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

his treatise Outlines of Pyrrhonism, he presents a specific reason for not eating dogs,
while highlighting both contemporary and ancient cases of evidence to the contrary:
Eating dog’s flesh, too, is thought by us [Greeks] to be sinful (a)ni/eron), but some
of the Thracians are reported to be dog-eaters. Possibly this practice was
customary also amongst the Greeks; and on this account Diocles, too, starting
from the practices of the Asclepiadae, prescribes that hounds’ flesh should be
given to certain patients. (P. 3.225) [184]
Along with considering it sinful, the passage associates the consumption of dog flesh
with a specific cultural group, the Thracians. In this way, the approach to this practice as
a cultural marker is again clear. The passage also expresses the suspicion that eating
dogs was a Greek habit of the past. 304 The reference to Diocles, a physician of the fourth
century B.C., and his prescription of dog flesh as a dietary treatment suggests that
contemporary medicine did not recognize the curative properties that its ancient
counterpart attributed to dog flesh. Like Galen, Sextus Empiricus appears to be well-
acquainted with ancient medical literature.
Additional evidence regarding the consumption of dog flesh comes from
Porphyry. In his treatise On Abstinence from Killing Animals, the author categorically
denies involvement in this practice: “and though the war against the beasts is just, we
abstain from many that live with humans. That is why the Greeks do not eat dogs, or
horses, or donkeys” (1.14) [165]. In this statement, the reference to dogs as animals
304 The Early Bronze Age site of Lerna is the earliest Greek site that has yielded evidence for the
consumption of dogs in levels that date from 2200 to 1900 B.C.; N.-G. Gejwall, Lerna I: A Preclassical
Site in the Argolid: The Fauna (Princeton 1969) 17-18. Additional evidence comes from the Bronze
through Iron Age site of Kastanas: C. Becker, Kastanas. Ausgrabungen in einem Siedlungshügel der
Bronze-und Eisenzeit Makedoniens 1975-1979, die Teirnochenfunde (Prähistorische Archäologie in
Südosteuropa 5; Berlin, 1986) 88-97, 276-279; also from the Iron Age though Orientalizing Period site of
Kastro in East Crete; L. M. Snyder and W. E. Klippel, “From Lerna to Kastro: Further Thoughts on Dogs
as Food in Ancient Greece; Perceptions, Prejudices and Reinvestigations,” in E. Kotjabopoulou et al., eds.,
Zooarchaeology in Greece: Recent Advances (London, 2003) 221-231.
198