French bulldog Roman emperor portrait: the history behind the trend

Part 1

What people mean by a french bulldog roman emperor portrait

The style is easy to picture even if you have never searched the exact phrase before.

The breed is described as small and muscular, with an expression that is alert, curious, and interested.

Part 2

Did the Romans actually have dogs like French bulldogs

No, your dog's breed did not exist in ancient Rome. The French bulldog traces back no further than the latter part of the nineteenth century, when it developed from small companion dogs bred in England.

Romans did keep small companion dogs of their own. One well-documented type was the Canis Melitae, or Melitan, a lapdog known for sleeping on its owner's lap and considered a status symbol among the upper class. Roman writers and tomb inscriptions describe real affection for these dogs, including one surviving epitaph that mourns a lost lapdog by name.

Romans also kept much larger dogs for different work. Guard dogs like this were sometimes fitted with thick, studded collars meant to protect their throats from wolf bites.

Part 3

The real history of the French bulldog breed

The real story of your dog's breed starts far from Rome, in nineteenth-century England, with lace workers in Nottingham. In the Nottingham lace trade, workers began selectively breeding a smaller toy Bulldog to serve as a lap pet while they worked. When industrialization took over lace production, many of these workers lost their jobs and moved across the Channel to France, bringing their small dogs with them.

These toy dogs came from English Bulldog stock, a breed once used for bull-baiting until the sport was banned in 1835. Breeders worked the English Bulldog down into a smaller, lighter dog, sometimes crossing in other breeds, to produce a companion built for a lap rather than a bull ring.

Once the dogs reached Paris, well-to-do Americans touring Europe saw them and began bringing them home. The French Bull Dog Club of America was founded in 1897, the first club in the world dedicated to the breed, and the American Kennel Club recognized the French bulldog the following year. Breeders in the two countries initially favored different ear shapes, a folded rose ear or an upright bat ear, until American breeders made the bat ear the standard still used today.

Part 4

How Romans actually pictured their dogs

The best-known example is the Cave Canem, or Beware of Dog, mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, which shows a chained, snarling dog guarding the entrance. Similar guard-dog mosaics appeared at the entrances of other Pompeii houses, including the House of Paquius Proculus.

Archaeologists have also recovered a plaster cast of a chained guard dog that died during the eruption of Vesuvius, which shows how real this household scene was. Beyond guard dogs, Roman writing and artwork describe hunting dogs such as the Vertragus, prized for speed and later linked to the Italian Greyhound, alongside small lapdogs such as the Melitan kept by women and children.

Part 5

Why flat-faced dogs get linked to emperors in art today

Costume portraits work best on a face the eye can read quickly, and your dog's face does a lot of that work for an illustrator.