Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z

433 Pages·2007·2.6 MB·English

by  W. Geoffrey Arnott

BIRDS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
FROM A TO Z
Why did Aristotle claim that male Herons’ eyes bleed during mating? Do Cranes winter
near the source of the Nile? Was Lesbia’s pet really a House Sparrow?
Ornithology was born in ancient Greece, when Aristotle and other writers studied and
sought to identify birds. Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z gathers together the
information available from classical sources, listing all the names that ancient Greeks
gave their birds and all their descriptions and analyses. Arnott identifies (where
achievable) as many of them as possible in the light of modern ornithological studies.
The ancient Greek bird names are transliterated into English script, and all that the
classical writers said about birds is presented in English. This book is accordingly the
first complete discussion of classical bird names that will be accessible to readers without
ancient Greek. The only previous study in English on the same scale was published over
seventy years ago and required a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Since then there has
been an enormous expansion in ornithological studies which has vastly increased our
knowledge of birds, enabling us to evaluate (and explain) ancient Greek writings about
birds with more confidence. With an exhaustive bibliography (partly classical scholarship
and partly ornithological) added to encourage further study Birds in the Ancient World
from A to Z is the definitive study of birds in the Greek and Roman world.

W.Geoffrey Arnott is former Professor of Greek at the University of Leeds and Fellow
of the British Academy. His publications include Alexis: The Fragments (1996) and an
edition of Menander in three volumes (1979, 1996 and 2000). He was also a former
president of the Leeds Birdwatchers’ Club.
THE ANCIENT WORLD FROM A TO Z
What were the ancient fashions in men’s shoes? How did you cook a tunny or spice a
dormouse? What did the Romans use for contraception?
This Routledge series provides answers to these questions and many more like them
which are often overlooked by standard reference works. Volumes cover key topics in
ancient culture and society, from food, sex and sport to money, dress and domestic life.
Each author is an acknowledged expert in their field, offering readers vivid, immediate
and academically sound insights into the fascinating details of daily life in antiquity. The
main focus will be on Greece and Rome, though some volumes also encompass Egypt
and the Near East.
The series will be suitable both as background for those studying classical subjects and
as enjoyable reading for anyone with an interest in the ancient world.
Available titles
Food in the Ancient World from A to Z
Andrew Dalby
Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z
John Younger
Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z
Mark Golden
Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z
Geoffrey Arnott
Forthcoming titles
Greek and Roman dress from A to Z
Liza Cleland, Glenys Davis and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z
Kenneth Kitchell
BIRDS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
FROM A TO Z
W.Geoffrey Arnott

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of
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please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2007 W.Geoffrey Arnott

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-94662-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10:0-415-23851-X (hbk)
ISBN 10:0-203-94662-6 (ebk)
ISBN 13:978-0-415-23851-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13:978-0-203-94662-6 (ebk)
To the members of the Leeds Birdwatchers Club and the local group of the RSPB

Contents

List of figures viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements x
Symbols and abbreviations xi

1
ANCIENT GREEK BIRDS A—Z

Bibliography 373
Index of English bird names 398
List of figures

1 Owl, Scops 3
2 Jungle Fowl 18
3 Black Francolin 33
4 Partridge, Chukar 121
5 Crow, Hooded 171
6 Crested Lark 173
7 Hoopoe 176
8 Thrush, Blue Rock 192
9 Lammergeier 197
10 Bee-eater 211
11 Starling, Rose-coloured 311
12 Plover, Spur-winged 362
Preface
D’Arcy Thompson’s A Glossary of Greek Birds (1st edition 1895, Oxford; 2nd edition
1936, Oxford, reprinted 1966: Hildesheim) has been from its first appearance the
accepted guide in the English-speaking world to ancient Greek bird names, and
deservedly so, because it combines expertise in the Greek sources from Homer down to
fourteenth-century Byzantium with a knowledge of and interest in ornithology. Since
1936, however, there has been an enormous expansion in our knowledge of the birds of
Greece and the Mediterranean, published in countless books and papers. Here the nine
volumes of The Handbook of the Birds of Europe the Middle East and North Africa
(edited mainly by Stanley Cramp, K.E.L.Simmons and C.M.Perrins, 1977–94) are
magisterial. In 1997, George Handrinos and Triantaphyllos Akriotis published The Birds
of Greece, correctly identifying it as the first major guide to that country’s avifauna since
1902, and in 1998, Richard Brooks produced his Birding on the Greek Island of Lesvos,
thus detailing the modern evidence about the birds that can be found today on the island
where at least some of the evidence that Aristotle incorporated in his History of Animals
appears to have been obtained. Books on Latin bird names have been compiled by
Jacques André (Les noms d’oiseaux en latin, 1967) and more exhaustively by Filippo
Capponi (Ornithologia Latina, 1979), while John Pollard has published a more discursive
study of ancient Greek birds (Birds in Greek Life and Myth, 1977).
Statements that D’Arcy Thompson was able to make confidently in 1936 have now in
a good many cases been outdated. English bird names have now been standardised, and
several Latin binomials have been changed in the past seventy years. Thus, in 1936, the
Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow were still identified as two subspecies of the Corvus
corone, but recently they were reclassified as separate species with only the Carrion
Crow retaining that binomial and the Hooded Crow becoming Corvus cornix. Thus I have
attempted to produce an updated version of D’Arcy Thompson’s material, adding
necessary new information from both ancient Greek and modern ornithological sources,
correcting errors and suggesting some new identifications.
Note on the text
All abbreviations to classical references have been taken from Hornblower and
Spawforth (eds) (1996) The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.