THE CATS IN POMPEII

It is believed that the cohabitation of cat and man began when the first men made the change from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers and began to accumulate large quantities of food. Cats were then employed in barns as rat hunters. There is certain evidence of peaceful cohabitation between cats and men in Egypt (where they were worshipped) and later also in Greece where, however, this animal never gained the prestige it had in Egypt.

If in the Roman world cats were rare in the first century AD, their remains are also rare. None of their skulls are preserved, in fact, in the storehouse of Pompeii, where skeletal parts of many and various animals abound (most of them are displayed today in the first room of the Boscoreale Museum). Two of them, however, came to light in Oplontis, returned from the excavation of the Imperial Villa. It is no coincidence that the discovery occurred in a building of such great luxury, that is where it was conceivable that exotic and rare animals were hosted. In Pompeii, however, there is no shortage of representations of the feline: of remarkable beauty, for example, is the mosaic coming from the “Casa del Fauno” which represents a “Cat that bites a partridge”, now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. The same museum displays another Pompeian mosaic floor which represents “Parrots, a dove and a cat”, also coming from the “Casa del Fauno”. In any case, it should not be forgotten that Pompeii had many contacts with Greece and Egypt; therefore it is believed credible that the “Pompeian” cats, the few there were, managed to save themselves at the first signs of the catastrophe, something that perhaps did not happen in Oplontis. However, these are just mere speculations.

It is interesting to note that the cat, apart from its beauty and its ability to keep company, from the first century AD progressively replaced the weasel in Roman houses, which until then, had been raised in a semi-domestic state to fight mice (See note).

Many wealthy customers were constantly looking for exotic and strange animals which, with their presence, would certainly have emphasized the prestige of their house: and here – see photo – is a new species of cat with a peculiar maculate livery. This valuable Hellenistic mosaic floor, now kept in the Archaeological Museum of Naples, shows this rare cat, two parrots and a dove at the watering place. For the Western world it is a rare animal: it is the Steppe Cat, rich in various forms, all Asian, set mainly in the Southern plains corresponding to the current Pakistan and neighbouring territories. The progenitor of Indian domestic breeds was widespread in its homeland, and, for centuries before it arrived to Rome, it was imported into Egypt. From the end of the first century AD onwards, during the numerous military campaigns, the Romans took cats with them, contributing to their diffusion throughout Europe. Traces of the presence of the cat have been found in all regions conquered by the Romans. However, all this was never experienced in Pompeii, whose life was suddenly brought to an abrupt end by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Excerpt from: Annamaria Ciarallo, Orti e Giardini di Pompei , Publishing House: Fausto Fiorentino 1992, pp. 30

NOTE: Plutarch gives us this piece of news, cfr. Brehm A.E. 1931. vol. V p. 35

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