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

Although it does not specify their size, evidence that Molossian dogs were highly
valued as early as the sixth century B.C. comes from a passage from Athenaeus’
Deipnosophists. The author cites two late fourth-century authors, Clytus, a disciple of
Aristotle, and Alexis, a comic poet, who count Molossian dogs among the most special
animals collected by Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos (ca. 538-522 B.C.):
Clytus the Aristotelian, in his work On Miletus, says of Polycrates the tyrant of
Samos that his instinct for luxury moved him to get together the special products
of every country—hounds from Epeirus, goats from Scyros, sheep from Miletus,
and swine from Sicily. Alexis, too, in the third book of Samian Chronicles says
that Samos was enriched by Polycrates with the products of many cities: he
imported Molossian and Laconian hounds, goats from Scyros and Naxos, and
sheep from Miletus and Attica. (Deipn. 12.540c-12.540d) [76]
Both fragments indicate that Molossian dogs were already known as the special animals
of Epeirus in the late sixth century B.C. By attesting that Polycrates included them
among his luxurious possessions, 260 the fragments also suggest that the exceptional social
status that Molossian dogs signified in pre-Classical times was still relevant as a topic,
and therefore, included in the writings of fourth-century authors.
The literary evidence cited so far indicates that in Classical Greece the
relationship between humans and the dog was governed by an anthropocentric attitude.
The dog lived together with humans in the same domestic setting, and served as a
guardian of this setting, its residents, and their possessions. Fidelity and vigilance—an
essential feature of cunning intelligence—were two qualities for which the animal was
esteemed, whereas its ability to fawn and bite at once marked it as a deceptive and
260 For a discussion of the Greek adoption of Persian practices as a sign of prosperity and power, and
literary evidence (e.g., Klearchos in Ath. Deipn. 12.54) that charges Polycrates with the establishment of
his own animal park (paradeisos) in emulation of Sardis, see M. C. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth
Century B.C. A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge, 1997) 188-189.
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