Hunting in the Ancient World

By J. K. Anderson

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520349735

J. K. Anderson

Enter the Author Bio(s) here.

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HUNTING

IN THE

ANCIENT WORLD

Abdalonymus and Alexander at the lion hunt

(see Ill. 30, p. 77).

Hunting

in the

AncientWorld

J. K. ANDERSON

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 1985 by

The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America 123456789

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Anderson, J. K. (John Kinloch)

Hunting in the ancient world.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

ï. Civilization, Classical. 2. Hunting—Greece.

3. Hunting—Rome. I. Title.

DE61.H86A52 1984 779.2'0937'6 84-72

ISBN O-52O-O5197-I

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

1 The Heroic Hunt

2 Hunting in the Greek City-State

3 The Technique of Greek Hunting

4 The Royal Hunt

5 Roman Hunting

6 Hunting in the Age of Hadrian

7 Hunting in the Later Empire

NOTES AND ABBREVIATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SUBJECT INDEX

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Detail of the François Vase (Attic, c. 560 B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 3

2. Lions attacking cattle, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B.C.). Author’s photograph. 6

3. Lions attacking cattle, and hunters. Tombstone from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (first half of sixteenth century B.C.). Author’s photograph. 7

4. Lion hunt. Detail of inlaid dagger from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (late sixteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 8

5. King Ashurbanipal hunting. Relief from the North Palace of King Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 9

6. Lion hunter in chariot (?). Tombstone from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (late sixteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 11

7. Boar driven by hounds onto spears. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Ms. Anne Stewart. 12

8. Huntsman with hound. Wall painting from Tiryns (first half of thirteenth century B.C.). Courtesy of Ms. Anne Stewart. 13

9. Eros with bird snare. South Italian vase (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 21

10. Above, harnessing chariot; below, boar hunt. Attic hydria (c. 520 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 24

11. Boar hunters on foot and mounted deer hunters. Attic lid (c. 520 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 25

12. Hare hunt. Attic skyphos (late eighth century B.c.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 32

13. Hunters with body of wild goat. Cretan plaque (c. 675—650 B.C.). Drawn by Miss Emma Faull. 33

14. Above, procession of chariot and horsemen; below, hare hunt. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 34

15. Above, lion hunt; below, hounds coursing hare. Detail of the Chigi Vase (Corinthian, c. 630 B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 35

16. Return from hare hunting. Attic krater (mid-fifth century B.C.). Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Philadelphia. 36

17a,b,c. Hare hunter following hound; hare and hound; net watcher. Details of Etruscan oinochoe (sixth century B.C.). Courtesy of Seattle Art Museum. 40, 41, 42

18. Deer hunters using javelins against doe. Attic lekythos (c. 500 B.C.). Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 50

19. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Apulian amphora (second half of fourth century B.c.). From E. Gerhard, Apulische Vasenbilder des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin, pl. 9- 54

20. Gazelles driven towards King Ashurbanipal. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 63

21. King Ashurbanipal crouching in pit. Detail of figure 20. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 64

22a,b. Servants of King Ashurbanipal with nets and stakes. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.c.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 65

23. Deer driven into nets. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.C.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 66

24. Servants returning from the hunt. Relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (c. 650 B.c.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 66

25a,b,c,d,e,f. Persian nobles hunting on foot and on horseback. Modern impressions of Greco-Persian gems (fifth to fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Professor John Boardman. 69

26. Persian noble at the hunt and banqueting. Tombstone from northwestern Anatolia (fifth to fourth century B.c.). Author’s photograph. 72

27. King of Sidon and attendants hunting. The Satrap Sarcophagus (c. 430 B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 74

28. King of Sidon hunting. Detail of figure 27. Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 74

29. King Abdalonymus and attendants hunting panther. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 76

30. Abdalonymus and Alexander at the lion hunt. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.C.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 77

31. Hephaistion and other hunters. Detail of the Alexander Sarcophagus (late fourth century B.c.). Courtesy of Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich. 77

32a,b. Heroic mounted hunter. Mold for manufacture of Arretine pottery (mid-first century B.c.) and modern cast. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 95

33. Heroic lion hunt. Handle of silver pan from Pompeii (before A.D. 79). Drawn by Miss Nancy Conkle. 97

34. Hounds coursing hare and fox. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 200). Author’s photograph. 98

35. Rough-coated hounds, followed by mounted hunter, driving hare into net. Glass bowl from the Rhineland (mid-fourth century A.D.). Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 109

36. Smooth-coated Celtic hounds coursing hares. Castor Ware beaker (second century A.D.). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. 112

37. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Roman sarcophagus (late second century A.D.). Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 126

38. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century A.D.). Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 127

39. Huntsmen with nets and props. Roman sarcophagus (late second century A.D.). Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome. 128

40. The hunt as a symbol of Christian virtue. Mosaic from the Basilica of Doumetios at Nicopolis (c. A.D. 525). Author’s photograph. 130

41. Hare hunt with tracking hounds and gazehounds. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 250). Author’s photograph. 137

42. Boar hunt with hounds and nets. Mosaic from Carthage (c. A.D. 225). Author’s photograph. 139

43. Country scenes, including hunting and wildfowling. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 150). Courtesy of the Musee du Bardo, Tunisia. 140

44. Country scenes, including fowlers and huntsmen. Mosaic from Carthage

(c. A.D. 350). Courtesy of the Musee du Bardo, Tunisia. 142

45. Horsemen driving stags into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 14-4

46. Above, mounted bare hunter with bident; below, boar hunt. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 145

47. Above, fowlers with lime-rods; below, stags driven into net. Detail of the mosaic of the Little Hunt, Piazza Armerina, Sicily (c. A.D. 310). Courtesy of the Rev. Dr. R. V. Schoder, S.J. 146

48. Hounds driving hares into net; wild hawk swooping from above. Mosaic from Roman North Africa (c. A.D. 300). Author’s photograph. 152

PREFACE

Whether vanity mislead us or not in the choice of our pursuits, the pleasures or advantages which result from them will best determine. I fear that the occupation of few gentlemen will admit of nice scrutiny: occupations therefore that amuse, and are at the same time innocent; that promote exercise, and conduce to health; though they may appear trifles in the eyes of others certainly are not so to those that enjoy them.

The apology offered by Peter Beckford in the first of his Thoughts on Hunting may perhaps serve as an excuse for the limitations of this book, which is concerned with hunting for sport among the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially the practical details described in the texts and illustrated by the archaeological evidence.

Several related matters of greater importance are here only touched upon or altogether neglected. The hunt as a source of literary images; religious and funerary symbolism; the heroization of the hunter, especially of the monarch who hunts; the excitement offered to crowds of spectators by the killing of captive beasts—these are topics that the following pages do not attempt to cover adequately, though some aspects of them are mentioned in passing. Nor are professional hunters treated, except to distinguish them from amateur sportsmen. The poor countryman whose snares, nets, and lime-twigs supplied the city market with small game and wildfowl played a not unimportant part in the ancient economy, but fowling is here deliberately neglected. The ancients found neither merit nor excitement in taking birds on their roosts or on the ground, though they were glad enough to eat birds that had been so taken. To shoot flying birds was a feat for legendary heroes assisted by Apollo, the archer god, not the practice of ordinary mortals, and though falconry, a sport of the barbarians, was enthusiastically taken up by the last of the Roman aristocracy, it does not really belong to the ancient world. As for fishing, whether for pleasure or profit, it has at all times been regarded as a separate topic.

If sport is narrowly defined as physical activity undertaken solely for amusement, few of the ancients qualify as sportsmen. However, if hunters in antiquity enjoyed eating the flesh of their victims, so do many sportsmen of today, though such supplements no longer form an important part of most people’s diets. The modern foxhunter justifies his sport on the grounds that it protects the farmers’ hen-roosts; the ancient hunter, who defended his flocks from the wolf and his fields and orchards from the wild boar, should not be denied the title of sportsman because his hunting was a work of necessity.

Modern, as well as ancient, authors have celebrated the image of war without its guilt, and found in the hunting field the source not only of health and happiness but of manly virtue. It is certainly within the province of this book to consider how the sportsman appeared to himself; how he wished to appear in the eyes of the world; and how the rest of the world actually thought of him. But I have not probed deeply into these matters, leaving my authors to speak for themselves.

Nor have I been overcurious in comparing ancient with modern practice. The modern big-game hunter obviously has little in common with King Ashurbanipal or the Emperor Hadrian, and Xenophon’s method of hunting the hare might nowadays seem more proper to the poacher than to a country gentleman. Even where hounds and horses are concerned, William Somervile notes the absence in antiquity of a regular and well-disciplined pack of hounds, and, after quoting Vergil, adds: But it is evident that the art of hunting is very different now, from what it was in his days, and very much altered and improved in these latter ages. I have, nonetheless, frequently cited Somervile himself, and Beckford, judging that the works of both these authors enjoy the standing of classics, but I have not troubled the reader with more modern works on hunting, either with horse and hound or with firearms. In the same manner, and also because I consider that he judges Commodus and Honorius better than their more recent apologists, I quote Gibbon’s work as a classic, not as an up- to-date authority. Translations throughout are my own, unless another source is acknowledged.

It remains to add that this book was written in the library of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, where I was Visiting Fellow for 1981—1982. I was at the time on sabbatical leave from the University of California at Berkeley, assisted by a travel grant from the university’s committee on research. Dr. Hector Catling, the Director of the British School, and Mrs. Catling helped me in every possible way with kindness and generosity and read and commented on my first draft. Miss Emma Faull and Mr. Christopher Simon also read each chapter as it was typed. Miss Faull’s knowledge of natural history and experience in the hunting field and Mr. Simon’s exact and wideranging scholarship were of the greatest help to me. Miss Christine Morris and Mr. Jan Driessen also made valuable comments. Dr. Roger Just and Dr. Don Evely at the British School, Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Macgillivray at Knossos, Miss Virginia Grace, and Dr. Alexis Diamantopoulos are among the many others whose kindness helped to make my stay happy and, at least to myself, useful.

Since my return to California, I have availed myself of Mrs. M. A. Littauer’s unrivaled knowledge of all aspects of equestrianism in antiquity; Professor Emily Vermeule’s vast learning and wise criticism; and the wide sporting experience and sound critical sense of General and Mrs. James Boswell. Of my colleagues at Berkeley, Professors Margaret Miles, Danuta Shanzer, Crawford Greenewalt, Oliver Nicholson, and Charles Murgia have all generously given help, and I am also indebted to the editors of the University of California Press. Mr. Peter Dreyer suggested numerous improvements to the text; and I am grateful to him for lending me his personal copy of Sport in Classic Times by Alfred Joshua Butler.

Acknowledgments to institutions that have kindly supplied illustrations are made in the List of Illustrations, but I owe special thanks to Professor John Boardman and Dr. August Fruge for their generosity in sending me photographs from their personal collections and to the Max Hirmer Fotoarchiv for the generous loan of a transparency of the Lion Hunt Dagger from Mycenae.

My wife typed and retyped, cheerfully tackling my almost illegible manuscripts and frequently improving the original text by her sensible observations.

Finally, to Mrs. Jane Rabnett I am indebted for unfailing kindness extending over a third of a century. To her, therefore, this book is dedicated.

1

The Heroic Hunt

But when the rosy-fingered dawn appeared, they set out for the hunt, both hounds and men, the sons of Autolycus and godlike Odysseus with them. They came to the steep mountain clothed in forest, Parnassus, and quickly reached the windy glens. And as the sun, risen from the softly flowing flood of Ocean, was newly striking the fields, the hunters came to the ravine. In front went the hounds, seeking the trail, and behind came the sons of Autolycus, and godlike Odysseus with them, close to the hounds, shaking his long spear. There in a dense thicket couched a mighty boar—a thicket through which the rainy force of the blustering winds did not blow, neither did the sun strike it with its rays, nor the rain penetrate it. So thick it was; but within was a great pile of leaves in abundance. And now the boar was encompassed by the footfalls of men and of hounds as they drew up to him, and he came to meet them from the thicket, bristling along his chine and flashing fire from his eyes, and stood at bay close to them. Then Odysseus was the first to run upon him, grasping his long spear in his mighty hand, eager to strike home. But the boar struck first, above the knee, and tore away much flesh with his tusk, as he rushed sidelong, but he did not reach the bone. And Odysseus hit him, catching him below the right shoulder, and the point of the bright spear went right through, and the boar fell screaming in the dust, and his life flew from him. But the sons of Autolycus cared for Odysseus in friendly fashion, and skillfully bound up the gash, and checked the flow of dark blood with an incantation, and quickly returned to the palace of their dear father.¹

The comradeship of men and hounds; the upland woods high above the tilled fields; the bright spears; the valiant quarry valiantly confronted; the danger; and the victorious return home—the hunt in the ancient world was made up of all these things, not only in Odysseus’s day but a thousand years later. In the world of the epic, however, the wilderness is not yet wholly on the defensive, and the goddess who rules it is no pretty patroness of sportsmen, but a dark and dangerous power. Homer knows how golden-throned Artemis stirred up evil for the men of Calydon in her wrath when King Oineus neglected her sacrifices through forgetfulness or ignorance, and how she sent against him the white-tusked wild boar that lived in the wilderness, to lay waste his fields and uproot his orchards. And the boar was slain by the son of Oineus, Meleager, who gathered hunters and hounds from many cities. For it might not be overcome by a few mortals, so great was it; and many men it laid on the hateful funeral pyre. Homer knows also of the strife that arose over the beast’s spoils, its head and hide, though he does not name the huntress Atalanta, to whom they were given by Meleager as later poets relate.²

The boar hunt on Parnassus is essential to the story of Odysseus, because it was by the scar of his wound that he was first recognized when he returned home after his wanderings. By contrast, lion hunts never form part of the plot of the epics, though the lion is sometimes coupled with the boar as a symbol of stubborn courage. Thus Hector, brought to a stand by the great ditch in front of the Greek ships, is likened to a boar or a lion who turns about and glares in his might among the hounds and hunters. And they, closing themselves like a rampart, withstand him and dart from their hands spears in great number. Yet never is his noble heart troubled or afraid; his valor is the death of him. Wherever he makes a rush, there the ranks give way.³

This is an ornament to the story, not part of it. Indeed, the poet’s most famous lions are only pictures, fashioned by Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, upon the shield of Achilles.

On it he made a steading of straight-horned cattle, and the cows were wrought of gold and of tin, and with lowing they hastened from the yard to the pasture along an eddying stream, beside the shivering reed-bed. Golden herdsmen went with the cattle, four of them, and nine swift-footed dogs followed. And two terrible lions among the foremost cattle held a bellowing bull, which was dragged along. The hounds and stout herdsmen gave chase, but the lions, rending the hide of the mighty bull, gulped his entrails and black blood. The herdsmen were pursuing and urging on the swift hounds, but they turned away from biting the lions, though they stood very close, and were barking and drawing back.⁴

The poet fails to mention the lion’s roar, though in the excitement of the scene he forgets that his cattle are mere inlays of gold and tin and makes them bellow. So it has been argued that he knew the lion only from works of art and from travellers’ tales. But to what age and part of the world did those tales belong? The lion was often por-

1. Hunting the Calydonian Boar. Detail of the François Vase (Attic, c. 560 B.C.).

trayed by the artists of the Greek Late Bronze Age, whose brilliant civilization perished about the end of the thirteenth century B.C. with the sacking of the palaces round which it had developed. The stories that are told in the Iliad and the Odyssey are set in this age of Sackers of Cities, but it was centuries later, perhaps in the late eighth or early seventh centuries B.c., that poets of genius (rather than a single Homer) composed the epics. These poets must have used tales and ballads that, however much their form and substance had been changed over the centuries, preserved some memory of the vanished kingdoms and their glory. To these traditional materials they added much from their own age—an age of reviving civilization and renewed wealth, in which the Greeks were drawn into close contact with the Near East as they had been in the Bronze Age. Greek art, under the influence of Egypt and southwest Asia, entered upon an orientalizing phase, and among the Eastern motifs that are characteristic of this period, the lion is one of the most important.

The Greek artists of the time copied their lions from Near Eastern prototypes, rather than from nature.⁵ They treat the lion not merely as a decorative motif but in a way that shows an understanding of the beast’s nature. A snarling lion couched upon the tomb of a dead warrior did not need to be explained as a symbol of valor and ferocity. Nor did the poets need to explain to their audiences the symbolism of the lions in their similes. It was enough to say that Agamemnon rushed upon the helpless sons of Antimachus like a lion.⁶ If the poet added details, he did so in order to make his picture more vivid, not because his audience needed to be told what lions are like. For example, the shipwrecked Odysseus comes out of the thicket where he has been sheltering like a lion nurtured upon the mountains, trusting in his strength, who comes forth beaten by rain and wind, his eyes burning in his head. He goes among the cattle and sheep or after the wild deer as his belly bids him.⁷

If the argument from the fact that the Homeric lion … is never heard to roar⁸ is pressed, it would seem to lead to the conclusion that not only had the poets never heard lions, but that their sources of knowledge also omitted the lion’s roar. That is, the poets were not drawing on the tales of travelers who had encountered lions, but solely on pictures. But Greek art of the time would not have shown the rain and wind upon the mountains, the burning eyes, and the empty belly. Perhaps we should not make too much of the lions’ silence, and should remember that, however much the new influences from the Near East quickened Greek interest in lions, there must also have been a body of traditional Greek lion lore.

In the tradition, Hercules stands first among Greek lion-slayers, and the killing of the Nemean Lion stands first among his exploits. Even in the late eighth century B.c., the Greek artists who reproduced in their own idiom the Eastern motif of the lion hunt may have been reinterpreting it as the story of Hercules.⁹ Indeed, pictures of the Nemean Lion might almost be imagined on the painted pottery of the Late Bronze Age.¹⁰ At all events, there is more evidence than art and legend to show that a hero of the thirteenth century B.c. might have found lions to hunt among the hills of southern Greece.

Nemea is no more than a long day’s walk from Tiryns, the birthplace of Hercules according to the generally accepted story. And at Tiryns have been found fragments of lions’ bones, in contexts dating from about 1230 B.C.—that is, perhaps a couple of generations later than a believer in the historic truth of the old traditions might place Hercules himself. One fragment, a heel-bone found in a man’s grave, might be a treasured talisman brought from overseas. But a second, part of a shoulder, was found among a quantity of broken bones mainly from cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and dogs, some at least of which had been used for food. The discoverers raise the possibility that lions’ flesh might have been eaten at Tiryns, perhaps as a magic source of heroic courage.¹¹ Some memory of the magic may have survived in the tale that Chiron the Centaur reared the infant Achilles upon the entrails of lions and wild beasts and the marrow of bears.¹² Chiron’s cave on Mount Pelion was not so far from the wild mountains of northern Greece where lions survived until historical times.¹³

But in the Homeric epics neither Achilles nor any other hero, Greek or Trojan, hunts lions. The poets introduce combats between lions and ordinary men as though they were something familiar in their own time, so that by comparing them with the heroic world they can not only ornament their story but illustrate the distant past.¹⁴ Perhaps the Greeks among whom the epics were composed, the Ionians of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, had more direct and recent knowledge of lions than is generally allowed.

It has been remarked that in Homeric conflicts between