If you’re one of the crazy dog people who calls your pets your furbabies and treats them like part of the family, you’re not alone. Turns out the ancient Greeks and Romans were as attached to their dogs as we are today, and there is no greater evidence of this than the sentimental epitaphs left at their gravesites.
The Dodo recently posted an article highlighting the most heartbreaking elegies dedicated to these loyal pups. Get ready to break out the tissue box.
“I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home in my own hands fifteen years ago.”
The joy of bringing a puppy home and the heartache of having to say goodbye to your faithful friend — captured in a single sentence.
“This is the tomb of the dog, Stephanos, who perished, Whom Rhodope shed tears for and buried like a human. I am the dog Stephanos, and Rhodope set up a tomb for me.”
Burying dogs like they would a human tells us these dogs were held in high regard by their loving owners.
“Thou who passest on this path,
If haply thou dost mark this monument,
Laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog’s grave.
Tears fell for me, and the dust was heaped above me
By a master’s hand.”
The idea that treating your dog like a human in life and after death was probably met with criticism by some, prompting this owner to defend his decision to give his dog a proper resting place.
“My eyes were wet with tears, our little dog, when I bore thee (to the grave)… So, Patricus, never again shall thou give me a thousand kisses. Never canst thou be contentedly in my lap. In sadness have I buried thee, and thou deservist. In a resting place of marble, I have put thee for all time by the side of my shade. In thy qualities, sagacious thou wert like a human being. Ah, me! What a loved companion have we lost!”
Excuse me while I go hug a dog.
h/t to The Dodo for the story.
Featured image via Flickr
