The Molossian is the more ancient name of a dog in which today we call the Neapolitan Mastiff.
In antiquity,classifications of breeds did not exist rigid and codified as those of present day canine science.
Where did the Molossian come from? Not many decades ago, Molossians of Epirus was still a term to be found in some Greek glossaries on dog breeds, more of a term of historical reference though. Epirus was one of the states of ancient Greece, between Corfu and Pindus, neighboring Albania and Molossia or Molosside, whose inhabitants in the 4th century bc probided them with the reigning dynasty, actually called Molossians.
Thus binding themselves to the Macedonians by alliances and marriage. The Romans who in 168 bc defeated King Perseus of Macedonia and who make Alvania one of their probinces in 148 bc, imported dogs of great power from those very areas into Rome which were instantly called pugnances as they were so ready to do battle against any wild beast. Alexander the Great was an owner and fan of these same dogs. Pilny (ad70) is to be pardoned if in a work of a good 37 volumes, he occasionally allows himself to be seduced by legends which, apart from apporcimations, suffer in general from two well noted defects; exageration and a concentration of facts, where as Straborn is more reliable when he wrote a good century before hand in about 30 bc, that is required for molossians to confront a lion. The chronological reconstruction of the appearance of the ancestors of the Neapolitan Mastino in the Asiatic Mountains, I ranian ploateaux, Assyrians and Babylonian plains or Aegean and Adriatic beaches, In every way before Alexander the molossian hound had allready been leaving his traces in Mesopotamia. The same type of dog, big and muscular appears both in a silver plaque from Luristan (Western Persia) dateable between the seventh and eighth centuries bc and in famous and almost contemporary Assyrian has beliefs in the ninth.
Going back further along the trail men search of the mollossian's origin, the mention of "The big Indian dog's" in Herodotos, 450 bc and in the "Story of Animals" from Aristotle, who was Alexander the Great's teacher in 342 bc. Aristotle believed that these dogs descended from the Babylonian dogs, and it is also saidthat the Indian dogs have been born from cross breeding between the dogs and the tiger in 1945, they were all but gone, then in 1946 six Italians got their dogs together and renamed them Neapolitan Mastiff's. In 1946 the first eight random and hardly homogenous examples introduced by Advocate Riccardo Pacifico in the 1946 Naples Dog show two disoriented and skeptical judges then called them The Neapolitan Mastiff. Scanziani's broken hearted defense of the dog before those tetragon slons. But in the alley ways and Versuvian hamlets he succeeded in buying up three of the neapolitan mastiff's whose names were: Guaglinone, Pacchianna, and Siento with whom to destroy all resistance, He indebted himself in order to aquire the last of this glorios breed in risk of extinction, Hense forth the molosserian were alive and well.
From then on we pay tribute to the old "mastinari" those instinctive breeders of molossians in Naples and neighboring areas, to whom we definately indebted to for the conservation of this breed.
The Neapolitan Mastiff is one of the oldest breed. He is a direct descendant of the Roman Molossian. They were bred to fight bulls, gladiators and some believe lions and tigers as well as being sent into the villages to take over so the Roman soldiers could walk in and take care of whatever the the dogs hadn't. For this reason the Romans found them ideal. They soon adopted them for guard and defense of persons and property. As the Romans took all the dogs were used in the battles and for the hunt. The neapolitan mastif fdeveloped the capacity for faithfulness and loyalty to those who nurtured him. Their unique appearance was done through years of inbreeding. Those who want a more bulkier mastiff must consider an Olde English Mastiff or Saint Bernard. We should retain certain characteristics without over doing them. As far back as 1947, there are those that used anablic steriods which one Italian breeder sarcastically defined as "Hot House Flowers" look through the eyes of the molossian as we must do to understand his innermost thoughts. The disheartening of a possible future for him as a "doggy in the window" should be disdainfully and curtly rejected.