Why avoid a monkey: The refusal of interaction in Galen's Epideixis

Every object surrounding our environment can give us an opportunity to use it or to change its place and function in our cognitive horizon. But in the specific case concerning nonhuman animals, it is not just a one-directional dimension (from man to others) which is involved, but a two-directional one. Animals can react to our actions or they can simply make the first move offering us a mutual affordance. Interactions between animals and humans are crucial in the cultural analysis of ancient society: animals were everywhere, and their particular bond with humans could be conceptualised in culturally specific ways (cognitive metaphors) or contribute to elaborate the image of a social group (see, for example, the case of interactions with horses among the élites in classical Greece). However, the interactional dimension between animals and humans can give rise to other cultural phenomena: for instance, cases of missed interactions caused by the refusal of interacting practices. This paper focuses on the name and cultural avoidance of monkeys in the Graeco-Roman world, starting from a peculiar passage in Galen's Anatomicae administrationes (VIII 8) where the author rejects the vivisection of primates, defining them as a "hideous spectacle" (ειδεχθεςθ εαμα). Why should a monkey be avoided, especially on such an important public occasion as a medical show (εΠιδειξις)? In Galen's corpus a possible answer could be found in the light of some passages offering an alternative name for 'monkey': ΚαΛΛιας ('the handsome one'), which was a euphemistic and auspicious term counteracting the otherwise presumed inauspicious nature of primates, at least according to ancient Greek folklore.