But if I am going to some business in the city, she stays with my friend and treats him in the same way. If either of us is ill, she never leaves his side. If she sees either of us after a short interval of separation, she jumps up fearlessly as though in greeting, and by way of extra greeting she barks as though in welcome. When she is present at dinner, she attaches herself to the feet of first one of us, then the other, reminding us that she must be given her share of the food too. She has a wider range of noises than, I think, any dog that I have ever seen, and, whatever she wants, she indicates it with her voice. When she was a puppy, she was punished with a whip; and to this day, if anyone even utters the word "Whip!" she comes up to the man who has said it, and flattens herself and entreats him. Then she puts her mouth to his as though she were kissing him, and jumps up and hangs round his neck, and does not leave off until whoever is angry with her stops threatening her. And so I think that I should not hesitate to record her name and thus to bequeath a memorial of her to future ages, declaring that Xenophon the Athenian [meaning, of course, himself] had a hound named Horme (Impulse), most swift and wise and divine.23 After this digression, Arrian returns to a hound's points: The ears should be large and soft, so as to appear bent down by their size and softness. This is best; not that upright ears are bad either, provided they are not small and stiff. The neck should be long, rounded, and supple, so that if 110

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you pull hounds backward by their collars, their necks should seem to bend through being supple and soft. Broad chests are better than narrow. The shoulder blades should be wide apart, and not cramped, but as far as possible freed from each other. The legs should be rounded, straight, and compact; the ribs well developed; the loins broad, strong, not fleshy, but strong with sinews; flanks tucked-up; quarters not tied together; belly thin; stern thin, long, with thick hair, supple and flexible with thicker hair at the tip; lower legs long and compact. If the hind legs are longer than the front, the hound will run better uphill; if the front legs are longer than the back, downhill; if front and back are equal, on flat ground. It is harder not to be beaten by a hare running uphill, since hares run better uphill. Accordingly, those hounds seem better bred whose hind legs are longer than the front. Round, hard feet are best. The color will make no difference, whatever it may be, not even if hounds are black or tan or white all over. There is no need to suspect that unbroken color indicates a savage strain. The coat should be shining and clean and the hair fine and dense and soft, whether hounds are of the longhaired or short-haired breed. Similarly Beckford: "The colour I think of little moment. . . . A good dog, like a good candidate, cannot be a bad colour."24 Obviously, Arrian is deliberately contradicting Xenophon on several points. His description shows that the vertragus was of the same type as the modern whippet, or, since he insists on size, perhaps rather as the greyhound. Hounds of the right shape are shown chasing hares on the "Castor ware" pottery of Britain—lively examples of a folk art in which the Celtic tradition was not yet dead.25 British hounds were famous and were exported to the continent even in the Augustan age, before the Roman conquest.26 They should, perhaps, be regarded as a variety of the hounds of Gaul, with which the Romans became acquainted earlier, and which were always better known.27 After saying that the best dog hounds should be as supple as the bitches, and the best bitches as muscular as the dogs, Arrian proceeds to examine the hounds' dispositions. Those that are ill disposed to everybody are ill bred, but if you find some that are hard on strangers, but friendly to the man that bred them, this is good rather than bad. I have in the past known a hound that sulked at home and greeted nobody who approached it, but when it was taken out to hunt was overjoyed and smiled all over everyone who came near it, and fawned on them, and showed in this way that it was bored with staying at home. This is good too. But the best hounds are those that like people best and are not alienated by the sight of anybody at all. Those that are afraid of men and terrified of noises are wild and may be upset by accidents. This is how foolish animals behave; sensible ones act differently. Cowardly, silly men can never be good for anything, and no more can cowardly, silly hounds. Bad, too, are 111

36. Smooth-coated Celtic hounds coursing hares. Castor Ware beaker (second century A . D . ) .

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those hounds that, after being unleashed in the country, do not return to their master when they are called, but go frisking away. If you call them gently, they despise you, but if you threaten, they are afraid and do not come near. Hounds should have their play, and run around, and then return to their master even if he does not call them, showing that they are ready to obey if he now wants them. Then, if he does not take them, they can run off again and again return. It is a proof of good training if hounds, on being called by the master, crouch down not in fear but out of love and respect for the man who feeds them, like courtiers doing obeisance to the Great King. It is not good, on the other hand, when a hound, after it has been slipped, stands still on level ground, unless it is old. This is a sign of laziness. The best-bred hounds have a proud air and seem haughty, and tread lightly, quickly, and delicately, and turn their sides and stretch their necks upward like horses when they are showing off.28 Arrian next gives advice on hounds' diet—bread or barley mash when they are well; when they are ill, meat broth or beef liver roasted in the ashes and then sliced and sprinkled with barley meal. This diet is also good for puppies, when they are weaned, to strengthen their legs, but up to nine months the mother's milk is best. Hounds should be softly bedded—preferably in a man's bed, not only to make them affectionate but so that their sleeping companions can minister to their needs during the night and observe how they sleep. They should not be taken out hunting if they have slept badly or vomited up their food. For hounds to sleep together is insanitary, as appears from the sharp, unpleasant smell. Hounds, like horses, should be rubbed down all over, and Arrian tells in detail how this is to be done. H e continues: "To tie up a well-bred hound during the day is most certainly a good thing." If this is not done, hounds are sure to prove hard to lead, and, if ever they have to be tied up, they are distressed and howl and bite through their leashes, so that one has to use a chain on them, just as on human malefactors. Moreover, a hound that is left free will certainly eat whatever it comes across, and will lose its peak performance in running through walking about all day. It should be walked at fixed hours and rest for most of the time. "Hounds should be taken out at least four times a day onto clean, level ground. There they should be unleashed, both for their bodily necessities and to allow them to play and run about." Two hounds should be released at once to let them play together, but not more, or they will start fighting and do each other serious injury. A savage hound should not be released with a puppy, and one should take care not to release two enemies together. "For some hounds are enemies of each other, and some have no friends, just like humans. Dog hounds usually quarrel with dogs, and bitches with bitches, mostly through jealousy. One should not fail to notice these matters." Hounds should be fed once a day in winter, when the days are short, but in summer given a light breakfast in addition to their main meal; it is better for them not to 113

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drink on an empty stomach if they are thirsty. On a very hot day, it is a good thing to take an egg in one's hand and pull back the hound's head so that it can gulp down the contents; "this is a sufficient meal, relieves panting, and eases thirst."29 Death by thirst was a constant danger when hounds were taken out in summer. Antipater of Thessalonica wrote, rather more than a century before Arrian: Of thirst died Lampo, Midas' favorite hound, Though mighty was the struggle that she made For life. Her paws dug up the marshy ground, But the slow drops from the dark spring delayed. She failed and died; and then the stream ran clear. The water nymphs, who grudged to give her aid, Blamed Lampo for the killing of their deer.30 Because hounds cannot stand excessive heat, Arrian recommends taking them out most frequently in spring and autumn. In winter their feet may be frostbitten, a danger that hares escape because they have hairy, soft feet, which run safely on the ice.31 As one would expect from the type of hound that he used, Arrian's hare hunts resembled modern coursing rather than hunting with harriers. His hounds view the hare and give chase; they do not try to disentangle her scent. A man who has good hounds should neither slip them on the hare from near at hand nor slip more than two at a time. Even if the hare is very fast and has often escaped many hounds, when she is roused from her form and hounds press her with a great cry, she is bound to be terrified, and her heart will beat wildly. In such circumstances, many a noble hare has perished ingloriously without achieving anything or showing memorable sport. Allow her to escape from her form and recover her courage. If she is likely to give a good run, she pricks up her ears at once and jumps out of her form with great leaps. Some hares actually throw their legs about as though they were frisking and then settle down to a straight run. Then there is a sight worth all one's trouble, for those who cannot help going to the trouble of keeping hounds. The best hares are those that have their forms in clear and open country. Their boldness forbids them to hide themselves away, but, to my way of thinking, they challenge the hounds. These are the ones that, when they are pursued, do not take refuge in gullies or spinnies even if their close neighborhood offers an easy refuge from danger, but force their way onto level ground and race against the hounds. If they are chased by slow hounds, they run as fast as their pursuers; but if by quick ones, as fast as they are able. Often such hares turn aside onto level ground, and then, realizing that a good hound is following them so closely that its shadow falls on them, throw the hound out by doubling. Then they turn again towards the gullies in hope of 114

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finding a hiding place. This must be regarded as proof that the hound has beaten the hare. For one does not take hounds out in order to catch the beast, but for a race and competition, at least if one is a true sportsman. Sportsmen are delighted if the hare finds safety. When she has taken refuge in a thistle patch, even a small one, and they see her cowering and exhausted, they call off the hounds, particularly if the contest has been a good one. I myself have often followed the chase closely on horseback, and come up when the hare was taken, and rescued her alive. Then I have taken the hound away and tied it up and allowed the hare to escape. If I have arrived too late to save her, I have smitten my head to think that the hounds had lost a noble opponent. 32 The vertragi seem to have had soft mouths, which would have helped Arrian to save the hare after she had been caught. Martial says: The vertragus, swift hound of noble race, Not on his own account pursues the chase, But for his master's sake, and places in His hand hares with no tooth mark on their skin.33 Priscus and Licinianus, the poet's hare-hunting friends, probably rode to vertragi. Unlike Priscus, Arrian evidently did not hunt in order to ride, as the saying goes, but rode in order to hunt. He found sport in watching hounds at work, and staying close to them, not in cross-country riding for its own sake. His anxiety to save the beaten hare reminds one of the conclusion of Mr. Spectator's day with Sir Roger de Coverley's pack, though Arrian would certainly have thought that Sir Roger showed slow sport, with his hounds that, like the despised Segusians, spent all day disentangling the scent of a single hare. [When] the poor hare . . . was now quite spent and almost within reach of her enemies, the huntsman, getting forward, threw down his pole before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours; yet on the signal before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued opening as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode forward, and, alighting, took up the hare in his arms; which he soon after delivered up to one of his servants with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in the great orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good-nature of the knight, who could not find in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so much diversion.34 Arrian blames Xenophon for taking pleasure in the sight of the kill, but, as was remarked earlier, for Xenophon hunting was an important source of food, and he 115

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should not be judged by the standards of better-fed ages.35 Indeed, in all ages we may suppose that Arrian's view has been shared by only a minority of sportsmen. Beckford is only mildly critical of a friend whose somewhat unsporting methods generally finished off "the strongest hare" in twenty minutes. "But my friend says, a hare is good eating, and he therefore thinks he cannot kill too many of them." 36 To return to Arrian: It is a good thing [he says] to cheer hounds on. They are happy to recognize their master's voice, and it eases their work to know that somebody is on the spot watching them, and that when they perform well they are noticed. However, though in the first run I do not forbid you to cheer as much as you want, in the second or third, when the hound is likely to have exhausted itself, I think I should discourage you from frequently cheering a hound by name, for fear that its spirit and eagerness, and its desire to please its master, should drive it to an effort beyond its strength. Then it may suffer some internal rupture. Many are the hounds, and those the finest, that have perished in this way. Let them go on with the struggle just as long as they do so willingly. The contest between hare and hound is by no means on even terms. The hare runs where she wishes; the hound chases her closely. The hare doubles and throws the hound out, and then runs on; the hound, if it is thrown out, goes astray, and must then hurry after and catch up the part of the run in which it was off the track. Difficult ground, rough, rocky, sloping, or uneven, is more in the hare's favor than in the hound's, because she is light, and her feet, being hairy, are not injured in rough places. Furthermore, the fact that she is running for her life prevents her from noticing the difficulties. When the hound catches the hare or has in some other way beaten her in the run, you must jump off your horse and pat the hound and praise it, caress its head, pull its ears, and speak to it by name—"Well done, Tawny! Well done, Bonny! Good girl, Impulse!"—saying just a little more than the mere name of each by way of encouragement. They enjoy being praised, just as noble men do. And the hound, if it does not happen to be exhausted, comes up smiling and fawning over its master. Thereupon it is a good thing for the hound to roll, just as we see horses do. This is a sign that it is not exhausted by the run; moreover, rolling relieves their tiredness.37 Arrian continues with a description of Celtic hunting, making it clearer than ever that the vertragi were gazehounds38 and hunted by sight, not by tracking the hare's scent. The Celts, those of them who are rich and live in luxury, hunt by sending men out at break of day to likely places in order to mark where the hare is lying up. One of them reports whether a hare has been seen and how many hares there are. Then they come to the place, and slip the hounds after they 116

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have started the hare, and themselves follow on horseback. People who do not have men to mark the hare for them sometimes collect a numerous field to join them in the hunt, and ride out and visit likely places, and, wherever they find, they start the hare and slip their hounds. Finally, those hunters who have even more to make do for themselves go out on foot. One of them follows closely on horseback, whose business is to give chase together with the hounds. They form a long line and set out. After they have gone forward a convenient distance, they turn around and walk back to the start over the same ground, missing none of the likely places as far as they are able. If they bring out several hounds, the hunters must not be undisciplined. If they were and a hare were started from her form, nobody could keep himself from slipping his own hound, some because everybody wants to see his own hound run, others being startled out of their senses by the "View halloo!" If this were to happen, the hare would be mobbed by hounds without putting up a struggle and the enjoyment of the spectators would be lost. So they must appoint a Master of Hounds, who pairs off the hounds and gives his instructions. [The master does not "couple" the hounds; each is evidently still held by its own handler.] "If she breaks this way, you and you slip your hounds, and nobody else. If that way, you and you." And the field must do what it is told. The Celts also hunt by combining tracking hounds with gazehounds. The trackers follow the scent, and the huntsmen stand at some distance, keeping their good hounds in hand, in the direction in which it is most likely that the hare will run, in order to slip some of the hounds in the most advantageous fashion. These hounds serve the same purpose as Xenophon's purse nets. [He means that the hare is driven to the gazehounds, just as in Xenophon's day she was driven to the purse nets.] But in this sort of hunting, the runs are irregular, and the hare, even if she happens to be a very good one, is generally terrified by the cry of hounds. So, unless she happens to have a long start to let her recover her wits, she is easily taken, being scared silly. Accordingly, a man who is good at handling hounds must not slip on her while she is still confused, but must allow her to finish running her first rings before letting the hounds go if he does not want to ruin the spectators' sport. To let slip on a leveret is an impious act. One must obey my namesake and leave the newly born to the goddess. If possible, call off the tracking hounds too. But hunger makes them hard to call off, and disobedient; and they have a bad habit of completely devouring whatever they have caught, so that you can hardly rescue it by beating them with a stick.39 Arrian continues with stag hunting and the type of horse to make a good hunter: Stags and other beasts of similar size are hunted in this way—namely, by putting well-bred hounds onto them. But the animal is large and runs for a

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great distance. Consequently, it is not safe to run it down; there is a considerable risk of losing a good hound for the sake of a stag. Stags are hunted, where there are rideable plains, as in Mysia and among the Getae and in Scythia and in parts of Illyria, by giving chase to them on Scythian and Illyrian horses. These horses are not good mounts at first sight; indeed they present a despicable appearance when compared with Thessalian or Sicilian or Peloponnesian horses; but in endurance they hold out forever. Then one can see the fast, big, showy horse exhausted, and the scruffy pony first passing it, then leaving it behind, and then heading off the hunted animal. The pony does indeed hold out until the stag gives in. Exhausted and gasping, it is brought to a helpless standstill, and now, if you want to, you can shoot it down at close range, as though it were shackled. If you prefer, you can lasso it and lead it away alive. In Libya, mounted on Libyan horses, the so-called Nomads hunt, and their horses are called "nomads" too. On these horses they do not merely take fallow deer and roe deer [another hit at Xenophon], They think that such hunts are quickly over, and horses that overtake that sort of game seem no good to the Nomads. They actually catch wild asses, which are exceptional for their speed and their ability to hold out for the greatest distances at a gallop. Arrian notes that Cyrus the Younger's horsemen could only catch wild asses by taking up the hunt in relays, and draws the conclusion: So it seems that even Cyrus, the son of a Great King and brother of a Great King, had no horses good for the chase. Libyan children at the age of eight, some of them, and the rest not much older, ride bareback, controlling their horses as completely with a stick as the Greeks manage theirs with bit and bridle, and follow wild asses for such a distance that in the end they lasso their quarry and lead it home. It follows them defeated.40 The ease with which Libyan horses were managed without bridles, either by tapping them with sticks to turn them in the right direction or by means of cords looped round their necks, was a commonplace in antiquity.41 The use of the lasso to lead off an animal that has been run to a standstill is very different from the modern cowboy's method of roping animals going at full speed. The cowboy's lasso is secured to the horn of his massive western saddle, and so the shock when the captured animal is brought up short is transmitted through the saddle to the body of the horse. An eightyear-old riding bareback who tried to stop a galloping onager with a hand-held lasso would be pulled off his pony and lucky if he escaped with nothing worse than a nasty rope burn. Even a grown man seated on a saddlecloth would hardly fare any better if he tried to bring his quarry to a sudden stop. However, on a mosaic pavement from 118

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Hippo Regius in Roman Africa, dating from perhaps two centuries after Arrian's time, a mounted hunter lassoes a wild ass while both his horse and his quarry are at full gallop. He must intend to ride alongside the onager and slow it down gradually. The artist of the mosaic was probably influenced by the staged hunts of the amphitheater, though the action is shown taking place in a wooded, rocky landscape. A much later mosaic, from the period of the Vandal occupation of Carthage (c. A.D. 500) shows a hunter lassoing a stag, and again, though the animals are stiff and unnatural, horse and quarry are probably meant to be galloping.42 That nomad horsemen were prepared to lasso moving targets, including other horsemen, appears from accounts of the use of the lasso in battle.43 Arrian concludes his description of methods of hunting as follows: That is the way in which men hunt if they have good hounds and horses. They do not deceive the beasts of the chase with snares, and purse nets, and nooses, or, in a word, any sort of cunning or clever trick. They compete with them straightforwardly. The spectacle offered by the two sorts of hunting is, to my way of thinking, by no means comparable. One is like thievish robbery; the other like war fought out by the strong hand. One set of hunters approach their quarry like pirates bearing down secretly on their victims; the others like the Athenians when they conquered the Medes in the sea fight off Artemisium, or at Salamis and Psyttaleia, and again off Cyprus. That is the way of those who overcome wild beasts openly.44 Arrian does not quote Plato's Laws, though as a student of philosophy at Athens he must have read them. Plato knew no more of Celtic hounds and Scythian or Libyan horses than Xenophon did, and Arrian must not be treated as evidence that "one only, and the best, form of hunt" was practiced in Attica five centuries before his time. He is concerned with the realities of the hunt in his own day, not with moral theory. As has been remarked already, he makes no exaggerated claims for the educational value of his sport. Arrian began to work bitches at eleven months old, or even ten if they were well built, but dogs not until they were two years old, because he considered that they took longer to mature. Bitches were faster than dog hounds, but lost their speed at five years old; a good dog might keep his until he was ten. A really good dog hound was, therefore, cause for thanksgiving sacrifices to Artemis.45 Arrian trained puppies by releasing a hare in an open place. Then slip the puppy near the hare, so that it has sight of her, and, because it sees her close, makes its effort with good hopes. A little later, slip another well-bred hound, so that the puppy may not suffer harm through going a great distance or be forced by exhaustion to give up. The second hound will quickly and easily run down the hare and give her over to the puppy. When she is caught, allow the puppy to worry her with its teeth until it kills her. 119

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When the puppy reaches the age to be taken out, first walk it on the roads, choosing rough ones. The exercise is good to harden hounds' feet. Then the man who holds the young hound should be placed in an advantageous spot with a good view all round. If the hare goes away quickly, well in advance, the man should not slip the hound unless it sees her. The advice that the former Xenophon gave on this point is only applicable to hounds that track by scent; if you release a gazehound when it does not see the hare, it wanders about and plays and becomes excited and scared. Then, if a hare ever escapes it after it has reached maturity, it does not keep itself calm, or return to the huntsman, or listen when he calls, but from love of running strays at random after nothing, like a mad thing. As I was saying, station the man who holds the young hound in an advantageous spot, hidden on the side from which one might expect the tired hare to come as she circles round. When he sees the hare at the end of her efforts, he should slip his hound close to her, not in her face nor in the opposite direction to the one she is taking. For in this case the hound will rush out and be carried right past her, and the hare will jink and easily pass the hound. Then the hound cannot help being left far behind and will turn with difficulty; just as war galleys, when they are going full speed ahead, do not turn round easily, unless most of their rowers back water before they turn. The handler must let the hare pass and then slip the hound on her from the side. When the hare is caught, somebody must follow up quickly, before the hound gets its fill of blood; not that a hare's flesh is to be considered important to a man who hunts for the glory of it, but because it is a bad thing for a well-bred hound to learn to eat hare. In fact, many hounds have died in this way by gorging themselves when panting after a long run and so choking themselves to death.46 Arrian also gives advice on breeding and the care of nursing bitches before ending his book with instructions on the proper reverence to be shown to the gods and goddesses of the chase. Some of the Celts have the custom of making an annual sacrifice to Artemis, and some also dedicate a money box to the goddess. For the capture of a hare, they contribute two coppers to the box and for a fox a piece of silver, because it is a cunning beast and destroys hares. So they make a bigger contribution, as though for the capture of an enemy. For a roe deer, they contribute four silver pieces, because it is a big animal and the chase is more honorable. When the year comes round to the birthday of Artemis, the box is opened and they buy a sacrificial victim with the money that has been collected, a sheep or a goat, or a calf if the money goes far enough. They make sacrifice and give the first-fruits of the victim to the goddess of the wild according to each man's custom. Then they and their hounds have a feast. They even put garlands on their hounds on that day to make it clear that the feast is on their account. 120

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My hunting companion and I follow the Celtic custom, and I declare that no human activity turns out well without the help of the gods. . . . So men who are interested in hunting should not neglect Artemis of the wild, or Apollo, or Pan, or the Nymphs, or Hermes, god of the ways and pathfinder, or any other god of the mountains. If they do neglect them, needs must that their endeavors fall short of completion. Their hounds will be injured, their horses lamed; their men come to grief. Homer demonstrates this in his poetry. For he says that in the archery match Teucer, the best bowman among the Greeks, missed the bird and only hit the cord that tied it, because he had not prayed to Apollo. He cut the cord; and the bird was already in flight when Meriones, a man unskilled in archery, prayed to Apollo. Thereby, he hit the bird. . . . One must believe in such examples and begin every activity, including hunting, with the gods; and, after one has been successful, sacrifice thank-offerings and pour libations and praise the gods and hang garlands on their images and sing hymns and dedicate first-fruits of the chase no less than one must offer the spoils of war after a victory.47

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Xenophon wrote in order to instruct his readers in the details of a sport that was already fully accepted. Arrian seems to be trying to gain converts-—to win people over and introduce them to his sort of hunting. He was probably not successful. At all levels of society, the meat of hunted animals was still eaten. The rich employed professionals to bring it to them, and when hunting for sport seem often to have been more interested in a quick kill than in watching hounds at work. Accordingly, the old methods, the use of nets and of tracking hounds, continued to be used. However, it seems that at this period large animals, especially dangerous large animals such as boars, were ridden down more often than run down if it came to a chase, at least by the aristocratic hunters whose sport is reflected in the literary and pictorial sources. The following description of a hunt ends in melodrama, but begins in a way that would have been familiar in the second century of our era to people who might have found Arrian's eccentricities incomprehensible. The scene is Greece, a fantastic Greece where magic and witchcraft still prevail. Indeed, the hero, through a mistaken interest in these matters, spends the greater part of the book in the form of a donkey, and at one point is nearly turned into substitute venison by a cook who has carelessly allowed a hound to make off with a haunch that has been presented to his master.1 However, the hunt belongs to the everyday world; and since the author, Apuleius, came from North Africa and wrote in Latin, there is no real reason to suppose that the sport that he describes is peculiarly Greek. Two young gendemen, Thrasyllus and Tlepolemus, went hunting to pursue savage beasts, if indeed there is anything savage in the nature of goats. [Tlepolemus had been forbidden by his wife Charite to hunt 122

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animals armed with tusks or horns.] They came to a woody hillock, overshadowed with a thick cover o f branches. Here they encompassed the goats, which had previously been marked down by trackers. Then the hounds, o f a noble hunting strain, were thrown into cover to attack the beasts as they lay couched in their resting place. The hounds, mindful o f their careful training, spread out and guarded every entry, at first without giving tongue. Then suddenly the signal was given, and with their hot and resounding cry they stirred up the whole wood. But it was no goat or timid roe deer or hind, most gentle o f all wild animals, that broke from cover. They roused a boar, huge and horrible to behold, thick-skinned, dirty, with hair bristling on his hide. His bristles stood up along his back; the whole o f him was like a thunderbolt as he charged savagely with raging jaws. First he killed the bolder o f the hounds, which had followed him up closely, rending them as he tossed his head this way and that. Then he trod down the little net that had restrained his first charge and was through it and away. (The net has not hitherto been expressly mentioned; perhaps it is to be understood in the phrase "encompassed the goats," or perhaps it was the recognized duty o f the "trackers" not merely to mark the game and report where it was to be found, but to lay nets round the covert—road nets across the goat tracks leading into it rather than a continuous long net the whole way round. In any case, the net was obviously designed only to hold the comparatively light animals that the hunters had expected.) The narrator, one o f the servants who had accompanied the gentlemen to the hunt, continues: All o f us servants were panic-stricken. We had been accustomed on other occasions to hunting harmless animals, and now we had no weapons or means o f defence. So we ran away and hid ourselves behind bushes and trees. But Thrasyllus . . . urged Tlepolemus as follows: "Why are we standing astonished, or rather terrified, as degraded as our slaves here? Why are we panicking like women, and letting this splendid prize escape from our hands? Mount, and after him at full speed! Take a hunting spear; I'll take a lance." Without delay, they vaulted onto their horses and set off in full pursuit.2 How Thrasyllus, lusting after his friend's wife, murdered Tlepolemus and pretended that he had fallen a victim to the boar; how Charite learned the truth from her husband's ghost; how she took revenge; how she killed herself upon her husband's grave; and how Thrasyllus perished, are not the concern o f this book. T o return to the hunt itself, it evidendy comes closer to Xenophon than Arrian in method and spirit. The hounds, working inside the thicket, must be using their noses, not their eyes. The hunters do not intend the game to break cover and give them a run across country. The goats are to be caught in the nets and slaughtered. Only the use o f trackers to mark the game beforehand seems at first glance to reflect the practice o f Arrian's rich and luxurious Celts. But Xenophon tells hunters to go out early in the morning to

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mark where the hinds hide their young. Tlepolemus and Thrasyllus leave the early rising and the tracking to the servants instead of doing it themselves. This, like the use of horses as cover hacks to carry their masters to the scene of the hunt, reflects the luxury of the age rather than the introduction of wholly new methods. It is to be noted that both young men dismounted at the covert side. If the boar had not appeared and broken through the net, their horses would have played no part in the hunt itself. However, in court circles, the tradition of big-game hunting on horseback was by this time firmly established. Hadrian had fixed in the popular mind the image of the emperor as heroic hunter. Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161—180) struck coins obviously resembling Hadrian's lion-hunt issues, but showing a boar instead of a lion as the imperial quarry. Though symbolic, Marcus's coins, no less than Hadrian's, represent the emperor's actual achievements—"he even used to strike down wild boars from horseback in the chase."3 This was in his youth, before much study and the burdens of empire had enfeebled his body. But even during the last years of his reign, when amid the hardships and difficulties of his northern wars he was considering the universe and man's place in it, he did not forget the sport completely. Among things that, though not beautiful in themselves, have in their appropriate contexts "a certain attractive charm," he notes "the foam dripping from the jaws of wild boars."4 Marcus appears less heroic and much more human in a letter written in about A.D. 145 to his tutor M. Cornelius Fronto. Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138—161) was reigning at the time; he too enjoyed hunting,5 and the young man, in attendance at the emperor's country house, found it advisable to behave in the manner that Horace had recommended to Lollius more than a century and a half earlier. Marcus writes: My most revered master, we are in good health. Today, from the ninth hour of the night until the second of the day [i.e., three hours after midnight until two hours after dawn] I studied, having arranged my meals to suit my timetable. From the second to the third hour, I had great pleasure in walking up and down in my slippers in front of my bedroom. Then I put on my boots and riding-cloak—that being the order of the day—and went off to greet my lord. We set off to the hunt and did brave deeds. At least, we heard by word of mouth that some boars were taken, though we certainly had no chance of seeing any. However, we made our way to the top of a pretty steep hill, and then in the afternoon we came home again. I wanted to get back to my books, so I pulled off my boots, took off my outdoor clothes, and spent about two hours in bed. . . . After I had read through those speeches of Cato's, I wrote a miserable little thing of my own, which I should commit either to water or to the flames. Truly today my writing has been unfortunate, a little piece worthy of a huntsman or a vintager. Their songs of revelry are ringing through my room, as hateful and boring as the noise of the law courts. What have I said? I spoke the truth all the same; my master is a public speaker. 124

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I seem to have taken a thorough chill. Whether it comes from walking about in my slippers early in the morning or from writing badly I do not know. At all events, I am subject to colds, and today my nose seems to be running worse than ever. So I will pour some oil over my head and go to sleep, for today I have no intention of putting a drop of oil into my lamp. Riding and sneezing have worn me out completely. Farewell for my sake, my dearest, sweetest master, whom, I make bold to say, I miss even more than I miss Rome.6 Fronto himself was worried about the danger of his pupil's sport, and wrote: "When you establish your hunting park, remember most carefully to put your horse to full gallop whenever you strike a wild beast"—in order, apparently, to get out of the way as quickly as possible before the wounded animal turned on him.7 The golden age of Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by the iron reign of his son Commodus (A.D. 180—196).8 The cruel slaughters by which Commodus displayed himself as the Roman Hercules have nothing to do with sport, but Gibbon's comments deserve to be repeated: The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery reminded him that, by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the Nemean Lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to observe that in the first ages of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with men the possession of an unsettled country, a successful war against these savages is one of the most innocent and beneficial labours of heroism. In the civilized state of the Roman empire the wild beasts had long since retired from the face of man and the neighbourhood of populous cities. To surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transplant them to Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor, was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the people. Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance and styled himself (as we still read on his medals) the Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of the throne among the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were erected in which Commodus was represented in the character and with the attributes of the god whose valour and dexterity he endeavoured to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.9 It must be owned that the Roman Hercules impressed the provincials. Though Commodus never took personal command of the armies that protected the frontiers, the generals were officially no more than his lieutenants. The people of Britain could well feel grateful to the distant hero who had, through his deputies, saved them from 125

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Caledonian invasion. They were not required to witness the antics that drove Roman senators to chew laurel leaves from their garlands in order to hide their embarrassed tittering. 10 It was to Commodus that Pollux dedicated the successive books o f his Onomasticon, including the fifth, "because it well becomes you to practice hunting, since the pursuit is heroic and kingly." We may be grateful that much interesting information is thereby preserved, without regarding either the author or his patron as sportsmen. Meanwhile, the symbolism of the hunt in funerary art had again been established. From Hadrian's reign on, it became usual for the rich to be buried in splendid marble sarcophagi sculptured with mythological scenes, and myths connected with the hunt were often chosen.11 These include the slaughter o f the sons and daughters o f Niobe by Apollo and Artemis at the moment when the boys were mounting for the hunt and their sisters had gathered to see them go. 12 The myth suggests the promise o f youth cruelly cut off by early death, but also that the dead buried in the sarcophagus are on a level with the heroes o f old. Similarly, representations of the story o f Venus and

37. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Roman sarcophagus (late second century A.D.)

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38. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century a.d.).

Adonis, with the hero's farewell, the fatal boar hunt, and the vain efforts o f the goddess to staunch the flowing lifeblood, heroize the dead, but suggest that manly beauty and the favor o f the gods cannot turn destiny aside.13 Heroization is evident in the Calydonian boar hunt,14 and the story o f Hippolytus, represented on yet other sarcophagi, symbolizes not only heroism in the hunt, but piety, through the hero's rejection o f the guilty Phaedra.15 Smaller, less carefully executed, scenes at the ends o f these sarcophagi tell more about the actual techniques and equipment o f hunting.16 A heroically nude Hippolytus standing by his horse is approached by a huntsman realistically dressed in high boots, short tunic, and narrow-brimmed, low-crowned hat. A net, bundled up and tied with cord, is slung over his left shoulder, and in his right hand he carries a heavy,

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39. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century A.D.).

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roughly trimmed stick, probably a net prop rather than a cudgel. On another sarcophagus, a huntsman, nude but wearing very practical short boots, grasps the broad collar of a large mastiff, which leaps forward slavering at the mouth. On one of the Meleager sarcophagi, two huntsmen stoop beneath the weight of another heavy net. They also carry sticks, which are certainly net props, since the small fork at the top of each has been carefully rendered. The Labors of Hercules, that greatest of hunters, who won a place among the gods, suggest, on sarcophagi, not only the heroic status of the dead, but a victory over death itself. Not all these hunting-scenes are mythological.17 Sometimes the dead ride in the heroic lion hunts that were forbidden to the living. A fable tells that a man and a lion disputed which was the nobler creature. The man pointed out as evidence a tombstone showing a lion subdued in the grasp of a hunter. The lion very fairly replied that if their nature allowed lions to create works of sculpture, there would be more realistic monuments showing men perishing in the grips of lions.18 Sometimes the sarcophagi give a glimpse of the actual contemporary hunt. On the back of the sarcophagus of C. Flavius Hostilius Sertorianus and his wife at Belluno in northern Italy, the return from the hunt is shown.19 The servants carry a bear cub in a net suspended between poles resting on their shoulders. Hounds—greyhounds rather than mastiffs—sniff at the servants' feet or look up at the captured animal. Hostilius follows on horseback, wearing tunic and riding-cloak. Behind him, a huntsman with a forked net prop over his shoulder urges on a mule loaded with nets. Two more men gesture excitedly in the background. On the end of the sarcophagus, Hostilius gallops with spear uplifted. Beneath his horse's feet, a boar is followed by a hound. This group is more conventional; and certainly the scene at the other end, where Domitia Sera, wife of Hostilius, dressed in the tunic and boots of Diana, grasps a fallen stag by the antlers, is not intended to be realistic. This sarcophagus was made rather before A.D. 250. The hunt persisted as a funerary symbol for centuries longer, outlasting paganism and its mythology and eventually referring quite plainly to the victory of Christ. To return from symbolism to the hunt itself, the third century, though an age of military disaster and economic collapse, still saw the production of elegant works of literature. These include two poems on hunting: the Greek Cynegetica, ascribed to Oppian 20 and the Latin poem of the same name by Nemesianus. The use of the neuter plural "Things of the Hunt" in the titles of these poems rather than the masculine singular "Hunting Man" of Xenophon and Arrian is significant. The poet of the Greek Cynegetica (who may be called Oppian for the sake of convenience) came from Apamea on the Orontes, the "Syrian Chersonese" in whose hunting parks the career of Demetrius the Besieger had ended five hundred years earlier. Oppian's work contains more curious, and sometimes absurd, book-learning than actual information about country sports.21 129

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40. The hunt as a symbol of Christian virtue. Mosaic from the Basilica of Doumetios at Nicopolis (c. A.D. 525).

The poet begins with a fulsome dedication to Caracalla (A.D. 2 1 1 — 2 1 7 ) , an emperor of the same stamp as Commodus, and proceeds to a dialogue between himself and Artemis, in which, after discarding a variety of possible topics for the poem, they settle on: The combats of wild beasts and rustic men; The race of hounds; and horses' various breeds; Quick-witted stratagems; the tracker's feats; The hates and loves of wild beasts of the chase; Their mountain bridal chambers, tearless loves, And births assisted by no midwife's hand.22 That hunting is superior to fishing and wildfowling is then established by a series of invidious comparisons: Hunters Hunters Hunters Hunters Hunters

kill wolves; fishers catch tunnyfish; take sheep; the fowler's rod takes doves; catch bears; the angler hooks the bream; ride tigers down; fishers spear mullet; track boars; fowlers lime nightingales. 130

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On the hunters' persons: Let them be athletes, not inclined to fat, Among the crags the hunter needs must vault Onto his steed, and also leap the ditch, And also through the woods pursue the chase Upon light feet and with his nimble limbs. Oppian considers, on the other hand, that men of weedy physique are unfit for hunting, because the hunter must contend in battle with warlike beasts.23 Let him wield javelins twain in his right hand, And at his belt a billhook let him wear; For he must threaten beasts with bitter death, And bear defenses against wicked men. The balance of the lines suggests that the javelins are for hunting, the billhook for protection. In fact, the billhook should be for cutting brush, as in Xenophon's day.24 Perhaps Oppian here betrays his own inexperience of hunting in the woods and fails to understand his sources properly. If on foot, the hunter must conduct his hounds with his left hand; if he is mounted, his left hand will manage the reins. His tunic should be well-fitting and fastened above his knee with crossing straps. (This is practical advice, and more detailed than that of earlier authors, who speak only of the wearer of the tunic as "succinctus" or the like, meaning "high-girt," with definite reference to the legs.)25 The mande should hang over the hunter's shoulders out of the way of the hands. Men who follow the hardly visible tracks of wild beasts should go barefooted in order that the noise of the sandals squeaking under their "shining" feet may not drive sleep from the beasts' eyes. (Here one wonders whether the poet's practice, if any, agreed with his theory.) It is better (on second thoughts) to have no mande at all, for oft has the cloak stirred by the breath of the rushing storm-blast aroused the beasts, and they have started up to flee.26 Hunters should sometimes go after their prey at one time of day and sometimes at another; sometimes even in the dark, by the rays of the moon, they have killed wild beasts. Spring and autumn are best for all-day hunting; one should go out at midday in winter, but avoid the sun at noon in summer. This is explained at some length, with allusions to other seasonal occupations, which are not without charm.27 Oppian then lists various forms of nets, traps, and weapons for the chase in a rush of words that reminds one of Pollux.28 Of special interest is his mention of the "hare-slaying trident." It has been already noted that Persian horsemen used tridents against foxes, and Oppian's trident too must be a horseman's weapon. Its manner of use is shown in the mosaic of the "Little Hunt" in the splendid country house at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, which represents "the hunt as a typically aristocratic pursuit . . . the episodes are mostly realistic, the victims generally ordinary small ani131

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mals."29 To the right of the picnic that occupies the center of the mosaic, a young man mounted on a lively pony has just ridden past a small tree. Out of the corner of his eye, he has seen a hare cowering in her form at the tree's foot. He pulls his mount up and twists his body round to the right in order to secure the hare by driving down the light hunting spear that he carries in his right hand. This particular example is actually a bident, ending in two tines, both strongly barbed. The picture dates from roughly a century after Oppian's time. (See 111. 46, p. 145.) Oppian proceeds to horses, beginning with a point that Arrian omits, perhaps because he took it for granted. (It should be remembered that the Greeks and Romans did not normally geld their horses.)30 As for horses [says Oppian], let men bring to the hunt stallions in their pride. Not only are mares inferior in speed to accomplish a long course in the forests, but one must beware the amorous heart of swift-footed horses and keep the mares far off, lest in their lust they neigh, and the wild beasts take themselves to chilly flight, fawns and swift gazelles and the timorous hare.31 The change of a single letter (lilaiomenai into lilaiomenoi) would make the stallions lust for the mares and start neighing. Practical experience suggests that this should be the meaning. Since Oppian's experience seems questionable, one might rather support this proposed change by reference to the story, with which the poet was familiar, of how Darius the Great won his kingdom by the neighing of his favorite stallion.32 However, Oppian's text need not be altered. He transports us into the world of Venus and Adonis-. But lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by, A breeding jennet, lusty, young and proud, Adonis' trampling courser doth espy, And forth she rushes, snorts, and neighs aloud; The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree, Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.33 Oppian next hammers three hexameter lines out of fifteen successive proper names, listing different breeds of horses. The list is a mere jumble, though one must admire the poet's skill in versification. There is more interest in the account of the qualities of different horses that follows. He begins with the larger breeds. His description goes back to Xenophon, but agrees with most ancient authorities on the points of a good horse.34 Shakespeare describes the same type better and more briefly: Look when a painter would surpass the life In limning out a well-proportioned steed, His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed; 132

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So did his horse excel a common one, In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone. Round-hoof d, short-jointed, fedocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide; Look, what a horse should have he did not lack Save a proud rider on so proud a back.35 "Such," says Oppian, "are the Tyrrhenian horses, and the Armenians and Achaeans, and the noble Cappadocians that graze at the foot of Taurus." He sensibly notes that large horses should be given time to mature: "I have beheld a great marvel among the swift-footed Cappadocian horses. As long as they have milk teeth in their mouths, and their bodies are full of milk, they continue without strength. But they become swifter as their age increases." Since these are the horses for "the big wars that make ambition virtue," Oppian recommends them for combat against savage beasts.36 He is, of course, looking for an emperor's show hunter. He is well aware of the superior endurance of North African horses.37 He advises that one should choose one's mount for hunting different animals according to the color of its eyes—dark-eyed horses for stags with spotted feet; walleyed against bears; red-eyed for leopards; blazing and fiery-eyed against boars; and full, bright eyes against the bright-eyed lion.38 More familiar is the notion that what the mare sees while she is in foal will affect the markings of her offspring. If you want a spotted horse, decorate the stallion with spots when you bring him to the mare, "and she, conceiving, bears a many-patterned foal, having received the fertile seed of her mate in her womb, but in her eyes his many-colored appearance." Similarly pigeon fanciers obtain purple chicks by spreading purple cloths in the sight of the sitting bird, and the Spartans ensure that their children will be handsome by giving their wives pictures of beautiful young heroes to look at when they are pregnant. Oppian also says that men produce spotted horses, or Orynxes, as he calls them, by branding round spots on the coats of small foals. One hopes this was a misunderstanding on his part.39 On hounds, Oppian again begins with a string of names, advises against crossbreeding in general, but recommends certain particular crosses, and describes his idea of a good hound in terms obviously taken from Xenophon. Xenophon and Arrian had both disapproved of using common dogs to suckle well-bred hounds, in case the puppies should imbibe the foster mother's qualities with her milk. Oppian goes one better, and turns the same notion to positive account—"put the pups to udders of deer, or of a lioness, or of gazelles, or of a night-wandering she-wolf. So will you make them strong and swift exceedingly, like to the foster mothers that gave them milk." Once more, theory seems to have outrun practical experiment. However, the notion persisted into the Middle Ages and later. Giraldus Cambrensis tells of a wild pig that was 133

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suckled by a hound and grew up to be an excellent tracker.40 And it is well known (though I can quote no written authority for the fact) that one of the Campbells of Glenlyon forced a captive Macgregor woman to suckle a litter of bloodhound puppies, which thereby acquired a special aptitude for tracking the Children of the Mist. The poet knows nothing of Arrian's gazehounds. Oppian continues: Two ways there are to track the hard-seen trail, By men, and eke by hounds; for cunning men Mark with their eyes and so discern the tracks; But by their nostrils hounds follow all trails. Winter, when the footmarks are plain in the snow, favors men; hounds are foiled in spring by the scent of flowers and of the new tillage, but in autumn the withering of the vegetation allows hounds to follow the scent without hindrance. Oppian is again following Xenophon, though his text (here only summarized) is not inelegantly embellished with poetic phrases.41 From some more recent source Oppian learned of A certain valiant breed of tracking hounds, Small-sized, but yet deserving of great song, Which savage tribes of painted Britons breed, And call them by the Agassaeans' name. In size, indeed, they seem like worthless curs, Or greedy house dogs, trencher-fed and weak, Crook-backed, ill-fleshed, rough-coated, dull of eye; Yet are their feet well armed with grievous claws, And sharp their dense array of pointed teeth; And by its nose the Agassaean most Excels, and best can follow on a scent, And cleverly it can find out the trail Of whatsoever walks upon the ground; Nay, it can even trace the scent in air.42 These hounds sound like Arrian's Segusii, described by a more favorable observer. Oppian finishes his first book with a description of how hounds are tested by making them follow a trail. The master walks a crooked course while holding a hare, which he eventually buries. Next, Oppian tells how, in the actual hunt, the hound tracks the hare to her form, then pounces, and brings his quarry back in his mouth like a harvest wain returning to the farmyard.43 The next two books of the Cynegetica are largely concerned with listing all sorts of animals that might possibly be hunted, from elephants and rhinoceroses to hedgehogs and even moles, including tigers, wolves, boars, hyenas, and, of course, lions. Extraordinary accounts are given of the habits of these various animals; thus stags, swimming in convoy across the sea, take it in turn to go first and serve as cutwater. They draw 134

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poisonous serpents out of the ground by their breath and when bitten free themselves of the venom by eating crabs.44 The mongoose, when it finds the crocodile asleep on the riverbank with its mouth open, runs down the reptile's throat and feasts on its entrails.45 Many of these travellers' tales had been circulating for centuries, and some had been lent scientific respectability by the authority of Aristotle. Their popularity in Oppian's time is shown by the still larger collection put together by his contemporary Aelian; and so these stories passed on, eventually reaching the allegorical bestiaries of the Middle Ages. In his fourth book, Oppian does say something about hunting; how the Libyans, mounted on their unbridled horses, ride down their quarry without the help of hounds; 46 how the lion is taken in a pitfall of the type described by Xenophon and then enticed into a baited cage;47 how the man who hunts hares should try to turn them from running uphill.48 In its overall effect, the poem is not unlike the beautiful mosaic pavements of the poet's native North Syria, though these date from long after Oppian's time. These show hunters, mounted or on foot, in landscapes where squirrels run up the trees and exotic birds pose on flowery lawns. Crowded into the narrow space of the composition, wild beasts of all kinds—stags, wild bulls, lions, leopards, boars, bears, the tigress with her cubs—fall on each other or do battle, sometimes on more than equal terms, with the men. These scenes recall the sham hunts of captured animals. But their purpose is to serve as allegories of manly virtue and magnanimity, and so to attribute these qualities to the owners of the great houses that were adorned by the mosaics. Magnanimity (Megalopsychia) herself is personified in one splendid example. Round her the heroes of antiquity face charging beasts.49 The Megalopsychia mosaic was made nearly three centuries after Oppian's time. To one of the poet's contemporaries, a sophist named Philostratus, we owe a description of a picture of a hunting party which, like Arrian's book, reminds us that there were people who hunted for sport and not because hunting was an allegory of virtue. The painting was part of a rich man's collection at Naples, a city which at that time still retained its original Greek culture. Wherever the hunt is taking place, the hunters are young Greek aristocrats, and their open love for the beautiful youth who is the central member of the party is in the ancient Greek tradition.50 The painter followed the conventions of the continuous narrative, and showed the progress of the story by repeating the same figures in different episodes, perhaps separated by landmarks such as trees or the temple of Artemis that is mentioned in the description. Philostratus begins, as is his custom, by pretending to be taken in by the picture's realism. He starts to tease the hunters, asking whether they are really after the boar that has been devastating the orchards or after their young friend. Why are they pushing and jostling for the privilege of riding next to him? But the scene is only a painting after all; so Philostratus proceeds to describe it. The boy, conspicuous in his purple chiton and mounted on a white horse, is sur135

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rounded by young men whose faces prove their noble breeding and education. Their horses are of different colors, white, chestnut, black, and bay, and their dress and equipment also vary. Mules, driven by a muleteer, carry footsnares, purse nets, boar spears, javelins, and spears with projecting teeth. Huntsmen lead hounds of different breeds. The hunt moves off. The hunters sing a hymn to Artemis and pause at her temple, where, before her ancient statue, have been dedicated heads of boars and bears. Round about wander fawns, wolves, and hares, tame and without fear of man. After a prayer, the party goes on its way, and now suddenly the boar charges from a thicket. It falls upon the horsemen, and confuses them by its sudden onset. It is beaten off by their missiles, but is not mortally wounded, because it guards against the blows, and because the weapons are thrown by men who are unsure of themselves. The boar is weakened by a scratch on the thigh, runs through the wood, and finds shelter in a deep marsh with a pool beside it. The hunters halloo and give chase, most of them only as far as the marsh. But the boy leaps his horse into the pool along with the beast, and four hounds with him. The beast makes at the horse to do it harm. But the boy stoops down from his horse's back, leans to the right, and hurls his spear with all the force of his arm. He strikes the boar at the very point where the shoulderblade joins the neck. Thereupon the hounds drag the boar to dry ground, and the lovers cheer from the bank as though competing to see who can shout louder than the man next to him. One has been thrown, because he did not keep his horse in hand but excited it. Another is weaving for the boy a garland from the marshy meadow. The boy is still in the pool, in the attitude in which he threw his javelin. The others gaze at him in astonishment, as though he were a picture.51 Such hunts were probably never enlivened by the presence of a Maevia or a Domitia Sera. However, in a less dramatic but equally realistic hunting scene dating from the middle of the third century appears a girl—or so I take her to be, though I have not seen the suggestion made by any of the authorities who have examined this work, and have not convinced all those with whom I have discussed it. The piece is a mosaic representing a hare hunt, which was found at El Djem, the ancient Thysdrus, in Tunisia.52 Three registers placed one above the other in a rectangular frame tell the story of the hunt by showing three episodes in which several figures are repeated. In the upper register, two riders are hacking on through a landscape dotted with beautiful trees. The long hair, rounded cheeks, and full figure of the first rider seem to mark her as a girl, the counterpart of the aristocratic women of Byzantine North Africa, who, four centuries later, were trained in horsemanship.53 The girl rides a spirited pony, which steps out at a brisk walk. She stoops a little in her seat and turns to look over her right shoulder. Her tunic comes down almost to 136

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41. Hare hunt with tracking hounds and gazehounds, Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 250).

her knees and she wears sandals. The second rider is a man, mounted on a taller horse. His hair is short and curly; his tunic comes down only to his thigh, and he wears long boots coming up to just below his knee. Both riders carry long thin sticks in their right hands; the man's lifted and clearly visible in front of him, the girl's held low, against her pony's hindquarters. They do not adopt the North African style of riding; both horses are bitted and bridled. Between the riders is a huntsman on foot wearing a tunic and a cloak that blows out in the wind behind him. With left knee bent and head turned to the right, he leans against the blast, holding in both hands a long forked stick with which to beat the bushes. In the second register, on the right, the hare cowers in her form, surrounded by vegetation. Two small tracking hounds, running loose, show by barking excitedly and turning towards their handler that they have found the quarry. It has been inferred from the fact that their heads are lifted that they have not been tracking by scent; but Xenophon expected his hounds to lift their heads and look back at their master when 137

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they had found their hare.54 Their excitement communicates itself to a couple of large gazehounds, which strain forward against their leashes. The handler, in tunic and cloak, throws his weight backwards to hold them. The combination of tracking hounds with gazehounds was condemned by Arrian, a century before this North African hunting party, as likely to confuse and terrify the hare and so prevent her from showing good sport.55 But we must suppose that the horseman who has organized the hunt is chiefly interested in giving his companion an exciting, though short, run, followed by a kill. Accordingly, the lowest register shows the hare running at full speed to the right. The exaggerated length of her ears lends her a slightly comic pathos; one is sorry for her, but she is after all only a foolish little animal. The leading gazehound is just behind her, and will have her in a moment. The girl, her horse at full gallop and her stick now raised, has drawn level, and will head the hare off from jinking to the left. The other hound has dropped back slightly, and the horseman still brings up the rear, leaving the lady the credit of being first in at the death. He has, however, been following the hunt closely, and throws back his right arm, with the hand wide open, in a gesture of triumph. A mosaic from Carthage, dating from perhaps a generation earlier (c. A.D. 225), shows a boar hunt, also in three registers, though this time proceeding from bottom to top.56 Of the lowest register only the feet of the figures are left, but they are enough to show that the boar has been roused by a hound slipped by one huntsman, while a second holds another hound in the background. A figure standing between the huntsmen may be the master. In the middle, the hounds, one a mastiff, the other smaller and lighter, drive the boar towards a net, wide-meshed and apparently made of heavy rope. Its middle part is highest—rather more than the height of a man's waist. The two ends diminish, and eventually the top border slopes down to join the lower part on the ground. The net is supported by heavy stakes, set vertically, and stands upright, with no fold, or bosom. The two ends of the net are curved back in the direction from which the boar is coming, so that the animal is enclosed between the horns of a crescent. This form of net appears in other hunting scenes with only slight variation; for example, in a mosaic found at Utica the sloping ends of the nets are much shorter.57 Two men appear in the middle register of the boar hunt from Carthage—a huntsman, who runs behind hounds at his best speed, with a coiled leash in his left hand, and a man who stands behind the net, gesturing excitedly with his right hand and spilling water from a large bucket held in his left. The bucket may hold drinking water or water for washing wounds; "in any case, it is a piece of pure genre, introduced through a love of supplementary detail for its own sake."58 The dress of all the men is practical and realistic—tunics, high boots, and, on the way home after the hunt, cloaks. In the uppermost register, the dead boar is carried home, slung by his feet from a pole supported on the shoulders of two huntsmen. He is heavy, and the men support 138

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42. Boar hunt with hounds and nets. Mosaic from Carthage (c. A.D. 225).

their steps using roughly trimmed branches as walking sticks. The branch carried by the second man, at least, does not look like the expected net prop; perhaps the net has been left standing for another day's sport. The mastiff paces ahead, tired but contented. The smaller hound moves more excitedly, direcdy under the boar, to which it lifts its head. Both hounds wear wide belts round the middle of the body for protection. To the same world as the mosaics belong the Cynegctica of the African Nemesianus, dedicated to the emperors Carinus and Numerian, and so to be dated between the death of their father Carus in A.D. 283 and that of Numerian in the next year. Nemesianus begins in much the same strain as Oppian by listing a large number of ancient myths that he does not intend to repeat and describing the hunters' delight in the chase not only of the timid hare, the unwarlike roe, the bold wolf, the tricky fox, but of the ichneumon, the polecat, and the rolled-up hedgehog. He then describes in anticipation the triumph over the Persians that Numerian in fact never lived to enjoy.59 However, once he begins the practical part of his work (of which only a fragment has survived) Nemesianus does have something to say that does not come merely from books. Some of it is strange and unpleasant—if you want to know which is the best puppy of a litter, let the mother choose for you. Remove her from the puppies and 139

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43. Country scenes, including hunting and wildfowling. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. a.d. 150).

surround them with a ring of flame; she will jump over and rescue first one and then another, taking them in order of merit. Nemesianus speaks at first only of the traditional Spartan and Molossian hounds, but then shows knowledge of other breeds— British, Pannonian, Spanish, Libyan, and Tuscan. Training of young hounds should begin when they are twenty months old: When Phoebe twice ten times has waxed and waned, Begin. Lead forth the whelps, on no long course But in a valley small or tilth enclosed. Slip from your hand a hare, not matched in strength, Nor yet in speed their equal; one that drags Its heavy limbs; for them an easy prey. Not once alone give them this simple chase; Until the whelps can outstrip even strong hares, Long exercise them in the hunter's task. Thus make them learn to love merited praise, And heed the chidings of a well-known voice, Whether recalling them, or urging on. 140

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Besides, instruct them when they catch their prey To kill it only, not to tear and eat.60 Nemesianus writes also of horses, Greek, Cappadocian, Spanish, and Mauretanian. Of the last, he must have had a special knowledge, though he tells us no more than other authors—that they are ugly, but enduring and docile. He recommends giving horses mash in the spring, and bleeding them—an anticipation of mediaeval veterinary practice. In summer, horses should be given barley and chaff; make sure that it is free of dust—excellent advice. See that the servants rub your horse down and pat him to relax his body.61 (The landowners of Roman North Africa had forgotten Alexander the Great's views on caring for one's own horse and weapons.) Nemesianus also speaks of nets and scares. For the latter, he recommends, like Grattius, a mixture of the feathers of vultures and of swans. But where Grattius speaks of dyeing feathers scarlet, Nemesianus prefers those that are naturally red. Rivers, marshes, and lagoons are the habitat of cranes, swans, and geese; and from them you will also take birds that are red by nature's gift,62 presumably flamingoes, an authentic North African touch. The onset of rainy winter is the season to start hunting; let us hunt while the morning is new; while the soft meadows that were trodden by the creatures of the night still preserve the tracks. And here the poem breaks off. In the fourth century, the artists of the North African mosaics did not neglect the ordinary sports of the countryside. But they now tended to subordinate them to much grander hunting scenes in which big-game animals, especially the larger felines, are driven towards nets or into traps of different sorts. Travelling cages with sliding doors, similar in principle to those in which Ashurbanipal's lions had been transported a thousand years earlier, are also shown, and make it clear that the captured animals are destined to end their lives in the mock hunts of the city amphitheater. A splendid mosaic from Hippo Regius63 shows armed men, covered by the great oval shields with central bosses that were now the Roman army's standard equipment, drawn up shoulder to shoulder in a curving line. They carry torches in their hands and serve the same purpose as the scares of humbler hunts. They are drawn up on one side of an oval space, whose lower edge is closed by a long net. The net, fully visible to the spectator, is concealed from the animals that have been driven into the enclosed space by a thick hedge, or perhaps by cut branches that have been set up along its line. The outer end of the enclosure is wide open. At the further end, a travelling cage stands on a wagon, behind which the hedge and net are continued to enclose a pocket of ground where cattle and sheep act as bait. A lion, a lioness, and three leopards have been driven into the enclosure, where they are milling round. One of the leopards has knocked a man down; but this does not deter two ostriches from trotting cheerfully towards the enclosure's mouth. In the corners of the mosaic are shown glimpses of more ordinary sport. A horseman gallops above two ibexes, with his right arm outflung in the triumphal gesture 141

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44. Country scenes, including fowlers and huntsmen. Mosaic from Carthage (c. A.D. 350).

that has been noted already. Another horseman lassoes a wild ass. T o the lower right, servants begin to unpack a hamper and prepare a picnic. The same mixture of the countryside and the amphitheater is shown in other mosaics, notably one f r o m the end of the fourth century whose principal feature is the offering of the body of a crane at the shrine of haloed Diana and heroically nude Apollo. 64 Above and below the offering, tigers, stags, and boars are being hunted by horsemen with javelins and with the composite bow. A register at the top shows a scene from country life. From a strongly built country house, the hunt is setting out. T w o horsemen go in front. The second turns round as his horse capers, and stretches out his right hand towards a fine mule loaded with nets. Behind the mule, a huntsman carries on his left shoulder a long stake with a cord wrapped in a big ball round it. His right hand brandishes a whip with a long lash. Another huntsman, also carrying a stake, closes the procession. Much earlier (shortly after the middle of the second century) is a mosaic f r o m O u d n a (Uthina, a few miles south of Tunis). 65 In the center, a small farmhouse; the steading full of cattle; the ploughman returning with his team; a man drawing water from a shallow well with the help of a shaduf (a counterweighted pivoting beam). From the trough that he is filling, a rough-maned, short-tailed, straight-shouldered 142

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Libyan horse is drinking. Three nobler animals gallop down the left side of the picture, bearing their riders in a leopard hunt, and in the lower right corner a figure on foot faces a charging boar in the traditional stance. These heroic hunts are contrasted with wildfowling in the most humble and rustic forms. In the lower left corner, a young man, camouflaged by a goatskin tied over his back, creeps on his hands and knees towards a flock of oversized partridges. In the upper right, another country boy turns his back on a pastoral group of shepherds and their flocks and approaches a tree with his lime-rods at the ready. These fowlers are not sportsmen, but professionals, like the huntsmen who are shown with nets, hounds, and a long staff for beating the bushes on a late fourth-century mosaic from Carthage.66 They go out on foot from one side of a country mansion to find dinner for their master, Dominus Julius, who, splendidly clad and mounted on a horse of the Orynx breed, approaches from the opposite direction. In the upper left corner, the olive harvest betokens winter. A wildfowler (another professional) approaches with the ducks that he has taken. In the upper right, the spring is marked by the gift of lambs from the poor shepherds, whose miserable huts contrast so markedly with the rich man's mansion. Between these groups sits the lady of the house, fanning herself in a cypress arbor with, at her feet, pet chickens emerging from their coop to scratch in the dust. Their father the rooster displays himself to the left; the part of the mosaic showing the hen has unfortunately been destroyed. In the lower left corner, the lady appears again, with her waiting women, in her garden among the summer flowers. In the lower right, Lord Julius receives his autumn rent-rolls, while his poor tenants bring baskets full of the fruits of the season. North Africa and Sicily had been closely linked even before the Romans conquered both, and the splendid fourth-century mosaics of Piazza Armerina in Sicily may be considered part of the North African series. They decorated the floors of a great country house belonging to some family of high official standing,67 and include two magnificent hunting scenes. The "Litde Hunt," which covers the floor of one of the more private apartments, shows the sports of the countryside at their aristocratic best, not without some glimpses of the activities of the servants. Though arranged vertically in several registers, the mosaic does not tell the continuous story of a single hunt, or even of a single hunting day. At the bottom, on the left, two horsemen, splendidly dressed and mounted, drive three stags into a net of the usual crescent shape. The first stag has stumbled, and its horns are caught in the net's wide meshes. Behind the horsemen, a tree marks the limit of a small wood in which a boar is being hunted without nets by a small party of men on foot. One man is down, and the boar charges him, with a hound snapping at its flank. A friend bestrides the fallen man in the familiar attitude and receives the boar's charge on the point of his spear, which goes home at the vital spot between neck and shoulder blade. The projections that will prevent the wounded beast from working its way forward along the shaft are clearly seen. Other members of the party appear above the boar. One lifts with both hands a 143

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45. Horsemen driving stags into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. a.d. 310).

large stone, which he will hurl down onto the brute's back. The hunters' attitudes and the whole composition of the scene can be matched on vases of the fourth century B.C. But the men are dressed in clothes of their own time, and the scene is certainly intended to be realistic. Two narrow registers occupy the top of the composition. In the first, on the left, a huntsman on foot leads two large greyhounds towards a small copse. On the right, two similar hounds, followed again by a man on foot, chase a fox through a landscape dotted with small bushes. The quarry is about to find shelter among some rocks, but hounds are right at his brush, and he probably will not escape. These two scenes are apparently not successive episodes of the same hunt, as the men are differently dressed. They are gamekeepers clearing the estate of vermin, not aristocratic foxhunters. In the second register, a small statue of Diana stands on a circular pedestal between two trees, representing a sacred grove. Before the statue is a rectangular altar, on which a hunter dressed in tunic, short cloak, and high boots offers a pinch of incense. On either side, friends hold their horses, and from the spectator's right a boy brings up a hound for the goddess's blessing. The horses' lively air suggests that the day is about to begin; but the scene is more probably the thanksgiving after the hunt, 144

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46. Above, mounted hare hunter with bident; below, boar hunt. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310)

47. Above, fowlers with lime-rods; below, stags driven into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310).

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since on the spectator's left two huntsmen carry the carcase of a boar slung in a net below a pole. An excited hound runs barking below. On the right, a man stands holding in his left hand the body of a large hare and in his right a spear headed with two barbed tines of the type that has already been noted. The young mounted hare hunter who has been described on page 132 occupies the right of the large central register. He is balanced on the left by fowlers standing under a tree. Beneath their arms they carry bundles of rods, which can be fitted one into the other to form an extendable lime-rod. They are servants engaged in procuring delicacies for the master's table. The allegories of piety and manly virtue can still be found in some of these scenes. But they are wholly absent from the space between the fowlers and the hare hunter, which is central to the composition. It represents what was, perhaps, to some the most important part of the day. An awning has been rigged between the trees of some pleasant grove. The nets are flung over a branch; the horses are tied up in the background. The servants have split wood (the double-headed chopper still lies on the ground) and built a fire in a fireplace improvised from rough stones. On a large chafing dish above the fire, the trussed body of a big bird is being kept warm, and five gentlemen are grouped round, reclining on cushions disposed in a rough crescent, an alfresco version of the "sigma table" that was now the usual arrangement for banquets. Indeed, it was perhaps from such informal meals of "soldiers, hunters, and others in the countryside" that the "sigma table" had been derived. The three men in the center appear stiff and uncomfortable, as though posing selfconsciously. The figures at the two ends of the crescent are unfortunately damaged, but perhaps show younger members of the party. The boy on the left is tired after the hunt, and rests his head on his hand. The boy on the right is bored and teases a hound. Things will go better when the servants have finished unpacking. Two large earthenware bottles stand side by side in a protective wicker container. The butler, also selfconscious in unaccustomed outdoor clothes, has drawn a sample glass and holds it to the light to make certain that the wine has not been injuriously shaken on its journey to the picnic spot. Another servant has begun to take out the contents of a large hamper. During the fourth century the provincial gentry of the Western Empire kept up in their luxurious country mansions a lifestyle that included not only the practice of strenuous field sports and the patronage of the arts of the interior decorator and silversmith, but the discharge of official duties and, sometimes at least, the study of literature. Ausonius, professor of rhetoric at Bordeaux, in his old age became tutor to the emperor Gratian (A.D. 375—383) and was raised by his pupil to the consulship. His verses give a charming picture of a civilized society whose members kept up the old ways and ignored the disasters that were overwhelming their world. Riding and hunting accidents seem, in Ausonius's writings, to be a more present danger than peasant revolts and barbarian invasions. How is Theon amusing himself when he is not tilling the sandy soil of Medoc or 147

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discharging his duties as a county magistrate? Does he join his brother in surrounding the stags, as they wander through the pathless woods, with nets and many-feathered scares? Or does he give chase, hallooing, to foaming boars, and lie in wait for the beast? However, I advise you, don't withstand The thundering brute with boar spear in your hand. Your brother warns you by example; he Hitches his tunic up to let you see The ugly scars that make his legs unsightly And both his buttocks full of holes; but lightly He prances, showing himself off; and that's To give his man, the housekeeper, her brats, A chance to gaze in wonder on each scar. Meanwhile Taurinus puts him on a par With Calydonian Meleager or With him who took the Erymanthian boar. But shun the savage chase! No more repair Unto the guilty woods, lest you lie there A new Adonis, wept for by the fair. Theon's brother can be imagined flat on his face and clinging to the undergrowth, just as Xenophon had recommended seven hundred and fifty years earlier, while the boar roots at his buttocks with its tusks, trying to turn him over. Or was it only a sow, biting and trampling? In any case, he was evidently not seriously hurt. Ausonius advises Theon to take up fishing if he wants to stay "beautiful from the crown of his head to his heels." Or he can always turn to the Muses, and versify according to the rules his teacher proceeds to send him. (This is apparently what Theon did try: in a later letter Ausonius thanks him for a present of fruit accompanied by verses: Gold were your apples : leaden was your line. Who'd think these ores came from a single mine?)68 Ausonius's pupil Gratian, a young man of the highest promise, and at first a successful leader of the Roman armies, proved a failure in the end. His career provides one more proof that the Romans, though they expected their rulers to possess the manly qualities of the hunter, and also to provide for the destruction of wild beasts as a public spectacle, preferred the emperor himself to hunt like a gentleman, not like a circus performer. By destroying lions and other wild beasts in public, Gratian reminded respectable senior officers of Commodus, though they admitted that he did not commit Commodus's bloody cruelties against humans. By adopting the dress and arms of his barbarian bodyguard, the emperor lost the respect of the rest of the army and his murder by the usurper Maximus soon followed.69 148

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But this was not the end of the wild beast shows, or of the hunt as a symbol of imperial virtue. In A.D. 398, Claudian, who might have been a great satirist if he had not been the flatterer of an unworthy court, wrote an Epithalamium in honor of the marriage of the young emperor Honorius to Maria, the daughter of his guardian, the great general Stilicho. Honorius, says the poet, pines for love. "He cares no longer for his hunting horse, for his arrows, or for hurling the javelin. All his thoughts stray to the wound with which Love has pierced him."70 As a matter of fact, the fourteen-yearold boy was quite indifferent to his bride, and gave up hunting for other reasons. As Gibbon puts it, Honorius "in his early youth made some progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow; but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious daily care of the monarch of the West." 71 Claudian describes in ever more heroic strain Diana and her nymphs rounding up, for the amusement of the Roman mob, whatever is to be dreaded for its teeth or admired for its mane; whatever has a noble horn or brisding hide. All the glory and terror of the forests is taken. The cunning do not lie hidden; the mighty do not resist by their mass; the swift do not escape by winged flight. Some groan, tangled in the meshes; some are carried off shut in wooden houses. There are not sufficient carpenters to polish the beams. The leafy cells are put together from rough beeches and elms. Some journey on laden boats through seas and rivers; the rowers' hands are bloodless and numbed, and the sailor fears his own merchandise. Some are drawn on wheels by land. The wagons move slowly, in long procession, full of the spoils of the mountains, and captive beasts are conveyed by the frightened oxen on which formerly they glutted their hunger. Driving game with torches and the use of baited pitfalls are mentioned; but of course they were not needed this time, as the animals gave themselves up voluntarily to the goddess. All this was to make a show in honor of the consulship of Stilicho (A.D. 400). Apparently Stilicho failed to provide any elephants for the occasion; the poet says the goddess brought the ivory for the consular diptychs, but left the elephants themselves behind, in case the ship sank beneath their weight.72 The mosaic of the Great Hunt at Piazza Armerina, though executed in the early part of the fourth century, might almost serve to illustrate these lines. But it omits Diana and her nymphs and shows, more realistically, bands of well-armed hunters rounding up the animals under the supervision of an official of very high rank.73 Stilicho, wholly Roman in his loyalties but half German by descent, was disliked by a party at court. His disgrace and death (A.D. 408) were quickly followed by the fall of Rome itself to the Goths (A.D. 410). But the ruling class did not yet acknowledge that their world was ending. Rutilius Namatianus, sometime prefect of the City, travelled from Rome to Gaul to visit his family estates in A.D. 417. A versified account of the first part of the journey survives, and he rises above mere versification in his exhor149

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tations to Rome and to Italy to overcome their present disasters as they had overcome those of the past when threatened by Pyrrhus and by Hannibal. Rutilius was confident that, now that the traitor Stilicho (for so he considered him) had been removed, all would be well again. But in the meantime the wars and the collapse of civil government had made the roads unsafe. He made his journey in a coasting vessel, which was constantly compelled to put in at small harbors. Stormbound at Triturrita near Pisa: Now, since our voyage had met delay, We thought to pass the time away In the wild woods close to the shore And stretch our legs by hunting boar. The bailiff of the farm provides The needed hunting gear, besides Hounds trained to track a scent; and there Our fine-spun nets and hidden snare Are set. To them a wild boar rushes With lightning flashing from his tushes. Not Meleager with his muscle Would dare with such a one to tussle; Even the mighty Hercules Would have become weak at the knees; But the high hills echoed our horn As back with song our prey was borne.74 At Triturrita Rutilius had been staying in a country house {villa), probably the property of a family friend. His father, he tells us, had been administrator of Etruria, and had established connections with the local aristocracy. The estate manager (villiens), who acted as Rutilius's host, must have kept hounds and hunting gear for his own amusement, not just for that of his master's family and distinguished guests. Again we are given a glimpse, rare in our sources, with their aristocratic bias, of lowermiddle-class sport, like that of the poorer Celts described by Arrian. We are nearing the end of the age of the classically educated civil servant with aristocratic connections and a taste for polite letters and country sports. But, even as the Roman Empire in the West disintegrated, the great families of Gaul kept up as far as they could their standards of living, and preserved their political and military independence from the invading Goths. One of the heroes of the struggle was Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of the Auvergne. In his youth he had been a young aristocrat, fond of sport, "ball games and dice, jumping and running, hunting and swimming," 75 and had no doubt shared the view of other members of his class that the Empire might yet be saved if it were ruled by one of themselves, an aristocrat trained in many accomplishments. So in the tedious panegyrics that he composed in honor of different emperors, he did not forget the hunt as a symbol of imperial virtue. But he expresses himself in such an artificial literary style that achievements that were probably real 150

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enough are robbed of credibility. Sidonius's own father-in-law, Avitus, had distinguished himself in personal combat against the barbarians before he became emperor and in the best tradition had trained himself in the martial arts by hunting as a youth. He had displayed prowess as a boar hunter and skill in the new sport of falconry, which the Roman nobles had learned from their northern enemies. But, by comparing Avitus with Hippolytus, Sidonius turns genuine facts into literary commonplaces. Similarly, one admires not the emperor's horsemanship but the poet's cleverness when Sidonius compares Anthemius advantageously to Achilles mounted on Chiron: Borne by the Centaur safely through the glade, No cause Achilles had to be afraid, Yet was the hero's mount his master still Your steed yields as a subject to your will.76 This is from a panegyric on Anthemius's second consulship (A.D. 468). When Sidonius turns from emperors to ordinary mortals and from literature to life, the hunt becomes much less heroic. He teases his friend Namatius, asking him whether he is at present a follower of Vitruvius or of Columella, or of both—that is, is he occupied in building or farming? Or does he hunt? However, I bid you most strongly to flatter yourself as little as possible in the business of hunting. In vain you invite the boars to face your spear. With your most tender-hearted hounds (of which you have plenty) or by yourself, you are in the habit of rousing the beasts to motion rather than to anger. Granted that it is a pardonable offense on the part of your little dogs to be afraid of aproaching terrible stout monsters. But I do not know how you forgive them for their way of chasing wild goats, snub-nosed animals, or roe deer that are ready to run away—courage down, heads up, little running, lots of barking. So in future you will get better results by surrounding the rough crags and the woods that give ready cover to the dens of wild beasts with nets and toils. Then you can congratulate yourself without having to move. If you have any self-respect, stop making the plains shake with your galloping, and laying ambushes for the poor little hares of Oleron. Since you will seldom beat them in a run, it is hardly worth the trouble to bring hounds out, except perhaps when our friend Apollinaris visits your father and yourself, and it becomes more fitting that they should be exercised.77 Namatius, rather surprisingly, seems to have used the same hounds to hunt all sorts of game, from boars to hares. Since Sidonius finds fault with them for lifting their heads, they were evidently intended to keep their noses to the ground and follow a scent, and might be compared to a modern pack of harriers. Although Namatius did not course hares in Arrian's manner, he seems to have had some fast runs—unless, of course, he merely "made the plains shake" while galloping up and down trying to keep his pack under some sort of control. Perhaps this is more likely, if his hounds were 151

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4 8 . Hounds driving hares into net; wild hawk swooping from above. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. a.d. 300).

descended from the same strain as Arrian's slow-hunting Segusii. Namatius's manner of hunting can then be regarded as traditional in his own country; otherwise one might be tempted to imagine that Sidonius was telling him to return to the classical form of the sport and the values of the ancient world, rather than just giving practical, though sarcastic, advice. In a report on the court of the Visigothic king Theodoric II (A.D. 4 5 3 - 4 6 6 ) at Toulouse, Sidonius avoids the literary bombast with which he flatters emperors, and shows a genuine respect for the king's fine athletic figure; the discipline and order of the court; the frugality of the royal dinners; the king's pleasure in discomfiting his opponent at backgammon. On Theodoric's hunting, he has this to say: When a hunt has been proclaimed and he goes out, he thinks it beneath the royal dignity to sling his bow at his side. However if, when he is travelling or hunting, chance brings a bird or animal within range, he crooks his hand behind his back. His servant puts the bow, with the string, or thong, loose, into his hand. Just as he thinks it childish to carry the bow in its case, he thinks it womanish to be given it ready strung. When he has taken it, he sometimes bends the two ends and strings it on the spot, sometimes places on his raised foot the end where the knot is, then runs his finger over the loose string in search of the hanging loop. At once he takes, fits, and shoots his arrows. He 152

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tells you beforehand to choose whatever target you like; you choose, and he hits the target of your choice. If a mistake is made by either party, the archer's aim is less often at fault than the director's eyesight.78 No single moment marks the end of the ancient world, but here, with the Roman flattering his Gothic "protector," this book may close. The fortunes of Sidonius and his family and the sport of Romans, East and West, and of barbarians, might be traced farther still without reaching a definite stopping point. But in the art of hunting, as in more important matters, we have at least reached a time of transition. Archery has come into its own; the bow is no longer merely the weakling's substitute for the manly spear. Falconry has made it possible to take birds on the wing and so transformed wildfowling from an "insidious and illiberal" craft into the sport of emperors. Finally, Rutilius's hunting horn, perhaps the first in European literature, not only rouses echoes which will be reawakened by Roland and Robin Hood and "the Percy out of Northumberland"; it represents a significant step towards the establishment of the "regular and well-disciplined pack of hounds" whose absence from the ancient hunting field was remarked in the Preface.79 Here, then, ends this account of hunting in antiquity. Therimachus for Pan leaves hanging here, Upon Arcadian cliffs, his hunting gear. O rustic god, accept it with good will, And, in return, grant to the giver skill.80

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Abbreviations In citing ancient authors in the notes, I have generally used either the system of abbreviations established by the Oxford Classical Dictionary or forms sufficiently full to be recognizable (e.g., Grattius, Cynegeticon). The latter are not listed here. Abbreviations include: Amm. Marc. A.P. or Anth. Pal. Apollod. Bibl. Ar. Arist. Ath. Pol. Hist. An. Rh. Arr. Cyn. Ath. Auson. Ep. Cic. Cael. Pam. Nat. D. CIL Claud. Cons. Stil.

= =

= = = = -

= =

= -

-

= -

= = =

-

Ammianus Marcellinus Anthologia Palatina Apollodorus Bibliotheca Aristophanes Aristotle Atbenaion politeia Historia animalium Rhetoric Arrian Cynegetkus Athenaeus Ausonius Epistolae Cicero Pro M. Caelio Epistolae ad familiares De natura deorum Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Claudian De consulatu Stükhonis 155

Dio Cass. Dio Chrys. Diod. Sic. Eur. Andr. Hipp. Hdt. Horn. II. Od. Hor. Carrn. Epist. Epod. Sat. Mart. Nemes. Cyn. Ov. Ars. Am. Met. Pont.

= Dio Cassius = Dio Chrysostom = Diodorus Siculus = Euripides = Andromache = Hippolytus = Herodotus = Homer = Iliad = Odyssey = Horace = Carmina = Epistolae = Epodes = Satires = Martial = Nemesianis = Cynegetka = Ovid = Ars amoris = Metamorphoses = Epistulae ex Ponto

ABBREVIATIONS

Rem. Am. Paus. Petron. Philostr. I mag. Pind. PI. Criti. Leg. Prat. Rep. Plin.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

HN Ep. Pan. Plut. Aem. Alex. Demetr. Mor. Poll. Onom. Polyb. Procop. Goth. Prop. Rut. Namat. Sail. Cat.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Jug. Sen. SHA

Remedia amoris Pausanias Petronius Philostratus Imagines Pindar Plato Critias Leges Protagoras Republic Pliny (elder and younger) Historia naturalis Epistulae Panegyricus Plutarch Aemilius Alexander Demetrius Moralia Pollux Onomasticon Polybius Procopius De hello Gothico Propertius Rutilius Namatianus Sallust Catilina

Sid. Apoll. Ep. Strab. Suet. Aug. lui. Tac. Ann. Theoc. Thuc. Tib. Verg. G. Aen. Xen. Ages. An. Cyn. Cyr. Eq. Hell. Lac. Pol. Mem. Oec.

= De bello Jugurthino = Seneca = Scriptores Historiae Augustae = Sidonius Apollinaris = Epistulae = Strabo = Suetonius = Dims Augustus = Dims Julius = Tacitus = Annales = Theocritus = Thucydides = Tibullus = Virgil = Georgia = Aeneid = Xenophon = Agesilaus = Anabasis = Cynegeticus = Cyropaedia = De Re Equestri = Hellenica = Lacedaemoniorum respublica = Memorabilia = Oeconomicus

Notes to Chapter 1 1. Horn. Od. 19.418-58. 2. Horn. II. 9.529—605. The Homeric hunt, and representations of hunting in Greek art from the Bronze Age to the Archaic period, are admirably treated by H.-G. Buchholz, "Jagd," in H.-G. Buchholz, G. Jöhrens, and I. Maull, Jagd und Fischfang, Archaeologica Homerica, vol. 2J (Göttingen, 1973). 3. Horn. II. 12.41—48. 4. Horn. II. 18.573-86. 5. W. Llewellyn Brown, The Etruscan Lion (Oxford, i960), 165—69 ("Etruscan Lions and Lions in Nature") and 170—76 ("Leopards and Panthers") includes much that is applicable to Greek art. 6. Horn. II. 11.129. 7. Horn. Od. 6.130-33. 8. T. J. Dunbabin, The Greeks and Their Eastern Neighbours (London, 1957), 56. An exception to the rule of silence is the lion robbed of its cubs, which "groans" (Horn. II. 18.318). 9. Dunbabin, Greeks and Their Eastern Neighbours, 84. The hero is not yet shown with his 156

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4-IO

classical attributes and his identity is not certain. See also F. Brammer, Herakles (Münster, 1953), 7—ii10. Buchholz (Jagd und Fischfang, J19—J30) provides a valuable list of early Greek representations of lions, including wounded and hunted lions from the Bronze Age (nos. 1—35) and lion hunts of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. (nos. 133—41). 11. J. Boessneck and A. von den Driesch, "Ein Löwenknockenfund aus Tiryns," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1979: 447—49; "Ein Beleg fur das Vorkommen des Löwen auf der Peloponnes in 'Herakleischer' Zeit," 1981: 257—58. 12. Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.6. 13. Hdt. 7.125-26; Arist. Hist. An. 6.31.57907; 8.28.6o6bi5. 14. Compare the ancient commentator on Horn. II. 18.219, where the shout of Achilles over the trench is compared with the trumpet blast that rouses a city: "The poet knows the trumpet, though the heroes do not." 15. G. P. Shipp, Studies in the Language ofHomer, Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society no. 8 (1953), 81—85; cf. Horn. II. 12.47—48 (quoted above) and Horn. II. 8.335—42. 16. Horn. II. 11.544-56. 17. Horn. II. 5.136-42. 18. Horn. II. 12.310—11. 19. G. E. Mylonas, O Taphikos Kuklos B ton Mukenon (Athens, 1973), 33, no. A490; 51, no. T49i; G. E. Mylonas, "The Lion in Mycenaean Times," Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970): 421-25. 20. But Helen Wace, "Lions from Mycenae," in Studi in onore di L. Banti, ed. R. Bianchi Bandinelli (Rome, 1965), 337—44, warns that "the question of whether lion hunting can be considered a true sport in the modern 'big game' sense is doubtful, though there must have been many occasions for combat in defense." 21. G. Karo, Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Munich, 1930), 95—97, no. 394; Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J20, no. 21; beautiful colored photographs in S. Marinatos and M. Hirmer, Crete and Mycenae (London, i960), pis. XXXV, XXXVI. 22. R. D. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace ofAshurbanipal ofAssyria (668-627 B.c.) (London, 1976), 13. 23. Barnett, Sculptures, 53—54. 24. Barnett, Sculptures, pis. 7, 8,10, 51. 25. R. D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs (London, n.d.), pi. 27.1 owe to Mrs. M. A. Littauer the suggestion that the led horse is the king's mount. 26. Horn. Od. 6.102—6. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, Ji—J4. 27. Karo, Schachtgräber, 169, no. 1,427; Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J21, no. 39; Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae, pl. 146. 28. A. W. Persson, New Tombs atDendra nearMidea, Acta Reg. Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis, no. 34 (Lund, 1942), 189. 29. Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae, 159, no. 146. 30. Karo, Schachtgräber, 73—74, no. 240; Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J50, no. 11. 31. E.g., on the bow case of Tut-ankh-Amen; Howard Carter, The Tomb ofTut-ankhAmen (London, 1933), 3: 84-95 and pl. 28. 32. For other departures from reality in slightly later pictures of Egyptian royal charioteers, see M. A. Littauer, "A 19th and 20th Dynasty Heroic Motif on Attic Black-figured Vases?" American Journal of Archaeology 72 (1968): 150—52. 33. G. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns (Athens, 1912), 2: 123—54; Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J38, no. 7. 34. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2, pl. 13 and fig. 55 on p. 124.

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35. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2: 131—32. 36. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2: 104—5, no. 130; 132—33, no. 189. J. H. Crouwel, Chariots and Other Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece (Amsterdam, 1981), 137, gives reasons for rejecting Rodenwaldt's interpretation of these fragments. 37. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2, pi. 12 and fig. +0 on p. 98; for the group facing to the left, p. 107, no. 132. The fragments of these two groups and a hand resting on a chariot rail and holding a rein from a third chariot driven by a girl are at present (1982) exhibited, with other parts of the frieze in the National Museum at Athens. The display places the fragments in skillfully reconstructed contexts and at the same time very firmly reminds the viewer that only a litde of the original survives, and that all attempts at interpretation must be speculative. 38. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2: in, no. 141, identifies the figure as a "Jägerin." But Miss Christine Morris points out to me that the fragment may very well show not white flesh but white leggings like those worn by the male hunters in the wall paintings at Pylos; see M. Lang, The Palace ofNestor at Pylos in Western Messenia, vol. 2, The Frescoes (Princeton, 1969), pis. B, M. 39. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2:120-21, nos. 156,157. 40. E. T. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago, 1964), 194. 41. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, 2: 121, no. 159. 42. The name of Artemis was known at Pylos in the Late Bronze Age; see J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenean Greek, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1973), 127. 43. Cf. W. Burkert, Homo Necans (Berlin, 1972), 23, citing PI. Criti. ii9d—e, for the "Verbindung von Jagd und Opfer" in Atlantis. 44. Apollod. Bibl. 3.9.2; Eur. Hipp.-, Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.1. Cf. the unhappy ending that some monk appears to have written into the story of Maximo the Amazon, J. Mavrogordato, DigenesAkrites (Oxford, 1956), lvi (the GRO version). 45. Lang, Palace ofNestor, esp. 68—71, nos. 16H43—21H48. 46. Chadwick, Documents, 299, no. 191.1 owe the reference to Mr. Jan Driessen. 47. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J67, nos. 1—4. 48. Horn. II. 10.360—64. 49. Minoan bull vaulting and the capture of bulls, whether illustrated in the art of the Bronze Age or recounted in the legends of Heracles and Theseus, are subjects that lead, both literally and metaphorically, into the labyrinth. I have no clue by which to extricate myself and so omit the topic. 50. Horn. Od. 10.157—63. 51. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J50—J52, nos. 1—23. For the net, see no. 7. See also E. Vermeule and V. Karageorghis, Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 49—52, 54—55, 98, and 115-16 for stags and stag hunts on painted vases. 52. Horn. Od. 9.154-58. 53. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J55—J62. See also pp. J88—J96, where the meaning of aiganee in Od. 9.154—58 and elsewhere is discussed. The word, which in this passage seems to be used as a synonym for "javelin," refers when used in its strict sense to a thong fastened round the middle of the javelin's shaft, making a loop into which the thrower inserted his first two fingers to gain extra leverage (Buchholz's figs. 25-26 on p. J83, and figs. 27-31 on pp. J84—J91). The aiganee belongs to the poet's own time rather than to the Bronze Age. 54. Horn. II. 16.156—73. 55. Horn. II. 11.474-81. 56. Horn. II. 10.334. 57. Horn. II. 18.487-88; Od. 5.273-74. 58. Horn. Od. 11.611-12. 59. L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (Oxford, 1896), 2: 435-42. 60. Paus. 8.46.1.

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61. The man who carries off the lion cubs (Horn. II. 18.318-22) is called a stag hunter (elaphebolos). He has presumably found the whelps by accident and taken them on the impulse of the moment. Achilles is likened to a lion who charges the hunters when wounded by a spear (Horn. II. 20.164-77), but the general hue and cry of the hunters (agrotnenoi pas demos) may imply that, as elsewhere, they are rallying to defend a homestead that has been attacked. 62. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J108—J144. 63. Horn. Od. 17.290—327.

Notes to Chapter 2 1. Xen. Cyn. 12.1—8. 2. J. Delorme, Gymnasion, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, vol. 196 (Paris, i960), 21—30. For the contrast between the individual heroism of the Homeric age and the disciplined valor of the phalanx, see Marcel Detienne, "La Phalange: problèmes et controverses," in Problèmes de laguerre en Grèce ancienne, ed. J.-P. Vernant (Paris, 1968), 119-42. 3. Xen. Mem. 4.7.4. This passage seems sufficient to show that Xenophon's "hunters by night" were experienced professionals. (Cf. also the old countryman of A nth. Pal. 7.717, quoted in the next chapter.) P. Vidal-Naquet has argued that hunting by night was carried on by adolescents, who would eventually graduate to more manly sports; see "The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebeia," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 194, n.s. 14 (1968), 49—64, and Le Chasseur noir (Paris, 1981). Vidal-Naquet relies on what seems to me to be a forced interpretation of mythology. Hippolytus rejects Aphrodite for Artemis (Eur. Hipp. 13—16, 54—56, and passim): therefore he is immature. Hippolytus invented hunting-nets (Oppian, Cynegetica 2.25; Vidal-Naquet is rightly cautious in applying this "very late" evidence) : nets were used in hunting by night: therefore the hunter by night was immature. But nets, as will be seen in the next chapter, were also regularly used in hunting by day, and Hippolytus's hunt, as represented by Euripides, did not take place by night. Melanion, the second mythical hero adduced by Vidal-Naquet, has indeed a name that implies "blackness." But the "Black Hunter" is not necessarily the "Hunter by Night"; he may in this context be black-haired or swarthy; and Melanion's most famous hunt, that of the Boar of Calydon, took place by daylight. It could be argued that this belongs to his maturity, as is proved by his love affair with his cousin Atalanta, and that in his adolescence he hunted by night, when he ran away to avoid women, and "wove nets and hunted deer and kept a hound and never went back home again" (Ar. Lys. 781—96). But the poet does not say that his hunts were nocturnal. The use of nets is no argument for supposing so; and a deer hunt with hounds, though very likely beginning at peep of day, probably would not take place in the darkness. Vidal-Naquet also draws attention to the evidence (Ath. 1.18a) that no Macedonian noble was permitted to recline on a couch at a banquet, as grown men did, until he had killed a boar without the aid of nets. This certainly proves that among the Macedonians to kill a boar in this way was a supreme test of manhood, but not that the use of nets was nocturnal or confined to the very young. Adult Macedonians did, in fact, hunt with nets (Plut. Alex. 40.1). Indeed, the recendy discovered painting from the facade of the "tomb of Philip" at Vergina shows nets being used by the noblest Macedonians in daylight, in a context certainly intended to be heroic in the highest degree. I cannot conclude this note without acknowledging my great debt to Vidal-Naquet's brilliant scholarship, which is not the less because I cannot accept his conclusions. 4. Xen. Oec. 5.5-6; 6.6-7. Compare Thuc. 2. 21.2—3. Ai.Ach. passim. 5. Plut. Mor. 192C-D. 6. PI. Leg. 822d—24. 159

NOTES TO PAGES

20-27

7. Horn. II. 23. 8. Anth. Pal. 6.109. For nets and footsnares see D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago, 1964), 10—18. For bird-lime see K. Lindner, Beiträge zu Vogelfang undFalknerei im Altertum (Berlin, 1973), 29-77; G. Äkerström-Hougen, The Calendar and Hunting Mosaics in the Villa of the Falconer atArgos (Stockholm, 1974), 92-95. 9. E.g., Achilles (as a six-year-old!) in Pind. Nem. 3.78—90. 10. Xen. Oec. 5 - 6 . 11. Xen. Oec. 11.17. 12. Xen. Eq. 8.1-10. 13. Xen. An. 5.3.9—10. 14. Anth. Pal. 6.112. 15. H.-G. Buchholz, "Jagd," in H.-G. Buchholz, G. Jöhrens, and I. Maull, Jagd und Fischfang, Archaeologica Homerica, vol. 2J (Göttingen, 1973), J54, nos. 4 2 - 4 4 , 46—51 (Attic). Compare also no. 45 (Ionian) and nos. 52—53, probably the work of an Ionian Greek living at Caere in Etruria. Perhaps also no. 49 (Corinthian); but the man on foot who hunts a stag on one handle-plate is probably not connected with the mounted boys on the other. Cf. also J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), 100—101. 16. But T. B. L. Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens (London, 1972), 245, notes a very few pictures of lion and leopard hunts that are certainly not pictures of contemporary Greek life and yet are apparendy not mythical. 17. Arist. Ath. Pol. 16.6. 18. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J54, no. 44. 19. Plut. dm. 52. Cf. Webster, Potter and Patron, 181—82 for armed riders who may be "cavalrymen, hunters or jockeys," and 245-46 for other hunting scenes on Attic vases. 20. A. Schnapp, "Pratiche e immagine di caccia nella Grecia antiqua," Dialoghi di archaeologia, n.s., 1 (1979): 48-50, discusses hunting on horseback in late Archaic and Early Classical Greece. For the reference to dismounted boar hunters (Paris, Louvre G623), Schnapp's figs. 19—20,1 am indebted to Mr. Christopher Simon. 21. Arist. Rh. 2.20.5. N. Yalouris, "Stesichoros' Fable," in Studies in Honour of Arthur Dale Trendall, ed. A. Cambitoglou (Sydney, 1979), 185-87, suggests that the story was not invented by Stesichorus but "belongs to the cycle of mythical narrative formed in the course of the second millennium B.c." Even if this is correct, it appears that stag hunting on horseback was familiar to Greeks living in Sicily in the first half of the sixth century B.c. 22. A. de Bidder, Les Bronzes antiques du Louvre (Paris, 1913), 20, no. 95; K. Fittschen, Untersuchungen zum Beginn der Sagendarstellungen bei den Griechen (Berlin, 1969), 66, no. J17; Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J122—23 and fig. 46. 23. Strab. 10.4.20-21 (483-84); see also R. F. Willem, Ancient Crete: A Social History (London, 1965), 115-16, and Vidal-Naquet, "The Black Hunter," 59-60. 24. Xen. Lac. Pol. 2.7—8; Plut. Lyc. 17—18 (the source of the well-known story of the Spartan boy and the fox). 25. Ath. 4.141c; Plut. Lyc. 12.1-2. The secret manhunts by which the Spartan authorities removed such of their serfs, the Helots, as seemed to be dangerous to the state were conducted by young men who were completing their formal course of education, and have been seen by modern scholars as another "rite of passage." See H . Jeanmaire, "La Cryptie lacedemonienne," Revue des etudesgrecques 26 (1923): 121—50, followed by Vidal-Naquet, "The Black Hunter," 55. But, once more, it seems that the "rite" was confined to a select few. In any case, it has nothing to do with hunting animals for sport. 26. K. M. T. Chrimes, Ancient Sparta (Manchester, 1949), 123—28. 27. Xen. Lac. Pol. 6.3-4. 28. Paus. 3.20.4. 160

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29. C. M. Stibbe, Lakonische Vasenmaler (Amsterdam, 1972), pis. 78.1, 79.3; both pieces ascribed to the appropriately named Hunt Painter (Jagd-Maler). 30. Xen. Hell. 5.3.20. 31. Xen. Cyr. 3.1.7, 38.

32. Whatever the origin of the story of the Amazons, their transformation into horsewomen and huntresses was largely due to contact, especially from the sixth century B.C. onwards, between the Greeks and nomadic tribes whose women rode to the hunt, and even to war, beside their men. Cf. Hdt. 4.110-17 for the Sarmatian women; and, for the persistence of the same way of life in the thirteenth century of our era, among people of quite unrelated stock, though living in much the same area, the account of the women of Tartary that was brought to Saint Louis: Mémoires de Jean, Sire de Joinville, ed. F. Michel (Paris, 1859), 147—48. 33. Prop. 3.14.11—12 (following the order of lines in the 1962 Oxford text). 34. Verg. Aen. 1.314-20. 35. Eur. Andr. 595-600. Plato (Rep. 5.452d-457e) makes Socrates insist that the argument requires the women of the ideal republic to join, naked like the men, in gymnastic training; but he begins by begging young Glaucon and Adeimantus, with whom he is carrying on the dialogue, not to laugh at him. 36. Xen. Lac. Pol. 1.3—5. 37. Xen. Ages. 8.7; A t h . 4.139.

38. R. M. Dawkins, Artemis Orthia (London, 1929), 150-51. 39. H . J. Rose, "The Cult of Artemis Orthia," in Dawkins, Artemis Orthia, 339. 40. D. L. Page, Alcman: ThePartheneion (Oxford, 1951), passim; C. Calame, Les Choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque, vol. 2, Alcman (Rome, 1977), 67-82. 4 1 . H o m . Od. 6.102-6. 4 2 . Xen. An. 4.6.14—15.

Notes to Chapter 3 1. Hence the special value of D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago, 1964), the work of a master of foxhounds with many years' experience. The relationship between the forms of hunting described in the Cynegeticus and those described by other authors, especially Homer, and in the other works of Xenophon himself, are well discussed by E. Delebecque, Xenophon: L'Art de la chasse (Paris, 1970), 5-35. 2. The authorship of the Cynegeticus has been much discussed, and strong arguments have been given for supposing that an original work by Xenophon was revised and added to by a later editor. See, for example, J. Mewaldt, "Die Komposition des Xenophontischen Kynegetikos," Hermes 46 (1911): 70-82. Mewaldt divides the work into a prologue (ch.i), a technical treatise (chs. 2—11), and an epilogue (chs. 12—13), and assigns to Xenophon himself the whole work except the prologue. Other scholars, myself included, have given the epilogue to the supposed editor. I now accept the arguments of E. C. Marchant, Xenophon: Scripta minora, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), xxxvi—xliii; W. Jaeger, Paideia (Oxford, 1945), 3: 329, n. 30; and E. Delebecque, Essaisurla vie deXénophon (Paris, 1957), 192, n. 7, who maintain that the whole work is by Xenophon. 3. Xen. Cyn. 1.18. 4. Delebecque, Essai, 181, suggests that the Cynegeticus was written c. 391/390 B.c., on the grounds that it antedates Isocrates, Against the Sophists (c. 390 B.c.). The argument rests in part on a supposed friendship between Isocrates and Xenophon. Their families came from the same Attic deme, but if they were friends, why does Isocrates ignore Xenophon's military achievements against Persia (Paneg. 143—49 and elsewhere)? Delebecque, 173, rightly rejects arguments for dating the Cynegeticus before 401 B.C. Xenophon's final establishment on his estate at Scillus 161

NOTES TO PAGES 3 O - 3 9 may have been after the "king's peace" of 387 B.C., and I would myself suppose that the Cynegeticus was written some time later. 5. Xen. Eq. 1.1. 6. Xen. An. 5.3.7—10. 7. Marchant, Xenophon Scripa minora, xxxvi. 8. H.-G. Buchholz, "Jagd," in H.-G. Buchholz, G. Jôhrens, and I. Maull, Jagd und Fischfang, Archaeologica Homerica, vol. 2J (Gôttingen, 1973), J67—J70, nos. 7, 9—41, 43—53. By contrast, Buchholz lists only four examples from the Bronze Age. 9. K. Friis Johansen, Les Vases sicyoniens (Paris and Copenhagen, 1923), pi. 29, ib, 2b; pi. 30, 2b; pis. 31-33; Buchholz, J69, nos. 25-39b. 10. P. Vidal-Naquet, Le Chasseur noir (Paris, 1981), 171. 11. Johansen, Les Vases sicyoniens, 86. 12. Buchholz, Jagd und Fischfang, J68, no. 22; Erika Simon, Die Griechischen Vasen (Munich, 1976), pis. 25—26, VII. 13. O. Keller, DieAntike Tierrvelt (Leipzig, 1909), 1: 105—14; Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 29-30. 14. Xen. Cyn. 3.1; Arist. Hist. An. 8.28.607a; Keller, DieAntike Tierwelt, 121. 15. Xen. Cyn. 6.5, 6.11. 16. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 1—2. 17. Poll. Onom. 5.17-19. For the cloak wrapped round the arm, Xen. Cyn. 6.17. 18. For a fuller description, see G. M. Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors ofthe Greeks, 4th ed. (New Haven, 1970), 57-73, differing slightly, but not in essentials, from Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 1—4. 19. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 41.162.146; Athens, National Museum, 1973; D. C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford, 1975), 121 and pi. 14,1—2. 20. Xen. Cyn. 2.1. 21. Xen. Mem. 3.12.1-8. 22. Cf. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, xiv-xv. I have not, however, tried to follow his usage. 23. For the associations of the word synergos, see A. D. Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth (Oxford, 1915), 378-94; note especially the quotation from Xen. Mem. 2.3.3. 24. Poll. Onom. 5.17. 25. Xen. Cyn. 2.1—3. 26. This correct explanation is given by Delebecque, Chasse, 153. A. Brelich, Gli eroigreci (Rome, 1958), 211, n. 51, connects this "apparently bizarre" passage with the hunt as a rite of initiation. 27. Xen. Cyn. 2.4—9. 28. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 11-12. 29. Xen. Cyn. 2.9. 30. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 113. Marchant (Xenophon: Scripta minora, 375) uses the oldfashioned "hayes" for long nets. 31. Hull (Hounds and Hunting, 12-13) describes the modern method of manufacturing nets. Xenophon's description is muddling, because he uses the same word (linos) for the "thread" and the "twine"; thus Cyn. 2.4, literally translated, says "Let the purse nets be of nine threads from three strands, and each strand of three threads." 32. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 13-14,147; Poll. Onom. 5.31. 33. Poll. Onom. 5.27. 34. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 15. E. Pottier, "Rete, Retis" in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, ed. C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, vol. 4 (Paris, n.d.), arrives at "une hauteur totale d'environ 4 mètres," by counting in this way and reckoning two palms as the width of the

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mesh between opposite corners, not the distance between knots in the same row. Delebecque (Chasse, 101—6) supposes that the threads of Xenophon's nets, "fabriqués sans doubt selon la mode lacédémonienne," ran vertically and horizontally. He concludes that the distance between knots on the vertical rows is not given by Xenophon, but can be calculated by dividing the numbers of knots in the vertical rows into the height of the net, as assumed from the length of the net props. This "Lacedaemonian," or "Peloponnesian," form of net is not attested by any ancient writer. 35. Xen. Cyn. 2.7. 36. Marchant (Xenophon: Scripta minora, 374, n. 3) understands thirty knots to mean "ten meshes, so that the extreme height, if the net was fully stretched, would be about five feet." But in reckoning three knots to a mesh, he seems to forget that the top knot of one mesh is the same as the bottom knot of the one above it. I have not seen O. Manns, Uber die Jagd bei den Griechen, Progr. des Kon. Wilhelms Gymnasium zu Cassel (1888-90), who appears, from Hull (Hounds and Hunting, 15), to have calculated in the same way. 37. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 15—16; compare Xen. Cyn. 2.7; 10.2. 38. E.g., Pottier, "Rete, Retis," 851, fig. 5931; J. Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines (Paris, 1951), pis. 3, J, 6.

39. London, British Museum B678; D. A. Amyx, "A'Pontic' Oenochoe in Seattle," in Hommages à Albert Grenier, ed. M. Renard (Brussels-Berchem, 1962), 1:130, n. 5. 40. Louvre, CA931 (Amyx, "'Pontic' Oenochoe," 129, n. 2); Berlin 1727 (Amyx, "'Pontic' Oenochoe," 130, n. 3). 41. Amyx, "'Pontic' Oenochoe," 131—34. Two pictures of the vase are shown by Hull, Hounds and Hunting, pi. 3a—b. 42. Theoc. Id. 4.49; A. S. Gow, Theocritus (Cambridge, 1950), 2: 87—88. 43. Xen. Cyn. 3.1-4.9; Poll. Onom. 5.39—40; Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 31. 44. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 114. 45. Xen. Cyn. 3.2—3. 46. Xen. Cyn. 3.4—n. 47. Xen. Cyn. 4.1—8. My translation is heavily indebted to both Marchant (Xenophon: Scripta minora, 381—83) and Hull (Hounds and Hunting, 115-16). 48. Xen. Cyn. 4.9—5.7. On scent, Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 67—70. 49. Xen. Cyn. 5.15-16. Something is wrong in the first sentence. Marchantes translation (Xenophon: Scripta minora, 393) "beginning in the cultivated lands and gradually working downwards" represents the Greek, but makes no sense, as the glens and rocks lie above the tilled fields. Hull (Hounds and Hunting, 119) has the right sense, but gives the word anothen, "from above," an impossible meaning; "by leading the hounds out of the fields from the upper side" (i.e., upward). Perhaps anothen is misplaced from the next sentence: the hares should come "from above." 50. Xen. Cyn. 5.19-20; Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, stanzas 118,115. 51. Xen. Cyn. 5.29; William Somervile, The Chase (London, 1734), bk. 2. Professor Oliver Nicholson, a former Master of the Marlborough Beagles, comments: "What Xenophon says about a hare running straight and saving herself suggests to me that compared to the modern beagle or bassett his hounds lacked staying power. The hare is faster, but not over such long distances as a hound. Harriers and greyhounds 'burst1 their hares as though they were foxes: with beagles and bassetts the hare sits and waits for you" (personal letter). 52. Xen. Cyn. 5.22; J. Overbeck, "Die beiden Hasenformen in Ps.-Xenophon Kynegetikos v. 22," Philologische Wochenschrift 48 (1928): 1566—68. 53. Xen. Cyn. 5.34. Marchant (Xenophon: Scripta minora, 401) translated "there is a risk of encouraging those who see to set themselves against the law." Delebecque, giving a less precise

163

NOTES TO PAGES 4 6 - 5 4 significance than "law" to the Greek nomos, translated simply and elegandy "pour que les spectateurs ne s'opposent pas ä l'institution de la chasse." 54. Xen. Cyn. 6.1; Poll. Onom. 5.55; Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 9. 55. Xen. Cyn. 6.2; Peter Beckford, Thoughts on Hunting (London, 1781), letter 9; R. S. Surtees, Htmdley Cross (London, 1843), chap. 33. 56. Xen. Cyn. 6.4; Somervile, The Chase, bk. 3. 57. Xen. Cyn. 6.5—25. I suppose that it is merely by accident that Xenophon omits to say that the road nets, along with the others, must be picked up at the day's end. 58. Marchant, Xenophon: Scripta minora, 415. The three names given in the text will all be found in the list appended to letter 5 of Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting. Beckford considers "Crafty" and "Hasty" suitable for bitches. 59. Xen. Cyn. 7.1—2; on hound care, see also Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 43—54. 60. Xen. Cyn. 8.1—8; for the dark patches in the snow cf. Poll. Onom. 5.66. 61. Anth. Pal. 7.717. 62. Xen. Cyn. 9.1. 63. R. D. Barnett, Sculpturesfromthe North Palace ofAshurbanipal of Assyria (668-627 B.c.) (London, 1976), pis. 7 (left), 40. 64. Hdt. 1.192.4; Keller, Die Antike Tierwelt, 108-11. 65. Xen. Cyn. 9.1—7. 66. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1889.1013; Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi, pi. 67, 4a—b. 67. Xen. Cyn. 9.8—13. 68. Xen. Ag. 2.7-8. 69. Xen. Cyn. 10.1—3; Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 18—19. "Cod end" (koruphaion) is literally "headpiece." Marchant (Xenophon: Scripta minora) translates "top." Hull (Hounds and Hunting, 13) rightly points out that Poll. Onom. 5.27 says that purse nets are shaped like a woman's hairnet (kekruphalos), adding (5.31) that "the kekruphalos of the purse net is the bag (literally "hollowness": koilotes) and the koruphaion is the narrow part of the purse net, which some people also call koruphister." He is thinking of a woman with her hair done up in a bun at the back of her head, so that her hairnet has a smaller pocket behind. Cf. also Hesychius, s.v. koruphistes: "of woman's adornment, the gold ornament round the head"—that is, the gold net for the back hair that is such a striking article of Hellenistic jewelry. Marchant (431, n. 3) notes that "it is strange that the author does not state the length of the nets"; but if koruphaion is rightly understood, Xenophon is, in fact, giving the length not the height. 70. Pugon: the distance from the elbow to the knuckles of the clenched fist. Again Xenophon is thinking of the net maker measuring the knots off as he works. 71. The meaning is not certain; for other renderings cf. Marchant, Xenophon: Scripta minora, 433, and Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 132. 72. Xen. Cyn. 10.9. Marchant translates, "stand still, intent on himself'; Hull, "stand still . . . and hold its ground." Delebecque {Chasse, 87), "il restera aussitot tranquille, enveloppe du filet" seems to me to give the sense required, and the plain meaning of the Greek. 73. Xen. Cyn. 10.1—18. 74. J. D. Beazley, The Development ofAttic Black-Figure (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951), 32—33. For Atalanta's hound Aura, see Poll. Onom. 5.45. 75. E.g., J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956), 96, nos. 16,19 (second quarter of sixth century B.c.); 163, Glaucytes Potter, no. 2 (rather later). 76. E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin (Berlin, 1845), pi. 9. The teeth projecting from the socket that Xenophon recommends are shown in the art of the Roman period; see Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines, 310—17. 77. Beazley, Development, 33. On the iconography of the boar hunt in archaic vase painting, with special reference to the Calydonian boar, see also A. Schnapp, "Images et programme:

164

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Les Figurations archaïques de la chasse au sanglier," Revue archéologique (1979): 195-298. 7 8 . O v . Met. 8.329-33. 79. Xen. Cyn. 1 0 . 1 8 - 2 3 . 8 0 . Xen. Cyn. 11.1-4.

Notes to Chapter 4 1. Xen. An. 1.2.7.

2. William Somervile, The Chase (London, 173+), bk. 2. 3. Poll. Onom. 9.13: "Paradise appears to have a barbarian name, but it has passed into common Greek usage like many other Persian words." Cf. also the Persian poet Firdausi (c. A.D. 4. 5. 6. 7.

9 4 0 - 1 0 2 0 ) , o r " m a n o f paradise." Xen. Cyr. 1.4.4—15. Xen. Cyr. 1.4.16—17. Xen. Cyr. 8.1.34-38. Xen. Oec. 4.20—25.

8. Xen. An. 1.9.1—6. 9. Xen. An. 1.2.7; 1.4.10 —11; Hell. 4.1.33. 10. Xen. An. 1.5.1—5.

11. A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (London, 1850), 1: 324, and Nineveh and Babylon ( L o n d o n , 1853), 246.

12. Plut. Artaxerxes 6.3. 13. Xen. Cyr. 8.8.12.

14. R. D. Barnett, Sculpturesfromthe North Palace ofAshurbanipal of Assyria (668-627 B.C.) ( L o n d o n , 1976), 53 and pis. 51,56,57,59-

15. Barnett, Sculptures, pis. 51—53,56, 57. 16. Barnett, Sculptures, 37 and pis. 5—13. 17. Barnett, Sculptures, pis. 14,15. 18. Barnett, Sculptures, pis. 39-44. 19. Ascribed to Darius I (522-486 B.c.); H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals (London, 1939), 221 and pi. 37d. 20. J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (London, 1970), 303—27. 21. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, no. 850. 22. Examples: Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, nos. 863, 885, 886, 888, 889, 904, 905, 9 2 4 - 2 7 , 929, 965.

23. J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), pi. 26b; Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings, no. 890. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Xen. Xen. Hdt. Hdt.

Cyr. 1 . 6 . 3 9 - 4 0 . Cyr. 2.4.25. 1.123. 1.34-45.

28. D. C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford, 1975), 211. 29. E.g., H . Diepolder, Die Attischen Grabreließ (Berlin, 1931), pi. 25; G. M. A. Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 4th ed. (New Haven, 1970), fig. 461. 30. Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks,fig.462. 31. K. Friis Johansen, The Attic Grave-Reliefs (Copenhagen, 1951), 163- Compare also Diepolder, Die Attischen Grabreliefs, pi. 48 with pi. 25. 32. Anth. Pal. 7.304. R. M. Cook, "Dogs in Batde," in Festschrift Andreas Rumpf, ed. Tobias Dohm, (Krefeld, 1952), 38-42, shows that the hound was not killed with his master.

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71-79

33. Anth. Pal. 7.338. 34. F. W. Hasluck, "Poemanenum," Journal ofHellenic Studies 26 (1906): 26-27 and pi- 6; Th. Macridy, "Reliefs gréco-perses de la region de Dascylion," Bulletin de correspondance héllenique 37 (1913): 355—57, argues that the reliefs have a narrative rather than a religious character and show the great lord who was buried beneath them banqueting and hunting as he did in life; Ilse Kleeman, Der Satrapen-Sarkophag aus Sidon, Istanbuler Forschungen, no. 20 (Berlin, 1958), 174, no. 5. 35. Kleeman, Satrapen-Sarkophag, 9—10, and passim. H. Plommer, reviewing Kleeman's book in the Journal ofHellenic Studies 80 (i960): 2+2-43, is unconvinced by her argument that the sculptor was Ionian rather than Athenian. 36. The animal once had antlers, which are lost. For its sex, see Kleemann, SatrapenSarkophag, 16. 37. This would not be unparalleled—on the Nereid Monument of Xanthos historic as well as legendary sieges were represented; and, again at Xanthos, Kherei had carved on his monument a conventional representation of his victory over seven Arcadian hoplites. See W. A. P. Childs, The City-Reliefs ofLycia (Princeton, 1978), 92—94, and P. Demargne, Fouilles de Xanthos, vol.i, Les Piliers funéraires (Paris, 1958), 79-103, pis. 30-31. 38. Kleemann (Satrapen-Sarkophag, 142-44) lists ten illustrations of falls (add two more supplied by T. B. L. Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens [London, 1972], 183) dating from the first half of the sixth century B.C. to the fourth. They are spread geographically from the Black Sea to Italy; represented on goldwork and ivory as well as in vase painting and sculpture; and the subjects include battles, racing, and a drunken old man falling off his mule. This sarcophagus is the only certain example from the hunting field. 39. Kleemann, Satrapen-Sarkophag, 144. In his review Plommer connects the fallen rider with the dead Amazon on the Penthesilea Painter's namepiece; see J. D. Beazley, Attic RedFigure Vase-Painters, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1963), 879, no. 1. Behind this cup lies one of the great masterpieces of Athenian wall painting. But the dead Amazon, though in riding kit, had no horse, as far as we know, and the position of the body is dictated by the curve of the cup. 40. Cf. Pl. Prot. 322b for hunting as a war against wild beasts. Kleemann {SatrapenSarkophag, 144) believes that the fall—an unusual subject dramatically treated—is intended to catch the viewer's eye and lead it on to the right, round the corner. But why should the sculptor call attention away from the ruler's hunt to the lounging servants at the foot of the sarcophagus? 41. O. Hamdy Bey and Th. Reinach, Une Nécropole royale à Sidon (Paris, 1892), 27. 42. Curtius 4.1.15—26. 43. V. von Graeve, Der Alexandersarkophag und seine Werkstatt, Istanbuler Forschungen no. 28 (Berlin, 1970), 125—32. 44. Von Graeve, Alexandersarkophag, 140. On the diadem see, further, Phyllis Williams Lehmann, 'The So-called Tomb of Philip II: An addendum," American Journal of Archaeology 86 (1982): 437-38.

45. Von Graeve, Alexandersarkophag, 146—52. The heads of Alexander are splendidly illustrated side by side by von Graeve (pis. 48-49). I am indebted to Ms. Anne Stewart, who is making a special study of the portraits of Demetrius and has convinced me that the diademed head is Alexander. 46. Plut. Alex. 40.1-4. 47. T. Homolle, "Ex-voto trouvés à Delphes," Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 21 (1897): 598-600.

48. G. Loeschcke, "Relief aus Messene," Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 3 (1888): 189—93; von Graeve, Alexandersarkophag, 69, n. 44. 49. Von Graeve, Alexandersarkophag, 69, n. 46; J. Herrman et al., The Search for Alexander: SupplementII to the Catalogue (Boston, 1981), 10, no. 15 (cf. also pp. 7—9, nos. 10—14).

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80-86

50. Curtius 8.1.11—19. See also N. G. L. Hammond and G. T. Griffith, A History ofMacedonia (Oxford, 1979), 2:155—56, on Macedonian royal hunts and the cult of Heracles Cynagidas. 51. Plut. Alex. 41.2. 5 2 . A t h . 1.18a; cf. X e n . Symp. 1.8.

53. Herrman et al., Search for Alexander, 8, no. 11 (with references for the coins); Hammond and Griffith, History ofMacedonia, 2: 180. 54. Especially M. Andronikos, "The Royal Tombs of Aigai (Vergina)," in Philip of Macedon, ed. M. B. Hatzopoulos and L. D. Loukopoulos (Athens, 1980), 208 and figs. 122-23. Dr. Andronikos's claim to have discovered the tomb of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, has been disbelieved by many people, including myself. But press reports of the Archaeological Congress held in Athens in September 1983 (e.g., Mario Modiano, "Putting a Brave Face on a One-Eyed King," Sunday Times [London], 11 September 1983, p. 21) indicate that Drs. John Prag, Jonathan Musgrave, and Richard Neave have demonstrated that the partly cremated skull of the principal burial belonged to a middle-aged man who had lost the right eye as the result of a missile fired from above. Dr. Andronikos is splendidly vindicated. 55. Plut. Demetr. 3.2; 50.6; 52.1. 56. Ath. 5.195c; Livy 39.22.1—2. 57. Diod. Sic. 35/36. 34.1. 5 8 . A t h . 5.201b—c.

59. H. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 1941), 296, 383-84-

60. Plin. HN 35.138. 61. Polyb. 22.3.9; F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1979), 17962. Plut. Phil. 4.1; 18.1-8. 63. Plut. Agis and Cleomenes 35.2.

Notes to Chapter 5 1. In this and the following chapter, I owe a debt to J. Aymard, which I have not attempted to acknowledge in every particular instance. 2. Livy 1.4.8—9. 3. J. Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines (Paris, 1951), 34. 4 . H o r . Epist. 1.7.85—95.

5. Diod. Sic. 34/35 2.29.30. 6 . P o l y b . 31.29.1—12. 7. Polyb. 31.13.1-15.7. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 54-57; F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1979), 478. 8. Walbank, Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3: 482. 9. Plut. Aem. 6.5. 10. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 57—60. 11. Sail. Cat. 4.1. 12. R. Syme, Sallust (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 44. Aymard (Chasses romaines, 58) considers that Sallust has in mind the slaves who assisted their masters. 13. Peter Beckford, Thoughts on Hunting (London, 1781), letter 12, authorizes the use of "warren" for an enclosure for hares. 14. Varro, De re rustica 3.13.1-3. On these parks, see further Aymard, Chasses romaines, 68-73.

15. J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (London, 1973), 17—18. 167

NOTES TO PAGES 8 6 - 9 5 16. Suet. lui. 10.i. 17. Dio Cass. 34.22—23; cf. Suet. lui. 37—39. 18. Dio Cass. 39.38.2-4; with differing details, Pliny HN 8.7 (20—21); Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 22—23. 19. Cic. Fam. 7.1.3. 20. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 20, with references. 21. Cic. Nat. D. 2.64 (161); Tusc. 2.40. 22. Varro, Sat. Men. 161, 293—96, 361; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 60—63. 23. Sail. Cat. 14.6. 24. Suet. Aug. 83; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 91—102. 25. Verg. G. 1.299-310. 26. Hor. Epist. 1.18.39—50. 27. Hor. Sat. 2.3.234-35. 28. Hor. Epist. 1.6.56-61. 29. Petron. Sat. 4 0 - 4 1 . 30. Hor. Sat. 2.2.9—13. Aymard (Chasses romaines, 92) combines the riding and hunting and considers that Horace claims coursing hares on horseback as a particularly Roman sport. But cf. E. C. Wickham, The Works ofHorace (Oxford, 1891), 2:121. 31. Hor. Carm. 3.12.4—12. 32. Ov. Met. 14.342-51; 2.409-40. 33. Cic. Cael. 15.36. 34. Ov. Her. 4.79-84. 35. Varro, Sat. Men. 301. 36. Juvenal, Satire 1.22-23. Maevia was apparently a lady of quality, unlike the women "of no distinction" who took part in the slaughter of wild beasts with which Titus opened the Colosseum (Dio Cass. 66.25.1). 37. Tib. 3.8.7—22. For Sulpicia's jealousy, cf. 3.16; and for her dislike of life in the country, 3.14. 38. Ov. Rem. Am. 199—206. 39. Ov. Ars. Am. 1.89. 40. Hor. Carm. 1.1.25-28. 41. Verg. Aen. 4.128—59. 42. Verg. G. 3.43—122. 43. Sen. De ira. 2.12. 44. Verg. Aen. 12.746—55. 45. Verg. G. 3.404-13. 46. Plin. HN 8.68 (160). 47. Hor. Epod. 6; R. Pashley, Travels in Crete (London, 1837), 1: 32. (I owe the latter reference to Miss Emma Faull.) On Molossian hounds, see O. Keller, DkAntike Tierwelt (Leipzig, 1909), 1: 103—8, and Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 106. 48. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 320. Aymard considers that the Juba is "traduisant . . . les réalités cynégétiques locales." For Gotarzes, Tac. Ann. 12.13. 49. Ov. Pont. 4.16.34. 50. Grattius, Cynegeticon 24-74. 51. Grattius, Cynegeticon 75—149. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 218—28. 52. Grattius, Cynegeticon 156. 53. Grattius, Cynegeticon 301—25. 54. Grattius, Cynegeticon 408-66. 55. Grattius, Cynegeticon 497-541.

168

NOTES TO PAGES 9 6 - I O 7 56. Compare Plin. HN 33.54 (155) for the fame of hunting scenes on goblets by the Greek silversmith Acragas. 57. J. Herrman et al., The Search for Alexander: Supplement II to the Catalogue (Boston, 1981), 8, no. 11. 58. A. Maiuri, La Casa delMenandro (Rome, 1933), pi. 50; D. E. Strong, Greek and Roman Gold and Silver Plate (London, 1966), pl. 38B. 59. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 143-54. 60. Sen. Clem. 1.12.4—5. 61. Mart. 1.49. 62. Mart. 10.37. 63. Mart. 12.1. 64. Mart. 12.14. 65. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 338. 66. Xen. Eq. 8.5—8. See also P. Vigneron, Le Cheval dans l'antiquité gréco-romain (Nancy, 1968), 220—34, for a useful summary of the whole subject of hunting on horseback in antiquity. 67. Dio Cass. 62.15; Suet. Dom. 19; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 194. 68. Plin. Ep. 1.6; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 159-62. 69. Plin. Ep. 5.6.16. 70. PI. Leg. 7.824.

Notes to Chapter 6 1. Suet. Dom. 19. 2. Plin. Pan. 81.1-3. Compare Dio Chrys. Or. 3.135-37. 3. SHA Hadr. 1.3-2.2. 4. On Greek influences, particularly in the arts, during the Hadrianic period, J. M. C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School (Cambridge, 1934), Intro, xi—xxxiv, and passim. 5. SHA Hadr. 22.2—3; 2.6.1. 6. C7L 2, no. 2660; J. Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines (Paris, 1951), 183—84, 346. 7. SHA Hadr. 26.2-3; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 173-82; Dio Cass. 69.10.3. 8. SHA Hadr. 20.13; Dio Cass. 69.10.2. 9. E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London, 1961), 104—12. (To Nash's bibliography add Aymard, Chasses romaines (527-37), arguing, against the view taken in the text, that the monument was a purely symbolic portrayal of the virtues of the emperor and his adopted heirs.) 10. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School, 1—159. 11. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 175, 527, and pl. 40 1—4. 12. A. S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (London, 1911), part 8, 73-77, no. 1085; Ath.

i5.677d-f.

13. Codex Theodosianus 15.11.1; Dio Cass. 72.14; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 418. 14. G. Kaibel, éd., Epigrammata Graeca (Berlin, 1878), 325, no. 811; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 180. 15. Paus. 9.27.1. 16. CIL 12, no. 1122. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 176-77. 17. Dio Cass. 69.10.2. 18. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School, 133-35. 19. Plin. Epist. 9.10.i—2. 20. For a complete translation of Arrian's Cynegeticus (to be used with caution), see D. B. 169

NOTES TO PAGES I O 7 - I 2 4 Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago, 1964), 163—84. Philip E. Stadter, Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill, 1980), gives a valuable account of Arrian's career and writings, including an excellent chapter (pp. 50-59) on ' T h e Joys of Hunting." 21. Arr. Cyn. 1.1—5. 22. Arr. Cyn. 2.1—3.6. 23. Arr. Cyn. 4.1-5.6. 24. Arr. Cyn. 5.7—6.1. Cf. Peter Beckford, Thoughts on Hunting (London, 1781), letter 3. 25. J. M. C. Toynbee, Art in Britain under the Romans (Oxford, 1946), 408-11 and pi. 93. 26. Strabo, 4.5.2; Grattius, Cynegeticon 174—81; Aymard, Chasses romaines, 268—70. 27. For "le levrier Gaulois," see Aymard, Chasses romaines, 380-85. 28. Arr. Cyn. 7.1-7. 29. Arr. Cyn. 8.1-13.3 30. Anth. Pal. 9.417. 31. Arr. Cyn. 14.1—6. 32. Arr. Cyn. 15.1—16.5. 33. Mart. 14.200. 34. Spectator, no. 116 (Friday, 13 July 1711). 35. Arr. Cyn. 16.6-8. 36. Beckford, Thoughts on Hunting, letter 10. 37. Arr. Cyn. 17.1-18.2. 38. Hull, Hounds and Hunting, 25. 39. Arr. Cyn. 19.1-22.2. 40. Arr. Cyn. 23.2-24.3. 41. J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), 21, 27, 40; P. Vigneron, Le Cheval dans l'antiquité gréco-romain (Nancy, 1968), 102—7. 42. K. M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics ofRoman North Africa (Oxford, 1978), 55,59, pis. 29, 41; see also p. 53 for another horseman and wild ass. 43. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 459—63. But there seems no reason to suppose that Arrian's cavalry battle-axes were intended to cut lassoes. 44. Arr. Cyn. 24.4-5. 45. Arr. Cyn. 25.1; 26; 32—33. 46. Arr. Cyn. 25.1-9. 47. Arr. Cyn. 34.1—36.4. Stadter (Arrian ofNicomedia, 52 and 195—96, n. 61, and 209, n. 8) notes, with reference to earlier discussion, an altar from Cordoba dedicated by an Arrian, proconsul of Hispania Baetica, who is almost certainly the well-known Arrian. His connection with Spain was not known before the discovery of this stone, and is not reflected in the Cynegeticus, with its frequent references to "the Celts." But the four-line Greek epigram on the altar, which offers Artemis the eternal gifts of the Muses, rather than gold, silver, or the spoils of the chase, reflects the spirit of the Cynegeticus, even though it contradicts its letter.

Notes to Chapter 7 1. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 8.31. 2. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 8.4-5. 3. Dio Cass. 72.36.2; for the coins, J. Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines (Paris, 1951), 162—74 and pl. 40. 4. Marcus Aurelius, Méditations 3.2. 5. SHA M. Ant. 11.2.

170

NOTES TO PAGES 1 2 5 - I 3 4 6. Fronto, Ep. 4.5. 7. Fronto, Ep. 3.20. 8. Dio Cass. 72.36.4. 9. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1776-88), ch. 4. 10. M. Rostovtzeff, "Commodus—Hercules in Britain," Journal of Roman Studies 13 (1923): 91—109. Aymard (Chasses romaines, 527—58) does his best for these hunts as symbols of virtus; but there was no reality behind the symbolism. 11. J. M. C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School (Cambridge, 1934), 161—201; esp. pp. 184—89 for the Niobids and pp. 179 and 188 for Meleager. 12. Toynbee, Hadrianic School, pi. 37.2; H. Sichtermann and G. Koch, Griechische Mythen auf Römischen Sarkophagen (Tübingen, 1975), 49—50, no. 48. 13. Sichtermann and Koch, Griechische Mythen, 19—20, nos. 6—7. 14. Sichtermann and Koch, Griechische Mythen, 45, no. 42. Aymard, (Chasses romaines, 380—81) comments on the (irrelevant) introduction of a vertragus mouthing a hare. 15. Sichtermann and Koch, Griechische Mythen, 33-36, nos. 26-30. 16. Sichtermann and Koch, Griechische Mythen, pl. 57 top left; pl. 64 right; pl. 105 left. 17. F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains (Paris, 1942), 436—56. 18. Avianus, Fabulae 24. 19. G. Rodenwaldt, "Ein Attischer Nachklang in den Alpen," Ephemeris Archaiologike (1937), part 1, 134—39; Hanns Gabelmann, Die Werkstattgruppen der oberitalischen Sarkophage (Bonn, 1973), 72—75 and pls. 12—13. 20. A. W. Mair, Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus: With an English Translation (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), xiii—xxiii, concludes that the Cynegetica are by a Syrian imitator of the poet Oppian who wrote the Haliéutica on fishes and fishing. 21. Mair, Oppian, identifies the poet's sources and provides other valuable information in his excellent notes. 22. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.35-40. 23. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.72—90. 24. Xen. Cyn. 2.9. Mair (Oppian, 11, n.g) adds Grattius, Cynegeticon 343; Poll. Onom. 5.19. 25. Mair, Oppian, 12, n. a: "Breeches extending to the knees" are worn by hunters in much later Syrian works of art; see D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements (Princeton, 1947), 1: 364—65. I do not know any pictures showing Oppian's tunic tied down by crossing straps. 26. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.91—109. 27. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.110—46. 28. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.147-59. 29. K. M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics ofRoman North Africa (Oxford, 1978), 54. 30. J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), 38. 31. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.158-65. 32. Hdt. 3.85.1—86.2; referred to by Oppian, Cynegetica 1.234—35. 33. Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, stanza 44. 34. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.172—93; cf. Xen. Eq. 1.2—15; Mair, Oppian, 21, n. k. 35. Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, stanzas 49—50. 36. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.196—235. 37. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.289—99. 38. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.306-10. 39. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.316—67. 40. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.368-443; Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Kambriae 1.2. 41. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.451-67; cf. Xen. Cyn. 5.5.

171

NOTES TO PAGES I 3 4 - I 5 O 42. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.468-80. Mair (Oppian, 49, n. c) points out that the line about the greedy house dogs is derived from the questions that Ulysses puts to Eumaeus when he sees Argos lying in the dung heap (Horn. Od. 17.309). 43. Oppian, Cynegetica 1.481—538. 44. Oppian, Cynegetica 2.217-90. 45. Oppian, Cynegetica 3.^07—34. 46. Oppian, Cynegetica 4.47-55. 47. Oppian, Cynegetica 4 . 7 7 - m ; cf. Xen. Cyn. 11.4. 48. Oppian, Cynegetica 4.425-32. 49. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, 337-45 and 324, fig. 136. 50. A painting of the Bosphorus in the same collection (Philostr. Imag. 1.12) also included a hunting party. 51. Philostr. Imag. 1.28. 52. Aymard, Chasses romaines, 387-88; K. M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1978), 257, El Djem no. 1; for the date, see her p. 49, n. 13. 53. For the tragic story of the daughter of Gregory, the prefect of Africa, see Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 51. 54. Xen. Cyn. 6.23. 55. Aymard (Chasses romaines, 387) identifies the gazehounds as salukis. Compare Arr. Cyn. 19.1-22.2 for the combination of tracking hounds with gazehounds. 56. Dunbabin, Mosaiccs, 252, Carthage no. 31, and 48—49. 57. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 277, Utica no. 10. "Second half of the 4th century (after 355—361)," is her dating of this mosaic. 58. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 49, n. 12. 59. Nemes. Cyn. 1.139. On the hunts of the mosaics, cf. Thérèse Précheur-Canonge, La Vie rurale en Afrique romaine d'après les mosaïques, Publications de l'Université de Tunis, Faculté des lettres, 1st ser., Archéologie, Epigraphie, vol. 6 (1962), 75-91. 60. Nemes. Cyn. 140-92. 61. Nemes. Cyn. 240—98. 62. Nemes. Cyn. 299-320. 63. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 262, Hippo Regius no. 3e. 64. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 253, Carthage no. 41. 65. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 265, Oudna no. 1, f, i. 66. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 252, Carthage no. 32. 67. Dunbabin, Mosaics, 196—212. 68. Auson. Ep. 4.1.62; 6.1-2. 69. Cf. Amm. Marc. 31.10.18—20; Zosimus 4.35.2—5. Auson. Ep. 2.6; Gratiarum actio is, of course, more favorable. 70. Claud. De nuptilis Honorii 5—7. 71. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 29. Compare Procop. Goth. 3.2.25-26. 72. Claud. Cons. Stil. 3.317—55. 73. Dunbabin (Mosaics), 196-212, shows good reason for rejecting the suggestion that the villa belonged to the emperors Maximian and Maxentius. 74. Rut. Namat. 1.621-30. On the hunting horn, see Michael Roberts, "A Note on the Hunting-Horn (Bucina) in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity," Classical Philology 77 (1982) : 248—52. Roberts points out that the "trumpet" (salpinx) of Oppian (Cynegetica. 4.397-99) is not a horn, and is not used like one, but "to flush the bear from its cover and into the waiting nets." Roberts rightly notes that Rutilius, and the fifth-century Latin paraphrase of the Old Testament

172

N O T E S TO P A G E S I 5 O - I 5 3

that he also cites, treat the hunting horn as something familiar, not as a novelty requiring explanation. 75. Sid. Apoll. Ep. 4.4.1. 76. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus inAvitum, 187—206; Panegyricus in Anthemium, 144—52. For falconry, cf. K. Lindner, Beiträge zu Vogelfang und Falknerei im Altertum (Berlin, 1973), and G. Äkerström-Hougen, The Calendar and, Hunting Mosaics in the Villa of the Falconer at Argos (Stockholm, 1974). 77. Sid. Apoll. Ep. 8.6.10-12. 78. Sid. Apoll. Ep. 1.2.5. 79. The phrase "regular and well disciplined pack" is, of course, here used as Somervile intended it. This book has provided abundant instances to show that the ancients fully recognized the value of "discipline" and "regularity"; see further, Aymard, Chasses romaines, 288—90. Aymard appositely quotes Dio Chrys. 4.34, where ignorant foolish sophists who led others astray by their clamor are compared to untrained hounds whose foolish yapping misleads the rest of the pack. But Xenophon used relatively few hounds, and laid them on one at a time; Arrian speaks of coursing with one or two hounds, also handled individually; Apuleius (Metamorphoses 8.4.5) speaks of hounds working in cover in a manner that Somervile might certainly have approved, but only in order to drive the game into nets; no run was expected to follow, and hounds played no part in the impromptu chase of the boar once he had broken cover. Aymard rightly notes that the despised Segusii hunted as a pack, somewhat after the manner of modern beagles, in Arrian's day. Sidonius's friend Namatius seems to have kept something like a modern pack of harriers, but apparendy they were neither "regular" nor "well-disciplined." 80. After Leonidas of Tarentum, Anth. Pal. 6.188.

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Lehmann, Phyllis Williams. "The So-called Tomb of Philip II: An Addendum." American Journal of Archaeology 86 (1982): 437—38. Levi, D. Antiocb Mosaic Pavements. Princeton, 1947. Lindner, K. Beiträge zu Vogelfang und Falknerei im Altertum. Berlin, 1973. Littauer, M. A. "A 19th and 20th Dynasty Heroic Motif on Attic Black-figured Vases?" American Journal of Archaeology 72 (1968): 150-52. Loeschcke, G. "Relief aus Messene." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (1888) 189-93Macridy, Th. "Reliefs gréco-perses de la région de Dascylion." Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 37 (1913): 355 - 57. Mair, A. W. Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus. With an English translation. Cambridge, Mass., 1958. (= Mair, Oppian) Maiuri, A. La Casa del Menandro. Rome, 1933. Marchant, E. C. Xenophon: Scripta minora. With an English Translation. Cambridge, Mass., 1925. Marinatos, S., and M. Hirmer. Crete and Mycenae. London, i960. (= Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae) Mavrogordato, J. Digenes Akrites. Oxford, 1956. Mylonas, G. E. "The Lion in Mycenaean Times." Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970): 421—25. O Taphihos Kuklos B ton Mukenon. Athens, 1973. Nash, E. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London, 1961. Overbeck, J. "Die beiden Hasenformen in Ps.-Xenophon Kynegetikos v. 22." Philologische Wochenschrift 48 (1928): 1566-68. Page, D. L. Alcman: The Partheneion. Oxford, 1951. Pashley, R. Travels in Crete. London, 1837. Payne, H. G. Necrocorinthia. Oxford, 1931. Persson, A. W. New Tombs atDendm nearMidea. Acta Reg. Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis, no. 34. Lund, 1942. Plommer, H. Review of Der Satrapen-Sarkophag aus Sidon, by I. Kleemann. Journal ofHellenic Studies 80 (i960): 242—43. Pottier, E. "Rete, Retis."In Dictionnaire des antiquitésgrecques et romaines, edited by C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, vol. 4. Paris, n.d. Precheur-Canonge, Thérèse. La Vie rurale en Afrique romaine d'après les mosaïques. Publications de l'Université de Tunis, Faculté des lettres, ist ser., Archéologie, Epigraphie. Vol. 6. Tunis, 1962. Richter, G. M. A. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks. 4th ed. New Haven, 1970. Roberts, Michael. "A Note on the Hunting-Horn (bucina) in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity." Classical Philology 77 (1982): 248—52. Rodenwaldt, G. Tiryns. Vol. 2. Athens, 1912. "Ein Attischer Nachklang in den Alpen." EphemerisArchaiologike (1937), parti, 134—39. Rostovtzeff, H. "Commodus-Herakles in Britain "Journal ofRoman Studies 13 (1923): 91-109. The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World. Oxford, 1941. Schnapp, A. "Pratiche e immagine di caccia nella Grecia antiqua." Dialoghi di archaeologia, n.s., 1 (1977): 48-50. "Images et programme: Les Figurations archaiques de la chasse au sanglier." Revue archéologique (1979): 195—298. Shipp, G. P. Studies in the Language of Homer. Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 8. Cambridge, 1953. Sichtermann, H., and G. Koch. Griechische Mythen auf Römischen Sarkophagen. Tübingen, 1975. (= Sichtermann and Koch, Griechische Mythen)

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178

SUBJECT

Abdalonymus, king of Sidon, 76-78, 80 Accidents in hunting, 59; Ausonius on, 147,148; Fronto on the avoidance of, 125, i7i»7; by Hadrian, 103, i69»7; Martial's commentary on, 99, 169 «64 Achaean League, 84 Achilles, iji; raised by Chiron the Centaur, 4, 157M13; shield of, 2, 5; and the training of heroes in Pindar's Nem., 22, 160 »9 Aconite poison, 56 Adonis, 127 Aediles, Roman, 86 Aemilius Paullus, education of the sons of, 84-85 Aeneas, and hunting described in Vergil's Aeneid, 91-92, 168 »41 Agamemnon, compared with a lion in Homer's Iliad, 3,I56»6 Agesilaus, 28, 57; army of praised in Xenophon's Agesilaus, 51, i64»68; and the death of Agesipolis in Xeno-

INDEX

phon's Hellenica, 28,161 »30; relationship with Xenophon, 6 0 , 61

Agriculture: decline in the Roman Republic, 83—84; and military service by farmers in Xenophon's Oecorwmicus, 19, I59»4; and Vergil's commentary on hunting by farmers described in the Georgia, 88, 168 »25; and Xenophon on hunting among crops in the Cynegeticus, 46, i63«$3; and Xenophon on hunting by horseback in the Oeconomicus,

22—23,160», i 6 o » i i

Ahuramazda, the Persian deity, 67

Ajax, in Homer's Iliad, 4-5, 157W16

Alan nomadic tribe, 106,107 Alexander Sarcophagus, 76-78, 96

Alexander the Great, 81; and the Alexander Sarcophagus, 76; Arrian's commentary on, 107; on the care of horses, 78, 141; Curtius on hunting by,

179

79—80, 1677150; influence on Greek hunting, 56; lion hunting by, 78—80; Plutarch on Alexander's attitudes toward safety, 80, i67»5i; Plutarch on hunting by, 78, 79, i66»46; and Roman art, 96; royal hunts by, 78—80; and the "Search for Alexander" art exhibition, 80 Alexandria, lion hunting by Hadrian and Antinous in, 104-5 Allegories of manly virtue, 135, 147. See also Manhood and hunting Amazonian huntresses, 28, 161 »32. See also Huntresses Amphitheater hunting, 141; by Nero in Dio Cassius' writings, 100,169K67. See also Roman spectator sports Anderson, J. K., on ancient Greek horsemanship, i6o»i5, 165/223, 170K41,171 »30 Andronikos, Manolis, 80, I67»54

Anthemius, 151

INDEX Antinous, 103; lion hunting by, 104-5 Antiochus IV, and the introduction of Roman "games" in Athenaeus and Livy's writings, 81,167W56 Antiochus IX, hunting by described by Diodorus Siculus, 81, I 6 7 » 5 7

Antoninus Pius, 124 Aphrodite, 105 Apollo, xi-xii, 31; and the archery contest in Homer's Iliad, 20, 121, i6o»7; on late Roman sarcophagi, 126; in North African Roman mosaics, 142; in Roman hunting, 104,121; temple of mentioned in Perses' poem in the Anthologia Palatina, 23, I6O»I4; in Xenophon's advice on hare hunting in the Cynegeticus, 47 Archery: in Assyrian royal hunts, 63; bows and arrows described by Grattius, 94; compared with spear hunting, 153; Cretan short bows, 26; in Homer's Odyssey, 15, I58»S2; in Mycenean art, 6, 10; in Roman North African mosaics of the fourth century, 142; Sidonius Apollinaris on Theodoric II's use of, 152-53, 173»78; Suetonius on Domitian's use of, 101, I 6 9 » I ; by Visigothic kings, 152-53 Archery contest between Teucer and Meriones: in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 121,1707*47; in Homer's Iliad, 20, 160 «7 Arch of Constantine in Rome, 103,106 Aristocratic hunting, 15-16; by Alexander the Great, 78-80; by Assyrian royalty, 6—10, 63-67; by Egyptian royalty, 9, 81-82; and military training in Crete and Sparta, 26-27; by Persian royalty, 57, 58-63; by Roman emperors, 1 0 1 - 6 , 1 2 4 - 2 6 , 148, 152; by Roman nobles, 83-84, 87,

88; servants and slaves for, 37-38, 64-67,123 Artaxerxes, King, 62 Artemis, 10; in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 119, 120, 170 K45, 170K47; bears protected by, 15; Callimachus's hymn to, 82; and the Calydonian Boar hunt in Homer's Iliad, 2, 156M2; Celtic cult of, 120; festival organized by Xenophon for, 23, 31, 37, I62»6; hounds of, 82; on late Roman sarcophagi, 126; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 130,171W22; religious ceremonies for, 136; in Roman art of the late empire, 126, 135, 136; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 47 Artemis Orthia, cult of, 29 Ashurbanipal, King, xii; hunting on horseback by, 10; lion hunting by, 6 - 9 , 1 4 , 4 9 , 63, 64, 141; sculpture on the palace of, 63—67 Ashurnasirpal, 10 Asses, hunting of: in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 118, 170H40; compared by Pliny for food flavor with donkeys, 92, 168 »46; lassoes used for, 118-19,142; in Vergil's Georgia, 92, 168 »45; in Xenophon's Anabasis, 61—62, 165 «10 Assyrian royal hunting, 6—10, 63—67; caged animals for, 63, 64; chariots in, 10; lion hunting in, 6 - 1 0 ; Persian royal hunting influenced by, 63; spectators at, 63-64, 67. See also Ashurbanipal, King Astyages, 70; role in the hunting education of Cyrus the Great, 58, 59, 60, 63 Atalanta, 82; in the Calydonian Boar hunt, 2,13,53,54; hounds of, 54, i64»74; Pollux on the hound of, 164«74; and the role of women in hunting, 14, 90; in Varro's Sat. Men., 90,168»35 Athena, 25 Augustus, Emperor, 87-88

180

Avitus, and the role of hunting in military skills, 151 Axes, 78, 79 Aymard, J., 167m, I69»II, 1 7 0 « 2 6 , 170K27, I70»43,

I72«52; on gazehounds, 172«55; on the Juba, I68»48; on the hounds of Gaul, 170H27; on untrained hounds, 173 » 7 9

Babylonia, 31, 57; Indian hounds in, 49 Badgers, 99 Baits, 141; for lion hunting, 13s; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 56, 1657780 Barnett, R. D., i57»22-w25, I65»I4-»I8

Battle-axes, 78 Bear Constellation, in Homer's Iliad, 15, 158 »57 Bear hunting: attitudes in Bronze Age Greece on, 15; by Hadrian, 103-4,105; by Persian royalty, 59, 61; Roman deity associated with, 103; on sarcophagi, 75; in Thespiae, 105; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 55-56, 165«80 Bears, on the baldric of Hercules in Homer's Odyssey, 15, 158W58 Beaters, 105; in Assyrian royal hunts, 63, 64; in Roman hunting, 92, 97 Beazley, Sir John, 53-54,164»77 Beckford, Peter, Thoughts on Hunting, xi, 164K55,164K58, I70»24, I70»36; on the color of hounds, 111,170*124; on morality in sport hunting, 116,170»36; on "warrens," 167W13 Bellerophon, 31, 89 Benefits of hunting, 107; in Horace's Epistolae, 88, I68«28; in Pliny's Epistulae, 100, 169 «68; in Pliny's Panegyricus, 1 0 1 - 2 , i69»2; satirized by Varrò, 87, I68«22; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 17-18, 30, I59»i, I6I»3; in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 60,

INDEX 165 nb. See also Educational value of hunting Big-game hunting, 73,141; by Hadrian, 102; on horseback, 124; in Macedonia, 80, 159x3, 167x52; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 55-56, 57, 165 »80 Billhooks, 131 Bird catching, in the Anthologia Palatina, 20, i6o»8 Bird hunting, xi-xii. See also Fowling Boar hunting, 31; in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, 123, 170x2; and the attainment of manhood, 80,159x3; and attacks by boars, 53,148, 164x73; Ausonius on the dangers of, 148; in the Carthage late Roman mosaic, 138-39; on coins issued by Marcus Aurelius, 124; by Cyrus the Great, 59; and Diana, 103; on Greco-Roman gems, 68; by Hadrian, 103, 104,105-6; in Homer's Iliad, 2, 156x2; in Homer's Odyssey, 1,156m; Martial's commentary on, 99, 169x64; by Pliny the Younger described in Epistulae, 100, 169x68; and the role of Roman ladies in hunting, 90; in Roman art of the late empire, 135-36, 138-39; Rutilius Namatianus on, 150,172x74; in Sicilian mosaics of the later Roman empire, 143—44, 145; in Sparta, 27-28; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 51—53, i64»72, i64»73. See also Calydonian Boar hunt Boars: for dinner meat in Petronius's Satires, 89,168x29; for food in Horace's Satires, 88, i68»27; Pannonian, 105, 106; purchase of boar meat in Horace's Epistolae, 89, i68»28; in wild animal parks and preserves, 86, 98 Borysthenes, the hunting horse of Hadrian, 105-6, 107 Bows. See Archery Boys in hunting, 143; in Cretan ceremonies, 26; on Greek

vases, 32-33; in Roman art of the late empire, 135-36, 143; Xenophon's commentary in Cynegeticus on, 37, 162x20. See also Manhood and hunting British hounds, 111 Bull hunting: in Assyria, 10; by Ptolemy V mentioned by Polybius, 81, 167x61 Bustards in Xenophon's Anabasis, 61, 62, 165x10 Caesar, Julius: Dio Cassius on the spectacle for the triumph of, 86,168x17; Suetonius on hunts and gladiatorial combats staged by, 86, 168x16 Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 82 Callisto, in hunting dress, 90 Calydonian Boar hunt, 159 »3; in Greek vase paintings, 5354; in Homer's Iliad, 2, 156x2; in Horace's Epistolae, 88, 168x28; on late Roman sarcophagi, 126,127; in Ovid's Metamorphoses, 54-55, 165>278; Pausanias on the tusks of, 15, 158 »60 Cambyses' advice on the military value of hunting, in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 68, 165 »24 Candys, 76; defined, 75 Cappadocian horses, 141; in Oppian's Cynegeticus, 133, 171»36 Caracalla, Emperor, 130 Carian hounds, 108 Carinus, Emperor, 139 Carthage, flax from, 38; boar hunting on Roman mosaics in, 138-39; lasso hunting on mosaics from, 119 Castorian hounds, in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 42, 163x43 "Castor ware" pottery, 111,112 Catiline, political gifts by described by Sallust, 87,168 »23 Celtic hounds (vertragi): in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 107,108, 116,170x21,170«40; and

181

gazehounds in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 116,117,120,134, 170x39; in Grattius's Cynegeticon, 94, 168x52; Martial on, 115, 170x33 Celtic hunting, in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 1 2 0 - 2 1 , 123, 170x39, 170x40 Characteristics of hunters: in Oppian's Cynegetica, 131, 171K23; in Pollux's Onomasticon, 35, 162x17; Roman public attitudes on, 148 Chariots in hunting, 1 0 - 1 4 , 29, 63-64 Chigi Vase, 32-34,35 Chimera, 31 Chiron, 151; and Achilles' infancy in Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, 4, 157x12; and Herodotus on lions in Greece, 4, 157x13 Christianity, and hunting symbolism in art, 129,130 Cimon, 25-26 Cincinnatus, 83 Circe, 90 Circus Maximus, 86. See also Roman spectator sports Coins: of boar hunting issued by Marcus Aurelius, 124; of the heroic hunter in the age of Hadrian, 104; hunting on horseback depicted on, 93; issued by Hadrian, 106; lion hunting in Macedonia depicted on, 80 Commodus, xii, 34,130; compared with Gratian, 148; described by E. Gibbon, 125, 171 »9; Onomasticon by Pollux dedicated to, 126 Country life, in Roman mosaics of the late empire, 1 4 1 - 4 7 Coverly, Roger de, 115,170x34 Cranes, 20, 88, 142 Cráteras, and Alexander the Great, 78, 79, 80 Craugis the hunter, 20, i6o»8 Cretan hounds, 51, 108 Crete, 13,14; hunting in the military training of the aristocracy in, 26—27; Strabo on rituals for boys in, 26,

INDEX Crete (continued) i6o»23; and wild goat hunting, 26, 33 Croseus, King of Lydia, 70 Cruelty in hunting, 101,125 Cudgels, 34, 35, 4 0 C u m o n t , F., 171 »17 Cyrus the Great, in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 5 8 - 6 0 , 63; o n the benefits of hunting, 60, I6s»6; Cambyses's advice o n hunting and military warfare, 68, 165/224; o n Cyrus' education in hunting, 58-60, 68, 165 »4; o n net hunting and military tactics, 68, 165*125; and the raid into Media, 60, 165 «5 Cyrus the Younger, in Xenophon's Anabasis, 6 0 - 6 2 ; Cyrus's death and character described in, 6 0 - 6 1 , 165/28; hunting education of Cyrus in, 61, 165/28; military hunting by Cyrus's army in, 6 1 62, 165/210 Cytherea, 89 Darius the Great, 67 Darius the Great, stallion of: in H e r o d o t u s , 132,171 »32; referred to in Oppian's Cyne-

getica, 132, 171 »32 D e e r hunting, 31, 59; by Assyrian royalty, 66, 67; and Celtic religious rituals, 120; javelins for, 49, 51 Deer hunting in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 48—51; fawns in, 4 8 - 5 0 , 164/265; footsnares for, 50, 164/267; Indian h o u n d s for, 49,164/222 Deer scares (formidines), 92. See also Scares Deities, 153; in Assyrian hunting, 7; of bird catchers, 20; in Celtic hunting, 120; hounds blessed by, 144; Persian, 67; in R o m a n hunting, 103,104, 117,119,121,135,136; in Rom a n N o r t h African mosaics, 142; in Sicilian mosaics of the late R o m a n empire, 144; in

Thespiae, 105; in Xenophon's description of hunting, 44, 47, 49. See also Artemis; Atalanta; Diana Delphi, m o n u m e n t s t o Alexander the Great at, 7 8 - 7 9 Demetrius (I Soter), of Syria, 85 Demetrius the Besieger, 76, 78, 129; death of described in Plutarch's Demetrius, 80—81, 167/255 Diana, 93; and boar hunting, 103; in Claudian's discussion of wild animals for R o m a n spectacles, 149,172/272; game consecrated to, 103; h o u n d s blessed by, 144; law of mentioned by Tibullus, 91, 168/237; in N o r t h African Rom a n mosaics, 142; in Pliny t h e Younger's Epistulae, 100, 169/268; in religious rituals depicted o n Sicilian mosaics, 144 Domitian: Suetonius o n archery used by, 101,169 m ; Suetonius o n park h u n t i n g by, 100, 169/267 Donkey meat, in Pliny's Historia naturalis, 92, 168/246 Dress for hunting, 3 4 - 3 7 ; chitons, 34-35, 36, 79, 96; chlamys, 35-36, 37, 49, 79, 80, 96,103; described by Pollux, 34-35, 36, 37, 4 i ; on Etruscan vases, 40, 41; o n Greek vase paintings, 35-37; and n u d e hunters, 32,34, 49, 96; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 131,171 »25; Persian, 67, 71, 75, 76; in R o m a n art, 96,103, 127,129,135, 137, 138; in Sicilian mosaics of the late Rom a n empire, 143,144; tiaras, 67, 68, 71; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 34, 162/215. See also H a t s ; petasos D u c k hunting, 143. See also Fowling D u n b a b i n , K. M. D., o n mosaics, 172/256—»58, 172/263— «67

182

Educational value of hunting: in Cicero's De natura dearum, 87, 168/221; in Crete and Sparta, 2 6 - 2 7 ; in Plato's Leges, 19,159»6; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 30, 161/23 Egypt, 3; chariots in, 10 Elephants, 81,134 Elephants in R o m a n spectator sports, 8 6 - 8 7 ; in Claudian's

De consultatu Stilichonis, 149, I72»n72; described by D i o Cassius, 8 6 - 8 7 , 168/218 Ephorus, 2 Etruscan vases, 3 9 - 4 2 Falconry, xii, 173/276; in the late R o m a n empire, 151,153 Fishing, 148, 171 »20; by Augustus, 88; Martial on, 99, 169/262; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 130; in Plato's Leges, 20, 22 Flamingoes, 141 F o o d hunting: compared with sport hunting, 99,107, us— 16,122; in H o m e r ' s Odyssey, 14,15,158 «50,158 «52; Martial's commentary o n , 99; in Plato's Leges, 22; R o m a n attitudes toward, 8 8 - 8 9 , 9 2 ; wildfowling in, 143,147 Footsnares, 107,136; in Vergil's Georgics, 88,168 »25; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 50,51,55, 164/267, 165 «79 Footwear, 34, 35 Formidines, defined, 92. See also Scares Fowling, xi, 143,147; and falconry, 153; lime-rods for, 143, 146,147; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 130; in Plato's Leges, 20, 22; in Xenophon's Anabasis, 6 1 - 6 2 , 165 »10 Foxes, 46, 47; in Celtic rituals described in Arrian's Cynegetica, 120,170/247; in Rom a n Sicilian mosaics, 144 "Foxhounds": in Aristotle's

Historia animalium, 34, 162/214; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 34, 42, 162*414, 163 »43

INDEX Fox hunting, xii, 1 5 , 1 5 1 ; on Greco-Persian gems, 68; Martial's commentary on, 99 François Vase, 5 3 — 5 4 Funerary art, hunt symbolism in,

70—78,126—29

Game preserves, 85; mentioned by Martial, 98; Varro on, 86, i67»I4. See also Park hunting Gaul, 149; hounds in, 111 Gazehounds: in Arrian's Cynegetkus, 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 0 , 1 3 4 , 1 3 8 , 170K39,172»55; in Roman North African mosaics, 137, 138 Gazelles, 61, 62, 63 Gems, Greco-Persian, 6 7 - 6 9 Giraffes, 81, 86 Giraldus Cambrensis, 1 3 3 - 3 4 Goat baits, in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 5 6 , I 6 5 » 8 O Goat hunting: in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, 1 2 2 - 2 3 , 1 7 0 W 2 ; in Cretan "rites of passage," 26; in Homer's Odyssey, 1 4 - 1 5 , 158 H52 Gotarzes, in Tacitus's Annales, 93, 1687748

Gratian, 147; hunting in Roman public spectacles by, 148 Greece: Hadrian's admiration of, 102; Hadrian's hunting experiences in, 105 Greek hunting, 1 7 — 2 9 ; in the Bronze Age, 1—16; Roman hunting influenced by, 83, 84, 8 5 ; techniques in, 3 0 - 5 6 Greek vase paintings: of the Calydonian Boar hunt, 5 3 — 5 4 ; deer hunting in, 5 0 ; funerary scenes in, 70—71; hare hunting in, 3 1 - 3 3 , 3 7 ; hunting dress in, 3 5 - 3 7 , 53, 54; hunting on horseback in, 23-25

Greyhounds,

HI, 1 2 9 , 1 4 4

Hadrian, xii, 1 0 2 - 6 ; in Alexandria, 1 0 4 - 5 ; bear hunting by, 1 0 3 - 4 , 1 0 5 ; boar hunting by, 103,104,106,

I69»7;

Borysthenes, the horse of,

1 0 5 — 6 , I 6 9 « I 6 , 1 6 9 K 1 7 ; city founded by discussed in SHA, 1 0 3 , I 6 9 » 8 ; coins issued by, 1 0 4 , 1 2 4 ; Dio Cassius on the epitaph for Hadrian's horse, 1 0 6 , 1 6 9 M 1 7 ; education of discussed in SHA, 1 0 2 , 1 6 9 «3; Greek culture admired by, 102; heroic hunting by, 1 0 3 - 4 , 1 2 4 ; lion hunting by, 1 0 3 , 1 0 4 — 5 , 1 2 4 ; skills of discussed in SHA, 1 0 3 , I 6 9 « 7 ; toga and beard of mentioned in SHA, 102, 169725

Hare hunting: Arrian's commentary on, 1 0 8 , 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 1 1 6 17, i70»39; Celtic techniques for, 1 1 6 — 1 7 ; on Etruscan vases, 3 9 — 4 2 ; in funerary art, 7 0 - 7 1 ; in Greek Bronze Age art, 14; in Greek vase paintings, 3 1 — 3 3 , 3 7 ; Martial on, 9 9 , 1 6 9 7 2 6 4 ; in mosaics, 1 3 6 - 3 8 , 1 4 5 , 1 4 7 ; Roman attitudes on, 8 9 , 93, 97, 1 6 8 7 2 3 0 ; Shakespeare on, 45; Sidonius Apollinaris on, 151; in the Spectator, 1 1 5 , 1 7 0 7 2 3 4 ; tridents for, 1 3 1 — 3 2 ; in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 4 4 - 4 8 , 1637248,164 « 6 0

Hares: behavior in Xenophon's Cynegettcus, 4 5 , 1 6 3 7 2 5 0 ; in hound training, 1 1 9 — 2 0 ; running speed in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 4 5 , 1 6 3 7 2 5 1 ; species in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 4 5 - 4 6 , I 6 3 » 5 2 ; "warrens" for, 8 6 , 1 6 7 7 2 1 3 Harmodius, 37 Hats, 3 7 , 5 3 , 1 2 7 Hector, similes for in Homer's Iliad, 2 , 4 , 156723, 1 5 7 K 1 5 Hedgehogs, 1 3 4 , 1 3 9 Helicon, Mt., 105 Hemp nets, in Grattius's Cynegetkon, 94, 168 »50 Hercules, 9 5 , 1 5 0 ; and Commodus in Gibbon's history, 1 2 5 , 1 7 1 7 2 9 ; cult of, 9 3 ; on late Roman Empire sarcophagi, 129; Nemean Lion slain by,

183

in Hadrianic sculpture, 103 Hermes, 121 Hippolytus, 1 2 7 , 1 5 1 , 159723; in Ovid's Heroides, 9 0 , 1 6 8 » 3 4 Hippo Regius mosaic, 1 4 1 - 4 2 Honorius, xii; attitudes toward hunting described by Claudian, 149, 1727270 Hoplite warfare, 18, 31 Horns in hunting, 150, 153, 4,125;

1727274

Horses in hunting, 9—10; and agriculture in Xenophon's Oeconomkus, 1 9 , 2 2 , 1 5 9 » 4 , i6o»io; in Aristotle's Rhetoric, 26, 160 »21; in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 1 0 7 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 8 , 1 1 9 , 132, I70»40; and Antinous, 104; on Attic vase paintings, 2 3 — 2 5 ; breeds of, 1 0 7 , 1 1 8 , 1 3 2 , 1 3 3 , 1 4 1 , 1 4 3 ; and Cyrus the Great's education described in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 5 8 — 5 9 ; by Cyrus the Younger and his army in Xenophon's Anabasis, 6 1 - 6 2 , 1 6 5 7 2 1 0 ; gelding of, 1 3 2 , 1 7 1 » 3 0 ; in Grattius's Cynegeticon, 95, 168 »55; in Greco-Persian art and gems, 6 7 - 6 8 ; Hadrian's use of, 1 0 2 , 1 0 3 , 1 0 5 - 6 ;

in

Horace's Satires, 8 9 , 1 6 8 7 2 3 0 ; for jumping described in Xenophon's De Re Equestri, 1 0 0 , 1 6 9 » 6 6 ; lassoes used with, 1 1 8 - 1 9 ; Libyan, 1 0 7 , 1 1 8 , 1 3 5 , 1 4 3 ; Martial's commentary on, 9 9 , 1 0 2 - 3 ; in Nemesianus's Cynegetka, 141, 1 7 2 7 2 6 1 ; among nomadic tribes, 106, 107, 118; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 1 3 2 , 1 3 3 , 135, 1717231, 1717234, 1717236—7239; i n

Plato's Leges, 20, 22; in Roman attitudes and practices, 9 2 , 93, 95, 1 0 2 , 103, 1 0 4 , 105-6,107,115,118,119,124,

on the Satrap Sarcophagus, 73, 75; in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, 1 3 2 - 3 3 , 1 7 1 W 3 3 , I 7 I » 3 5 ; in Sicilian mosaics, 125,136, 141;

INDEX Horses in hunting (continued) i+3,144, 1+5; in Spain, 103; and Spartan hunting in Xenophon's Lacedaemoniorum respublica,

27, I6O»27; a n d

stallions in Oppian's Cynegetica, 132,171W31; in Vergil's Georgia,

92, I68»42; i n

suckling of, 133-34; training of, 119-20,140-41; in Ver-

gil's Georgics, 92, I68»45; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, see Index of Works under Xenophon, Cynegeticus, hounds in Huntresses, 2; in Greek Bronze Age art, 13-14; and Roman

Lion hunting, 141; on the Alexander Sarcophagus, 77; by Alexander the Great, 78-80; b y A n t i n o u s , 104-5; b y A s h -

urbanipal of Assyria, 6-9, 14, 49, 63, 64, 141; fables on, 129,171K18; on Greco-Persian gems, 68; by Hadrian, 103,

Xenophon's De Re Equestri,

h u n t i n g , 90-91, 136-37, 138;

104-5; l i b a t i o n s i n , 67; b y

23, 100, 160H12, i69»66. Sec

in Sparta, 28-29; and women as spectators of the hunt, 12-13; and women trained in horsemanship, 136

Macedonians, 80; in Persia, 67; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 135, 172H47; in Roman art, 96, 97,103; Roman laws on, 105, 129; Xenophon's com-

afro Chariots in hunting Hortensius, animal park maintained by, 86, 98 Hostilius Sertorianus, C. Flavius, sarcophagus of, 129 Hounds, xii; in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, 123, 173 «79; Argos in Homer's Odyssey, 16, 1597263, 172W42; A r r i a n

on, see Index of Works under Arrian, Cynegeticus, hounds in; bitches, 46, 48, 100, in, 119; blessed by deities, 144; breeds of, 33-34, 4 2 - 4 4 , 49, 51, 81, 93, 94,107, 108, hi, 134,

140; care of, 47-48, 92, 94, 113-14; Celtic, see Celtic hounds; collars and equipment for, 46, 138, 139; color of, 44, iii; diseases of, 94; feeding of, 48, 92, 94, 11314; in Gaul, III; Grattius on, see Index of rvorks under Grattius, Cynegeticon\ in Greek boar hunting, 1, 2,10—12, 51-52, 54, 55; in Greek hare h u n t i n g , 31, 32-34, 37, 4 3 -

48; handlers for, 13, 117; in the Homeric hunt, 1-2; hunters as the "leaders" of, 14; "Master of," 37, 40, 46, 117; names of, 48, 54, no, 116; in Nemesianus's Cynegetica, 139—41, i72»6o; in Oppian's Cynegetica,

133-34, i70«40,

171 »41, 172M42, I 7 2 » 4 3 ; " r e g -

ular and well-disciplined pack of," xii, 153,173W79; scent t r a c k i n g b y , 43, 44, 47,108, 114,115,134,138, 150,151; S e g u s i a n , 108,115,134,152,

I73»79; selection of the best among a litter of, 139-40; Sidonius Apollinaris on, 151;

Illyrian horses, 118 Imperial virtue and hunting, 148, 150-51

Indian hounds, 49, 51, 81 Isocrates, ignores Xenophon, 161 »4

Italian horses, 95 Jackals, 15 Javelins, 15, 94; for boar hunting, 51, 52; in classic Greek hunting, 37, 49, 51; for deer hunting, 49, 51; in Roman hunting, 131 Jupiter, 90

m e n t a r y o n , 55-56,59, 165«80

Lions, 2-9,15,134; archaeological evidence in ancient Greece for, 4; caged, 63,141; described by Homer, 2-3, 4 - 5 , 6, 104; in Mycenean art, 5-6; in Roman spectator sports, 81, 86 Long nets, 38, 39, 41, 48, 94; described in Xenophon's Cynegeticus,

48, i64»6o

Love and romance in hunting: C l a u d i a n o n , 149,1727270;

Ovid on, 90, 91,168 »38, 1687239; S u l p i c i a o n , 90-91

Lycian Sarcophagus, 75 Kleitias, Calydonian Boar hunt p a i n t e d b y , 53-54

Koch, G., I7i»i3—»16

L y n x e s , 55-56

Lysander, 60 Lysomachus, and lion hunting, 79-80

Lacedaemonian hounds, 108 Laconian hounds, 42, 51, 89, 93 Lagobolm, 41; defined, 40 Lassoes in hunting, 118-19, 142 Laws on hunting, 18; Plato's commentary on, 19—20, 22; Roman, 105,129; Xenophon's commentary on, 18, 23, 46 Layard, Henry, 62 L e o p a r d s , 135,141,143; a n d R o -

man spectator sports, 81, 87; Xenophon's commentary on, 55 - 56, 59 Leporarium, defined, 86 Libya, 104 Libyan horses, 107,118; ridden unbridled, 118,135; in Roman North African mosaics, 143 Libyan hounds, 140 Licinianus, 98, 99

184

Mace, 9 Macedonia, 57, 84; big-game hunting and manhood in, 80, 1677252; game preserves described by Polybius in, 85, 167726; influences on Roman art, 96 Macmillan Painter, 32 Maevia, in Juvenal's Satire, 90, 1687236 M a i r , A . W . , 1717220, 1717221, 171 »25

Manhood and hunting, 29; allegories of manly virtues, 135, 147; and archery, 153; Athenaeus on, 80,1677252; in Crete and Sparta, 26-27; in the later Roman empire, 148; in Macedonia, 80, 159723,

INDEX

i67»52; and Strabo on Cretan "rites of passage," 26, i6o«23; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 37, 162/220 Marcus Aurelius, 124-25; boar hunting in Meditations by, 124,170»4; coins of, 124; Dio Cassius on boar hunting by, 124, 170W3 Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, hunts staged by, 81 Mastiffs, 49, 63, 64; defined, 93; depicted in late Roman Imperial art, 129,138,139 Mauretanian horses, 141 Megalopsychia mosaic, 135 Meleager, 90, 95; in Ausonius's Epistolae, 148; in the Calydonian Boar hunt, 2, 53-54; in Rutilius Namatianus's poetry, 150, I72»74; on sarcophagi, 129; in Varro's satires, 87, 168 »22 Meriones, archery contest with Teucer described in Homer's Iliad, 20, 121, I6O»7 Mesopotamia, hunting in, 62 Midas, hound of, 114 Middle Ages, 133,135,141 Military value of hunting: Cicero's views on, 87, i68»2i; in Crete and Sparta, 26—27; in the late Roman Empire, 151; in Pliny's Panegyricus, 101—2, I69»2; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 17-18, 30,159m, 161 »3; in Xenophon's De Re Equestri, 23, i6o»i2; in Xenophon's Memorabilia, 37, IÓ2K2I

Minoan bull vaulting, i59»49. See also Bull hunting Molossian hounds, 33; Martial's commentary on, 99, i69»63; in Nemesianus's Cynegetica, 140; in Vergil's Aeneid, 92, 168 »45 Molossian mastiff, 33; in Horace's Epodes, 93, I68»47 Moles, 134 Mongoose, 135 Morality in hunting: in Arrian's Cynegetica, 115,117,119, 170W32, I70»39, I70»44;

comparison of Plato's and Pliny the Younger's views on, 100; in Plato's Leges, 20, 100, 169H70. See also Laws on hunting Mules, 88,136,142 Mycenean art, 5 - 6 , 10 Mysian Olympus, 56-57, 58

Plato's Leges, 20; in Xenophon's Memorabilia, 18,159*23 Nomads, 119; horses of, 106, 107,118 Numerian, Emperor, 139 Nysa beyond Syria, in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 56, 57, 165 »80

Namatius, Sidonius Apollinaris's advice to, 151-52, 173 »77 Naples, paintings of Roman hunting in, 135—36 Nemean Lion: in Gibbon's commentary on Commodus, 125, 171 »9; slain by Hercules, 4 , 125 Nero, 89, 98; Dio Cassius on amphitheater hunts staged by, 100,169 »67 Nets, 107; in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, 123,170»1; on archaic vases, 39; Arrian's attitudes on the use of, 119, I70»44; in Assyrian royal hunts, 65, 66, 67; for bird catching, 20, i68w8; on Cretan seals, 14,158 »51; on Etruscan vases, 39—42; Grattius on, 94,168H50; Herododotus on, 70, 165K26; invention of in Oppian's Cynegetica, 159 »3; in Ovid's Metamorphoses, 54—55, I6S»78; in Persian hunting, 68, 69; road nets, see Road nets; in Roman sarcophagi, 127-29, 138,139,141; significance of hunting without, 80,159W3; types of, 38-39, 41-42; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 38, 39, 47, 58, 162W27,162W29, 163W35,164W55,164W60. See also Long nets; Purse nets; Road nets Net watchers, 41; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 37-38,162W26 Nicander of Colophon, on foxhounds, 42,163W43 Nineveh, 63—64, 81 Nisaean horses, 68, 71 Nocturnal hunting, i59»3; in

Odysseus, 3; boar hunting by, 1-2,156m; goat hunting by, 14-15,158»52; hound of, 16, i59»63; stag hunting by, 14, 148K50; wound of, 1 - 2 , 1 0 Oil bottles, Greek, 36-37, 49 Orpheus, 86 Orynx horses, 143; in Oppian's Cynegetica, 133, 171 »39 Ostriches, 61—62, 141 Oudna mosaic, 142-43

185

Pan, 20,121,153 Pangaeum, Mount, 55 Panthers, 55, 75 Park hunting: on the Alexander Sarcophagus, 76, 78; by Alexander the Great described by Curtius, 79-80; by Domitian described by Suetonius, 100, 101, 1 6 9 m , I 6 9 « 6 7 ;

in

Fronto's advice to Marcus Aurelius, 125,I7i»7; and paradeisos in Pollux's Onomasticon, 58, i65»33; in Persia, 57, 58,59, 61; Varro's description of, 86, i67»I4; in Xenophon's Anabasis, 57, 61, 165m, i65»9; in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 58 Parnassus, and the boar hunt in Homer's Odyssey, 1 - 2 , 156«! Partridges, 62,143 Patroclus, funeral games in Homer's Iliad for, 20,160 »7 Persian royal hunts, 57, 58-63; Assyrian influences on, 63; dress for, 67, 71, 75, 76; education for described in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 58-60, 165B4; in Greco-Persian art and gems, 67-69; degeneracy in described in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 62,165»i3; and military invasions described in Xenophon's Ana-

INDEX Persian royal hunts (continued) basis, 61-62, I65»IO; park hunting in, 57,58,59, 61; in Plutarch's Artaxerxes, 62, i65»i2; on tombstones, 71—73; tridents in, 131 fetasos, 79, 80; defined, 37; in Roman art, 96 Phaedra, 13,14, 90,127 Phoenicia, 73, 75 Phrygia, 61, 70 Piazza Armerina mosaic in Sicily, 131-32,143-47,149 Pigeons, 133 Pitfalls, 149; for big-game hunting in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 56,165M80, I72«47; for lion hunting in Arrian's Cynegetkus, 135, 172«47 Pompeii, artifacts from, 96, 97 Pompey the Great: Cicero on hunt spectacles staged by, 87, 168 »19; Dio Cassius on hunt spectacles staged by, 86-87, I68HI8

Priscus, 100, 115; and Martial's advice on the dangers of hunting, 99, 169x64; and Martial's commentary on winter hunting, 99,169 »63 Professional hunters, xi, 122, 143; Herodotus's commentary on, 70, 165 »26; in Plato's Leges, 22 Ptolemy I of Egypt, 76; in Pliny's Historia naturalis, 81, i67»6o Ptolemy V, Polybius on the hunting skills of, 81,167M61 Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, 82; Athenaeus on the animal processions of, 81, i67»s8 Purse nets, 41; in Arrian's Cynegetkus, 117, 119, 170K4-4; defined, 38,162M31; in paintings of the late Roman Empire, 136; in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 38, 47, $1, 52, 55, I64»57, 164 »69, 164 «70 Pylos frescoes, 14 Religious rituals: of bird catchers, 20; in Celtic hunt-

ing, 120; in mosaics, 142,144; in Roman hunting, 103,121, 136 "Rites of passage," 26. See also Manhood and hunting Road nets, 38-39, 41, 42; in Pollux's Onomasticon, 38, I62«33; in Xenophon's Cynegetkus, 38-39, 163 «35 Roberts, Michael, I72»4 Rodenwaldt, G., on Tiryns, IS7»33-IS8»39, 158 K41 Roman hunting, 83-153; in art, 95-97, 98, 103-4, "9, 12629,135-39, 141-47; on coins, 104,124; cruelty in, 101,125; deities and religious rituals in, 103,104,117,119,121, 126—27,136; and the downfall of Rome, 147,150,153; dress for, 96, 103, 127, 135, 137,138; by emperors in the late empire, 124-26,148, 149; falconry in, 151, 153; female participation in, 90-91, 136-37, 138; for food, 88-89; by Hadrian, 102-6; and imperial virtue, 100,148, 150-51; influence of Greek hunting on, 83, 84, 85,125,135; instruction for, 84-85,124-25,148; laws on lion hunting, 105, I69»I3; opposition to, 84—87, 100; for political purposes, 85, 86, 148-49; and wild game parks, 86,100,101, 125 Roman spectator sports, 84; beginning of, 81; in Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares, 87, 168K19; Claudian on the collection of animals for, 149, 172«72; described by Dio Cassius for the triumph of Julius Caesar, 86, I68»I7; Gratian's participation in, 148; and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, 81; by Nero in Dio Cassius's writings, 100, i69»67; by Pompey the Great described by Dio Cassius, 86-87, I68»I8; by Pompey the Great in Pliny's Historia naturalis, 86-87, 168 »18;

186

public attitudes on emperors in, 148,172»69; and Stilicho's consulship in Claudian's De consulata Stilkhoris, 149, J72»72; in Suetonius's Divus Julius, 86,168 »16 Romulus and Remus, 83 Rural life and hunting, in mosaics of the late Roman Empire, 141-47 Sarcophagi, hunt scenes on, 73-78, 126-29 Sarcophagus of Mourning Women, 75 Satrap Sarcophagus, 73-75, 78 Scares, 92; described by Grattius, 94, 141,168»5i; in Seneca's De ira, 92,168 »43; Nemesianus on the use of, 141, I72»62 Scent botdes, 31, 32 Scipio Aemilianus, 89; Polybius on the education of, 84-85, 167 »6 Sculpture: of Assyrian royal hunts, 63-67; of Roman hunts, 103-4 "Scythian" horses, in Arrian's Cynegetkus, 107,118, i70»2i Segusian hounds, 115; in Arrian's Cynegetkus, 108,134, 152,170»22; Aymard on, 173«79 Seleucus, 81 Shakespeare, William, Venus and Adonis by: hare hunting in, 45, i63»5o; stallions in, 132,17i»33; on the qualities of a good horse, 132-33, i7i»35 Sheep breeds, exotic, 81 "Sheep dogs," 93 Shields: of Achilles, 2,5; clothes as, 37; in Mycenean lion hunting, 6; in Roman art, 96; of the Roman army, 141 Sichtermann, H., I7i«i3-i7i»i6 Sicily, mosaics in, 131-32, 143-47,149 Sidon, king of, 73-75, 76 "Sigma tables," 147 Silvanus, god of the forest, 103 Socrates, 17,18, 30, 60 Somerville, William, 45; on

INDEX big-game hunting, 57-58, i65»2; on a "regular and welldisciplined pack of hounds," xii, 173 «79 Sophists, 30,135,173»79 Spain: Hadrian's hunting experiences in, 102—3; horses in, 141; hounds of, 140; hunting on horseback in, 103; and Martial's commentary on hunting, 98-99,169H63 Sparta, 133; hounds from, 42, 51, 93,140; and hunting by horseback in Pausanias's writings, 27,160H28; Lysander of, 60 Spartan hunting and military training, 26-27; Athenaeus on, 27, I6O»25; Plutarch on, 27,160 »25; in Xenophon's Lacedaemoniorum respublica, 17, l6o»24, 16OM27 Spartan huntresses, 28-29; and female athletics in Xenophon's Lacedaemoniorum respublica, 28-29, I6I»36; in Propertius's writings, 28, 161M31; in Vergil's Aeneid, 28, I6I»34

Spectator, The, hare hunting described in, »5, 170W34 Spectator sports, 81; and Assyrian royal hunts, 63-64, 67, 81; in the Greek Bronze Age, 12. See also Roman spectator sports Sport hunting, xi-xii, 51, 83, 93; in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 107, 115,119,138; by Assyrian royalty, 9; compared with food hunting, 107,115-16,122;

compared with predator control in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 56, I65«8O; by country gentlemen in Xenophon's Oeconomicus, 18-19, i59»4; by Prince Demetrius of Syria, 85; in Roman North African mosaics, 141-43; referred to in Plato's Leges, 20, 22; and Xenophon's moral scruples in Cynegeticus, 46,163052 Stadter, Philip E., \70m0, 170 »47 Stag hunting: in Arrian's Cynegeticus, 117-18; behavior of stags in Oppian's Cynegetica, 134-35,172 »44; chariots used for, 10,12; by Cyrus the Great in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 59; in Homer's Odyssey, 14,158H50; lassoes used for, 119; Roman attitudes toward, 93, 97; and Seneca's Clementia, 97, I69»6O; in Sicilian mosaics, 143,

144

Stelmoniai for hounds: in Pollux's Onomasticon, 46, I64»54; in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 46,164W54 Stesichorus of Himera, 26 Stilicho, 150; and animal collection for spectacles described by Claudian, 149, i72»72 Sulpicia, in Tibullus's writings, 90-91, 168 »37 Swans, 141

Theodoric II, hunting by described by Sidonius Apollinaris, 152-53, 173 «78 Tiaras, 67, 68, 71 Tigranus, M. Perennius, 96 Titus, Emperor, 98 Tombstones, 70-73; for Hadrian's horse, Borystenes, 105—6; Mycenean, 5, 10 Toynbee, J. M. C., 167ms, I68»20, I68»47, 169«65, 1707225, 171 «11, I7I«I2; on Greek influences, 102, 16904 Trajan, 1 0 1 - 2 Tridents, 54, 68,131-32 Tullius Maximus, 103 Tunisian mosaics, 136-38 Tuscan hounds, 140 Uthina mosaic, 142-43 Utica mosaic, 138 Vapheio cups, 54 Venatio, defined, 84 Vertragt. See Celtic hounds Vidal-Naquet, P., 159«? Visigothic kings, 152-53 Vulpine hounds, 42 Warrens for wild game, 86 Whippets, hi Winter hunting, 134,141; in Anthologia Palatinia, 48, I64«6I; for hares in Xenophon's Cynegeticus, 48, i64»6o Wolves, 134; in Homer's Iliad, 15, 158 »54, 158 »56 Zeus, 15, 26, 29, 82

Taygetus, Mount, 27, 28, 29

187

I N D E X OF A U T H O R S AND WORKS

Aelian, 135 Aleman, Partheneion, I6I»4O Anthobgia Palatina: on the death of hounds from thirst, 114,170«30; on the epitaph of Hippaemon, 71, 165/J32; on the epitaph of Pericles, 71, I66«JJ; on equipment of bird catchers, 20, i6o»8; on hunting by horseback, 23, i6o»i4; on Therimachus's hunting gear donated to Pan, 153, i73»8o; on winter hare hunting, 48, i64»6i Antipater of Thessalonica, on the death of hounds from thirst, 114,170 »30 Apollodorus, Btbliotheca: on the childhood diet of Achilles, 4, 157/112; huntresses in, 14,158 »44 Apuleius, Metamorphoses', on goat and boar hunting, 122-24,170K2; Greek setting and the role of the donkey in, 122, 170/ii; hounds described in, 123, 173W79; servants in, 123, 170 »2

Aristophanes —Acharnians, compared with Xenophon's views on farmers, 19, I59»4 —Lysistrata, and hunting by night by Hippolytus, 18, I59»3

Aristode, 135 —Athenaion politeia, on agriculture, 23, 160/117 —Historia animalium: on foxhounds, 34,162K14; on lions in Greece, 4,157K13 —Rhetoric, on stag hunting by horseback, 26, i6o»2i Arrian, 99, 1 0 6 - 7 —Cynegeticus: Celtic hunting in, 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 120, 123, 170/139, 170W47; compared with Xenophon's views on hunting, 1 1 5 - 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 0 , 122,170M35,170/139; on Cyrus the Younger's horsemen, 118, 170 W49; on deities and rituals, 117, 119, 120-21,170»45,170«47; on hare hunting, 108,114-15, 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 17°»39; on horses for hunting, 107,115,118, 119,132,170 »40; on Libyan

188

horsemanship, 118,170/H0; on morality in hunting, 115,117,119,170W39, 170M44; on Scythian horses, 107,118, 170/121; on stag hunting, 117-18; on the techniques of hunting, 119,170 W44; Xenophon's Cynegeticus, summarized in, 107, 170 W21; on Xenophon's pleasure at the kill, 115-16, 170/135 —Cynegeticus, hounds in, 107, 108-14,115, " 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 20, 133,138,151,152,173 «23; Arrian's personal hound, 110, 170/123; breeds in, 1 0 8 - 1 0 , 170/123; Celtic, 107,108,116,170//21, 170/140; diet and care of, 1 1 3 - 1 4 , 170/129; disposition in, HI, 113,170/128; for hare hunting, 114-15,170/132; physique and color of, no—11,170/124; praising of, 116,170/137; Segusian, 108,170/122; tracking hounds used with gazehounds, 117,138,170/139, 172/155; training of, 1 1 9 - 2 0 ,

INDEX 170/246; for winter hunt-

lion hunting by Alexander

hounds and Egyptian lux-

ing, 114,170/231

and L y s i m a c h u s , 7 9 - 8 0 ,

ury, 9 4 , 1 6 8 »53; o n h e m p

167»80

nets, 94, 168/250; on horses

Athenaeus: on animal processions staged by Ptolemy Philad e l p h i a , 81, 167/258; o n

Cassander's status and boar hunting, 80,167/252; on chariots driven by Spartan women, 29, 161 »37; on Macedonian manhood and boar hunt-

f o r hunting, 95, 168/255; o n

Dio Cassius: on amphitheater hunting by Nero, 100, 1697267; on bear hunting and city established by H a d r i a n , 103, 169728; o n

boar hunting by Marcus

hunting equipment, 94, 168/250; o n s c a r e s , 9 4 , 1 4 1 , 168 »51

Herodotus: on the death of Atys, 70, 165/227; on Indian

Aurelius, 124,170/23; o n

h o u n d s , 49, 164/264; o n

hunts staged by Pompey

i n g , 8 0 , 1 5 9 « 3 , 167/252; o n

the G r e a t , 8 6 - 8 7 , 168«18;

lions in Greece, 4, IJ7»IJ; on nets and professional

Roman "games" and Anti-

on laws on lion hunting,

hunters, 70, 165/226; and

ochus I V , 81, 167/256; o n

105, 169/H3; o n the reign o f

the stallion of Darius the

Spartan military training,

C o m m o d u s , 125,171/28; o n

27,160/225

spectacles at Caesar's triumph, 86, 168 »17; on the tomb for Hadrian's horse,

Ausonius, 147-48: on accidents and wounds from hunting, 147, 148 —Epistolae-. on the murder of

106, 169 » 1 7

Dio Chrysotom: on moral vir-

G r e a t , 132,171 «32

Homer —Iliad: Achilles compared with a lion, 159/261; Agamemnon compared with a lion, 3, 156/26; Ajax similes

Gratian, 148, 172/269; o n

tue and hunting, 1 0 1 - 2 ,

in, 4 - 5 , 157/216; archery

Theon's apple gifts and

169/22; o n sophists and un-

contest between Teucer

verses, 148, 172/268

Avianus Fabulae, lion hunting in, 1 2 9 , 171 « 1 8 Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis,

trained hounds, 173 »79 Diodorus Siculus: on hunting by Antiochus IX, 81, 167/257; on slave herdsmen, 84, 167ns

82

Cicero —De natura deorum, on the value of hunting, 87, 168 » 2 1

—Epistolae ad familiares, on Roman spectator sports, 87, 1 6 8 K19

—Pro. M. Caelio, on mixed bathing parties, 90, 168/233 Claudian —De consulatu Stilichonis, on animal collection for spec-

Euripides —Andromache, on coeducational sport, 165 »35 —Hippolytus, huntresses in, 4,

1 4 9 , 172/270

Codex Theodosianus, on lion hunting, 105, 169/213

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarutn: epitaph of Hadrian's horse, 105-6, 169/216; o n hunting o n

160727; Bear Constellation in, 15, 158/257; Calydonian

Bear hunt in, 2,156 »2; conflicts between men and lions in, 4 - 5 ; Diomedes compared with a lion, 5, 157W17; hare hunting in, 14, 158 »48; Hector compared with a boar or a lion in, 2, 4,156/23,157*115; H e c t o r

1587244

Fronto, M . Cornelius, Epistulae-. Marcus Aurelius's letter on hunting in,

compared with hunting hounds, 4, 157/215; jackals in, 15,158/255; lion cubs in, I59»6I; lions in, 2, 3,15,

1 2 4 - 2 5 , 171/26; o n p a r k

1 5 6 / 1 4 , 156/28, I58»55; o n t h e

hunting and dangers, 125,

rewards of princes for

171 » 7

fighting,

tacles, 149, 172/272

—De nuptiis Honorii, on Honorius's giving up hunting,

and M e r i o n e s , 2 0 , 1 2 1 ,

Gibbon, Edward, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-, as a classic work, xii; on Commodus as the Roman Hercules, 125, 171 «9; on hunting by

5, 1577218; and the

roar of lions, 3,156/28; on wolf hides worn by Dolon, 15,158/256; on wolf predation of stags, 15,158/254 —Odyssey. Argos the hound in, 16, 159/263,172/242; Artemis and n y m p h s in, 29,161/241;

H o n o r i u s , 149, 172/271

b e a r s i n , 15,158/257, 158/258;

Grattius, 93, 168 «49 —Cynegeticon, 93-95; on Brit-

on the boar hunt on Parnassus, 1—2,156/21; food

horseback in Spain, 103,

ish h o u n d s , HI, 170«26; o n

hunting in, 14-15,158/250,

169 » 6

Celtic hounds, 94, 168/252; on diseases of hounds, 94, 168 »54; on the feeding of

f o r f o o d , 14—15,158/252;

Curtius: on Alexander and Abd a l o n y m u s , 76, 166M42; on

189

158/252; goat hunting on hunting by foot, 10,

INDEX Odyssey (continued) Odysseus compared with a lion, 3, I56»7; stag hunting for food, 14, 1582250 Horace, 88-90,100 —Carmina: on Cytherea's winged boy, 89-90, 168 »31; on the wives of hunters, 91, I68»4O —Epistolae: advice to Lollius in, 88, 124, 168 »26; on the decline of Roman agriculture, 84, 167224; on the purchase of boar meat, 89, 1687228 —Epodes: on Molossian and Laconian hounds, 93, 168 »47 —Satires: on boar hunting for food, 88, 168 »27; on Greek influences on Roman hunting, 89,168 »30 Isocrates, 161224 Juvenal, Satire, on Maevia and female hunters, 90,168 »36 Leonidas of Tarentum, on hunting gear donated to Pan, 153, 1732280 Livy: on hunting by Romulus and Remus, 83, 167222; on Roman spectator sports, 81, 1672256 Martial, 97-100: advice to Priscus, 99, 169M63; on fishing, 99, 1692262; on hare hunting, 99, 169M64; on home-bred boars, 98, 1692261; on riding accidents, 99; Spanish background of, 97-98,102-3; on sport vs. food hunting, 99; vertragi (Celtic hounds), described by, 115, 1702233 Nemesianus, Cynegetica, 129, 139-41; date of, 139; on horses for hunting, 141, 1722261; on hounds, 13941, i72»6o; on hunting

myths and Numerian triumphs, 139, 1722259; on nets and scares, 141, 172 »62; on the training of hounds, 140-41, 1722260 Oppian —Cynegetica, 129-35, 171 »20, 1712221, 17121139; authorship of, 129, 1712220; on breeds of horses, 132,1712234; on Cappadocian horses, 133, 1712236; on the color of horses' eyes, 133, 171M38; dialogue with Artemis, 6, 130, 1712222; on dress for hunting, 131, i7i»25, 1712226; on equipment for hunting, 131, 1712228; on fishing and wildfowling, 130; on hare hunting, 135, 1722248; on horses for hunting, 132,133,135, 1712231, 171 »3+, 1712236— 1712239; on hounds, 133, 134,1712240,171 «41,172 »42, 1722243; and hunting horns, 1722274; on the invention of hunting nets by Hippolytus,. 159223; on Libyan hunting, 135, 1722246; on lion hunting, 135, 1722247; on the mongoose, 135, 1722245; on Orynx horses, 133, 1712239; on the physique of hunters, 131, 171 »23; sources of, 129, 1717221; on stag behavior, 134—35, 172«44; and the stallion of Darius the Great, 132, 1712232; on stallions for hunting horses, 132,1712231; on the time and seasons for hunting, 131, 171 «27; on tracking hounds, 134, 171 »41,1712242 —Haliéutica, 171 «20 Ovid, 100 —Ars amoris, on hunting and romantic pursuits, 91, 168 »39 —Epistulae ex Ponto, Grattius in, 93, i68»49 —Hercules, on Phaedra and hunting by Hippolytus,

190

90, 168 »34 —Metamorphoses-, on the Calydonian boar hunt, 54-55, 1657278; nets in, 55,1652278; on romance in hunting, 90,168 »32 —Remedia amoris, on romantic disappointments and hunting, 91, 1682238 Pausanias: on the Caiydonian Boar tusks, 15,1582260; on the cult of Love in Thespiae, 105,1692215; on Spartan hunting, 27,1602228 Perses, on hunting on horseback, 23, 1602214 Petronius, Satires, on boars served for food, 89, 1682229 Philostratus, Imagines, on paintings of Roman hunting, 135-36,1722250,1722251 Pindar, Nemean Odes, on hunting and the training of heroes, 22, I6O»9 Plato —Leges-. Arrian's moral attitudes toward hunting contrasted with, 119; on the educational value of hunting, 19, 159226; on fishing and fowling, 20, 22; on hounds and horses in hunting, 22; on nets and scares, 100,1692270; on nocturnal hunting, 20; Pliny the Younger's attitude toward hunting contrasted with, 100,1692270; Spartans and Cretans in, 26 —Protagoras, on war against wild beasts, 75,1662240 —Republic, 26; on athletics for women, 1612235 Pliny —Historia naturalisa on donkeys and wild asses for food, 92, 1682246; on hunting by Ptolemy I, 81, 1672260; and hunting scenes on table silverware, 96,1692256; on Pompey the Great's staged hunts, 86-87, 1682218

INDEX —Panegyricus, on Trajan's hunting style, I O I — 2 , I 6 9 » 2 Pliny the Younger, Epistulae: on blank days in hunting, 106, 169W19; on boar hunting, 100,169W68; on game near his country house, 100, 169»69 Plutarch —Aetnilius, on Greek hunting instruction, 85, 167 »9 —Agis and Cleomenes, on gifts for Egyptian kings, 82, 167W63 —Alexander: on bear hunting and safety, 80, i67»5i; on lion hunting by Alexander, 78, 79, I66»46; on Macedonian net hunting, 159M3 —Artaxerxes, on hunting by Cyrus, 62,165 »12 —Cittum, and hunting on horseback, 25—26, 160 »19 —Demetrius, on hunting and Demetrius's career, 80-81, I67»55 —Lycurgus, on Spartan military training and food sources, 27, IÓOW24, 160H25 —Moralia, on military service by townsmen, 19,159 »5 —Philopoemen, on hunting by Philopoemen, 81,167M62 Pollux, 131; on dress for hunting, 34-35, 36, 37, 4i; on equipment for hunting, 35 —Onomasticon, 171W24; on Atalanta's hound, i64«74; on Castorian hounds, 42, 163 »43; on the characteristics of hunters, 35,162»I7; books of dedicated to Emperor Commodus, 126; on hunting servants, 37, 162K24; on "paradise" and park hunting, 58, 165 »3; on road nets, 162M33; on telmonia and equipment for hounds, 46,1647254; on winter hunting, 48, I64»6O

Polybius, 89; on bull hunting by Ptolemy V, 81, I67»6I; career of, 84, 85; on the escape of Prince Demetrius,

85, i67«7; hunting in Circaeum by, 90; on Scipio Aemilianus's political use of hunting, 84-85, I67»6 Procopius, De hello Gothico, on Honorius, 149, 172M71 Propertius, Spartan huntresses described by, 28, i6i»33 Rutilius Namatianus, 149-50; on boar hunting, 150, I72«74; on hunting horns, 150,153, 172W74 Sallust, Catilina: on political gifts of horses and hounds, 87,168 »23; on Roman opposition to hunting, 86, I67»II

Serif tores Historiae Augustae (SHA) —Hadrian-, on boar hunting by Hadrian, 103,169K7; on Hadrianoutherae and bear hunting by Hadrian, 103, 169 »8; on Hadrian's dress and beard, 102, i69»5; on Hadrian's education, 102, I69«3 —Marcus Antoninus, on hunting by Antoninus Pius, 124, 170/25 Seneca, 102—3 —De dementia, on Roman hunting techniques, 97, i69»6o —De ira, on deer scares, 92, 168 »43 Sidonius Apollinaris, 150-53 —Epistolae: on hounds, 151, 173 »77; on hunting by Theodoric II, 152-53, 173 »78; on sports and hunting in Sidonius's youth, 150, 173 W75 Panegyricus inAvitum: on imperial virtue symbolized by hunting, 150—51 Panegyricus in Antemium: Anthemius compared with Achilles in, 151, 173 »76 Spartianus, 104 Strabo: on British hounds, m , I70»26; on Cretan manhood rituals, 26, i6o»23

191

Suetonius —Divus Augustus, on the promotion of hunting, 88, I68»24

—Divus Julius, on hunts and spectacles staged by Julius Caesar, 86, 168«16, i68«i7 —Domitianw. on cruel hunting by Domitian, 101,169 »1; on park hunting by Domitian, 100, 169 «67 Tacitus —Annales, on hunting on horseback by Gotarzes, 93, 168»48 —Pliny the Younger's letter on hunting to, 100, 169 »68 Theocritus, Idylls, on curved sticks for hare hunting, 40, 163W42 Thucydides, compared with Xenophon's views on farmers, 19, I69»i4 Tibullus, on Sulpicia's attitudes toward hunting, 90—91, 168 »37 Varro, 100 —De re rustica, on wild animal parks, 86,167OT4 —Saturae Menippeae: Atalanta in, 90, I68»35; hunting satirized in, 87, I68»22 Vergil —Aeneid, 105; beaters omitted in, 92, i68»4i; hunting by Aenaeas and lulus in, 91-92, 168 »41; on the pursuit of Turnus, 92,168«44; Venus and Spartan huntresses in, 28, I6I»34 —Georgia, 95; on horses in hunting, 92, I68»42; on hounds for hunting, 92, 168»45; on rural hunting, 88, 168 »25 Xenophon —Agesilaus: Agesilaus's army praised in, 51,164»68; on chariots driven by Spartan women, 29, I6I»37 —Anabasis', on the Artemis festival organized by Xeno-

INDEX Anabasis {continued) phon, 23, 31,160M13, 16206; on Cyrus the Younger, 60-61, 16508; on hunting at the Artemis festival, 31, 162M6; on military hunts by Cyrus the Younger's army, 61-62,165010; "paradise" hunting in, 57, 165m; on Spartan destruction of Persian game parks, 61, 16509; on the stealing of a military victory, 29, 161 »42 —Cynegeticus: authorship of, 161B2; baits and pitfalls in, 56, 165080; on the benefits of hunting, 17-18,159m; on big-game hunting, 55—56, 165080; on billhooks, 131,171024; on boar attacks, 53, 164073; on boar behavior and net location, 52, 164072; on boar hunting, 51-53, 55, 164073, 165079; on boyhood and the time to start hunting, 37, 162020; on the cod end of purse nets, 51, 164069; cudgels in, 34, 40, 162015; date of, 30,57,161M4; on dress for hunting, 34, 162015; on the educational value of hunting, 30, 37, 16103, 162«20; on fawn hunting, 49, 164H59; on footsnares for boar hunting, 55, 165079; on footsnares for deer hunting, 50, i64»67; on hare behavior, 45,1637150; on hare-hunting terrain, 44, 163 «48; on hare hunting in winter, 48, 164060; on hare running speed, 45, 163051; on hare species, 45—46, 163»52; on laws and hunting among crops,

46,163 »53; on the "man of property" and hunting equipment, 37, 162025; on the military value of hunting, 17—18,159m; on the morning start, 47, 164056; on nets, 38, 162027, 162028; on net watchers, 37-38, 126027; on nocturnal hunting, 18, 159m; on purse nets, 47, 164057; on pursenet size for boar hunting, 51, 164070; on road nets, 38—39, 163 »35; on skirtinglines for boar hunting, 52, 164071; sophists in, 30; typical hunting day in, 47, 164057; young pigs in, 55, 165»79 -Cynegeticus, hounds in, 42—48, 51—52, 55; for boar hunting, 51—52, 1647172; care and feeding in, 4 7 48, 164059; Castorian, 42, 163043; collars and stelmoniai for, 46, 164054; color of, 44, 163047; at the end of the hunt, 47, i64»57; on faults in the physique of, 42-43, 163045; on faulty hunting behavior, 43, 163«46; "foxh o u n d s " in, 34, I62»I4;

good characteristics of, 43—44, 163047; on Indian hounds, 49, 164062; on lifted heads during hare hunting, 137-38, 172054; on scent tracking of hares, 44, 163048; in windy weather, 46—47, 164055 •'Cyropaedia, 58-60, 62-63; on the beginning of the Assyrian war, 60, 16505; on bonds between hunting companions, 28,161 «31; on Cambyses's advice on the military value of hunting,

192

68,165024; compared with Vergil's Aeneid, 91; on Cyrus the Great's education in hunting, 58-60, 68, 16504; on hunting by Cyrus the Great, 60,16506; on hunt symbolism used by Cyrus for military tactics, 68,165025; on King Artaxerxes and Persian court degeneracy, 62, 165013 —De Re Equestri: on horsemanship in hunting, 23, 160012; and the students of sophists, 30, 16205 —Hellenica: on the hunting bonds between Agesilaus and Agesipolis, 28, 161030; on the Spartan destruction of Persian game parks, 61, 16509 —Lacedaemoniorum respublica: on athletics by Spartan women, 28—29,161036; on food supplies and hunting in Spartan military training, 27,160027; on food theft in Spartan military training, 27, 160024 —Memorabilia', on hunting by night, 18,15903; on physical fitness and military service, 37, 162021; on sophists, 30 —Oeconomicus, 27: on agricultural activities of Cyrus the Younger, 60,16507; on agriculture and hunting, 19, 22, 160010; on farmers and military service, 19, 15904; on horsemanship by Ischomachus, 22—23, 160 011 —Symposium, on boys' place at banquets, 167052 Zosimus, 172069

Designer: Sandy Drooker Compositor: G & S Typesetters, Inc. Text: 10/13 Galliard Display: Galliard Printer: Malloy Lithographing Binder: John H. Dekker & Sons