I recently laid to rest my good friend T’ai, a 13-year old shar-pei. I’d like to find some Latin writings about dogs, particularly re: their presence in ancient society. Did the Romans keep dogs as pets ? Were there common breeds ? What were their attitudes towards pets generally ?
I’m interested in Latin references from any period, including the Medieval.
Gratias ante !
The Romans kept guard dogs; I assume you know about the famous “Cave canem” mosaic from Pompeii. Other than that, I know little, but that mosaic immediately came to mind.
A collection of quotes (interlinked blog posts):
http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2006/05/dogs.html
http://caelestis.info/sauvagenoble/2006/05/cari-canes.html
http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2006/05/ancient-dog-epitaphs.html
Thanks, William, those are great pointers. The Jeffers poem was pretty intense for me, we’ve laid T’ai only a little way from the house so he’s always with us. We really loved that dog.
In Pompeii we saw not only the famous Cave Canem, but also another doorway mosaic with the same idea, but a different dog–it still said “cave canem” underneath. We thought that interesting, as it indicates that the concept was not unique to a single household. I’d be curious to find out if those households had actual dogs as well, or just the mosaics…?
I guess that really meant what it said: don’t enter here or you’re going to face my dog(s)!
And there’s the dogs appearing in the Satyricon. If I remember correctly there’s an instance of the Cave Canem mosaic and a fiasco involving a real dog (these instances from the Cena).
The inscriptions (see William’s pointers) clarified the matter for me. When we were in Italy we noted that dogs were much loved and welcome in restaurants and other public places. Owners of unruly dogs were publicly rebuked.