Laudator Temporis Acti

This supplements earlier posts on Classical Dog Names and More Classical Dog Names.

In book 9 of the Greek Anthology the dog names Gorgo (9.268.1), Kalathina (or Calathina, 9.303.1), and Lampo (9.417.1) appear.

In More Classical Dog Names, the following lists of dog names were cited but not quoted.

First, a corrupt passage from Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca 3.4.4 (tr. J.G. Frazer):

The names of Actaeon's dogs from the . . . . So
Now surrounding his fair body, as it were that of a beast,
The strong dogs rent it. Near Arcena first.
. . . . after her a mighty brood,
Lynceus and Balius goodly-footed, and Amarynthus. --
And these he enumerated continuously by name.
And then Actaeon perished at the instigation of Zeus.
For the first that drank their master's black blood
Were Spartus and Omargus and Bores, the swift on the track.
These first ate of Actaeon and lapped his blood.
And after them others rushed on him eagerly . . . .
To be a remedy for grievous pains to men.

Second, Columella De re rustica 7.12.13 (tr. Henry David Thoreau):

But they are not to be called by very long names, that each being called may hear the more quickly, nor yet by shorter than may be pronounced by 2 syllables, like the Greek Skylax, Latin Ferox, Greek Lakon, Latin Celer, or female like the Greek Spoude, Alke, Rome, Latin Lupa, Cerva, Tigris.

Nominibus autem non longissimis appellandi sunt, quo celerius quisque vocatus exaudiat, nec tamen brevioribus quam quae duabus syllabis enuntiantur, sicuti Graecum est Skylax, Latinum Ferox, Graecum Lakon, Latinum Celer, vel femina, ut sunt Graeca Spoude, Alke, Rome, Latina Lupa, Cerva, Tigris.

Thoreau's translation of Columella's remarks on dogs appears in his Journal under the date May 7, 1856. It is not in the Torrey-Allen edition, which omits "long quotations, especially from Latin authors, entered without comment, as in a common-place book." I found it on the World Wide Web, here, in a collection of transcripts made for the edition of the Journals being published by Princeton University Press. Whenever I type a few words of Thoreau's journals into Google, I often end up at the .pdf files of these transcripts, which are apparently not intended for public perusal.