c. 350 BCE · 4th century BCE
Aristotle on the Cock
Aristotle's *History of Animals* describes the cock in detail, distinguishing the fighting strains and noting the 'game' qualities that the cockfighter would later codify.
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sortableYear: -350
In the sixth book of the Historia Animalium, Aristotle notes:
“There are several breeds of fowl. Some are small and some are large; some have a single comb, some a double. There are those that fight with one another, and these the breeders keep for fighting.”
This is the first detailed Western classification of the domestic fowl by use — and it places cockfighting in the Greek world at least as early as the fourth century BCE. Aristotle’s notes on cock physiology — the development of the comb and wattles, the age at which the cock begins to crow, the crowing patterns themselves — were authoritative for nearly two thousand years.