Ancient Pawprints: The Functions and Significance of Human-Dog Interactions in Classical Athens

Abstract

Evidence from Classical Athens is full of examples of animals and the impacts of their interactions with people across social, political, religious, and philosophical contexts. Within this body of evidence, the dog stands out for the scope of its presence across both the historical record and particularly within Athenian life. Men and women, children and adults, elite and ordinary citizens, citizens, metics, and slaves, urban and rural inhabitants, labourers, the poor, and the healthy and sick – dogs were there with them, on the land, in their thoughts, in their literature, on their art, and in their practices - hidden in plain sight. As such, dogs offer us multiple perspectives through which to examine Athenian society and the expressions of its individual and collective identities and experiences. The principal aim of this dissertation is to highlight the benefits of including human-animal relations in the histories we write. It approaches the period of Classical Athens through the lens of its different human-canine interactions and applies an interdisciplinary method that integrates classics, historical inquiry, classical archaeology, and archaeology with principles from Human-Animal Studies. This thesis asks how and why numerous real and figurative dogs featured in the ancient evidence and how this related to real-life human-canine interactions in Classical Athens. Exploring dogs as guards, military auxiliaries, companions, commodities, and philosophical subjects, this study demonstrates the significant historical value of dogs and the tangible insights they provide into different experiences of ancient Athenian life.