Hili: Did the ancient Greeks adore cats?
A: My knowledge in this field is very limited.
Hili: But you do understand that our hedonism cannot have roots in Christianity?
Photo:Sarah
In Polish:Hili: Czy starożytni Grecy kochali koty?
Ja: Moja wiedza w tej kwestii jest bardzo ograniczona.
Hili: Ale rozumiesz przecież, że nasz sybarytyzm nie może mieć swoich korzeni w chrześcijaństwie.
Without looking up cats and Ancient Greece, I can’t imagine a culture not being besotted by felines. And yes, Christianity is not a religion for cats – too constrained.
According to this article they kept weasels!
http://www.ancient.eu.com/article/466/
Only for pest control. Although it actually looks like a lot of our negative associations with cats may have come from Greece.
“A first century CE epitaph of a young girl holding a cat is among the earliest pieces of evidence of cats in Rome and, in Greece, the playwright Aristophanes frequently featured cats in his works for comic effect (coining the phrase, ‘The cat did it’ in assigning blame). Among ancient civilizations, however, the cat was probably least popular among the Greeks owing to its association with the goddess of death, darkness and witches, Hecate. A much later development in Greek appreciation for the cat is evidenced in the legend that the cat protected the baby Jesus from rodents and snakes and so is accorded the best of spots in a Greek home but, originally, they do not seem to have been regarded highly.”
Thanks for the info – I usually look things up – and boom boom – when one doesn’t! 😉
Belatedly, even some papists are starting to see a glimmer of ceiling cat’s glory. See
http://youtu.be/PFLF57vDYcQ
where “Les petits chanteurs à la croix de bois” witness thereunto.
Bravo!!! The brown tabby is particularly cute -I would hate to see him feature in one of those priest calendars in future. How do they pull it off with a straight face? Is that thanks to religious education? Oh dear…
If anybody finds this Rossini boring, give it a chance at 1:38, 1:50, 2:05, 2:34, 2,49. Those are real miaos!
(Don: To avoid embedding, you could just cut of the www. next time.)
No cats of this species are mentioned in the Bible.
Cats were kept as pets and Aristophanes includes them in his comedies.
I read them recently and remember only passing references – did he have them more prominently in some of his lost ones (as chorus, perhaps?)
I remember little quips. In one of them (The Clouds?) hour says bring out the cat. There is a reference to black cats as a omen too (guess we got that superstition honestly).
I’m not a fan of Old Comedy. It is mostly political jokes so it is harder to understand. However, when I’ve seen these plays performed they are funny and the Lysistrata is relatable.
Just thought. If he had wasps and birds, why not cats?
Agreed, they’re hard. You have to consult the endnotes a lot. But I liked how the plots feeled strange and unusual and just don’t fit the modern clichés (unlike new comedy, which seems to have invented them).
Whether the Greeks did or not, their cousins on the other side of the Mediterranean sure did!
b&