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Today when we think of domestic cats, we recall the familiar hearthside companion and the mischievous playmate. It is difficult to comprehend that in the past the animal has played a fundamental role in the development of European and Western civilization. The human relationship to the cat has been important for most of the last four millennia. Domesticated cats were the bulwark of Western societies' defence against rodents and the thirty five or so dangerous diseases they carry, including typhus and the bubonic plague. Cats were also important religious symbols for the goddess Artemis of the Greeks, Diana of the Romans and the Greco-Egyptian goddess, Isis. These divinities were worshipped - mainly by women - throughout Greece, and later in the Roman Empire. The cat has also been a crucial element in European folklore and folktales, the origins of which can be traced to Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire. In this beautifully illustrated book, Donald Engels charts the history and significance of the cat from ancient Egypt to the middle ages, exploring such phenomena as the worship of the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, the infamous cat massacres and witch hunts of the thirteenth century, and the role of the cat in combating disease and starvation. Classical Cats presents a unique and entertaining view of the vicissitudes of the cat in history.

List of illustrations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of abbreviations xii
Introduction: The cat in history 1
Evolution, biology, and behavior 3
Types of domestic cat 10
Mice and rats 14
1 Egypt 18
The Libyan wildcat 18
The miu: the domesticated cat 20
Iconography 21
The goddess in the house: the sacred cats of Egypt 23
Egyptian cats from the fifth century BC through the Roman era, AD 330 32
Folklore 41
Cats in the Near East outside Egypt 45
2 Greece 48
The earliest Greek cats: c. 6000-500 BC 48
Cats of the classical and Hellenistic eras: 500-30 BC 57
The distribution of the cat by the end of the first century BC 80
3 Rome 88
The earliest Italian cats: 800-500 BC 88
Cats of the Roman Republic: 500-30 BC 91
Cats of the Imperial era: 30 BC - AD 500 95
The distribution of the cat by AD 500 136
4 The early Middle Ages: AD 500-1000 138
The Latin, Celtic, and Germanic West 138
The Byzantine East 148
The Muslim world 150
Epilogue: Persecution and redemption 152
The transformation of paganism: AD 1000-1700 152
The fate of Diana and her cat 156
The Black Death 160
The afterlife of the sacred cat 162
Renaissance and redemption 170
Appendix 1 Portrayals of cats, cheetahs, and pantherines (lions, leopards) in Greek and Roman art 174
Appendix 2 Cat remains from Greek and Roman archeological sites 176
Appendix 3 The Vox in Rama of Gregory IX 183
Notes 189
Bibliography 216
Index
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