Neapolitan Mastiff

The British Museum

This little cutie is mainly Neapolitan Mastiff. Large, muscular, and powerful dogs have existed since ancient times. These dogs were used to guard homes, control livestock, and fight lions, elephants, and men in battle. The ancestry may extend back to the Molossus breed of Roman times, dogs bred since the age of Alexander the Great to protect livestock from wolves, jackals and brown bears.

The British Museum has a marble statue of a seated Molossian Hound which is a Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronze original. Someone named Jennings acquired the sculpture in Rome between 1753 and 1756.