Sculptures of dogs licking their wounds in Roman period. A proposal for interpretation

Abstract

The present work analyzes an iconographic model, relatively common during the Antiquity, used in various environments with divergent functions, such as the peristyles and gardens of private or residential spaces, tombs or buildings of a religious nature. This theme and morphological characteristics are repeated in an analogous way in very varied content and meaning places. This fact has led us to propose a series of reflections that help us to resolve the possibility that there was a general content, a symbolic value or a common original message in this typology that was adapted to different environments depending on the needs of each one. The figure of the dog licking a wound could go, in many cases, unnoticed or be interpreted as a piece of little relevance, with a pleasant and recreational nature, which gave a certain affable, funny and everyday meaning, recognizable and appreciated by a large part of Roman society. However, the preserved archaeological evidence of this model and the written sources lead us to think that it contained a transcendental and symbolic meaning that invited to meditation and turned the animal into a cathartic element.