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

The Properties of Dog Flesh
Evidence that dog flesh was considered medicinal food appears in the treatise
entitled The Sacred Disease (c. 450-400 B.C.), which refers to epilepsy. 324 The author,
most likely a physician, is a vehement opponent of the popular belief that the disease is
the outcome of divine intervention. He considers responsible for such misconceptions
those magicians and charlatans who resorted to treat the disease with the following
procedures:
They [magicians and charlatans] used purifications and incantations; they forbade
the use of baths, and of many foods that are unsuitable for sick folk—of sea
fishes: red mullet, black-tail, hammer and the eel (these are the most harmful
sorts); the flesh of (krew~n) goats, deer, pigs, and dogs (kuno&j) (meats that disturb
most the digestive organs). (Morb. sacr. 1.28-1.35) [118]
In this passage, the speaker clearly states his negative opinion of magicians and
charlatans. He rejects their view of dog meat as an appropriate food for patients, in
general, and epileptics, in particular. 325 To the contrary, he associates the consumption of
dog meat (kuno&j) with causing problems in the digestive system. His rejection of dog
324 J. Jouanna, tr. M. B. DeBovoise, Hippocrates (Baltimore and London, 1999) 411.
325 The belief in dog flesh as appropriate food for epilepsy is also attested in Pliny (HN 30.27), who
includes “a sucking puppy taken in wine and myrrh after the head and the feet have been cut off” among
the most suitable diets for the treatment of the disease. Pliny’s suggestion regarding the preparation of the
carcass brings to mind the archaeological evidence from the site of Kastro in Crete, where the canine
skeletons discovered indicated removal of the head from the body along with that of the front and hind
limbs: Snyder and Klippel, “From Lerna to Kastro,” in Kotjabopoulou et al., eds., Zooarchaeology in
Greece 225. For the suggestion that, in Classical Athens, “the consumption of the head meat of a fish or an
animal was sought after for flavor and texture by those who had the power to choose,” see Wilkins, “Comic
Cuisine,” in Dobrov, ed., The City as Comedy 256, n. 11.
The Classical Greek belief in the ability of the dog to provide a cure for various medical conditions is also
attested in two inscriptions found at the sanctuary of Asclepios at Epidaurus and dating to the fourth
century B.C. They recount incidents of dogs healing persons suffering from blindness and a tumor
respectively: [A 20]: “Lyson of Hermione, a blind boy. The boy, while awake, had his eyes treated by one
of the dogs about the sanctuary, and went away well.” Also B 6 (26): A dog cured a boy from Aigina. He
had a growth on his neck. When he had come to the god, a dog from the sanctuary took care of him, with
its tongue while he was awake, and made him well.” L. R. LiDonnici, The Epidaurian Miracle
Inscriptions: Text, Translation and Commentary (Text and Translations 36, Graeco-Roman Religion Series
11; Atlanta, 1995) 99, 105.
206