Content area
Full Text
The Cattle of the Sun: Cows and Culture in the World of the Ancient Greeks. By jeremy mcinerney. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010. 360 pp. $45.00 (cloth).
In this fascinating study, Jeremy McInerney argues that cattle had a central place in the earliest Greek cultures we know of, and that, long after they had lost their economic and practical place in the Greek household in the Classical and later periods, they continued to have an important one in the Greek psyche and religion. McInerney explores this interest by looking at the cow and cattle-related activity in Greek religion, myth, economy, and (as far as can be ascertained) everyday life. He starts in the prehistoric period (especially the Bronze Age cultures of Crete and Mainland Greece) and continues into the Hellenistic Age (down to the first century b.c.e.). This study is very strong on the role of cattle (the cattle habitus, as he puts it) in Greek religion and economy, and speculates a great deal about the cow and bull in Greek myth and literature. Though he talks about the prominent role of cattle in art, specific examples aren't common, and there are very few images of any kind (only about ten) used in this book. The book is nonspecialist-friendly in that all ancient texts quoted are translated, though a specialist would like to see the Latin and Greek sometimes, in an endnote if not the main text. I think most nonspecialists would also find useful some sort of translation of the acronymic dating system used for the Aegean Bronze Age (e.g., LM II, LM III) and a map of Greece and/or the Mediterranean, neither of which are provided. The index (six pages) is disappointingly basic. It seems to have been edited excellently.
After an introductory chapter laying out McInerney's thesis, chapter 2 describes the development of pastoralist societies and describes what we know about prehistoric pastoralism. He discusses theories of the origins of animal domestication and husbandry, and notes useful anthropological observations of other pastoral societies, like the Dafla of modern Bhutan. Unlike hunting, pastoralism requires the herder to kill an animal that he has raised and nurtured, which in many societies requires a sacralized action to ease the process. In Greece, the animal's...