Pugnaces Britanniae
- Origin
- Great Britain
- Type
- Mastiff
Pugnaces Britanniae is a name given to the dogs of Roman Britain, which ancient writers described as fast, strong and useful in hunting and even in war. They are known only from Roman and Greek texts and from archaeology. Some modern dog writers hold that they were a distinct breed and the ancestor of the English Mastiff, and possibly of the Bulldog.
History
The Roman province of Britannia was known for exporting dogs. The Greek historian Strabo reported that dogs were sent from Britain for hunting game, called them notably clever, and added that the Celts also used them as war dogs. Tacitus, in the first century AD, listed clever hunting dogs among Britain’s main exports, alongside grain, hides, cattle, iron, silver and slaves.
The poet Grattius rated British dogs above the Molossus of ancient Greece. He admitted that they were not much to look at, but wrote that when serious work and courage were called for, the Molossians could not match them. The late Roman poet Nemesianus described British dogs as swift and suited to hunting. Later still, Claudian wrote of British dogs able to break the necks of mighty bulls, though this comes in a passage of poetic fancy.
Not all the dogs of Britain were large. In the early 3rd century Oppian described a small British hunting dog called the Agassian: squat, lean and shaggy, with strong claws and sharp teeth, and valued above all for its nose and its skill at tracking.
Dogs in Roman Britain
Hunting dogs were among the few British goods of real value in Roman trade, and dog hides were also part of the province’s economy. In Roman art, hunting with dogs was pictured so often in connection with Britain that it came to stand for the territory itself.
Animal bones from excavations suggest that keeping dogs was common in Roman Britain and that people looked after them. Working animals and pets were often one and the same in antiquity. Dogs also had a place in religion: they were shown beside deities such as Nehalennia and Sucellus, were linked with the underworld and with healing, and dog figurines were placed with the dead.
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