Animals, Gods and Humans - Chapter 1 pot

The presence of animalsIn the Roman Empire, humans exploited animals on their farms, huntedthem in the wilderness and at sea, trained and tamed them, used them totransport people and goo

The presence of animals

In the Roman Empire, humans exploited animals on their farms, huntedthem in the wilderness and at sea, trained and tamed them, used them totransport people and goods, utilized them in magic and medicine, keptthem as pets, cheered them on the racetrack, killed them in the arenas, andsacrificed them to the gods Generally speaking, the type of societycontributes to determining conceptions of animals – an agricultural societywill have other perspectives than a society of hunters and gatherers, anindustrial society or a late modern society Conceptions of animals in theRoman Empire were among other things influenced by these societies beingagricultural and dependent on organic power and the productivity of animalmuscles

The presence of animals was not the same everywhere Some people, such

as farmers, hunters and fishermen, were dependent on animals for theirliving On small farms and in villages, people lived closer to the animalpopulation than they did in Rome, for instance However, the differencebetween the countryside and the cities was only one of degree – Egyptiancities had an extensive animal population (Bagnall 1996: 50, 81) Theempire with all its provinces was held together by animals trotting throughmountainous areas, forests and deserts, transporting food over land to thecities Export articles were carried on their backs or on wagons to the docks,and animals were used for personal travel Everywhere, the Mediterraneaneconomy was totally dependent on and involved with animal life

How human animals and non-human animals relate to each otherdepends on the moral, material and technological developments in a partic-ular human society It further depends on how the distinctions betweenhumans and animals are drawn and on which sort of animal species we aretalking about The relationship between humans and sheep, for instance,will always be different from the way humans relate to lions or locusts Thecultural value of animals is strongly influenced by their usefulness to man,whether they are conceived of as useful, destructive or neither A hierarchy of

A N I M A L S I N T H E R O M A N E M P I R E

animals is normally based on the affinity that animals have with humans.Often an animal represents conflicting values While a tame snake could be

a benevolent protector of the house and a pet, and snakes generally wereregarded as guardians, some were dangerous While the Christians usuallyconceived of the serpent as evil and a symbol of Satan, in Christian texts too,the serpent sometimes appears as a wise animal and even as a symbol of thesaviour

Out of the conglomeration of contexts in which animals appeared, theemotions and thoughts they awakened, the ways they were used and thedangers some of them were taken to represent, a tangle of differentdiscourses about them emerges Animals were treated as subjects of philo-sophical debates and of natural histories, they were part of the culturalimagination and were used in descriptions of people as well as in images ofthe divine The first part of this book aims at surveying the interactionbetween humans and animals in the Roman Empire: what people did toanimals, how they thought about animals, what they felt in relation toanimals, what images they made of them and how they included them intheir religion

This first chapter will start from a description of real animals, animals offlesh and blood It will give an overview of their function and use in theRoman Empire We will proceed from surveying types of relation betweenanimals and humans and the different uses of animals for food, clothes andhauling power to describing specific institutional ceremonies using animals,ceremonies that were typical of the Graeco-Roman world in the first to thefourth century CE Such ceremonies were connected with entertainment andreligion They included hunting spectacles as well as sacrifice and divina-tion In these ceremonies, animals were given a central role, cultural issueswere focused on, and animals contributed to defining the limits and norms

of Graeco-Roman culture We are interested in what these animals weredefining but even more in the views on animals that these establishedcustoms reflect How was the role of animals interpreted by the establish-ment that exploited them?

Animals and humans

The relationship between humans and animals depends on which animalspecies we are talking about but also on which human group is involved –whether it consists of Romans or foreigners, men or women, free or slaves,old people or children, rich or poor Some of these groups viewed the linkbetween animals and humans as being closer than others did Animals andhumans in some instances have similar functions and roles One example isthat of animals and children, who are often associated with each other.Hellenist artists made statues of children with pets, and Hellenist epigram-matists wrote epitaphs for little animals in which these animals were

described in connection with childhood and simplicity (Fowler 1989) Thesepet animals were bemoaned when they died – dolphins, cockerels, locusts,cicadas and ants have their own epitaphs as well as dogs and horses Somepets were played with and attended to in ways similar to human children.The inhabitants of the Roman Empire were completely dependent on ananimal labour force For instance, animals worked in the fields, they pulledcarts and chariots, and served as mounts and beasts of burden Oxen wereused for ploughing, donkeys worked the millstones and the wheels that wereused to draw water from wells, mules and oxen pulled wagons, and horsesserved in war The functional division between humans and animals was notabsolute As the roles of animals and children sometimes overlapped, so didthe roles of working animals and poor people and slaves, who often engaged

in the same sort of work If people were poor and could not afford to buyanimals to help in the work, they carried, pulled and laboured themselves –like beasts Millstones were pulled by slaves as well as by donkeys The simi-larities between animals and slaves in their physical work were noted byAristotle: “And also the usefulness of slaves diverges little from that ofanimals; bodily service for the necessities of life is forthcoming from both,

from slaves and from domestic animals alike” (Politics, 1254b).

In Roman law, animals and slaves were sometimes treated together, as in

the Lex Aquilia: “If anyone kills unlawfully a slave or a servant-girl

belonging to someone else or a four-footed beast of the class of cattle, lethim be condemned to pay the owner the highest value that the property had

attained in the preceding year” (Lex Aquilia, in The Digest of Justinian, 9.2.2;

cf also 9.2.5.22) The jurist Gaius, commenting on the law, stresses thatthis statute “treats equally our slaves and our four-footed cattle which arekept in herds” (9.2.2.2) A discussion follows as to whether pigs should beincluded among cattle Dogs do not fall within this class, and neither dowild beasts such as bears, lions, and panthers, while elephants and camels do

(ibid.) Authors on agriculture such as the elder Cato (234–149 BCE),Columella (fl 50 CE) and Varro (116–27 BCE) associate slaves and cattle with

each other and sometimes treat them alike (Cato, On Agriculture, 2.7; Columella, On Agriculture, 1.6.8; Varro, On Agriculture, 1.17.1) Cato exhorts

us: “Sell worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, anold wagon, old tools, an old slave, a sickly slave, and whatever else is super-

fluous The master should have the selling habit, not the buying habit” (On

Agriculture, 2.3) In Greece, the terminology used stressed the functional

similarities between slaves and certain animals A slave was designated

andrapodon, “man-footed creature”, a term invented as an analogue to tetrapodon, “four-footed creature” (Bradley 2000: 110).

Between humans and animals there are similarities and dissimilarities,functions that overlap as well as restrictions on the sort of contact that ispermitted between them Differences between humans and other speciestend to be stressed in the continual work to maintain the categorical

boundary Meat eating is especially significant It marks the boundaryshowing the difference between humans and animals Humans cooked androasted meat and did not, like other meat-eating species, eat it raw, a pointmade by Lévi-Strauss and refined in relation to Greek religion by M.Detienne and J.-P Vernant (Detienne and Vernant 1989).

Which animals are eaten depends on which species are – for religious orother reasons – regarded as permitted and edible Judaism is the classicexample of a religion with strict rules for food that is permissible Incontrast, the Romans had few religious dietary regulations and seem not to

have been squeamish in their tastes According to Galen’s (c 129–199 CE)directions, restrictions on the Roman kitchen seem to have stopped only atcannibalism (Garnsey 1999: 84) Although carefully chosen diets based onphysiological knowledge appealed to the Graeco-Roman world (Rousselle1988), the goal of these diets was to keep the balance between the humours

in the body and thus keep it vigorous and healthy Diets clearly emphasizedclass and elite status but did not contribute to maintaining a clean/uncleandistinction based on religious taboos, as was the case with the Jews (seeChapter 8)

While humans were allowed to eat the meat of animals as well as turningtheir wool and skin into clothing, they were not permitted to eat humanflesh This prohibition was a strong cultural taboo An underlying presuppo-sition is that humans are not animals, and therefore human meat must not

be eaten The prohibition is a boundary marker that was also transferred toanimals, which were likewise kept from eating humans But even if theright order in the food relationship was that animals are food for men, notmen food for animals, this hierarchy of correct diet was sometimes reversed

In the Roman Empire, animals were sometimes allowed and urged to tastehuman flesh The wild beasts destined for the arena were perhaps trained to

eat humans (Auguet 1994: 94) According to Suetonius (b c 70 CE), who is

in the main hostile to Caligula and depicts the emperor as a bloodthirsty

monster, Caligula showed his brutality (sauitia) by feeding the wild animals

with criminals instead of feeding them with small animals, because small

animals were more expensive than convicts (Caligula, 27.1).1 The Churchfathers were especially concerned about the bodily resurrection of humanswhose bodies had been devoured by beasts, which in their turn weredevoured by other beasts (see Chapter 9)

When animals were allowed to eat humans, it was an extreme tion of the human form – “in all his body was nowhere a body’s shape”,

degrada-writes Martial (c 38/41–101/104 CE) about a crucified robber after he had

been attacked by a bear in the arena (On the Spectacles, 7) Sometimes what

was eventually eaten had never been recognized as being really human in thefirst place Not only criminals who were thrown to the beasts but alsonewborn babies who were exposed and sometimes killed by animals werethus denied their humanity In the case of infant exposure, where the

abandoned child risked being eaten by stray dogs or other animals (Harris

1994: 6, 8), such children had not been recognized by their father, the pater

familias, and were therefore not classified as proper human beings It is also

worth noting that there were open pits on the Esquiline where all sorts ofrefuse – as well as the bodies of the poor and animal carcasses – were thrown

(Robinson 1994: 122; Kyle 1995: 185) They were called puticuli, a word that is associated with putescere, “to rot” (see Potter 2002: 169, note 2) In

death, the similarities in the material and physiological equipment ofanimals and people were underlined as they were united through the stenchthat engulfed the area of these pits

Another important restriction between animals and humans is that theyare usually not permitted to have sexual contact with each other Thus thecategorical distinction between the species is maintained But even if thisrelationship is forbidden, it tends to exist all the same, both as a phantasm

and in reality Apuleius’ (c 125–170 CE) novel Metamorphoses tells about a

woman who especially hired the ass as her partner In this novel, sexualintercourse with an ass is further thought of as a special punishment for afemale transgressor, reflecting something that also seems to have been actual

punitive practice (cf Martial On the Spectacles, 5; Coleman 1990: 63–64;

of bees (On Agriculture, 6–9) His description shows the variety of animal life

on a farm and the diversity in food production, in which different types ofanimal husbandry were combined with other kinds of food production.Animals that are not domesticated in the Western world today were also

kept by the Romans One example is dormice (glires), which were fattened in

small pottery vessels with holes and served as delicacies (Zeuner 1963:415–16)

The daily diet of common people did not necessarily consist of meat.Animal husbandry in the Graeco-Roman world was not primarily for theproduction of meat but for producing hides, wool and milk Meat and foodfrom animals have often been regarded as being of minor importance in the

Graeco-Roman diet, especially red meat (Garnsey 1999: 122–3) At thesame time, meat was highly valued, eaten on special occasions and viewed as

a prestige food, with pork as the favourite The eminence and status of meat

as a foodstuff is seen, above all, in the significance of the animal sacrifice,where the commonest species were pigs, sheep, goats and cattle

Classification of animals based on the taste and wholesomeness of theirmeat represents their demotion to the status of objects They were made into

things to be eaten (The Hippocratic Collection, Regimen, 2 46–9) At the same

time, sacrifice involved domestic animals in a process of religious elevationbefore they were reduced to meat As well as turning animals into meat, thesacrificial process transformed parts of the bodies of the animals into food forthe gods on the altar and made it possible for the priests to read the future

in their intestines Imperfect animals or working cattle were prohibited assacrifices (Jameson 1988)

In Greece, most of the slaughtering was ritual, and the meat that waseaten came from animals that had been sacrificed In Rome, sacrificial meatwas eaten by the upper classes, and the leftovers were sold on the market.Sausages and other products made of low-quality meat, mixed with spicesand cereals, could easily be obtained as snacks from street sellers (Garnsey1999: 122–7)

In addition to farming and pastoralism, animals that ended up on thetable had also been hunted Game played a part in Roman cookery Thecapture and killing of wild animals included the hunting, fishing andcatching of birds Hares were driven into nets, and deer, boars and bearswere speared The antlers of stags and fangs of wild boars were nailed on thewalls of temples (Balsdon 1969: 219–20) This sort of meat was not classi-fied as sacrificial (Wilkins 1995: 104) Meat from animals killed in thearenas was probably also distributed among the people (Kyle 1995)

As a supplement to what could be obtained in Italy, Roman elites hadaccess to a wide variety of foodstuffs, and their exotic, elaborate and costly

cuisine is well known Thus their haute cuisine reflected the width and

breadth of the empire and the way the representatives of this empire related

to its complexities by virtually eating their way through its exotica Senecacomments on the subject: “Look at Nomentanus and Appicius, digesting, asthey say, the blessing of land and sea, and reviewing the creations of every

nation arrayed upon their board!” (On the Happy Life, 11.4) In another work,

Seneca describes the variety of animals eaten by the Roman elite in a moremalicious way: “From every quarter they gather together every known andunknown thing to tickle a fastidious palate they vomit that they mayeat, they eat that they may vomit, and they do not deign even to digest the

feast for which they ransack the whole world” (Consolation, 10.3) According

to Suetonius, Emperor Vitellius mingled on a big platter ingredients from

various birds and fish brought to him from the whole empire (Vitellius, 13) Plutarch (c 50–120 CE) maintains that “nothing that flies or swims or moves

on land has escaped your so-called civilized and hospitable tables” (Gryllus,

991D) Rather than keeping up distinctions between themselves and theirneighbours by avoiding certain types of food, as did the Jews, the Romansate meat and other foodstuffs from all over the empire

There were different patterns of consumption One was that more meatwas consumed by people of the upper classes than those of the lower ones.Another was that vegetarian ways of life also existed So even if meat was thesacrificial food and thus obligatory, there were those who rejected meateating This rejection could be partial or total Vegetarianism was motivated

by religious reasons, compassion for animals, or by reasons concerning dietand health Thus vegetarianism could be based on concern for animals aswell as on the idea that the slaughter of living creatures had a corruptingeffect on human beings (see Chapter 3) In any case, vegetarianism revealsthat meat was not neutral but had great symbolic value

Fish

More important than meat in the daily diet was food from the sea TheMediterranean consists of diverse and shifting micro-regions, and fishermenhad to be flexible But even if the fish population is less abundant than inthe oceans, the Mediterranean was a treasury of animal life with more than

500 species living in the sea Especially in the lagoons, many fish werecaught, as the lagoons were probably twice as productive as the open sea(Horden and Purcell 2000: 190–7)

Fish was consumed fresh, made into sauces, dried, or pickled in salt forsale and export Salt fish was exported from Egypt, the Black Sea and Spain

Fish were also kept in artificial ponds (piscinae) (Varro, On Agriculture, 3.17),

which seem to have become fashionable among the elite in the first century

BCE(Zeuner 1963: 479) When it was sold far from the sea, fish was sive, even more expensive than meat (McGowan 1999: 42), but at least forthose who lived close to the sea, fish and other types of seafood were impor-tant elements in the diet, even if the daily diet was mainly based on cereals,vegetables, wine, and oil

expen-The Romans were interested in the richness and variety of the life of the sea.Mosaics, for instance from Pompeii, show fish, shells, crayfish and octopuses,realistically modelled (House of the Faun and House VIII) Although thesemosaics were reproduced in workshops, they were apparently based on originalprecise zoographical observations (Dunbabin 1999: 47–8) It is not unexpectedthat a fishing population knew a great deal about the varied life in the sea, butthe care with which these artists made the animals look realistic is worthnoting The sensitive and accurate depiction of these sea creatures reveals aprecise understanding of the distinctive qualities of the species in question.Ancient authors wrote extensively on aquatic species and the food thatthese creatures provided The famous interpreter of dreams, Artemidorus of

Daldis (mid/late second century CE), mentions more than fifty species of fish

and marine life that have specific meanings in dreams (The Interpretation of

Dreams, 2.14) In his didactic epic Halieutica, a hexameter work in five books

devoted to fishing, Oppian from Cilicia (late second century CE) mentionsmore than 120 different varieties of sea creature.2He describes the life of seacreatures and the characteristics of different species, where they live, whatthey feed on and how they mate:

all that inhabit the watery flood and where each dwells, theirmating in the waters and their birth, the life of fishes, their hates,their loves, their wiles, and the crafty devices of the cunning fisher’sart – even all that men have devised against the baffling fishes

(Halieutica, 1.4–9)

Oppian points out that the sea “is infinite and of unmeasured depth” andthat no fewer types of animal dwell there than on earth (1.80–92) Hestresses the dangers of the sea and the uncertainty of the fishermen’s labours

In particular, “the sea monsters” (ketea), a term that denotes the great

crea-tures of the sea – whales, dolphins, seals, sharks and tunny – can be terrible(1.35–55) The society of the sea creatures is not an attractive one: “Amongfishes neither justice is of any account, nor is there any mercy nor love; forall the fish that swim are bitter foes to one another” (2.43–45) Oppian’sdescription of the inhabitants of the sea conveys an image of a differentworld, foreign to men, a society in its own right At the same time, men dobusiness with this world in their efforts to catch its inhabitants

Halieutica gives the impression that the battle between humans and sea

creatures is a battle of wits and skill Oppian sees fish both as cunning andwith specialized skills Fish not only use “cunning wit and deceitful craft”against each other, they also deceive wise fishermen (3.92–97) To catchthem, fishermen have to be artful, strong and intelligent And althoughOppian claims that “nothing is impossible for men to do” and sees men as arace similar to the gods, albeit with inferior strength (5.1–4), the sea crea-

tures often get the better of men Halieutica, which is a vivid illustration of

the dangers of the sea, ends with a sponge diver who is cut in two by “ahuge and hideous beast” (5.667) and his shipmates, returning to the shore,weeping for their friend Ovid (43 BCE– 17 CE), in the rest of his Halieuticon,

also describes the cunning of the different types of fish and how theymanage to escape the traps of their hunters (1–48)

The Graeco-Roman view of sea creatures is markedly different from the way

we regard fish and other sea creatures today The natural historians Pliny(23/4–79 CE), Aelian (165/70–230/35 CE) and Oppian (late second century

CE), who all describe sea animals extensively, suggest that these creatureswere regarded as intelligent and as having societies that in some ways were

rather similar to human societies Pliny, for instance, in his Natural History,

in thirty-one books, which was completed in 77 CE, describes able leader shellsamong the pearl oysters, which fishermen had to capture to make their hunt

easier (Natural History, 9.55) Pliny is also surprised that some people hold that sea animals have no sense (Natural History, 9.67) and gives his readers proof of their cunning (sollertia) Plutarch discusses which group is the clev-

erer, sea animals or land animals, and ends by leaving the competition

undecided (On the Cleverness of Animals), which, from a post-Darwinian point of view, is rather a tribute to fish (see Chapter 2) Iamblichus (c 245–325 CE)tells of Pythagoras that he once paid some fishermen for their catch so that

they should release all the fish alive (On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 36).3Thisepisode shows that sometimes the life of fish was also conceived of as beingvaluable – at least for some Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists

Magic and medicine

Several expert systems, wholly or partly based on animals, flourished duringthe empire In these systems, animals were in one way or another used asinstruments The most important was animal sacrifice (see Chapters 6 and 7)including the divination based on the entrails of the sacrificial animals (seebelow) But divination based on live animals and magical and medical prac-tices that included animals were also common

Unlike the Graeco-Roman cuisine de sacrifice, but like the Roman haute

cuisine, Roman magico-medical cookery was based on ingredients from all

over the empire, taken from wild animals as well as from domestic ones In

his Natural History, Pliny describes Roman medical recipes in detail.

All sorts of elements – fat, blood, internal organs and body wastes – were

used in the materia medica For example, the blood of an elephant, especially that of the male, was thought to heal catarrh (Natural History, 28.24);

camel’s brain, dried and taken in vinegar, was a remedy against epilepsy

(Natural History, 28.26); the urine of a lynx was used for pain in the throat (Natural History, 28.32); and bladder stones were relieved by the urine of a wild boar or by eating its bladder as food (Natural History, 28.60).

The rationale for these procedures described by Pliny was an imaginedrelationship between diseases and remedies that was based on the idea of a

general system of sympathies (concordia) and antipathies (discordia) in the

world The natural world was criss-crossed by multiple interaction betweenits disparate parts Pliny argues for the attraction and repulsion that existbetween things by describing how water puts out fire and magnetic stonesattract iron, but also how a diamond, which is “unbreakable and invincible

by any other force”, is broken by goat’s blood (Natural History, 20.1) This

system of implied relationships involved either the principle that like cures

like (similia similibus) or its opposite, that remedies were found in contrasts, opposites cure opposites (alia aliis) Bites and diseases caused by one animal

could be healed by ingredients taken from a similar animal But the remedy

could also be taken from an animal that was the opposite of the first Harmdone by the crawling creatures of the earth was cured by ingredients takenfrom the flying fauna of the air Protection against serpents and their bites

was taken from either vulture, chicken, dove, swallow or owl (Natural

History, 29.24–6) The principle of curing by opposites was based on the

humour system and on the need to keep the humours in the body in balance,while the like-to-like principle is dependent on a simpler and older system

of sympathetic magic (cf Hanson 1998: 72–3)

In addition to medicine and magical potions based on animal ingredients,animals were also used as intermediaries in cures A disease could be trans-ferred to an animal and taken away by that animal A person with a cough

spat into the mouth of a frog and got rid of the cough (Natural History,

32.29) Often in these cases, the animal in question died, and the diseasethen also “died” Another way to turn an animal into an intermediary isdescribed in a Greek magical papyrus in which the drowning of a cat as part

of a magical ritual was intended to make the cat into a demonic helper

(PGM III, 1–164, in Betz 1996) The flourishing magical practice of the

empire had a rich source in Egyptian magic Magical techniques appliedanimal ingredients, and small animals were often sacrificed to empower themagical formula and make it work in a proper way

Animals were further regarded as able to predict weather and dangers Aspecial case of animal wisdom was the way in which animals themselves werethought to be using natural medicine Thus wise use of natural medicine onthe part of animals was taken as an example of how clever animals were(Aelian, 2.18; 15.17) In some cases, the accident that originally happened tothe animal was sometimes more strange than the cure, as when an elephant

swallows a chameleon and the remedy is the wild olive (Natural History, 8.41).

In the case of domesticated animals, one did not rely too heavily on theability of animals to cure themselves In works on agriculture, the diseases offarm animals and remedies against these diseases were thoroughly discussed(Cato, 70–3; Columella, 6.5–38; Varro, 2.1.21–4; 2.2.20; 2.3.8–10;2.4.21–2; 2.7.16) The economic value of horses created a special market forveterinary medicine, for instance, as reflected in Publicus Vegetius Renatus’

work Mulomedicina, on the diseases of horses and mules, written between

330 and 450 CE(Walker 1996) The importance of this branch of veterinary

medicine was also reflected in the Greek term for a veterinarian, hippiatros.

Barbro Santillo Frizell has pointed out that sanctuaries in Italy that wereassociated with mineral water also played a role in animal husbandry andclearly were a resource in ancient veterinary medicine.4

Religion

What has been said so far has suggested the importance of animals in theMediterranean economy Animals were providing people with useful

products such as food and clothes, hauling power, and a means of tion, and they were also instrumental in medicine and magic In addition tosuch daily use of animals, there were also special ceremonies where animalswere in focus in more significant ways These ceremonies pertained to reli-gion and entertainment.

transporta-Different societies have different contexts in which they encounter andrelate to animals and interpret their behaviour In modern cultures, the petindustry, the abattoir and laboratories are examples of significant socialinstitutions in which animals are involved In the Roman Empire, therewere also defined spaces in which animals were contained – geographicalspaces as well as mental and social ones We will call special attention tothree types of animal space that were especially significant in the Graeco-Roman world These spaces were required by sacrifice, divination andhunting spectacles Here the relationships between humans and animalswere explored within the framework of public ceremonies, and peopleparticipated on a collective basis These ceremonies are essential in gaining

an impression of the value and meanings of animals in the empire Petkeeping must also be mentioned, but this was of less importance than theother institutions in defining what animals meant to the Romans

Sacrifice and the contract with animals

Over the millennia, hunting and later domestication has completely alteredthe zoological picture in the Mediterranean After the agricultural revolu-tion, domestication of animals had become the most important context forhuman–animal relationships Agricultural animals were animals that inexchange for their services were given food, shelter and safety Aristotle hadstressed that “tame animals are superior in their nature to wild animals, yetfor all the former it is advantageous to be ruled by man, since this gives

them security” (Politics, 1254b) This saying indicated a sort of agreement

between domestic animals and humans that the former give up theirfreedom for protection, and the latter give protection in exchange for meat,skins and labour

In Graeco-Roman culture, the idea of a contract between animals andhumans was discussed as part of law and philosophy, but the existence of such

a contract was usually denied Roman law explicitly says that animals couldnot be part of contract making and adds that “an animal is incapable of

committing a legal wrong because it is devoid of reasoning” (The Digest of

Justinian, 9.1.3) Damage done by animals “without any legal wrong on the

part of the doer” (ibid., 9.1.1,3) was labelled “pauperies” and was to be paid for

by the owner or not to be paid for at all, depending on the situation and thecircumstances An animal was not a legal subject In earlier times, however, itwas said that either the animal that had done damage could be handed over or

compensation had to be paid for the damage it had done (aut noxiam sarcire aut

in noxiam dedere) The animal was regarded as being capable of guilt in

committing a crime (cf the discussions in Haymann 1921; Düll 1941).The question of whether humans and animals were covered by a commonform of justice had been discussed in philosophy While Aristotle’s successor,

Theophrastus (c 370–287 BCE), seems to have held that animals and humanswere related to each other, and for that reason animals had a claim on justice,

this was contested by Stoics and Epicureans Cicero writes that homini nihil

iuris esse cum bestiis – animals have no rights in relation to humans (About the Ends of Good and Evil, 3.67) He quotes Chrysippus, who said that all things

were created for the sake of men and gods, and therefore “men can make use

of beasts for their own purposes without injustice” (ibid.) This teleological

argument was standard for the Stoics (see Chapter 2), but had ancient dents In Greece, Hesiod had maintained in the sixth century BCE that Zeus

prece-had “ordained this law [nomos] for men, that fishes and beasts and winged birds should devour one another, for right [dike] is not in them; but to mankind he gave right [dike] which proves far the best” (Works and Days,

276–80)

Like the Stoics, the Epicureans denied justice to animals on the groundsthat they were not rational Accordingly, they could not make contracts:Those animals which are incapable of making covenants with oneanother, to the end that they may neither inflict nor suffer harm, arewithout either justice or injustice And those tribes which eithercould not or would not form mutual covenants to the same end are

in like case

(Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus, 32)

However, the first part of this quotation is clearly ambiguous: “Thoseanimals which are incapable” may allow for the possibility that there are infact animals that are capable of making contracts (Sorabji 1993: 162; Clark2000: 128, note 52) The successor of Epicurus, Hermarchus, whose opinion

is discussed by Porphyry, is unwilling to allow for such a possibility (On

Abstinence, 1.12.5–6) According to Hermarchus, it would have been fine if

it had been possible to make a contract “with other animals, as with humanbeings” But it is impossible “for animals that are not receptive of reason toshare in law” (1.12.5–6)

A different attitude is found in the Roman poet Lucretius (c 99–55 BCE)

In his poem about the history of civilization, On the Nature of Things, he

contrasts wild animals with domestic ones such as dogs, beasts of burden,sheep and oxen:

Firstly, the fierce brood of lions, that savage tribe, has beenprotected by courage, the wolf by cunning, by swiftness the stag.But the intelligent dog, so light of sleep and so true of heart, beasts