Animals in Rome

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Humans have coexisted intimately with animals for thousands of years, yet our relationship with them is still fraught with uncertainty. Animal behavior is so similar to our own, while sometimes taking such alien forms, that animals have often been used as the natural basis of comparison for defining what a human being is and what a human being is not. Yet teasing out precisely what that definition is and what it means for us can be as elusive as it is illuminating. What is an animal and what does it mean to be a human? This dissertation examines how Romans constructed the differences between humans and animals and how they viewed their similarities in four different aspects of their society: the possession of reason as the key distinction between humans and animals; human interactions with animals that depended on assumed human dominance; the emotional connections that existed between humans and animals; and the stories of metamorphosis. It may appear that in antiquity people placed a greater emphasis on the differences that existed between them and animals, but the conclusion drawn from these studies is that the connections they felt with them were ultimately stronger and more meaningful