Greyhounds In Greece

Since a lot of the sculptures we saw at Allerton Park over the weekend had some Grecian influence to it, I thought it would be fun to tell a little bit about Greyhounds and their ties to ancient Greece.

Greyhounds originated in Egypt, and were highly revered there.  Greyhounds could never be sold there, but could be given as gifts to dignitaries.  One of the earliest instances of this happening was in 1475 BC.  Queen Hatshepsut had sent an expedition to the land now known as Somalia, but at that time it was known as Punt.  She was very keen to acquire some myrrh and wanted live myrhh trees as well.  So, according to James Henry Breasted, an Egyptologist she traded four of her finest Greyhounds for "31 living myrhh trees, electrum, eye cosmetics, ebony, ivory shells, a live southern panther, many panther skins, 3,300 small cattle, huge piles of myrhh twice a man's height and large rings of commercial gold weighed in tall balances ten feet high."  I guess Greyhounds were pretty darned valuable back then.  Eventually, Greyhounds began to appear along all the major trade routes.  As in Egypt, all dogs held a place of honor in Greek society. 

Pythagoras, a mathematician and philosopher who died in approximately 497 BC had a school of followers.  Aside from that theory that now dogs everyone who comes into Algebra class, he and his followers believed, amongst other things, that if you held a dog to the mouth of a dying person, the person's soul would enter the dog's body.  This was considered desirable because only a dog was considered worthy of recieving a the virtues of a person.  In what might be the first anti-cruelty act recorded, Pythagoras stopped a man from beating a dog because he claimed to hear the voice of a friend in the dog's cries.

It is believed that Hippocrates liked dogs.  He often depicted them in his art.  Interestingly, he never wrote about them, but he is often portrayed with a dog and snake lying near his feet.

Homer, the Greek poet, is the first author to ever mention a hound in literature.  When Odysseus returns after being gone for twenty years, his dog, Argos is the only one to recognize him.  Thousands of years later, the passage of Odysseus' homecoming still captures the canine spirit.

Greyhounds even managed to make thier way into Greek mythology.  Hecate, goddess of wealth and the underworld, favored dogs and is often depicted with a Greyhound by her side.  Pollux, protector of the hunt, had a Greyhound named Leda.  They also figure into the story of Actaeon and Artemis.  The story goes that Actaeon was out hunting with his forty eight Greyhounds when he came upon Artemis bathing.  Instead of averting his gaze, he stared at her.  When she found him watching her, she turned him into a stag and his hounds attacked and killed him.  The names of all forty eight dogs are still preserved in history.

Hopefully this has been a little fun to learn about.  The stories of Greyhounds in history have fascinated me since I began sharing my life with them.  I thought it would be fun to share some of them since we had some fun pictures from our trip to go with them.