The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

indicate that the premises of the Classical Greek house served as shelter for the animal,
which further implies the very real presence of the dog in everyday domestic life. The
inclusion of a dog in the house of Chremylus raises the question whether specific space
was reserved for the animal. Archaeological evidence regarding the existence of
doghouses in ancient Greek houses is lacking. Physical evidence regarding doghouses in
the classical world, however, comes from Pompeii. 226
Of particular interest in the passage is the sequence to which Hermes adheres
when he enumerates the residents of Chremylus’s house—master, wife, children,
servants, dog, Carion, pig. 227 As can be seen, Hermes follows a hierarchical order by
considered the horse to be a family member, an indication that the feeling does not depend upon the
animal’s actual living in the house. More recently and in the context of the effects of hurricane Katrina on
both people and animals on the Gulf Coast of the United States, some fifteen thousand pets, among them
dogs, cats, parakeets, and goats, were stranded, rescued, and consequently adopted by new owners. As K.
Boccella, “Tug-of-War Erupts Over Katrina Pets—Class and Race Shade the Fight Between Those Who
Lost, Those Who Now Have,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (July 16, 2006) 1, reports, many evacuees, in an
effort to reclaim the pets they were forced to abandon, sued agencies that set up the animals for adoption by
new owners. In defense of former owners, lawyers representing them in custody battles have argued that
their clients lost everything, but the only thing left to them is their family; and these animals are their
family. The situation, however, has brought forward the overlooked but well-established contradiction
between the widely held notion that pets are family members and their legal status as mere property.
Reflective of the attempt to resolve this contradiction is the growing specialty of animal law within the
legal world. Explaining the objective of lawyers specializing in this field, W. St. John, “New Breed of
Lawyer Gives Every Dog His Day in Court,” New York Times (Sept. 3, 2006) 13, states that their primary
goal is: “getting the legal system to acknowledge that animals have an intrinsic value beyond mere
property, because of the bond between pets and their owners.”
226 Two doghouses were found at Pompeii. One is a small masonry doghouse located in the southwest
corner of the tablinum of a house (XI.V.2) on the Via di Nola. For a discussion of this doghouse, see W. F.
Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New York,
1979) 103, n. 65, fig. 163. A second doghouse was excavated in the so-called Garden of Hercules, which
comprised part of a humble house (II.VIII.6) to the west of the Great Palaestra. The doghouse, which was
found south of the triclinium, was made by mounting on a masonry base half of a terracotta jar, dolium, that
was cut lengthwise. For a discussion and an illustration of this doghouse, see Jashemski, The Gardens of
Pompeii 103, n. 66; 279; 426, fig. 422; Also a mosaic from Carthage (A.D. IV-V) depicts a dog chained to
its house: D. Brewer et al., Dogs in Antiquity. Anubis to Cerberus. The Origins of the Domestic Dog
(Warminster, 2000) 93, fig. 5.12. Varro (116-27 B.C.) is the first classical author to refer to kennels. In his
discussion on dogs living in farms (Rust. 2.9.12-2.9.13), he recommends: “on rainy days the kennels should
be bedded with leaves or fodder, and this for two purposes: to keep them from being muddied and to keep
them from getting chilled”; translation: W. D. Hooper, ed., tr., rev. H. B. Ash, Marcus Porcius Cato. On
Agriculture. Marcus Terentius Varro. On Agriculture (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1934; rev. and repr.
1935; repr. 1993) 403.
227 Additional evidence, that pigs were kept in the courtyards of Athenian houses in specific pens called
xoirokomei=a, derives from comedy (Vesp. 844; Lys. 1037). As A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wealth (The
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