[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 184.]
Sicut Acarnanes subierunt prælia furto; Sic canis illa suos taciturna supervenit hostes:—
[Sidenote: Thucyd. B. P. L. +iii.+ 107.]
alluding to a passage of the history of Thucydides, where he relates that Demosthenes placed 400 Acarnanians in ambuscade, in a hollow way near Olpæ; whence they issued forth in the heat of the subsequent engagement, and by their sudden assault on the rear of the Peloponnesians, completely routed them. A similar reference to national character is evident in the passage of Gratius, on crossing defective breeds of dogs with others in which opposite excellencies exist:
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 194.]
Quondam inconsultis mater dabit Umbrica Gallis Sensum agilem,[320] &c.
But to descend from these general remarks on the supposed assimilation of men and animals, cohabitants of the same soil, to the particular kennel-rolls of Greece and Rome. There appears to have been a threefold distinction of Canes Venatici, acknowledged by classic authors, during the imperial government of Rome. I do not mean that this classification is accurately observed by all the cynegetical and popular authorities; but it may be traced, more or less clearly, in the writings of Gratius,[321] Seneca, Artemidorus, Oppian, Claudian, and Julius Firmicus.
The Faliscian notes a triple division in the fragment of his Halieutic poem:
[Sidenote: Gratii Halieut. 98.]
canum quibus est _audacia_ præceps, Venandique _sagax virtus, viresque sequendi_.
“In cane _sagacitas_ prima est,” says Seneca in one of his Epistles, “si investigare debet feras; _cursus_, si consequi; _audacia_, si mordere et invadere.”
[Sidenote: Artemidori Oneirocrit. L. +ii.+ c. +xi.+]
We find nearly a similar arrangement in the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, a strange visionary of Ephesus, who spent his whole life in endeavouring to solve the mysteries, hidden, as he conceived, in dreams—τῶν κυνῶν οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ θήραν τρέφονται, καὶ τούτων οἱ μέν εἰσιν ἰχνευταὶ, οἱ δὲ ὁμόσε τοῖς θηρίοις χωροῦσιν· οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ φυλακῇ τῶν κτημάτων, οὓς οἰκουροὺς καὶ δεσμίους λέγομεν, κ. τ. λ.
Claudian, in his third book De Laudibus Stiliconis, describing the active co-operation of Diana and her nymphs in advancing the honour of his hero, “Consulis in plausum,” distinctly specifies a triple division:
[Sidenote: Claudian. de Laud. Stilic. L. +iii.+]
variæ formis, et gente sequuntur, Ingenioque canes: illæ _gravioribus aptæ Morsibus_; hæ _pedibus celeres_; hæ _nare sagaces_;
and then inverting the order of sequence, names, apparently in illustration of his classes, the Cretan, Spartan, and Briton:
Hirsutæque fremunt Cressæ, tenuesque Lacænæ, Magnaque taurorum fracturæ colla Britannæ.
The first we must acknowledge to be _nare sagaces_; the second _pedibus celeres_, the slenderest and speediest hounds, probably, known to the poet, in the absence of the Vertragus,—whom alone we consider swift of foot, and entitled to rank under the class so denominated. The Britannæ justly exemplify the dogs of combat—_gravioribus aptæ morsibus_.
[Sidenote: Jul. Firmici L. +v.+ c. +viii.+]
Julius Firmicus comprehends the whole genus under the triple distinction of “Molossi, Vertragi, et qui sunt ad venationes accomodati,”—meaning to include in the latter periphrasis the whole class of sagacious hounds, as he does the pugnacious under the title of Molossi.
Of Oppian’s tripartite arrangement, exemplified in the portraits which he has drawn of the individuals representative of each class, and of his farther distinction, founded on purity and commixture of blood, I shall hereafter speak; assuming at present, on the authority of the cited passages, that all the more celebrated varieties of the canine race, mentioned in the Cynegetica of Greece and Rome, of the date referred to, may be classified under the triple division of _pugnaces_, _sagaces_, and _celeres_.[322]
[Sidenote: Xenophon. Memor. L. +iii.+ c. +xi.+]
[Sidenote: H. in Dianam.]
In Xenophon, and the earlier Greek writers, we do not trace more than a twofold division into _pugnaces_ and _sagaces_; the varieties of the latter class differing, perhaps, amongst themselves in degrees of swiftness. Indeed, that they did so is evident from what Socrates remarks of the sagacity and speed of different individuals of the race, in the well-known interview with the beautiful, meretricious Theodota:—ὅτι δὲ μεθ’ ἡμέραν ἀποδιδράσκουσιν οἱ λαγὼς ἄλλας κτῶνται κύνας, αἵτινες, ᾗ ἂν ἐκ τῆς νομῆς εἰς τὴν εὐνὴν ἀπέλθωσι, τῇ ὀσμῇ αἰσθανόμεναι, εὑρίσκουσιν αὐτούς· ὅτι δὲ ποδώκεις εἰσὶν, ὥστε καὶ ἐκ τοῦ φανεροῦ τρέχοντες ἀποφεύγειν, ἄλλας αὖ κύνας ταχείας παρασκευάζονται, ἵνα κατὰ πόδας ἁλίσκωνται. The swift-footed of this passage must not be interpreted as the _celeres_ of our third class, which will be found to contain only the Vertragus of Arrian;—on whose authority it is affirmed that the greyhound was unknown in Greece in the days of the Socratic Xenophon. Probably, they were the most speedy of the Canes Laconici, to which the philosopher alludes—the θάσσονες αὐράων κυνοσουρίδες of Callimachus.
[Sidenote: Vide Jani Vlitii Venat. Novantiq.]
In accordance with the distinctions pointed out in the classical kennels is the threefold character of ancient hunting: but as coursing properly so called, (the third variety of chase peculiar to the Vertragus), was of late introduction in comparison with hunting, the two grand divisions of the sports of the field may be considered as primarily founded on the twofold distinction of _canes pugnaces_ or _bellicosi_, and _canes sagaces_; and by Gratius, under the terms _arma_ and _artes_, both are vividly depicted.
[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations of the Cyneg. Poem of Gratius. p. 17.]
“The one,” says Christopher Wase, “is a desperate and gladiator-like entering the lists with beasts, and assaulting them by violence; which was the school of cruelty and ignorant course of ancient Nimrods: the other a crafty circumventing them by wiles, which is the child of ingenious invention, much assisting man to reestablish him in his empire over the beasts of the field, that hath been so much empayred.” Then, again, he observes, “the _magnum opus_ is bold and hazardous hunting of great beasts, and _leve opus_ is hard-riding and pursuit of little fugacious quarry.”
It was left to the courser of Nicomedia, the Bithynian Xenophon, to place on record in his supplementary Cynegeticus, and to illustrate from his personal experience, the third variety of chase with dogs peculiar to Celtica;—which we have designated as forming a class of themselves, under the title of _pedibus celeres_, of the greatest speed of foot and least sagacity of nose of the whole genus, running entirely on sight of their game. The Celtic or Gallic hound does not appear to have been introduced generally into the more southern parts of Europe, till after the dissolution of the commonwealth of Rome. He is first mentioned by Ovid; and his style of coursing the hare so exquisitely described, that it must have been derived from actual experience in the field rather than hearsay; which latter alone seems to have given him admission into the Cynegeticon of Gratius, Ovid’s contemporary.
[Sidenote: J. Vlitii Venat. Novant.]
The earliest systematic account of the two first varieties of Venatio, will be found in the Cynegeticus of the elder Xenophon; who describes in the 6th chapter the style of hunting the hare in the mountainous, woodland regions of Greece, with all its poaching-gear: and in the 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters, the chase of deer, boars, lions, pards, lynxes, panthers, and bears. The Greeks were entirely unacquainted with the third species of Venatio, named, for distinction’s sake, _Venatio cursoria_, as the others are _V. bellica_, and _V. indagatoria_.
[Sidenote: Plin. Paneg. Trag. dict.]
The animals obnoxious to the chase were suitable to its different varieties, and coped with by classic hunters according to the prowess of each game. Some creatures being timid and fugacious, others of great strength and ferocity, and a third class wily and artful,—the hunters were wont, in the words of Pliny’s panegyric, “certare cum fugacibus feris cursu, cum audacibus robore, cum callidis astu;”—thereby acquiring, in Diana’s school of mimic war, the necessary experimental knowledge for following the flying foe, or contending with the daring, or the subtle, in the field of real battle.[323]
Gratius has elegantly sketched the beasts of Venery in his Halieutic fragment:[324]
[Sidenote: Gratii Halieut. vs. 71.]
Cætera quæ densas habitant animalia sylvas, Aut vani quatiunt semper lymphata timores, Aut trahit in præceps non sana ferocia mentis. Ipsa sequi natura monet, vel cominùs ire, Impiger ipse leo venantum sternere pergit Agmina, et adversis infert sua pectora telis: Quòque venit, fidens magis, et sublatior ardet, Concussitque toros, et viribus addidit iram, Prodigus atque suo properat sibi robore lethum. Fœdus Lucanis provolvitur ursus ab antris, Quid nisi pondus iners, stolidæque ferocia mentis? Actus aper setis iram denunciat hirtis, Et ruit oppositi nitens in vulnera ferri, Pressus, et emisso moritur per viscera telo. Altera pars fidens pedibus, dat terga sequenti, Ut pavidi lepores, et fulvo tergore damæ, Et capto fugiens cervus sine fine timore.