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MAY 191919

LIBRARY

The Classical Weekly

Entered as second-class matter November 18, 1907, at the Post Office, New York, N. Y., under the Act of Congress of March 3. 1879 Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on June 28, 1918

VOL. XII

NEW YORK, MAY 19, 1919

GENERAL INDEX TO THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL VOLUMES I-XIII

A very useful publication is The Classical Journal, General Index, Vols. I-XIII (1905-1918), compiled by Frank Justus Miller (University of Chicago Press. 35 pages). The regular price is 75 cents, but members of The Classical Association of the Atlantic States may obtain copies of it, through the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association, for 50 cents. The work falls into two main parts: Index of Contributors, 1-12; Index of Subjects, 12-35. In the second part the main subdivisions are as follows: Antiquities, 12; Archaeology, 13; Authors, Greek, 13-15; Authors, Latin, 15-16; Book Reviews, 16-26; Classical Association <of the Middle West and South>, 26; Classical Fellowships and Seminars, 26-27; Classical Literature, 27; Classical Plays, 27-28; Classical Clubs and Programs, 28; Doctors' Dissertations in the Classics, 29; Grammar and Syntax, 29; Greek, The Study of, 29; In Memoriam, 30; Meter, 30; Pedagogy, 31-34; Value of the. Classics, 34-35; Word Order in Latin, 35.

С. К.

THE PORTRAYAL OF THE DOG ON GREEK VASES

The information about the dogs of antiquity that is found in literary sources has been adequately treated by Otto Keller, Orth3, and Cougny. This paper, however, deals with types of dogs as represented on Greek vases, though other presentations in early Greek art have also been considered.

According to Keller, the dogs of antiquity belonged to five large families: the spitz; the shepherd; the pariah; the greyhound; the bull dogs and mastiffs. But the Greeks believed in cross-breeding and by historical times the number of breeds was very large, and, while there is frequent mention of dogs in the literary sources, there is little information that helps to identify the different species that occur on vases. A great many appear to be of no particular breed, but just 'plain dog'.

It is easy to identify the spitz, as he closely resembles

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No. 27

the modern variety. Keller thinks the earliest domesticated dog, the canis familiaris palustris, was a spitz from which was evolved the Maltese lap dog, the Μελιταῖον κυνίδιον. We have dogs with flocks that we can classify as shepherd dogs, although, as will be seen later, more than one breed was used to guard the flocks. In the material at hand I found no dog on Greek vases that could be identified as a pariah, though Keller says he occurs frequently on vases and gems. The dog most frequently mentioned in Greek literature is the 'Laconian', but there is the greatest uncertainty in regard to his breed and appearance. It is evident, however, that he was not a greyhound. At least Xenophon did not have a greyhound in mind, as his dogs hunted by scent, not by sight. The inconsistencies and contradictions of the literary references have been thoroughly discussed by Keller and it is necessary only to review them briefly. The term 'Laconian' seems to have been applied indiscriminately to several species and it is doubtful if we are justified in selecting any one type as the true Laconian. Xenophon, in his discussion of the hare hunt, says that there were two varieties of dogs, the Castorian (αὶ Καστόριαι and the vulpocanine (ἀλωπεκίδες); that the former were so called because Castor kept this breed by preference, and that the latter were the offspring of the fox and the dog, whose nature became blent in course of time. When he discusses the necessary qualifications of a hunting dog, he describes only one type. Among other characteristics, the dog should be snub-nosed and should have a long, straight, pointed tail, and round feet. Aristotle, on the other hand, refers to the long nose of the 'little Laconian dogs', and says that the Laconian dogs were the offspring of the dog and fox and were called ἀλωπεκίδες. Pollux seems hopelessly confused on the subject, and references in other ancient writers shed no more light on the appearance of the favorite hunting dogs of the Greeks. Xenophon's volpocanine appears frequently in vase paintings and can be identified beyond a doubt; vases and sculptures are not of much assistance in regard to the Castorian dog. It is not even certain that the Castorian and the frequently mentioned Laconian are the same. Keller finds three dogs10 that he calls the genuine Laconian; a bronze dog from Lusoi, a dog in an archaic relief from Chrysapha, and a dog in a late relief repreCynegeticus 4.1.

Cynegeticus 3.1.

De Generatione Animalium 5.2.

toria 8.607 Α.

Onomasticon 5.37. 40.

46, 47.

De Animalibus His10Die Antike Tierwelt, Figs. 45, "Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 132. 12 Jahreshefte 8.256. Compare Monumenti Inediti 8, Pl. 17, for the Cretan dog.

senting Amphion and Zethus. The bronze dog certainly agrees with Xenophon's description and the head of the dog in the Amphion-Zethus relief is very similar (the body is concealed), but it is unlikely that the dog in the Chrysapha relief is of the same type. He more closely resembles the dog on a blackfigured vaseli which pictures the Dioscuri. This dog certainly is not a Cretan greyhound, as Keller says12, but perhaps has some of his blood. He has a slender body, delicate feet and legs, and slender, pointed face. He belongs to the type most frequently represented in hunting scenes, unless it is a boar hunt. For convenience in referring to this type, I shall call it Castorian, though I do not assert that he is Xenophon's Castorian. Xenophon's description, then, is fairly well satisfied by the dog from Lusoi, which is much like our modern harrier or beagle, but this dog is seldom13, if ever, represented elsewhere in art. On the other hand, there is a small hunting dog on the Chrysapha relief and on the Dioscuri vase that is repeatedly shown in hunting scenes on vases. There was undoubtedly a Greek greyhound, probably developed from the Cretan, but Cougny and Morin-Jean are not justified in calling this large dog the "levrier spartiate". The difference between such a dog and the dog used in the hare hunt is too great14.

The dog which, next to the Laconian, is most frequently mentioned by ancient writers is the 'Molossian'. Heis always mentioned on connection with his strength and fierceness. Oppian probably has him in mind when he describes a dog with a large body, round muzzle, and heavy eyebrows. The well known statues of big dogs with shaggy manes and tails in the Vatican and Uffizi are generally called Molossian, but incorrectly so, according to Keller, who calls them 'pseudoMolossian'. The true Molossian as represented by coins and bronzes from Epirus did not have a shaggy mane or tail and had a head resembling that of a bull dog. He was closely related to the big Asiatic dogs.

The earliest example of a dog in Greek art known to me comes from the Early Minoan 2 and Early Minoan 3 chamber tombs at Mochlus16. A vase cover of green steatite has the handle in the form of a dog which, according to Mr. Seager, represents a canine type still extant in Crete. This Cretan dog occurs very frequently on vases of a later period; but the dog appears to have been used rarely as a motif on vases of the Minoan period, though he occurs frequently in terracotta figurines both in Crete and on the mainland. Examples that probably belong to the Middle Minoan

period have been found on the sanctuary site of Petsofa1 and at Tiryns18 and Troy19. The dog-both the complete figure and head-appears many times on Cretan hieroglyphic seals20, and in ivory21 and on gems from Mycenae22. Perrot and Chipiez think the Mycenaean artist was less successful in depicting dogs than felines and ruminants; these dogs are, in fact, not well depicted.

Of great interest both as an early example of painted dogs and as representing two distinct types are the frescoes at Tiryns, which belong to Late Minoan times. We have a boar hunt with hunting dogs, three of which are illustrated 23. These dogs have rather short faces, round noses, rather long ears, and legs that are short, compared with a greyhound's. They are white, with blue, black and red spots, and the under part of the body is red. Another breed also appears in the frieze24. These dogs are clearly greyhounds, though evidently not of the Cretan or Greek species. They have the characteristically shaped head, the high shoulders, and the long ears. Rodenwaldt thinks that the greyhound was used to hunt deer and perhaps the hare and to track the boar, and that the other dogs were used for the attack on the boar.

We have but few examples of dogs on vases from the Minoan periods and those are Late Minoan. From Mycenae 25 we have a fragment of a vase with a dog chasing a hare, the oldest extant representation, I think, of this motif on a Greek vase, though it becomes very common later 26 and is extremely popular with the so-called Proto-Corinthian artists, as is also the motif of running dogs. In both motifs the dogs are nearly always of one type, well illustrated by the majority on the Chigi27 and Macmillan vases28. They have long, slim bodies, with long, thin, straight tails, and very flat heads. They are probably poor drawings of the Castorian hunting dogs. The ἀλωπεκίς is introduced on the Chigi vase and also on the rim of a Corinthian crater29. This same motif appears frequently on Italic-Corinthian ware and seems to have been used especially on lecythi and alabastra. On Rhodian vases the hare hunt occurs with a different type of dog30. These dogs are much heavier than those on ProtoCorinthian and Corinthian vases and have heavy, round heads with snub noses. They belong to the bull dog type and their use on the vase may be due to Oriental influence, as they were probably not actually used in the hare hunt. A similar dog occurs on a tripod of disputed origin from Tanagra3l; the fact that it comes from Tanagra would argue for Boeotian, rather than for Attic, manufacture. On the interior of a sixth century 'Cyrenaic' cylix32 the hare hunt occurs with a type of dog that I did not find elsewhere in my available material. Perhaps this breed is the Cyrenaic one that Aristotle mentions as a mixture of dog and wolf, as its build is decidedly wolf-like. The bodies of these dogs are much thicker, their tails shorter and heavier, their feet and legs more substantial, than those of the dogs of Proto-Corinthian and Corinthian vases; they do not, however, resemble at all the massive dogs on the Rhodian and the Boeotian vases. This would be an additional argument in favor of the Cyrenaic origin of this group of vases. Beginning with the fifth century, the type of dog for which we have adopted the name Castorian is very popular with vase painters, though they do not by any means limit themselves to this type, as Morin-Jean says34. One vases of the third century shows him and the ἀλωπεκίς together pursuing a hare.

13A Corinthian crater shows a horseman with a dog that resembles this dog more closely than does any other on a Greek vase, but the art is very primitive, and one can judge but little from it. See Monumenti inediti 10, Pl. 52.

Morin-Jean, Le Dessin des Animaux en Grèce. Compare Figs. 211-212 with Fig. 213.

15Oppian. De Venatione 1.414 ff.

16Seager, Explorations in the Island of Mochlus, 20, I, Figs. 4-5.

17 British School Annual, 9.377, Pl. 13. Fig. 55.
18Schliemann, Tiryns 143, Fig. 63.
19Schliemann, Ilios 560, Nos. 1207-1208.

20 Evans, Scripta Minoa 208.71-72; 146, Fig. 93.

21 Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité 6.827, Fig. 405; 830, Fig. 410.

Ibid. 6.851. Fig. 432.

25 Rodenwaldt, Tiryns 2.123 ff., Pl. 13 (a publication of the Kaiserlich-Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Athen). 14Ibid. 2.100 ff., Pl. 14.

25 Furtwängler-Loeschke, Mykenische Vasen, Pl. 39. Fig. 41. 26 The hare hunt is thoroughly discussed by Pottier, in the Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 17.226 ff., and by Loeschke, in Archäologische Zeitung 39.30 ff. Loeschke says this Mycenaean fragment is one of the two cases in Mycenaean ware in which two animals are united for treatment.

27 Ausonia 8.194, Pls. 5-8.

28 Journal of Hellenic Studies 11.167, Pls. 1-2.

29 Pottier, Vases Antiques du Louvre E 635, Pls. 48-49.

30 Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 1.34.7-10.

Although the dog appears on early vases chiefly in hunting scenes and animal friezes, yet he appears in other capacities as early as the geometric vases. A geometric vase from Tiryns36 represents two warriors, a horse, and a dog. The dog is very archaic, is painted red, and is outlined with white dots. He has no hind feet at all and mere hooks for front feet. This is the earliest example that I found of a complete dog on a Greek vase. As early as the eighth37, perhaps the ninth, century, he figures as the chief motif and in almost every situation of real life. Beginning with the blackfigured ware the number of dogs is legion. There were evidently many species of greyhounds, just as the modern greyhound family includes many varieties, from the dainty Italian that is classified as a 'toy dog' to the sturdy Scottish deerhound and Irish wolfhound. One favorite type is a very large dog frequently represented with warriors. Perhaps he was one of the breeds actually used in war. Both black and red figured vases show a hoplite, accompanied by one of these dogs, taking leave of his family38. One early redfigured amphora shows a great advance in the drawing of the dog, as he is shown from the rear.

This type of dog often accompanies chariots40, walks with his master, and escorts his mistress42. This large greyhound is sometimes referred to as the Laconian or Spartan, but, as will be seen by comparison with the monuments of Sparta, he belongs to a different species. He shows a close resemblance to the greyhounds of the fresco at Tiryns and it is strange that he has not appeared again before the blackfigured vases.

A type much smaller than the one just discussed is of frequent occurrence. Though retaining the shape of the head and the high shoulders characteristic of the greyhound, he has a heavier, shorter body than a pure greyhound, and carries his tail erect. He evidently has another strain of blood, perhaps Molossian, as a beautiful specimen of this breed occurs on a coin from Panormus 43. He accompanies Diana, Chiron, merchants, horsemen, warriors, hunters, and men of all occupations. To this type belonged Laelaps, according to Millingen's interpretation of a vase scene45; yet, according to another vase painting46, Laelaps must have been a Castorian. This dog, though most often in evidence in hunting scenes, occurs in genre scenes also37. There is still another variety of greyhound that occurs on redfigured vases, a very small, slender dog that looks much like the modern Italian species. He is found, too, in genre and mythological scenes18. On one vase49 that portrays the Actaeon myth Actaeon is attacked by a pack of dogs almost identical in appearance with the modern English grey-. hound, with the exception of the ears. The Greek dogs have short, pointed ears; the English dogs' ears fall at the tips.

The spitz seems not to occur on vases before the time of the redfigured style. The Maltese dog, a highly bred spitz, was the favorite lap dog of the Greeks and the Romans. Fortunately he occurs on an amphora 50 where he is addressed by his master as Μελιταίε. He seems to have been the dog favored as a playmate for children and is often represented with them both in vase paintings and sculpture. An attractive scene on an oenochoë shows a young boy teasing a Maltese dog and a tortoise. One of the most interesting child

31 Archäologische Zeitung 39, Pl. 4. See also Annali dell' Instituto de Correspondenza Archaeologica, 1881, Pl. 17, for a similar dog on an Etruscan vase.

32Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 17.227.

De Animalibus Historia 8.607 A.

34 Le Dessin des Animaux en Grèce 184.

25 Dunont-Chaplain, Les Céramiques de la Grèce Propre 1.393.

Pl. 31.

36 Schliemann, Tiryns, Pl. 14.

37 Pottier, Vases Antiques de Louvre A 152; A 304, Pl. 11. 38Gerhard, Trinkschalen und Gefässe des Königlichen Museums, Pl. 30.12; Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints, 2.131.8; Pottier, Antiques Vases du Louvre G 46, 47. Pl. 93. 39Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 103.

40 Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 1.44.3; 2.51.1; British School Annual 12, Pl. 9. Hartwig, Die Griechischen Meisterschalen. Pl. 9. 42Morin-Jean, Le Dessin des Animaux en Grèce 183, Fig. 212. 43 Jahreshefte 8, Pl. 4.11.

"Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 1.494.1: 2.124.6; 2.135. 17; Monumenti Inediti 2, Pl. 44; Lenormant-de Witte, Elite des Monuments Céramographiques 2, Pl. 08. Compare Gerhard, Etruskische und Kampanische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin, Pls. 15-16.

45 Millingen, Ancient Unedited Monuments, Pl. 14.
46 Furtwängler-Reichhold, Greichische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 126.
"Monumenti Inediti 2.18; Archäologische Zeitung 42, Pl. 16;

Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.126.141.

48 Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 1.55.11; 1.413; 2.141. Compare Fairbanks, Athenian White Lekythoi 6, Pl. 5.1. 49Lenormant-de Witte, Elite des Monuments Céramographiques 2, Pl. 103.

50 Annali 1852. Pl. T. Compare Annali 1879, Pl. D. 51For the sculpture see Van Hoorn, De Vita Puerorum Monumentis Antiquis Explanata, Fig. 22, and Conze, Attische Grabreliefs, Pls. 161, 194.

52Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.15.

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and dog scenes is one that shows two spitzes harnessed to a cart in very modern fashion. The spitz was, in fact, a favorite with persons of all ages 54, but was not the only kind of dog that accompanied the young men of Greece in their daily amusements. On a cylix by Peithinus55 groups of youths and maidens are accompanied by two dogs; one of them is our old acquaintance, the ἀλωπεκίς, the other has the long, shaggy hair of the spitz, but his face is quite different. On another cylix by Peithinus56 groups of young people are accompanied by a large dog that seems to be a cross between the Greek and Cretan greyhounds. Cougny calls this dog 'Spartan', but without sufficient authority. Euphronius58 also introduces dogs in a procession of revelers. These dogs are the mediumsized members of the greyhound family described above.

There are some occurrences59 of a small dog, much like our fox-terrier, as early as the transitional period from the blackfigured to the redfigured style, and on a blackfigured cylix, under the couch of Dionysus, is a small dog identical in appearance with a living dog of my acquaintance, which is half fox-terrier60. A dog that seems unquestionably to belong to the spaniel family is the guardian of the temple at Delphi, according to a redfigured crater. The Molossian, too, begins to occur on redfigured vases. His size and weight made the Molossian dog of little value in hunting62, but qualified him as a watch dog and guardian of the flocks. In this capacity he appears in three elaborate representations of the Judgment of Paris63. An even larger and more ferocious member of the family is the escort of Circe on an early redfigured amphora. That no one species alone was considered the shepherd dog of Paris is evident from an examination of a few other vases. The pseudo-Molossian occurs on a redfigured crater 65; so too does the Castorian 66. A terrier and a big greyhound are used on two blackfigured amphoras67. The modern shepherd dog's prototype occurs on a blackfigured cantharus68, where two dogs are assisting their master in conducting a troop of goats. A similar dog is the companion of Argus as he guards Io69.

Besides the Judgment of Paris two favorite myths in which dogs always figure are the Calydonian hunt

and the death of Actaeon. The Calydonian boar

53Guhl-Koner, Leben der Griechen und Römer 335, Fig. 416. Hartwig. Die Grischischen Meisterschalen, Pl. 62.

56 Ibid., Pl. 26.

56 Ibid., Pl. 25.

57 Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités, s. v. canis. 58 Hartwig, Die Griechischen Meisterschalen, Pl. 47.

59Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.299; Pottier, Vases

Antiques du Louvre F 102, Pl. 70; F 151, Pl. 75.

71

hunt occurs as early as the seventh century on a Corinthian aryballus and on a Chalcidian amphora of the sixth century, which shows a hunting dog on top of the boar, a favorite fancy of the vase painters. Two Caeretan hydrias are interesting as furnishing the most satisfactory examples of the Cretan greyhounds that Xenophon 73 recommended for boar hunting. On one vase the dog has been cut into two parts by the boar; the head and shoulders are under the boar, the remainder of the body above. The hunt is one of the subjects of the François vase74. In this case the dogs have names, the first to occur on the vases we have studied. A little Castorian is on top of the boar; the others in the pack are probably intended for Cretan dogs, but the drawing of the heads is very primitive. As the Calydonian boar hunt was a favorite subject with sculptors as well as vase painters, it is interesting to see whether the sculptors modelled the same breeds as are found on the vases. One of the metopes 75 of the Treasury of the Sicyonians at Delphi shows traces of a dog beneath the boar. He is much smaller than any of the dogs engaged in the hunt on the vases of the same century. On the interior of the south wall of the Heroum at Trysa" the hunt occurs also, with medium-sized hounds; evidently the artist felt no restrictions in his selection of hunting dogs.

Ovid", in his account of the death of Actaeon, mentions Cretan, Spartan, Arcadian, Sicyonian, and Cyprian dogs, and the mongrel of a wolf and a dog. Actaeon and his dogs begin to appear on blackfigured vases and continue to be a popular subject. His pack usually consists of Castorian dogs78, but others also occure.g. the ἀλωπεκίς79 and the very modern looking greyhound already mentioned 80. Keller 81 considers the dogs on the Actaeon metope of the temple of Selinus2 another example of the Laconian, but they are certainly very different from the others he calls Laconian. It is quite possible that they represent a Sicilian breed. A very interesting feature of these representations of the Actaeon myth, both in the vase paintings and sculpture, is the difficulty the artist has in representing the attack of the dogs. They are shown in impossible attitudes, such as walking up Actaeon's body and biting him from absurd positions. On a redfigured calpis", found at Eboli, Actaeon is attacked by three dogs of a totally new species. The foreheads of these gods have a pronounced bulge and they have a noticeably short lower jaw, both of which characteristics appear in a dog in the painting of the 'tomb of painted vases' at Corneto. The same kind of dog appears on Etruscan vases85 and on an Apulian vase 86. It is probable that it was an Italian race.

Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.203.

Archäologische Zeitung 35. Pl. 4.

62Aristotle, De Animalibus Historia 9.608 Α.

Dunont-Chaplain, Les Céramiques de la Grèce Propre 1. Pl. το; Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 30; Reinach,

Répertoire des Vases Peints 1.15.

Monumenti Inediti 5. Pl. 41.

66 Ibid. 4. Pl. 18.

Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei. Pl. 21.

67Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.87.1; 2.86.11.

68 Lenormand-de Witte, Élite des Monuments Céramographiques

3. Pl. 84.

Monumenti Inediti 2, Pl. 59.8.

70 Pottier, Vases Antiques de Louvre E 612. Pl. 43.
74Ibid., E 811, Pl. 57.

72 Monumenti Inediti 8, Pl. 17; 6-7. Pl. 77. For the Caeretan hydrias see Perrot-Chipiez, Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité 9. 517-529.

73 Cynegeticus 10.1.

74 Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 13. Compare Monumenti Inediti 5. Pl. 59; 12, Pl. 10; Gerhard, Etruskische und Kampanische Vasen, Pl. 10.

75 Reinach, Répertoire des Reliefs Grecs et Romains 1.137.2; Fouilles de Delphes 4.3.2.

76Ibid. 1.445-4

770 vid, Metamorphoses 3. 205 ff.

78 Lenormant-de Witte, Élite des Monuments Céramographiques 2.351; ibid. 2. Pl. 103 C; Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Pl. 115; Millingen, Ancient Unedited Monuments, Pl. 18; Monumenti Inediti 11, Pl. 42.

79 Lenormant-de Witte, Élite des Monuments Céramographiques

2, Pl. 99.

80Ibid. 2, Pl. 103.

$1 Jahreshefte 8.256.

82 Reinach, Répertoire des Reliefs 1. 399.3.

Although, as we have remarked, the spitz was the favorite pet dog of the Greeks, yet other varieties are frequently seen in the house, especially under the table-the κύνες τραπεγῆες of Homer. It is noticeable that the spitz does not occur in this capacity. As early as 600 B. C. the dog in the house appears. On a Corinthian crater87 that represents the murder of Ismene by Tydeus, a fierce Oriental-looking dog lies under Ismene's couch. Reference has already been made to the small terrier under the couch of Dionysus88, and a greyhound occurs in another instance89. On another Corinthian crater90 ἀλωπεκίδες are attached by leashes to the feet of the couches at a banquet scene. The Castorian dog also occurs as a domestic dog1. The dog in the house seems to have been characteristic of earlier vases and rarely occurs after the blackfigured style, but on a polychrome vase there is an attractive scene, a solitary one of its kind, of a dog barking at a rabbit in a cage hanging on the wall. THE GRADUATE SCHOOL,

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

REVIEWS

HELEN M. JOHNSON.

The Unwilling Vestal, A Tale of Rome under the Caesars. By Edward Lucas White. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company (1918). Pp. ix+317.

$1.50.

The cause of the Classics profits greatly when a man who really knows them and is at the same time an expert in imaginative writing composes a novel based upon Greek or Roman life. Mr. White, having already won distinction by his El Supremo, has given us a Roman story so thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end, so ingeniously constructed, so natural in its conversations (the heroine can be even ungrammatical), and upon the whole so true to the facts of ancient life, that the reviewer would prefer to offer only favorable criticism, if that were quite dutiful to his reader.

Within recent years there has been a notable effort to make the Romans seem as much as possible like ourselves; witness, for instance, some of Ferrero's historical writing in the journalistic style, or Bernard Shaw's

Caesar and Cleopatra, wherein the conduct and the conversation of the 'greatest Roman of them all' with the Egyptian, an ill-tempered spit-fire sufficiently Anglicized to suit Shavian antipathies, are as unShakespearian as the dramatist can make them. Brinnaria, who becomes the unwilling Vestal, struck me at once as an American girl, and if her 'Daddy', "a true Roman to his marrow" (compare page 12), is to be taken as a typical father of the age of Marcus Aurelius, we must conclude that by this time patria potestas had disappeared as completely in Roman homes as in some of our own, where parents impotently accept deferred obedience and even resolute defiance as incorrigible habits in their offspring (10, 16, 35, etc.); her mother is an acquiescent pacifist (16).

But the behavior of the enfant terrible of our story, whose precociousness is only matched by the phenomenal prolongation of her juvenility, taxes the credulity of a classicist more seriously after her inauguration as a Vestal. Mr. White rightly refuses to assimilate her so closely to the modern nun (156) as some scholars1 do, but the exigencies of his plot take him perhaps too far towards the other extreme of worldly license, when he allows her years of intimacy with the young married man Vocco (111), has her recline on the dinner couch, instead of sit, as decorum would prescribe (211; 52)3, causes thousands of men to commit involuntarily the "sacrilege unspeakable" (102) during her descent into the arena (71), permits her to tour the rookeries of her pauper tenants in the spirit of a College girl who has 'taken sociology' (155, 208), makes her a keen business woman with an unholy eye for gain (113, 190), and so horsy (58) that she not only insisted upon fast mares for her carriage (209), but owned stock in all the six racing-companies (163), haunted the stables, chatted with charioteers, grooms and others like a Nero (166), and finally established a stud-farm of her own, selling colts like a regular dealer (167, 198, 240). Well might the Pontifex regard all this horse-breeding as somewhat unseemly in a Vestal Virgin (168).

More surprising, however, is the impunity with which she scourged "to red pulp" and kicked an aged pontifex of Rome (104 ff., 122). Already unfrocked in one sense, would she not have been so also in another? Her slumming in search of assassins (233) might also indicate a certain emancipation from the strict require

83 Lenormant-de Witte, Élite des Monuments Céramographiques 2. Pl. 101.

79.

84 Monumenti Inediti 8, P1. 13.
85 Élite des Monuments Céramographiques 2, Pl. 102; 2, Pl. 100.

87 Monumenti Inediti 6, P1. 14.

86 Ibid. 2. Pl. 103 B.
88Reinach, Répertoire des Vases Peints 2.203. 89Ibid. 2.75.2.
Monumenti Inediti 6, Pl. 35. See also Pottier, Vases Antiques

du Louvre F 216, Pl. 79.

91Ibid. F. 2, Pl. 63.

Monumenti Inediti 10, Pl. 37.

Compare Preller, Römische Mythologie2, 2.164, ". mit der strengsten Enthaltung von allem Umgange mit Männern und allem Familienleben"; Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer2, 508, ". in strenger Klausur all ihre Zeit in dem ihnen zugewiesenen Amtsgebäude, dem Atrium Vestae, verbringen das sie nur in Ausubung ihres Dienstes verlassen", referring to Jordan, Tempel der Vesta, 56 ff. (compare his Topographie I. 2. 423); and Daremberg et Saglio, s.v. Vestalis, 755 b, "Elle y était aussi recluse", etc.

2Incidentally it is to be noted that the novelist makes too much of his multiples of nine (289); Varro's famous dictum about the Graces and the Muses is, of course, no support for that view.

quia turpis visus est in muliere accubitus, as the Roman put it. Compare the sellisternium with the lectisternium.

Such a reference as Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, 139, could, like much else that he says, be very misleading.

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