In The Companion Species Manifesto, posthumanist Donna Haraway reimagines human-animal relationships, focusing on mutual respect and the cultural and biological significance of nonhuman animals. In this talk, Treadway explores whether this companion species framework can be extended to non-pet animals. The horse in particular played a vital role in ancient Greek culture, politics, and philosophy. 

To test the companion species theory on horses, Treadway examines the horse-human relationship in Xenophon’s On Horsemanship, whose analogies and language suggest a view of horses as culturally and politically significant — comparable to his treatment of soldiers, wives, and enslaved people. In navigating these entrenched hierarchies of ancient Greek society, Treadway asks along with Haraway: how do relationships work, who participates, what becomes possible, and how might all actors learn to love each other less violently?

Many pet owners and veterinarians today are attentive to animals’ emotions, especially as indicators or symptoms of illness. How did animal emotions play into ancient veterinary medicine? This paper will explore how animal emotions figured into ancient veterinary medicine through the treatise Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae by Vegetius, a fourth-century CE Latin author. Vegetius’s treatise is a complete veterinary treatise, where you would not think animal emotions would be emphasized. I will argue that Vegetius exemplifies how animal emotions are important to veterinary medicine and factor into human-animal relations.

In this paper, I will use a philological analysis of the text, and consider ancient definitions of emotions and feelings. Additionally, I will incorporate affect theory to examine the way Vegetius’s imagined situations of animal pain affect readers. I will also compare Vegetius’s passages to descriptions of animal pain in Plutarch’s On Abstaining from Flesh.

In Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, Vegetius describes the symptoms and treatments for animal diseases while also incorporating animal emotions and feelings. For example, Vegetius utilizes emotive and sympathetic vocabulary and phrasing, such as maestitia and tristitia, to convey the pain animals might feel when sick. Additionally, Vegetius explains how humans and animals are almost equals (prope pares, Vegetius Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae Book 1:De diversis passionibus ventris). With examples of animal emotions and attention to animal welfare in the text, I argue that Vegetius’s veterinary treatise goes beyond discussions of diseases and treatments by emphasizing a deep concern for animal pain and suffering. Vegetius’s work shows how animal sympathy and welfare are essential to owning animals and veterinary care in antiquity. In contrast, human emotions are also a factor in veterinary treatment and animal ownership. In the prologue of Book I, Vegetius states:

Book I, Prologue:

[11] […] acerrimum studium amoremque constat esse dominorum. Nec immerito voluptati natum animal salutis gratiam meretur ab homine. (Vegetius Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae Prologue)

It is agreed that the devotion and love of the masters should be very keen. Nor undeservedly, the animal born for pleasure deserves the grace [responsibility] of health from the human.

Humans, then, also consider their own emotions and feelings toward animals as they treat and care for them. Vegetius asks readers to care for animals and feel love based on animal feelings and emotions. Exploring how animal emotions affect humans in veterinary medicine is important because it reflects on how sympathy and emotions between humans and animals are valued.

Veterinarians have been present for centuries but as background characters to the scene of human civilization. However, the science of veterinary care and its people in antiquity have yet to be deeply explored. Studying the network of ancient veterinarians and the discipline of veterinary medicine can provide a new perspective on knowledge dissemination, contagion, and sympathy in antiquity. There were many types of veterinarians working in antiquity. In this paper, I will focus on how ancient veterinarians of the farms worked by exploring agricultural texts and veterinary writings mentioned but not extant to us today. According to Varro (116-27 B.C.E.), the head shepherd (magister pecoris) has to write down his knowledge of veterinary medicine:

Varro De Re Rustica II.2.20:

De sanitate sunt multa; sed ea, ut dixi, in libro scripta magister pecoris habet, et quae opus ad medendum, portat secum.

There are many issues regarding health; but these things, as I said, the head herdsman has written in a book, and what is necessary for healing, he carries [it] with him.

There are other passages in Book II where Varro says that the shepherd, goatherd, and horse groomer have written directions on remedies and explanations of diseases (Varro De Re Rustica II.1.23; II.3.8; II.7.15). But where are these written texts? If the shepherd wrote remedies for animals, that would indicate that he was literate and could pass down this knowledge to other people on the farm. Based on this information, there are two networks of veterinary knowledge: the first is among the shepherds, goatherds, and horse groomers, and the second is the formal literary tradition held by Varro and other agricultural writers.Did agricultural writers like Varro get their veterinary information from their shepherds, goatherds, and horse groomers, or is it the other way around? Through a historical-literary analysis, this paper will explore the network of veterinarians and veterinary knowledge in literature and the written tradition to which we do not have direct access. I will focus on a network comprising enslaved veterinarians and elite animal owners in the Roman Republic and the Early Roman Empire. I will show how animal patients are in the network as active contributors to veterinary knowledge. In this paper, I aim to demonstrate how veterinary networks reveal the complexity of medical knowledge and its distribution within systems of enslavement while also exploring how medical practices are intertwined with human-animal-environment interactions.

Throughout the year, I visit three kinds of doctors: my primary physician, my dentist, and my veterinarian for my pet cat. Veterinarians have been present for centuries but as background characters to the scene of human civilization. However, their labor and knowledge have been essential to the development of human society. In the prologue of the Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, Vegetius Renatus states, “As it were animals are after people, thus veterinary art is second after human medicine. Horses and mules are aids for war and decorations of peace” (Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae Prologue.1). 

In this paper, I will analyze Vegetius Renatus, a fourth-century A.D. Latin author, and his Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, specifically Book 1, to explore the importance of the owner’s love in veterinary treatment. I analyze instances of human-animal closeness in terms of emotions, physicality, and shared diseases. For example, Vegetius utilizes emotive and sympathetic vocabulary and phrasing, such as maestitia and tristitia, to convey the pain animals might feel. I argue Vegetius’ goal is to convince the owner to feel and care about the animal. I also note the physicality of veterinary care, such as when multorum manibus are needed. Additionally, I discuss when Vegetius explains the shared diseases between humans and animals, such as rabies and elephantiasis. Vegetius argues that animals are used for human benefit. Therefore, they are owed love and good care: […] acerrimum studium amoremque constat esse dominorum. Nec immerito voluptati natum animal salutis gratiam meretur ab homine. (Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae Prologue.11)Through my analysis of instances of human-animal closeness, I will inspect the emotional relationship between the veterinarian and the animal. In writing the Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae, Vegetius calls on the owner, the most likely reader of his veterinary treatise, to care the most about his animals by knowing veterinary medicine. Addressing the topic of ancient veterinary medicine reckons with the labor of animals and the labor of medical care.

This paper discusses how the Hippocratic work Airs, Waters, and Places influenced a prominent U.S. scientist of the nineteenth century who was at the root of One Health, the idea that human, animal, and environmental health are interdependent (CDC). This paper will also explore how effective this classical connection is, as well as the effectiveness of One Health.
Calvin Schwabe was a parasitologist trained in veterinary medicine. He wrote Veterinary Medicine and Human Health which is full of “practical recommendations for the joint practice of human-non-human medicine” (Schwabe 163). In Veterinary Medicine and Human Health, Schwabe traces the appearances of veterinary medicine and the idea of One Health in history. Schwabe brings up the Hippocratic work Airs, Waters, and Places to highlight examples of how a physician might use their analysis of the environment in their diagnosis. Schwabe states, “Hippocrates was one of the first epidemiologists, one of the first persons to apply the ecological approach to medical problems of populations” (Schwabe 568) termed “One Medicine” which later became One Health in 2003 following the global outbreak of SARS in 2002 (Schwabe 194). My investigation of Schwabe and his book revealed how Hippocrates inspires scientists and scholars who promote environmentalism and interdisciplinary medical practice, albeit they often misinterpret ancient works and perpetuate problematic agendas such as environmental determinism. Examining classical connections in medical agendas is imperative for a critical understanding of the current state of medicine and to close the gap between classics and STEM.

Horse-human relations are corporeally intertwined. Human society developed alongside and thanks to domesticated horses. One area that showcases this co-dependence is veterinary medicine. Veterinary medicine has been carried out by humans to care for animals and human society has moved forward on the backs of animals, especially horses. According to Greek fragment T71 Suda χ 267 (Hesiod, 206), Chiron wrote the Ἱππιατρικόν (veterinary medicine), a combination of the words hippos and iatros. Chiron, as the mythical centaur and medical professional, represents the corporeal and health links between humans and horses.

To explore this co-dependence of human and equine bodies, this paper will examine Chiron in ancient art and literature, along with an analysis of two ancient veterinary texts. The works of Xenophon and Vegetius Renatus showcase the care of horses and the importance of veterinary medicine to the success of human endeavors such as war and agriculture. I will also examine human-horse relations historically. The hybrid figure of Chiron, as a half-horse, raises the topic of wildness and medicine. Human and veterinary medicine engage with the wildness of a body bringing it under control. Moreover, the human developments of agriculture and domestication have changed the natural world in ways that bring new, wild diseases that similarly invade human and animal bodies (Suzman, 227-228). Medicine, disease, and wildness blur the boundary lines between humans and animals, especially horses.

In the third book of his Georgics, Vergil instructs his reader regarding the various ways to care for horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. Towards the end of the book Vergil discusses how, in the face of an aggressive disease, the human must apply (adhibere) their healing hands (medicas manūs) rather than just praying to a god (Georgics.3.455). Medicine, veterinary and human, was created by humans to engage with the wildness of a body bringing it under control.

In the Georgics, when the wild disease of sheep cannot be controlled by the human farmer, becoming a full plague, Vergil describes how others are affected: the ploughman cannot cultivate the field, the wolf no longer eyes the sheep, the wild deer mingle with dogs, and even the air kills the birds (Georgics.3.537-547). Even the original doctor Chiron, who stands at the intersection of wildness and cultivated science due to his dual nature and profession, cannot help (Georgics.3.549-550). Animal bodies and the body of the environment are wild objects of care by humans, because their health affects the human world.

This paper will argue that Vergil’s Georgics, a didactic poem on agriculture, greatly exemplifies the medical idea of “One Health”: a model within which human health, animal health, and environmental health are all interconnected and dependent on each other (Tsang 2019). And according to Vergil, humans are in charge of controlling everyone’s health. “One Health” came from the mid 1900s (Woods, 2018, 15), but, I argue, as an idea can also be found in ancient thought.