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Guineafowl: what varieties were known to Greeks and Romans?

First of all, Alan Davidson, in the Oxford Companion to Food, says that there are several species of guineafowl; but in Food in the Ancient World from A to Z I speak of 'two major varieties', implying a single species. Which of us is right? Both of us. There are several species in the family Numididae, and they can all be called guineafowl, but none has been domesticated except the single species Numida Meleagris (sometimes called helmeted guineafowl), of which nine subspecies are currently recognised. Go to Alan P. Peterson's Zoonomen for an up-to-date list of species and subspecies.

Greeks had only one name for guineafowl, meleagris. Having been domesticated in northeastern Africa and familiar in ancient Egypt, this variety of guineafowl was known even in late prehistoric Greece, before the arrival of the domestic hen.

Romans had several names for them. One was meleagris, borrowed from Greek. The other usual name was Numidica (avis or gallina), i.e. Numidian bird, Numidian hen, and the name suggests it became familiar to Romans from northwestern Africa, specifically the hinterland of Carthage, a long way west from the probable arrival route of the meleagris. There are other names too, such as Africana gallina , Afra volucris, i.e. African hen, African bird, but these are poetic and literary variants of Numidica, not distinct names for a different variety: Columella, the farming author, says that Africana and Numidica are the same.

However, Romans did (sometimes) distinguish meleagris from Numidica. Suetonius lists both separately when he is detailing the fancy birds sacrificed to Caligula after this unpredictable emperor had decided that he was a god. And Columella describes both: the meleagris has a sky-blue (caerulea) helmet and crest, the Africana a red-brown (rutila) helmet and crest.

So, as far as the texts can take us, Greeks knew a single variety, typically with some blue plumage, and it will have been the same already known in Pharaonic Egypt. Romans knew a second variety, typically with some red-brown plumage, introduced to Italy from northwestern Africa.

For precise references see Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (2003) pp. 169-170.