Cats and Weasels

Everyone knows that, in ancient times, the Egyptians worshipped cats, but across the Mediterranean over in Europe, the situation was much different. During the Archaic Period (lasted c. 800 – c. 510 BC), housecats seem to have been almost completely absent from the Greek world; they do not appear in Greek art and not referenced in works of Greek literature from this time period.

During the Classical Period (lasted c. 510 – c. 323 BC), housecats seem to have been gradually introduced to Greece and southern Italy from Egypt and the Near East, but they seem to have been seen as strange, exotic pets—in the same way that keeping a parrot as a pet might be seen as unusual today.

Eventually, starting during the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 323 – c. 31 BC) and continuing into the Roman Period, housecats as pets gradually became more and more common in the Greco-Roman world. Curiously, though, weasels seem to have been much more commonly kept as pets in ancient Greece than cats and the words for “cat” and “weasel” seem to often been conflated.

Not so weird

To many people today, the idea of keeping weasels as pets seems rather strange. Some people today do keep ferrets as pets, but ferrets are among the less common pets in our world today. In general, most people today do not usually keep mustelids as pets. If you really think about it, though, keeping weasels as pets actually makes just as much sense as keeping cats. After all, weasels and cats both hunt mice, making them perfect for pest control.

Towards the beginning of The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, a mock-epic that is traditionally attributed the Greek poet Homeros but is now thought to have been composed in around the late fourth century BC, one of the mice in the poem describes his fears. He states that his greatest fear of all is of weasels. The mouse says, as translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White:

“I fear not man though he has a big body, but run along his bed and bite the tip of his toe and nibble at his heel; and the man feels no hurt and his sweet sleep is not broken by my biting. But there are two things I fear above all else the whole world over, the hawk and the ferret — for these bring great grief on me — and the piteous trap wherein is treacherous death.”

“Most of all I fear the ferret of the keener sort which follows you still even when you dive down your hole. In gnaw no radishes and cabbages and pumpkins, nor feed on green leeks and parsley; for these are food for you who live in the lake.”

Oddly enough, the mouse never even mentions cats. To us, this seems like a startling omission, since we are accustomed to thinking of cats as the premier mousers, but, in the ancient Greek world, people seem to have thought of weasels in that role rather than cats.

ABOVE: Photograph of a least weasel from Wikimedia Commons, taken in Surrey, England in August 2008. The ancient Greeks often kept weasels as pets. Weasels were expected to hunt mice in the same way that cats hunt mice today.

Ancient Greek words for “cat”

Cats had so little place in the ancient Greek mindset that the ancient Greeks did not even have a distinct word for “cat.” The word most commonly used to refer to housecats in ancient Greek literature is the word αἴλουρος (aílouros), which is an extremely generic word that literally means “thing with a wavy tail.” In addition to housecats, this same word could also be used to refer to wildcats and various kinds of mustelids. This means that, in ancient Greek texts talking about cats, there is often a great deal of ambiguity over which animal is actually being spoken of.

Another word that may sometimes be used in ancient Greek texts to refer to cats is the word γαλέη (galéē). This word was primarily applied to mustelids, but, in some cases, it seems to have also been applied to cats. The fact that the word normally applied to cats could also be applied to weasels and the word normally applied to weasels could also be applied to cats shows just how closely cats and weasels were linked in the ancient Greek mind. There are many instances in Greek literature where one of these words is used and it is unclear whether the word is referring to domestic cat, a wildcat, or some kind of mustelid.

Cats in the Greek world during the Classical Period

Housecats are virtually absent from Greek literature and art prior to the late sixth century BC. A relief carving from the base of a kouros statue from Athens dating to roughly between c. 510 and c. 500 BC depicts two men seated on chairs facing each other with one holding a dog on a leash and the other holding a small feline of some kind. The dog and the feline are depicted as prepared and eager to fight. Unfortunately, the feline in the relief carving is so heavily stylized that it is unclear whether it is a housecat or a wildcat.

ABOVE: Detail of a statue base from Athens dating to between c. 510 and c. 500 BC depicting a dog and a feline about to fight, currently held in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens

Housecats seem to have first begun to be kept as pets in Greece and southern Italy in around the early fifth century BC or thereabouts. Coins from the Greek city-state of Rhegion in southern Italy dating to the middle of the fifth century BC frequently depict Iokastos, the legendary founder of the city, seated on a chair. In a number of these coins, Iokastos is shown playing with a housecat beside his chair. In others of these coins, the cat is seated underneath his chair.

Coins from the city of Taras, which was located near Rhegion, frequently depict a similar scene of Phalanthos, the founder of the city, with a cat next to his chair. It seems logical to assume that the cats shown on these coins are probably supposed to be pets. These coins are therefore among the earliest pieces of evidence of housecats being kept as pets in southern Europe in antiquity.

ABOVE: Photograph of a coin from the Greek city of Rhegion in southern Italy dating to the middle of the fifth-century BC. The obverse of the coin depicts Iokastos, the founder of Rhegion, with a housecat underneath his chair.

Further evidence of housecats being kept as pets in the Greek world in the middle of the fifth century BC comes from Athenian funerary monuments of the time period. A relief carving on a funerary monument from Athens dated to c. 440 BC, which was probably carved by one of the same sculptors who worked on the Parthenon, depicts the deceased man with one of his young relatives, a bird, and a housecat.

Although we cannot be absolutely sure, it is highly probable that the cat in the funerary stele is meant to represent a pet. This indicates that, by the middle of the fifth century BC, there were already some people in Athens who were keeping cats as pets. Another funerary stele dated to around 420 BC belonging to an individual named Salamine depicts a young girl accompanied by a housecat.

ABOVE: Photograph of an Athenian funerary stele dating to c. 440 BC depicting the deceased. On the ledge by the deceased’s elbow rests a housecat.

Despite the apparently growing visibility of housecats in the Greek world, the Greek writer Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. 484 – c. 425 BC), who was most likely writing in around the late 430s or early 420s BC, still expresses a great deal of amazement and fascination regarding the housecats in Egypt in his Histories 2.66-67. This seems to perhaps indicate that housecats were still relatively rare in Greece.

The Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (lived c. 446 – c. 386 BC) makes a number of possible mentions of cats in his surviving comedies. He even seems to have invented the age-old trope of blaming the cat whenever something goes wrong. Nonetheless, in all cases, when Aristophanes speaks of a “cat,” it is unclear whether he is talking about a cat or a weasel.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle of Stageira (lived 384 – 322 BC) gives rather interesting report regarding the sexual proclivities of cats in his History of Animals 5.2. He writes, in Ancient Greek:

“οἱ δ᾿ αἴλουροι οὐκ ὄπισθεν συνιόντες, ἀλλ᾿ ὁ μὲν ὀρθός, ἡ δὲ θήλεια ὑποτιθεῖσα αὑτήν· εἰσὶ δὲ τὴν φύσιν αἱ θήλειαι ἀφροδισιαστικαί, καὶ προσάγονται τοὺς ἄρρενας εἰς τὰς ὀχείας, καὶ συνοῦσαι κράζουσιν.”

This means, as translated by A. L. Peck for the Loeb Classical Library:

“Cats are different: they do not copulate hindways, but the male stands erect and the female places herself under him. Female cats are naturally lecherous, and lure the males on to sexual intercourse, during which time they caterwaul.”

Although it seems Aristotle is indeed talking about cats here and not weasels, it is unclear whether Aristotle is describing the mating activities of housecats or wildcats, since the Greek word he uses is αἴλουρος, which is not specific enough for us to tell which variety of cat he is speaking of.

Cats in Hellenistic and Roman Greece

During the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 323 – c. 31 BC), keeping cats as pets seems to have gradually become more common. By the Roman Period, housecats seem to have been fairly common and they appear rather frequently in art. For instance, there is a fabulous mosaic from the House of the Faun in the Roman city of Pompeii dating to the first century AD depicting a housecat killing a partridge. Numerous other Roman mosaics depicting the same scene have been found at various other locations.

ABOVE: Roman mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii depicting a cat killing a partridge

Nonetheless, despite the increased prominence of cats in the Mediterranean world, many people continued to keep weasels instead. As late as the second century AD, weasels still seem to have been thought of as the premier mousers. The second-century AD Greek writer Babrios records a fable traditionally attributed to the legendary fabulist Aisopos titled “The Weasel as Bride,” which reads as follows as translated by Ben Edwin Parry for the Loeb Classical Library:

“Once a weasel fell in love with a handsome young man, and Cypris, the mother of Desire, revered goddess, gave her the privilege of changing her form and of becoming a woman, one so beautiful that any man would yearn to possess her. When the young man of her choice saw her he, too, was overcome by desire and planned to marry her. When the main part of the dinner was over a mouse ran by. Up sprang the bride from her richly strewn couch and began to chase it. That was the end of the wedding banquet. Love, after playing his game with skill and merriment, departed. Nature was too much for him.”

The Greek word that Babrios uses here is γαλέη, so it is not entirely clear whether the creature in this fable is a cat or a weasel. The most likely interpretation, however, is that the creature in the fable is a weasel, since the word γαλέη is most often applied to weasels. In most modern versions of the fable, however, the creature is a cat.

ABOVE: Illustration from a 1911 edition of Aesop’s Fables, illustrated by Sir John Tenniel, depicting the story “The Weasel as Bride”

A new word for “cat”

It was probably at some point during the second or third century AD that the Greeks first began using a distinct word that meant “cat” and only “cat”: κάττα (kátta). The exact etymology of the word κάττα is somewhat unclear, but it may be derived from the Nubian word kadis or from the Proto-Germanic word *kattuz.

The word κάττα is somehow related to the Latin word cattus, which has the same meaning and is the source of the French word chat, the Spanish word gato, and the Italian word gatto. The Proto-Germanic word *kattuz, which may be a borrowing from Greek or Latin or possibly a native Germanic word, eventually became the Old English word catt, which is the source of our Modern English word cat. The Proto-Germanic word *kattuz is also the source of the Modern High German word Katze.

Other pets in ancient Greece

Aside from cats and weasels, other popular household pets in ancient Greece included dogs (who were by far the most common), rabbits, snakes, monkeys, peacocks, parrots, doves, and falcons. The ancient Greeks often used dogs for hunting. Dogs were so greatly revered in ancient Greece that the Cynics, a school of philosophers, used dogs as their models for how humans ought to behave. In fact, the word Cynic itself comes from the Greek word κύων (kýōn), meaning “dog.”