The existence of wild beasts in a country has by some been enumerated among the causes of civilisation, and it may, under certain circumstances, deserve to be so considered, though generally such modes of accounting for things are exceedingly unphilosophical. Mitford, who advances it,[691] needed but to cast a glance across the Mediterranean to dissipate his whole theory, since nowhere are there more wild beasts or men less civilised than in Africa. Egypt, Chaldæa, Assyria, the earliest peopled countries, enjoyed few of these helps to refinement. The reasons of Greek civilisation lay neither in their country or in the accidents of it, but in the race itself, which, as one family in a nation is distinguished from its neighbours by superior genius, was thus distinguished from other races of men. However, the lion, as we have seen, formerly existed among them, though never probably in great numbers, and even in the age of Herodotus was still found in a wild tract of country extending from the Acheloös in Acarnania to the Nestos in Thrace,[692] where in fabulous times Olynthos, son of Strymon,[693] is said to have been slain in a lion hunt. In the age of Dion Chrysostom, however, this fierce animal was no longer known in Europe.[694] Footnote 691: Hist. of Greece, i. 16. Footnote 692: Herod. vii. 125. seq. Footnote 693: Conon, Dieg. iv. ap. Phot. 131. Rüdig. Prolegg. ad Dem. Olynth. p. 3. Footnote 694: Orat. 21. t. i. p. 501. Reiske. Dogs, all the world over and from the remotest times, have been man’s companions in the chase, and Homer, the noblest painter of the ancient world, has bequeathed us many sketches of the antique hunting breed. It has above been seen that in company with man they feared not to attack even the lion. Odysseus’ famous dog Argos was a hound that “Never missed in deepest woods the swift game to pursue If once it glanced before his sight, for every track he knew.[695]” Footnote 695: Odyss. ρ. 316. seq. And again when the same sagacious Nimrod makes his rounds in quest of “belly timber,” a brace of dogs runs before him “examining the traces,” while with boar-spear in hand he follows close at their heels.[696] But already, even in those days, the habit of keeping more cats than catch mice had got into fashion—that is among the great—since we find grandees with their κύνες τραπεζῆες or “table dogs,”[697] valued simply for their beauty. Patroclus maintained nine of these handsome animals, and Achilles understanding his tastes, cast two of them into the flames of his funeral pile, that their shades might sit at his board in the realms below.[698] Footnote 696: Id. τ. 436. seq. Footnote 697: Id. ρ. 310. Footnote 698: Iliad ψ. 173. seq. Footnote 699: Deipnosoph. i. 22. et 24.