‘Implore me not, Dog’. The Dog in the Classical World: An Apotropaic View

Marco Giuman;Miriam Napolitano

2023-01-01

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Abstract

In the Classical world, the dog has polysemic meaning, as proved by the analysis of poetic and ethological ancient sources. As a symbol of absolute fidelity to its owner, the dog stands for a fundamental iconographic marker for the aristocratic elfrepresentation, but it can also be interpreted in a negative sense. The ambiguity gives it a liminal meaning, in which the symbolic value is intensified by its relationship to the gods, connected to the concept of passage from one state to another. This double aspect contributes to project an apotropaic sense onto itself, which remained in the Roman world until Late Antiquity.