Cynegetic

Hail Oppian, prime of cynegetic race, / From Maro [i.e., Virgil] dovvn to him vvho ſounds the Chace: […]

Give me the hippic—the philippic taste, / All else a wilderness, and man a waste; / Give me the turf, and cynegetic sport, / The zeal, the jealousy, and zest of court; […]

The Roman authors, especially the cynegetic poets, have given descriptions of the different British dogs; the Scotch terrier is accurately described by Oppian; and Irish wolf dogs were brought to Rome about the fourth century.

But as there are no lions, wolves, nor wild boars in Great Britain, he [the poet James Thomson] admonishes the British youth to indulge their cynegetic propensities in the fox-chase, which he describes con amore [with love].

"Come, Diana [a dog]," said he; "come, my girl! thou whose destiny will be marked in the cynegetic annals; […] thou who art rushing into interplanetary space, and wilt perhaps be the Eve of all Selenite dogs! come, Diana, come here."

The cynegetic life is authentic because it is close to the philosophical center of human life. It constantly contrasts two central mysteries: the nature of the animal and of death. These are brought together in hunting.

In the Sophist, Plato emphasizes the fact that hunting cannot be reduced to tracking wild animals. Among the different branches of the cynegetic art there is also an art of manhunting, which is in turn subdivided into several categories: "Let us define piracy, manstealing, tyranny, the whole military art, by one name, as hunting with violence."