Vincent, or the Donkey

Extract

The relationship of man to his domestic animals is an ever-fascinating study: they are so near to us, yet so remote, so like us, yet separated from us by an abyss. Of some we make pets; others we merely use, to work for us or to give us food or clothing. To each species we assign a character, and we like or dislike its members according to our prejudice. In studying a people, we cannot ignore their attitude towards the animals which form part of their daily lives.

The most revealing relationship is perhaps that between man and the domestic cat; but the cat does not seem to have been known in Greece Proper as a domestic animal; and although it was known in the Greek colonies of southern Italy by the fifth century b.c., it remained almost an Egyptian monopoly until Imperial Roman times. When the αϊλoυρoς in Greece is mentioned, apparently the polecat, the ancestor of our ferret, is meant. The horse and dog are good subjects for this study; but I pass them over for the present, the horse because too much is said of him, the dog because what is said is not particularly interesting. Many pleasant things are said of pigs by the Greeks, the pig being to them the type of clumsiness, bad temper, and stupidity as well as of uncleanliness; for instance, there is ς óἀ ῥóωv of a brutish fellow in refined surroundings; and the Chorus Leader's threat in the Lysistrata λσω τἠν ἐμαυτς ν shows that the Greeks knew what it was to incur the wrath of a sow.