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Question 52. Why do they sacrifice a dog to Mana
Geneta, and pray that no home-born should become
good?
Solution. Is the reason that Geneta is a deity that is
employed about the generation and purgation of corruptible
things? For this word signifies a certain flux (i.e. Mana
from manare) and generation, or a flowing generation ; for
as the Greeks do sacrifice a dog to Hecate, so do the Romans to Geneta on the behalf of the natives of the house.
Moreover, Socrates saith that the Argives do sacrifice a dog
to Eilioneia (Lucina) to procure a facility of delivery. But
what if the prayer be not made for men, but for dogs puppied at home, that none of them should be good; for
dogs ought to be currish and fierce? Or is it that they
that are deceased are pleasantly called good; and hence,
speaking mystically in their prayer, they signify their desire
that no home-born should die? Neither ought this to seem
strange; for Aristotle says that it is written in the treaty of
the Arcadians with the Lacedaemonians that none of the
Tegeates should be ‘made good’ on account of aid rendered
[p. 234]
to the party of the Lacedaemonians, i.e. that none
should be slain.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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