![]() ![]() Rather, he was a great listener, a world traveler, a lore collector, someone fun for people all around the Mediterranean to meet and chat with as his entourage traveled around the world sponging up everyone’s favorite tales about this and that. Herodotus was an expert, but not on cats. Imagine the oohs and aahs: “Say, did you hear the one about Egyptian cats? Did you know they explode?” “By the dog, you’re lying!” “It’s true, I heard it from an expert!” Greeks were really into (and would have paid good money for) short packaged tales that were catchy, exotic, or spooky enough to show off at drinking parties. He loved flinging out fireworks of wonders from his faraway travels left and right to explode his audience’s minds. See further Philip Kiernan, “The Bronze Mice of Apollo Smintheus,” American Journal of Archaeology 118 (2014), 613–14.Įgyptian cat guarding geese, Nineteenth Dynasty (c.1120 BC) (Cairo Museum, Egypt). ![]() This would be especially important during Nile flood seasons, when they emerged in plague hordes: the cats were valiant protectors of the light who (maybe) burned their noses in humorous ways. A plump mouse hunched on top of lamps was a common decoration, probably intended to remind the owner to close the lid, lest rats and mice nibble at the wick. Ancient lamps and candles could scorch off curious whiskers just as easily as those today. A well-known factoid – ‘cats are not that smart when it comes to flames’ – had passed around the Mediterranean and been exaggerated through the ‘telephone game’ before it perked up the ears of Herodotus, who excitedly scribbled it down in Greek. ![]() But given the behavior of my own little candle-sniffer, I can make a guess where it came from. Godley’s Loeb (1920).Įr, what? Herodotus’ tale of ‘cats leaping into fire’ seems suspicious. My translation of the Greek text from A.D. When this happens, there is great public mourning among the Egyptians. The cats, rushing through, leap over them and dive right into the fire. The Egyptians stand in a line and hold guard over them but neglect the fire. When there is a fire, a divine state seizes hold of cats. Herodotus (c.484–425 BC), that curious world traveler, heard something about cats during his trip down the Nile in the 5 th century BC, a time when they were unfamiliar animals to Greeks: Were Romans wearing catnip? Some Latinist out there please get back to me on that.Ī possible reconstruction of Herodotus’ world, on the basis of his Histories. And perfume makes them enter a Dionysian frenzy and go completely crazy. Plutarch (AD c.45–120) thought cats had magical eyes that waxed and waned along with the moon. Cat dung is just sticky enough to help remove a splinter, but a she-goat’s will do it in a pinch. And a dead cat’s ashes mixed with water can be used as convenient household mouse repellent. (My cat clearly disagrees.)įreshly-salted cat liver, eaten with a glass of wine under a waning moon, will cure a fever, according to the Roman Pliny the Elder (AD c.23–79). (That’s just insulting to cats everywhere.) And they must have small minds because they have such tiny faces. (He’s wrong: my cat is both overweight and resentful.) Aristotle (c.384–322 BC) thought that females have sex by scootching backward under males while they stand upright, apparently on hind legs. Aelian (AD c.170–230) thought they would be your lifelong friends if you just kept them fed. The Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, Second Dynasty (early 3rd millennium BC) (Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany).Ĭlassical authors had strange ideas about cats.
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