ia in 200 BC, and from there, spread through the Far East. And the Romans didn't adopt the cat until 400 AD (Bradshaw 8). The Romans are attributed with introducing the cat to Europe, where evidence of cats date back to 440 AD. The cat's great colonizing ability is attributed to the fact that it adjusts well to life on ships. The evidence of this is in the great genetic coat variations and their origins from all over the globe (Bateson 186).
             Attitudes towards cats changed though, with the extinction of Egyptian pagans and the rise of Christianity. Christian leaders in the medieval Church were thought to attribute the cat to agents of the Devil and companions of witches in an attempt to suppress all traces of earlier religions (Bateson 186). Oriental folklore also has associations of cats with evil. These attitudes originated in the thirteenth century, and have persisted up to the present day in some places (Bradshaw 10). In the 1600s, Christians, on their feast days, would capture, torture, and kill cats, especially black
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