Dogs.

[Nephele]

Regarding the original question of this thread, I think the quotation from Gmanicus on Post#3 has considerable negative signifance, given the exhaustive Plinian review methodology; ie, if Caius Plinius Secundus Maior didn't say so, it's probably because it didn't happen.

 

Heh, that was my quote I'd found from Pliny, that G-Man was re-quoting. However, I did caution in a later posting that perhaps we can't always rely on Pliny, as Pliny did also write about a particularly ferocious breed of dog from the near East that was supposedly cross-bred with tigers. Which, of course, we know isn't possible.

 

Maty above seems to have covered the question, though.

 

-- Nephele

[ASCLEPIADES]

Regarding the original question of this thread, I think the quotation from Gmanicus on Post#3 has considerable negative signifance, given the exhaustive Plinian review methodology; ie, if Caius Plinius Secundus Maior didn't say so, it's probably because it didn't happen.

 

Heh, that was my quote I'd found from Pliny, that G-Man was re-quoting. However, I did caution in a later posting that perhaps we can't always rely on Pliny, as Pliny did also write about a particularly ferocious breed of dog from the near East that was supposedly cross-bred with tigers. Which, of course, we know isn't possible.

 

Maty above seems to have covered the question, though.

 

-- Nephele

Salve, Amici Sorry, Lady N; erratum meus, hic mihi ignosces.

 

Anyway, your point is mine too. For I think Caius Plinius S Maior was quite exhaustive, even if sometimes kind of gullible.

He was also:

1) eager to show Romans were the best ones on virtually everything (over all Naturalis Historia in general) and

2) quite fond on canines (specifically on Liber VIII cp. LXI).

So I find quite unlikely Plinius wouldn't have recorded any related previous roman story on this issue, no matter how fantastic it may have sounded.

 

Actually, the Garamantes story seems pretty unreliable to me (ibid):

 

Garamantum regem canes CC ab exilio reduxere proeliati contra resistentes

 

"A king of the Garamantes also was brought back from exile by two hundred dogs, which maintained the combat against all his opponents"

 

The remote Garamantes were almost semi-legendary, after all; but Castabala and specially Colophon were wholely another story. They were both well known cities, the latter even with a long military history; that's why the silence of other sources on the cohortes caninas is so problematic to me.

 

BTW, Forster's quotation on Herodotus is indeed about Xerxes using dogs, but not actually as weapons (Polimnia, cp 187) :

 

"That is the number of Xerxes' whole force. No one, however, can say what the exact number of cooking women, and concubines, and eunuchs was, nor can one determine the number of the beasts of draught and burden, and the Indian dogs (κυνω̂ν ̓Ινδικω̂ν*) which accompanied the host; so many of them were there."

 

I don't think concubines or cooking women counted as weapons either.

Edited May 31, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[Nephele]

So I find quite unlikely Plinius wouldn't have recorded any related previous roman story on this issue, no matter how fantastic it may have sounded.

 

I agree. I still have to read that article by Foster that Maty cited, as I see I can access it through my library's JSTOR account.

 

As for Forster's quotation on Herodotus and Xerxes' use of dogs... Yes (as you pointed out), I suppose the inclusion of the Indian dogs along with what appears to be a military inventory (which also includes cooking women, beasts of draught and burden, etc.) doesn't conclusively indicate that the dogs were used for warfare.

 

I wonder, though, why Herodotus would have made a point of stating that these were specifically Indian dogs, a breed noted for ferocity (believed by Pliny to have been cross-bred with tigers)? I can see how the conclusion might be drawn that they were used for battle, but I'm thinking (and I presume you are, too) that they were more likely used for guard purposes (which is what dogs do best, after all).

 

-- Nephele