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

Apart from labeling dogs as indiscriminate eaters, textual evidence shows that
owners of dogs in Classical Greece fulfilled the nutritional needs of the animal by
providing it with a variety of foods. In Aristophanes’ Wasps, for example, Bdelycleon
states that Labes, the dog living in his house, will eat meat-scraps and fish-bones (968-
969) [47]. The statement reveals the diverse types of food that Labes ate. Although this
food appears to have been a discarded part of human diet, still does not fail to make a
strong case for the care that Labes received by having his meals provided to him.
Additional information regarding the food provided to dogs is to be found in
Xenophon. In his treatise On Hunting the author advises his audience that milk should be
included for a year in the diet of newborn puppies (Cyn. 7.4) [191]. 277 His advice gives
the impression that it was the owners’ responsibility to provide a diet that met the
nutritional needs of puppies. As with the diet of Labes, Xenophon’s statement reveals
that supplying food to the dog was part of the care that the animal received.
Perhaps the most interesting evidence for the type of food furnished to the dog
occurs in Aristophanes’ Knights. A fierce discussion between the sausage seller and
Paphlagon shows that hand-wipes, which were made of edible material, were, in turn,
recycled as the food par-excellence for dogs:
safe. The man sleeping with it would know these things”; translation: Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient
Greece 170.
277 To this evidence should be added a large beef bone found near the nose of a dog buried in a fourthcentury
round pit unearthed behind the Stoa of Attalos in Athens. This bone may be interpreted as
representing the favorite food of this animal, even though the possibility of a different meaning contingent
upon the funerary context should not be ruled out. For the excavation of this grave, see H. A. Thompson,
“Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1950,” Hesperia 20 (1951) 52, n. 14. For a discussion of beef being
the first choice among food preferred by dogs, see Thorne, “Feeding Behavior of the Domestic Dogs,” in
Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 104.
185