by L A Vocelle
Artemis, Isis and Bast, linked through their association with the mystical powers of the moon, directed the moon’s light to serve as a protector of mothers and their children and to also be a symbol of love. “The statues of Isis which wear horns are representations of the crescent moon, and her black raiment is a sign that she can be over shadowed and obscured as in her yearning she seeks the sun. This is the reason for invoking the moon in the love affairs, over which according to Eudoxus, Isis presides” (Witt, 1971 p. 147). Furthermore, a well-known statue of Artemis has multiple breasts with a lunar disc positioned between her shoulders, combining motherhood with the moon (Schoors & Willems, 1998 p. 546). Sometimes called the Madonna of the Silver Bow, Artemis’ arrows symbolized moonbeams lighting up the darkness. However, the Greeks soon identified both Isis and Artemis with magic and the dead, and even the underworld, because of their association with the moon (Forrest, 2001). Artemis’, and hence Bast’s association to the moon, through Isis, caused Bast by default to also become linked with magic, death and the underworld.
The Greeks believed that either the sun or the moon† created all animals. The lion or Leo, a symbol of the sun, represented Apollo, while the cat, a symbol of the moon, represented Artemis. As Manly Hall writes in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, “For ages the feline family has been regarded with peculiar veneration. In several of the Mysteries—most notably the Egyptian…the priests wore the skins of lions, tigers, panthers, pumas or leopards. Hercules and Samson (both solar symbols) slew the lion of the constellation Leo, and robed themselves in his skin thus signifying that they represented the sun itself when at the summit of the celestial arch” (Hall, 2003 p. 284).
Heracles killed the lion that Hera had sent to terrorize the city of Argos and thereafter wore its pelt as a symbol of his victory.
Ovid, in his epic poem Metamorphoses, recounts the story of Galinthias, a servant to the Princess Alcmene, the wife of Amphitryon. In the poem, the sly Zeus changes himself into Amphitryon and impregnates Alcmene. Furious, Hera, Zeus’ wife, naturally resolves to prevent the birth. However, Galinthias, in order to help her mistress, deceives Hera and enables Alcmene to give birth to Heracles†. Hera then turns Galinthias into a cat†† and sends her to the underworld as a priestess of Hecate. Here we have the cat associated with the underworld and the evil of Hecate, and one of the first instances of a person being transformed into a cat (Ovid, trans. 1955).
Hecate, often described as an evil female vampire††† and serpent beast, was yet another goddess associated with the moon. The Greeks believed that Artemis and Hecate represented the two phases of the moon. While the lunar goddesses Artemis, Isis and Hecate were associated with magic and the dead, the cat was identified with the moon through its sexual and nocturnal behavior. Aristotle wrote of the cat in his History of Animals that “the females are very lascivious, and invite the male, and make a noise during intercourse” (Aristotle, trans. 1897). The theme of the moon and its powers over sexuality, darkness and magic converge.
It was Hecate who was the guardian of the gate of death, the goddess of the crossroads. And even though she was most often associated with dogs, as dogs are the guardians of crossroads and doorways, and it is Cerberus who guards the gates of hell, she was bound to the cat through her association with Artemis. The assimilation of Hecate/Artemis and the cat becomes apparent while fighting Typhon, the god of wind. Hecate/Artemis, according to the myth retold by Antoninus Liberalis in Metamorphosis, escaped Egypt and the wrath of the god Typhon with the other Olympians by taking on the features of the cat, Bast, and seducing Typhon so that Zeus could destroy him with a thunderbolt. Here we see the ongoing association of the cat with devious sexuality. After all why did Hecate/Artemis have to turn herself into a cat; why couldn’t she seduce Typhon as she was?
Through the influence of immigrants from Egypt, the cult of Isis began to take hold in Greece from the 4th century BC. Worship of Isis in the Greek port of Piraeus is evident as early as 333 BC with the cult constructing a sanctuary prominently upon a slope of the Acropolis in Athens. By the 2nd century BC, even local Greeks were worshipping the goddess. In Rome, and most probably as a response to Tiberius’ banning of the cult, the Roman emperor Gauis Caligula (AD 12-41) rebuilt The Temple of Isis, Iseum Campense. Thereafter, Isis festivals were even noted in the Roman calendar. However, Caligula was not the first Roman emperor to become a patron of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Hadrian and Domitian† as well as others also practiced the faith.
In her own native land, Egypt, Isis was also the goddess of the lighthouse of Alexandria, protecting sailors as Isis Pharia (figure 3.2).
Because of the cat’s association with Isis, it became good luck for sailors to keep a cat on board a ship, and according to the Roman writer Martianus Capella, an image of a cat was often seen on a ship’s bow (Engels, 2001). So pervasive was/is this belief that up until 1975 British ships were required to have a black cat onboard as a good luck charm.
To adorn the temples of Isis, the Greeks even imported Egyptian sculptures and statues. Black granite statues were the most sought after, as they confirmed the mysteriousness of Egypt, and black was the color of Isis. Priests of Isis, who remained under the control of Egyptian immigrants, wore black, and Artemis of Ephesus was a black virgin (Beard, North, & Price, 1998; Turcan, 1996). The ancient Egyptians saw the color black as a positive, magical healing force; conversely, the Greeks associated it with evil, death and the underworld. Kem was the ancient Egyptian word for black, and Egypt was often referred to as the black land. Khemia meant black art and would later be used in Arabic to mean alchemy (Forrest, 2001). The cat’s association with the moon, darkness, the color black and magic originated in Egyptian and Greek myths and history, and have followed it throughout time and are still apparent today.
The Romans, just as the Greeks had, worshipped the goddesses Isis and Artemis. Artemis became the Roman goddess, Diana, cat huntress of the night, and was considered the mother of the world (Hall, 2003, p. 153). Diana, a mirror of Artemis/Hecate/Isis, was the 9th deity in the Roman pantheon. However, even before the Romans, the Egyptians had nine gods in their pantheon, and most probably the Romans, because of the assimilation of so many gods from Egypt, also borrowed this. An inscription from Bubastis states, “I am the one that becomes two, I am two who becomes four, I am four who becomes eight, and I am one more besides” (Engels, 2001, p. 41). Nine, the sum of three, is referred to in various mythologies as a mystical number and because the number 9 is an inverted 6, it was later considered evil (Hall, 2003, p. 220). The number nine was thus associated with Diana and the cat’s being evil and also having nine lives.
Figure 3.2. Hadrian and Isis Pharia Coin, AD 133-134, Isis Pharia standing right, holding sistrum and billowing sail; to right, Pharus of Alexandria.
Roman mythology asserted that the world was made up of two halves: light and darkness. Diana’s brother Lucifer, was the giver of light, while she, Diana, was the darkness. Lucifer had a beautiful cat that he loved more than anyone or anything, and it slept in his bed every night. Diana, wanting the attention of Lucifer, begged the cat to change forms with her so that she could sleep with Lucifer. The cat obliged, and once in bed with Lucifer, Diana changed back into her real self and became pregnant with a daughter, Aradia. After Lucifer realized that he had lain with his own sister, and that Diana’s darkness had conquered his light, he was outraged. However Diana, being adept at magic and sorcery sang a hypnotic song and charmed him so that he forgot this abomination (Leland, 1899, p. 19). Here we see the cat being coerced into deceiving its master and siding with the magic and witchcraft of Diana. In Medieval times witches were often accused of changing shapes with cats which can be traced back to their relationship with the Roman goddesses Diana and Hecate.
THE CAT IN GREEK ART
Well-known for their grandiose sculptures and artwork, it stands to reason that the Greeks should also depict the cat. One of the earliest Greek representations of a cat, located in the N
ational Archeological Museum in Athens, is a marble funeral relief dating to around 500 BC, showing two men holding a dog and a cat on leashes trying to make them fight. A 4th century vase shows two women playing with a cat which is attempting to attack a pigeon held in one of the women’s hands. On another vase, a cat perches on the back of a young boy, hungrily eyeing a small bird that the boy holds in his hand (Rogers, 2001). From Athens, a red figured askos† 470-400 BC, shaped like a lobster claw, depicts a cat, dog and cock. On a grave stele, dating 430-420 BC, a young boy standing in profile holds a bird in his left hand, and reaches for a cage with his right, while a now headless cat sits in a sphinx-like position atop a pillar next to him (figure 3.3).
Another funerary stele dedicated to a young girl, Salamine, dating to 420 BC shows her with her pet cat (Engels, 2001). Most of the representations of cats on vases and sculptures carry the same themes of the cat hunting birds or as being a simple pet. But could there be a deeper symbolism to these depictions, especially those on funerary stele? Because of the cat’s affiliation with Hecate, it very well could have been symbolic of the crossroads between life and death.
THE CAT IN EARLY GREEK LITERATURE
The Greeks named the cat ailouros, meaning wavy or plumed tail, and the terms ailourophile and ailourophobe are still commonly used today. There were early mentions of the cat in the writings of Theocritus, a Greek, who lived in the 3rd century BC, and who spent a good part of his time in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Ptolemaic period. He refers to a cat in his dialogues of the Syracusans in The Women at the Adonis Festival. In those dialogues he has the mistress Prassinoé call to her slave, Ennoa, “Bring water!” and then complain, “How slow she is! The cat wants to lie down and rest softly. Bestir thyself. Quick with the water, here!” (Champfleury, 2005, p. 16). Amusingly, even in the 3rd century BC cats were demanding comfortable places to sit and sleep.
Anaxandrides, an Athenian comic poet, writing in 376 BC mentioned the cat when a Greek character remarks to an Egyptian in his play Poleis, (The Cities). He says, “If poor puss appears in pain you weep, I kill and skin her,” (Anaxandrides, trans., 1961). Egyptians truly loved their animals unlike the Greeks and Romans who first considered what use they could provide.
The great comic playwright, Aristophanes, also mentioned the cat in some of his plays. In the Wasps he draws the attention of one of his characters to the fact that the cat is a flesh stealer, and when the character Philocleon tries to start a story with, “Once upon a time there was a rat and a cat,” Bdelycleon snaps, “Are you going to talk of cats and rats among high-class people?” (Aristophanes, trans., 1822). Finally, in his play, The Ecclesiazusae, a black cat is referred to as a bad omen (Aristophanes, trans., 2004). So, by at least the 5th century BC, the Greeks clearly viewed the black cat as an omen of evil, and cats in general as determined scavengers.
Aesop (620-546 BC) used the cat† as a prominent character in approximately 15 fables. Based on Greek myths, some of the fables such as The Cat and Venus, and others are in fact borrowed from stories originating in India. The fables have been added to and changed throughout the centuries, and it is certain Aesop did not write all the fables that we have today. The cat’s character in these stories is predominately one of an intelligent, sly, conniving trickster bent on self-preservation.
For example, in the fable The Fox and Cat the cat outsmarts the Fox. Even though the Fox boasts of having many tricks, ferocious hounds devour him in front of the wily cold-hearted cat who humbly proclaimed that he had but only one trick, that of climbing trees (figure 3.4).
The slyness of the cat while trying to catch mice is highlighted in the fable The Cat and the Old Rat (figure 3.5). Here the cat hangs himself upside down so that the mice think he is being punished, but when the mice appear, he loosens himself from the rope and drops down for the inevitable kill.
Figure 3.4. The Fox and Cat, From Aesop’s Fables by Frances Barlow, 1687
In two other fables the only animal characters that manage to trick the cat are the stork and the monkey. In The Stork and the Cat, the stork refuses to relinquish its eel to the hungry cat and surprisingly lives. And in The Monkey and the Cat (figure 3.6), the monkey somehow manages to persuade the cat to get chestnuts from the fire which the monkey greedily devours before the cat has a chance to eat any herself. Instead, with an empty stomach, she limps away with burned paws.
Later, around AD 550 we have the Greek poet and historian, Agathias, mentioning a ravenous cat attacking one of his beloved partridges.
Figure 3.5. The Cat and the Old Rat, Illustration by Milo Winter, 1919
Figure 3.6. Cat and Monkey, Illustration from Jan Griffier, 1680-1717
O CAT in semblance, but in heart akin
To canine raveners, whose ways are sin;
Still at my hearth a guest thou dar'st to be?
Unwhipt of Justice, hast no dread of me?
Or deem'st the sly allurements shall avail
Of purring throat and undulating tail?
No! as to pacify Patroclus dead
Twelve Trojans by Pelides' sentence bled,
So shall thy blood appease the feathery shade,
And for one guiltless life shall nine be paid (Agathias, trans., 1889).
Agathias now in what can only be thought of as a highly exaggerated grief goes on to write another poem dedicated to his dead partridge.
My partridge, wand'rer from the hills forlorn,
Thy house, light-woven of the willow-bough
No more, thou patient one, shall know thee now;
And in the radiance of the bright-eyed morn
Shalt stretch and stir thy sun-kissed wings no more.
A cat struck off thy head--but all the rest
From out the glutton's envious grasp I tore!
Now may the earth lie heavy--so 'twere best--
Upon thee, and not lightly, so that she
May ne'er drag forth these poor remains of thee
(Agathias, trans., 1889).
In reference to the above incident, Damocharis, a friend of Agathias sympathetically writes, “Detestable cat, rival of homicidal dogs, thou art one of Actæon’s hounds. In eating the pet partridge of thy master, Agathias, it was thy master himself thou wast devouring. And thou, base cat thinkest only of partridges, while mice play regaling themselves upon the dainty food that thou disdainest!” (Champfleury, 2005 p. 18). Agathias’ grief seems real since he has taken the time to compose two poems about his poor partridge. Obviously, the nuisance of bird killing was taken quite seriously, and it is amusing that the cat’s persnickety eating habits were even noticed and written about in AD 550.
THE CAT IN ROME
The Roman character was even less inclined than the Greek to truly appreciate the cat’s positive attributes. The very traits of duty, obedience and loyalty that the Romans highly prized were quite obviously non-existent in the domestic cat. In contrast, though, by its very nature, “the cat represented freedom, independence, and autonomy” (Engels, 2001), characteristics the Romans clearly admired.
In a temple dedicated to Libertas, the goddess of freedom and independence, erected on Mount Aventine, it was the Roman Tiberius Gracchus who placed a cat at the feet of the goddess who was adorned in a white robe, holding a scepter in one hand and a Phrygian cap in the other (Repplier, 1901, p. 17). The velvet Phrygian cap worn by freed Roman slaves signified liberty and the cat of course symbolized independence, for who can deny the cat’s basic nature of abhorring confinement? Rome honored the cat with the saying, “Libertas sine Labore,” liberty without labor (figure 3.7), an apt association to our independent Felis sylvestris.
Figure 3.7. Libertas-Sine-Labore, From Harper's Monthly, 1869
One of the first mentions of the cat in Rome is in the 4th century BC when Palladius recommends using cats, referred to officially for the first time as cattus, instead of ferrets to stop moles from eating up the artichoke beds (Turner, Bateson, & Bateson, 2000). Pliny the Elder in his book, Natural Histo
ry (1st century AD), instructs those that want to guard their bread from the voracious appetites of mice by writing, “Mice are kept away by the ashes of the weasel or a cat being steeped in water and then thrown upon the seed, or else by using the water in which one body of a weasel or cat has been boiled. The odour, however, of these animals makes itself perceived in the bread” (Pliny, trans., 1890, 8.155). Pliny also suggested that a fever could be avoided if “the salted liver of a cat killed when the moon is wane” is then mixed in wine and drunk (Pliny, trans., 1890, 8.155). As disgusting as it might seem, cat dung was even a remedy for removing a thorn from the throat (Turcan, 1996). We can only imagine that having to endure cat dung in the mouth would surely bring up anything and everything. Of course the Greeks and Romans were not the first to use cats for medicinal purposes. The ancient Egyptians used the fat from tomcats to scare mice away, the placenta in a tonic to keep hair from going gray, and female cat hair was mixed with milk to soothe burns (Malek, 1993, p. 70). Some odd medicinal cures still persisted up until about 100 years ago, with one stating a cure for shingles as laying the skin of a freshly killed cat over the infected area (Bergen, 1890).
THE CAT IN ROMAN ART
From what we can tell from the artifacts left to us, the Romans were not keen on capturing the cat in statuary or in bombastic attitudes as they did, for example, horses. However, there are mosaic representations of cats in Roman Pompeii, where the remains of domesticated cats have recently been excavated. The Pompeiians had cats, although probably few, but detailed mosaics catch the cat’s innate character. Two mosaics from the House of the Faun show spotted cats, often assumed to be Persians or Angoras because of their long hair. One mosaic depicts the cat grasping a rooster or chicken by the neck, while underneath him are two ducks, four other birds, some sea shells and some fish quietly awaiting their inevitable fate (figure 3.8). In the other, an expectant cat looks up at the birds perched around a bird bath, its teeth bared and its paw ready to strike at an opportune moment (figure 3.9).
