Part 24

Dives et Orchomenos pecorum, et Cynosura ferarum.

They were the gift of the Arcadian God Pan to Diana, and possessed sagacity of nose equal to their speed of foot:

ἑπτὰ δ’ ἔδωκε θάσσονας αὐράων κυνοσουρίδας, αἵ ῥα διῶξαι ὤκισται νεβρούς τε καὶ οὐ μύοντα λαγωὸν, καὶ κοίτην ἐλάφοιο, καὶ ὕστριχος ἔνθα καλιαὶ σημῆναι, καὶ ζορκὸς ἐπ’ ἴχνιον ἡγήσασθαι....

—and near a-kin to them, we may suppose, if not of the same blood, were the brace presented by the worshipful Agrotera to her much-favoured Cyrene:

—θηρητῆρε δύω κύνε, τοῖς ἔνι κούρη Ὑψηῒς παρὰ τύμβον Ἰώλκιον ἔμμορ’ ἀέθλου.

But of fable, enough—The Spartan’s shape, qualities, and style of hunting, singly and in pack, are fully described by Xenophon in the third, fourth, and sixth chapters of his Manual. The quarry is here that of which the Athenian was most enamoured, viz. the hare,—with which the woods and parks of his Scilluntian retreat abounded. But for the boar-chase the hound of Lacedæmon is also employed. To the Indian, Cretan, and Locrian dogs, the sportsman, who would successfully combat the savage boar, must add the choicest individuals of the Spartan kennel. And in this chase, he will find one of the latter hounds most useful as a limier, to follow up the trail to the boar’s couch in silence, and then, with the rest of the pack, to bay the started quarry:

Fulmineus seu Spartanis latratibus actus, Cum sylvam occursu venantum perdidit, hirto Horrescit sævus dorso, et postrema capessit Prælia, candentem mandens aper ore cruorem: Jamque gemens geminum contra venabula torquet.

Julius Pollux, on the authority of Nicander, has transmitted to us subordinate varieties of the Spartan, entitled Menelaides from Menelaus, Harmodii from Harmodius, and others from other persons, and places of inferior note. Virgil applies the epithets Taygetan to the race, from the “juga longa Taygeti” which traverse Laconia, a favourite resort of the Sylvan Goddess:

vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron, Taygetique canes:

and Amyclean, from the birth-place of Castor and Pollux:

omnia secum Armentarius Afer agit, tectumque laremque, Armaque Amyclæumque canem, Cressamque pharetram;

a local epithet also found in a supposed fragment of Pindar, cited by Plutarch, Quæst. Conviv. +ix.+ 15. 748. and admitted amongst the Fragmenta ex Hyporchematibus. Vol. +ii.+ of Heyne’s edition. (Oxon. 1807.)

But a few words, before we proceed farther, on the lineage of the ἀλωπεκίδες.

Modern naturalists, with the exception of Mons. Desmoulins, are pretty generally agreed that the Canis aureus is the real origin of the domestic dog. And if so, being a native of Asia Minor, and of a dirty fulvous colour, may we not suppose him to have been the cross, from which the foxite hounds of Xenophon were bred? The latter had more or less of a ferine aspect, and fulvous colour, softened down by the admixture of hair of a different hue about the muzzle. Still tawny was the predominant colour—“fulvus Lacon,” (Hor.)

Mr. Hunter denies the existence of a genuine foxite, as the dog and fox are of different species, and will not produce together. Guldenstadt allows the jackal may be the Thos of Aristotle. May he not also be the Thos of Gratius, and “Cat o’ mountaine” of his translator? May not Hagnon’s pack,

Hagnon magne, tibi Divôm concessa favore,

derived from a Thoan cross, and other such semiferous commixtures, be founded in fact?

Hic et semiferam Thoum de sanguine prolem Finxit. Non alio major sua pectore virtus, Seu nôrit voces, seu nudi ad pignora Martis. Thoës commissos (clarissima fama) leones Et subiêre astu, et parvis domuêre lacertis. Nam genus exiguum, et pudeat quàm informe fateri Vulpinâ specie, &c.

May not these possible tales have given currency and belief to the supposed, impossible, fictitious, engendering of the fox and dog, and the breed of semi-wild ἀλωπεκίδες?—Aristotle says roundly, when animals resemble each other in size, outward character, and time of gestation, they may breed together; and that it positively happens with the dog, fox, and wolf—οἱ δὲ θῶες, says the Stagirite also, ὁμοίως κυΐσκονται τοῖς κυσὶ, καὶ τίκτουσι τυφλὰ, κ. τ. λ.—and therefore, by his own canons, may engender with dogs. Galen, Hesychius, and Gesner, seem to allow the possibility of vulpi-canine issue: Caius accounts for such a birth by the “pruriens libido” of the parties concerned: even Blumenbach and Desmoulins, on the authority of others, have given credency to it. Pennant reports a case of prolific engendering of the fox and dog, on the word of an Oxfordshire woodman; and Daniel cites a second in London. Hunter, who assumed nothing in natural history of doubtful character as fact, till he had put it to the test, denies this cross, à priori, not from actual experiment; for he did not live to make the trial. The former crosses he fully established: see Phil. Trans. Vol. 77.

May not Ovid be supposed to allude to the cross of the Thos and dog, and to exemplify it in the individual of Actæon’s pack whom he calls Thous?

Et Thous, et Cyprio velox cum fratre Lycisca.

The fanciful origin of Oppian’s Thos from the wolf and panther, ὅθεν κρατερόφρονα φῦλα, baffles all elucidation.

Let the ἀλωπεκίδες, then, be considered as possible hybrids, the produce of authenticated crosses. The wolf, jackal, and dog, all differ but little. “The dog himself,” says Mr. Hunter, “may be the wolf tamed, and the jackal may probably be the dog returned to his wild state.”

All animals having been originally wild, the more a specific class may differ from its prototype in appearance, the further it is removed in consequence of variation arising from cultivation. Where dogs have been least cultivated, they still retain most of their original character, or similarity to the wolf, or jackal, both in shape and disposition. Thus the shepherd’s dog, all over the world, has strongly the character of these wild animals—and so I have no doubt had the dog of Laconia.

The wild dogs of modern travellers, as found in Congo, Lower Æthiopia, and towards the Cape of Good Hope, somewhat resemble the Spartan type. They are stated to be “greyhound-like in shape, red-haired, with upright ears, rough tails, and extremely fierce.” The Dingo of Australasia, and Dhole of the East Indies, look very like ἀλωπεκίδες. The North and South-American half-reclaimed varieties have the elongated jaws of the semi-barbarous breeds, and tend to prove from their general shape, their character of countenance, their quick manner, and pricked and erect ears, identity of species in the dog, wolf, and jackal.

But on this subject enough:—let us now return within the pale of the kennel of Lacedæmon. The true Spartan dogs of the olden time were strong, swift, and courageous; and barked on scent of their game. We know that they were strong, on the authority of Ovid’s “prævalidusque Lacon;” and swift, from Virgil calling them “Veloces Spartæ catulos,” and Pindar alluding to the same excellence in the fragment beginning

ἀπὸ Ταϋγέτου μὲν Λάκαιναν ἐπὶ θηρσὶ κύνα τρέχειν πυκινώτατον ἑρπετόν.

Still their speed, like that of the Etolian of Gratius, was of a qualified character, and very much below the Vertragus.