A molossian coin depicting a molossian hound...

[keravnos]

but not complete unfortunately.



If any of you has any ideas on what breed the dog depicted in the pic is, or can help fill in the missing dog's head, your efforts will not go wasted as a molossian depiction of a molossian hound is something we could definitely use.

[bobbin]

I can really offer more that my opinion which is that by looking at the more ruffled nature of its neck and the curve of its tail its not depicting the greyhound style dog that EB went for and seems more in tune with the Jennings Dog statue, a roman copy of a greek statue which is proported to be of a molossian.

Another picture of a statue supposedly of a Molossian hound from the tomb of Lysimachides of Acharnai in the Kerameikos in Athens, again this is quite similar to the Jennings dog and resembles the one in the coin (ruffled neck hair).

Some more supposed representations of Molossians:
a roman bronze fulcrum
two small roman bronze statues.

These all tend to depict them as mastif type dogs although I freely admit there is no way of knowing if these dogs are supposed to be Molossians.

Edit: We also have Virgil describing them as "fierce" compared to the "swift" Lacaonian which could be interpreted as meaning they were not sleek greyhound types (a bit tenuous I know)

[Skullheadhq]

Isn't a molossian hound a breed itself?

[bobbin]

They were a breed of dog that went extinct but are believed by many to be the ancestors of many modern breeds. Given their famous nature people claim their dogs are molossian's but as we don't really know what they even looked like there is no real basis for it.