DOG DAYS

The Dog Days of summer are upon us. Most of us have heard that term. It refers to what is popularly considered to be the hottest time of the year, typically the months of mid-July until mid-August. And this year, like last year and likely during these summer months for the next few centuries, the characterization still stands and will remain true.

The first reference to the Dog Days in English is found in John de Trevisa’s book, Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus, published circa 1398. “In the mydle of the monthe Iulius [July] the Canicular [dog] dayes begyn.” The ancient Greeks referred to this period as κυνάδες ἡμέραι kynádes hēmérai. A literal translation of these words appears in the table below.

Greek word	Translation
κυνάδες	“A period of stagnation, lethargy, inactivity, bad luck or decline.”
ἡμέραι	Heat or hot, fever. The fever would come from the heat of the Sun in conjunction with the heat of Sirius.
kynádes	A calque of the Greek word for “puppy.”
hēmérai	Days

The ancient Romans called the period of mid-July to mid-August dies caniculares, or “Days of the Dog Star.” The Dog Star is named Sirius, a name the Greeks and Romans would know. Dog Days were also noted for the anger that people felt back then from the heat, and particularly the rage that is found with seasonal rabies. Rabies was associated with dogs in Plato’s day, and they were the primary source of rabies in the ancient world.

As early as the 8th century B.C., Homer makes the correlation between the Dog Star and heat in his work “The Iliad“:

Priam saw him first, with his old man’s eyes,
A single point of light on Troy’s dusty plain.
Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion’s Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.”

Iliad, Book XII, II, 33-37

So, in the period of midsummer, Sirius, which is the brightest star in the skies, rises with the sun. It was thought that Sirius gave off heat of its own which was compounded with the heat from our own star. This is why the summers were so hot, according to the ancients. In fact, the Greek word for Sirius (Σείριος) means “scorching.” But this is true only in the Northern Hemisphere, because when it’s summer up here, it is winter south of the equator. Nor will the Dog Days forever fall in July or August. According to National Geographic Magazine:

Roughly 13,000 years from now, Sirius will be rising with the sun in mid-winter.”

There are several constellations to know in the context of Sirius, which is not a constellation but a star. The first constellation is Orion, the Hunter. After the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, the next constellation many Americans learn is Orion, with the three stars in his belt. In mythology, Orion was known for his prowess as a great hunter of beasts. He wasn’t a very nice fellow, however. Certainly not a Greek hero in any sense of the word. In astronomy, Orion is hunting Lepus, the constellation named after a hare along with his two dogs, Canis Minor and Canis Major, or the little dog and the big dog. Sirius is found in the big dog or the constellation Canis Major.

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Sirius is headed towards Earth, traveling at 12,303 miles per hour. But it is roughly eight-and-one-half light years away from our solar system, so none of us need to be concerned. Plus, Sirius will never reach Earth, because while it will get gradually brighter as it approaches Earth over the next 60,000 years, by the year 62,004 A.D. Sirius will start moving away from our solar system.

SUPERSTITIONS RELATED TO DOG DAYS

There were all sorts of unfounded or anecdotal beliefs concerning the Dog Days. Men said that women became more sexually “wanton” during the Dog Days. According to John Brady’s history of the calendar:

‘Clavis Calendarium,’ printed 1813, the Romans believed it to be an evil time ‘when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies (frenzies).’”

Some believed that the Dog Days were periods of increased wars and hostilities among the nations. Fires that broke out in Imperial Rome during that period were blamed on the Dog Days, even as fires on the West Coast in summer are blamed on the heat which turns grass and shurbs to tinder.

In other countries, the Dog Days were welcome. In Egypt, Spring season revealed not much more than a desert. The people waited for the Nile to overflow it’s banks with fertile silt from upstream, allowing for crops to be planted according to history.

No one in Egypt knew exactly when the flooding would start, but they noticed a coincidence that gave them a clue: The water began to rise on the days when Sirius began to rise before the Sun. The ancient Egyptians called Sirius “Sothis.” Sothis and the Inundation became so important to the Egyptians’ survival that they began their new year with the new moon that followed the star’s first appearance on the eastern horizon.”

DOG DAYS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

It’s hard to overlook climate change as we study the Dog Days of summer. Certainly, the increase in heat is not coming from the star Sirius as the ancients once believed.

Like it or not, whether caused by man or not, the planet is slowly heating up. It does this naturally. It cools at times in the past and we have ice ages. Then, the planet warms and the ice recedes. The average temperature last year on the planet was 2.45 degrees Fahrenheit more than the average temperature was during the last fifty years of the nineteenth century. But the end of this century it is predicted to be even hotter.

Two-and-one-half degrees does not seem like very much. What’s the different between 90 degrees in Gettysburg, PA on July 3, 1863 when the CIvil War battle was fought there and 92 degrees in the same town a century later. However, we overlook the secondary effects of the heat increase in terms of the oceans rising, the increased temperatures of the sea as tropical storms and hurricanes spawn, the extinction of flora, the destruction of arable land for crops, the mass migration of people from the tropics to the temperate zones looking for work or to escape famine and so on.

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High temperatures and perpetual drought change weather pattens over time and desertification can develop. States like Texas and Oklahoma, even Kansas may see the stark consequences of climate change as they lose precious crop acreage to shifting sands. Picture the better part of a year as the new norm in terms of length for Dog Days.

Meanwhile, those Americans living in the Southwestern U.S., in Texas, even in Middle America, the Atlantic states and New England seem caught up in the Dog Days for at least the next few weeks.

Keep cool, hydrated, check on pets and your neighbors and don’t lose hope.