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

example, states that “these lines surely indicate beyond all doubt that meat of this kind
never passed the lips of the Greeks.” 308 Similarly, Frederick Simoons refers to this
passage as evidence that “seems to confirm the fact that dog flesh was not a usual food”
in Classical Greece. 309 He also suggests that the reference to dog flesh “may have been
an attempt at ridicule by Aristophanes,” but does not explain who the subject of this
ridicule may have been. 310 Further, Lilja sees the passage as an indication “that the
Greeks did not normally eat dog’s or ass’s flesh.” 311 In her view, Aristophanes used the
reference to dog flesh as an opportunity to ridicule the learned opinion of his great
contemporary, Hippocrates, who prescribed dog’s flesh as a curative food for certain
diseases. 312 Mainoldi elucidates the connection between Aristophanes and Hippocrates
by pointing out that the term ku&neia, which the former uses to refer to “dog flesh” (Eq.
1398), is also used in the Hippocratic treatises, where dog flesh features as therapeutic
food. 313 Furthermore, in these treatises, she explains, the term ku&neia is usually
accompanied by the term kre/ata, which translates as “meats,” and which Aristophanes
replaced with the term pra&gmata (Eq. 1399) in order to evoke the political affairs of the
city. 314 Although these are reasonable arguments, they do not detract from the fact that
308 Merlen, De Canibus 86.
309 F. J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (Madison, 1994)
235.
310 Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh 235.
311 Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 72.
312 Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 72.
313 Mainoldi, L’image du loup et du chien 174. For various examples from the Hippocratic Collection
where this term is used, see infra p. 56.
314 Mainoldi, L’image du loup et du chien 174; also for the tendency of Aristophanes to draw upon the
medical terminology of his time, the influence on and the literal or metaphorical use of these terms in his
plays, see H. W. Miller, “Aristophanes and Medical Language,” TAPA 76 (1945) 74-84. This suggestion
should not be taken to mean, however, that the terms ku&neia and kre/asin constituted medical terminology.
They are used frequently by Hippocrates, but fit better into the language of butchery and processing of
animal products. Given this evidence, their alteration to ku&neia pra&gmasin in the Knights accords well
with the fact that, in this play, both Paphlagon, a tanner, and the sausage seller are essentially processors of
meat products, who sell them in the agora, a place also linked here with the selling of political favors; for a
201