Romans Cats

[Lacertus]

I bought a kitten of the Britain shorthair breed. Having read the history of the breed I found the following: Romans delivered first home cats in Northern Europe to fight with rodents appr. 2000 years ago, that was applied to Britain as well. In connection with it I think we owe Romans not only roads and laws but cats too.

[longbow]

Rabbits too,archeologists discovered a 2000y old rabbit body proving the Romans brought them over,previously it was thought the Normans brought them.L

[pompeius magnus]

Even the great julius caesar supposedly had a cat he gave to his 2nd wife before he left for gaul. As long as you did not have a dog in roman society it would be all good. Seeing dogs at times were considered a very bad omen, especially when dealing with sacrifices.

[Ursus]

I'm a dog person myself. :-)

[Silentium]

We have a "cat sanctuary" in largo Argentina, the cats are free to live between the ruins and some people feed them and take care of them. They're so cute <3

[pompeius magnus]

Silentium since you live in Rome I was curious what the Roman feeling towards dogs are, since when I was there they were roaming the streets and eating scraps on the ground.

[floppybelly]

funny how cultures seem to prefer cats over dogs. *thinks of Egyptians* I could be wrong on that, but is it the majority? There could easily be cultures I don't know about who go the other way around, with dogs instead of cats.

[Silentium]

Silentium since you live in Rome I was curious what the Roman feeling towards dogs are, since when I was there they were roaming the streets and eating scraps on the ground.

It's hard to tell what the Roman feeling about dogs is, since Roma has 3 million inhabitants; it also depends on the area of the city you saw these dogs in. Mine for instance is sleeping peacefully in his own bed and he's on the best way to obesity lol and so are most dogs in my neighbourhood. I'm not denying the fact that many people abandone their pets but I think that happens all over the world, not just in Roma.

[monkey]

Roma also has a lovely cat sanctuary in one of its ruins doesn't it? I met a very nice cat at the Spanish steps last time i was there. I called it Dave.

 

[Pantagathus]

funny how cultures seem to prefer cats over dogs. *thinks of Egyptians* I could be wrong on that, but is it the majority? There could easily be cultures I don't know about who go the other way around, with dogs instead of cats.

 

Typically it seems the alignment went more that domestic dogs came from hunter-gatherer partnerships (as they are a social-pack animal) and cats more with farming communities (keep the mice away from grains). Dogs became less self supportive and could be more of a tax on resources out side of the hunter-gatherer frame work.

 

Off the top of my head, the Persians were one of the only large civilizations of antiquity that seemed to revere dogs in the highest esteem.

 

I've read in may ancient anecdotes that the Phoenicians (more often than not) kept pet cats on their ships to keep rats & desease at a minimum.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

All these posts seem to be good views of cats in the word. Here in the US, we seriously have a problem, and I mean its a huge problem, in Wisconsin( I don't live there). The problem I would have to blame on careless pet-owners. In Wisconsin, an estimate of 1.2 million ferile stray cats dwell and the problem, they've been killing song birds at a rate of 8,000,000 a year. So if anyone happens just find out a text in the ancient mentioning a problem with overpopulation, don't be surprised.

Edited November 19, 2005 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

[Tiberius Sylvestius]

We used to breed pedigree cats, we had about 18 in total, until my father's deteriorating asthma put paid to the idea. I am actually slightly allergic to furred animals anyhow and you know cats are the worst of the lot. Ironically i'm not a pet kind of person by any stretch of the imagination but i have a real fondness for cats. Dogs i have no time for, don't like them (my father is the dog lover in the house), but cats, cats i like.

 

Although i prefer animals out there in the wild, where you can look at them, appreciate them but they don't depend upon you for anything!

 

Scotland has wild cats but i believe they are not very common? There are instances where they have been breeding with feral tabbies and that's kinda mucked up the gene pool a bit. Kinda hard to tell what's a proper wild cat (i.e felis sylvestris) and what's just a wild 'domestic' stray.