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Attitudes Toward Animals in Greco-Roman Antiquity WellBeing International WBI Studies Repository 1983 Attitudes Toward Animals in Greco-Roman Antiquity Liliane Bodson University of Liège Follow this and additional works at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/acwp_sata Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Other Anthropology Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Bodson, L. (1983). Attitudes toward animals in Greco-Roman antiquity. International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems, 4(4), 312-320. This material is brought to you for free and open access by WellBeing International. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. L. Bodson- Greco-Roman Attitudes Original Article meaning, they complete the direct and reader is kindly requested to turn to fur­ scarcer evidence and confirm that the ther details and references. Only the Attitudes Toward Animals problems arising from the daily relation­ essential points of immediate interest for ship between man and animal were never the question under examination will be in Greco-Roman Antiquity despised nor played down at any period. stressed below. Quite the reverse, they were paid atten­ In admonishing his brother on how tion to not only by philosophers and to behave properly, the moralist farmer­ moralists, but also by a wider public, by poet Hesiod (7th cent. B.C.) considered Liliane Bodson the State authorities, and by tho5e who the principles which rule the world and were concerned in the first place: animal stated that justice has been granted ex­ Liliane Bodson is with the Department of Classics, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium. owners, breeders, and keepers. Since clusively to mankind by Zeus, while the those accounts have also given the an­ wild animals- fish, birds, mammals­ Both wild and domesticated animals had a direct and wide-ranging role in the life cient authors and compilers the oppor­ deprived as they are of the logos (both of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The bond between humans and animals which first tunity to analyze and comment on the intelligence and language) that makes originated in the economic needs went far beyond strictly practical matters. It did in­ features they reported on, they became man's superiority, "teared each other to fluence and enrich the Classical culture in its major aspects from literature and arts to significant of the ideas prevailing at the pieces in a mercyless struggle" (Works philosophy and ethics. It also induced people to analyze the main implications of their time when they were set forth. Being ex­ and Days, 274-280). Hesiod also praised relationship with "subhuman" creatures. The present paper aims to survey the range of perienced by all people without excep­ the ploughing ox, suggested how the farmer the attitudes they developed about animals. It also examines to what extent they were tion, the relationship between man and should select it, but said nothing even concerned with the problems related to animal welfare and rights, and how they coped animal in the Classical antiquity cannot allusively on its welfare (ibid., 405, 436- with them. be isolated from what influenced it most: 441 ). One might, however, admit that the philosophers' and moralists' views the farmer, considering his own and per­ When one considers the impor­ Although the amount of materials and the religious beliefs and rites. All sonal interest, at least would care for his tance of the involvement of animals in lost over the ages should not be underes­ these factors are closely related. For the "first servant" and grant it the minimal the life of the ancient Greeks and Ro­ timated, the remaining evidence, either sake of clarity, they will be outlined sep­ comfort to keep it in good health. mans, one is bound to wonder how the direct or indirect, clearly shows the arately in the next two paragraphs, as an A few decades later, Pythagoras latter treated those subhuman creatures evolution of the mentalities throughout introduction to the survey of man's daily and his followers dealing among other of which they required so much for all the antiquity. They are scattered over relationship with the animal in Greece metaphysical concerns with I ife after their physical and metaphysical needs two millenia or so: from the Creta-myce­ arid Rome. death developed the theory of metem­ (Keller, 1909-1913; Toynbee, 1973). Did naean era (2nd mill. B.C.) down to the psychosis. They believed in the human they care for them and to what extent? first centuries of the Roman empire. Ancient Philosophers' and soul's transmigration to the other living Did they have any definite ideas on the Some of them, especially those recording Moralists' Views on Animals creatures, including the animals, and subject of animal welfare and animal the attitudes which were privately adopted therefore they taught their contem­ rights which was later to become such a towards the animals are concentrated in As soon as the Greek thought poraries not to kill them, whether they sensitive and controversial issue (Magel, the Greek and Roman texts of the first emerged, the question of defining man were wild or domestic. They relied upon 1981; Roll in, 1982)? three centuries A.D., at the time when in his relationship with the world and all a more or less exclusive vegetarian diet The relationship between man and people reconsidered the philosophical living beings arose. Although the debate depending on the range of animal animal is directly affected by the cultu­ and ethical theories previously elaborated was to remain strongly anthropocentric, species involved in the transmigration ral and intellectual environment of the in ancient anthropology, broadened the the early anthropology felt it necessary process (Haussleiter, 1935). The theory societies and civilizations in which it is debate, and focused on the human-ani­ to define both the supranatural and the of soul transmigration was later to be rooted. Since it has taken an increasing mal bond more systematically then ever subhuman creatures: gods and animals. taken up by Plato who distinguished a importance in the past few decades (due before. Yet, the data that they brought This did not go without flaws, ambigu­ double nature in man's soul: for its bet­ to the current economic, scientific, and up to illustrate the often diverging posi­ ities, and incoherences as the ideas ter part, divine and shared with the gods moral evolution), we run the risk, as al­ tions go back to events and episodes evolved. In spite of this, most theories, if (logistikon: the rational element), and, for ways when investigating an ancient tra­ which took place earlier, sometimes sev­ not all, did affect the relationship be­ the other, related to the animals through dition on matters of present interest, of eral centuries before the time when they tween man and animal. Full accounts of the thymoeides (the spirited element) being anachronistic. A few preliminary were definitively written down and pre­ the ideas developed on that matter have and epithymetikon (the appetitive ele­ remarks are therefore needed in order to served. This late emergence does not de­ been given, e.g., by Westermarck (1908), ment). (See Plato, Republic, IV. 439 define the sources to be taken into con­ tract from their importance. Far from being Boas and Lovejoy (1935), and more E-440 E.) Man could only fulfill himself sideration, their limits and prospects. mere anecdotes, colorful but of restricted recently by Dierauer (1977) to which the by giving his reason command over the ir- 312 /NT} STUD ANIM PROB 4(4) 1983 /NT} STUD ANIM PROB 4(4) 1983 313 L. Bodson- Greco-Roman Attitudes Original Article meaning, they complete the direct and reader is kindly requested to turn to fur­ scarcer evidence and confirm that the ther details and references. Only the Attitudes Toward Animals problems arising from the daily relation­ essential points of immediate interest for ship between man and animal were never the question under examination will be in Greco-Roman Antiquity despised nor played down at any period. stressed below. Quite the reverse, they were paid atten­ In admonishing his brother on how tion to not only by philosophers and to behave properly, the moralist farmer­ moralists, but also by a wider public, by poet Hesiod (7th cent. B.C.) considered Liliane Bodson the State authorities, and by tho5e who the principles which rule the world and were concerned in the first place: animal stated that justice has been granted ex­ Liliane Bodson is with the Department of Classics, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium. owners, breeders, and keepers. Since clusively to mankind by Zeus, while the those accounts have also given the an­ wild animals- fish, birds, mammals­ Both wild and domesticated animals had a direct and wide-ranging role in the life cient authors and compilers the oppor­ deprived as they are of the logos (both of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The bond between humans and animals which first tunity to analyze and comment on the intelligence and language) that makes originated in the economic needs went far beyond strictly practical matters. It did in­ features they reported on, they became man's superiority, "teared each other to fluence and enrich the Classical culture in its major aspects from literature and arts to significant of the ideas prevailing at the pieces in a mercyless struggle" (Works philosophy and ethics. It also induced people to analyze the main implications of their time when they were set forth. Being ex­ and Days, 274-280). Hesiod also praised relationship with "subhuman" creatures. The present paper aims to survey the range of perienced by all people without excep­ the ploughing ox, suggested how the farmer the attitudes they developed about animals.
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