The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and the Concept of
Lifelikeness
by
Evrydiki Tasopoulou
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
Bryn Mawr College
2008

Abstract
Studies of ancient Greek sculpture focus almost exclusively on representations of
the human form. Despite the considerable number of animal representations in this
medium, animals are absent from the scholarly debate on art-historical topics, including
the major issue of naturalism. This study addresses the connection between freestanding
animal funerary sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. and the phenomenon of
naturalistic style. It examines ancient Greek texts from the fifth century B.C. to the sixth
century A.D. that preserve evidence of animals as subjects of lifelike works of art and
also as judges of lifelike art in Classical Greece. The combination of naturalistic and
non-naturalistic features in the style of Classical Greek animal sculpture has long been
interpreted as problematic because it deviates from the standard conception of the
Classical style in Greek art as strictly imitative of the external world. This study
demonstrates that Classical Attic funerary statues of lions and dogs show various
combinations of naturalistic and non-naturalistic features that are directly shaped by
contemporary ideas about the animals represented. Further, it emphasizes that the
contradictory style of Classical Greek animal funerary sculpture is the material
embodiment of contemporary conflicting ideas about animals that manifest themselves in
the literary record. Classical texts indicate that contemporary Greek society was
primarily anthropocentric and held a contradictory attitude to animals: on the one hand, it
denigrated animals, but, on the other, allowed them to occupy a central position in
everyday life and thought. Additionally, this study of the judgment of animals in
Classical Greece focuses on contemporary linguistic usage, which suggests a duality in

the meaning of the term zw|~on—usually taken to mean simply “animal,” but also “image”
and “figure.” By examining both textual and epigraphical evidence from the Classical
period, it demonstrates that—when applied to the visual arts—zw|~on carries multiple
meanings such as “subject of representation,” and “figural image” that suggest its
inclusion within the vocabulary of art criticism in Classical Greece. Representations of
animals thus offer value to the phenomenon of naturalistic style by providing useful
insights into the Classical Greek conception of this style.

Vita
I was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. I received a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology and
Classical Studies from Wilson College in 1998. In 2001, I attained a Master of Arts in Classical
and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College.
i

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vi
Notes to the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Chapter 1: Animals as Guides to the Ancient View of Naturalistic Style in Greek Art
1. Modern Attitudes and the Neglect of Animal Form in the Study of Greek Art . . . . . . . . 10
a. Animals as Valuable Subjects in the Visual Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
b. Scholarly Remarks on the Neglect of Animals in Greek Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
(in Particular Sculpture)
2. Why Have Representations of Animals in Greek Sculpture Been Neglected? . . . . . . . . .17
3. Ancient Texts on Famous Artists and Representations of Animals in Greek Art . . . . . . .20
4. The Study of Naturalism in Greek Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
a. The Use of “Naturalism” and “Realism” in the Modern Study of Greek Art . . . . . . . 31
b. Modern Theories of the Development of Greek Art in Terms of Naturalism . . . . . . . 39
Emanuel Löwy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Ernst H. Gombrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
John Boardman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
William A. P. Childs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
5. Not Naturalism and Realism. The Concept of Lifelikeness in Greek Art and Animals . . 57
a. Ancient Texts on Lifelikeness as a Quality of Works of Art in Classical Greece . . . . 59
b. Ancient Texts on Animals as Lifelike Images and Judges of Lifelike Art . . . . . . . . . .66
Animals as Lifelike Images in Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
A. Myron’s Cow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
The Conventional Nature of the Praise of Lifelike Works of Art . . . . . . .68
The Epigrams of Euenos of Paros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
The Statue Acts Fantastically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
The Statue Acts Naturally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
The Deception of Herdsmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
The Deception of a Calf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
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The Deception of a Bull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
B. The Ox of Apelles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
C. Funerary Statues of Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Animals as Judges of Lifelikeness of Works of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Chapter 2: Representations of Animals in Classical Greek Sculpture and the Phenomenon
of Naturalistic Style
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
1. Examples of the Scholarly Treatment of the Problematic Style of Representations . . . .100
of Animals in Ancient Greek Sculpture
a. The Case of the Lion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
The Possibility of Influence from Bronze Age Representations of Animals . . . 107
Naturalism as Anatomical Accuracy: Two Near-Eastern Types of Lions on . . .109
Protocorinthian Pottery (and Contemporary Sculpture)
Literary Evidence for the Availability of Lions in Classical Greece . . . . . . . . . 111
b. The Case of the Dog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117
2. Two Case Studies: The Lion and the Dog from the Kerameikos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
a. How are These Animals Different from Composite Animal Figures? . . . . . . . . . . . .125
b. Animals and the Question of “What Is It Really Represented?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
The Lion from the Precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos in the Kerameikos . . . . . 127
The Motif of the Lion Holding the Head of Its Prey in . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Fourth-Century Attic Sculpture and Homer
Anatomy of the Kerameikos Lion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
The Dog from the Precinct of Lysimachides of Acharnai in the Kerameikos . . 139
The Anatomy of the Kerameikos Dog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148
Chapter 3: The Classical Greek Contradictory Attitude toward the Dog
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Section 1
a. Dogs Living in the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
b. Dogs as Guardians of the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158
c. Molossian Dogs as Guardians of the House: Their Ferocity and Value . . . . . . . . . . .169
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Section 2
a. Dogs Stealing and Gobbling Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
b. Punishment of Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
c. Food for Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183
d. Dogs as Scavengers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
e. The Savage Nature of Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Section 3
Dogs as Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
a. Post-Classical Attitudes to the Practice of Eating Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196
b. Dogs as Food in Classical Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200
Comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200
Hippocratic Treatises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
The Properties of Dog Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206
The Flesh of Adult Dogs as Dietary Treatment for Certain Diseases . . . . . . . . .209
1. Erysipelas of Lungs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
2. Disease of the Spleen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
The Flesh of Puppies as Dietary Treatment for Certain Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . 210
1. Pleurisy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .210
2. Disease of the Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
3. Tubercles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
4. Disease of the Liver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
5. Gynecological Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
6. Non-Hyperthermic Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
7. Disease of the Kidneys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214
Dog Flesh as Non-Indicated Dietary Treatment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Chapter 4: The Word Zw|~on in the Context of the Visual Arts of Classical Greece
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
1. The Etymology of Zw|~on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
2. Zw|~on in the Fifth Century B.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222
A. Literary Texts
iv

Empedocles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222
Herodotus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
a. Zw|~a on Clothes from the Caucasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
b. Egyptians: The First to Carve Zw|~a on Stones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
c. Zw|~a on Khufu’s Causeway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
d. Zw|~a on a Pyramid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
e. Zw|~a on the Breastplate of Amasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253
f. The Zw|~on Set-Up by Darius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
g. The Zw|~a of Mandrocles’ Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263
h. Zw|&dia on a Bronze Krater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268
B. Inscriptions
Erechtheion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .276
3. Zw|~on in the Fourth Century B.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .294
Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Alcidamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312
Aristotle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Philemon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .324
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329
Appendix: Testimonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .420
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
Figures
v

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, A. A. Donohue, for her guidance,
support, patience, and incisive criticism, all of which made this dissertation possible. In
addition, I am grateful to the Whiting Foundation for generously funding my research. Finally, I
owe many thanks to my family and friends for their support throughout this process, especially
my husband, Derek Stevens, whose help, patience, and good humor were instrumental in the
completion of this dissertation.
vi

Notes to the Reader
Numbers in brackets and in boldface indicate references to the literary and epigraphical
testimonia included in the appendix to this work.
Journal abbreviations follow AJA 104 (2000) 3-24. Abbreviations regarding ancient authors and
their works follow H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie, A Greek-
English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement (new ninth ed.; Oxford, 1940; repr., 1996; here LSJ 9 )
xvi-xxxviii and S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (third
ed.; Oxford and New York, 1996) xxix-liv.
vii

Introduction
It is generally thought that the style of representations of animals in Classical
Greek sculpture is problematic because it exhibits a combination of contradictory or
inconsistent traits, specifically naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements. Trudy Kawami
illustrates the idea in her discussion of a fourth-century B.C. statue of a dog found in the
Athenian Kerameikos (Fig. 1):
This “Hound of the Kerameikos”…has…powerful, naturalistic forms, heavy
shoulders, thick legs and large paws [but it also exhibits] subtle leonine qualities,
[such as] the heavy compact chest, the well-sprung, almost barrel-like rib cage,
and the carefully modeled toes with claws….The Kerameikos hound is lion-like. 1
The contradiction inherent in the style of the Kerameikos dog does not accord well with
the interpretation of Greek naturalistic style, which, as the defining characteristic of the
art of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., is generally known for its adherence to a strict
imitation of the external world. The combination of opposing, canine and leonine,
stylistic elements in this statue has been explained as a reflection of “the common
apotropaic functions of the two species of animals in both the Aegean and the Near
East.” 2 Other discussions of the problematic style of Classical Greek animal sculpture
have interpreted this phenomenon in fundamentally negative terms: as the result of
artists’ inability, misunderstanding, or failure to depict animal anatomy accurately, lack
of real models, and also as a mix of artists’ copying from Near Eastern and Bronze Age
animal models and observing only such comparable animals as were available.
These interpretations do not take into account the conceptual context of Classical
Greek culture, of which these animal sculptures are the products. What is lacking,
1 T. S. Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste: Some Animal Sculptures from Persepolis,” AJA 90 (1986) 262.
2 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
1

therefore, from existing scholarship is a study that considers the problematic style of
these statues in light of the contemporary attitude toward animals. Fifth and fourth-
century texts reveal the existence of conflicting ideas about animals in Greek society;
they demonstrate that Greek culture was anthropocentric; on the one hand it denigrated
animals, but, on the other, it elevated them to a prominent position in everyday life and
thought. These conflicting ideas about animals serve as the conceptual basis for the
contradictory style of animals in contemporary sculpture.
In contrast, well established in the scholarship on the interpretation of naturalistic
style in Greek art is a number of theories that explains the emergence of naturalistic style
in Greek art as a conscious attempt to reach absolute naturalism. The theories, for
example, of Emanuel Löwy, Ernst Gombrich, and John Boardman, and the respective
conceptions—psychological, historical, and technical—that shape them consider the goal
of absolute naturalism the driving force behind the naturalistic development of Greek art.
Boardman’s perceived link between the progression of Greek naturalism, in particular
that of the Archaic and Classical periods, and a parallel progress in artistic techniques and
materials continues to hold a strong place in modern scholarship as a recent collection of
essays edited by Olga Palagia and entitled Greek Sculpture: Function, Materials, and
Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods (2006) indicates. The theories
mentioned above do not consider the relation between the phenomenon of naturalistic
style in Greek art and the conceptual context in which this phenomenon was formed.
They focus on the human figure at the expense of the animal one. In addition, they go
against literary evidence which shows that the ancient Greeks valued the lifelike quality
2

of their art while maintaining awareness of its lifeless status. Animals feature
prominently in ancient discussions of the phenomenon of naturalistic style, in particular
its lifelikeness, which is perceived as accurate representation and aliveness. Figures of
animals are regularly praised for their lifelike quality. When the viewing of works of art
is described, animals tellingly appear as judges of their lifelike quality. In fact, when
featuring as judges of lifelike works of art, animals—as constituents of the natural world
and separate from human cognition—suggest a specific attitude toward art itself: that it
can surpass its own essence as an artificial construction and, consequently, be recognized
as natural even by nature itself. It is clear, therefore, that animals offer an invaluable
insight into the judgment of representational art in Classical Greece, thus substantiating
Claude Levi-Strauss’s famous dictum (drawn from his structural analysis in
anthropology) that “animals are good to think with.” 3
“The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and the
Concept of Lifelikeness” is an investigation of the significant role of animals as guides to
the Greek understanding of the phenomenon of naturalistic style, in particular its lifelike
quality. It explores the problematic style of representations of animals in Classical Greek
funerary sculpture in light of the conceptual context of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
that produced this style. It argues that the problematic, specifically contradictory, style of
Classical Greek animal funerary sculpture is the material and, at the same time, visual
manifestation of a contemporary contradictory attitude towards animals that is attested in
the literary record. The study is divided into four chapters.
3 C. Lévi-Strauss, tr. R. Needham, Totemism (London, 1969) 126.
3

Chapter one, “Animals as Guides to the Ancient View of Naturalistic Style in
Greek Art,” is concerned with the connection between animals and the phenomenon of
naturalistic style in Greek art. The aim is to establish the significant role of animals as
guides to the ancient Greek view of naturalistic style, in particular its lifelike quality.
The chapter begins with a discussion of ancient literary accounts of animals as notable
subjects of works of art by Classical Greek artists, both sculptors and painters. It
presents, next, an overview of a number of modern theories about and explanations of
naturalistic style in Greek art; it emphasizes that, in regards to this topic, modern
scholarship has paid almost exclusive attention to the human form. The emergence of
this style has been interpreted on the basis of the assumption that the ancient Greeks
consciously strove to achieve absolute naturalism in artistic representations, a concept
which has further been considered the impetus for the development of Greek art. Such
explanation dismisses, however, literary evidence which shows that the ancient Greeks
valued highly the lifelike quality of their art, while maintaining a conscious
understanding of its inanimate status.
In addition to this evidence, the chapter examines ancient texts ranging from the
fifth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D., which indicate the significant role of animals
in the ancient view of the lifelikeness of Greek art: first, representations of animals in
works of art are judged for their lifelikeness, are experienced as if they were alive, and
lend fame to their creators; second, when works of art are viewed, animals judge the
lifelike quality of these works, thus suggesting that art has surpassed its man-made status
and is perceived as nature by even nature itself. In this way, animals emerge as reliable
guides to the Greek understanding of the lifelike quality of representational art. The
4

connection between animals and lifelikeness that emerges from the ancient texts is
entirely different from modern scholarly discussions which approach the phenomenon of
naturalistic style in ancient Greek art only in connection with the human form.
Chapter two, “Representations of Animals in Classical Greek Sculpture and the
Phenomenon of Naturalistic Style,” examines the connection between Greek freestanding
funerary statues of animals of the Classical period and the phenomenon of naturalistic
style. The discussion approaches this connection through the specific case study of two
such freestanding, funerary works dating to the fourth century B.C.—the statue of a lion
from the grave precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos in the Athenian Kerameikos, and the
statue of a dog from the grave precinct of Lysimachides of Acharnai, also in the
Kerameikos. Representations of lions and dogs abound in extant Greek animal funerary
sculpture of the fourth century, with those of the lion outnumbering by far those of the
dog. Regardless of this imbalance—which may be indicative of archaeological
circumstances rather than of fourth-century reality—the picture that emerges from this
evidence suggests that both the lion and the dog held an important position in the
repertoire of contemporary Greek animal funerary sculpture, thus suggesting an equally
important position in contemporary Greek thought. As noted above, it is a well-
established idea of modern scholarship that representations of animals in Greek sculpture
are problematic because they display a combination of naturalistic and non-naturalistic
elements. Although true, this assertion does not consider the conceptual context in which
these sculptures were made, especially contemporary ideas about the animals represented.
The discussion focuses on the visual assessment of two funerary statues of animals in
5

light of these ideas. It suggests that the elements in the inconsistent and contradictory
styles of these statues are directly influenced by contemporary ideas about the lion and
the dog, respectively. In this way, animals emerge as guides to the conceptual context
that helped shape the elements of style in Classical Greek sculpture.
The discussion also provides an overview of scholarly works that note the
problematic style not only of Classical, but also of some Archaic, sculptures of lions and
dogs. These works interpret the problematic style of animal sculpture as the result of a
lack of opportunity for artists to observe directly living prototypes, of artists’ copying
from Near Eastern animal art, of lack of real animals, and also of the intention to
highlight the apotropaic significance of the lion and the dog in Greek culture. These
treatments fail to recognize that Classical Greek, but also Archaic, sculptures of lions and
dogs sustain the combination of differing elements as the underlying principle of their
style. In fact, these sculptures indicate the existence of various types and degrees of
combining differing—naturalistic and non-naturalistic—elements in their style:
inconsistency, incongruity, and contradiction. Further, by noting that such combination
extends also to Archaic and Classical representations of the human form in Greek
sculpture, the discussion suggests that the interplay of differing elements is the mental
structure upon which the notion of style is built in Archaic and Classical Greek art. In
view of this evidence, and by drawing also from the notion that the stylistic elements of
the Kerameikos lion and dog are shaped by contemporary ideas, the discussion suggests
that the change in style from the Archaic to Classical Greek art could be seen not so
much as a progression or improvement in artistic practice as a shift in the balance of
elements and, in turn, of the ideas that sustain the underlying logic of style.
6

Chapter three, “The Classical Greek Contradictory Attitude toward the Dog,”
focuses on the specific case study of the dog—the animal that features most prominently
in the everyday life and thought of Classical Greece, and thus serving as a representative
example of the standard, contradictory Classical Greek attitude toward animals. The
discussion examines literary evidence which dates to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
and demonstrates the existence of an ambiguity in the collective conception of the dog.
Although considered a typical inhabitant of the Classical Greek household who enjoyed
free shelter and food, and a loyal guardian of the premises and human members of this
household, the dog was also seen as a creature of insatiable appetite, of unpredictable and
dangerous behavior, such as fawning and scavenging, and further suitable for
consumption owing to the conceived therapeutic value of its flesh. It is clear, therefore,
that the picture of Classical Greece that emerges from the literary record is that of a
primarily anthropocentric culture, which, on the one hand, denigrates the dog, but, on the
other, allows it to occupy a central position in everyday life and thought. This evidence
suggests the existence of an analogical relationship between the contemporary
contradictory attitude toward the dog and the contradictory style of the dog as evident in
contemporary sculpture. In this way, animals emerge as guides to the Classical Greek
conception of the problematic style of representational art, specifically its contradictory
model, as a direct consequence of contemporary conflicting ideas about animals.
Chapter four, “The Word Zw|~on in the Context of the Visual Arts in Classical
Greece,” is concerned with the duality in the meaning of the term zw|~on —usually taken
to mean simply “animal,” and less often “plant and “living being.” It examines literary
7

and epigraphic evidence that dates to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. and demonstrates
the existence of different meanings for the word zw|~on when used in the context of
paintings, sculpture, bronze-work, and textiles: “image,” “subject of representation taken
from real life,” “decorative element,” “figural work of art,” “finished product of an
artistic process,” and “image held by memory.” Given the multiple, nuanced meanings of
the term zw|~on within such a distinct, artistic context the discussion suggests that zw|~on
should be considered part of the professional vocabulary of the visual arts in Classical
Greece. In this way, animals, once again, emerge as useful guides to the Classical Greek
understanding of representational art. Although not directly connected to the preceding
chapters, this chapter is conceptually linked to them in that, as a model, the semantic split
in the Classical Greek term zw|~on appears to be akin to the split into different types and
degrees of deviation from naturalism that define the style of animal sculpture, and also to
the split that defines the contradictory Classical Greek attitude toward animals. This
evidence suggests that along with structuring the style of contemporary animal sculpture,
and thought about animals, the idea of a split into different parts also governs the
structure of the vocabulary about animals.
This study of the judgment of animals and the phenomenon of naturalistic style in
Classical Greek animal sculpture stresses the primary significance of animals for gaining
an insight into the Greek conception of this style in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. It
suggests a new paradigm for approaching the Classical style in Greek art as a notion,
whose underlying structure is a combination of inconsistent, incongruous, and
contradictory traits, specifically naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements that are, in
8

turn, shaped by contemporary ideas about the represented subjects. There is every
reason, therefore, to think that the Classical style in Greek art is independent of the notion
of a development in artistic techniques and materials. Further, the study argues that the
existence of a clearly contradictory attitude toward animals comprised the conceptual
model for the adoption of an equally contradictory style by contemporary animal
sculpture. This adoption indicates that the phenomenon of naturalistic style in Classical
Greek art was directly related to the conceptual context in which it was formulated.
Therefore, conflicting ideas about animals in Classical Greek life are responsible for the
contradictory style of representations of animals in contemporary sculpture. The
adoption of contradiction not as an essentially negative feature but instead as a model for
both rendering animals in art and also thinking about them in real life is not far removed,
at least conceptually, from the existence of a duality in contemporary linguistic usage
which suggests that along with its usual meaning of “animal,” the word zw|~on was also a
term of the professional vocabulary of the arts. Representations of animals thus offer
value to the phenomenon of naturalistic style by providing useful insights into the Greek
conception of this style.
9

Chapter 1: Animals as Guides to the Ancient View of Naturalistic Style in Greek Art
1. Modern Attitudes and the Neglect of Animal Form in the Study of Greek Art
a. Animals as Valuable Subjects in the Visual Arts
While the human form has occupied a prominent position in the study of ancient
Greek art, far less attention has been paid to representations of animals, which have
therefore been almost absent from the scholarly debate on art-historical topics such as
naturalism. The scholarly neglect accorded representations of animals in Greek art and
its connection with naturalism contrasts sharply with the statement of Johann Joachim
Winckelmann, in his History of the Art of Antiquity (1764)—the first modern historical
treatise of ancient art—that representations of animals in Egyptian art, for example, are a
key to understanding the approach of this culture to naturalism. 4 It also contrasts with the
frequent treatment of animals in the visual arts of past non-classical societies as
significant tools for investigating these societies, in particular, how they saw, interpreted,
used symbolically, observed, and rendered naturalistically animals in art. The depiction
of animals in medieval manuscripts, for example, has been seen as a venue for
reconstructing the complex relationship—physical, intellectual, symbolical—of that era
4 H. F. Mallgrave, tr., Johann Joachim Winckelmann. History of the Art of Antiquity (Los Angeles, 2006)
132: “The characteristics and distinguishing features of the Egyptian style noted here—both the delineation
of forms with nearly straight lines and the minimal indication of bones and muscles—suffer an exception
when it comes to animals in Egyptian art. Among the latter, especially to be cited are a large basalt sphinx
in the Villa Borghese, another large sphinx of granite among the royal antiquities at Dresden, two lions at
the ramp to the Campidoglio, and two others at the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice. These animals are made
with much understanding, with an elegant multiplicity of softly changing outlines and fluid transitions
between separate parts. The greater trochanter, which on human figures is ill-defined, on animals is
executed, along with the thigh and other bones, with an elegant emphasis….For this stylistic distinction
between figures and animals, we may conclude that the former represented deities or holy persons whose
appearance had universally been established, whereas the artist was allowed greater freedom in depicting
animals.”
10

with the animal kingdom. 5 Regarding the art of the Renaissance, for example, the animal
paintings of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) have been considered testimony to this artist’s
close observation and rare accuracy of animals (e.g., Young Hare, 1502), and thus, to his
designation as animalier, that is, an artist skilled in portraying animals. 6 In addition,
Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) skillful drawings of animals (e.g., Studies of a Bear
Walking, 1519) have given rise to the view of the latter as a means through which
naturalism was studied, pursued, and measured at the time. 7 In a similar vein, both
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century animal art has been singled out for its careful
observation of its subjects and also their employment as elements of representational
fidelity. It has been noticed, for example, that Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s (1686-1755)
eighteenth-century paintings of animals present them as exotic specimens, isolated from
their natural environment, but still “beautifully observed” (e.g., Antelope, 1739), and also
as detached items of food that exhibit a “staggering visual realism” (e.g., Hare and Leg of
Lamb, 1742). 8 Similarly, nineteenth-century animal paintings, such as that of a dog in
5 See E. Morrison, The Medieval Imagination. Beasts. Factual and Fantastic (Los Angeles and London,
2007); also F. Mezzalira et al., Beasts and Bestiaries. The Representations of Animals from Prehistory to
the Renaissance (Turin and London, 2001); N. C. Flores, Animals in the Middle Ages (New York, 2000).
6 For Albrecht Dürer’s attention to animals, see F. Koreny, Albrecht Dürer and the Animal and Plant
Studies of the Renaissance (Boston, 1985); for his designation as animalier, see C. Eisler, Dürer’s Animals
(Washington, D.C., 1991) 16.
7 For the important position of animals including insects in Leonardo da Vinci’s study of naturalism as an
empirically based artistic pursuit and its impact on subsequent artists, such as Giovanni da Udine (1487-
1564), see L. Wolk-Simon, “Naturalism in Lombard Drawing from Leonardo to Cerano,” in A. Bayer, ed.,
Painters of Reality. The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy (exhibition catalogue, Museo
Civico “Ala Ponzone,” Cremona, February 14-May 2, 2004, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, May 27-August 15, 2004; New Haven and London, 2004) 46-47 and 89; also for da Vinci’s attention
to horses, see M. Kemp, “Drawings for Il Cavallo del Duca Francesco di Bronzo,” in D. C. Ahl, ed.,
Leonardo da Vinci’s Sforza Monument Horse: The Art and the Engineering; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and
London, 1995) 64-78; For a short discussion of animals as a useful guide to the concept of realism in
Renaissance painting, see J. H. Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs: Pets in the Painting of Modern Life
(New Haven and London, 2003) 6.
8 L. Lippincott and A. Blühm, eds., Fierce Friends: Artists and Animals, 1750-1900 (exhibition catalogue,
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; London and New York,
2005)19, and 34 and 38 respectively for depictions of Antelope and Hare and Leg of Lamb; for recent
attention to Oudry’s painted animals, see M. Morton, ed., Oudry’s Painted Menagerie. Portraits of Exotic
11

Edgar Degas’s The Bellelli Family (1858-1860), have been thought to use animals as
devices that enhance pictorial realism. 9 In addition, nineteenth-century depictions of
animals in a variety of media (painting, sculpture, and photography) have been
considered evidence of contemporary changing attitudes toward animals as generated by
Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution (1859) and emotion in man and animals (1872). 10
It has been suggested, for example, that images of dogs and cats in lithographs and
paintings reflect the perception of these animals not as mere beasts, but as family
members with their own will and intelligence, and also as symbols of social and
economic class. 11
Animals in Eighteenth-Century Europe (exhibition catalogue, The J. Paul Getty Museum in association
with the Staatliches Museum Schwerin and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Los Angeles, 2007).
9 Rubin, Impressionist Cats & Dogs 58, maintains that Degas’s first portrait of a dog is in the group portrait
of his Italian aunt and cousins, The Bellelli Family. Rubin’s comment on the image of this dog runs as
following: “In discussions of this complex image, the dog is rarely mentioned. A black toy-sized animal
like a poodle or a terrier, it exits the space at the lower right, its head already outside the frame. With this
cruel decapitation, Degas created a range of possibilities. As a pictorial device, the animal implies
extension of the painted scene beyond the frame. So the image Degas represented seems like a fragment
cut from a larger world. The tactic has a double consequence. First, it enhances the picture’s effectiveness
as an illusion of reality. But second, it also calls attention to the artist’s incisive, I would say surgical,
pictorial composition—a characteristic particularly associated with Degas. His strategy of framing evokes
photography, a technology believed to produce objective records of reality. Through it, Degas implied that
his vision was scrupulously true. He sacrificed the dog to do it.”
10 For a discussion of this point and examples of depictions of animals in all these media, see Lippincott
and Blühm, Fierce Animals. For the impact of Darwin’s effect on nineteenth-century visual culture, in
general, see L. Nochlin and M. Lucy, eds., “The Darwin Effect: Evolution and Nineteenth-Century Visual
Culture,” Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide II, 2 (Spring, 2003) (www.19thc-artworldwide.org); also L.
Golden, “Science, Darwin, and Art History,” in L. Golden, ed., Raising the Eyebrow: John Onians and
World Art Series. An Album Amicorum in His Honour (BAR International Series 996; Oxford, 2001) 79-90.
11 For animals as family members, note Honoré Daumier’s lithograph of 1856, which shows a painter
making the portrait of a dog seated on his mistress’s lap. Its caption reads: “Now that he’s a member of the
family, he has to have his portrait, too”: Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs 11, fig. 10; for a depiction of
cats’ willfulness, often interpreted as a sign of their independent nature, see Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s
painting Girl with a Cat, c. 1882, which depicts a girl observing a cat stretched on its hind legs and
reaching up toward the foliage of a large house plant: Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs 112, 116, fig.
89; also for the contemporary belief in animal intelligence, see the wood engraving by an anonymous artist
of two cats trying to open an armoire, in E. Menault, L’Intelligence des animaux (Paris, 1869) 267, cited in
Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs 119, fig. 91; for animals as symbols of social and economic class in
the nineteenth century, see Edouard Manet’s Olympia, 1862-1863, which depicts a prostitute with a cat:
Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs 17, fig. 13. The image becomes more telling when seen against
Champfleury’s contemporary explanation about “the oriental notion that of all female animals, the cat most
resembles woman in her cleverness, deceit, seductiveness, inconstancy, and fury”: (Jules Husson called
Champfleury, Les Chats (Paris, 1868) 22; translation Rubin, Impressionist Cats and Dogs 18-19, n. 15; also
12

The examples just cited show that representations of animals have been
considered significant not only for the investigation of past attitudes towards animals but
also for the role of animals in exploring social as well as art-historical issues. That the
significance of animal representations has been realized even further in recent years is
evident from their featuring in a broad range of no less critical issues such as gender,
politics, religion, and also ethics. 12
Alphonse Toussenel’s earlier remark that “civilized society can no more dispense with cats than with
prostitution”: A. Toussenel, L’Esprit des bêtes: Zoologie passionelle (Paris, 1855) 228; translation Rubin,
Impressionist Cats and Dogs 19, n. 16. Contrary to the association of cats with prostitutes, little dogs were
considered attributes of working-class women and their prosperity. For an example, see Renoir’s painting,
Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881; it depicts Aline Charigot, a dressmaker and Renoir’s mistress
and future wife, playing affectionately with a small and long-haired dog: Rubin, Impressionist Cats and
Dogs 94-95, fig. 73. As for the emotions displayed by little dogs, the story that King Charles I’s spaniels
had cried as the king was beheaded was a popular one among French Victorians: J. Robert, Le Chien
d’appartement et d’utilité: Education, dressage, hygiene, maladies (Paris, 1888) 94. The story recalls
Homer’s assertion in the Iliad (17.437) that Achilles’ horses cried for him. For a detailed discussion of
animals in nineteenth-century France, see K. Kete, The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-
Century Paris (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994), and for that in contemporary England, H. Ritvo, The
Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1987).
12 The bibliography on the modern realization of the importance of depictions of animals in the study of
different societies and cultures is not vast, but is constantly growing. For a general introduction to the
subject ranging from Renaissance to modern case studies, both literary and pictorial, see the collection of
essays by M. S. Pollock and C. Rainwater, eds., Figuring Animals: Essays on Animal Images in Art,
Literature, Philosophy, and Popular Culture (New York, 2005); for a discussion of representations of
animals in contemporary visual culture, see the collection of essays in N. Rothfels, ed., Representing
Animals (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002); also S. Baker, Picturing the Beast. Animals, Identity, and
Representation (Urbana and Chicago, 2001); and J. Burt, “The Illumination of the Animal Kingdom: The
Role of Light and Electricity in Animal Representation,” in L. Kalof and A. Fitzgerald, eds., The Animals
Reader. The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (Oxford and New York, 2007) 289-301. As for
the ancient world, see the section on animals in art in B. J. Collins, ed., A History of the Animal World in
the Ancient Near East (Leiden and Boston, 2002) 79-211; For images of animals associated with beliefs
about gender in nineteenth-century France—women compared to lionesses and pantheresses and men
thought of as lions and tigers—see N. Finlay, “Eros and Sadism: Delacroix’s Depictions of Animals Eating
People,” in N. H. Bluestone, ed., Double Vision: Perspectives on Gender and the Visual Arts (London and
Toronto, 1995) 21-37, figs. 1.1-1.10; for a discussion of images of animals enabling rulers to demonstrate
their political power and its reach with examples drawn from ancient Egypt, China, the Hellenistic and
Roman worlds, and also the Renaissance all the way to the eighteenth century, see M. Belozerskaya,
“Menageries as Princely Necessities and Mirrors of their Times,” in Morton, ed., Oudry’s Painting
Menagerie 59-73, figs. 1-9; also for an extension of her discussion into modern times, The Medici Giraffe:
And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (New York, 2006). For a discussion of animal
representations playing an important role as archetypes in religion, see C. Manes, Other Creations:
Rediscovering the Spirituality of Animals (New York, 1997); also for an example of a recent study focusing
on a specific religious tradition, with reference to both its literary and visual animal imagery, see R. C.
Foltz, Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures (Oxford, 2006) 65-82. Finally, for paintings and
photographs of animals depicted along with their owners and their children as evidence mirroring a
13

. Scholarly Remarks on the Neglect of Animals in Greek Art (in Particular
Sculpture)
Despite this evidence, the preferential treatment of representations of the human
form at the expense of that of animals in the study (of the development) of Greek art,
particularly sculpture, has dominated both past and recent studies. In her study of 1930,
Animals in Greek Sculpture. A Survey, Gisela Richter, for example, offers the following
introductory observation: “the subject of animals in Greek sculpture has been strangely
neglected. It is the current belief even among archeologists that the Greek sculptor
concentrated practically his whole attention on the human figure and attempted little
else.” 13 Richter’s study presents the first and also the latest substantial corpus of
representations of animals in Greek sculpture ranging from Archaic to Hellenistic
examples and also Roman copies of them. Her discussion is further supplemented with
frequent references to representations of animals in other media such as coins and, less
frequently, gems and pottery. Richter treats animal sculpture according to the same
scheme of increasing naturalism that has dominated the study of the development of
Greek art on the basis of the human form, a subject that and will be addressed in detail
shortly. Considering its early date of publication, Richter’s study stands as an eloquent
example of the unpopularity of animals as a subject in twentieth-century studies of
ancient Greek sculpture.
The persistence of this unpopularity is also remarked in a subsequent discussion
of ancient Greek animal sculpture. In an article of 1972, examining “Greek Funerary
Animals” of the Classical period, Cornelius Vermeule explains the reasons for his
domestic ethic of kindness toward animals in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American family
relations, see K. C. Grier, Pets in America: A History (Chapel Hill, 2006) 127-181, figs. 3.1-3.13.
13 G. M. A. Richter, Animals in Greek Sculpture. A Survey (New York, 1930) ix.
14

studying freestanding statues of lions. In defending his choice of subject, he conveys the
generally dismissive attitude of his colleagues towards his engagement with this type of
material:
Why offer a reappraisal of classical Greek funerary animals, chiefly lions, at this
time and in the fashion presented here? For one reason the body of material is
large and, save the admirable set of lists published in connection with the drainspouts
from Olympia, really little studied beyond single, isolated examples. In
Greece, the islands and Asia Minor, lions are the itinerant archaeologist’s delight.
They are inevitably tethered in the courtyards or gardens of museums, or even
outside their entrances. Therefore there is no complex red tape, no frustrating
delays or refusals in photographing or otherwise studying them. No one is jealous
or possessive of the droits de la publication of a marble lion….Professional
colleagues, particularly those working in Greece and Turkey, tend to feel that
anyone studying lions is either perpetuating a big joke or slipping into second
childhood. Like marble cuirassed statues, lions are everywhere, and their pursuit
meets with such success that one is encouraged to travel far and wide in the
byways of classical lands. 14
Vermeule’s opening and closing remarks that “the body of material is large” and that
“lions are everywhere” speaks of the abundance, and therefore, popularity of animal
sculpture in antiquity. When contrasted with his colleagues’ scorn of his engagement
with this body of material, such evidence reveals a scholarly view of animal sculpture
that does not correspond to ancient reality. This realization, as well as the prevailing
preoccupation with the human form, are succinctly summarized in a later article (1986)
by Trudy Kawami, which underlines the need for incorporating animal sculpture in the
study of stylistic change in Greek art: “Scholarly research has focused on the human
figure as a characteristic theme in Greek art and the major indicator of stylistic change.
We forget that animal sculpture was also highly valued.” 15
Although divorced from the topic of style, further evidence of the need to
recognize the significance of animal representations for the study of Greek art is found in
14 C. Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals, 450-300 B.C.,” AJA 76 (1972) 50.
15 T. S. Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 265.
15

a statement by Herbert Hoffman (1989). As an assessment of his own scholarship on
Greek animal rhyta, Hoffman corrects his previously dismissive attitude towards the
significance of animals in both Greek art and religion. In doing so, he considers the
wider intellectual context within which this attitude was initially formed:
This writer once made the following overly dogmatic statement concerning
the meaning of Greek rhyta: “The animal heads seem to have been selected for
their sculptural and decorative qualities, rather than for any specific cult
associations.”
My verdict of “no significance” reflected the neo-positivist standpoint then
current in British and American archaeology, and it was symptomatic of the
conservative spirit then prevailing in academic establishment that my refusal to
venture a hypothesis concerning the possible function and significance of the
artifacts I had assembled should have been singled out for special approval by no
less an authority than Gisela M. A. Richter.
Reflecting on the same artifacts more than two decades later, I now think that
this verdict was premature and, furthermore, that a position that denies the
possibility of meaning to such a radical extent cannot possibly be maintained.” 16
[Also] in Hoffmann 1962 my vision was clouded by [one among four]
fundamental misconceptions: that animals are not very important for the
understanding of Greek religion (Greek gods being so anthropomorphic).” 17
Hoffmann’s emphasis on the anthropomorphism of Greek gods as superseding the
importance of animal representations in Greek religion is indicative of the scholarly
concern with the human form, a situation which, as already seen, sustains the neglected
treatment of animals in the study of Greek art. Furthermore, his reflection on animals’
insignificance as a well-grounded presupposition within the field of Anglo-American
archaeology is illuminating, for it underlines the general denigration of animals as
scholarly subjects, while highlighting the need for reconsideration of this point of view.
It is clear from the scholarly opinions reviewed so far that an overall scornful
attitude toward the study of animal representations in Greek art, and sculpture in
16 H. Hoffmann, “Rhyta and Kantharoi in Greek Ritual,” Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 4;
Occasional Papers on Antiquities 5 (Malibu, 1989) 132.
17 Hoffmann, “Rhyta and Kantharoi,” Greek Vases in the Getty Museum 4 (Malibu, 1989) 165.
16

particular, has dominated twentieth-century scholarship, and only lately a call for
reconsideration has been explicitly verbalized. The long-term survival of such an attitude
is both impressive and intriguing. For this reason, the following section considers two
specific conditions that have allowed for the inattention to animal representations in
Greek sculpture to hold strong: humanism and Christianity.
2. Why Have Representations of Animals in Greek Sculpture Been Neglected?
Published in 1970, the last revised edition of Richter’s 1929 study, The Sculpture
and Sculptors of the Greeks, provides an early example of attributing the prevalence of
the human over the animal form in ancient Greek sculpture to a specific Greek
predilection for athletics:
The athletic ideal helped to concentrate interest in the human figure. It
accustomed people to seeing the human body in all manner of postures and to
appreciating its beauty. Moreover, the Greek with his love of the normal had a
tendency to humanize everything. His gods and goddess are no longer monsters,
as often in Near Eastern art, but assume human form; so do the nymphs, satyrs,
centaurs, Tritons, and the other personifications of nature. Even when these start
with hybrid shapes they soon lose their animal characteristics and gradually
become more and more human. And so Greek sculpture consists largely of
figures of human beings representing divinities, heroes, and athletes. Animals
and decorative motifs find a place and an important one, but they are nevertheless
secondary. The human figure is the theme par excellence. 18
As can be seen, Richter adopts a hierarchical approach to the subjects of Greek sculpture:
animals are important but secondary to representations of the human figure. In
accordance with this belief, animal sculpture occupies a separate, but still very brief
chapter (six pages) when compared to her much lengthier discussion of the human figure,
which dominates all the remaining chapters of her study.
18
G. M. A. Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks (New Haven and London, 1929; fourth rev.
ed., 1970) 25.
17

Richter’s position is neither unique nor accidental. In fact, it is in perfect
alignment with both a predominant view of ancient Greek culture, and specifically art, as
the embodiment of humanism, and a Christian attitude to animals as subordinate to
human supremacy. Especially prominent since the Renaissance, the concept of
humanism views man as the measure of all things and the literature and art of classical
antiquity as examples of exceptional human achievement. 19 In Christian thought, the
powerful hold of an equally anthropocentric attitude has led to the prevailing view of the
world, in particular its nonhuman inhabitants, as serving or advancing human needs and
interests. 20
19 For an example of the exceptional position of man in Renaissance thought, see P. F. Grendler, “Man is
Almost a God: Fra Battista Carioni Between Renaissance and Catholic Reformation,” in J. O’Malley et al.,
eds., Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation. Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus
(Leiden and New York, 1993) 227-249; for a discussion of the term “humanism” and its use in the context
of the Renaissance, see A. Campana, “The Origin of the Word “Humanist,” Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 9 (1946) 60-73; for a recent discussion of the influence of ancient Greece on the visual
arts of the Renaissance, see M. Gregori, ed., In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece, 22
December 2003-31 March 2004 (exhibition catalogue, National Gallery—Alexandros Soutzos Museum and
Fondazione di Studi dell’Arte Roberto Longhi; Athens, 2003). It should be mentioned that the Renaissance
view of humanism of classical art is not without ancient pedigree. In his Natural History, Pliny, for
example, whose influence on Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors and
Architects (1550) is well established, speaks of an artist’s decision to make the statue of a bull for Phalaris,
the tyrant of Akragas (c. 570-554 B.C.), in the following way (34.89): “to this debasement, far removed
from all representations of gods and men, he had brought the highest human art” or “an art that is most
worthy of man” (humanissima ars). This is a clear devaluation of animal imagery in favor of
anthropomorphic form, and runs counter to the fact that Myron’s most renowned statue in antiquity was his
cow. It should be kept in mind that Pliny, a Roman writer, expresses here his personal opinion about Greek
art of the past rather than quoting verbatim an earlier author on the subject. For this observation and also
an extensive discussion of the influence of Pliny’s writings on Vasari, see J. Isager, “Humanissima ars:
Evaluation and Devaluation in Pliny, Vasari, and Baden,” in A. A. Donohue and M. D. Fullerton, eds.,
Ancient Art and Its Historiography (Cambridge and New York, 2003) 49: “it seems to me that Pliny
condenses into this single expression [humanissima ars] what one might call his philosophy of art in the
service of man.”
20 For a discussion of the early Christian attitude to animals, see I. S. Gilhus, Animals, Gods, and Humans:
Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Ideas (London and New York, 2006);
and for a more general view, A. Linzey and T. Regan, eds., Animals and Christianity. A Book of Readings
(New York, 1988); also the collection of essays on animals in Christian perspective in C. Pinches and J. B.
McDaniel, eds., Good News for Animals? Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being (Ecology and
Justice) (Maryknoll, New York, 1993). See also K. Shevelow, For the Love of Animals. The Rise of the
Animal Protection Movement (New York, 2008) 90-105 for the prosecution, execution, and religious
penalty of anathematization of animals as practiced in Europe, especially in France and England, since the
late Middle Ages, during the Renaissance, and throughout the next three centuries.
18

Regarding classical antiquity, the cumulative effect of these concepts appears in
John Boardman’s dated idea that ancient Greek culture, in particular its art, is viewed as:
the expression of a people unsurpassed for their purity of thought, behavior, and
design, democrats, philosophers, poets and historians, the true precursors of the
modern world and all-time successes in the pursuit of the true and the beautiful,
expressing a humanity that anticipated or even surpassed all that Christianity has
been able to achieve. 21
This praise of ancient Greek culture and art places emphasis on human achievement, and
therefore, removes attention from non-human animals and their roles in the respective
society; as a result, it promotes a hierarchical approach to the study of Greek art that
places foremost significance on the human form, and thus, relegates animal
representations to an invisible position. An additional example of this way of thinking
can be seen in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue of 1992, The Greek Miracle:
Classical Sculpture from the Dawn of Democracy. The Fifth Century B.C.:
Greek art centered on the image of man: man who of all the wonders in the world
was the most wonderful, capable of great good, but also of great evil; sometimes
falling back, but in the fifth-century Greek view, ultimately rising in the face of
all odds to take charge of his destiny. 22
The scholarly assertion that the human form dominated Greek art, particularly that of the
fifth century—a period indeed known for its anthropocentric view of man—is used to
justify the disregard of animal representations in the study of Greek art on the grounds
that it simply reflects ancient Greek reality. 23 Yet not only was that reality quite
different, as will be discussed below, but given the persistence of an anthropocentric
approach to Greek art, it is even surprising that animal representations have been denied
21
J. Boardman, Greek Art (fourth ed.; London and New York, 1996) 11; for a more detailed discussion by
this author on ancient Greek art and its reception since the Renaissance, see J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture.
The Late Classical Period and Sculpture in Colonies and Overseas (London, 1995) 222-228.
22
D. Oliver-Buitron, ed., The Greek Miracle. Classical Sculpture from the Dawn of Democracy. The Fifth
Century B.C. (Washington D.C., 1992) 9.
23
For the prevailing anthropocentrism of ancient Greek society, especially in the Classical period, see R.
Renehan, “The Greek Anthropocentric View of Man,” HSCP 85 (1981) 239-259.
19

careful consideration since, as human creations, they can be primarily seen as part of the
human achievement in the arts of ancient Greece. 24 Such an approach accords well, for
example, with ancient literary evidence in which animals not only feature as subjects of
works of art associated with particular artists, but, in some cases, also define the fame of
these artists.
3. Ancient Texts on Famous Artists and Representations of Animals in Greek Art
Pliny’s account of two late Archaic Greek sculptors, Kanachos and Menaechmus,
mentions animals as being featured along with human figures in two examples of statues
by these artists. 25 The animals, ultimately, establish, if not define, the merit of these
artists as noteworthy:
Kanachos [was the sculptor of] a nude Apollo, which bears the cognomen
Philesios, in the sanctuary at Didyma, made from bronze of the Aeginitan
formula; and with it a stag which is suspended in its tracks in such a way that a
string can be drawn underneath its feet, with the heel and toe alternately retaining
24 This observation recalls a central point within the growing field of the history of animals. As E. Fudge,
“A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals,” in Rothfels, ed., Representing Animals 6 states:
“The emerging field [history of animals]—containing much absolutely fascinating and rewarding work—is
clearly there, but it is not the history of animals; such a thing is impossible. Rather, it is the history of
human attitudes toward animals….But if this history of animals is in reality the history of human attitudes
toward animals, we are, perhaps dealing with something that is merely part of the history of ideas: nothing
really new at all. If our only access to animals in the past is through written documents written by humans,
then we are never looking at the animals, only ever at the representations of the animals by humans.”
25 J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece. Sources and Documents (1965; second ed., Cambridge, 1990;
repr. 1998) 33-34, considers Kanachos of Sikyon an artist of the late Archaic phase of Greek art.
Regarding Menaechmus, he states (3) that the date of this artist and the nature of his writings, as mentioned
by Pliny, are uncertain. Pausanias (7.18.8) refers to a sculptor named Menaechmus as the artist of the
statue of Artemis Laphria in the homonymous sanctuary at Patras: “On the acropolis at Patras there is a
sanctuary of Artemis Laphria. The name of the goddess is foreign, and the image too was brought in from
the outside….The image represents her as a huntress, and it is made of ivory and gold. It is the work of the
Naupaktian sculptors, Menaichmos [Menaechmus] and Soidas. The evidence indicates that these men were
active not much later than the time of Kanachos of Sikyon and Kallon the Aeginetan”; translation: Pollitt
42. This Menaechmus Pollitt (42) dates to the late Archaic period, and maintains (42, n. 13) that if he is the
same person as the one referred to by Pliny, then he would be the earliest sculptor known to have written
about his art. Although not discarding the chronological uncertainty surrounding Menaechmus, for the
time being, this discussion treats Pliny’s Menaechmus and Kanachos as roughly contemporaries.
20

their grip, for a “tooth” on each part is so geared that when one is dislodged by
pressure the other in its turn springs into place. (NH 34.75) [154] 26
There is a Bull-calf by Menaechmus, on which a man is pressing his knee as he
bends its neck back; Menaechmus has written a treatise about his own work.
(NH 34.80) [155] 27
In the case of Kanachos, the stag dominates the description of the statue of Apollo to
which it belongs, and is also the point of an astonishing technical innovation. In the case
of Menaechmus, the bull-calf seems to be the primary subject of the composition, even
though the man also depicted has the advantage over the animal. The fact that both
examples focus on animals as notable parts of two statues by particular sculptors is an
indication of the importance of animals as representational subjects in Greek sculpture.
But can Pliny’s account be considered representative in any way of how animal images
and artists were actually considered in late Archaic Greece? Pollitt has advanced the
view that Pliny was a compiler of tradition in ancient writings on art, meaning that the
relevant section of his Natural History encapsulates traditional ideas about earlier art and
26 Pollitt, Sources and Documents 34, n. 4, mentions that “[r]eproductions of this statue on coins and in
small bronzes and terracottas suggest that this stag was a small object in the Apollo’s outstretched
hand….The statue was taken away to Ecbatana by the Persian king Darius (Herodotus 6.19 and Pausanias
1.16.3) but was later restored by the Hellenistic king Seleukos Nikator (312-281 B.C.).”
27 This pose is exemplified by west metope 5 from the early Classical temple of Zeus at Olympia, which
according to J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period. A Handbook (London and New York,
1985) fig. 22.5 depicts Heracles fighting the Kerynitian hind; also by metope 19 (perhaps on the north or
west side) of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi, which is thought to depict the same subject: J. Boardman,
Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period. A Handbook (London and New York 1978, repr. 1996) fig. 213.19.
Boardman also notes (159) the debate over the dubious date of this building, whether it pre- or postdates
the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.), which according to Pausanias (10.11.5) was the reason for its erection.
Boardman states (159) that the “subject matter of its metopes, dividing the honor between Heracles and
Theseus, make it a good propaganda document of the new democracy,” therefore showing his approval of a
date after the battle of Marathon for the building. For a discussion of the style of the metopes of the
Athenian treasury at Delphi and its architecture in connection with its date, see E. C. Partida, The
Treasuries at Delphi. An Architectural Study (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature 160;
Jonsered, Sweden, 2000) 52-53, 253. For a recent summary of studies on the Athenian Treasury, see R.
Neer, “The Athenian Treasury at Delphi and the Material of Politics,” ClAnt 23 (2004) 64, n. 2. Further,
the pose is exemplified by Parthenon south metope 2, where a Lapith presses his left bent knee on the body
of a fighting centaur, whose head he tries to hold back while gripping him with his left hand by the throat
and beard. For the depiction of this scene see, J. Boardman and D. Finn, The Parthenon and Its Sculptures
(Austin, 1985) 44; also I. Jenkins, The Parthenon Sculptures (Cambridge, Mass., 2007) 70 maintains that
“the Lapith’s headlock is a hold observed from real-life wrestling in the gymnasium.”
21

artists to which Pliny gained access through his predecessors’ writings. 28 This view
suggests that the Plinian portrayal of Kanachos, Menaechmus, and their stag and bull-calf
could be characterized both as unoriginal, and specifically as a reflection of the original
Greek view of these artists through their sculptures of animals.
An additional example of animal representations’ shaping the image of their
corresponding artist is furnished by the horses of Kalamis, a sculptor whom Pollitt calls
“the Elder” and dates to the early Classical period. 29 As part of his description of votive
offerings at Olympia, Pausanias refers to a bronze ensemble of a chariot, horses, and
human figures dedicated by the Sicilian Deinomenes in commemoration of an Olympic
victory of his father, Hieron I (468 B.C.). Pausanias attributes the chariot to Onatas of
Aigina, and the horses and human figures to Kalamis:
Nearby is a bronze chariot and a man mounted on it; race-horses stand by the
chariot, one on each side, and there are children seated on the horses. These are
memorials to the Olympic victories of Hieron the son of Deinomenes, who ruled
as tyrant over the Syracusans after his brother Gelon. But Hieron did not send
these offerings: rather it was Deinomenes the son of Hieron, who gave them to
the god. The chariot was the work of Onatas of Aigina, while the horses on
either side of it and the children upon them are the works of Kalamis.
(6.12.1) [138]
The passage states that two artists, Onatas and Kalamis, collaborated on the creation of a
work of art. The fact that each of them concentrated on specific parts of the dedication,
with Kalamis creating the horses and their riders, implies that animals partially defined
the oeuvre of this sculptor. In this way, animals emerge as a shaping constituent of the
professional image of Kalamis. That animals are not excluded from Pausanias’s
28
For a discussion of this idea concerning Pliny’s account of ancient art, See Pollitt, Sources and
Documents 6.
29
For Pollitt’s distinction between an Elder and a Younger Kalamis, the former active in the early Classical
period, and the latter in the fourth century B.C., see the discussion in his Sources and Documents 46-48, 85,
and 94, n. 32.
22

discussion of the sculpture to which they belong is an indication of his recognition of
their significance as subjects in the visual repertoire of classical Greek art. Also, the fact
that Pausanias, like Pliny, belongs to the compilers of tradition regarding ancient art
history may suggest that recognizing this significance was a traditional rather than a later,
idiosyncratic trait of writing on ancient art. 30 Still, such a suggestion does not prove that
both Pliny and Pausanias were mere compilers of this tradition without actually affecting
it themselves.
The Classical period of Greek sculpture is additionally important for it provides
the most eloquent example of an animal statue’s generating and perpetuating the fame of
its artist. The fifth-century sculptor Myron, famed in modern scholarship and popular
culture for his statue of the Discus-Thrower, was mostly known in antiquity for his image
of a cow. 31 Two epigrams of Euenos, very probably dating to the fifth century B.C.,
praise the exceptional lifelikeness of Myron’s cow, and are the only contemporary
evidence available. The epigrams are given here, but will be discussed in detail later.
Either a complete hide of bronze clothes here a
real cow, or the bronze has soul in it.
(Euenos, Anth. Pal. 9.717) [91]
Perhaps Myron himself will say this: “I did not
30
For a discussion of Pausanias as a follower of the tradition in ancient writings on art, see Pollitt, Sources
and Documents 2.
31
The Discus-Thrower owes its present fame to the fact that it is the only statue of Myron that has been
identified with certainty in extant Roman copies, an identification based on a description of one similar
statue in Lucian’s Philopseudes 18: “Surely, I said, you do not speak of the discus-thrower, who is bent
over into the throwing position, is turned toward the hand that holds the discus, and has the opposite knee
gently flexed, like one who will straighten up again after the throw? Not that one, he said, for the
Discobolos of which you speak is one of the works of Myron.” For a brief discussion of this statue as “the
best known today,” and the translation of the above passage, see Pollitt, Sources and Documents 49; for
this statue, and also the attempt to match other works of Myron known from the literary record (e.g.,
Athena and Marsyas: Pliny, NH 34.57) with extant Roman copies, see B. S. Ridgway, The Severe Style in
Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1970) 84-86; also A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture. An Exploration (New Haven
and London, 1990) 257, where he points out the discrepancy between ancient and modern views regarding
Myron’s fame as an artist: “one must remember that in antiquity, though his [Myron’s] statues of men were
justly renowned, his most famous work was not the Discobolos but his cow.”
23

mould this heifer, but its image.”
(Euenos, Anth. Pal. 9.718) [92]
Additional evidence regarding Myron and his bronze cow comes from Pliny, who
explicitly connects the fame of this artist with this animal statue:
Myron, who was born at Eleutherai, and was a pupil of Ageladas, was most
renowned for his statue of a heifer, a work which is praised in well-known
verses—for many people gain their reputations through someone else’s
inventiveness rather than their own. He also made a dog, a Discus-thrower, a
Perseus and the sea-monster, a Satyr marveling at the flutes, and an Athena,
contestants in the pentathlon at Delphi, pankratiasts, and a Herakles which is
now in the round temple of Pompey the Great in the Circus Maximus. He also
made a monument to a cicada and a locust, as Erinna indicates in her poem.
(NH 34.57-34.58) [151]
In addition to the celebrated statue of the heifer, the passage attributes also to Myron
those of a dog and, perhaps, a cicada and a locust, if the monument mentioned here is to
be equated with images of the insects themselves. 32 Along with the famous heifer,
reference to all these non-human figures by Myron indicates that such subjects were not
excluded from his oeuvre, but rather considered fundamental components of his legacy,
as was the case with Kalamis. In this way, animals again emerge as valued subjects of
works of art and of artists’ eminence in antiquity.
Myron, while the best-known case, is not the only example of a Classical artist
renowned for animals. Pliny also refers to the sculptor, Amphicrates, whose name he
associates with a statue of a lioness:
Amphicrates is praised for his Leaena; she was a harlot admitted to the friendship
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton because of her skill as a harpist, who though put
to the torture by the tyrants till she died refused to betray their plot to assassinate
32 Regarding these insects, Pollitt, Sources and Documents 49, n. 9 states that “Pliny probably presents
garbled information here derived from a poem in the Greek Anthology (7.190) which refers to a tomb for a
pet locust and a pet cicada set up by a girl named Myro.” The epigram runs as follows: “For her locust, the
nightingale of the fields, and her cicada that resteth on the trees one tomb hath little Myro made, shedding
girlish tears; for inexorable Hades hath carried off her two pets”; translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The
Greek Anthology II (London and New York, 1917; repr. 1925) 109.
24

them. Consequently the Athenians wishing to do her honour and yet unwilling to
have made a harlot famous, had a statue made of a lioness, as that was her name,
and to indicate the reason for the honour paid her instructed the artist to represent
the animal as having no tongue. (NH 34.72) [153]
The passage clearly states that Amphicrates made a statue of a lioness for which he
received laudatory comments. An animal again emerges as the celebrated subject of a
work of art by an artist, whose name Pliny considered worth recording. The passage is
also important for it demonstrates the commemorative and historical function of animal
statues in post-Peisistratid Athens. Thus, Amphicrates’ tongue-less lioness stood as an
emblem of Leaena’s silence in connection with a historical event: the Tyrannicides’
assassination attempt against Hippias in 514 B.C.
A similar account of the event is provided by Pausanias, who gives a detailed
description of the historical circumstances and set-up location of the statue. Unlike Pliny,
however, Pausanias does not attribute the statue to Amphicrates, but to Kalamis, that is,
an early fifth-century sculptor:
When Hipparchos [the son of Peisistratos] died—and what I am saying has never
before come to be written down but is generally believed by many Athenians—
Hippias tortured and killed [an Athenian woman named] Leaena [“Lioness”],
knowing that she was the mistress of Aristogeiton and believing that there was no
way in which she could have been ignorant of the plot. In reaction to this, when
the tyranny of the Peisistratids came to an end, the Athenians set up a bronze
lioness as a memorial to the woman, next to the image of Aphrodite, which they
say, was a dedication of Kallias and a work of Kalamis. (1.23.2) [135]
Further evidence directly connecting animal subjects to renowned artists is found
in the case of Strongylion, another Classical sculptor, whose fame Pausanias associates
with statues of cattle and horses. Pausanias conveys this association while viewing some
statues of the Muses made by this artist and placed along the road to the grove of the
Muses on mount Helicon:
25

The first images of the Muses are the work of Kephisodotos, all of them; a little
farther on there are three more again by Kephisodotos, and then three others by
Strongylion, an artist responsible for excellent [images of] cattle and horses.
(9.30.1) [139] 33
Pausanias attributes Strongylion’s fame to his excellent statues of cattle and horses, thus
implying that the artist was exceptionally skilled in representing these animals. In light
of this evidence, it is reasonable to assume that the concept of animalier, as seen earlier
in connection with Albrecht Dürer, was not unknown in Classical Greece. Further,
Pausanias’s reference to Strongylion’s cattle and horses appears to be supplementary to
the focal point of his account which is the statues of the Muses at the homonymous grove
on Helikon. This treatment gives the impression that the designation of Strongylion as an
artist of excellent animal images was a commonly held view of him in antiquity. In this
way, animals once again emerge as criteria of fame for ancient artists.
Another equally famous Classical sculptor singled out by the literary record for
his statues of animals is the Younger Kalamis, whom Pollitt places in the fourth century
B.C. 34 Pliny remarks this artist’s expertise in rendering horses:
The kindness also of Praxiteles is represented in sculpture, as in the Chariot and
Four of Calamis he contributed the charioteer, in order that the sculptor might not
be thought to have failed in the human figure although more successful in
representing horses. Calamis himself also made other chariots, some with four
horses and some with two, and in executing the horses he was invariably
unrivalled. (NH 34.71) [152]
The passage emphasizes the view of the Younger Kalamis as an unrivalled artist of
statues of horses, thus strengthening the case that animals were valued as representational
33 Pollitt, Sources and Documents 72, n. 32 indicates that “Kephisodotos was mainly active in the early
fourth century B.C.” Strongylion’s career, on the other hand, he places in the late fifth and early fourth
centuries B.C. A base of a statue with the signature of Strongylion as a sculptor has been found in the
sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis of Athens. The base is dated to the last quarter of the fifth
century B.C.: A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis. A Catalogue of the Inscriptions
of the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C. (Cambridge, Mass., 1949) no. 176, 208-209.
34 For the Younger Kalamis, as a sculptor and silversmith active in the fourth century B.C., and perhaps, the
grandson of the Elder Kalamis, see Pollitt, Sources and Documents 46, 85, and 94, n. 32.
26

subjects on the basis of which artistic skill was measured and fame was built in Classical
Greece. It also speaks of the Younger Kalamis as an animalier, therefore, placing him on
a similar level with Strongylion. In addition, that Praxiteles contributed the charioteer to
help Kalamis bridge his less exceptional ability to render human figures shows, first,
collaboration between two sculptors, which recalls that of Onatas with the Elder Kalamis,
and second, places animal figures on the same level of importance as human ones in
terms of both execution and spectatorship. This evidence, in turn, hints at the prospect of
animal representations’ having much more to offer the study of Greek art than has
previously been realized.
To turn next to the realm of painting, another passage of Pliny refers to Nikias, a
fourth-century artist, whose well-rendered images of dogs contributed to his fame in
antiquity:
[A]t Ephesos there is a Sepulchre of a Megabyzus, the priest of Artemis at
Ephesos, and at Athens the Nekyomanteia [“Invocation of the Dead”] after
Homer. This picture he [Nikias] refused to sell to King Attalos for 60 talents
and gave it rather to his home town, since he had plenty of money already. He
also did some large pictures, among which are a Calypso, an Io, and an
Andromeda; also the very excellent Alexander in the porticoes of Pompey and a
Seated Calypso are ascribed to him. Of four-footed animals he rendered dogs the
best. (NH 35.131-35.133) [159]
Like Strongylion, and the Elder and Younger Kalamis, Nikias appears here as an artist
known to be skilled in depicting animals, particularly dogs. This evidence again
highlights the important role of animals in establishing the oeuvre and fame of an artist in
antiquity. In addition, the fact that the dog is singled out from Nikias’s other,
unspecified images of animals clearly shows the tendency to match artistic skill with a
specific animal species, as was previously the case with Strongylion (cattle and horses)
and the Younger Kalamis (horses). Given its frequency, such a tendency hints at the
27

further use of animals in both Greek sculpture and painting as a means of not only
evaluating, but also classifying artistic skill.
It is clear from the ancient texts reviewed so far that animals, such as stags, cattle,
horses, lions, dogs, and perhaps insects such as locusts and cicadas were not dismissed
but rather favored and valued as subjects of Classical Greek art in both sculpture and
painting. It is also clear that animals, when employed as such, became vehicles through
which artistic skill was recognized, evaluated, classified and, subsequently, crystallized
as part of the legacy of Greek artists in antiquity. In this way, animal representations
emerge as an integral part of the human achievement in the arts of ancient Greece. When
combined with the abundance of existing animal sculpture, as remarked above by
Vermeule, this evidence indicates that the well-established, scholarly view of the animal
form as secondary to the human one in ancient Greek art, and its consequently justifiable
neglect as a subject of modern study do not stand on solid ground.
4. The Study of Naturalism in Greek Art
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the neglect of representations of
animals in Greek art is particularly evident in the scholarly debate on naturalism. This
concept has been central to the stylistic development of Greek figural art, which has been
conceived in terms of both a progression and progress from unsatisfactorily rendered
representations of the human form to (extremely) accurately rendered ones.
An example of the idea of progression in the development of naturalism in Greek
art can be seen in Gisela Richter’s study of Korai of 1968, where her concluding remark
28

of the later (Hellenistic) development of this type of female figures in sculpture runs as
following:
The phenomenal progression from conventionalized to more naturalistic
renderings which was attained during the almost 200 years that we have
contemplated was to have a long future. For the first time, not only in Greek art,
but in all other arts, the representation of the human figure had been freed from
age-old conventions. The evolution which ensued in all branches of Greek art is
well known. Here we will only, by way of an epilogue, recall a few characteristic
examples of the standing, draped figure in the succeeding periods, and watch the
increasing freedom in the renderings of the stance and in the drapery—for they
were made possible by the achievements of the sculptors of our korai. 35
Similarly, her study of 1974, Perspective in Greek and Roman Art, purports to
describe, at least for its Greek part, “the progress made from period to period” as the
Greeks made “groping attempts…to understand and solve the manifold problems
involved in “true” representation. 36
The perception of Greek naturalism (also called realism) as increasing over time
until it reached the greatest possible accuracy in representing the human body in the
Classical period is linked to the view of the concept as the principal virtue of ancient
Greek art. A proponent of this view is Rhys Carpenter, whose study of 1962, Greek Art.
A Study of the Formal Evolution of Style, starts from the premise that “Greek
representational art in all its aspects is subject to unremitting pressure toward realism.” 37
Later, his idea of the evolution of sculptural (human) form, particularly of the Classical
period, is conceived in terms of a process which he characterizes as:
[T]horoughly consistent, almost undeviatingly continuous, and is susceptible of
being epitomized in a single and simple formula. Persistent and increasingly
35 G. M. A. Richter, Korai. Archaic Greek Maidens. A Study of the Development of the Kore Type in Greek
Sculpture (London, 1968) 109; for an additional discussion of Richter’s passage and its connection to
naturalism, see Donohue, Greek Sculpture and The Problem of Description (Cambridge and New York,
2005) 22-23, n. 5.
36 G. M. A. Richter, Perspective in Greek and Roman Art (London, 1974) 21.
37 R. Carpenter, Greek Art. A Study of the Formal Evolution of Style (Philadelphia, 1962) 20.
29

detailed observation of natural appearances on the part of the practicing artists led
to repeated modification of the inherited tradition of the workshops in order to
bring it closer to physical actuality, and this is the simple formula to which the
Greek sculptors conformed through the late fourth and early third centuries. 38
In his study of 1972, Art and Experience in Ancient Greece, Pollitt, in contrast,
considers naturalism a characteristic of ancient Greek art, but not its primary aim:
Many such [general] readers may already have read an introductory text in which
the formal development of Greek art, particularly its mastery of an increasingly
accurate representation of our optical experience of nature, is seen as its most
interesting and noteworthy achievement. It would be idle to deny that a
development in the direction of a more naturalistic representation of anatomy,
drapery and the like, is a fact of Greek art; whether it was always its aim is more
doubtful. 39
The continuing debate on the issue is exemplified by John Boardman’s study of
1985, Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period, where he adheres closely to the view that
naturalism was the aim of Greek art:
The Archaic sculptor explored its [sc. marble] potential in creating threedimensional
patterns which represented the human body. Style evolved slowly,
as technique improved, and the changes, which must have been admitted because
the results were more satisfying and the functions of the figure were thus better
served, also led to renderings which were closer to life (for the whole body at
least) than any achieved by other ancient cultures. Not that there is anything
inherently good about realism in art, but once the Greeks discovered how much
more it could express than the conventions, symbols and patterns of Archaism,
they made a virtue of it. 40
38 Carpenter, Greek Art 190.
39 J. J. Pollitt, Art and Experience in Ancient Greece (Cambridge and New York, 1972) xiii; for the
suggestion that the “introductory text” referred in this statement is actually Carpenter’s Greek Art, see E. A.
Meyer and J. E. Lendon, “Greek Art and Culture Since Art and Experience in Classical Greece,” in J. M.
Barringer and J. M. Hurwit, eds., Periklean Athens and Its Legacy. Problems and Perspectives (Austin,
2005) 256, n. 3.
40 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period 20.
30

The theory that naturalism played the crucial role in the development of Greek art
continues to find place in modern scholarship, as the studies of Richard Neer (2002), Jás
Elsner (2006), and Jeremy Tanner (2006) indicate. 41
With the exception of Richter’s study of Animals in Greek Sculpture, where, as
mentioned earlier, she treats representations of animals according to the same scheme of
advancing naturalism reserved for the human form, no other study of this subject in
Greek art has given consideration to animals. Thus, the relevant theories of Emanuel
Löwy, Ernst Gombrich, John Boardman, and William Childs, which will be addressed in
detail shortly, focus almost exclusively on the human form. Animals, however, allow us
to see how naturalism in Greek art was perceived and evaluated. Before examining this
evidence, it is necessary to see, first, how the concepts of naturalism and realism—
usually considered a sister term—have been employed in the modern study of ancient
Greek art.
a. The Use of “Naturalism” and “Realism” in the Modern Study of Greek Art
In scholarly discussions of Greek art, the concept of naturalism is usually
discussed hand in hand with that of realism. 42 An example of this tendency is found in
41 R. T. Neer, Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting. The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530-460 B.C.E.
(Cambridge and New York, 2002) tries to explain the phenomenon of naturalism in Greek art, on the basis
of vase painting and its connection with textual narrative in ancient Greece; see the review by J. Boardman
in Common Knowledge 10 (2004) 353. J. Elsner, “Reflections on the ‘Greek Revolution’ in Art,” in S.
Goldhill and R. Osborne, eds., Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece (Cambridge and New York,
2006) 68, explains the rise of naturalism in Greek art as: “a specific set of transformations in the
subjectivity of viewers—as constructed through their confrontation with objects—that took place in
relation to the formal changes between archaic and classical image-making.” For substantial, both literary
and epigraphic, evidence, however, that presents the viewing of works of art in ancient Greece (i.e., fifth
century B.C. to second-century A.D.) as a consistent process in which the viewer created and assigned
meaning to works of art through active discourse, see T. J. Rusnak, Jr., “The Active Spectator: Art and the
Viewer in Ancient Greece” (diss. Bryn Mawr College, 2001). J. Tanner’s study, The Invention of Art
History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation (Cambridge and New York,
2006), is a broad discussion of the development of naturalism in the “Greek Revolution” based on a
sociological approach; for its review, see A. A. Donohue in CW 101.1 (2007) 109-110.
31

Pollitt’s work. As noted earlier, Pollitt does not subscribe to the scholarly view of
naturalism as the aim of Greek art. The rejection of this view is also found in his study of
1974, The Ancient View of Greek Art, where he speaks of naturalism as one of the two
critical concepts (the other one being idealism) that have shaped our judgment of Greek
art since the Renaissance. 43 His statement implies that the importance placed upon Greek
naturalism as a standard of qualitative criticism derives from modern rather than ancient
reality. The same view is also exemplified by his definition of naturalism as a concept:
“The idea that the great achievement of Greek art was to represent nature as it really is
(or at least to simulate our optical experience of it), rather than to represent it by
schematic formulas, is probably a direct outgrowth of the rise of scientific archaeology in
the last one hundred years.” 44
Pollitt’s link between the definition of naturalism and scientific archaeology is
instructive, for it allows a comment on how problematic the interpretative framework of
naturalism is when identified with accurate reproduction of natural forms (“nature as it
really is” or appears) as an apparently objective criterion of scientific (empirical)
observation. 45 It has been remarked, however, that even scientific papers are not devoid
of unbiased observation because “[w]hat we see or otherwise sense is a function of what
42
This treatment is not unique to the scholarship on ancient Greek art. For a discussion of the vagueness of
the term “naturalism,” how it affects scholarship on art in general, and its perceived affiliation with
“realism” see F. Novotny, “Naturalism in Art,” in P. P. Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas III
(New York, 1973) 339-340.
43
J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven and
London, 1974) 3.
44
Pollitt, Ancient View 4-5.
45
For a recent discussion of the empirical process as a convention of apparently direct and neutral
description of material in archaeological scholarship and its consequences, see Donohue, The Problem of
Description 17-18.
32

we have seen or sensed in the past,” 46 a realization which, when applied to art history,
brings immediately to mind Heinrich Wölfflin’s famous dictum that because “men have
always seen what they wished to see,” therefore, “[v]ision itself has its history.” 47 The
implication of such remarks is that objective vision does not exist, and therefore, when
we equate the concept of naturalism with accurate reproduction of our optical experience
of nature, it does not necessarily mean that we have decoded the ancient Greek
understanding of either the concept or the optical experience it entailed.
Pollitt’s attitude of downplaying Greek naturalism is further seen in his assertion
that the concept probably had some validity as a basis for judging Greek art in antiquity,
since it was present in the critical terminology of the arts, but, at certain times, it was
surpassed by other concepts (e.g., φαντασία) in importance. 48 Pollitt does not, at this
point in his introductory essay, either identify these concepts, or give the ancient Greek
term for naturalism. He does, however, consider “realism,” which he equates with the
ancient concept of mimesis, to be one of the three popular criteria (the other two being
miraculous qualities and costliness) for judging art in antiquity. 49 It is difficult to discern
from this treatment how exactly the two concepts are related in his mind.
Regarding realism, he states that it “is simply a popular, unintellectual version of
the mimesis idea in Classical philosophy. Its standard of judgment is the feeling that the
best works of art are those which simulate the external world with such uncanny
46 Donohue, The Problem of Description 18 citing A. B. Medewar, “Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?” The
Listener 70, no. 1798 (September 12, 1963) 377.
47 H. Wölfflin, tr. M. D. Hottinger, Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in
Later Art (1932; repr. New York, 1950) viii and 11.
48 Pollitt, Ancient View 6.
49 Pollitt, Ancient View 63.
33

exactitude that the boundary between art and life breaks down.” 50 The use of the words
“popular” and “unintellectual” in his definition implies that only the lower and
uneducated strata of society were absorbed in what he perceives as the realism of works
of art. 51 Such a suggestion trivializes realism as a criterion of works of art in antiquity. It
may be in accordance with “the ancient assumption that it is the ignorant or naïve viewer
who admires or is deceived by the realism of a work of art,” 52 but fails to underscore the
existence of ancient literature that reveals a conscious understanding of viewing realistic
art and identifies only two specific groups of viewers—children and fools—as being truly
susceptible to artistic deception in ancient Greece. This line of thought is illustrated, for
example, in a discussion of painting between Socrates and Glaucon in Plato’s Republic:
SOCRATES. To which is painting directed in every case, to the imitation of
reality as it is or of appearance as it appears?
GLAUCON. Is it an imitation of a phantasm or of the truth? “Of a phantasm,” he
said.
SOCRATES. Then the mimetic art is far removed from truth, and this, it seems, is
the reason why it can produce everything, because it touches or lays hold of only
a small part of the object and that a phantom; as, for example, a painter, we say,
will paint us a cobbler, a carpenter, and other craftsmen, though he himself has no
expertness in any of these arts, but nevertheless if he were a good painter, by
exhibiting at a distance his picture of a carpenter he would deceive children and
foolish men, and make them believe it to be a real carpenter.
(Resp. 598b-598c) [150]
The passage clearly identifies children and fools as two specific categories of viewers
easily deceived by a good, that is, realistic painting. It thus suggests that all other
viewers, including Socrates, admired realistic works of art, while being completely aware
of the fact that they were looking at art. This evidence, in turn, implies that realism was a
50
Pollitt, Ancient View 63.
51
For a discussion of such an implicit meaning in Pollitt’s definition, see Rusnak, “The Active Spectator”
35.
52
Rusnak, “The Active Spectator” 36, n. 95, where he mentions Plato, Republic 601a, 602b, Menexenus
234b, and Sophist 234b-c as examples.
34

valued criterion of judging works of art, and not necessarily bound to the level of
education of viewers.
As seen above, Pollitt equates realism with mimesis. He also points out that the
latter is usually translated as “imitation.” 53 Mimesis, however, is a complex concept and
its translation as “imitation” has been considered misleading for reaching a useful
understanding of its ancient meaning. 54 Pollitt maintains that, when applied to the visual
arts, mimesis “usually implied something beyond the simple process of copying a natural
model.” 55 His discussion focuses on the Platonic and Aristotelian uses of the term as
“literal imitation” and “imitation by psychological association” and draws extensively
from Gerald Else’s interpretation of the meanings of the term in early fifth-century
literature. 56
In a more recent discussion (2002) of mimesis in Classical Greece, Stephen
Halliwell considers the possibility, drawn by Aristotle’s emphasis on “things that could
occur,” (Poetics 9.1451b5), that works or acts of artistic mimesis need not always be
thought of as corresponding to specific, empirical “originals.” He states, therefore, that
“when applied to poetry, visual art, music, dance, and the like [in Classical Greece],
mimesis amounts to a concept (or family of concepts) of representation, which…can be
broadly construed as the use of an artistic medium (words, sounds, physical images) to
53
Pollitt, Ancient View 37.
54
S. Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis. Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton and Oxford,
2002) 6, n. 15, and 13, 16.
55
Pollitt, Ancient View 37.
56
Pollitt, Ancient View 37-38 citing G. F. Else, ““Imitation” in the Fifth Century,” CP 53 (1958) 73-90,
who identifies three shades of meaning for mimesis and its cognates prior to mid-fifth century B.C.: a)
“direct representation of the looks, actions and/or utterances of animals or men through speech, song,
and/or dancing,” b) “imitation of the actions of one person by another, in a general sense, without actual
miming, and c) “replication: an image or effigy of a person or thing in material form.” For a subsequent
study of mimesis, see G. Sörbom, Mimesis and Art. Studies in the Origin and Early Development of an
Aesthetic Vocabulary (Uppsala, 1966). For Pollitt’s discussion of Plato’s and Aristotle’s use of mimesis,
see Ancient View 38-41.
35

signify and communicate certain hypothesized realities,” and also as the effects that such
works can or should elicit in their audiences. 57 This definition indicates that mimesis is a
broad and complex concept. As such, it cannot be equated with realism, which Pollitt
explains as simulation of the external world based on “uncanny exactitude.”
The contained element of “uncanny exactitude” which Pollitt attaches to realism
is additionally interesting, for it appears to reflect influence from the nineteenth-century
meaning of realism in French literature: “faithful imitation of the originals offered by
nature with special emphasis on exactitude of description.” 58 It also suggests that Pollitt
understands realism as perhaps a stronger version of naturalism, which, as seen earlier, he
considers an attempt to simulate our optical experience of nature. Thus, in Pollitt’s mind,
it appears that what separates the two concepts from each other is a difference of degree.
Such difference also shapes another explanation of naturalism and realism in the
context of Greek art offered by William Childs. In his essay of 1988, “The Classic as
Realism in Greek Art,” Childs argues against the usual assumption that “idealism” is a
defining element of the style of Classical Greek art, in particular, sculpture. He states
that the Classical style in Greek sculpture “is primarily realistic.” When discussing
works of art belonging to its high phase (450-430 B.C.), however, he argues that they
demonstrate “a more accurate observation of real forms, generally speaking an increased
naturalism.” 59 Such phrasing suggests that Childs considers realism and naturalism as
two concepts of the same meaning but different degree. Thus, naturalism is, to him, a
57
Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis 16.
58
R. Wellek, “Realism in Literature,” in P. P. Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas IV (New
York, 1973) 51-52.
59
W. A. P. Childs, “The Classic as Realism in Greek Art,” Art Journal 48 (Spring, 1988) 10, and 11-12 for
respective quotations.
36

more accurate observation and rendering of real forms, a definition which qualifies the
concept as a stronger version of realism. On the basis of this reasoning, his designation
of the Classical style as “generally realistic” reveals his conception of realism as general
conformity to nature. 60 Childs’s limitation of realism and naturalism to these meanings is
not idiosyncratic, but rather reminiscent of the meanings of these terms in modern
German. As Fritz Novotny maintains, in this language, realism is used for the more
general meaning of any sort of fidelity to nature—including the subject matter of works
of art, whereas naturalism is reserved for works in which realism is carried to the
extreme, for example, in the treatment of detail. 61 When juxtaposed to Pollitt’s
definitions of these concepts, those of Childs appear to be the exact reverse.
The examples of Childs and Pollitt reveal that, in the study of Greek art, the
concepts of naturalism and realism are not always used with consistent meanings in mind.
They also reveal that the perceived difference in the meanings of these terms is one of
degree identified as an increase in exactitude or accuracy. The problem here is that no
one wishes to state clearly where exactly this designation of degree begins or ends. As a
result, naturalism and realism emerge as two highly ambiguous, and thus, problematic
concepts for the study of Greek art.
Although not in reference to Greek art, current, art-historical discourse highlights
the existence of still another semantic difference between naturalism and realism. David
60 It has to be noted that Childs also points to specific visual features (e.g., veins, muscles) of
representations of the human form in Classical Greek sculpture; therefore his argument is not simply a
semantic game.
61 Novotny, “Naturalism in Art,” in Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas III, 339.
37

Summers, for example, offers the following distinction between the two concepts in his
study of Renaissance painting:
“Naturalism” refers to art—the paradigm is really the art of painting as opposed
to sculpture or architecture—the elements of which are presumed to coincide with
the elements of optical experience. “Naturalism” and “realism” are sometimes
used interchangeably, but it is necessary to distinguish carefully between them.
“Realism” is at base a category of subject matter, and refers to art having a
concrete historical reference or an apparent concrete historical reference. 62
Summers’s definition of naturalism rests on representational fidelity to the sensible
world, and that of realism on a concrete historical reference. Thus, in his mind, the
difference between the two concepts is one of appearance (style) versus subject matter
(content). When transferred to the realm of ancient Greek painting, Pausanias’s
description of the painting of the Battle of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile in Athens
(1.15.3), for example, could be seen as a representative example of Summers’s perception
of realism. Whether ancient audiences made such a distinction is an issue worth noting.
Summers’s definition of naturalism, although not devoid of vagueness, has its real
value in the fact that, like that of Pollitt, it gives central stage to “optical experience,” and
thus, vision. Equally valuable is his remark that “naturalism in any given instance is
culturally specific.” 63 This line of thinking accords well with the previously mentioned
dictum of Wölfflin that “vision itself has its history.” In this way, both authors signal that
naturalism is not to be seen as bound to a universal law of objective vision, since such a
thing does not exist, but rather to the specific cultural setting in which it is formulated.
This evidence, in turn, gives rise to one question in the context of Greek art: How were
the qualities to which we assign terms like naturalism and realism in art perceived and
62
D. Summers, The Judgment of Sense. Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics (London and
New York, 1987) 3.
63
Summers, The Judgment of Sense 11.
38

judged by the ancient Greeks? As suggested earlier, extant literary evidence strongly
suggests that animals can offer a valuable insight into this question.
b. Modern Theories of the Development of Greek Art in Terms of Naturalism
First, however, it is necessary to examine modern theories of the development of
Greek art in connection with naturalism. Four figures are particularly significant in this
connection: Emanuel Löwy, Ernst Gombrich, John Boardman, and William Childs. The
following section discusses the theories of these scholars as well as the different
conceptions—psychological, historical, technical, and art-historical—that shaped them.
With the exception of that of Childs’s, the common element of the remaining theories is
that dissatisfaction of the ancient Greeks with how insufficiently naturalistic their art
looked provided the impetus for the development of Greek art toward naturalism. The
human figure is the focus of all these theories.
Emanuel Löwy
In his study, Die Naturwiedergrabe in der älteren griechischen Kunst (1900),
Emanuel Löwy offers an account of preclassical Greek art (drawing, sculpture) framed by
the concept of increasing naturalism. Animals are marginal to this account, which is
dominated by the idea that “statuary [is], in its principal task, the representation of the
human form.” 64 Löwy explains the creation of artistic forms in early Greek art as the
64 E. Löwy, Die Naturwiedergrabe in der älteren griechischen Kunst (Rome, 1900) = E. Loewy, tr. E.
Fothergill, The Rendering of Nature in Early Greek Art (London, 1907) 45. This statement identifies Löwy
as a possible source for Richter’s previously expressed comment that, in her time, existing scholarship
considered the human figure the sole focus of ancient Greek sculpture. For a discussion of the influence of
Löwy’s lectures in Rome to Richter’s scholarly program, see Donohue, The Problem of Description 111-
112, n. 275.
39

esult of a psychological process of visual perception to which he assigns universal status.
According to this process, artistic images are not direct renderings of reality, but rather
reproductions of mental images of this reality:
The process described rules our conception of images, and the more primitive the
conception the more unlimited its rule. Instances of these we can see every day in
the drawings of persons artistically untrained, not merely in those of children and
savages. Their drawings do not copy a given aspect of reality. These simple
draughtsmen, when placed in front of the object itself, would be for the most part
quite incapable of rendering it directly. For along with the pictures that reality
presents to the eye, there exists another world of images, living or coming into life
in our minds alone, which, though indeed suggested reality, are nevertheless
metamorphosed. Every primitive artist, when endeavouring to imitate nature,
seeks with the spontaneity of a physical function to reproduce merely these
mental images. And so it was with the Greek artist. 65
Löwy proposes that mental images, although “suggested by reality,” are essentially
falsified versions of this reality created in and maintained by the mind. They coexist with
images directly perceived by the eye but override them; as such, mental images guide the
representation of reality in art. Löwy believes that this psychological process of visual
perception accounts for the falsification of natural forms in all primitive art. On the basis
of the universality of this process, he implies next that the insufficiently naturalistic
images of early Greek art are the result of artists’ subordination to this process. In this
way, Löwy establishes the starting point of his approach to Greek art through the lens of
naturalism.
Specific evidence for Löwy’s view of Greek naturalism not as static, but
increasing in degree through time is seen in his discussion of the subsequent phase of
Greek figural art—the Archaic. Löwy sees this phase as a step away from the
insufficiently naturalistic images of the incipient Greek phase. The psychology of vision
65 Loewy, Rendering 17-18. For a more detailed analysis of Löwy’s theory of the psychology of vision,
with special emphasis on his borrowing of the idea of the memory image from slightly earlier writings on
psychology, see Donohue, The Problem of Description 115-117.
40

is still central to his argument, but a new element is added now: artists’ dissatisfaction
with existing mental images. This condition, he asserts, led to closer observation of
nature, which, in turn, gave rise to increasingly naturalistic images in Archaic art:
It is worth while to note the manner in which art, when strong enough to observe,
turns to account its observations of nature. For this it appears to me specially
significant that in the more developed archaic period, as has often been noticed,
there is a relatively greater conformity to nature in the representations of objects
less commonly seen, as of animals rather than of men, particularly those animals
with which men are not daily associated, of men of foreign races rather than those
of their own kind, and so on. In all these cases the artists had not at once at their
disposal a more or less satisfactory memory-picture, and so being compelled to
observe nature they imitated her closely. But it must not therefore be supposed
that these productions represent pictures made on the spot; judged by their entire
structure, the typical generalization of line, the exhibition of the fullest aspect and
so on, they too betray themselves as being memory-pictures assimilated to the
common store although consciously acquired. 66
Löwy explains the increase of naturalism in Archaic Greek art as a reaction to
dissatisfaction with previous conceptual images. His argument unfolds in a circular way.
He starts first by acknowledging the expanded repertoire and the increasing naturalism of
subjects in Archaic art, where animals are included, but mentioned only fleetingly. Löwy
attributes these new conditions to the unavailability of satisfactory mental images, which,
he asserts, exhorted artists to observe nature closely, transformed mental images, and, as
such, launched the emergence of Archaic images of “greater conformity to nature.” This
characterization along with the calling of the Archaic period as “more developed”
consolidate Löwy’s view of this period as a step beyond of the earlier one, and
consequently, of preclassical Greek art as a successive advancement in terms of
increasing naturalism.
66 Translation: Fothergill: Loewy, Rendering 26-27.
41

Ernst H. Gombrich
A similar, yet more advanced, account of the development of Greek art in terms of
increasing naturalism appears in the work of Ernst Gombrich. His essay of 1961,
Reflections on the Greek Revolution, makes use of Löwy’s ideas of increasing naturalism
and dissatisfaction. 67 Like Löwy, Gombrich is concerned with the development of Greek
art as a passage from early, insufficient naturalistic images to “the gradual approximation
of images to life.” 68 Unlike Löwy, his discussion extends to encompass Classical Greek
art, which, he considers, highly naturalistic. This conviction stems from his view of the
Classical period as the pinnacle of a “revolution,” a “great awakening,” in Greek art—the
advent of naturalism—whose beginnings he places in the Archaic period (ca. 550 B.C.),
and reasons he seeks to explain in connection with contemporary cultural circumstances
such as the rise of philosophy, science, and drama; thus, Gombrich’s theory emerges as
clearly historical in essence. As was the case with Löwy, animals are not prominent in it.
Instead, the idea that, “Greek art of the classical period concentrated on the image of man
almost to an exclusion of other motifs,” 69 dominates Gombrich’s theory, which unfolds in
the following way:
[T]here are few more exciting spectacles in the whole history of art than
the great awakening of Greek sculpture and painting between the sixth century
and the time of Plato’s youth toward the end of the fifth century B.C. Its dramatic
phases have often been told in terms of the episode from “The Sleeping Princess”
when the kiss of the prince breaks the thousand-year-old spell and the whole court
begins to stir from the rigors of unnatural sleep. We are shown how the stiff and
frozen figures we call Apollines, or kouroi, first move one foot forward, then bend
their arms, how their masklike smile softens, and how, at the time of the Persian
67 E. H. Gombrich, “Reflections on the Greek Revolution,” in E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in
the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (New York, 1961), a study dedicated to his teachers: E. Löwy,
J. von Schlosser, and E. Kris. For an additional discussion of Löwy’s effect on Gombrich, see Donohue,
The Problem of Description 112, n. 276.
68 Gombrich, Reflections 117.
69 Gombrich, Reflections 144.
42

wars, the symmetry of their tense posture is finally broken when their bodies
receive a slight twist, so that life seems to enter the marble…
It is a development which neatly illustrates our formulas of schema and
correction, of making before matching. Indeed it was in this area that Emanuel
Loewy at the turn of the century first developed his theories about the rendering
of nature in Greek art that stressed the priority of conceptual modes and their
gradual adjustment to natural appearances. Archaic art starts from the schema,
the symmetrical frontal figure conceived for one aspect only, and the conquest of
naturalism may be described as the gradual accumulation of corrections due to the
observation of reality.
As a description of what happened, Loewy’s account still seems to me
unsurpassed. But in itself it explains little. For why was it that this process
started comparatively so late in the history of mankind? In this respect our
perspectives have very much changed. To the Greeks the archaic period
represented the dawn of history, and classical scholarship has not always shaken
off this inheritance. From this point of view it appeared quite natural that the
awakening of art from primitive modes should have coincided with the rise of all
those other activities that, for the humanist, belong to civilization: the
development of philosophy, of science, and of dramatic poetry. 70
As can be seen, Gombrich is interested in investigating the reasons behind the transition
from “making” to “matching” as a “gradual accumulation of corrections” that is, from
Löwy’s unconvincing conceptual images to Classical images that reproduce perfectly the
visible world through its careful observation. Such phraseology sheds lights on
Gombrich’s conception of the development of Greek art in terms of increasing naturalism
and of the Classical style as strict imitation of the visible world. Equally illuminating is
his identification of specific circumstances behind the advent of this style: artists’
dissatisfaction with existing images and a change in the function of Greek art caused by
narrative texts (Homer). Although concurrent with the advent of other cultural
phenomena (philosophy, science, drama), these circumstances are of foremost importance
in his mind.
Like Löwy, Gombrich considers dissatisfaction with existing images the impetus
of the development of Greek art toward naturalism. “As soon as the Greeks looked at the
70 Gombrich, Reflections 116-118.
43

Egyptian figure type from the aspect of an art which wants to “convince,” it undoubtedly
raised the question why it looks unconvincing,” he says. 71 Thus, discontent with the
unconvincing images they inherited from the arts of Egypt and the Near East, early Greek
artists turned to close observation of nature—an idea clearly borrowed from Löwy—but
also to acquire skilled craftsmanship. A detailed account of this argument, with special
emphasis on sculpture, appears not in the Reflections, but in The Great Awakening, which
is part of his earlier study, The Story of Art (1951):
When Greek artists began to make statues of stone, they started where the
Egyptians and Assyrians had left off…[T]hey studied and imitated Egyptian
models, and…they learned from them how to make the figure of a standing young
man, how to mark the divisions of the body and the muscles which hold it
together. But…the artist who made th[ese] statue[s] was not content to follow
any formula, however good, and that he began experimenting for himself. He was
obviously interested in finding out what knees really looked like. Perhaps he did
not quite succeed; perhaps the knees of his statue are even less convincing than
those of Egyptian statues; but the point was that he had decided to have a look for
himself instead of following the old prescription. It was no longer a question of
learning a ready-made formula for representing the human body. Every Greek
sculptor wanted to know how he was to represent a particular body. The
Egyptians had based their art on knowledge. The Greeks began to use their eyes.
Once this revolution had begun, there was no stopping it. The sculptors in their
workshops tried new ideas and new ways of representing the human figure, and
each innovation was eagerly taken by others who added to their own discoveries.
One discovered how to chisel the trunk, another found out that a statue many look
much more alive if the feet are not placed too firmly on the ground. Yet another
would discover that he could make a face come alive by simply bending the
mouth upwards so that it appeared to smile. Of course, the Egyptian method was
in many ways safer. The experiments of the Greek artists sometimes misfired.
The smile might look like an embarrassed grin, or the less rigid stance might give
the impression of affectation. But the Greek artists were not easily frightened by
these difficulties. They had set out on a road on which there was no turning
back. 72
That the Greek revolution against unconvincing images moved only forward indicates
that, in Gombrich’s view, the naturalistic development of Greek art, throughout its early,
71 Gombrich, Reflections 134.
72 E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art (New York, 1951) 52.
44

Archaic and Classical phases, followed a sequential, progressive, and also predetermined
course. 73 In this way, naturalism emerges, in his theory, as the principal goal of Greek
art. Further, what enabled this goal to be achieved were two specific conditions in
reference to artists—freedom, and acquisition of skilled craftsmanship.
Gombrich emphasizes the freedom of the artists as important to the rise of Greek
naturalism—a view, which, as it has been suggested, may be reflective of his time—but
recalls also Winckelmann’s idea of political freedom fueling the development of ancient
Greek art. 74 Similarly, his highlighting of artists’ improvement in their craft bears clear
73 These characteristics are reminiscent of G. W. F. Hegel’s ideas of progression and historical determinism
in connection with art history. For a discussion of these ideas of Hegel and their tracing back to
Winckelmann by Gombrich, see Gombrich’s essay, “‘The Father of Art History’: A Reading of the
Lectures on Aesthetics of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831),” in E. H. Gombrich, Tributes. Interpreters of
Cultural Tradition (Ithaca, New York, 1984) 51-55 and 62-66.
74 Gombrich appears to think that the freedom of the artists to experiment with images was inspired by (or
reminded him of) the freedom poets had to narrate epic events, as far back as Homer’s time. It is not
exactly clear what type of freedom Gombrich has in his mind, but his following reference to “the inner eye
of the poet,” prompts one to suggest that he means inner freedom, or perhaps mental freedom of some kind
set within cultural freedom, in general. He says, for example (Reflections 129-130): “What is the character
of Greek narration as we know it from Homer? Briefly, it is concerned not only with the “what” but also
with the “how” of mythical events. Obviously this is not a very strict distinction. There can be no recital
of events that does not include description of one kind or another, and nobody would claim that the
Gilgamesh Epic or the Old Testament is devoid of vivid accounts. But maybe there is still a difference in
the way Homer presents the incidents in front of Troy, the very thoughts of the heroes, or the reaction of
Hector’s small son, who takes fright from the plumes of his father’s helmet. The poet is here an eyewitness.
If he were asked how he could know so exactly how it actually happened, he would still invoke the
authority of the Muse who told him all and enabled his inner eye to see across the chasm of time. We do
not know whether painters and sculptors invoked a similar sanction when they first ventured into the realm
of genuine mythological narrative. But one thing was bound to follow: in a narrative illustration, any
distinction between the “what” and the “how” is impossible to maintain. The painting of the creation will
not tell you, like the Holy Writ, only that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Whether he wants or not, the pictorial artist has to include unintended information about the way God
proceeded….It may well have been the same difficulty that restrained earlier cultures from embarking on
pictorial narrative of sacred themes. But where the poet was given license to vary and embroider the myth
and to dwell on the “how” in the recital of epic events, the way was open for the visual artist to do the
likewise. It was only this freedom that would enable an artist to tackle a subject such as the judgment of
Paris, for how could he render it without adding to the bare story?”
Regarding the freedom of the artists to which Gombrich refers, J. Elsner, “Reflections on the ‘Greek
Revolution’ in Art,” in Goldhill and Osborne, eds., Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece 81, n.
37, says: “we must note that ‘freedom’ is a polemical term in Gombrich’s Cold War anti-totalitarian
libertarianism and that (after Foucault, before whom Gombrich was writing) we may take the fictions
proffered by naturalism to be themselves conventional and socially determined.” Although this point may
hold true, Gombrich’s stand cannot fail to recall the influence of Winckelmann. For the latter’s idea of
political freedom in Classical Greece enabling artists to create the most beautiful and perfect works of art,
45

traces of Winckelmann’s ideas. 75 Regardless of their possible origin of inspiration, these
two conditions support Gombrich’s view of Greek art as a product directly influenced by
preexisting (Homer) and contemporary cultural conditions. The fact that he perceives the
acquisition of skilled craftsmanship not as advancement in technique, but as
experimentation with artistic media owing to new ideas is especially interesting. As
Gombrich marks above, “the sculptors in their workshops tried new ideas and ways of
representing the human figure.” The precedence of ideas is also stressed in the
Reflections, where he declares that “what makes it [Greek revolution] unique is
“precisely the directed efforts, the continued and systematic modifications of the
schemata of conceptual art, till making was replaced by the matching of reality through
the new skill of mimesis.” 76 Notwithstanding the complexity of mimesis, this way of
thinking indicates that Gombrich is interested in the revolution in Greek art as primarily
an artistic and intellectual phenomenon and secondarily as a technical one.
The continuing hold of this interest may be seen elsewhere in his theory. The
idea of improved craftsmanship as the second reason for the advent of Greek
naturalism—the other reason being influence from narrative texts—holds strong in
Gombrich’s mind. As he states, “Homeric freedom of narration was as necessary as was
and his adoption of these ideas from ancient discourse on the relationship between Art and politics, see A.
A. Donohue, “Winckelmann’s History of Art and Polyclitus,” in W. G. Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the
Doryphoros, and Tradition (Madison, 1995) 335, 339, n. 98; also A. Potts, Flesh and the Ideal:
Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (New Haven, 1994). For the influence of Winckelmann’s
study on modern scholarship, see Donohue, “Winckelmann’s History of Art” 327, and Childs, “The Classic
as Realism” 10.
75 See, for example, Donohue, “Winckelmann’s History of Art” 339, n. 98 citing Winckelmann: “In the age
of the highest illumination and freedom in Greece, says Winckelmann, “through this improvement [i.e., on
the Older Style] in art, Phidias, Polyclitus, Scopas, Alcamenes, and Myron made themselves celebrated” as
masters of the Grand Style.”
76 Gombrich, Reflections 141.
46

the acquired skill of craftsmanship to open the way for the Greek Revolution.” 77 How he
actually understands the influence of Homeric texts on the naturalistic development of
Greek art is seen in his statement that “when Greek artists discovered the character of
Greek narration, they set up a chain reaction which transformed the methods of
representing the human body.” 78 He elaborates this view further by posing the following
question:
Is it not much more likely that the discoveries which infused life into the
freestanding single statue were first made in narrative contexts that demanded a
convincing re-creation of a situation—for instance, in the narrative groups of
pediments with their dramatic evocation of mythical episodes? 79
Gombrich seems to place the intellectual origin of naturalism in Greek art in textual
narrative. Thus, he connects the emergence of naturalistic images in Greek sculpture to
narrative contexts, whose aim, he identifies, with “a convincing re-creation of a
situation.” This dependence of images on texts is not completely divorced from his
broader conviction that “in the whole history of Western art [there is a] constant
interaction between narrative intent and pictorial realism.” 80 The link between the
development of naturalism and Greek art to textual narrative again reveals Gombrich’s
attention to specific cultural circumstances framing his interpretation. In this way, his
theory of the rise of naturalism in Greek art again emerges as historical in its conception,
and diverges from that of Löwy, which, as seen earlier, relied on the psychology of vision
as a universal phenomenon.
77 Gombrich, Reflections 133; for a short discussion of this aspect of Gombrich’s theory, see Stewart, Greek
Sculpture 75.
78 Gombrich, Reflections 129.
79 Gombrich, Reflections 133.
80 Gombrich, Reflections 131.
47

John Boardman
The link between the development of Greek art in terms of naturalism and
dissatisfaction with existing images is also found in the work of John Boardman. As was
the case with Löwy and Gombrich, the human figure dominates Boardman’s work.
These characteristics are evident in his study of 1996, Greek Art, where he summarizes
the history of Greek art in terms of realism—his preferred term—by using sculpture as a
starting point:
[T]here is little in 7 th -century sculpture to suggest that within two centuries Greek
artists were to carve statuary of the quality and appearance that we admire on the
Parthenon. In a way this is the most remarkable lesson of any history of Greek
art: its rapid development from strict geometry admitting hardly any figure
decoration, to full realism of anatomy and expression. Perhaps this was the result
of continual dissatisfaction, an unease which the Egyptians, for instance, never
felt with an idiom that served them successfully for millennia. In Greece we shall
see how the early geometry broke before the influence of foreign arts, and how
the Greek artists absorbed these alien techniques and forms to weld them into an
art in which the best formal qualities of a native tradition remained dominant.
And then, about the time of the Persian Wars in the early 5 th century, a break with
Archaic conventions heralded the Classical revolution, achieving that unparalleled
blend of realism and the ideal which we recognize as the hallmark of the classical,
centred on representation of the human body. 81
Boardman explains the development of Greek sculpture from the beginning to the fifth
century B.C. as a progression from hardly figural to fully representational images, thus
revealing a scheme of development based on typology. That this scheme relies also on
the idea of progression from simple to accomplished representations is evident from his
comment that, in terms of quality and appearance, seventh-century sculpture has nothing
in common with the fifth-century sculptures of the Parthenon, which he perceives as
examples of “full realism in anatomy and expression.” 82 These explanations show the
81 Boardman, Greek Art 28.
82 For a discussion of typology and accomplished representation as elements of the development of ancient
Greek art mentioned by ancient writers, see Donohue, The Problem of Description 49-50; also her Xoana
48

prevalence of naturalism in his view of the development of Greek art. In this respect,
they are very much aligned with Löwy’s and Gombrich’s theories. In alliance also with
these theories is Boardman’s emphasis on Greek dissatisfaction with existing images—
implicitly identified here with those inherited from Egypt—as the driving force behind
the development of Greek sculpture. His subscription especially to Gombrich’s ideas is
seen in his recognition of a revolution in fifth-century Greek art in terms of “realism,”
and of the human body as the principal subject of representation through which this
revolution was realized. What appears to be firmly stressed now is the idea of the Greek
absorption of “alien techniques” as fueling the development of Greek art in terms of
naturalism, and therefore of his view of this development as a primarily technical
phenomenon.
A more succinct summary of the idea of technical improvement appears in the
conclusion of his Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period, which opens with the following
statement:
The pictures and text of this book offer a view of the development of Greek
sculpture over nearly three hundred years, from miniaturist works in the formal
conceptual style of Geometric Greece, through periods in which the east, then
Egypt, suggested new techniques and possibilities, to the sixth century in which
the sculptor’s own search for improved expression of canonic forms led him to
the point at which he wished consciously to take life as his model. 83
The statement clearly shows the idea that Greek sculpture undergoes technical
improvement as it moves through its course of development. It also shows clear traces of
Gombrich’s ideas. These traces are found in the outline of the development of Greek
sculpture as a shift from conceptual images to those reproducing the sensible world, in
and the Origins of Greek Art (American Classical Studies 15; Atlanta, 1988) 195-205, for ancient traditions
and theories recorded by authors, such as Pausanias (7.22.4; 9.24.3; 30.20.9) and Callimachus (Diegesis to
Callimachus, Aetia IV, fr. 100) about the beginning of Greek statuary.
83 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period 169.
49

the influence of Near Eastern and Egyptian arts, and also in the emphasis placed on the
role of the sculptor as the agent of the technical improvement of Greek sculpture. Also
Boardman’s assertion that the artist consciously strove for images taken from life not
only presents his view of naturalism as the desirable goal of Greek art, but also recalls,
albeit with heavy alteration, Löwy’s idea of consciously acquired memory images by
artists.
Additional evidence for Boardman’s conception of Greek naturalism as technical
improvement derives from his discussion in Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period. Here
he conceives of a direct connection between technical progress and gradual stylistic
change as opening the road to the Classical revolution. At the same time, the challenge
of working in marble, and naturalism as the principal aim of Greek art, both seen
previously, emerge as two highly important points of his theory:
The physical turmoil of Greek history in the early decades of the fifth century was
answered in Greek art by what appears to be sure and steady progress, and the
gradual changes in style encouraged effortlessly, it seems, a revolution in the
sculptor’s approach to his craft.
In less than a hundred and fifty years the Greek sculptor had perfected his
technical command of the medium in which most of the finest Archaic sculpture
was executed—white marble. It is not an easy material, nor, on reflection, can we
judge it an obvious choice for the execution of images in relief or in the
round….It lends itself to clear, sharply defined masses and pattern no less than to
subtlety of contour and even, as later generations were to discover, to the
expression of the soft, the vaguely defined, the sensual. The Archaic sculptor
explored its potential in creating three-dimensional patterns which represented the
human body. Style evolved slowly, as technique improved, and the changes,
which must have been admitted because the results were more satisfying and the
functions of the figure were thus better served, also led to renderings which were
closer to life, closer (for the whole body at least) than any achieved by other
ancient cultures. Not that there is anything inherently good about realism in art,
but once the Greeks discovered how much more it could express than the
conventions, symbols and patterns of Archaism, they made a virtue of it. 84
84 J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period 20.
50

The statement shows clearly that Boardman sees realism as the principal aim of the
development of Greek art. It also expresses the core idea of his theory that gradual
progress in technique caused stylistic change to occur and led ultimately to images of the
Classical period whose appearance was more satisfying to the eye because it was closer
to life. This idea of “closer to life” suggests that images of previous periods were, in his
view, less naturalistic in appearance. This evidence, which accords well with his earlier
statements, specifies now the dominance of the concept of increasing naturalism in his
theory. At the same time, his consideration of marble as a difficult material to work with
in sculpture is important, for it reveals his view of the evolution of Greek naturalism not
as technical advancement in general, but in connection with a specifically challenging
material. Such a connection is additionally important, for, when placed against ancient
texts that outline the evolution of sculpture as a “progressive exploitation of materials
(easily carved wood to more challenging stone),” it shows that Boardman’s theory of
Greek naturalism is not devoid of influence from the ancient theories of the evolution of
statuary that shaped post-antique histories of art. 85
Further, the fact that Boardman, like Gombrich, speaks of Classical Greek art as
the product of a revolution in terms of naturalism is valuable, for it allows one to see
where exactly on representations of the human body elements of this revolution are to be
sought. Boardman summarizes his view of this revolution in the following way:
The 5 th century introduced to world art the Classical revolution and an idiom
which was totally at variance with the way in which man had hitherto desired to
create images of himself, his gods and the world of and even beyond his
experience. It was an idiom based essentially on idealized but realistic
representation of the human figure: a counterfeit of nature but somewhat more as
85 Quotation: Donohue, The Problem of Description 50; also her Xoana 208-218 for specific references to
authors, such as Pliny (NH 12.1), Plutarch (Moralia fr. 158), Pausanias (2.19.3) and Porphyry (Abst. 2.18),
and their discussion of wood as the material that preceded stone in the execution of statues in antiquity.
51

she should be than as she was. The idealization was nothing new since it is
almost normal in stylized and unrealistic figures such as the Archaic, but in the 5 th
century it involved adjustment of realistic anatomy in the interests of perfect
symmetry, and suppressing much expression of particulars such as individuality,
age, emotion. The realism was new, and for the first time in the history of art the
artist shows complete understanding of how the body is constructed, how to
express nuances of movement and, even more difficult, repose. 86
Anatomy and pose are those aspects of the human body that Boardman considers
expressive of the concept of fifth-century realism which, as can be seen, coexists in
balance with the antithetical concept of idealism. Although his focus on the human
figure cannot be denied, this evidence provides the opportunity to point out that his
discussions of Greek sculpture are not completely devoid of representations of animals.
His study of Archaic Greek sculpture, for example, dedicates a chapter—albeit
short (two pages)—to the subjects of animals and monsters, and starts with the following
observation: “Greek artists were hardly less observant of the animal kingdom than they
were of man, and the sculpture of the Archaic period includes several sympathetic and
accurate studies of animals at rest or in action.” 87 In addition, his view that the
development of the animal form in Greek art followed the same course as that of the
human one is evident from his commentary on a sixth-century lion from Miletus: “the
artist has excelled in rendering the rough loose pelt, delighted in the languorous sweep of
the spine, the pattern of mane, as consummate a compromise of pattern and observation
as in any kouros” (Fig. 2). 88 Also his study of Classical Greek sculpture, although it does
not specifically discuss representations of animals, does not fail to provide illustrations of
extant examples such as the bull from the fourth-century funerary precinct of Dionysios
86 Boardman, Greek Art 23.
87 Boardman, Greek Art 167.
88 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period 168, fig. 267 (Berlin 1790); for a discussion and further
bibliography on this lion from Miletus, see C. Ratté “Five Lydian Felines,” AJA 93 (1989) 391, no. A20.
52

of Kollytos in the Athenian Kerameikos (Fig. 3). 89 In this way, Boardman may not
assign importance to the role of representations of animals in the phenomenon of
naturalism in Greek art, but he does not, at least, ignore the existence of this body of
Greek sculpture.
William A. P. Childs
A similar inclusion of representations of animals cannot be detected in William
Childs’s article “The Classic as Realism in Greek art,” which provides an analysis of the
fifth- and fourth-century style of Greek art by focusing explicitly on sculptural
representations of the human form (e.g., reclining female figure from the west pediment
of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia [c. 460 B.C.] and male figure A from the same
pediment of the Parthenon [437-432 B.C.]). Childs argues against the usual assumption
of “idealism” as a defining characteristic of the style of Greek art in the Classical period.
He suggests that the style of this period is “primarily realistic” or more precisely, “vital,
descriptive, and eminently real—perhaps the only truly realistic style phase.” 90 He
considers this style reflective of a conception of naturalism that relies heavily on the
contemporary understanding of the essential character (phusis) of the human subjects of
works of art, while being simultaneously concerned with an accurate observation of real
forms—two notions that are often seen as opposites. In other words, he proposes to see a
special kind of naturalism governed by a synthesis of a heightened reality (how they
knew things to be) and the accurate reproduction of external appearances.
89 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Late Classical Period 114, 120, fig. 112.3 (no museum number); also
120, figs. 113, 114 for statues of a dog and a lion from respective grave monuments on Salamis and
perhaps in Athens.
90 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13.
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Childs starts his article by highlighting the unquestioned, as he says assumption
“that the classical style is defined by an idealized rendition that is antithetical to
realism.” 91 Instead of considering these two contradictory characteristics in balance, as
Boardman did, for instance, Childs lends primacy “to the important development of
realism throughout the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.” 92 His discussion follows the
standard division of the classical style into four phases: 1) early classical (480-450 B.C.),
2) high classical or severe (450-430 B.C.), 3) late high classical or “Rich Style” (430-380
B.C.), and 4) late classical (380-300 B.C.). Although his main interest lies in the high
classical phase, all other phases attract his attention and are framed, as he says, by a
pattern of development, whose main objective is “to describe fully the complex
experience of reality.” 93
Childs interprets the stylistic change accompanying each phase in light of the
ancient Greek concept of phusis, which, as he explains, “is not simply the external reality
such as the word “nature” in English implies but a complex term that implies the
character and growth of a thing, embracing the regular pattern of change in it.” 94 On the
basis of this definition, he suggests the adoption of the idea that:
Each phase of Greek monumental sculpture is intent on the representation of
phusis; that is, the representation of the essential character of its subject, whatever
that may be. Normally it is the generic “man” or “woman.” Thus the kouros is
the phusis of man as it was understood at the time: reality is an almost static
phenomenon broken only by the potential motion implied by the forward-set left
leg. 95
91 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 10.
92 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 10.
93 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13.
94 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 12.
95 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13.
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Having expressed this idea, he presents next his analysis of each stylistic phase
separately. In the early classical phase, he says, “naturalistic detail is represented (for
example veins) but there is no study of the real interaction of the elements of the body at
rest or in movement.” 96 Thus, Myron’s Discobolos expresses the idea of throwing the
discus, but the artist does not depict how the body actually functions in the activity. 97
In the high classical phase, attention shifts to the depiction of nuances in regard to the
functions of the body. As Polykleitos’s Doryphoros demonstrates, a real understanding
of two different states of the muscles—represented on one side of the body at rest and on
the other flexed—is achieved. 98 Such “a true though theoretical reality of the two
characteristics of the states of the muscles,” Childs states, indicates a new, “precise,
objective and even near-scientific realism that is laid over the traditional idealized
form.” 99 According to him, another novelty of the high classical style “is the creation of
a greater number of variations from the strict ideal and thus the creation of a more
descriptive vocabulary” as evidenced, for example, by the figures K, L, and M from the
east pediment of the Parthenon (437-432 B.C.), whose clinging drapery sets them apart
from earlier statuary. 100 This wish for variety is carried on into the late high classical
phase, when new images, such as the Sandal-binder of the Nike parapet on the Athenian
Acropolis, heighten the action depicted by being explicitly descriptive. As for the late
classical phase of Greek art, it renders, Childs says, “the knowable form of physical
reality,” and also the artists’ impression of visible appearances. It stands therefore for the
96 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13
97 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 11.
98 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13. For a detailed discussion of this subject, see also G. V. Leftwich,
“Polykleitos and Hippokratic Medicine,” in W. G. Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition
(Madison, 1995) 38-51.
99 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13.
100 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13 and 12, fig. 4.
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combined rendering of an objective and subjective reality and “the individuality of the
artist is defined by the individuality of his vision,” a characteristic which is exemplified,
according to him, by works of art such as the Apollo Sauroktonos of Praxiteles. 101
The picture that emerges from Childs’s essay indicates that, in his view, the
principal objective of the classical style is to describe fully the experience of current
reality. In this way, the classical style is clearly realistic in essence and each of its phases
renders reality as it was understood and seen at the time. Thus, the development of
realism in classical Greek art should be actually seen as parallel to the development of the
intellectual and visual conception of the human subjects of works of art throughout the
fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
It is clear from the theories reviewed so far that the human form has dominated
the study of the development of naturalism in Greek art, in particular sculpture. It is also
clear that the majority of these theories—excluding that of Childs—has considered
dissatisfaction of the ancient Greeks with supposedly unconvincing images the principal
reason of stylistic change toward increasing naturalism. Both assumptions, however,
dismiss literary evidence, which shows, first, that other-than-human subjects can offer a
useful insight into the ancient Greek understanding of naturalism in art, and second, that
the ancient Greeks, as seen previously in Plato’s Republic, admired images that looked
very much real, while maintaining a conscious understanding of the fact that they were
looking at art; only children and fools were excluded from this general attitude toward
art.
101 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 12 and 13.
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5. Not Naturalism and Realism. The Concept of Lifelikeness in Greek Art and
Animals
The almost exclusive focus on the human form as a guide to the study of Greek
naturalism has operated very much like a blinding approach to this topic. When turning
to the ancient record, such a focus is contradicted, for example, by Plato’s explicit
statement in the Critias that contemporary judgment of how convincing artistic
representations were in execution was not confined to the human form, but extended to
the entire surrounding environment, including its natural features and everything that
exists and lives in it. In fact, what constituted a satisfactory depiction of all non-human
subjects appears to have been governed by a relative degree of lenience toward extreme
accuracy of representation. For example, in a discussion that centers on criticism of
portraiture, Plato has Critias say:
The accounts given by all us must be, of course, of the nature
of imitations and representations; and if we look at the portraiture
of divine and of human bodies as executed by painters, in respect of the
ease or difficulty with which they succeed in imitating their subjects in
the opinion of onlookers, we shall notice in the first place that as regards
the earth and mountains and rivers and woods and the whole of heaven,
with the things that exist and move therein, we are content if a man is
also able to represent them with even a small degree of likeness; and further,
that, inasmuch as we have no exact knowledge about such subjects, we do
not examine closely or criticize the paintings, but tolerate, in such cases,
an inexact and deceptive sketch. On the other hand, whenever a painter
tries to render a likeness of our own bodies, we quickly perceive what is
defective because of our constant familiar acquaintance with them, and
become sever critics of him who fails to bring out to the full all the
points of similarity. And precisely the same thing happens, as we should
notice, in the case of discourse: in respect of what is celestial and divine
we are satisfied if the account possesses even a small degree of
likelihood, but we examine with precision what is mortal and human.
To an account given now on the spur of the moment indulgence must be
granted, should we fail to make it a wholly fitting representation; for one
must conceive of mortal objects as being difficult, and not easy,
to represent satisfactorily. (Critias 107b-107e) [143]
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Critias states explicitly that convincing images in art—about which no one cared—did
not concern only the human form, but equally applied to all other subjects of the sensible
world. Such evidence contrasts with the modern insistence on the human form as the
only window onto the topic of naturalism in Greek art. In addition, Critias reveals the
existence of two different attitudes towards the convincing representation of human and
other subjects in art based on the degree of preexisting knowledge of them: intolerance of
any omission of “all the points of similarity” regarding depictions of the human figure,
with which all humans are well acquainted, but satisfaction with “even a small degree of
likeness” or “an inexact and deceptive sketch,” of all other subjects. These phrases are of
crucial importance for they suggest that exactitude or accuracy, which, as already seen,
defines the problematic, modern concepts of naturalism and realism, was not a leading
concern when it came to judging convincing artistic representations of non-human
subjects in Classical Greece. Such evidence does not remove the notion of accurate
representation from the realm of Greek art, but implies that animals, when featured as
subjects of art, were not devalued for not being exact reproductions of physical models.
As such, animals can be a useful guide to the ancient Greek understanding not of
“naturalism” and “realism,” but rather of “lifelikeness” in art, a concept, which the
American Heritage Dictionary defines as accurate representation of real life. 102
The following essay begins with a discussion of literary sources which show that
lifelikeness was a valued quality of works of art in Classical Greece. It further presents
literary evidence that refers to ancient discussions of lifelikeness in art. The picture of
the discourse on lifelikeness that emerges from the ancient sources does not exclude
102 A. H. Soukhanov, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (third edition;
Boston and New York, 1992) 1039, s.v. lifelike.
58

animals, but rather highlights their significant role as guides to the Greek understanding
of this quality of works of art; in this respect, it is wholly different from the persistence of
modern scholarship in viewing the human form as the single venue for approaching the
issue of lifelikeness in Greek art. In fact, animals prove valuable windows onto the
ancient Greek definition of lifelikeness as accurate representation but also aliveness. 103
They do so by featuring simultaneously as lifelike subjects of representational art, and
also as judges of lifelike works of art. In the latter case, we also witness animals—a part
of nature—validating the belief that some works of art had surpassed nature and were
thus accepted as nature. 104
a. Ancient Texts on Lifelikeness as a Quality of Works of Art in Classical
Greece
A fragment of Aeschylus’s play Theori or Isthmiastae presents an example of
lifelikeness being a valued quality of images in Classical Greece. The fragment refers to
a scene that takes place in the temple of Poseidon at Isthmia. A chorus of satyrs carries
images of themselves:
I’m very grateful to you for this: you’re most obliging. Listen, all of you, and…in
silence. Look and see whether the eidolon could [possibly] be more [like] me,
this mimema by the Skillful One; it can do everything but talk! Look at these!
You see? Yes, come! Come! I bring this offering to the god to ornament his
house, my lovely votive picture. It would give my mother a bad time! If she
103 Such evidence agrees with the definition of lifelikeness in the context of ancient Greek given by C. M.
Havelock, “Art as Communication in Ancient Greece,” in E. A. Havelock and J. P. Hershbell, eds.,
Communication Arts in the Ancient World (New York, 1978) 99: “[l]ifelikeness” should be interpreted in a
broad but literal sense, as “having similarity to life” or “seeming to be alive.””
104 This employment of animals is reminiscent of the inclusion of animals in Renaissance paintings that
depict supernatural visitations such as those of angels and saints. As it has been remarked, the presence of
animals in these paintings and the concurrent belief of animals as creatures defined by sensation instructed
contemporary viewers to perceive the depicted visitations of angels as a real occurrence. For a discussion
of this issue, see W. J. Scheick, “Animal Testimony in Renaissance Art: Angelic and Other Supernatural
Visitations,” in Pollock and Rainwater, eds., Figuring Animals 65-79.
59

could see it, she’d certainly run shrieking off, thinking it was the son she brought
up: so like me is this fellow.
Ho there! Look upon the house of the Lord of the Sea, the Shaker of Earth! And
let each fasten up the likeness of his handsome face, a truthful messenger, a
voiceless herald to keep off travelers; he’ll halt strangers on their way by his
terrifying look. Hail, King, hail Poseidon…protector….
(Theori or Isthmiastae, P. Oxy., vol. 18. no 2162, Radt, fr. 78a) [9]
In this scene, satyrs thank someone for images of themselves, which they proceed to nail
up upon the temple of Poseidon, while stating that they will serve to frighten away
strangers. One of them is astounded by his own image, in particular, how strongly it
resembles him. He suspects that the image will have an equally powerful, albeit
frightening, effect on his mother; it could make her think that this was her son. 105
Coming from the satyr’s own mother, this reaction implies that the image had received a
certain accuracy which was very true to its living prototype; it was thus so lifelike that it
could easily deceive a person with intimate knowledge of the satyr’s appearance as being
the satyr himself. This lifelike impression is further strengthened by the remark that the
image lacks only voice, which implies that the image was also very close to conveying
the sense of being alive. 106 In addition, the fact that it is called “a truthful messenger”
105 M. Stieber, “Aeschylus’ Theoroi and Realism in Greek Art,” TAPA 124 (1994) 89-90 argues that the
suggestion of a mother being scared by her own child is comic and rests on the contradiction that the satyr
calls the image of himself beautiful, whereas in the audience’s mind a satyr was an ugly creature. H.
Lloyd-Jones, ed., tr., “Theori or Isthmiastae,” in H. W. Smith, ed., tr., Aeschylus II. Agamemnon. Libation-
Bearers. Eumenides. Fragments (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1923, repr. 1983) 543 suggests that “the
fright which the portraits are likely to give to the satyr’s mother or to any strangers makes it likely that such
portraits, and probably the art of portraiture itself, are thought of as being unusual or even new at the time
in question.” He also notes (543) the suggestion (by Eduard Fraenkel) that these portraits may be antefixes,
since the latter were customarily shaped like masks, and satyr-masks were sometimes used as antefixes.
This scene therefore may be suggestive of this practice. Lloyd-Jones argues that the satyrs’ portraits cannot
be antefixes, since “antefixes cannot be nailed up or taken down at will,” which is partially the case in this
scene. G. Ferrari, “Eye-Cup,” RA (1986) 19-20, suggests that the image (eidolon) to which the passage
refers should be understood to mean “mask.” According to her, “the image of the satyr must look just like
a satyr’s mask, and it is the mask that protects the performer, as well as the reveler, from the consequences
of his words and actions.”
106 J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks (London and Boston, 1983) 311-312 maintains that,
in ancient Greek thought, the presence of voice was an indication of life: “in contrast to the word of sound
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instead of a message highlights the perception of the image as the living model itself
rather than as a mere object of depiction. 107 In this way, first, strong likeness to a
prototype, and second, accuracy and aliveness emerge as constituent elements of a
lifelike image which caused audiences to respond with astonishment to it. This evidence,
in turn, indicates that lifelikeness was a valued quality of works of art in fifth-century
Greece.
Moving to the fourth century, a famous passage of Xenophon from his work
Memorabilia also presents lifelikeness as a valued quality of works of art, in this case,
statuary. Xenophon records an informed discussion between the philosopher Socrates
and a practicing artist, the sculptor Cleiton, on the subject of mimesis:
“Cleiton, that your statues of runners, wrestlers, boxers, and fighters are beautiful
I see and know. But how do you e0nerga&zh| (produce in) them that illusion of life
(to_ zwtiko_n fai/nesqai) which is their most alluring charm to the beholder?
As Cleiton was puzzled and did not reply at once, “Is it,” he added, “by faithfully
representing the form of living beings that you make your statues look as if they
lived?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Then is it not by accurately representing the different parts of the body as they
affected by the pose—the flesh wrinkled or tense, the limbs compressed or
outstretched, the muscles taut or loose—that you make them look more real
members and more convincing?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Does not the exact imitation (a)pomimei=sqai) of the feelings that affect bodies in
action also produce a sense of satisfaction in the spectator?”
“Oh yes, presumably.”
“Then must not the threatening look in the eyes of fighters be accurately
represented, and the triumphant expression on the face of conquerors be imitated
(mimhte/a)?”
with its voices, cries, and songs, death is the world of silence…To animate a statue, made of stone or clay,
and breathe life into it after having fashioning it—as in the case of Hermes making Pandora come alive, or
of the living statues in the service of Hephaestus—is to give it a voice.” Also for a discussion of images as
“speaking, and therefore, living objects” in ancient Greece, see J. Svenbro, tr. J. Lloyd, Phrasikleia: An
Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Ithaca and London, 1993) 9-25, 49-63.
107 Stieber, “Aeschylus’ Theoroi” 93, argues that the designation “truthful messenger” suggests that the
visual message conveyed by the image was similarly accurate, detailed, and trustworthy as the information
reported by the character of the messenger in Greek plays. Thus, the language of the fragment, she says,
clearly emphasizes realism.
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“Most certainly.”
“It follows, then, that the sculptor must represent in his figures the
activities of the soul.” (Mem. 3.10.6-3.10.8) [193]
In this passage, the identification of Cleiton’s statues with runners, wrestlers, boxers and
fighters sets a context of representational subjects in which the human form dominates.
Next, the technical question, “How do you e0nerga&zh| (produce in) them that zwtiko_n
fai/nesqai (illusion of life),” that Socrates poses to Cleiton is straightforward evidence
that lifelikeness was an essential quality of works of art in which both philosophers and
artists showed interest. The phrase to_ zwtiko_n fai/nesqai is translated by Marchant as
“illusion of life.” Although not incorrect, this translation does not capture the literal
meaning of the phrase. The adjective zwtiko_n stems from the noun zwh&, which means
“life.” 108 Henry Liddell and Robert Scott translate it as “true to life.” 109 Similarly,
Halliwell suggests that the word “identifies the simulation of ‘life’ that might be
experienced in an image, the sense of what might be called its vividly ‘world-like’
properties.” 110 The articular infinitive to_ fai/nesqai means “to appear.” 111 Considering
that this type of infinitive “is used like any other noun,” then Halliwell’s explanation of
to_ fai/nesqai as “appearance” is more accurate than its above translation as “illusion.” 112
In this way, the meaning of the entire phrase as “appearance of life” brings the concept of
lifelikeness in sharp focus. In addition, the verb e0nerga&zh|, which derives from
e0nerga&zomai, literally meaning “to produce in,” sheds light on lifelikeness as a technical
108
H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie, A Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised
Supplement (new ninth ed.; Oxford, 1940; repr. 1996) 759, s.v. zwh& (henceforth LSJ 9 ).
109 9
LSJ , 761, s.v. zwtiko_n.
110
S. Halliwell, “Plato and Painting,” in N. K. Rutter and B. A. Sparkes, eds., Word and Image in Ancient
Greece (Edinburgh, 2000) 102.
111 9
LSJ , 1913, s.v. fai/nesqai.
112
First quotation: H. Hansen and G. M. Quinn, Greek. An Intensive Course (New York, 1996) 128; second
quotation: Halliwell, “Plato and Painting,” in Rutter and Sparkes, eds., Word and Image 102.
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quality of Cleiton’s statues, or, as Halliwell suggests, a quality that was “work[ed] in,”
and thus one that “marks the artefactuality of the image.” 113 Further, the explicit
identification of lifelikeness as “the most alluring charm to the beholder” suggests that
this was a quality of works of art valued not only by intellectuals and artists, like Socrates
and Cleiton, but by all viewers in general.
The passage is additionally important, for it identifies constituent components of
the ancient Greek perception of lifelikeness in the visual arts. As Socrates explains,
faithful and accurate representation of the human body, even when affected by different
poses, is what Cleiton strove to produce in his statues, a characteristic which accords well
with Plato’s comment in the Critias on viewers’ low tolerance for inaccurate
representations of the human body in art [143]. This combined evidence establishes that
lifelikeness was a quality that both artists and viewers eagerly sought in works of art.
Also important in this passage is the fact that Socrates reveals an additional goal of
lifelikeness as an artistic concept: to represent accurately “the feelings that affect bodies
in action,” such as “the threatening look in the eyes of fighters” and “the triumphant
expression on the face of conquerors.” Such evidence is crucial, for it extends the
ancient Greek understanding of the goal of lifelikeness in the visual arts from accurate
representation of the forms of the human body to that of emotions, and more specifically
their facial expressions. Recent research on the psychology of emotions has shown that
they and their facial displays are culturally determined. 114 This notion highlights the need
113 For the verb e0nerga&zomai, see LSJ 9 , 563; for Halliwell’s remarks, see his discussion in “Plato and
Painting,” in Rutter and Sparkes, eds., Word and Image 102.
114 A. Wierzbicka, Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals (Cambridge and
Paris, 1999) 170: “as empirical-linguistic studies show, there are simply no emotional expressions (i.e.,
labels) interpreted the same way across cultures.” For an additional discussion of the idea of emotions as
culturally constructed on the basis of anthropological research, see C. A. Lutz, Unnatural Emotions:
Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory (Chicago, 1988); for a
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to consider the concept of lifelikeness in Greek art on the basis of the ancient Greek
understanding not only of form but also of inner emotional states. At the same time, the
fact that the exact representation of emotions in art created, according to Socrates, “a
sense of satisfaction in the spectator” is explicit indication of not only what was
considered convincing in art, but also how highly convincing ancient Greeks found their
art to be. This evidence contrasts sharply with the idea that dissatisfaction with
unconvincing images fueled the development of Greek naturalism, as asserted by Löwy,
Gombrich, and Boardman.
Of great importance in this passage is also the fact that lifelikeness is not
conflated with mimesis, but rather defined as a quality resulting from this process.
Socrates, for example, uses two cognates of mimesis: first, the word a)pomimei=sqai,
translated above as “exact imitation,” to talk about the representation of emotions that
affect bodies in action as lifelike and thus satisfying to the eye; and second, mimhte/a,
translated above as “imitated,” to exclaim that in order for a victorious figure to be
perceived as lifelike, its facial expression has to convey the emotion of victory. In both
cases, lifelikeness emerges as a quality of works of art directly dependent on represented
emotions. It is therefore to be understood as the result of a process of representation
(mimesis) rather than as the process itself. This evidence serves as a good reason to cast
doubt, for example, on Pollitt’s equation of mimesis with realism, and further suggests
that such an equation may not be as straightforward as previously thought. This function
along with the aforementioned traits of lifelikeness present Xenophon’s passage as a
study of emotions in ancient Greek culture, see D. Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in
Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto, 2006).
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valuable guide to the ancient interest in and understanding of this concept in Classical
Greek art.
Additional evidence regarding ancient interest, in this case of an ordinary viewer,
in the lifelike quality of works of art is seen in an anecdote recorded by Pliny. It refers to
the criticism leveled by a shoemaker at the inaccurate depiction of the sandals of a figure
in a painting by Apelles, an artist of the fourth century B.C.:
Another habit of his (Apelles) was when he had finished his works to place them
in a gallery in the view of passers by, and he himself stood out of sight behind the
picture and listened to hear what faults were noticed, rating the public as a more
observant critic than himself. And it is said that he was found fault with by a
shoemaker because in drawing a subject’s sandals he has represented the loops in
one of them as one too few, and the next day the same critic was so proud of the
artist’s correcting the fault indicated by his previous objection that he found fault
with the leg, but Apelles indignantly looked out from behind the picture and
rebuked him, saying that a shoemaker in his criticism must not go beyond the
sandal—a remark that has also passed into a proverb (Pliny, NH 35.85) [157].
The passage shows clearly that a detail such as “one too few” lace-holes in the rendering
of a figure’s sandal was enough of an inaccuracy to diminish the lifelike quality of
Apelles’ painting and thus cause negative criticism on the side of a viewer. 115 The
mention of such a response suggests that lifelikeness was a valued quality expected to be
seen in works of art. Also the acute attention to detail suggests that lifelikeness was
associated with accurate representation of objects from real life.
Turning to the viewer himself, the fact that he is a shoemaker establishes his
status as a layman. Lifelikeness thus emerges as a quality of works of art valued by
ordinary viewers, therefore, disconnected from the idea that only cultivated members of
society were interested in it. Additional support for this point derives from Pliny’s
assertion that Apelles—a famous painter—“rat[ed] the public as a more observant critic
115 For further discussion of this passage in connection with the concept of representational accountability,
see Donohue, The Problem of Description 199.
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than himself.” In addition, the fact that the viewer is a shoemaker, who criticizes the
representation of a sandal, indicates that his detection of Apelles’ “fault” was drawn from
good knowledge of real sandals. This evidence, in turn, implies that thorough knowledge
of what an artist was trying to depict at first place was a qualifying prerequisite for good
judgment of works of art.
The texts considered so far define lifelikeness as strong likeness to the
representational subjects of works of art, in particular accurate representation of form but
also emotions as expressed on the face. They also hint at another aspect of lifelikeness:
the experience of the image as if it were alive. Overall, the picture that emerges from
these texts speaks of lifelikeness as an artistic quality of Classical Greek representations
in both sculpture and painting, and valued by contemporary philosophers, artists, and the
general public. Therefore, all viewers, regardless of their degree of sophistication, judged
images by their lifelikeness. This evidence suggests that both intellectual and popular
reaction to the lifelikeness of art was alike in Classical Greece.
b. Ancient Texts on Animals as Lifelike Images and Judges of Lifelike Art
Animals play an important role in the Classical Greek understanding of the
concept of lifelikeness in art. This role, as featured in the literary record, is twofold:
animals appear as lifelike subjects of works of art, and also as judges of lifelike art.
Through their employment, animals demonstrate the ancient perception of artistic
lifelikeness in connection with two distinct notions: aliveness and accurate
representation. The following section presents literary evidence that exemplifies the
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importance of these notions in defining the Classical Greek concept of lifelikeness in art,
as well as the centrality of animals in conveying and maintaining this perception as such.
Animals as Lifelike Images in Art
A. Myron’s Cow
Ancient references to the early Classical sculptor Myron and his bronze cow
provide an example of the role of animals as lifelike subjects of works of art in antiquity.
More specifically, Myron’s cow is an example of the ancient Greek perception of
lifelikeness in art as aliveness. This sense of aliveness is consistently highlighted in the
31 epigrams from the Greek Anthology (9.713-9.742) focused solely on Myron’s bronze
cow. Two of them, attributed to Euenos, a fifth century B.C. philosopher and poet, are
the only contemporary evidence relating to the reception of the cow. The remaining
epigrams date from later periods; they underline the aliveness of the statue through
conceits of different types that are often conflicting in nature. Thus, in some epigrams,
the statue acts fantastically by talking directly to the viewer, whereas, in some others, acts
naturally, by lowing, going to the pasture, and even working in the field. The picture that
emerges, when combining these two types of conceits, may be seen as indicative of a
“magic realism” in connection with the lifelikeness of Myron’s bronze cow. Further, the
epigrams praise this quality of the statue by placing emphasis on a specific group of
viewers, who are well acquainted with the appearance of a cow, such as herdsmen and
animals (a calf, a bull), yet they are deceived into thinking that the statue is alive. This
evidence is crucial, for it provides a picture of animals not only as subjects of lifelike art,
but also as reliable guides to the judgment of lifelike art. The following sections discuss
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the epigrams in the order followed above, but, first, draw attention to another important
aspect of these poems.
The Conventional Nature of the Praise of Lifelike Works of Art
The epigrams, while focusing on the aliveness of Myron’s bronze cow, are not
only useful for highlighting the centrality of animals in connection with artistic
lifelikeness. They also provide evidence for the conventional nature of praise of lifelike
works of art in antiquity. The epigrams are not consistent regarding the identity and
appearance of Myron’s famous statue. Some of them, for example, identify the statue as
that of a cow (bou~j)—a mature female of a bovine animal—and, some others, as that of
a heifer, that is, a young cow that has not produced a calf (da&malij; boi/dion). Also, in
some epigrams, the statue announces that it is equipped with a yoke, whereas, in another,
it asks for one. This evidence indicates that the poems are variations of a basic theme,
Myron’s lifelike statue of a cow, but do not require any experience of the statue. All
epigrams, however, focus on placing high value on the lifelikeness of the statue, which
they perceive as aliveness. In view of this evidence, a cow or a heifer is presented as
utterly real, thus suggesting the importance of animals in connection with the ancient
Greek experience of lifelikeness in art.
Several epigrams give a sense of the inconsistency regarding the identity of
Myron’s statue. The following five are good examples of this situation:
Stranger, it was Myron who moulded this cow (bou~n),
on which this calf fawns as if it were alive, taking it for
its mother. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.733) [24]
The horned cow (bou~j) would have spoken, though
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made of bronze, if Myron had worked entrails inside it.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.727) [21]
The cow (bou~j), its mother, moulded this heifer (bou~n)
giving birth to it, but the hand of Myron did not mould
it, but gave birth to it.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.726) [20]
Myron pretended this heifer (boi/dion) to be the work
of his hands, but it was never formed in the mould,
but turned into bronze owing to old age.
(Anacreon, Anth. Pal. 9.716) [13]
Pass by the heifer (da&malin), cowherd, and whistle not
to her from afar. She is expecting her calf to suckle it.
(Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 9.722) [32]
All five epigrams underline the exceptional aliveness of the statue, by addressing the
viewer or reader directly. In the first epigram, an anonymous, it is made explicit that the
statue is that of a cow (“bou~n”); its lifelikeness is conveyed by stating that a calf
responded to it as if it were alive. In the second epigram, also anonymous, the statue is
again identified as a cow (“bou~j”) that is very close to being alive; it lacks only voice. In
the third anonymous epigram, the statue is again so alive and called “bou~n,” which one
would expect to mean “cow,” but W. R. Paton translates it as “heifer.” The poem also
uses the same term, bou~j, to refer to the mother of this “heifer,” which Paton rightly
translates as “cow.” 116 It is clear, therefore, that the inconsistency here refers to the
modern translation rather than the term used for identifying the statue, which once again
is perceived as if it were alive.
In the fourth epigram, perhaps by Anacreon, the statue is identified as a boi/dion.
The term is a diminutive of bou~j, literally a “little cow” or a “very young cow.” Paton
116 W. R. Paton, ed., tr., Greek Anthology III (London and New York, 1915, repr. 1925) 397.
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translates boi/dion as “heifer.” 117 The poet praises the perceived aliveness of the statue,
by noting that “it was never formed in a mould”; but his reference to it as one that has
been “turned into bronze owing to old age,” although it admits its inanimate status, does
not fit well with its identification as a heifer, that is, a young cow. Although the meaning
of this phrase remains unclear, the epigram is important, for it signals the beginning of
the variety of terms used for the identification of the statue by the poets.
Unlike the previous ones, the fifth epigram, by Antipater of Sidon, from the first
century B.C., refers to the statue as da&malin, which translates as “heifer.” The poet
instructs the viewer, a coward, to treat the heifer as a statue and not as a real animal,
while making reference to its aliveness. The heifer, by definition a young cow that has
not produced a calf, is described as a mother waiting for her calf to suckle it, thus
suggesting no attention to such a conflicting detail. Taken together, the evidence from
these epigrams indicates that they are different versions of a basic theme, and do not
depend on direct knowledge of the statue. Thus, whether the statue is a cow, a little cow,
or a heifer, is of no a concern to the poet; instead, what he focuses on is the praise of its
exceptional lifelikeness, which is perceived as aliveness.
Two further epigrams show that inconsistencies were not confined to the identity
of the statue, but extended also to its appearance, without, however, affecting the praise
of its conventionally assumed aliveness. Thus, in an epigram, by Philippus, dated to the
117 Paton, Greek Anthology III 395. Anacreon was a lyric poet of the late sixth and early fifth centuries
B.C., that is, earlier that Myron’s floruit. His work is known to have inspired a corpus of frivolous
imitations in and after the Hellenistic period (between the first century B.C. or A.D. and the fifth or sixth
century A.D.): M. L. West, “Anacreontea,” in S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical
Dictionary (third ed.; Oxford and New York, 1996) 80. The epigram may be part of this corpus.
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first century A.D., the statue presents itself with a yoke, whereas in another, by an
anonymous poet, asks for one:
Take off from my neck, husbandman, the collar,
and free me from the iron furrow-cutter; for Myron
did not make my bronze into flesh, but his art gave
me the aspect of being alive, so that often I even
wish to low. He did not, however, let me go to
work, but tied me to the base.
(Philippus, Anth. Pal. 9.742) [140]
Let someone attach me to the solid plough and
put a yoke on my neck, for as far as depends on
thy art, Myron, I will plough.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.729) [22]
In both epigrams, the statue speaks to the viewer directly. In both, the statue presents
itself, as if it were alive, by acting both as a speaking object and an animal. In the first,
the statue commands the viewer or reader, who is a husbandman, to free it from its yoke,
emphasizing, therefore, an attribute of its appearance; it also attributes its aliveness to
Myron, and announces its placement on a base, thus admitting its reality as a work of art,
while declaring its wish to act naturally, namely, to low. In this way, the epigram blurs
the line between image and reality. The same situation is seen in the second epigram,
where the statue identifies itself as a work of Myron, while addressing him directly, as if
it were alive. The statue declares its aliveness by asking Myron to place a yoke on its
neck. Its image, therefore, contrasts with that of the yoked animal it was shown to be in
the first epigram. This evidence suggests that details, such as the presence or absence of
a yoke, were variations of the basic subject that Myron’s statue was thought to represent,
and did not affect the high value placed on the lifelikeness of the statue, which was
conceived as aliveness. Several epigrams, therefore, that celebrate Myron’s cow offer a
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useful insight into the conventional nature of the praise of lifelike works of art in
antiquity.
The Epigrams of Euenos of Paros
As mentioned above, two epigrams by Euenos of Paros, very probably dating to
the fifth century B.C., are important because they are the only almost contemporary
evidence for the reception of Myron’s bronze statue. The epigrams praise the sense of
aliveness associated with the statue, which is identified as a cow and a heifer
respectively:
Either a complete hide of bronze clothes here a
real cow (boi6), or the bronze has a soul inside it
(yuxh_n e1ndon). (Euenos, Anth. Pal. 9.717) [92]
Perhaps Myron himself will say this: “I did not
mould this heifer (ta_n da&malin), but its image."
(Euenos, Anth. Pal. 9.718) [93]
In the first epigram, Myron is not mentioned, but it is made explicit that the lifelikeness
of the bronze cow described is astonishing. The viewer or the reader is told that the
bronze is only a cover that hides the real animal underneath, implying, therefore, the
perception of the statue as if it were alive. Similarly, the reference to bronze as a material
with a soul invites the perception of the statue as fully animated, and thus as if it were
alive, again. 118 It is interesting to see that another epigram, an anonymous, advertises the
118 This line of thought accords well with Plato’s assertion, in the Cratylus (400a), that the soul is a power,
which when present in the body, it causes it to live and gives it power to breathe the air and be revitalized.
For a discussion of animated images in ancient Greece, see also A. Schnapp, “Are Images Animated: The
Psychology of the Statues in Ancient Greece,” in C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow, eds., The Ancient
Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology (Cambridge, 1994) 40-44. Also, for a discussion of the notion of
a)yuxi/a (“absence of soul”) and inanimate images in antiquity, and as a topos of iconoclastic polemic, see
Donohue, Xoana 40-41, 135, 138n, 155, 161.
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lifelikeness of the statue, in quite the opposite way: by treating the absence of a soul in it,
as the only trait that separates it from a living animal:
Alack! Myron, thou didst not have time to
complete thy casting, but the bronze hardened
before thou couldst put life (yuxh_n) into it.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.736) [26]
In the second epigram by Euenos, which identifies the statue as a heifer, the
sense of extreme aliveness is contained in Myron’s hypothetical explanation that this is
not a real animal, but an image of it. Myron’s distinction between the living heifer
(subject) and its image is not consistent with fifth-century thought on images in art,
which is often marked by the absence of a distinction between representational subject
and image. 119 That he is hypothetically compelled to draw such a distinction, however,
presents his deviation from an ordinary approach to art as a technique to explain the
extraordinary lifelikeness of his statue. Both epigrams are typical examples of the
inconsistency regarding the identity of Myron’s statue and its oscillation between a cow
and a heifer; both establish the experience of lifelikeness and its equation with aliveness
as a fifth-century phenomenon in Greek animal art.
The Statue Acts Fantastically
As noted earlier and also seen in the poem of Philippus, some epigrams preserve
instances in which the statue acts fantastically by speaking directly to the viewer.
Epigrams of this type are explicit in their use of the first person and the presentation of
the statue as both a “speaking object” and a “speaking animal.” They address both
119 See discussion in the fourth chapter of this study with reference to examples from Herodotus, and the
building inscriptions of the Erechtheion; also Donohue, Xoana , for the absence of distinction between
image and subject, and 23, for the importance of the idea of image as an object; also R. L. Gordon, “The
Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World,” Art History 2 (1979) 9-10.
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anonymous and specific viewers, such as Myron and herdsmen, and indicate that the
viewer is aware that this is a speaking image of an animal.
In the earliest of these epigrams, which is attributed to Leonidas of Tarentum and
dates to the third century B.C., Myron’s statue directly addresses an unidentified viewer:
Myron did not mould me; he lied; but driving
me from the herd where I was feeding, he fixed me
to a stone base. (Leonidas, Anth. Pal. 9.719) [131]
The epigram contains the fiction of the statue speaking as though it were alive. By using
the voice of the viewer, who is simultaneously a reader of the epigram, the statue
establishes itself as a speaking object, crossing, therefore, two boundaries at once: that of
a lifeless object, and that of a speechless animal. 120 In this way, it presents itself as if it
were super alive. The statue explains the reason it is alive: Myron took it from its herd,
where it was feeding, thus acting naturally, and placed it on a base. The statue announces
its aliveness while acknowledging its status as a work of art. The boundary between
reality and image appears to be freely crossed, and the viewer or reader is fully aware of
it.
The speaking statue further announces its aliveness in a set of five epigrams, in
which it addresses viewers, among them Myron and a herdsman, directly:
If Myron had not fixed my feet to this stone I
would have gone to pasture with the other cows.
(Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 9.720) [30]
The lead and stone hold me fast, but, otherwise,
thanks to thee, sculptor Myron, I would be nibbling
lotus and rushes. (Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 9.723) [33]
Why, Myron, didst thou set me here by the altars?
120 For a discussion of the metaphor of the speaking object through the voice of the reader in connection
with dedicatory inscriptions, including epigrams, on statues in ancient Greece, see Svenbro, Phrasikleia 49-
63.
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Wilt thou not lead me into the house?
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.714) [17]
The first epigram, by Antipater of Sidon, dates to the first century B.C., and contains an
explanation: the speaking cow is alive, but, at the same time, fixed on a stone, therefore,
motionless. The statue, therefore, invites the viewer to experience it as a living animal
naturally found among other cows, while marking its status as a work of sculpture made
by Myron. Again, the poem presents a case of dissolution of the boundary between
reality and image, and the viewer’s awareness of it. In the second epigram, also by
Antipater, the statue directly addresses Myron by blaming him for its fixed location. The
statue states that were it not for this condition, it would have been able to feed, and thus
act as a living animal. The statue announces its inanimate status as Myron’s work of art,
while highlighting its apparent aliveness. In the third epigram, an anonymous, the statue
questions Myron directly. By specifying its set-up location by the altars, in the first
question, the statue identifies itself as a work of art, while its complain about not being
inside the house, in the second question, implies its wish to be treated as a living animal,
thus advertising its aliveness.
In the fourth epigram, attributed to Marcus Argentarius, and dating from the first
century B.C., the statue again addresses an unidentified viewer directly, as if it were a
living, speaking animal, while pinpointing its status as a work of art:
Stranger, if thou seest my herdsman, give him
this message, that the sculptor Myron tied me up here.
(Marcus Argentarius, Anth. Pal. 9.732) [133]
The speaking statue declares confidently its aliveness by asking the viewer a favor: to
inform its herdsman about its being tied up by Myron at a spot. In this way, the statue
implies that it could move as a living animal, were it not for its status as a work of art.
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Again the line between reality and image is blurred, while the viewer is aware of his
viewing an inanimate work of art.
Written as though it came from the base of the statue, the fifth epigram, an
anonymous, has Myron’s statue saying:
I am Myron’s little heifer, set up on a base. Goad
me, herdsman, and drive me off to the herd.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.713) [16]
The statue speaks to the viewer, a herdsman, directly by declaring its identity, creator,
and status as a lifeless object. By using the voice of the viewer, as was the case earlier,
the statue establishes itself neither as a lifeless object nor as a speechless animal, but,
instead, as if it were alive. The impression of aliveness is further reinforced by the use of
the first person, which blurs the line between image and reality, and also by the fact that
the statue addresses the viewer in the imperative and urges him to perform two specific
acts: goad it and drive it off to the herd. In this way, the viewer is invited to interact with
Myron’s statue as if it were a living heifer. This is evidence of a play between the viewer
and the statue. At the same time, the fact that the statue identifies its placement as “on a
base” serves to demonstrate that the viewer is aware of its motionless status as a work of
sculpture. This evidence indicates that animals were lifelike subjects of works of art,
which viewers experienced as living, while maintaining awareness of the fact that they
were viewing art.
The Statue Acts Naturally
Unlike the epigrams in which Myron’s statue acts fantastically by speaking, some
other epigrams preserve instances, in which the statue acts “naturally,” that is to say, how
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a real animal might act in the real world. As with the conceit of the speaking cow, these
epigrams rely also on conceits in order to convey the exceptional or conventionally
assumed lifelikeness of the statue.
A set of four epigrams, two by Antipater of Sidon, one by Geminus, and another,
an anonymous, conceive of Myron’s bronze cow as being alive, by noting that the animal
acts or will act naturally. The two epigrams, attributed to Antipater, and dated to the first
century B.C., address Myron and an unidentified viewer respectively:
I think the heifer will low. Of a truth it is not
Prometheus alone who moulds living creatures,
but thou too, Myron.
(Antipater, Anth. Pal. 9.724) [34]
The heifer, I think, will low, and if its delays it
is the fault of the senseless bronze, not Myron’s.
(Antipater, Anth. Pal. 9.728) [35]
In the first epigram, Antipater presents himself as a viewer of Myron’s heifer (not cow,
thus offering another example of the inconsistent identity of the statue in the epigrams).
Antipater states, first, that the animal will low, thus conveying his impression of it as
behaving naturally, and, in turn, as if it were alive. That the heifer is actually a statue
becomes apparent as the poet proceeds to identify Myron as its creator. By comparing
him to Prometheus, Antipater marks Myron’s skill in creating exceptionally lifelike
works of art, thus explaining his previous conception of the statue as a living heifer. By
highlighting the perceived equivalence of art and life, the epigram sheds light onto both
the ancient concept of the “artist,” and also onto aliveness as the utmost level of the
lifelikeness of works of art in antiquity. In the second epigram, the poet again conceives
of the statue as a heifer that acts naturally, by lowing, and thus as if it were alive. He
again underlines Myron’s exceptional skill in creating lifelike works of art. In fact, he
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anks this artist’s skill higher than the capacity of the bronze used for the creation of the
statue. The poet holds the use of bronze responsible for delaying his impression that the
statue will low. 121 His comment reveals a positive attitude towards bronze as a suitable
material for lifelike art perceived as alive. His reference to bronze as “senseless,”
acknowledges the status of the heifer as an inanimate object, and further notes his
awareness that he is looking at art and not “life.”
The third epigram, by Geminus, also from the first century B.C., contains the
same praise of the aliveness the statue as the epigrams attributed to Antipater. The poet
addresses the viewer directly, by noting that the heifer acts naturally:
It is the base to which it is attached that keeps
back the heifer, and if freed from it will run off
to the herd. For the bronze lows. See how much
alive the artist made it. If you yoke a fellow to it,
perhaps it will plough.
(Geminus, Anth. Pal. 9.740) [95]
The heifer is acknowledged as a statue fixed on a base; yet if freed, the heifer will run off
to its herd, and if yoked to another animal, will plough. Again, the boundary between art
and reality is freely crossed here, without any concern on the side of Geminus, who acts
here as both a viewer and a narrator. He further states, like Antipater above, that the
bronze lows. He is aware that this is lifeless art, but allows himself to imagine that the
heifer behaves naturally as if it were alive. His comment reveals a positive attitude
towards bronze as a suitable material for lifelike art that is consciously equated here with
“reality.” Further, his remark that the artist of the heifer made it to look alive suggests
that lifelikeness was thought to result from the skill of the artist combined with the use of
bronze.
121
Pliny (NH 34.5.10) states that Myron used Aeginetan bronze, which he ranks second in fame after that
of Corinth.
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The fourth epigram, an anonymous, also praises the aliveness of the statue by
drawing attention to its natural behavior. In it, the poet exclaims that:
The cow has just returned from plowing, and
owing to that is lazy and will not advance.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.721A) [18]
The statue is identified as that of a cow, and is described as acting naturally. The viewer
is told that the cow is lazy and immobile owing to its employment in plowing. The
implication is that the cow is a tired, laboring animal; as such, it remains fixed at a spot
like an inanimate work of art. The epigram plays with the viewer’s awareness of the fact
that he is looking at a lifeless cow.
The Deception of Herdsmen
Further evidence for the exceptional lifelikeness of Myron’s statue and its
conception as alive comes from a set of epigrams, in which the statue is viewed by
herdsmen, that is, persons well acquainted with the appearance and behavior of a cow in
real life; yet they are deceived into thinking that the statue is a living cow.
In the first epigram, an anonymous, the statue says:
Myron placed me the heifer, here, but the herds-
men throw stones at me thinking I have strayed.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.731) [23]
The statue addresses the viewer directly, and through the use of the first person, identifies
itself as a heifer. The statue blames Myron for its placement at a spot, thus suggesting its
reality as a fixed object, and the viewer’s awareness of that fact. The statue
communicates to the viewer that herdsmen throw stones at it, a statement which
advertises its treatment as a living heifer. The conceit of the speaking animal urges the
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viewer to put himself in the place of a herdsman too young or foolish not to recognize a
statue, yet the identification of passersby as herdsmen implies their good knowledge of
the appearance and behavior of real heifers, a fact, which serves to demonstrate the
heightened sense of aliveness conveyed by the statue. Like the previous ones, this
epigram shows the centrality of animals in viewers’ perceiving lifelikeness in art as
aliveness while maintaining awareness of looking at art.
The second epigram, perhaps by Anacreon, praises the aliveness of the statue by
urging a herdsman not to mix its herd with Myron’s heifer. The poet fears that, despite
his knowledge of cows, not even a herdsman will be able to distinguish the bronze heifer
from a real one:
Herdsman, pasture thy herd far from here, lest
taking Myron’s heifer to be alive thou drive it off
with the rest. (Anacreon (?), Anth. Pal. 9.715) [12]
The third epigram, an anonymous, has the poet again urging a herdsman to stop
treating Myron’s bronze heifer as if it were alive:
Thou strikest the bronze heifer. Art deceived
thee much, herdsman: Myron did not add life.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.737) [27]
The poet informs a herdsman that he has been deceived into believing that
Myron’s bronze heifer is alive. The poet notes the response of the deceived herdsman to
the statue: striking it as if it were a living cow, while stating, at the same time, that this is
a work of art made by Myron. Further, by noting the punishment of the bronze statue, the
epigram indicates that animal subjects were parts of the general body of thought and
literary conceits and practices.
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In the fourth epigram, also an anonymous, the poet addresses the statue directly
by marking its treatment by a husbandman as if it were a living, laboring cow:
Thou wast bronze, deceptive heifer, and the
husbandman came up to thee dragging a plough
and carrying a yoke. He far excels all other artists,
Myron, who by his labour made thee alive, just like
a labouring cow. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.741) [28]
The poet attributes the perceived aliveness of the statue to Myron himself while showing
his awareness that it is a work of art made by Myron. The poet notes the deception of a
husbandman by identifying his response to the statue as if it were alive: he carried a
plough and a yoke to it.
Another epigram, by Julian, Prefect of Egypt, dating probably from the sixth
century A.D., charges not only herdsmen, but also a gadfly with a mistaken reaction to
the statue. The poet addresses the gadfly directly:
Myron deceived thee too, gadfly, that thou plungest
thy sting into the hard flanks of the bronze cow.
But the gadfly is excusable. What wonder! when
Myron deceived even the eyes of the herdsmen.
(Julian, Prefect of Egypt, Anth. Pal. 9.739). [130]
The gadfly tries to sting the bronze cow; it responds to it as if it were alive. The behavior
of the gadfly speaks of the lifelikeness of the statue while indicating that non-human
creatures were used as guides to lifelikeness in art. Of interest is that the poet marks the
gadfly’s perception of this cow as a living animal as “excusable.” His wording implies
that insects were considered creatures of limited cognitive capacity, and thus the
deception of a gadfly comes as no surprise to him. Such a line of thinking expands
Plato’s category of viewers easily deceived by the lifelikeness of art. The fact, however,
that Myron “deceived even the eyes of the herdsmen,” that is, human beings with
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intimate knowledge of a real cow, therefore twice as difficult to fool, speaks volumes of
the exceptional lifelikeness of his statue of a cow. This impression is further
strengthened by an anonymous epigram, in which, Myron himself comes close to being
fooled by the statue:
Myron was looking for his own cow among the
others, and found it with difficulty by driving the
rest away. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.725) [19]
The evidence from these epigrams indicates the conception of Myron’s cow as an
exceptionally lifelike statue capable of making even herdsmen, who know very well how
a real cow looks like, perceive it as if it were alive. In this way, lifelikeness again
emerges as a valued quality of works of art, which in its extreme form was perceived as
aliveness, and one in whose expression Myron’s statue played an important role.
The Deception of a Calf
Herdsmen and a gadfly are not the only viewers whose deception the poems note.
A set of three epigrams, one by Antipater of Sidon, and two other, anonymous, note that a
calf was also deceived into thinking that Myron’s statue was alive. In the first epigram,
the statue asks the calf:
Calf, why dost thou approach my flanks, and why
doast thou low? The artist put no milk in my udder.
(Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 9.721) [31]
Through the voice of the viewer or the reader, the statue addresses a calf in the vocative.
The statue asks the calf, a younger fellow animal, why it responds to it as if it were alive:
why it approaches its flanks, and lows. The calf remains silent, and the statue proceeds to
explain its status as a work of art and its lack of milk. The calf, therefore, appears to have
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mistaken a bronze cow for a real one, and seemingly for a mature one from which it can
suckle. This evidence heightens the sense of aliveness conveyed by the statue; it shows
that animals were subjects of lifelike art, while portraying animals, along with the gadfly,
as trustworthy judges of the lifelikeness of art, in particular animal sculpture. In addition,
the fact that the viewer is a calf, that is, a young animal, which perceives the statue of a
mature fellow animal as living, brings immediately to mind Plato’s earlier remark that
children were among those individuals easily deceived by the lifelikeness of art.
In the second epigram, an anonymous, (and already discussed for its reference to
the statue as a cow), the poet addresses the viewer directly:
Stranger, it was Myron who moulded this cow, on
which this calf fawns as if it were alive, taking it for
its mother. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.733) [24]
In the epigram, the poet addresses an unidentified viewer. He notes the response of a calf
to the statue as if it were a living animal explicitly identified here as a cow. The viewer is
further told that the calf was deceived into thinking of the statue as its own mother. The
reader is made aware that this is a work of art.
In the third epigram, also anonymous, the poet addresses Myron directly:
A calf died beside thy heifer, Myron, deceived
into thinking that the bronze had milk inside.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.735) [25]
The poet identifies Myron’s statue as that of a heifer. He establishes the deceptive power
of the statue over the calf, by stating that the latter died beside the former. Again, the
reader is made aware that this is a work of art.
In all three epigrams, an animal identified as a calf mistakes a lifeless cow for a
real one, thus establishing the exceptional lifelikeness of the statue. This evidence
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indicates that animals did not only serve as lifelike subjects of works of art, but also as
judges of the lifelikeness of art.
The Deception of a Bull
A calf is not the only example of an animal deceived by the lifelikeness of
Myron’s cow. The epigrams also refer to a bull, an adult animal, as being fooled into
thinking that this is a real cow. In an epigram by Dioscorides, who was active in the third
century B.C., a bull is told that it has been deceived; its behavior towards the statue,
(called here a heifer), as if it were alive is pointless, for this is a work of art:
In vain, bull, thou rushest up to this heifer, for it
is lifeless. The sculptor of cows, Myron, deceived thee.
(Dioscorides, Anth. Pal. 9.734) [83]
It is interesting that, in this epigram, a bull reacts to Myron’s heifer as if it were alive. It
seems that the poet wants to stress the exceptional lifelikeness of the statue by pointing
out that even a mature animal with thorough knowledge of a heifer could mistake the
statue for a real animal. This evidence indicates an underlying perception of animals on
the side of the poet: as guides to lifelikeness in art. Thus, if an animal like a bull can be
deceived into believing a lifeless heifer to be real, then the exceptional lifelikeness of
Myron’s statue is established beyond doubt.
In another epigram, by Demetrius of Bithynia, who may have lived in the second
century B.C., a bull again features as an animal deceived by the lifelikeness of Myron’s
statue. The later speaks directly to the viewer:
If a calf sees me, it will low; a bull will mount
me, and the herdsman drive me to the herd.
(Demetrius of Bithynia, Anth. Pal. 9.730) [80]
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The statue proclaims its lifelikeness by identifying its treatment as alive not only by a
bull, but also by a calf and a herdsman, thus adding nothing new to the already
established categories of viewers who have been deceived. Like the previous ones, this
epigram points to viewers who share a common element: thorough knowledge of a cow’s
appearance. Viewed against Plato’s explicit assertion that good knowledge of what is
tried to be represented in art is a necessary criterion for good judgment of art, animals
emerge here as qualified judges of art. 122 In fact, by identifying cognition as a visual
(sensory) experience in which both animals and humans partake alike, the epigrams place
two otherwise distinct categories of living beings on the same qualitative level as
connoisseurs of lifelikeness in art. In this way, animals emerge as reliable guides to the
ancient Greek judgment of lifelikeness in art. If they can be deceived, however, then,
Myron’s statue has surpassed any standard of lifelikeness, and can, therefore, be easily
seen as rivaling nature. This idea is exemplified by an epigram, by Julian, Prefect of
Egypt, probably from the sixth century A.D., that states the following:
Nature and Queen Art strove in the matter of
this cow, and Myron gave to each a prize of equal
value. When one looks at it Art robs nature of
her superiority, but when one touches it Nature is nature.
(Julian, Prefect of Egypt, Anth. Pal. 9.738) [129]
The poet refers to Myron’s cow as the balanced outcome of a struggle between nature
and art, that is, between reality and image. His statement, although it may be
exaggerated, indicates belief in the statue of the cow to be real, when viewing it, while
maintaining awareness, through touching it, of its artificiality as an image. Sight and
122 This evidence fits well with Plato’s, already discussed, remark, in the Critias (107b-107e) that in order
to be able to judge art well, one needs to have intimate knowledge of what the artist tried to represent [143].
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touch are perceived here as rival senses. At the same time, they provide an example of
the experience of lifelike art: it was not only viewed, but also touched.
The picture that emerges from the epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology,
stresses the exceptional lifelikeness of Myron’s cow and its effect on viewers. By
implying an appreciation of animal cognition of natural forms, the epigrams present the
ancient view of animals as reliable judges of art that aimed at reproducing these forms,
therefore, of lifelikeness. The fact that Myron’s cow was so exceptionally lifelike that
succeeded in making animals think it as alive presents animals as a standard of evaluation
of images in which artistic skill competed with nature in its capacity to create life, and in
fact, succeeded in deceiving the eye that it did so. Simply put, by assuming the role of
reliable guides to lifelikeness in art, animals validate the deceptive capacity of art.
B. The Ox of Apelles
The link between animal representations and lifelikeness is also witnessed in a
third-century text—the fourth Mime of Herodas. In this text, reference to the perception
of a statue of an ox as if it were alive provides another example of the centrality of
animals in the ancient perception of artistic lifelikeness as aliveness. The main characters
of the mime are two women, Phile and Kynno, who, as visitors to the temple of
Asklepios at Cos, comment upon the various works of art they see:
PHILE. Don’t you see, dear Kynno, what works are here! You would say
that Athene carved these lovely thing—greetings, Lady. This naked
boy, I scratched him, won’t he have a wound, Kynno? For the flesh is
laid on him in the painting, pulsing like warm springs. And the silver
fire-tongs, if Myellos or Pataekiskos son of Lamprion sees them, won’t
they lose their eyes thinking they are really made of silver? And the ox,
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and the man leading it, and the woman following, and this hook-nosed
man and the one with his hair sticking up, don’t they all have the look of
life and day? If I don’t think I was acting too boldly for a woman, I
should have cried out, in case the ox might do some harm: he glances
sideways so, Kynno with the one eye.
KYNNO. Yes, Phile, the hands of the Ephesian Apelles are truthful in
every line, nor would you say ‘That man looked at one thing but rejected
another,’ but whatever came into his mind he was quick and eager to
attempt; and anyone who has looked on him or his works without just
excitement ought to hang by the foot in the fuller’s house.
(Herodas, Mime 4, 56-78) [96]
Like the ordinary viewers of Myron’s cow, the women in Herodas Mime view the painted
image of an ox, among others, as if it were alive, while they are aware of the fact that
they are looking at art. The reality of the image is evidenced in Phile’s question to
Kynno: “don’t they have all the look of life and day?” The perceived aliveness of the ox
is contained in Phile’s interpretation of its glance sideways, which she interprets as a
harbinger of a potentially harmful action on the side of the animal. Of particular interest
is also her reference to the specific emotional reaction that such a glance could have
elicited from her: “If I did not think I was acting too boldly for a woman, I should have
cried out, in case the ox might do some harm: he glances sideways so, Kynno with the
one eye.” This statement indicates that, when employed as representational subjects,
animals turned lifelikeness into a quality of art that allowed the viewer to dissolve the
boundary between reality and image, a characteristic also seen earlier, and to also form an
emotional response to art. Animal images, therefore, show that artistic lifelikeness was
evaluated on the basis of the emotions it elicited from viewers. In this case, what keeps
Phile from crying out loud, when looking at the ox, is the belief that this is inappropriate
behavior for a woman, but otherwise a normal mode of responding to lifelike art.
Although not referring to animals, the capacity of lifelike art to trigger an emotional
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eaction in the viewer is also witnessed in Kynno’s identification of the artist as Apelles
and her statement that: “Anyone who has looked on him or his works without just
excitement ought to hang by the foot in the fuller’s house.” In addition, her designation
of the hands of Apelles as “truthful in every line,” implies that accuracy (fidelity to
natural form) was a constituent element of lifelikeness in art. Overall, the dialogue
between Phile and Kynno indicates that animals offer a useful insight onto the Greek
understanding of lifelikeness in art as aliveness and representational accuracy, and also as
a criterion of works of art dependent upon the viewers’ emotional response to it.
C. Funerary Statues of Animals
The central role of animal images in the perception of lifelikeness in art as
aliveness is further demonstrated by funerary epigrams, both inscriptional and literary, in
which animal subjects represented in funerary statues, are given voice and engage in
direct conversation with the viewer. An early example of this form is an inscribed
epigram that was found at Demetrias in Thessaly and dates to the early fifth century B.C.
Fragmentary and inscribed on the base of a sphinx, the epigram preserves the following
dialogue between the sphinx and the viewer (Fig. 4):
A: O Sphinx, dog of Hades, whom do you…watch over,
sitting [on guard over] the dead?
B: Xe[nocrates’ tomb this is…]. [79] 123
In this epigram, the viewer asks the sphinx a question and the statue answers as if it were
alive. By reading the epigram, the viewer lends his or her voice to the sphinx. The
viewer is aware of the lifeless status of the sphinx, but as the latter speaks through its
123 P. Friedländer and H. B. Hoffleit, Epigrammata. Greek Inscriptions in Verse. From the Beginnings to
the Persian Wars (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984) 129, no. 139A.
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orrowed voice, the boundary between art and reality dissolves; as a result, lifelikeness in
art is experienced as aliveness.
The same association between animal images and aliveness is also found in three
literary epigrams from the Greek Anthology which are also composed in the dialogue
form. The first is an anonymous epigram that records an exchange of questions and
answers between the image of an eagle on the tomb of Plato and the viewer:
A: Eagle, why standest thou on the tomb, and on whose, tell me, and
why gazest thou at the starry home of the gods?
B: I am the image of the soul of Plato that hath flown away to
Olympus, but his earth-born body rests here in Attic earth.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 7.62) [14]
As in the previous epigram, the eagle speaks through the voice of the viewer as if it were
alive. It also explains its function as an image: a substitute for the soul of Plato. Again
the line between life and art is freely crossed, a type of action that permits the statue of
the eagle to be seen as lifelike and treated as if it were alive. The second epigram by
Antipater of Sidon from the first century B.C. contains a dialogue between a viewer and a
sculptured lion:
A: Tell, lion, thou slayer of kine, on whose tomb thou standest there
and who was worthy of thy valour?
B: Teleutias, the son of Theodorus, who was far most valiant of
men, as I am judged to be of beasts. Not in vain stand I here, but
I emblem the prowess of the man, for he was indeed a lion to his
enemies. (Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 7.426) [29]
Like the funerary images of the sphinx and the eagle in the above epigrams, the lion of
this epigram engages in direct conversation with the viewer by using his or her voice and
answers as if it were alive. As such, it blurs the line between a sculptured and a living
animal, thus between art and “reality.” Like the eagle above, the lion responds to the
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question of the viewer and explains the reason for its placement on the tomb: as a symbol
of the courage of the dead. 124 The third epigram, which is anonymous, contains a similar,
but lengthier, conversation between a viewer and the statue of a dog:
A: Tell me, dog, who was the man on whose tomb thou standest
keeping guard?
B: The Dog.
A: But what man was that, the Dog?
B: Diogenes.
A: Of what country?
B: Of Sinope.
A: He who lived in a jar?
B: Yes, and now he is dead, the stars are his home.
(Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 7.64) [15]
In this epigram, the dog speaks through the voice of the viewer as if it were alive. It
identifies the deceased interred in the tomb: the philosopher Diogenes. In this respect, it
is reminiscent of the epigram with the Sphinx on Xenocrates’ tomb.
In these epigraphical and literary epigrams, animal representations and viewers
participate in a form of a dialogue that is composed of questions and answers. The
viewer poses questions to the animal subject which, in turn, uses his or her voice in order
to answer back. As a result, the animal speaks to the viewer as if it were alive, while the
latter is aware of the fact that he or she is speaking to a work of art. In this way, the
124 A lion is also depicted on a grave stele found in the Athenian Kerameikos and dated to the third or
second centuries B.C. The lion attacks the corpse of the diseased, whom a bilingual (Greek, Phoenician)
epitaph identifies as Antipater of Ashkelon. A six-line Greek epigram below the image of the attacking
lion, cast in the voice of the dead man, mentions that “the hateful lion came, wishing to destroy my things.”
For a discussion of these stele, its epitaph, imagery, and epigram, see J. M. S. Stager, “‘Let No One
Wonder at This Image,’ A Phoenician Funerary Stele in Athens,” Hesperia 74 (2005) 427-449.
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oundary between lifeless art and reality appears to be easily crossed. These inscriptions
indicate that what sustained the perceived aliveness of animals, when used as subjects of
works of art, was their furnishing with a voice through an interactive encounter with the
viewer.
Defined as aliveness, the lifelikeness of animal representations in art is further
demonstrated by an epigram, by Macedonius the Consul, dated to the first century A.D.
and preserved in the Greek Anthology:
This dog trained in every kind of hunting, was carved by Leucon, and
dedicated by Alcimenes. Alcimenes had no fault to find, but when he saw
the statue resembling the dog in every feature he came up to it, with a collar,
bidding Leucon to order the dog to walk, for as it looked to be barking, it
persuaded him it could walk too.
(Macedonius the Consul, Anth. Pal. 6.175) [132]
In this epigram, Alcimenes, a viewer, like Herodas’ Phile and Kynno, behaves toward the
statue of a dog as if it were alive. Like the herdsman of Myron’s cow who wanted to put
a yoke on his neck, Alcimenes wants to put a collar on Leucon’s dog. Like the viewers
of Myron’s cow who thought that the statue was ready to low and run off, Alcimenes is
persuaded that this dog is ready to walk and bark. It is the visual impression of potential
movement that forces Alcimenes to believe that this is a living dog, dissolving therefore
the idea of it as a lifeless image and allowing its experience as a real animal. This
evidence suggests that lifelikeness was again perceived as aliveness. The fact, however,
that Alcimenes was aware of looking at a work of art is sustained by the statements that
he could find “no fault” in the appearance of the lifeless statue, and that the latter
resembled a living dog “in every feature.” Both statements suggest that accurate
reproduction of (or representational fidelity to) a prototype was another way in which
lifelikeness in art was valued.
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The evidence from the texts cited demonstrates that animals, when featured as
subjects of works of art, were intimately connected with the concept of lifelikeness. In
fact, animals provide the ancient definition of this concept as accurate reproduction of
physical form and a sense of aliveness which allowed the viewer to cross freely the
boundary between art and reality and created the impression that the animal subject had
the ability to speak and in some cases even move. In light of this evidence, animals
provide a useful insight into the ancient Greek understanding of the lifelikeness of works
of art. This exceptional role of animals in the realm of artistic lifelikeness in ancient
Greece is also found in their featuring as judges of lifelike works of art.
Animals as Judges of Lifelikeness of Works of Art
The case of animals—a part of the natural world—as judges of lifelike works of
art is indicative of a very particular approach to art itself: as an artificial man-made
construction, but, at the same time, one accepted as natural even by nature itself. The
most interesting and most familiar attestation to animals as judges of artistic lifelikeness
occurs in Pliny’s account of a competition between two fourth-century painters, Zeuxis
and Parrhasius:
His [Zeuxis’] contemporaries and rivals were Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus
and Parrhasius. This last it, is recorded, entered into a competition with Zeuxis,
who produced a picture of grapes so successfully represented that birds flew up to
the stage-buildings; whereupon Parrhasius himself produced such a realistic
picture of a curtain that Zeuxis, proud of the verdict of the birds, requested that
the curtain should now be drawn and the picture displayed; and when he realized
his mistake, with a modesty that did him honor he yielded up the prize, saying
that whereas he had deceived birds Parrhasius had deceived him, an artist. It is
said that Zeuxis also subsequently painted a Child Carrying Grapes, and when
birds flew to the fruit with the same frankness as before he strode up to the picture
in anger with it and said, “I have painted the grapes better than the child, as if I
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had made a success of that as well, the birds would inevitably have been afraid of
it.” (NH 35.65-35.66) [156]
The story recorded in this passage indicates that ancient art indeed aimed at deceiving
viewers by presenting them with highly effective lifelike images. Scholars like
Gombrich, Pollitt, and Froma Zeitlin, among others, for example, argue in favor of this
interpretation. 125 Furthermore, W. J. T. Mitchell incorporates Pliny’s story into his
discussion of artistic illusion and deception, and their effects on animal and human
viewers respectively. 126 Of interest is his view of illusion and deception as exclusively
human faculties that are “deeply interwoven with structures of power,” and of animals as
succumbing to these powers. 127 Regarding the difference in judgment between non-
human and human viewers, it resides, he says, in that the birds are “taken in” by the
visible, man-made lure—the grapes—whereas Zeuxis “takes himself in” by what remains
hidden behind the curtain—also a man-made lure. In other words, animals respond only
to something they can see, as if it were real, whereas humans are consciously drawn to
125 See Rusnak, “The Active Spectator” 119, n. 310, who cites Gombrich, Art and Illusion 11; Pollitt,
Ancient View 63-64, F. J. Zeitlin, “The Artful Eye: Vision, Ecphrasis and Spectacle in Euripidean Theatre,”
in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne, eds., Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge and New York,
1994) 151-152, and also J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan
World to Christianity (Cambridge and New York, 1995) 47, and C. Mango, “Antique Statuary and the
Byzantine Beholder,” DOP 17 (1963) 64.
126 W. J. T. Mitchell, “Illusion: Looking at Animals Looking,” in W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays
on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago and London, 1994) 335.
127 Quotation: Mitchell, “Illusion” 333; also 334, where he explains that: “Th[e] moment [when the animal
is caught in the act of looking at man-made illusions and responding to them as if it were alive and natural]
provides humanity with a double revelation and reassurance—that human representations are true, accurate,
and natural (the animals “agree” and “comprehend” them of their own accord), and that human power over
others is secured by mastery of representations (the animals are forced to agree, not of their own accord,
but automatically).” It has been a commonplace of animal cognitive studies, nowadays, that the ability to
imitate and deceive is not exclusively human. Parrots can imitate arbitrary sounds and language, for
example, and adult ostriches and killdeer plovers employ the “broken wing display,” as if injured and sick,
in order to lure predators away from their nests and protect their offspring. For a discussion of these
examples, see V. Morell, “Minds of Their Own: Animals Are Smarter Than You Think,” National
Geographic (March, 2008) 44-45, and M. Bright, Intelligence in Animals (London, 1994; second ed., 1997)
90-91. Animal behavior of this type was not unknown in antiquity, but rather the subject of meticulous
observation and analysis. For an indication of the ancient Greek knowledge of animals’ deceptive
behavior, see M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, tr. J. Lloyd, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and
Society (Hassocks, Sussex and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1978).
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the invisible, perhaps by mere curiosity. Mitchell’s differentiation implicitly suggests an
underlying cognitive difference between animal and human judgment of illusion. 128
Although he does not seem to be unaware of contemporary studies on animal cognition,
prominent in his mind is the idea that the birds’ behavior is a natural error of judgment
due to their inferior cognitive status as non-human beings. 129 It is important to keep in
mind, however, that studies on animal cognition, both before and since Mitchell
published his work, have been continually underlining the sophisticated abilities of
animals, such as dolphins and pigeons, to differentiate between the real world and
representations of it, and also to recognize and remember visual differences. 130 In
128 Mitchell, “Illusion” 334, n. 4: “most accounts of aesthetic illusion…insist on the radical difference
between animal and human responses to images,” as, for instance, “Jacques Lacan’s discussion [ tr. A.
Sheridan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Hammondsworth, 1979) 107] of the mirrorstage,
[which] moves from the description of the behavior of the chimpanzee to that of a human child, but
insists on the lack of a symbolic system in the animal”; also 334, where Mitchell’s vocabulary hints at the
idea of a preconceived difference between animal and human responses to deceptive art: “there is one
writer I know of who is notoriously unembarrassed by the equation of animal and human responses to
aesthetic illusion, and that is the Roman historian Pliny, who recorded probably the single most famous
anecdote of animals looking at pictures.”
129 Mitchell, “Illusion” 337: “there are animal behaviorists engaged, no doubt, at this very moment in trying
to ascertain just what sorts of pictorial illusions will stimulate responses from various kinds of animals, and
it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some animals respond to the objects in some pictures as if they were
really there.”; also in 342, he speaks of “decoys,” and “lures,” which suggest that what he has in mind is
perhaps the response of real ducks to painted wooden ones as part of their capture, and trained birds used to
entice fellow animals into a trap. This latter technique is mentioned by Aristotle as being used in the
capture of pigeons (HA 613a) and partridges (HA 614a), and by Strabo (15.1.40-15.1.43) for the hunting of
elephants in India.
130 Recent studies on animal cognition have shown that dolphins, for example, have the cognitive ability to
distinguish between looking at the real world and representations of it. Morell, “Minds of Their Own” 54
reports: “there are many things they [dolphins] could do that people have always doubted about animals.
For example, they correctly interpreted, on the very first occasion, gestured instructions given by a person
displayed on a TV screen behind an underwater window. They recognized that television images were
representations of the real world that could be acted on in the same way as in the real world.” Also, for
evidence of picture cognition in pigeons which suggests that they see photographs and still video images,
but not line drawings, as representations of real objects, see S. Watanabe, “How Do Pigeons See Pictures?
Recognition of the Real World from its 2-D Representation,” in J. Fagot, ed., Picture Perception in
Animals (Philadelphia, 2000) 71-90; also, for the ability of pigeons to recognize video images of
themselves faster than it takes three-year old humans to complete the same task, see “Pigeons Show
Superior Self-Recognition Abilities to Three Year Old Humans,” in
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613145535.html; and A. C. Danto, “Animals as Art
Historians: Reflections on the Innocent Eye,” in A. C. Danto, Beyond the Brillo Box. The Visual Arts in
Post-Historical Perspective (New York, 1992) 24, who, on the basis of studies of pigeons’ ability to
categorize pictures by subject, and hence to appreciate differences between pictures of different things,
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eference to the error of the Pliny’s birds, Mitchell notes “the dignity” afforded to them,
which he associates with “their role as omens and prophetic signs in Roman culture.” 131
At the same time, he reveals his view of the story as sitting on the boundary between fact
and fiction. 132
The story, however, shows—regardless of its actual or invented pedigree—that
Pliny acknowledges the role of the birds as credible guides to lifelike art. His
employment of them as judges is particularly instructive; for it appears to be “allowed,” if
not the norm, in the context of judging art. The birds, as they are conceived by Pliny,
validate the quality of Zeuxis’ art in terms of its extreme lifelikeness. 133 Twice they fly
to his convincing images of grapes. Twice they sense these images to be reality. Their
repeated reaction is not a topos of unreliable, erroneous behavior: rather, it is the reliable
test of lifelike art. As trustworthy connoisseurs of lifelike art owing, perhaps, to their
sensory perception, these non-human creatures confirm Zeuxis’ extraordinary skill to
states that pictorial competence is omnipresent in the animal kingdom. Danto also refers (24), albeit
fleetingly, to the pictorial competence of sheep. It has been recently noted that sheep, a species otherwise
known for its lack of intelligence, have sophisticated abilities to both recognize and remember visual
differences. They “recognize different faces (about 50 other sheep and 10 humans and still know them two
years later,” and marmosets “even have a sense of “object permanence”—knowing that something out of
sight still exists.” For these two references, see Morell, “Minds of Their Own” 47 and 58, respectively. In
addition, pigeons are able to recognize video images of themselves faster than it takes three-year old
humans to complete the same task: “Pigeons Show Superior Self-Recognition Abilities to Three Year Old
Humans,” in www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613145535.html.
131
Mitchell, “Illusion” 336.
132
Mitchell, “Illusion” 337.
133
For the influence that the connection between birds, Zeuxis’ grapes, and the concept of lifelikeness
exerted on later painters, see A. Bayer, “Defining Naturalism in Lombard Painting,” in A. Bayer, ed.,
Painters of Reality. The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy (exhibition catalogue, Museo
Civico “Ala Ponzone,” Cremona, February 14-May 2, 2004, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, May 27-August 15, 2004 (New Haven and London, 2004) 6, n. 9, where he points out that Vasari in
his account of the landscape paintings of Bernardino Marchiselli, called Bernazano (1492-1522) mentions
that in these landscapes, “there was a field of strawberry plants—“ripe, green, and in flower”—that were so
attractive to some peacocks that the birds actually tried to peck at them, leaving holes in the plaster of the
wall”; also the Milanese painter and author Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1538-1592), in his Treatise [of 1584]
on the Art of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture speaks of the birds depicted in one of Lomazzo’s
paintings (Baptism of Christ) as “so natural that when the painting was placed outside in the sun, some
birds flew around in believing them to be real and alive.”
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create highly effective images that go beyond the norm of lifelikeness, and can, therefore,
be experienced as “real.” 134 In this way, aesthetic illusion becomes deception only
because exceptional artistic skill is involved. As Gombrich states, “illusion could turn
into deception only when the context of action set up an expectation which reinforced the
artist’s handiwork.” 135 Like the calf, the bull, and the gadfly in the case of Myron’s cow,
the birds verify Zeuxis’ capacity to create images that dissolve the boundary between art
and reality. At the end, it is this underlying realization that makes Zeuxis “proud of the
verdict of the birds.” In this way, animals emerge as significant guides to and judges of
the ancient understanding of lifelikeness in art.
Further evidence for the notion of animals as judges of lifelike art is found in
another episode recorded by Pliny. Pliny mentions that Apelles, a fourth-century painter,
employed the judgment of real horses to verify the lifelikeness of his painted image of a
horse:
There is, or was, a picture of a Horse by him [Apelles] painted in a competition,
by which he carried his appeal for judgment from mankind to the dumb
quadrupeds; for perceiving that his rivals were getting the better of him by
intrigue, he had some horses brought and showed them their pictures one by one;
and the horses only began to neigh when they saw the horse painted by Apelles;
and this always happened subsequently, showing it to be a sound test in artistic
skill. (NH 35.95) [158]
Like the previous story, the episode recorded in this passage indicates general awareness
of animals, in this case horses, as trustworthy judges of lifelike art. Mitchell maintains
that “this episode illustrates, not the deception of the horses, but their good judgment, a
134 For the Classical Greek belief that the perceptual ability of animals derived not from reason, but the five
senses, see R. Sorabji, Animal Minds and Human Morals. The Origins of the Western Debate (Ithaca and
New York, 1993) 17-29. For the survival of this understanding of animals in the Renaissance, and their
employment in contemporary paintings to implicitly instruct the viewer to believe in the depicted angelic
visitation as a real occurrence, see Scheick, “Animal Testimony in Renaissance Art,” in Pollock and
Rainwater, eds., Figuring Animals 65.
135 Gombrich, Art and Illusion 206.
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form of equine connoisseurship responsive to the dignity of the artist’s identity as well as
his skill.” 136 Additional evidence pointing to the same direction derives also from Pliny’s
characterization of the employment of animals as “a sound test in artistic skill,” which
speaks not only of the trust placed upon animals as good judges of lifelikeness in art, but
also of recognition of lifelikeness as an exceptional skill of artists. That Apelles was one
of these artists is also evidenced in another passage of Pliny which presents him as the
creator of exceptionally lifelike images, in this case of human beings. 137
Both stories recorded by Pliny indicate that non-human animals such as birds and
horses were considered reliable guides even to extreme cases of lifelikeness in works of
art in Classical Greece. Furthermore, the fact that animals, as part of the natural world,
consider works of art to be so lifelike suggests a specific attitude toward art itself: that it
has surpassed its own essence as a man-made creation and is now accepted as nature even
by nature itself.
The literary sources examined in this essay indicate that animals played a
significant role in the perception of lifelikeness in ancient Greek art. Animals featured
not only as subjects of works of art valued for their lifelikeness, which in some cases was
perceived as exceptional, but they were also considered a reliable standard of judging
equally exceptional lifelike art. This double capacity of animals in the realm of
136 Mitchell, “Illusion” 336-337.
137 “He [Apelles] also painted portraits so absolutely lifelike that, incredible, as it sounds, the grammarian
Apio has left it on record that one of those persons called ‘physiognomists,’ who prophesy people’s future
by their countenance, pronounced from their portraits either the year of the subjects’ deaths hereafter or the
number of years they had already lived” (Pliny, NH 35.88-35.89); translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny.
Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995) 327. For the
idea of Apelles as the most accomplished painter of lifelike images in antiquity, and its influence on
Renaissance artists, who saw Apelles as a model of an artist to be imitated, see D. Cast, The Calumny of
Apelles. A Study in the Humanist Tradition (New Haven and London, 1981) 161-173.
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lifelikeness in ancient Greek art sheds also light on two defining components that helped
defined the concept in the ancient Greek mind: accurate representation of physical
models, but not necessarily uncanny accuracy, and also the experience of a work of art as
if it were alive, while the viewer is consciously aware of the fact that s/he is looking at
art. Animals also feature in ancient literature on art as subjects of works of art that
helped create and maintain the fame of a considerable number of artists. The picture that
emerges from the literary record indicates that animals offer a valuable insight into the
ancient Greek understanding of the concept of lifelikeness in art while occupying a
significant place in its judgment.
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Chapter 2: Representations of Animals in Classical Greek Sculpture and the Phenomenon
of Naturalistic Style
Introduction
It is generally thought that representations of animals, such as lions and dogs, in
Greek sculpture are problematic because they exhibit a combination of differing, that is,
naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements. Many suggestions have been offered to
account for this phenomenon: a) a lack of opportunity for artists to observe directly living
animals, b) a result of artists’ copying from Near Eastern and Bronze Age models of
animals, and c) an intention to highlight the apotropaic function of statues of animals.
The following section is a selective account of scholarly interpretations of the
phenomenon of problematic style in Classical Greek animal sculpture, specifically
representations of lions and dogs. These are two species of animals whose
representations abound in extant sculpture, with the lion outnumbering the dog by far. It
is for this reason that the following discussion presents an uneven number of sculptures
of lions and dogs and the scholarly evaluation of their problematic style. The focus is on
the Classical period, but, as will be seen, each animal case begins with an Archaic
example. The intention is to show that various types and degrees of combining differing
elements in the representation of animals is not a strictly Classical phenomenon that
structures the concept of style in Greek sculpture, but rather is one that extends back into
the Archaic period. Figures of animals thus suggest that inconsistency, incongruity, and
contradiction are the underlying models for stylistic change in both Archaic and Classical
Greek sculpture. The intention here is not to deny that a stylistic change occurs in
sculpture as the Archaic phase move on to the Classical, but, rather, to suggest, through
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the guidance of extant sculptures of animals, that what actually happens as one phase
proceeds to the other is only a shift in the balance of the differing elements that are mixed
together to form the style of an image. In other words, the tendency to combine differing
elements whether in a mode of inconsistency, incongruity, or contradiction remains the
solid mental framework of style. This proposition is in some sense in essential agreement
with the approach of William Childs, who, as noted earlier, sees the Classical style in
Greek art as the combined rendering of an objective and subjective reality that is
exemplified by representations of the human form in contemporary sculpture. In this
way, the fact that, during the Classical period, the combination of essentially non-
matching elements also extends to the human form solidifies its position as the
underlying principle of the Classical style in Greek sculpture. In light of this evidence,
the interpretation of this style as a strict imitation of the external world driven by
advancement in artistic techniques—a dominant and widely accepted view, as noted
earlier—does not appear to rest on firm ground.
1. Examples of the Scholarly Treatment of the Problematic Style of Representations
of Animals in Ancient Greek Sculpture
a. The Case of the Lion
Jeffrey Hurwit, in his discussion of the lion in relief savaging a bull crumpled
beneath it (Fig. 5) from the mid sixth-century (ca. 560 B.C.), west pediment of the temple
of Athena on the Athenian acropolis, the so-called Hekatompedon, says that it is “in
almost every way a very lionlike lion—its ferocity, claws, pose, and powerful
musculature are all convincing—except that this lion has both a mane and teats, the
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markers of both sexes.” 138 He calls this lion “a Mischwesen—not because it is a
combination of different beasts, but because it is a combination of different genders. It is
a hermaphrodite—a lion/lioness.” 139 These comments clearly show that Hurwit
conceives of naturalism mainly as anatomical accuracy. That he finds, however, the pose
of the animal convincing also bespeaks a behavioral component to his understanding of
the concept. Additional examples of hermaphroditic lions are found, he notes, on Middle
Corinthian vases, such as those by the Chimaera Painter (ca. 600-575 B.C.) that depict
lionesses without teats or have them in the wrong place—choices that have been
interpreted as mistakes stemming from the artist’s ignorance of leonine anatomy. 140
The motif of a lioness with both mane and teats is also found on Late Bronze Age
Aegean seals; in fact, it has been considered an Aegean invention. 141 Apart from
favoring the idea of artistic mistake as an interpretation, it has also been noted that
supplying the animal with such an androgynous look does not necessarily mean that
Bronze Age Aegean artists were unfamiliar with its anatomy, but “it is quite possible that
138 J. M. Hurwit, “Lizards, Lions, and the Uncanny in Early Greek Art,” Hesperia 75 (2006) 133; this lion
(Acropolis Museum 4) is joined on the left by another one, which does not take part in attacking the bull;
for a discussion of the Hekatompedon and its sculpture, see Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis: History,
Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present (Cambridge, 1999) 106-112. For a
discussion of the motif of the lion attacking an animal, such as a bull, stag, goat, and boar in ancient Greek
art with emphasis on Archaic painting, sculpture, and metal objects, see G. E. Markoe, “The ‘Lion Attack’
in Archaic Greek Art: Heroic Triumph,” ClAnt 8 (1989) 86-115.
139 Hurwit, “Lizards, Lions” 133.
140 Hurwit, “Lizards, Lions” 134, n. 55. The vases by the Chimaera Painter to which Hurwit refers are
mentioned in D. A. Amyx, Corinthian Vase Painting of the Archaic Period (Berkeley, 1988) 168, nos. A-
14, A-15, and 663. The first is a plate (Louvre S 1679) depicting a lioness without teats. For a discussion
and a picture of it, see P. Lawrence, “The Corinthian Chimaera Painter,” AJA 63 (1959) 350, no. 3, pl. 87,
fig. 3. The second (Swiss Market. D. 0.285) is also a plate depicting a seated lioness with her four teats
placed incorrectly all along her belly. For a short description and an illustration of this plate, see André
Emmerich Gallery Inc., Classical Antiquity: An Exhibition Organized in Cooperation with Münzen and
Medaillen AG, Basle, Switzerland November 22, 1975-January 10, 1976 (Zurich and New York, 1975) 3,
no. 4, cover illustration.
141 For specific examples of seals depicting this motif, such as one from Knossos (Late Helladic IIIAI
context), see M. Ballintijn, “Lions Depicted on Aegean Seals—How Realistic Are They?” in W. Muller,
ed., Sceaux minoens et mycéniens: IVe symposium international, 10-12 Septembre 1992, Clermont-Ferrand
(CMS 5 Beiheft 5; Berlin, 1995) 26, n. 15, where she also points out that “the lioness with mane and teats is
an Aegean invention and, as far as I know, no parallels are to be found in the Near East or Egypt.”
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they expressly depicted a lioness with a mane—with or without teats—so as to make it
clear that it was a lioness and not just some other animal.” 142 While this evidence
underlines the likelihood of specific intentions shaping the inconsistent style of lions in
Aegean glyptic art, when placed against the Hekatompedon lion, it invites the question of
animals as examples of stylistic continuity from Late Bronze Age art to that of the
Archaic and Classical periods, particularly in sculpture—a topic to which we shall return
shortly.
Hurwit hesitates to interpret the combination of the incongruous elements in the
style of the Hekatompedon lion as an artistic mistake. Rather, he sees it as an attempt on
the side of the sculptor to “make the lion even more “awe-ful,” mysterious, and strange
than it otherwise is.” 143 Such strangeness, he says, had the power to avert evil from the
building and its surrounding territory, therefore, the hermaphroditic lion of the
Hekatompedon “belongs not to the realm of artistic error but to the realm of the
uncanny.” 144 Hurwit rightly considers the combination of incongruous elements in the
style of the Hekatompedon lion as markers of sexual dimorphism within the same
species, but his attribution of apotropaic significance to them, although reasonable, offers
142 Ballintijn, “Lions Depicted on Aegean Seals” 26. For the notion of Late Bronze Age artists of seals
making mistakes, such as representing a lioness with mane and teats followed by an example of it on a
carnelian lentoid seal in Oxford (CS 314), see J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings. Early Bronze
Age to Late Classical (London, 1970; new exp. ed., 2001) 59, pl. 91. His explanation (58) of these
mistakes (58) as stemming from the suggestion that Late Bronze Age artists had never seen a living lion
was supported in 1970—when his study was first published—by the marked absence of bones of lions in
the archaeological record. Since then, however, starting in 1978, bones and teeth of Panthera leo “have
been found in nine locations in mainland and island Greece in contexts ranging from Late Neolithic to
Early Iron Age and also Archaic date; for this evidence, see N. R. Thomas, “The Early Mycenaean Lion Up
to Date,” Hesperia Supplement 33 (2004) 189, and 189-191 with a complete list and bibliographical
references of all Greek sites where bones of lions have been discovered. Most notable among those dating
from the Bronze Age are Kalapodi (LH IIIC), Kastanas (Late Bronze and early Middle Iron Age) and
Tiryns (LH I; LH IIIB; LHIIIC). For another discussion of the presence of lions in prehistoric Greece, see
P. Jeskins, The Environment and the Classical World (London, 1998) 16-17.
143 Hurwit “Lizards, Lions” 134.
144 Hurwit, “Lizards, Lions” 134.
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little in the way of explanation. In fact, it diverts attention away from other cultural
factors, such as attitudes toward the lion, which might have critically affected its
appearance in pedimental sculpture.
The problematic style of Greek animal sculpture has also been noted in
connection with freestanding statues of lions. Richter’s description, for example, of a
sixth-century limestone statue of a lion from Perachora, presumably a funerary
monument, housed now in the Boston Museum (Fig. 6), states that “the body is
represented in full profile, the head in full front, without any of the twists and turnings
natural to a living animal. The mane is indicated by ornamental rows of flame-like locks;
but there is also a distinct attempt at representing the swelling muscles of the legs and
trunk as well as the ribs.” 145 Unlike the Hekatompedon lion, whose style was seen as a
combination of different sexes/genders, here it is the animal’s non-naturalistic pose and
mane combined with the naturalistic rendering of its muscles that define its inconsistent
style. In this way, the lion’s well-defined musculature, along with its unconvincing
mane, suggests that Richter, like Hurwit, conceives of naturalism as anatomical accuracy,
whereas its unconvincing pose suggests that she also sees behavioral accuracy as part of
the concept.
Richter supplies us with an additional example of the inconsistent style of Greek
freestanding animal sculpture. Her discussion of a late fifth-century (ca. 400 B.C.)
marble statue of a lion (Fig. 7) identified as Greek and found in or near Rome, according
to the records of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is now housed, maintains that
145 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks 74-75; also Animals in Greek Sculpture 4; for the
designation of the statue (MFA 97.289) as a funerary monument and additional description of it, see M. B.
Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone. The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston, 1974) 9-10, fig. 15.
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“the pose, the slender body, the elongated skull, the short hair on the neck resemble those
of a dog rather than a lion; only in the wide-open mouth has the artist successfully
conveyed the impression of a fierce animal of prey.” 146 As this statement suggests, the
combination of incongruous, that is, canine and leonine elements creates an unconvincing
image of a lion, and, thus, one that for its most part does not conform to Richter’s
conception of naturalism as anatomical and behavioral accuracy.
Richter not only points out the inconsistent style of animals in Greek sculpture,
but attempts to explain it as well. Such an attempt is clearly seen, for example, as her
discussion proceeds to fourth-century animal funerary sculpture that originates outside
the Greek world, namely, one of the freestanding lions (ca. 350 B.C.) from the
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Fig. 8), a monument whose architecture displays, as has
146 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks 75, n. 11, figs. 361, 362; also Animals in Greek Sculpture
7, 50, fig. 20. The precise findspot of the statue (MMA 09.221.3) is not known, but for the idea that it was
found in or near Rome, see J. Marshall, “Statue of a Lion,” M.M.A. Bulletin 5 (1910) 212, who also notes
(210) that its style is so close to that of the lions of the Nereid Monument (ca. 390-380 B.C.) that “at first
sight there seems a possibility that the statue might have come originally from the same source….[but]
there is no place in the Nereid monument for more lions than the four of which fragments were found.”
This observation explains why Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks 75, and Animals in Greek
Sculpture 7, speaks of the lion at the Metropolitan Museum as being “related” to those of the Nereid
Monument. In his reference to the lions of the Nereid Monument, A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture
in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. British Museum II (London, 1900) 41, states that “parts
were found of four lions, of which two are fairly complete” (BM 929 a lioness, BM 930 a lion). He also
notes no knowledge regarding the original placement of these statues on or in association with the
monument; also, regarding their style, he says that “it is very archaic compared with the remainder of the
sculptures—especially the stiff and conventional treatment of the manes,” a phenomenon which forces him
to suggest that the lions “either derived from an older monument or the archaic conventions have been
consciously retained [in them].” For a recent discussion reiterating this view, see Jenkins, Greek
Architecture and Its Sculpture (Cambridge, Mass., 2006) 200, who points out that, in terms of their style,
the statues “appear somewhat archaizing by comparison with the high Classical modeling of the
architectural sculpture [of the monument].” Regarding their find spot, W. A. P. Childs and P. Demargne,
Fouilles de Xanthos VIII. Les monument des Néréides. Le décor sculpté (Paris, 1989) 231-233, pls. 156-
158, state that they were found near the north terrace, are certainly associated with the monument, and their
purpose was, most likely, to serve as guardian figures. Jenkins, Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture 201,
fig. 196, echoes this point, when he says that the statues might have “formed part of a pride deployed
around the north terrace or at its approach.” B. S. Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles in Greek Sculpture
(Madison, 1997) 79, in her description of the Nereid Monument, suggests that “marble lions guarded the
four corners of the podium, probably at ground level”; she also provides the following information (76, n.
6): “W. A. P. Childs kindly tells me that the location of the four (?) lions was never fully resolved, and that
positioning of the roof slope, two on either side, could also be envisioned, on possible analogy with the
(later) arrangement on the Mausolleion.”
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een noted, a confluence of three different cultures—Lycian, Greek, Egyptian—and its
sculpture, a strong Greek component. 147 As with the lion at the Metropolitan Museum,
Richter identifies a blending of canine and leonine elements in the lion of the
Mausoleum, which does not comply with her conception of naturalism as anatomical and
behavioral accuracy:
[T]he sculptor has given it the build of a dog with straight legs placed wide apart
and he has in no way conveyed that strange restlessness of a lion’s body which
suggests motion even when in repose, or the quality of his skin as it glides to and
fro over the powerful muscles. And the detailed modeling makes us the more
conscious of the misunderstanding of such salient features. 148
Wishing to explain further this misunderstanding, Richter states that “the artist had no
opportunity to study from life.” 149 Consonant with what was seen earlier to have been
said about the Chimaera Painter and Aegean artists, Richter’s statement reintroduces the
idea of artists’ unfamiliarity with leonine anatomy; as such, it reflects her explanation of
the style of the Masoleum lion as deriving from the sculptor’s observation of a dog (while
intended to render a lion), and therefore, as sharing the lack of a living model and
subsequent borrowing from the anatomy of a familiar species.
Such borrowing is a notion not without merit, since it is known to occur also in
Late Bronze Age Aegean glyptic art as evidenced, for example, by a gold seal from Shaft
Grave III at Mycenae (Fig. 9). Regarding the wounded lion depicted on it, it has been
147 The inventory number of the statue of the lion housed now in the British Museum is 1075. For these
points regarding the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and also a detailed discussion of its architecture and
sculptures, see Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles 129, and 111-135; also Jenkins, Greek Architecture and Its
Sculpture 203-227, in particular 211-223, for a good summary of the suggested reconstructions of the
monument, and how they connect to the question of the display of the surviving freestanding sculptures.
148 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks 75, fig. 363, and Animals in Greek Sculpture 8, 51-52,
fig. 28 (BM 1075). For the statues of standing lions from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, thought to be at
least 56, see G. B. Waywell, The Free-Standing Sculptures of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in the
British Museum (London, 1978) 68; also 27-34 and 180-209 for a detailed catalogue of both statues and
fragments of lions from the Mausoleum currently housed in the British Museum.
149 Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks 75.
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observed that both its collapsing posture and the non-feline anatomy of its forelegs are
typical of those of cattle, specifically steer. 150 Appearing also on Late Bronze Age seals
and said to have been adopted also from cattle (cows) is “the motif of a lion or a lioness
standing, with its head lowered and facing backwards toward a cub who is stretching up
to drink,” an apparent departure from reality, since “a lioness always suckles her cubs
lying down.” 151 Detached from being considered an artistic mistake due to lack of
zoological knowledge, this non-naturalistic motif has been seen instead as an example of
the viewpoint that, “Aegean artists deliberately allowed themselves to deviate from
reality where they regarded it as advantageous or necessary.” 152 Although
chronologically distant from this evidence, when seen against it, Richter’s judgment of
the inconsistent style of the Mausoleum lion as stemming from the sculptor’s
unfamiliarity with the animal does not seem to rest on firm ground. The persistence,
however, with which the affinity with Late Bronze Age material keeps recurring provides
the grounds for addressing next the scholarly attention to animals as examples of stylistic
continuity from the art of the Bronze Age to that of the Classical period, particularly in
sculpture, and in connection (not with deviation from reality, as was the case so far, but)
with naturalism.
150
A. A. Donohue, “Zum Löwenschieber aus Schachtgrab III in Mykene,” AA 93 (1978) 259-262; Athens,
NM 34.
151
Ballintijn, “Lions Depicted on Aegean Seals” 26, n. 14 with specific reference to a hematite seal (CMS
II,3 no. 344) from Gortyna (style LM IIIA), which depicts a lioness and her cub in the pose described
above, and also one from Knossos (CMS II,3 no. 88), and another one from Mycenae (CMS I no. 20)
depicting a cow and her calf in the same pose.
152
Ballintijn, “Lions Depicted on Aegean Seals” 37, where she summarizes additional examples of nonnaturalistic
representations of lions on seals in the following way: “Art is not zoology….The flying gallop,
the flying leap, probably also the lion which leaps onto the back of its prey and the animal looking back in
full flight, are means by which to emphasize the speed, power and savagery of what Aegean artists actually
saw, and in my opinion do not necessarily indicate lack of knowledge.” For a discussion of the “flying
gallop,” see H. J. Kantor, The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium B.C. (The Archaeological
Institute of America Monograph Number 1; Boston, 1947; repr. 1997) 92-97.
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The Possibility of Influence from Bronze Age Representations of Animals
The stylistic affinity between Bronze Age naturalistic representations of animals
and those in Classical Greek sculpture is a topic that has not passed unnoticed in modern
scholarship. Vermeule, for example, addressed it in his discussion of Classical Greek
funerary statues of animals. There, he speaks of a great affinity between the naturalism
of prehistoric and later animals, or more precisely, of the lasting influence of Bronze Age
depictions of animals, such as lions, dogs, and bulls on those of the same animals in
Archaic and, especially, Classical Greek art, and sculpture in particular. 153 Focusing on
these three animals, Vermeule says:
The lions who leap at bulls and who face each other in various heraldic poses on
Mycenaean gems are little different from the felines on coins and gems from 480
to 375 B.C. They have the same circumscribed manes, the same round, fairly flat
faces, and the same long, feline legs with large paws. The affinity is not
coincidental; prehistoric stones were certainly excavated and circulated in
classical times, and the animals on the gate at Mycenae were not the first or the
only testimonia to prehistoric ability in the natural, forceful rendering of animals
that was available to archaic and classical sculptors. In the instance of bulls one
has only to compare, the large marble creature in the Kerameikos necropolis….
with the bulls on the Vaphio cups “to realize how little the generations after
Pheidias could improve on the art of the mid-second millennium B.C. The art of
rendering dogs may even have declined, comparing the Kerameikos mastiff with
the whippet-like hounds in the Mycenae and Tiryns frescoes. In brief, animals
offer the best subjective examples of artistic continuity from the art of the Bronze
Age to that of Skopas and Lysippos.” 154
In the case of lions, the similarity that Vermeule detects between the naturalistic style of
those depicted in Bronze Age art and those in Classical sculpture refers to the rendering
of anatomical aspects, such as their manes, faces, legs, and paws, which, in turn, indicates
that he is not immune to the conception of naturalism as anatomical accuracy. But, as
noted above, Bronze Age depictions of lions were not devoid of anatomical inaccuracies.
153 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 52.
154 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 52.
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Although this deviation does not feature in Vermeule’s discussion of the continuity from
Bronze Age to Classical naturalism, he does take notice of it when he speaks of the
doglike appearance of fifth- and fourth-century Attic funerary statues of lions. In this
way, his discussion takes us back to examples of the treatment of the problematic style of
animals in Classical sculpture.
Vermeule does not talk about the elements of Classical Attic statues of lions that are
at home with leonine anatomy. His bafflement, however, over their problematic style
becomes evident when he identifies their canine characteristics:
Lions [produced by Greek artists between 420 and 320 B.C.] crouch like dogs
over bones. Their bodies are as well-proportioned and smoothly ideal as those of
Hegeso herself and her servant girl. Manes are like ruffs, and it is only close to
the beginning of the Hellenistic Age, around 330 B.C., that they begin to look like
the hair on lions seen nowadays in zoos and circuses. Round eyes, broad, canine
snouts, and ears like those of a Doberman pinscher add to the image of friendly
conceptualism. Toward the end of the hundred years of Attic funerary lions,
some beasts look like as if they might bite but most of them are placid,
occasionally even playful. The emotional faces which can be identified with the
style of Scopas around 350 B.C. enter the repertory of lion sculpture, and the
elongation of athletes by Lysippos in the generation after 340 B.C. 155
Vermeule clearly states that Classical Attic funerary statues of lions follow the same
development as that of the human form in Greek art, that is, they become more
convincing in terms of appearance at the end of the Classical period. Still, however, what
catches his attention is the presence of canine anatomical characteristics, such as the eyes,
snouts, and ears of these lions, which “add to the image of friendly conceptualism,” as he
says. It is unclear what he means by “friendly conceptualism.” A possible meaning
emerges when one looks at his interpretation (especially its second component) of the
problematic style of these lions as a mixture of: a) artists using Near Eastern models, and
b) thoughtful observation of comparable dogs and cats. As he characteristically states:
155 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 51.
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“in the later fifth and fourth centuries the artistic conception of the king of beasts was
distilled from generations of using motifs from Syria and Mesopotamia and from actual
contemplation of large dogs and precocious cats.” 156 The statement is significant, for it
exposes specific sources, other than Bronze Age art, that Vermeule thought to have been
(or not) available to Classical sculptors, and thus, he held accountable for the naturalistic
and non-naturalistic elements in the appearance of Classical funerary lions:
representations of lions on Protocorinthian pottery, where naturalism is conceived as
anatomical accuracy after copying Syrian (Neo-Hittite) and Mesopotamian (Assyrian)
models, and the absence or scarcity of real lions during Classical times in Greece, an idea
that is not fully supported by classical texts, yet features prominently in modern
scholarship as the reason for Classical Greek artists’ observation of animals comparable
to lions; it is thus considered responsible for the non-naturalistic elements in
contemporary statues of lions. In this respect, Vermeule is in agreement with Richter,
who, as seen earlier, attributed the doglike appearance of the Mausoleum lion to the
suggestion that Classical artists “had no opportunity to study from life.”
Naturalism as Anatomical Accuracy: Two Near-Eastern Types of Lions on
Protocorinthian Pottery (and Contemporary Sculpture)
Representations of lions on Orientalizing Corinthian pottery, also known as
Protocorinthian, 157 indicate that the conception of naturalism as anatomical accuracy was
a pre-classical phenomenon, and thus one at the service of Classical artists. Focusing on
specific anatomical features, Protocorinthian pottery clearly distinguishes between two
156 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 59.
157 Protocorinthian pottery is divided into three phases: Early (EPC): 720-690 B.C., Middle (MPC): 690-
650 B.C., and Late (LPC): 650-630 B.C.: J. Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting. 11 TH -6 TH Centuries
B.C. A Handbook (New York and London, 1998) 85.
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types of lions: Syrian/Neo-Hittite and Assyrian. As Boardman states, in his discussion of
lions on Middle Protocorinthian pottery, early on (690-650 B.C.), “lions copy the [out-of-
date] Syrian/Neo-Hittite square-muzzled type,” whereas, near 650 B.C. or later, the
Syrian type of lion is replaced by the “pointed-nose Assyrian type.” 158 According to
Humphrey Payne, the latter type is also used for representations of lions in sixth-century
Corinthian pottery. 159
The distinction between the Syrian/Neo-Hittite and Assyrian types of lions occurs
also in seventh-century sculpture, where the former is represented by the lions of a
marble perrirhanterion found in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia (ca. 660-650 B.C.),
and the latter by the limestone lion found in Olympia and thought to have been probably
used as a spout for a fountain (ca. 650 B.C.). 160 This evidence reveals “a progression in
Greek approval,” as Boardman says, 161 from the Neo-Hittite to the Assyrian type of a
lion, or the existence of two possibilities of naturalism conceived as anatomical accuracy
in connection with lions and the development of only one of them in both pre-classical
pottery and sculpture. As such, it may very well be what Vermeule had in mind when
158 Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting 86 and 87 for respective quotations. For these two types of lions
on Protocorinthian pottery, see H. Payne, Necrocorinthia: A Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period
(Oxford, 1931) 67-70; also Amyx, Corinthian Vase Painting 663. For an example of the Syrian/Neo-
Hittite type of a lion on Protocorinthian pottery, see the Middle Protocorinthian aryballos by the Sacrifice
Painter (Boston 95.511) illustrated in Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting fig. 172. The earliest known
example of the Assyrian type of a lion on Protocorinthian pottery is the Chigi vase (Rome, VG 22679):
Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting figs. 178.1-3; also J. M. Hurwit, “Reading the Chigi Vase,”
Hesperia 71 (2002) 11 and 12, where he also mentions Assyrian ivories, metalwork, and textiles as possible
carriers of images of lions of this type imported to seventh-century Corinth.
159 Payne, Necrocorinthia 69.
160 For the debt of these examples of sculpture to Neo-Hittite and Assyrian models respectively and
illustrations, see Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period 167, figs. 74 and 265; also M. C.
Sturgeon, Isthmia IV: Sculpture I: 1952-1967 (Princeton, 1987) 48-51, for a discussion of the lions of the
Isthmia perrirhanterion reflecting Neo-Hittite prototypes; and H. Gabelmann, Studien zum frühgriechischen
Löwenbild (Berlin, 1965) 111, no. 2, pl. 1.2-1.3, 32.1 for the lion from Olympia following Assyrian
models; see also Boardman’s review of Gabelmann’s study in Gnomon 39 (1967) 99-101.
161 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period 167 uses the phrase while discussing the influence of
seventh-century vase painting on contemporary sculpture as evidenced by the these two types of lions.
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speaking of the style of Classical lions in sculpture as “distilled from generations of using
motifs from Syria and Mesopotamia.”
Literary Evidence for the Availability of Lions in Classical Greece
Turning next to Vermeule’s assertion that Classical Greek sculptors contemplated
large dogs and precocious cats owing to the absence of real lions—an idea that, in his
mind, accounts for the non-naturalistic elements in the statues of lions—it appears to
overlook ancient literary evidence that attests to the presence of lions in fifth- and fourth-
century northern Greece. Starting in the fifth century, Herodotus, for example, refers to
lions attacking the camel train of Xerxes’ invading army as it was making its way
through northern Greece in 480 B.C., while maintaining that lions were still present in
that area in his own day (later part of the fifth century):
As Xerxes marched along, lions set upon his camels, which were carrying the
corn. The lions would come constantly at night, and leaving their usual haunts,
would touch nothing else, baggage animal or human; they ravaged the camels
only. I wonder what the cause can be that forced the lions to leave the other
creatures alone and attack the camels, since this was an animal that they had never
seen before or had any experience of.
There are in these parts many lions and wild oxen, the enormous horns of which
are brought to Greece. The boundary of the lions is the river Nestus, which flows
through Abdera, and the Achelous, which flows through Acarnania. To the east
of the Nestus, in all of the nearer part of Europe, you will never see a lion, nor
west of the Achelous in the rest of the mainland; but they are found in the land
between these rivers. (7.125-7.126) [106] 162
162 Hurwit, “Reading the Chigi Vase” 11, n. 36, wonders if Herodotus’ lions were mountain lions. It is
important to keep in mind that if by “mountain lions,” he means the big cats also known today as
“cougars,” “pumas,” panthers,” and “catamounts” (Felis Concolor), they are native to the Americas and not
to the Old World. For a discussion of this species and its various names, see S. Ewing, E. Grossman, eds.,
Shadow Cat: Encountering the American Mountain Lion (Seattle, 1999). The use of camels in war is also
mentioned by Aristotle (HA 632a), in the context of his discussion of animals’ castration: “the female
camels too are castrated when they wish to use them for war, so that they should not carry young”;
translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1991) 403.
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The incident of lions mauling Xerxes’ camels is repeated by Pausanias along with
the story of Pulydamas, a late fifth-century Olympic victor in the pancratium (408 B.C.),
also known to have killed a lion with his bare hands around Mount Olympus in northern
Greece. While referring to these stories, Pausanias states that lions were still present in
this area in his own time (A.D. II):
Other have won glorious victories in the pancratium, but Pulydamas besides the
prizes for the pancratium, has to his credit the following exploits of a different
kind. The mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs
through the land of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once
attacked the army of Xerxes, and mauled the camels carrying the supplies. These
lions often roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is
turned towards Macedonia, and the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneius.
Here on Mount Olympus Pulydamas slew a lion, a huge and powerful beast,
without the help of any weapon. To this exploit he was impelled by an ambition
to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend says, overthrew the
lion at Nemea. (6.5.4) [137] 163
Turning to the fourth-century B.C., Xenophon, in his treatise On Hunting, places
the habitat of lions in foreign countries with the closest being Macedonia to the north:
Lions, leopards, lynxes, panthers, bears and all similar wild beasts are
captured in foreign countries (e0n ce/naij xw&raij), about Mt. Pangaeus
and Cittus beyond Macedonia, on Mysian Olympus and Pindus, on Nysa
beyond Syria, and in other mountain ranges capable of supporting such
animals. (Cyn. 11.1) [192]
163 For the date of Pulydamas’ victory in 408 B.C., see Hurwit, “Reading the Chigi Vase” 11, n. 36. For a
statue base (ca. 330 B.C.) at Olympia depicting this feat in relief, attributed to Lysippos, and thought to be
the base of the statue of Pulydamas at Olympia mentioned by Pausanias (6.5.4) , see A. Kosmopoulou, The
Iconography of Sculptured Statue Bases in the Archaic and Classical Periods (Madison, 2002) 73-74, 200-
202, figs. 56-57. Pausanias (9.40.1) provides an additional example of the association of lions with
Olympus in his reference to a military confrontation between Caranus, the legendary progenitor of the
Macedonian royal house, and Cisseus, the king of Thrace: “The Macedonians say that Caranus, king of
Macedonia, overcame in battle Cisseus, a chieftain in a bordering country. For his victory Caranus set up a
trophy after the Argive fashion, but it is said to have been upset by a lion from Olympus, which then
vanished”; translation: W. H. S. Jones, ed., tr., Pausanias. Description of Greece IV (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1935; repr. 1961) 360-361.
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It is perhaps Xenophon’s use of the phrase “foreign countries” that has led Vermeule to
assert that Classical Greek sculptors never or at least hardly ever saw lions. 164
Next, Aristotle, although he considers the lion a rare animal, he refers to one that
was captured lame, without, however, specifying where, and had many of its teeth broken
(HA 629b). 165 Like Herodotus, he places the animal’s habitat in northern Greece, in two
different instances:
It is a fact that the lion is a scarce animal, and is not found in many places—
in the whole of Europe it occurs only in the tract of country between the rivers
Achelous and Nessos. (HA 579b) [62]
Whereas lions occur more in Europe (only in fact in that region of Europe that lies
between the Achelous and Nessos), leopards on the other hand occur in Asia and
not in Europe. (HA 606b) [64]
Aristotle also distinguishes between two different types of lions without, however,
assigning them to specific geographical areas. One type, he says, has a rounded body,
curlier hair, and a cowardly disposition, whereas the other is characterized by a longer
body, better hair, and a braver character. 166 In sum, Aristotle’s accounts suggest that
164 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 49: “sculptors saw humans but never (at least hardly ever) lions”;
but he also states (51): “like the sculptors working at Xanthos in Lycia, artists in Greece could have seen
small mountain lions.” The same suggestion is also made by E. F. Rambo, “Lions in Greek Art” (diss.
Bryn Mawr College, 1918) 9, who, on the basis of the very same passage by Xenophon, suggests that the
lions to which he refers could have been mountain lions.
165 Aristotle also discusses bones of lions in two different instances (HA 516b and 521b): Some animals
would appear to have no marrow at all in their bones, e.g., the lion, on account of having very little marrow
indeed, and that thin, an in a few bones only; actually, there is marrow in the thigh and arm-bones. The
bones of the lion are more solid than in any other animal; they are so hard that when they are rubbed
together sparks fly out as though from flint (Aristotle HA 516b; translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle.
Historia Animalium I (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1965) 195; also HA 521b, where he says: “In young
animals the marrow is quite bloodlike; when they are older, in the fatty animals it becomes fatty, and in the
suety ones suety. Not all the bones contain marrow, but only the hollow ones, and some of these have
none. Thus, in the lion some bones have no marrow at all, some only a little; which explains why, as stated
already, some writers assert that lions have no marrow”; translation: Peck, Aristotle. Historia Animalium I,
22). Such statement may be related to the modern zoological observation that a lion’s loud roar is made
possible by the cartilage in its throat having ossified into bone, also known as the hyoid structure. For a
discussion of this part of a lion’s physiology, see C. A. W. Guggisberg, Simba. The Life of the Lion
(Philadelphia and New York, 1963) 19.
166 Aristotle, History of Animals (629b): “There are two kinds of lions; of these the one with the more
rounded body and curlier hair is more cowardly, while the longer one with good hair is braver. Sometimes
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good knowledge not only of the nearby habitat of lions, but also of different species of
them based on distinct anatomical characteristics was available to him and his audience.
Additional evidence for Classical Greek society being well acquainted with real
lions derives from a speech of Isocrates, which suggests regular exposure of fourth-
century audiences to the animal. Dated to 354/3 B.C., Isocrates’ Antidosis refers to
trained lions as parts of annual exhibitions in contemporary Greece. In an attempt to
underline the benefits of education for the human mind, the orator draws an analogy from
the training of lions and bears:
But most absurd of all, they [Isocrates’ detractors] behold in the shows (e0n toi=j
qau&masin) which are held year after year lions which are more gentle toward their
trainers than some people are toward their benefactors, and bears which dance
about and wrestle and imitate our skill, and yet they are not able to judge even
from these instances the power which education and training have, nor can they
see that human nature will respond more promptly than the animals to the benefits
of education. (Ant. 213-214) [128] 167
they run away stretching the tail straight out like hounds”; translation: Balme, Aristotle XI. History of
Animals 384. Physiology aside, what is interesting is that Aristotle’s criteria of body length and appearance
of hair match closely those that, nowadays, set apart two recognized species of lions: the Asiatic (Panthera
leo Persicus) and African (Panthera leo). As modern zoological studies state, Asiatic lions are smaller in
size and have a shorter and sparser mane (that makes their ears visible) when compared to their African
counterparts: www.panda.org/news_facts/education/best_place_species/current_top_10/asiatic_lion_.cfm -
167 Similar evidence, but in reference to a third-century, religious context, is attested in an idyll by
Theocritus that refers to a procession in honor of Artemis (most likely, in Syracuse) with many wild beasts
in it, among them a lioness:
Eubolus’ daughter, Anexo, was going, I knew with her basket
to the enclosure of Artemis where on that day many wild beasts
walked in procession about her, a lioness one of the number
Theocritus (II, 66-68);
translation: D. Hine, Theocritus: Idylls and Epigrams (New York, 1982) 10. For a discussion of the
involvement of ancient Greek sanctuaries in the breeding of animals, such as cattle and horses, as
evidenced by inscriptions associated, for example, with the Classical sanctuary of Zeus in Arkesine,
Amorgos, that of Alea Athena in Tegea, in the fourth-century B.C., and also that of Apollo at Delphi, in the
second century B.C., see S. Isager, “Sacred Animals in Classical and Hellenistic Greece,” in T. Linders and
B. Alroth, eds., Economics of Cult in the Ancient Greek World. Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium
1990 (Uppsala, 1992) 15-20. For a short discussion of both Isocrates’ and Theocritus’ accounts, see G.
Jennison, Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome (Manchester, 1937) 24.
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William Brown suggests that this passage is an example of the importation of lions from
Africa or Asia to fourth-century Greece. 168 Lawrence Bliquez, while acknowledging this
suggestion, does not rule out the possibility of Isocrates’ lions being trapped and trained
locally in northern Greece. 169 Whether imported from Africa, Asia, or captured in
northern Greece, these lions show that, in the fourth century, Greek artists did have living
models if they wished to employ them. As Bliquez has pointed out, this evidence
suggests that Vermeule was too quick to dismiss the availability of real lions to Greek
sculptors. 170
Taken together, the literary accounts reviewed so far indicate that lions were
present in Classical Greece and neighboring areas. As a result, Vermeule’s idea that
contemporary artists were forced to borrow from the anatomy of comparable dogs and
cats owing to lack of real lions appears not to be an adequate explanation of the non-
naturalistic elements of lions in contemporary sculpture.
So pervasive is, however, the idea of the lack of real lions in Classical Greece that
features also as an explanation of the non-naturalistic elements of colossal marble statues
of lions erected as commemorative monuments to the dead, such as the one found at the
west bank of the river Strymon at Amphipolis (Fig. 10), whose date has been placed in
the fourth century B.C., although a third-century date has also been proposed. 171
168 W. L. Brown, The Etruscan Lion (Oxford, 1960) 167.
169 L. J. Bliquez, “Lions and Greek Sculptors,” CW 68 (1975) 382 and 383.
170 Bliquez, “Lions and Greek Sculptors” 381.
171 For an account of the discovery of the lion of Amphipolis, its reconstruction, and fourth-century date,
see O. Broneer, The Lion Monument at Amphipolis (Cambridge, Mass., 1941) 48, who places it in the last
quarter of the fourth-century B.C.; see review of this study by G. M. A. Richter, in AJA 46 (1942) 294-295,
who agrees with this date; Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 100, dates it also to the fourth century
(340-330 B.C.); Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles 144, does not specify its date, but mentions its use in
scholarship as fourth-century comparanda for assigning a similar date to the lion from the Lion Tomb at
Knidos, which she considers a post-mid-fourth-century work. For the assignment of a late fourth-century
date (325-300 B.C.) to the lion of Knidos, see Jenkins, Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture 228 and 231.
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Regarding the inconsistent style of this lion, whose reconstruction has been based on a
fourth- and perhaps third-century counterpart from Chaeronea, 172 it has been noted that
certain anatomical details, such as its veins, rich mane, powerful muzzle, mouth turned
down at the side, and eyes set deep in their sockets are rendered naturalistically, whereas
its pose—sitting erect on its haunches like a dog—is unnatural and dictated perhaps by its
enormous size (5.30m tall). 173 Commenting on this set of stylistic incongruities, which
he considers a trademark of Greek monumental lions, Oscar Broneer says:
The strong trend toward realism, which is a fundamental characteristic of Greek
art, is evident in a much less degree in sculpture of this kind. Whether this is due
to the lack of opportunity on the part of the sculptors to observe living models, or
to a conscious striving toward greater effect in symbolism and monumentality at
For a slightly later date that extends into the third century (300-250 B.C.), see G. B. Waywell, “The Lion
from the Lion Tomb of Knidos,” in O. Palagia and W. Coulson, eds., Regional Schools in Hellenistic
Sculpture. Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the American Schools at Athens, March 15-
17 1996 (Oxford, 1998) 235-241. He also assigns (239, n. 26) a late fourth- or early third-century date to
the lion of Amphipolis; also for the assignment of a date around 200 B.C. to this lion, on the grounds of its
humanized face wearing “that Duce look first popularized by the Hellenistic monarchs,” see A. W.
Lawrence, rev. of O. Broneer, The Lion Monument at Amphipolis (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), in JHS 62
(1942) 102. For the existence of an engaged Doric order and a shield decoration in relief in association
with this monument, see S. G. Miller and S. Miller, “Architectural Blocks from the Strymon,” ADeltion 27
(Meletemata 1972) 140-169.
172 For a late fourth or early-third century date assigned to the lion of Chaeronea, see Waywell, “The lion
from the Lion Tomb at Knidos,” in Palagia and Coulson, Regional Schools 239, n. 26. For a summary of
its discovery at the edge of a rectangular enclosure in which 254 skeletons were found accompanied by
small vases and strigils, see W. R. Lethaby, “Greek Lion Monuments,” JHS 38 (1918) 39-41; The lion has
been thought to be have marked the grave of the Boeotians that fell in the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.
fighting against Philip II of Macedonia. Crucial to this identification have been the account of Pausanias
who says (9.40.10): “As you approach the city [Chaeroneia] you see a common grave of the Thebans who
were killed in the struggle against Philip. It has no inscription, but is surmounted by a lion, probably a
reference to the spirit of men. That there is no inscription is, in my opinion, because their courage was not
favored by appropriate good fortune”; translation: Jones, Pausanias. Description of Greece IV 361. Strabo
(9.2.37) mentions that one can see in Chaeronea the tombs of those who fell in the battle, but other authors,
such as D. Siculus (16.86.6), and Plutarch (Alexander 9.2) state respectively that after the battle Philip
raised a trophy of victory, and that there was a polyandrion of the Macedonians in Chaeronea. On the basis
of this evidence, Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Late Classical Period 118, in his discussion of the lion
of Chaeronea states that: “it is not altogether clear whether it was for the victorious Macedonians or the
Theban Sacred Band, which was wiped out.”
173 For a discussion of the naturalistic rendering of the anatomical details of the lion of Amphipolis, see D.
Lazaridis, Amphipolis (Ministry of Culture. Archaeological Receipts Fund; Athens, 1997) 74, who
considers them impressive; for its unnatural pose, see Broneer, The Lion Monument at Amphipolis, 40, figs.
36-37, who actually juxtaposes this pose to illustrations of poses of real lions. For a discussion of colossal
statues in Greek sculpture, see J.-P. Vernant, “The Representation of the Invisible and the Psychological
Category of the Double: The Colossos,” in J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks (London
and Boston, 1983) 305-320.
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the expense of realism, or to a combination of both these factors, the fact remains
that the lion at an early period, to a greater extend than other animals developed
into a decorative design like the acanthus, the rosette, the tendril, and other
patterns derived from the vegetable kingdom. 174
In this statement, the idea of lack of real lions as models for artists again features as a
possible explanation of the non-naturalistic appearance of statues of lions, in this case,
colossal. If this is, however, a point that links Broneer’s interpretation to that of
Vermeule and Richter regarding the problematic style of lions in Greek sculpture, what
sets it apart is the attention paid to the possibility of “a conscious striving toward
symbolism and monumentality.” Such a suggestion is important, for, although it stands
side by side with the underlying view of the style of these lions as an artistic mistake, it
actually acknowledges the need to approach the sculptures through the eyes of Classical
Greek artists and spectators.
b. The Case of the Dog
Lions are not the only animals whose representations in Greek sculpture have
been considered problematic. Representations of dogs dating to the Archaic and mostly
Classical periods have been also singled out for their inconsistent style. Commenting, for
example, on the late sixth-century (ca. 520 B.C.) marble statue of a dog, usually
attributed to the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia on the Athenian Acropolis (Fig. 11),
Humphrey Payne and Gerard Mackworth-Young state that: “the figure is a remarkable
anatomical study; so much emphasis indeed has been laid on the frame and its slight
covering of sinew and muscle that one is apt to overlook the strength of the stylization—
at least in looking at the photograph: in the original, the long, flat, sharp-edged surfaces,
174 Broneer, The Lion Monument at Amphipolis 42.
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especially of the neck and flanks, strike the eye more readily.” 175 With respect to the
same statue, but with emphasis now placed on its execution, Richter says: “we
can…enjoy the keen look of the eyes and the splendid structure of the long, lean body;
the shoulder-blade, humerus, and ribs are shown strongly protruding, and a long ridge
marks the abdominal muscle. The modeling is still angular and harsh.” 176
As can be seen, Payne and Mackworth-Young note the inconsistency in the style
of the statue, but provide no explanation of it. Yet it is worth noting that both in their
case as well as that of Richter, the positive evaluation of the dog derives from its
convincing anatomical details, which, in turn, reveals a modern conception of naturalism
as anatomical accuracy, but, at the same time, fails to consider that this conception may
not be an accurate reflection of the evaluation of the statue in the late sixth century B.C.
The presence of an inconsistent style has been also noted in a fifth-century marble
statue of a dog that was found in the area of the eastern cemetery of Pella in Macedonia
(Fig. 12a-b). 177 The dog, which sits upright on its haunches, has been dated to around
460-450 B.C. and is thought to have stood on a tomb “much like the grave monuments in
the Kerameikos or other Greek sites,” a suggestion which has been further interpreted as
evidence that Pella was an important center of Greek culture in the mid-fifth century
175 Payne and G. Mackworth-Young, Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis (New York, 1951) 51,
pl. 131, 3. The dog (Acropolis Museum 143) is the surviving half of a pair of dogs (the other one
[Acropolis Museum, 550] being in fragmentary condition). For a discussion of these dogs, their alleged
discovery south of the Parthenon, attribution to the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia, and also date
oscillating between 540 and 520 B.C., with the majority of scholars favoring the later one, see B. S.
Ridgway, The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture (second ed., Chicago, 1993) 201. She does not preclude
the possibility (201) that these two dogs and the Rampin horseman with his companion piece found west of
the Erechtheion might have formed a single group: “two young men, returning perhaps from the hunt (the
Dioskouroi after the Kalydonian boar hunt?) accompanied by their dogs,” but she does note that the
findspot of the riders is different from that of the hounds.
176 Richter, Animals in Greek Sculpture 31.
177 The statue was discovered by chance in 1954, in the area of the eastern cemetery of Pella, and three
years before the beginning of the excavations at the site: P. M. Petsas, Pella. Alexander the Great’s Capital
(Thessaloniki, 1978) 49. For the date of the statue as being based on style rather than archaeological
context, see Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 263.
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B.C. 178 Although not described in detail, the Pella dog features in Vermeule’s discussion
of Roman copies of Classical Greek statues of animals, specifically dogs. 179 In fact,
Vermeule considers it one of three examples of Greek sculptural representations of dogs
and composite creatures with doglike features (i.e. the sphinx) that span the decades from
520 to 450 B.C. and “are marked by emphasis on somewhat conceptual muscular and
bone structures, particularly in the presentation of lumpy ribs sometimes curved too far
toward the shoulders instead of toward the haunches. (This is a misunderstanding [he
says] of canine movement from a sitting or standing to a crouching position).” 180
Undeniably, the body of the Pella dog is muscular, but its ribs are curved toward its
haunches and not its shoulders. Nevertheless, Vermeule’s statement reveals its
conception of naturalism as anatomical accuracy (and also behavioral, since pose and
movement are involved), and his subsequent negative evaluation of the Pella dog as an
artistic mistake (due to the absence of such an accuracy). Such an evaluation is further
supported by his detection of another disappointing, according to him, aspect of the
statue, namely, its “massive misunderstanding of canine proportions.” 181 Vermeule
provides no further explanation of this observation. Kawami, in contrast, elucidates this
point by contrasting the naturalistic musculature of the dog and its compact pose with its
178 Petsas, Pella 49-50 (no museum number). Petsas does not specify any examples of statues of dogs from
the Kerameikos or elsewhere, but for an Attic funerary statue of a dog (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek, 2447) that dates, however, to the fourth century (370-360 B.C.), and has a pose similar to that of
the dog from Pella, see F. Poulsen, Catalogue of Ancient Sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
(Copenhagen, 1951) 181-182, no. 238 b., and L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo. Maestri e scuole di
statuaria tra classicità ed ellenismo (Milan, 1993) no. 182.
179 C. Vermeule, “The Basel Dog: A Vindication,” AJA 72 (1968) 98, n. 9.
180 Vermeule, “The Basel Dog” 98, n. 9, where the other two examples mentioned are the dog depicted on
the late Archaic dog-and-cat-fight statue base from the Athenian Kerameikos (Fig. 14), and the sphinx from
Aegina. For the last see, Ridgway, The Severe Style 35-36, 64, figs. 51-52.
181 Vermeule, “The Basel Dog” 98, n. 9.
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small head and its thin, sharp muzzle. 182 Kawami does not oppose the mid-fifth century
date of the Pella dog. That her overall view of this statue is, however, as negative as that
of Vermeule is seen in her focus on the non-naturalistic details of its anatomy, that is,
“the stiff line of the mouth, the bland modeling of the eyes and forehead, and the
conventionalized ruff of hair around the neck.” 183 That these characteristics had been
considered responsible for the early Classical date of the statue is evident from her
statement that “they may be merely aspects of provincial style rather than indications of
chronology.” 184 Kawami’s characterization of the style of the Pella dog as “provincial,”
it is not surprising, since this is the term usually employed to describe the style of
sculpture found in Macedonia, and thought to carry a strong influence from that of
sculpture made in the adjacent Greek world. 185 On the basis of this thinking, Kawami is
able to establish one of the main points of her argument, namely, that a statue of dog
found at Persepolis and displaying the same pose as that of the dog from Pella is Greek
rather that Persian in style. Furthermore, and in light of the influence it exerts on Persian
taste, Greek animal sculpture, and its style in particular, Kawami states, deserve more
than the meager attention they have received so far. 186 Despite this valuable observation,
however, Kawami’s discussion of the Pella dog does not offer an explanation of its
182 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 263.
183 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 263.
184 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 263.
185 For a discussion of Macedonian sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods and its eclectic
tendencies, often combining Attic, Ionian, Cycladic, Boeotian, and also Thessalian features in what is often
called a Northern Ionic Style, and also further bibliography, see S. G. Miller, The Tomb of Lyson and
Kallikles: A Painted Macedonian Tomb (Mainz am Rhein, 1993) 94, n. 4.
186 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 259, for the Greek and not Persian style of animal sculptures
from Persepolis; 265, for the poor attention of modern scholarship to Greek animal sculpture as a major
indicator of stylistic change; and 260-261, pl. 15, figs. 1-2, for a description and illustrations of the dog
found in a vestibule of the southeast tower of the Apadana at Persepolis. For a recent discussion of
representations of animals in the art of ancient Iran, with emphasis placed on those of the Persian empire,
see M. C. Root, “Animals in the Art of Ancient Iran,” in B. J. Collins, ed., A History of the Animal World
in the Ancient Near East (Leiden and Boston, 2002) 167-209.
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inconsistent style. That of Vermeule, in contrast, with its focus on the non-naturalistic
aspects of the statue, may appear that it does, especially when he calls the non-naturalistic
elements of the statue “misunderstandings,” but, as the previous discussion of statues of
lions has suggested, this is a superficial interpretation of style in connection with animal
sculpture.
Turning to the fourth century, a marble statue of a dog that was found in the
funerary precinct of Lysimachides in the Athenian Kerameikos (Fig. 1), and will be
discussed in more detail shortly, has been also considered a representative of the
problematic style of Classical Greek animal sculpture. Kawami, for example, maintains
that the heavy shoulders, thick legs, large paws, and tense watchfulness of the dog are all
powerful naturalistic details. 187 But the statue also shares, she says, subtle leonine
qualities, such as “the heavy, compact chest, the well-sprung almost barrel-like rib cage,
and the carefully modeled toes with prominent claws.” 188 In an attempt to explain why
the contradictory style of the Kerameikos dog is based on such a combination of canine
and leonine characteristics, Kawami suggests that:
[It] reflects the common apotropaic functions of the two species in both the
Aegean and the Near East. The combination of canine and leonine forms in a
guardian animal has further parallels in Asia, not only in Chinese guardian
sculpture but in the development of the shih-tzu-kou (lion dogs) whose
diminutive versions are known to us now as the Pekingese, among other East
Asian dog breeds. 189
In a way that is in essence identical with Hurwit’s line of thinking on the Hekatompedon
lion, Kawami attributes, not unreasonably, apotropaic significance to the contradictory
style of the Kerameikos dog. What is different in her case, however, is that she supports
187 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
188 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
189 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
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her interpretation by drawing a parallel from a distant cultural context. Although helpful,
such an interpretation is still inadequate because by restricting the stylistic analysis of the
statue to a specific cultural idea that can very well be possible (averting evil), it
automatically suppresses the possibility of other contemporary ideas about the dog being
at play here.
It is clear from the scholarly opinions cited so far that they provide a variety of
suggestions that interpret the combination of differing, that is, naturalistic and non-
naturalistic elements in the style of Classical sculptures of lions and dogs as: a) an
inability of sculptors (due to mistake or misunderstanding) to represent convincingly in
their works animals to which they had no access in real life, or a result of sculptors’
observing animals comparable to those they intended to depict in their works, but were
unavailable to them in real life; b) a result of artists’ being influenced by a stock reservoir
of animal images deriving from Near Eastern, and also Bronze Age Aegean art; and c) an
attempt by artists to highlight the apotropaic power of the animals depicted.
The scholarly works cited above may note the combination of naturalistic and
non-naturalistic elements in the style of Classical Greek animal sculpture, but do not
explicitly verbalize, the existence of various types and degrees of combination, namely,
inconsistency, incongruity, and contradiction that bind together the stylistic elements of
Classical representations of lions and dogs in Greek sculpture. Heavily influenced,
however, by the modern conception of Classical Greek art as quintessentially naturalistic
(or strictly imitative of the external world), which, in the case of animals, translates as
anatomical (and behavioral) accuracy, they fall short of recognizing that the combination
of disagreeing, that is, naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements and the different types
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and degrees in which this combination occurs is actually the principle on which the
concept of style in Classical Greek animal sculpture is based. In fact, these varieties of
combination, especially that of inconsistency, as evidenced by the above survey, does not
only define the style of Classical sculptures of lions and dogs, but extends also to those of
the Archaic period. What representations of animals in Greek sculpture indicate,
therefore, is that an interplay of conflicting elements persists as the defining principle of
style in the Archaic and Classical phases of Greek art. One needs to consider that such an
interplay also extends to the human form in both the Archaic and Classical periods of
Greek sculpture. As already noted, Childs has pointed out that a combination of similarly
conflicting elements also characterizes representations of the human form in Classical
sculpture whose style is defined by a combination of “knowable reality” and the artists’
impressions of visible appearances. That preceding—Archaic and early Classical—
sculpture is not immune to this idea is evidenced, for example, by certain pieces of
sculpture, such as the earliest Attic kouroi, whose clenched hand “is actually incorrect,
and the fingers have been given one extra joint…[thus] a total of four, rather than the
natural three, phalanges,” as Ridgway notes, and also by the early Classical sphinx from
Aegina, whose purely human head “is disturbingly naturalistic,” unlike its non-
naturalistic animal body. 190 As can be seen in this case, the human form develops in
contrast to the animal one which does not. This paradigm, therefore, shows an interplay
of accuracy and stylization; in other words, it embraces two essentially conflicting
notions/elements in the formation of style.
This evidence notwithstanding, another approach from which the scholarly works
cited so far refrain is to take into account the cultural context in which the animal
190 Ridgway, The Archaic Style 80 and The Severe Style 36, figs. 51-52 respectively.
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sculptures they discuss were made. None considers, for example, contemporary ideas
about the animals depicted in them. The following discussion focuses on two Classical
funerary statues of animals, a lion and a dog, that were found in the Athenian Kerameikos
in the funerary precincts of Dionysios of Kollytos and Lysimachides of Acharnai
respectively. It examines the style of these statues in light of contemporary ideas about
the lion and the dog. Regarding the Kerameikos lion, it suggests that the inconsistent
elements of its style are direct reflections of the contemporary manner in which the
animal was viewed and thought to be in terms of both its appearance and character and
also of a general attitude towards depictions of non-human creatures in art, and of the
importance placed upon certain parts of the body as guides to character. Similarly, about
the Kerameikos dog, it suggests that the contradictory (canine and leonine) elements of
its style (and the pattern of opposition in which these elements are arranged) are not
divorced from the contemporary Greek idea of the dog and the lion as two distinct animal
species, yet very similar in nature in terms of their biology, anatomy, and behavior. The
intention is to show that animals are useful guides to the conceptual context that shapes
the elements of style and serves their arrangement in Classical Greek sculpture.
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2. Two Cases Studies: The Lion and the Dog from the Kerameikos
a. How Are These Animals Different from Composite Animal Figures?
Before we proceed to the discussion of these case studies, it is important to keep
in mind that, although the style of the lion and the dog from the Kerameikos is based on
elements linked together in a relationship of inconsistency and contradiction respectively,
it is not synonymous with the form or rendering of composite creatures (Mischwesen),
like Chimaera, for example, who shared the body of a lion with a goat’s head growing
from its back, and a serpent’s tail. Chimaera consists of anatomical parts of different
animal species that do not merge into one another, but are rather fragmented, and stand
independently in their attempt to form a whole. Chimaera, therefore, gives the
impression of a multifarious being with no concern for anatomical plausibility, evidence
that suggests that she was, most likely, defined by her separate parts rather than as a
whole.
The question of the visual identity of Chimaera in ancient Greek thought is
complex. It involves the issue of inspiration won from the arts of the Near East in the
eighth and seventh centuries B.C., as well as the possibility of having been prompted by
the Greeks’ imaginative response to the natural environment of Lycia, the creature’s
homeland, or by physical evidence of fossils, which could have shaped the way
Chimaera, a creature of the past, was envisioned in the present. That such a possibility is
not unreasonable is suggested by a recent study of the griffin, which has stated that
representations of the creature in ancient Greek art might have very well been inspired by
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the discovery of fossils of extinct species of animals, such as dinosaurs with which
nobody was familiar. 191
Turning to the statues of the lion and the dog from the Kerameikos, the elements
composing their style are inconsistent and contradictory respectively, but merge into each
other (blend into one another) and create, in each case, an animal whole whose anatomy
is an incongruous interplay of truthfulness and falsehood/deception, but fused into a
cohesive whole. As a result, the animal represented in each case has a unified form,
whose stylistic structure depends upon a balance (association) and at the same time
tension (opposition) between the poles of its composing elements. Such a situation is
definitely puzzling to the modern viewer, but does not diminish the fact that the forms of
the Kerameikos animals are distinctly different, both visually and conceptually, from the
non-unified forms of fantastic composite creatures (Mischwesen) like the Chimera.
b. Animals and the Question of “What Is It Really Represented?”
The issue of the identification of animals represented in Greek art is not new and
does not refer explicitly to works of sculpture. It encompasses representations in vase
painting too, while confinement to a specific chronological period is not the case. For
example, Hurwit, commenting on the depiction of an animal battling a human figure on a
Late Geometric II (ca. 730 B.C.) ceramic stand from the Kerameikos (Fig. 13), writes:
The beast is usually thought to be a lion, though few lions, I suspect, would be
convinced of that. The creature has short bristles down its back instead of a
shaggy mane and the legs it stands on have hoofs and fetlocks instead of claws.
This all makes for an odd lion. But of course it could be argued that the warrior is
191 For a discussion of representations of the griffin in ancient Greek art and narrative as influenced by the
ancient discoveries of dinosaur bones, see A. Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters. Paleontology in Greek and
Roman Times (Princeton, 2000) 38-53.
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just as odd a man and the beast does have a ferociously gaping, toothy mouth—
perhaps the quintessential leonine feature—so it is probably a lion after all. 192
As can be seen, the rendering of the animal on this stand is so miscellaneous and so
variable in appearance as to offer a scanty basis for its identification. Similarly, the style
of the feline creature depicted in a relief scene on a late Archaic (ca. 520 B.C.) statue
base found also in the Kerameikos (Fig. 14), the so-called dog-and-cat-fight base,
especially the pear-shaped head and hunched curve of the animal’s back have posed a
similar problem regarding its identification, which, in scholarly literature, has featured as
a cat, a cat-like animal, and a marten. 193 Both are cases of nondescript animals. Both
lack fully defined features which might prove diagnostic in the identification of these
animals.
The Lion from the Precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos in the Kerameikos
The statue of the lion (Fig. 15) discussed below was discovered in 1863 in the
fourth-century (345-317 B.C.) grave enclosure of Dionysios of Kollytos in the Athenian
Kerameikos. 194 It is made of Pentelic marble and believed to be one of a pair that
192
Kerameikos Museum 407: J. M. Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. (Ithaca
and London, 1985) 113.
193
Athens, NM 3476. The scene depicted is that of four male figures and two animals identified as a dog
and a cat, or cat-like animal, or a marten. Two of the human figures stand and watch, while each of the
other two holds the respective animals, which have been said to be fighting, by a leash, thus, the scene is
usually referred to as “the cat and dog fight.” The animal in question has been called a cat: A.
Philadelpheus, “Three Statue-Bases Recently Discovered at Athens,” JHS 42 (1922) 104-105; N. E.
Kaltsas, tr. D. Hardy, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (Los Angeles, 2002) 96,
no. 95, a cat-like creature: Kosmopoulou, The Iconography of Sculptured Statue Bases, 169, whereas his
identity as a marten has been discussed by S. S. Schipper, “Cat or Marten?” Archaeology 5 (1952) 25-29.
For a discussion of representations of cats on Classical Greek pottery, see A. H. Ashmead, “Greek Cats.
Exotic Pets Kept by Rich Youths in Fifth Century B.C. Athens, as Portrayed on Greek Vases,” Expedition
20 (1978) 38-47; also by the same author “Etruscan Domesticated Cats: Classical Conformists or Etruscan
Originals?” in R. D. De Puma and J. P. Small, eds., Murlo and the Etruscans: Art and Society in Ancient
Etruria (Wisconsin, 1994) 144-164.
194
The grave precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos (A3) is the third of six precincts (A1-A6) lining the south
side of the Street of the Tombs on a hill in the southwestern corner of the Athenian Kerameikos. It is an
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adorned the west and east corners respectively of the front wall of the enclosure. 195 Its
body (length 1.05 m; height 0.63m) appears in profile to the left and its head turns
slightly sideways. The animal stands with its hindquarters upright, its tail curling
downward, and its forequarters crouched low as if ready to spring up and forward. The
area between its forelegs is occupied by what has been identified as the head of a heifer
or a bull. 196 This head, along with the forelegs of the lion, rests on a surface—the
original plinth of the statue—that breaks off abruptly at the height of the animal’s upper
forelegs. The right forepaw of the lion turns inward and its claws are sunken into the
head of the bovine, whereas its left foreleg extends forward with its claws firmly on the
plinth. 197
almost rectangular peribolos enclosed by walls on all four sides. Access to it is gained (via A2) through a
gap in the east wall. The width of the enclosure varies between 6.5m (on the east side) and 7m (on the west
side). The length of the front wall is 11.6m; it was built of dressed limestone ashlar, which has been now
destroyed. Visible today is only its fill with a modern cement overlay. For this information on the precinct
and an illustration of its position within the Kerameikos, see R. Garland, “A First Catalogue of Attic
Peribolos Tombs,” BSA 77 (1982) 138 and 137, fig. 2. The statue (Athens, NM 804) was found in 1863 in
the terrace of the precinct and was standing there until 1870, when it was moved to the National Museum in
Athens: A. Brückner, Der Friedhof am Eridanos (Berlin, 1909) 79; he also adds that a part of the lion’s tail
was discovered in 1870 in the area across from the monument of Dexileos, in the homonymous precinct
(A1), which is situated at the corner of the Street of the Tombs. Brücker’s 1909 account of the statue is a
synthesis of the 1863 and 1870 excavation reports by A. S. Rhousopoulos (AEphem [1863] 279, 295, 312,
and Bull. dell’Inst [1864] 45) and S. Koumanoudes (∆ύο γενικές συνελεύσεις τϖν ταίρων τ ς ν
θήναις ρχαιολογικ ς ταιρίας, 1870)—both cited as such in his discussion (2) of previous literature
on the site. For a summary of the history of the excavations before 1913, when the Kerameikos
excavations were turned over to the German Archaeological Institute, and a brief reference to the work of
Rhousopoulos and Koumanoudes, see U. Knigge, The Athenian Kerameikos. History-Monuments-
Excavations (Athens, 1991) 166; and 183-184 for a list of Greek excavations reports prior to 1913; also
124, n. 114 for the most recent finds from the precinct—a marble sarcophagus, identified as that of
Dionysios, containing an iron strigil and pottery, along with a burnt offering deposit containing large
numbers of pottery (100 pieces) and bronze arrowheads (80). For a more detailed account of these finds,
see R. H. W. Stichel, “Grabung im Bezirk des Dionysios von Kollytos,” AA 99 (1984) 56-61.
195 The other statue of a lion (Athens, NM 803) was discovered in 1870 in the vicinity of the precinct. S.
Karouzou, National Archaeological Museum. Collection of Sculpture. A Catalogue (Athens, 1968) 126,
mentions that both statues were “found in the Kerameikos in 1870.” Kaltsas, Sculpture 205, cat. no 411,
identifies Kerameikos as the find spot of the statues, but clarifies that one (NM 803) was found in 1870,
whereas the other (NM 804) in 1863.
196 Heifer: Brückner, Der Friedhof am Eridanos 79; bull: Kaltsas, Sculpture 205.
197 In old photographs (Brückner, Der Friedhof am Eridanos 80, fig. 47; M. Collignon, Les statues
funéraires dans l’art grec [Paris, 1911] 228, fig. 148) and recent reproductions of them (Todisco, Scultura
greca del IV secolo fig. 178), the lower hind legs of the lion are missing and modern supports stand in their
128

The Motif of the Lion Holding the Head of Its Prey in Fourth-Century Attic
Sculpture and Homer
Today, the image of a lion holding the head of its victim and sinking its claws into
it is an indispensable part of studies that aim at documenting the life and behavior of
lions. 198 Regarding the use of this motif in fourth-century Attic sculpture, Vermeule
states that it was popular, and places its origin in East Greece:
In one feature that comes popular in Attica around 325 B.C. and widespread in
Hellenistic and Roman times, sculptors in southwest Asia Minor seem to have
pioneered. This is the motif of placing an animal’s head, a bull or deer, beneath
the lions’ forepaws. Hellenistic art took this motive and elaborated on its
opportunities of ferocious naturalism. 199
Vermeule does not furnish his statement with specific examples of sculpture. 200 The act
of a lion attacking and killing its prey, being cattle, sheep, goats or deer, is described
several times in the Iliad in the context of similes, which compare it to the act of human
warriors attacking and killing their opponents. 201 In one of them, for example, the sight
of a lion guarding or being ready to fight over the carcass of a heifer features as part of
the wider comparison of Hector attacking the Achaeans to a lion attacking cattle:
place; also the entire statue rests on a modern plinth. The later is still present in a more recent photograph
(Kaltsas, Sculpture 205 fig. 411 (804)) in which the legs of the lion appear restored. This information is
also included in the accompanying commentary on the statue which announces that “the hind legs and
plinth are restored.”
198 See, for example, the illustration of a lion sinking its claws into the head of a zebra in D. Joubert and B.
Joubert, The Lions of Savuti. Hunting with the Moon (Washington, D.C., 1997) 80.
199 Vermeule, “Greek Funerary Animals” 52
200 For an example of such a statue of a lion, seated though, but holding the head of a bull in his forepaws,
see Rhodes Museum 211, which Vermeule, “The Basel Dog” 101 dates to 300 B.C., whereas F. Willemsen,
Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier vom Dach des Zeustempels (OlForsch 5, Berlin 1959) 131, pl. 65, to the third
century B.C.
201 For a detailed discussion of the lion similes in the Iliad and their connection to warriors’ behavior, see S.
H. Lonsdale, Creatures of Speech. Lion, Herding, and Hunting Similes in the Iliad (Stuttgart, 1990) 38-47;
and appendix D for a list of all lion similes in the poem. Lonsdale maintains (27) that the relationship
between victor and victim in the war epic dictates a pair of species that are natural enemies on land, such as
lion and cattle. He also remarks (40) that these similes place emphasis on the emotional and mental stages
shared by the beast and man. The comparison of lions to warriors is a feature of speech still prominent in
modern accounts of lions. In their description, for example, of the nocturnal behavior of lions in the area of
Savuti, in Botswana, Joubert and Jourbet, The Lions of Savuti 68 say: “in the dull light of the males walking
side by side was awesome, sparking comparisons to warriors or gallant knights: the most regal of animals,
marching shoulder to shoulder, ready to take on whatever the night could offer.”
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But he [Hector] fell on them [Achaeans] like a lion of destructive mind
coming against cattle that are grazing in the bottom of a great marsh, and there is
no counting them, and among them is a herdsman who is yet unskilled to fight
with a wild beast over the carcass of a sleek heifer that has been slain: he paces
ever by their side, now abreast of the foremost of the cattle, and now of the
hindmost, but the lion leaps on the midmost, and devours a heifer, and at that they
all flee in terror; so wondrously were the Achaeans one and all then driven in rout
by Hector and father Zeus. (Il. 15.630-15.637) [125]
The unwillingness of a lion to release its kill is also encountered in another simile
in the Iliad, where the scene of Patroclus and Hector fighting over the corpse of
Cebriones, the driver of Hector’s chariot, is compared to two lions competing over a slain
hind:
So the two joined in strife for Cebriones like two lions that on the peaks of a
mountain fight for a slain hind, both of them hungering, both high of heart; so
for Cebriones the two masters of the war cry, Patroclus, son of Menoetius, and
glorious Hector, were eager each to cleave the other’s flesh with the pitiless
bronze. Hector, when once he has seized the corpse by the head, would not
loose his hold, and Patroclus on the other side held fast hold of the foot.
(Il. 16.756-763) [126]
The representation of Hector and Patroclus fighting over Cebriones’ corpse like lions
over prey suggests direct borrowing from leonine behavior, and therefore, first-hand
knowledge of it. 202 Indeed, such evidence accords well with modern observations of
lions, which note that competition among these animals over the kill or guarding of it is a
pronounced trait of their behavior. 203 Given the overall reliance of the simile on leonine
202 For a discussion of the animal similes in the Iliad containing accurate descriptions of animal behavior,
and the suggestion that Homeric audiences preferred “naturalistic descriptions of animals,” see Lonsdale,
Creatures of Speech 12-13; also 53, n. 3, where he cites H. W. Auden’s (“Natural History in Homer,” CR
10 (1896) 107) observation that Homer’s description of lions seizing their victims by the muzzle (Il. 5.161;
11.174) is indeed an accurate one since it parallels contemporary accounts of similar lion behavior.
203 In Joubert and Joubert, The Lions of Savuti 71, the caption, for example, of a photograph of two
lionesses fighting over a carcass reads: “the transition from friendly cooperation during hunt to ferocious
competition once the kill has been made is an unforgettable, Jekyll and Hyde characteristic of lion
behavior.” Also, G. B. Schaller, The Serengeti Lion. A Study of Predator-Prey Relations (Chicago and
London, 1972) 267, states that lions often transport small prey after killing it because they want “to escape
from another lion intent on a share….as if afraid of being deprived of a meal.” Schaller (267) also provides
the following account of a lion’s safeguarding of the kill: “six nomads, two of them males, rest at 1635 near
Naabi Hill when a sick wildebeest stumbles by. One lioness pulls it down, and while she suffocates it a
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ehavior, the description of Hector seizing Cebriones’ corpse by the head and holding it
strong appears to be direct reproduction of such behavior. It thus brings immediately to
mind the statue of the Kerameikos lion, which cradles the head of its prey, and may
suggest that its conception as an image was perhaps a conscious, fourth-century Greek
attempt to recreate visually or “connect with” the heroic past as recorded by Homer. 204
Anatomy of the Kerameikos Lion
Notwithstanding this possible connection, the inconsistent style of the
Kerameikos lion is an aspect that has not escaped scholarly attention. Willemsen, for
example, points out that its musculature and facial expression are naturalistic, whereas
the absence of a neck, lower back, backbone, and undevelopedness of its legs (die
Unentwickeltheit der Biene) stand out as its non-naturalistic features, and also as
evidence of unskilled craftsmanship. 205 To these features, one can add, Willemsen says,
those of motionlessness and compactness, which strengthen the impression of a poorly
male begins to feed at the groin. The animal dies after 4 minutes and the male eats alone, the others
waiting until he finishes at 1710. After than the lionesses feed, but 15 minutes later the male suddenly
chases them from the carcass and guards it until 1840 when he permits the others to join him.”
Additionally, he notes (267-268) that, in cases where the prey is large in size such as adult zebras, lions,
usually two, drag the carcass to a location and then feed on it. This report recalls Homer’s description of
the behavior of two lions adorning the shield of Achilles: “But two terrible lions were holding a loudlowing
bull, and he, bellowing mightily, was being dragged by them, while after him pursued the dogs and
young men. The lions had torn the hide of the great bull, and were devouring the inner parts and the black
blood” (Homer, Il. 18.579-18.581; translation: A. T. Murray, ed., tr., Homer. Iliad II [Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1999] 331).
204 For a recent discussion of how the Greeks “visualized and re-created their past, especially the remote
past, in images and objects,” see J. Boardman, The Archaeology of Nostalgia. How the Greeks Re-Created
their Mythical Past (London, 2002) 7, and also 114 for “special properties attributed to some creatures as a
result of their encounter with the heroic past,” for example, the pseudo-Aristotelian account (De
Mirabilibus 70) that frogs are quieter in Seriphos because once they had annoyed Heracles.
205 Willemsen, Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier 54.
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executed figure. 206 In contrast to Willemsen’s comment about motionlessness, the
Kerameikos lion looks as if it is springing.
The statue indicates that the sculptor gave thoughtful consideration to leonine
anatomy. Powerful muscles show, for instance, through the skin in the areas of the thigh,
shoulder, and forelegs; an equally powerful vein runs alongside the abdomen, while
another one marks the left foreleg; also, the last two ribs of the ribcage are made visible
on the animal’s side; the shoulder is clearly pronounced, and the legs, despite
Willemsen’s remark that they are not fully developed, stretch powerfully and firmly, thus
emphasizing the animal’s position on the plinth. Overall, the impression gained is one of
a lean and strong animal. The attention paid to these qualities accords well with the
discussion of leonine anatomy in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Physiognomics, which
emphasizes that “the animal has lean haunches and thighs; his legs are strong and
muscular, his walk is vigorous, and his whole body is well-jointed and muscular, neither
hard, not very moist” (809b) [173]. In light of this evidence, it is reasonable to suggest
that the sculptor of the Kerameikos lion was familiar with established knowledge of
leonine anatomy and followed it closely in his rendering of the statue. Of great interest
here is the fact that the ancient literary context from which this evidence derives is the
Physiognomics—a treatise on determining character or personal characteristics from the
form or features of the body, whether human or animal, falsely attributed to Aristotle,
thus commonly recognized as spurious and thought to date from the third-century B.C. 207
206 Willemsen, Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier 54.
207 For a discussion of the Physiognomics as a treatise frequently included among the works of Aristotle,
but considered spurious, see M. C. Nussbaum, “Aristotle,” in Hornblower and Spawforth, eds., The Oxford
Classical Dictionary 166; also W. S. Hett, ed., tr., Aristotle. Minor Works (Cambridge, Mass., and London,
1936; repr. 2000) 83. Also, with respect to the date of the Physiognomics, M. M. Sassi, “physiognomy,” in
Hornblower and Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary 1181, maintains that the treatise has
long been attributed to Aristotle, but is actually “a Peripatetic work of the third century B.C.” For the same
132

Despite its unclear authorship and post-fourth-century date, the Physiognomics is a clear
example of how pervasive physiognomic ideas were in ancient Greek culture. 208 In fact,
the author of the treatise considers the lion to be the equivalent of the perfect human male
(in terms of both appearance and character) in the animal kingdom. That certain
accentuated bodily features of the Kerameikos lion, such as its shoulder, hair, and face,
also feature in this treatise as clues to leonine character, suggests one specific thing: that
the sculptor of the Kerameikos lion was concerned with conveying not only a view of the
outward appearance of his animal subject; its character, an intangible notion, was also
part of his agenda. Such an idea fits well, for example, with the mentioned previously
statement of Cleiton, the sculptor in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, that a good artist is one,
who can convey successfully both the bodily form and character of his representational
subject [193].
Evidence regarding either the identity or class of the sculptor of the Kerameikos
lion does not survive, but his decision to communicate existing beliefs about the animal’s
character through its anatomy can be seen elsewhere in his statue. As already noted, the
shoulder of the lion is clearly pronounced. In fact, it is the bodily part that marks the
passage from the front to the back of its body. In his description of the lion, the author of
the Physiognomics points out that the animal has a well-jointed body (809b) [173], thus
information, as well as a discussion of the pervasiveness of physiognomic ideas in antiquity, see E. C.
Evans, “Physiognomics in the Ancient World,” TAPA 59.5 (1969) 1-101. For a discussion of the
application of the ancient discipline of physiognomy to art, see M. Amberger-Lahrmann, Anatomie und
Physiognomie in der hellenistischen Plastik: Dargestellt am Pergamonaltar (Stuttgart, 1996).
208 For a discussion of the pervasiveness of physiognomic thinking in ancient Greek and also Roman
culture and its drawing from analogies with the animal world, see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder.
Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World ((Ithaca, 1995) 87-90; also Gilhus, Animals, Gods
and Humans 74-76; and T. S. Barton, Power and Knowledge. Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine
under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, 1994; repr. 1997) 95-131, esp. 101 for a discussion of the idea that
“Hippocrates was credited with founding the discipline, and the first appearances of the verb
φυσιογνοµον ω (physiognomize) are in the Hippocratic Epidemics.”
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shoulders, a characteristic which, later on, in his discussion of the male character, both
human and animal, he considers a mark of strong disposition. As he says: “those whose
shoulders and shoulder-blades are well articulated have strong characters; witness the
male” (810b) [176]. On the basis of this evidence, it is reasonable to suggest that the
pronounced shoulder of the Kerameikos lion is the sculptor’s attempt to convey
accurately how such an anatomical detail was viewed or was known to exist, and what it
was thought to reveal about the character of the animal. In other words, style emerges
here as the combination of a visual and a mental process.
Regarding the hair of the Kerameikos lion, Willemsen notes its peculiar thickness
and stiffness. 209 His characterizations are correct, but his view of them as peculiar does
not even agree with modern discussions of the lion, which note both the stiffness and
thickness of the animal’s hair. In the Kerameikos lion, the mane is composed by thick
locks of hair that are flame-like and curly in appearance; they cover its head, are quite
curly around its face, and hide completely its neck, while extending down its chest, and
over its back. Patches of hair also appear on its flank, abdomen, and under its foreleg.
As a whole, the hair of the Kerameikos lion sticks firmly out and away from its skin, thus
appearing stiff and unmoving.
Such a treatment, however, is consistent with the physiognomic idea that
considered the appearance of a lion’s hair an important clue to five specific aspects of its
character: bravery, shamelessness, generosity, courage, and a sense of freedom. In regard
to the lion’s stiff hair, the author of the Physiognomics, for example, says:
Soft hair shows timidity and stiff hair courage. This is based on observation of all
the animal kingdom. For the deer the hare and sheep are the most timid of all
209 Willemsen, Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier 54.
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animals and have the softest hair; the lion and wild boar are the bravest and have
very stiff hair. (Phgn. 806b) [167]
It is also interesting to see that the author of the treatise considers stiff hair a
characteristic of the brave man and soft hair of the coward. 210 Such evidence matches his
belief that the lion is among animals what a male is among humans. His view of stiff hair
as a bodily sign of bravery fits well with the stiffness of the hair of the Kerameikos lion;
it suggests that a trait that has been considered stylistic was instead iconographic, and
was determined by a specific view of a leonine anatomical feature, and also by what this
feature was thought to reveal about the character of the animal. Similarly, that the statue
has its mane extending down the back, and that it seems to lack a neck, as asserted by
Willemsen—or more accurately, that its neck is invisible because it is completely
covered with stiff, curly hair that also extends around its face—are all specific aspects of
a lion’s hair that were thought to stand for the animal’s shamelessness, generosity, and a
general sense of freedom. As the Physiognomics states:
Those with a hairy back are excessively shameless; witness the wild beasts.
Those whose neck is hairy behind are generous; witness the lions.
(Phgn. 812b) [180]
Hair which curls at the ends tends towards stout-heartedness; witness the lion
among others. Those in whom the hair on the face near the head curls backwards
are liberal; witness the lions. (Phgn. 812b) [181]
On the basis of this evidence, it appears that the characteristics of stiff, curly hair that
characterize the style in which the Kerameikos lion was executed were themselves
closely linked to the way the animal was viewed and also thought to be in real life. Such
evidence, in turn, shows that style in Classical Greek animal sculpture is shaped by both
vision and thought.
210 Aristotle, Physiognomics 807a and 807b respectively.
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Further evidence in support of this interpretation comes from the facial expression
of the Kerameikos lion, which Willemsen, as noted above, considers a naturalistic
element of its style. More specifically, he says that the eagerness of the facial expression
of the statue does not compensate for its overall stiff and, thus, non-naturalistic
appearance. 211 A look at the face of the Kerameikos lion indicates that its forehead is
broad, triangular in shape, and marked by a deep depression that separates its forehead in
two halves as it runs between its eyes and all the way down to its partially preserved
nose. 212 The eyes are deep set especially at the inner corners, thus reminiscent of
“Skopasian style” and marked by slanting and overhanging brows, which, to judge from
the visible left side of the statue’s face, run down the sides of the eyes. 213 Its mouth is
large and partially open with its jaws separated from each other, thin (almost invisible)
lips, and prominent teeth (both regular and canine), all of which give the impression that
the animal growls. The author of the Physiognomics does not explicitly refer to the
growling of the lion, but he does discuss its deep voice, which he interprets as a sign of
bravery. As he says: “the brave animals have deep voices, and the cowardly high-pitched
voices, the lion and the bull, the barking dog, and the brave cocks are all deep-voiced”
(807a) [168]. 214 Further, he provides a description of the face of the lion, which, when
compared to that of the lion from the Kerameikos, appears to share common elements
211 Willemsen, Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier 54.
212 The triangular shape of the lion’s forehead seems to follow the standard fourth-century shape of
forehead for humans in Greek sculpture. For a discussion of this sculptural trait as fourth-century in date,
see Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles 100.
213 For a discussion of “the deep setting of the eyes at the inner corner” as a trait of the “Skopasian style” in
fourth-century sculptural representations of the human form, see B. S. Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I:
The Styles of ca. 331-200 B.C. (Madison, 1990) 14; also for slanting eyebrows as another fourth-century
facial feature of human representations in Greek sculpture, which along with the deeply set eyes, conveys
an impression of pathos, see her discussion in Fourth-Century Styles 17.
214 Also: “in the matter of voice the deep and full voice denotes courage, when high and slack it means
cowardice” (Aristotle, Phgn. 806b); translation: Hett, Aristotle. Minor Works 95.
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with it. He provides this description as part of his discussion of the lion as the ideal male
type of the animal kingdom:
The lion of all animals seems to have the most perfect share of the male type. Its
mouth is very large, its face is square, not too bony, the upper jaw not
overhanging but equally balanced with the lower jaw, a muzzle rather thick than
fine, bright deep-set eyes, neither very round nor very narrow, of moderate size, a
large eyebrow, square forehead, rather hollow from the centre, overhanging
towards the brow and nostril below the forehead like a cloud. Above on the
forehead towards the muzzle hair slopping outwards and like bristles, a head of
moderate size, a long neck, with corresponding thickness, covered with tawny
hairs, neither very bristling nor too much turned back. (Phgn. 809b) [172]
In this case, he describes certain facial features of the lion such as its large mouth, deep-
set eyes, forehead hollow in the center and overhanging toward the brow, and bristling
hair, all of which have their counterparts, as already seen, in the face of the Kerameikos
lion. He does not explain here what these facial features may reveal about the character
of the animal, but in three other passages he interprets some of them, such as its thin lips,
deep-set eyes, and overhanging brow as signs of its magnanimous and overbold
character:
Those who have thin lips and slack parts at the joining of the lips, so that the
upper lip overhangs the lower at the join, are magnanimous; witness the lions.
(Phgn. 811a) [177]
Those whose eyes are slightly hollow are magnanimous; witness lions.
(Phgn. 811b) [178]
Those with an overhanging brow are overbold; witness the bull and the lion.
(Phgn. 811b) [179]
The fact that these facial features are also present in the Kerameikos lion suggests that its
rendering was already tied to the ancient Greek view of the animal as a magnanimous and
bold creature. This evidence, in turn, suggests that the style of the statue was determined
not only by how certain anatomical features of the lion were perceived visually, but also
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y what these features were thought to mean it terms of its character—an essentially
abstract aspect of the animal. It is clear, therefore, that the style of the Kerameikos lion is
based on a blending of how ancient Greek society saw the lion and what it thought about
it.
Further, Willemsen notes that the lion from the Kerameikos lacks a lower back
and a backbone, and has also his legs undeveloped, characteristics, which, according to
him, contribute to the non-naturalistic appearance of the statue. 215 The author of the
Physiognomics states, however, that “those [animals] that are small in the waist are
hunters: witness lions and dogs” (810b) [174]. Such an ancient Greek view of the lion
having a small waist may help explain why the Kerameikos lion lacks a lower back, a
feature that would make the statue quite naturalistic in the eyes of ancient viewers.
Further, the fact that the statue does not have a visible backbone may be directly related
to the statement of Plato in the Critias mentioned above, that viewers were tolerant of
inaccuracies in works of art that depicted non-human subjects, without, however,
dismissing them as unsuccessful representations [143]. Finally, the legs of the statue
have been noted earlier for the overall impression of power they convey. That the author
of the Physiognomics speaks of powerful extremities in humans as a sign of bravery
(Phgn. 807a) [169] may be indicative of the sculptor’s underlying intention to show the
character of this animal. Such an application of a human characteristic to an animal is
not, however, peculiar, since the author of the Physiognomics makes extensive use—
throughout the entire treatise—of human bodily signs drawn from the animal kingdom. 216
215 Willemsen, Die Löwenkopf-Wasserspeier 54.
216 Regarding the presence of stiff wings in birds, for example, the author of the Physiognomics (806b) says
that this is a sign of bravery, whereas those with soft ones are cowardly. Exactly the same thing occurs, he
says, with races of men; thus those living in the north are brave and stiff-haired and those in the south are
138

Further, Willemsen’s observation that the legs of the lion are not fully developed may not
be completely divorced from another physiognomic idea that the legs and feet of both
humans and animals are last in a list of the most important bodily parts indicative of inner
character. As stated in the conclusion to the Physiognomics:
The most favorable part for examination is the region round the eyes, forehead,
head and face; secondly, the region of the breast and shoulders, and lastly that of
the legs and feet; the parts about the belly are of least importance. Generally
speaking, these regions supply the clearest signs, in which there is greatest
evidence of intelligence. (Phgn. 814b) [183]
The analysis of the inconsistent elements of the style of the Kerameikos lion
suggests that these elements are direct reflections of how the animal was viewed and
thought to be in both appearance and character, of a general attitude toward
representations of non-human animals in art, and also of an idea that placed particular
emphasis on anatomical features considered especially telling, thus important for
conveying personal characteristics of living beings. This evidence, in turn, suggests the
crucial role of animals in establishing that the coexistence of naturalistic and non-
naturalistic elements in the style of a work of art was not a phenomenon of which
Classical Greek society disapproved, but rather one directly shaped by its conceptual
categories.
The Dog from the Precinct of Lysimachides of Acharnai in the Kerameikos
Made of Hymettian marble and found in 1863 in the funerary precinct of
Lysimachides of Acharnai in the Athenian Kerameikos, the so-called hound of
Kerameikos (Fig. 1), reclines and faces right; as with the lion in the precinct of Dionysios
cowardly and have soft hair. Also in his discussion of toes of living beings (Phgn. 810a), he says that those
humans, whose toes are curved are shameless, just like birds that have curved talons.
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of Kollytos, this statue is thought to have been one of a pair (the other now lost) that
decorated the front corners of the precinct in which it was found. 217 The statue, whose
body (length: 1.78m; height 0.90m) rests on a plinth, has been dated to the last three
decades of the fourth century B.C. (ca. 320 B.C.), 218 and its identification as a hound of
the ancient Molossian breed (that referred to excellent guard dogs and is discussed in
detail in chapter three) has been proposed as early as 1909 by Otto Keller. 219 Hans
Riemann has remarked that the statue is constantly talked about as a dog, although it
combines a leonine body and the head of a dog. 220 Kawami admits that “the Kerameikos
hound is lion-like.” 221 In fact, she identifies, as mentioned earlier, its “heavy compact
chest, well-sprung almost barrel-like rib cage, and the carefully modeled toes with
prominent claws as those of a lion,” whereas she considers its heavy shoulders, thick
legs, and large paws to be those of a dog. 222 Although Kawami’s observations are not
without merit, the impression that one gains by looking at the statue is very much in
agreement with Rienmann’s opinion that it has the body of a lion and the head of a dog.
217
Kerameikos Museum P 670. The grave precinct of Lysimachides of Acharnai (A4) is the fourth of six
precincts (A1-A6) that line the south side of the Street of the Tombs on a hill in the southwestern corner of
the Kerameikos. It lies east of the precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos. “It is an approximately rectangular
peribolos 16.25m in length, whose depth varies between 5.9m, on the east side, and 6.85m on the west.”
The height of its front wall is 3.45m. The precinct has been dated to between 338 and 317 B.C. on the
basis of evidence that at the east the façade overlaps what remained of the front wall of the neighboring
precinct of Dionysios after the destruction of 338 B.C.: Garland, “A First Catalogue of Attic Peribolos
Tombs” 138 and 137, fig. 2, and Knigge, The Athenian Kerameikos 126. Regarding the statue, which is
placed at the eastern corner of the enclosure, Garland says (138) that it was doubtless matched by another
one at the western corner. Knigge (126) agrees with him. For an additional discussion of the precinct of
Lysimachides, and grave stelai found in it and bearing inscriptions with the name of Lysimachides, see
Brückner, Der Friedhof am Eridanos 76, fig. 45 and 83-85.
218
Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo fig. 178: 330-310 B.C; H. Riemann, Kerameikos II: Die
Skulpturen vom 5. Jahrhundert bis in römische Zeit (Berlin, 1940) 102: 320 B.C.
219
O. Keller, Die antike Tierwelt I (Leipzig, 1909) 104-107, 111-112.
220
H. Riemann, Kerameikos II: 101.
221
Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
222
Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
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The body of the Kerameikos hound appears heavy and powerful. It is defined by
strong muscles that are made visible through the haunch, hind leg, and also through the
shoulder and foreleg. The four clearly visible ribs on the side of the body give the
impression of a lean and muscular animal. Below the rib cage, an enlarged vein branches
out and runs along the abdomen. The hind leg is sinewy with a large paw that terminates
in pronounced toes and claws. The forelegs are long and muscular with equally large
paws and pronounced toes but with curved claws. Each toe, front and hind, is detailed
with patches of hair as is the underside of the right foreleg, and that of the ribcage. Hair
accentuates the lower rump as well as the tail, which disappears underneath the body and
emerges over the hind paw. Locks of hair run along the backbone and are angled slightly
back and down; they connect with detailed hair that runs around the neck and down to the
chest resembling a lion’s mane. The chest is broad and elongated. The face is defined by
muscular cheeks, attentive eyes, a large partially open mouth, and a long snout. The
forehead is flat and divided in the center by a depression that runs between the eyes and
stops at the snout. The hair encircling the face is organized in short locks that project,
thus framing the face and separating it from the rest of the body.
The Anatomy of the Kerameikos Dog
The display of musculature on the body of the statue accords well with Pseudo-
Aristotle’s discussion of leonine anatomy in the Physiognomics, which, as already noted,
calls attention to the muscular body of lion, particularly, its strong, muscular legs, and
lean haunches and thighs (809b) [173]. Similarly, the presence of curved nails on the
statue is consistent with the information Aristotle provides in the History of Animals that
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of “the animals that possess nails…some have straight ones (e.g., man), others crooked or
curved ones (an example from walking animals is the lion, from flying ones, the eagle)”
(517a-517b) [59]. The sculptor’s attention to the lion’s nails is intriguing, considering
that the animal can in reality retract its claws. Further, the presence of hair on the back
and neck of the statue is consistent with the description of the lion in the Physiognomics
as an animal with a hairy back and neck, and his interpretation of these bodily features as
signs of shamelessness and generosity respectively (812b) [180]. Similarly, the
physiognomic idea that those animals (among them the lion) whose hair near the head
curls backwards are liberal in character appears to find application on the lion-like body
of the statue, whose hair around its head is pushed backward (812b) [181]. The
importance of this sign in the mind of the author of the Physiognomics emerges clearly
when he notes what the opposite appearance signifies: “those [animals] whose hair
inclines to grow down from the head towards the nose are mean; this is appropriate as
this appearance gives a servile look” (812b) [182].
The intention to highlight the character of the animal represented here may be
also seen in its possession of a large chest, large and powerful extremities, and also a
hairy tail. As the author of the Physiognomics suggests, all animals with bushy tails are
aggressive (808b) [171], and with large chests strong in character (810b) [175]. In
addition, this author has human beings in mind when he speaks of large and powerful
extremities as signs of bravery (807a) [169], as noted earlier, but also of a passionate
temperament (808a) [170]. That his idea could equally apply to animals is supported by
the fundamental notion of the Physiognomics, also noted earlier, that similar bodily
features in humans and animals reveal their comparable inner qualities. The connection
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that the author of the Physiognomics sees, therefore, between large, powerful extremities
and bravery in men may serve as a clue to what the large and powerful legs of the
Kerameikos statue were intended to convey in terms of its subject’s character. A similar
intention can be also found in the broad chest of the animal, an additional bodily feature
which the Physiognomics associates with bravery in both humans and animals (807a;
810b) [169; 175]. In light of this evidence, it is reasonable to suggest that the sculptor of
the statue was familiar on some level with leonine anatomy and with what it was thought
to reveal in terms of the character of the animal. But the Kerameikos statue, as Riemann
has rightly noted, has the head of a dog, a non-naturalistic characteristic that does not
allow it to be classified as a lion. In fact, the rendering of its head, especially the muscles
of the face and the depression in the middle of the forehead, accord well with the
description of the head of the ideal big hunting dog that Xenophon advises his audience
to acquire, in his treatise On Hunting:
First, then, they [hunting dogs] should be big: Next, the head should be light, flat
and muscular; the lower parts of the forehead sinewy; the eyes prominent, black
and sparkling; the forehead broad, with a deep dividing line. (Cyn. 4.1) [190]
This evidence may suggest that the sculptor of the Kerameikos animal was familiar not
simply with canine anatomy, but also with how it reflected a dog’s hunting ability.
Further, the fact that he chose to combine a leonine body, evidently big, with a canine
head on the Kerameikos statue may be also suggestive of the fact that he was additionally
familiar with the well-established idea that saw a close ontological relationship between
the lion and the dog. This evidence is crucial for explaining the combination of leonine
and canine elements in the style of the Kerameikos animal.
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The proximity of the lion to the dog in terms of their nature is a notable element
of Classical Greek zoological thought. Aristotle frequently groups both animals together
under the general category of viviparous quadrupeds, which contains no hint of the
modern differentiation between the biological families Felidae and Canidae, to which the
lion and the dog belong, but rather extends to encompass man and other animals as well,
such as deer and horses. 223 As he characteristically says in the History of Animals: “there
are many kinds included in the group viviparous quadrupeds; but they are unnamed.
Each constituent, we may say, has been named individually, as man has, e.g., lion, deer,
horse, dog, and the rest of them in the same way” (490b) [55]. The conceived proximity
between the lion and the dog is further suggested by Aristotle’s and pseudo-Aristotle’s
beliefs that the animals share certain anatomical characteristics and behaviors, such as
saw-like teeth, large mouths, same-sized stomachs, small waists, which account for their
affinity for hunting, and also thin lips, which classify both animals as magnanimous, but
in the case of the dog, this quality is only visible on large and powerful dogs:
Some of them [animals] are saw-toothed, e.g., the lion, the leopard, and the dog.
(HA 501a) [56]
Animals vary in the sizes of their mouths. Some have mouths which open wide
(e.g., the dog, the lion, and all the saw-toothed animals. (HA 502a) [57]
Some [animals] have a comparatively large stomach (e.g., the pig and the bear…);
some have a much smaller one, not much larger than the gut, e.g., the dog, lion,
and man. (HA 507b) [58]
Those [animals] that are small in the waist are hunters; witness lions and dogs.
One can observe that the dogs most fond of hunting are those which are narrow in
the waist. (Phgn. 810b) [174]
223 Peck, Aristotle. Historia Animalium I 35, n. 35: “there is in Greek no name corresponding to Felidae.”
Felidae or Felids is the term designating the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called
a felid. The family is divided into two subfamilies: Pantherinae, which includes the lion, the tiger, and the
leopard, and Felinae, which includes the cougar, the cheetah, lynxes, and the caracal, along with the
domestic cat.
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Those [animals] who have thin lips and slack parts at the joining of the lips, so
that the upper lip overhangs the lower at the joint, are magnanimous; witness the
lions. One can see the same thing in large and powerful dogs. (811a) [177]
These observations indicate that in the minds of these authors the dog and the lion were
two species that shared a common nature, which manifested itself in the anatomy,
behavior, and character of the animals.
Additional evidence regarding the ontological proximity of the lion to the dog can
be found in several of Aristotle’s discussions of the lion, in particular of its bodily
functions and behavior, which he describes by comparing them directly to those of a dog.
In the History of Animals, he says, for example:
The lion is a carnivore like all others that are wild and saw-toothed. Its manner of
devouring is violent, and it swallows much of its food without dividing it up, and
then goes without food for two or three days: it can do this because it is over-full.
It does not drink much. It discharges excrement sparsely: it is voided every other
day or at random intervals, and is dry and desiccated like a dog’s. Also the wind
that it discharges is very pungent and its urine has a smell; hence the dogs sniff at
the trees, for it urinates lifting its leg like dogs. (HA 594b) [63]
The passage clearly states the perceived link between a lion and a dog in terms of certain
bodily functions and accompanied behavior. Similarly, a lion not only exhibits dog-like
behavior by running like a hound, when it is hunted by humans, but also by stretching its
tail like a hound, when trying to escape; at the same time, a wound caused by a lion
requires the same treatment as that caused by a dog:
When it [lion] is being hunted, even if it is in view it never runs away nor takes
cover, but if it is compelled to withdraw because of the number of hunters it
retreats at a walk, step by step, and turning its head at short intervals; nevertheless
if it reaches thick cover it runs away fast until it has come into full view; then in
again withdraws at a walk. In open country if it has been forced by the crowd to
run away into full view, it runs extended and does not leap. The running gait is
continuously extended like a hound’s; when it is pursuing, however, it hurls itself
on the prey when it is near. (HA 629b) [67]
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Sometimes they [lions] run away stretching the tail straight out like hounds. A
lion has been seen before now to attack a pig, and running away when it saw it
bristling in defense. Against blows to the flanks it is weak, but it can take many
over the rest of its body and its head is strong. Whatever it has bitten or wounded
with its claws, the wounds run with ichors which are deep yellow and cannot be
washed out of the bandages and sponges. The treatment is the same as for
wounds caused by dogbite. (HA 630a) [68]
Evidence that the closeness of the dog and the lion extends also to their biology is
found elsewhere in the zoological treatises of Aristotle. In the Generation of Animals, he
notes, for example, that the dog is one of those animals that mates with species other than
its own, but species with which it is allied in nature. Although not directly related to the
lion, this information is crucial for the context it establishes:
The partners in copulation are naturally and ordinarily animals of the same kind;
but beside that, animals that are closely allied in their nature, and are not very
different in species, copulate, if they are comparable in size and if their period
of gestation are equal in length. Although such crossing is infrequent among the
majority of animals, it occurs among dogs, foxes, wolves (and jackals); the
Indian dog also is produced from the union of a dog with some wild doglike beast.
(GA 746a) [50]
In the History of Animals, Aristotle explains further the breed of the Indian dog as the
result of a mating between a dog and a tiger:
Other animals too are produced from the mixing of different breeds, as in Cyrene
the wolves mate with the dogs and generate young, and from fox and dog come
the Laconian hounds. They say too that the Indian hounds come from tiger and
dog, not immediately, but after the third mating; for they say the first offspring is
like a savage beast. They take the bitches to deserted places and tie them up; and
many are devoured, if the wild animal does not happen to be excited for mating.
(HA 607a) [65]
By identifying the Indian hound with the offspring of the third-generation mating
between a tiger and a dog, the passage indicates that Aristotle placed the dog lower than a
tiger in the scale of animals with savage nature, and viewed it therefore as the species
directly affected by cross-breeding. Aristotle is not the only author who records
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knowledge of the dog mating with other species. Xenophon, for example, in his treatise
On Hunting, states that a breed of hounds called “Vulpine is a hybrid between the dog
and the fox: hence the name” (Cyn. 3.1) [189].
Specific evidence regarding the breeding between a dog and a lion does is offered
by Aristotle. In the Generation of Animals, although he acknowledges that these two are
two different species of animals, he does not preclude the idea of breeding between them.
In fact, he draws attention to how the sex of each species in this case affects differently
the species of the offspring:
Two animals which differ in species produce offspring which differs in species;
for instance, a dog differs in species from a lion, and the offspring of a male dog
and a female lion is different in species; so is the offspring of a male lion and a
female dog. (GA 747b) [51]
Aristotle does not specify what the offspring of a lion and a dog would be, but his
statement is crucial for establishing cross-breeding between the two animals as a fixed
idea in his day. 224 Although he does not identify the types of dogs used in this practice,
his earlier comment that similar-sized animals is a prerequisite for mating between
different species suggests that large dogs were most likely used in this case. Also that the
lion is, in his mind, a strong, high-bred animal (HA 488b) [54] suggests that the species
most likely to be altered by cross-breeding in this case is the dog. Aristotle’s idea of a
lion and a dog being cross-bred is also supported by a later author, Pollux (A.D. II), who
reports that in Hycarnia, a region to the south of the Caspian Sea, dogs are crossed with
lions (Onom. 5.38) [163].
224 Another instance of the well-established idea that the sex of each species affects the species of the
offspring is the case of the mule, which Aristotle defines as (GA 746b, 747a, 748a) as the sterile offspring
of a male donkey and a female horse and also that of a hinny, that is, the offspring of a male horse and a
female donkey.
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Although not exactly based on cross-breeding, the biological affinity between a
lion and a dog may be also reflected in the mythological idea that one of these animals
can be parented by the other. According to Hesiod’s Theogony (306), for example, the
Nemean lion killed by Heracles is the offspring of Orthus, the dog of the titan Geryon,
and the monster Echidna. Although not conventional, such lineage reflects the idea that
no great biological distance separated the lion from the dog, but rather, the two were
considered ontologically close to one another.
Taken together, the evidence cited so far indicates that Classical Greek zoological
thought considered the lion and the dog two animals that were closely allied in nature.
They shared certain anatomical, behavioral, and personal characteristics, and were also
cross-bred. When transferred to the Kerameikos hound, which combines the body of a
lion and the head of a dog, this evidence suggests that the contradictory elements in the
style of this statue may be interpreted as the result of the contemporary view of the lion
and the dog as ontologically close to one another. This evidence, in turn, highlights the
role of animals in uncovering the conceptual context that helps shape the elements of the
Classical style in ancient Greek art.
Conclusion
The fourth-century statues of the lion and the hound from the Kerameikos suggest
that the presence of naturalistic and non-naturalistic, elements in their inconsistent and
contradictory styles respectively is a direct reflection of the manner in which these two
animals were viewed and thought to be in contemporary life. In this way, animals
emerge as useful guides to the conceptual categories that shape the elements of style, and
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serve their arrangement in Classical Greek sculpture. Simply put, animals reveal that an
interplay of apparently differing elements is the sustained underlying model of expressing
style in the Classical period of Greek art. As the cases of the lion and the dog suggest,
these elements prove to express similarities. In the first case, for example, the similarity
refers to that between a male lion and a male human, whereas, in the second, between a
dog and a lion. On the basis of this evidence, the scholarly interpretations of the
problematic style of representations of animals in Classical Greek sculpture as a
reflection of the inability of the artists to portray accurately their subjects, lack of real
models, copying from foreign animal models, or attempting to highlight the apotropaic
function of the animals depicted do not appear to stand on firm ground. By establishing
that the logic of the Classical style in Greek art is one of combining elements in various
modes and degrees, such as inconsistency, incongruity, and contradiction animals suggest
that the generally accepted interpretation of this style as a strict imitation of the external
world does not hold true. More specifically, animals suggest that the underlying
framework of the Classical style is based on an interplay of disagreeing elements that are,
in turn, directly shaped by contemporary ideas regarding the representational subjects of
works of art. Further, since animals show that such an interplay of apparent
inconsistencies is not limited to the style of Classical art, but characterizes also that of the
art of the Archaic period, and since it extends also to the human form during these
periods, animals suggest a new example for approaching the Classical style in Greek art:
as a model based on fusion that is marked by a shift in the balance of its differing
elements as art moves from one stylistic/chronological phase to another. Representations
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of animals in Classical Greek sculpture offer, therefore, an invaluable insight into the
Classical Greek conception of style in contemporary art.
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Chapter 3: The Classical Greek Contradictory Attitude toward the Dog
Introduction
This chapter is an investigation of the Classical Greek attitude towards the dog
based on contemporary literary sources. Although the Classical period is especially rich
in sources, the present chapter is limited to a selected body of texts from which a clear
picture of how the dog was viewed and treated can be discerned.
The attitude towards the dog that emerges from these texts is marked by
contradiction: the dog, on the one hand, was in some respect, central to the life and
thought of Classical Greek society, but, on the other, it was denigrated as a malevolent
creature deserving of callous and cruel treatment. The sources show that the dog was an
integral part of Classical Greek society, which was anthropocentric to its core. As a
resident of the Classical Greek household, the dog was cared for by having both shelter
and food provided for it. Its behavior was so familiar and closely observed that its
propensity for stealing and gobbling food served as a figure of speech for describing
similar behavior in humans. The dog was also highly valued for its ability in guarding
the house, its residents, and their possessions, and for its fidelity and cunning
intelligence. A certain breed known as the Molossian was esteemed for its exceptional
appearance and size. Yet along with this positive reception of the dog, the sources also
preserve a strand of evidence that portrays the animal as a malevolent and dangerous
creature, and one that was beaten and actually eaten. For example, because of its ability
simultaneously to fawn over and bite people, the dog was considered a treacherous and
therefore untrustworthy animal. Similarly, its behavior as a scavenger inspired fear in
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humans and led to its classification as a dangerous animal. Furthermore, the beating of
the dog as punishment for gobbling down stolen food exemplified its physical abuse,
whereas the consumption of its flesh marked its status as no different from any other
edible animal. Both these types of treatment and the callous views of the dog suggest a
negative attitude that contrasts sharply with the one mentioned above.
The discussion of the texts that convey this contradictory attitude is divided into
three sections: Section 1 surveys the evidence for the presence of the animal in the
Classical Greek household, its role as a guardian, and the contradiction evident in its
loyal and, at the same time, treacherous behavior. The section also discusses the
popularity of the Molossian breed of guard dogs. Section 2 presents evidence that refers
to the feeding behavior of the dog, that is, its propensity for stealing and eating up food,
its cunning behavior, and the punishment corresponding to its offense. In addition, the
section discusses the care that the animal received by having its food provided, but also
its behavior as a scavenger, and ideas regarding the origin of its savage nature. Section 3
is a survey of testimony that refers to the practice of eating dogs as a marker of social
class, and also as a dietary treatment for certain diseases. The arrangement of the texts
within each section is chronological with the exception of a few instances where
chronology has given way to other factors to further the cohesion of the argument.
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SECTION 1
a. Dogs Living in the House
Evidence that dogs lived in the premises of the Classical Greek house comes from
a passage from Aristophanes’ Plutus (388 B.C.). The play opens at the house of
Chremylus, a poor Athenian citizen, where Plutus, the god of wealth, appears as an old,
blind man. Chremylus takes Plutus to a sanctuary of Asclepius, where he has his sight
restored. This newfound ability enables Plutus to distinguish between virtuous but poor
and wicked but rich citizens. In an attempt to eliminate these categories, Plutus
establishes a new world where everyone is virtuous and rich, but the main effect of this
act is the cessation of sacrificial offerings to the gods. Hermes visits the house of
Chremylus to complain about the situation. He is first met by a slave named Carion:
CARION
Here, you, tell me, was it you that was knocking
so hard on the door just now?
HERMES
No, I didn’t; I was going to, but you opened the door first.
Now run quickly and call out your master, then his wife
and children, then the servants, then the dog, then yourself, and
then the pig. (Plut. 1100-1105) [44]
The words of Hermes show that a dog was included among the residents of the house of
Chremylus. This evidence does not automatically assign to the dog status equal to that of
a member of Chremylus’s family, as it has been previously suggested, 225 but does
225 S. Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 56; Helsinki, 1976)
78-79, correctly notes that the passage cannot be used as evidence that dogs were considered members of
the Classical Greek family. This point, she clarifies, is presented in a discussion of this passage by J. Löbe,
“Notizen über der Hund aus griechischen und römischen Schriftstellern,” Mitteilungen aus dem Österlande
9 (1900) 33. The situation provides the ground for reference to modern notions of animals as members of
the family. A. Katcher and A. Beck, Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal Companionship
(West Lafayette, 1983; rev. ed., 1996) 41, indicate that, in a survey regarding animals and the family, 87
percent of their subjects considered animals living with them as members of their family. In addition,
another study focusing on adolescent pony-club members found that more than 80 percent of persons asked
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indicate that the premises of the Classical Greek house served as shelter for the animal,
which further implies the very real presence of the dog in everyday domestic life. The
inclusion of a dog in the house of Chremylus raises the question whether specific space
was reserved for the animal. Archaeological evidence regarding the existence of
doghouses in ancient Greek houses is lacking. Physical evidence regarding doghouses in
the classical world, however, comes from Pompeii. 226
Of particular interest in the passage is the sequence to which Hermes adheres
when he enumerates the residents of Chremylus’s house—master, wife, children,
servants, dog, Carion, pig. 227 As can be seen, Hermes follows a hierarchical order by
considered the horse to be a family member, an indication that the feeling does not depend upon the
animal’s actual living in the house. More recently and in the context of the effects of hurricane Katrina on
both people and animals on the Gulf Coast of the United States, some fifteen thousand pets, among them
dogs, cats, parakeets, and goats, were stranded, rescued, and consequently adopted by new owners. As K.
Boccella, “Tug-of-War Erupts Over Katrina Pets—Class and Race Shade the Fight Between Those Who
Lost, Those Who Now Have,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (July 16, 2006) 1, reports, many evacuees, in an
effort to reclaim the pets they were forced to abandon, sued agencies that set up the animals for adoption by
new owners. In defense of former owners, lawyers representing them in custody battles have argued that
their clients lost everything, but the only thing left to them is their family; and these animals are their
family. The situation, however, has brought forward the overlooked but well-established contradiction
between the widely held notion that pets are family members and their legal status as mere property.
Reflective of the attempt to resolve this contradiction is the growing specialty of animal law within the
legal world. Explaining the objective of lawyers specializing in this field, W. St. John, “New Breed of
Lawyer Gives Every Dog His Day in Court,” New York Times (Sept. 3, 2006) 13, states that their primary
goal is: “getting the legal system to acknowledge that animals have an intrinsic value beyond mere
property, because of the bond between pets and their owners.”
226 Two doghouses were found at Pompeii. One is a small masonry doghouse located in the southwest
corner of the tablinum of a house (XI.V.2) on the Via di Nola. For a discussion of this doghouse, see W. F.
Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New York,
1979) 103, n. 65, fig. 163. A second doghouse was excavated in the so-called Garden of Hercules, which
comprised part of a humble house (II.VIII.6) to the west of the Great Palaestra. The doghouse, which was
found south of the triclinium, was made by mounting on a masonry base half of a terracotta jar, dolium, that
was cut lengthwise. For a discussion and an illustration of this doghouse, see Jashemski, The Gardens of
Pompeii 103, n. 66; 279; 426, fig. 422; Also a mosaic from Carthage (A.D. IV-V) depicts a dog chained to
its house: D. Brewer et al., Dogs in Antiquity. Anubis to Cerberus. The Origins of the Domestic Dog
(Warminster, 2000) 93, fig. 5.12. Varro (116-27 B.C.) is the first classical author to refer to kennels. In his
discussion on dogs living in farms (Rust. 2.9.12-2.9.13), he recommends: “on rainy days the kennels should
be bedded with leaves or fodder, and this for two purposes: to keep them from being muddied and to keep
them from getting chilled”; translation: W. D. Hooper, ed., tr., rev. H. B. Ash, Marcus Porcius Cato. On
Agriculture. Marcus Terentius Varro. On Agriculture (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1934; rev. and repr.
1935; repr. 1993) 403.
227 Additional evidence, that pigs were kept in the courtyards of Athenian houses in specific pens called
xoirokomei=a, derives from comedy (Vesp. 844; Lys. 1037). As A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wealth (The
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eferring first to the human family members and then proceeding to the others living in
the house. 228 This sequence accords well with the contemporary anthropocentric view
that humans were primary and central in the classification of living beings. 229 What
seems to upset this view, however, is the placement of Carion, a human slave, between
the dog and the pig. This placement, which has been interpreted as an attempt to
deride 230 and insult 231 the slave, is peripheral to the current discussion of the dog, but the
possibility that it is reflective of current views on slaves and animals, 232 and also
Comedies of Aristophanes 11; Warminster, 2001) 209, line 1106, maintains, keeping pigs in pens “was an
efficient recycling device for disposing of much household rubbish and ultimately converting it into food
for the family.” For a thorough discussion of the word xoirokomei=on (pig-pen), see G. V. Lalonde,
“Topographical Notes on Aristophanes,” Hesperia Supplement 20 (1982) 77-81.
228 This evidence is also consistent with the suggestion that speech and writing are linear, hence sequential,
and, as such, they allow the listener or the reader to get an idea of the whole. For a discussion of this idea
and its possible affect on the spatial arrangement of representational subjects in Greek art, see J. P. Small,
“Time in Space: Narrative in Classical Art,” The Art Bulletin 81 (1999) 563, n. 25.
229 For a discussion of this view, see Renehan, “The Greek Anthropocentric View of Man” 239-259; also G.
Steiner, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western
Philosophy (Pittsburgh, 2005) 1.
230 Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 79, n. 31; in sustaining her belief in the comic element in Carion’s
position between the dog and the pig, she follows H. van Daele’s (V. Coulon, ed., and H. van Daele, tr.,
Aristophane [Collection de Universités de France 5; Paris, 1930; repr. 1963] 142, n. 2) comment on the
passage: “Dans cette énumération, Hermès cite par plaisanterie l’esclave Carion entre la chienne et la
truie.” In addition, C. Mainoldi, L’image du loup et du chien dans la Grèce ancienne d’Homère à Platon
(Paris, 1984) 153, acknowledges the presence of a hierarchical order in this passage, and states that, apart
from the humor, the dog of the “house” does not occupy the last place [in it], but it appears before the
slave: “S’il faut reconnaîtrai un ordre hiérarchique dans ce passage, il est evident que la chienne de la
maison n’occupe pas la dernière place, et que notamment, au-delà de las plaisanterie, elle devance
l’esclave.” Maison can be translated as “house, residence; home; household, family”: H. Ferrar, ed., The
Concise Oxford French-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1934; second ed., 1980) 326-327, s.v. It is not easy to
decide which meaning the author has decided to give to the term used here. Since most of the additional
meanings could alter significantly the interpretation of the passage under discussion, the term “house” in
the sense of physical premises has been chosen here as the least troublesome.
231 S. D. Olson, “Cario and the New World of Aristophanes’ Plutus,” TAPA 119 (1989) 198, n. 19, states
that: “Cario’s position in this social hierarchy as Hermes defines it, sandwiched in between the dog, a semiintelligent
figure, halfway between servant and animal, and the pig, is a calculated insult.”
232 The Classical Greek tendency easily to associate the slave with the animal is a topic that deserves
separate attention. For a discussion of this tendency, see K. Bradley, “Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of
Fiction,” JRS 90 (2000) 110. Literary evidence that supports this tendency derives from Aristotle’s Politics
(1254b), where slaves are assimilated to animals: “animals other than man are subservient not to reason, by
apprehending it, but to feelings. And also the usefulness of slaves diverges little from that of animals;
bodily service for the necessities of life is forthcoming from both, from slaves and from domestic animals
alike”; translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Aristotle. Politics (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1932; repr.
1990) 23. Similarly in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus (13.9): “in the case of human beings it is possible to
make them more obedient merely by talking to them, pointing out that it is to their advantage to obey. But
for slaves the method of training that is accepted for wild animals is very effective in teaching obedience”;
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Aristophanes’s intention to control the attention of his audience in regard to Carion
remains strong. 233 This evidence notwithstanding, it is the preconceived supremacy of
the human residents of Chremylus’s house over the dog that appears to have determined
the way both these fictional characters and the audience they addressed related to the
animal.
Further evidence of the anthropocentric attitude that characterized the Classical
Greek relationship between humans and the dog is seen in philosophical writings. In
translation: S. B. Pomeroy, Xenophon. Oeconomicus. A Social and Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1994)
67. Bradley, “Animalizing the Slave” 110, maintains that this notion of assimilation is further sustained by
the fact that one of the ancient Greek words for slaves was a)ndra&podon meaning a “man-footed thing”
analogous to tetra&podon “four-footed thing.” For further discussion of these terms, see P. Cartledge, The
Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others (Oxford and New York, 1993; second ed., 2002) 151, who clarifies
that a)ndra&podon appears to have been the technical term for those slaves acquired through capture in war.
Additional evidence that slaves and animals were closely associated in Classical Greece derives from the
epigraphic record. The inscriptions recording the sale of personal property confiscated from Alcibiades and
those Athenians who were accused of mutilating the Herms and profaning the Eleusinian mysteries (415/4
B.C.) show that both slaves and animals were included in this property. For a discussion of the slaves sold,
their names (e.g., Pistos) and their prices (e.g., 202 drachmai), see W. K. Pritchett, “The Attic Stelai, Part
I,” Hesperia 22 (1953) 246; for the animals referred in these inscriptions, that is, oxen, goats, sheep, cows,
and beehives, see W. K. Pritchett, “The Attic Stelai, Part II,” Hesperia 25 (1956) 255-261. The treatment
of animals as property on the inscriptions recalls the similarity with the current status of animals within
human society. Finally, for the ability to speak as the only criterion that differentiated slaves from animals
in Classical Greece, see J. Heath, The Talking Greeks. Speech, Animals and the Other in Homer, Aeschylus,
and Plato (Cambridge, 2005) 203, n. 113. For evidence that the same idea prevailed also in Roman society,
see Gilhus, Animals, Gods and Humans 14.
233 As Small, “Time in Space” 565, maintains: “both the classical literary and visual examples can order
their words and figures in a number of different ways to achieve particular effects.” That this may be
Aristophanes’ intention is also supported by the fact that the reference to Carion at this point seems
redundant, since Hermes has already referred to the servants of the house. For the exceptional abilities of
Aristophanes to control and direct the attention of his audience, see N. W. Slater, “Making the Aristophanic
Audience,” AJP 120 (1999) 351-368. Given the overall portrayal of Carion in the play as an unusually
outspoken and proud slave, and the fact that in both ancient Greek art and language the center is the most
important position, it may be suggested that, when placed in the center of an arrangement that is bordered
by a dog and a pig, Carion is associated, but not demoted to the level of these animals. On the contrary, he
is distinguished from them, who are presented here as the ends next in importance to the center. Within
this context, Carion’s position can be also seen as a trick that Aristophanes employs in order to store in his
audience’s mind the non-stereotypical behavior of this slave. For the perception of order and physical
context as mnemonic devices, see J. P. Small, Wax Tablets of the Mind. Cognitive Studies of Memory and
Literacy in Classical Antiquity (London and New York, 1997) esp. 84-85 and 227-230.
For the exceptional character of Carion, see Olson, “Cario and the New World” 193-199. For a discussion
of the importance of the center in ancient Greek art and language, see Small, “Time in Space” 564-565,
where references are made to specific artistic examples, such as the Parthenon frieze, and also to the
importance of the fact that Greek is an inflected language, a characteristic that allows the order of words to
reflect the importance of each word.
156

Aristotle’s Politics, so pervasive is this attitude that the breeding cycle of the animal is
perceived as being affected by its living together with humans:
Human beings pair and breed at any and every season, and so also do many
domesticated (sunanqrwpeuo&mena) animals owing to the shelter and the plentiful
food they get by their association with man: I refer to those whose gestation
periods are short, such as the sow and the bitch, and those birds which raise
several broods. (HA 542a) [61]
Aristotle confirms that the dog and the pig, as was the case with those in the house of
Chremylus, shared the same space with humans. This proximity is attested not only by
the provisions of food and shelter that the author attaches to the animals, but also by his
reference to them as “sunanqrwpeuo&mena,” which has been translated as
“domesticated,” but its precise meaning is that of “symbiotic with humans.” That
Aristotle perceives this symbiosis as a shaping force in the breeding cycle of the dog is
significant, for it suggests two ideas of his about the animal: that it had adopted a
biological response to the human environment in which it lived, and that it was inferior to
humans because it had succumbed to their environment. When reversed, this evidence
suggests that an anthropocentric attitude pervaded Aristotle’s view of the relationship
between humans and the dog. Put simply, even though the dog shared the same space
with humans, its conception within Classical Greek society was shaped by deep-seated
convictions about human dominion over animals.
157

. Dogs as Guardians of the House
Several texts that shed light on the prominence of the role of the dog as guardian
of the house survive from the Classical period. One important source that remains is
Aeschylus’s Agamemnon (458 B.C.). It tells the story of the homonymous Argive king
who, upon returning victorious from Troy, is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra. The
play opens at the palace of Argos, where a watchman looks out for a signal that Troy has
been captured by the Greeks. It is night, and he describes the drawbacks of his job in the
following manner:
I ask the gods for release from this misery, the
year-long watch I lie awake keeping on the roof (ste/gaij)
of the Atreidae, up above (a1gkaqen) here like a dog (kuno&j di/khn);
I am familiar now with the night stars’ assembly,
and those brilliant potentates which bring men summer
and winter, conspicuous in the heaven;
I mark them closely as they fade, and the risings of others.
And now I am on watch for a beacon’s sign, a gleam of fire
bringing word from Troy and report of its capture: such is the
power here of a woman whose heart in its hope plans like a man.
Whenever I find myself shifting my bed about at night, wet with
dew, unvisited by dreams—because fear instead of sleep stands
at my side to stop my eyes closing fast in slumber—and whenever
I think to sing or to hum, dispensing this remedy from music against sleep,
then I weep in lament for this house’s misfortune;
it is not managed for the best as it was before. Now I wish for a happy
release from misery when the fire in the dark has appeared with its good
news. (A. 1-21) [6]
Early in the course of his speech, the watchman compares his post to that of a dog. This
simile is instructive, for it suggests that Aeschylus’s audience was familiar with the role
of the animal as a guardian. The simile also demonstrates the use of canine behavior as a
model for describing human behavior, thus suggesting the important position of the dog
in contemporary thought. Apart from the watchman’s own exclamation that his post is
“like that of a dog,” three additional conditions reinforce the affinity of his behavior to
158

that of a dog: his location on the roof of the palace, posture, and vigilance. As the
following discussion shows, all these three are essential elements of the Classical Greek
view of the dog.
The placement of the watchman on the roof(s) (ste/gaij, A. 3) of the palace 234 is
a locale that Classical Greek thought easily associated with the dog. As a passage from
Aristotle’s Great Ethics indicates, the image of a dog spending time on the roof of a
building was familiar canine behavior. In a discussion regarding the question, whether
friendship flourishes between those alike, one of the interlocutors presents refuting
evidence by citing:
The story of a dog that always would sleep upon the same tile ( kerami=doj); 235
and of how Empedocles, when asked why it did so, declared that there was
some affinity between the dog and the [roof-] tile which caused the former
always to seek the latter.” (MM 1208b) [69]
Like the roof of the Argive palace on which the watchman lay, this passage presents the
roof of a building as fitting place for a dog. In this way, the passage reinforces the
similarity between the location of the watchman and that of the dog, 236 and, at the same
time, suggests observation and knowledge of canine behavior.
234 Regarding the visual effect of the presence of the watchman on the roof of the palace, A. Shapiro and P.
Burian, Aeschylus. The Oresteia (Oxford, 2003) 189, note that: “there is no real reason to doubt [that] the
Watchman appeared on the roof as the play began, and [that this position] will also have provided a striking
and probably novel scenic effect.” In support of this view is also N. G. L. Hammond, “Dramatic
Production to the Death of Aeschylus,” GRBS 13 (1972) 434-435, who maintains that it is the first time in
the Oresteia, that a palace background appears on stage where the roof on which the sentry lies is visible.
For a brief discussion of the opposing view that the watchman is not on the roof of the stage building, but
probably on the ground before the palace, see J. C. Hogan, A Commentary on the Complete Greek
Tragedies. Aeschylus (Chicago and London, 1984) 30.
235 According to LSJ 9 , 940, s.v. kerami/j refers explicitly to a “roof-tile.”
236 Although this passage cannot be seen as evidence that the dog was specifically a watchdog, it provides
the ground for discussing modern ethnographic and traveling accounts, which indicate that it is not
uncommon for dogs to spend time and sleep on the roofs of their owners’ houses and also act as watchdogs.
H. Lloyd-Jones, tr., Aeschylus. Oresteia. Agamemnon (Berkeley, 1979) 27, says, for example, that: “in the
Middle East watchdogs still sometimes spend the night on the roof”; E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus. Agamemnon II
(Oxford, 1950) 4, suggests, on the basis of ethnographic research, that “in Egypt and the Sudan the village
dogs prefer to lie at night on the roofs of the houses or huts even when they are not flat.” Dogs spending
159

Turning to the posture of the watchman on the roof of the palace, Aeschylus
maintains that he is lying a1gkaqen (A. 3) like a dog (kuno&j di/khn, A. 3). In his attempt to
visualize the actual posture to which a1gkaqen corresponds, Eduard Fraenkel recognizes,
first, the etymological connection between this term and the word a)gkw&n, which means
not only the elbow, but the crook of the arm within the elbow. 237 For this reason, he
suggests that “the watchman (like the watchdog) lies as it were thrust forward ‘into his
arms,’ with the upper part of his body between them,” or more precisely, “[he] is lying
flat on his elbows, and in this position he is like the dog in the act of watching some
particular object with his head on his paws. In this position the watchman with the least
trouble has the widest look-out.” 238
time on the roof of a house is an image that can still be found in many places around the world. A recent
article published in the local newspaper of Goldsboro, North Carolina, features the story of a dog that spent
considerable time on the roof of its owners’ house and acted like a sentry for the entire neighborhood. The
city received complaints from a neighbor, who expressed concerns regarding the sanitary aspects of the
dog’s living on the roof, and wondered if its owners could face legal repercussions for allowing this to
happen. Animal control officers clarified that there is no law against dogs on the roof. B. Arntsen, Dog On
The Roof…No Law Against It. http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2004/12/31/
dog_on_the_roofno_law_against_it/index.shtml. Also for the presence of dogs on the roofs of houses as a
common phenomenon in Mexico, see D. Bower, Living in Mexico: The Friends of Animals.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Living-in-Mexico:-The-Friends-of-Animals&id=258240.
237 Fraenkel, Aeschylus. Agamemnon 4.
238 Fraenkel, Aeschylus. Agamemnon 4. He also draws evidence from the material record by suggesting (4-
5) that, the scene of “dogs on roof” is reminiscent of the figures of two dogs embellished with ivory and
depicted on a wooden box found in shaft grave V of Grave Circle A in Mycenae (1580-1500 B.C.). B.
Schweitzer, “Hunde auf dem Dach,” AM 55 (1930) 107-118, pl. XXIX, notes that the box is made of
sycamore wood found in Egypt, and that its iconographic theme is reminiscent of Early Dynastic material.
Schweitzer also proposes that the technique of the sides of the box being joined together is identical to the
Egyptian technique of working wood and ivory. For these reasons, he holds that the box was imported
from Egypt; for a discussion of this object, see also A. W. Persson, New Tombs at Dendra near Midea
(Oxford, 1942) 179-181, fig. 131.1. The posture that Fraenkel attributes to the watchman, in particular the
suggestion that he is lying flat on his elbows like a watchdog brings to mind the reclining dog depicted on
the lid of an early Minoan II (2400 B.C.) pyxis in green steatite that was found in Grave I in the cemetery at
Mochlos. The dog serves as the handle of the pyxis: S. Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae (New York, 1960)
pl. 6, 116; for a discussion of the Mochlos cemetery, see J. S. Soles, “The Prepalatial Cemeteries at
Mochlos and Gournia and the House Tombs of Bronze Age Crete,” Hesperia Supplement (1992). A
steatite pyxis dating to the same period and depicting the same figure of a reclining dog on its lid was also
found in a tomb in the Gorge of the Dead at Zakros. For this pyxis, and the suggestion that both this and the
one from Mochlos were made by the same craftsman, see N. Platon, Zakros. The Discovery of a Lost
Palace on Ancient Crete (New York, 1971) 68-69.
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In contrast to this suggestion, John Denniston and Denys Page maintain that
a1gkaqen, which they translate as “up above,” defines ste/gaij (A. 3), which means
“roofs,” and the two should be translated together as meaning “on the roof.” 239 They
maintain that a1gkaqen “could not possibly describe a man resting on his own arms (or
elbows); moreover a man in such an attitude would not noticeably resemble a dog; nor
would it be possible to adopt a more uncomfortable posture for observing the stars.” 240
Although reasonable, this suggestion does not rule out that of Fraenkel.
The watchman’s statement that he keeps a look-out like a dog (kuno&j di/khn, A. 3)
suggests that vigilance was a recognized quality of the animal. The capacity for
vigilance, however, was an essential feature of a type of intelligence known as mh~tij and
thought to be possessed by gods (e.g., Zeus, Il. 8.22; 17.339), exceptional mortals (e.g.,
Nestor, Il. 7.324; 14.107, Odysseus, Il. 11.482; Od. 3.163; 13.293), craftsmen (e.g.,
woodcutters, helmsmen, charioteers, Il. 315-18), land and sea animals (e.g., fox, Op. Hal.
2.107-118; starfish, urchin, Op. Hal. 2.182; 225; octopus, Op. Hal. 2.408), and skillful
individuals, in general. 241 In the Iliad, for example, Nestor advises his son, Antilochus,
who competes in a chariot race, that in order to outdo his rivals, he should employ the
power of mh~tij by keeping his eye (dokeu&ei) on the man who leads him in the race (Il.
23.320). In light of this evidence, the fact that Aeschylus refers to the vigilance of the
dog by the term di/khn (A. 3), which is a derivative of the Homeric term dokeu&ei, in
239 J. D. Denniston and D. Page, Aeschylus. Agamemnon (Oxford, 1957) 65-66.
240 Denniston and Page, Aeschylus. Agamemnon 65-66.
241 For the discussion of vigilance as a fundamental quality of mh~tij, see Detienne and Vernant, Cunning
Intelligence 27-29; also 29, n. 8, for the ancient Greek belief that “every animal with mh~tij is a living eye
which never closes or even blinks.” According to the authors (2), additional levels on which this type of
intelligence operates are: the skills of a basket-maker, of a weaver, of a carpenter, the mastery of a
navigator, the flair of a politician, the experienced eye of a doctor, and also the beguiling rhetorical
illusionism of the sophists.
161

combination with the view of animals as possessors of mh~tij suggests that both the
playwright and his audience considered the dog an animal endowed with mh~tij.
Vigilance aside, how this concept might have further operated in linking the
image of the watchman to that of the dog is not made explicit in the text. Rather the
mh~tij of the watchman appears hidden in practical behavior: the continuous shifting of
his bed in order to avoid falling asleep. 242 This behavior fits well with the fact that he is a
veteran of his profession (year-long watch), thus justly one of those individuals endowed
with mh~tij. Within this implicit context, Aeschylus highlights next the connection of the
watchman to the dog through the use of explicit vocabulary. He has the watchman
referring to his bed as eu)nh&n (A. 13). 243 As Heath maintains, “this word (and others with
the same root) had a long tradition of metaphorical application to the animal world.
Homer [for example] uses it six times of animal beds, including once of a nest.” 244
This reference of the watchman to his bed as that of an animal, his adoption of
canine behavior as evidenced by his position on the roof of the palace, the resemblance of
his posture to that of a dog, and also his vigilance and possible mh~tij, all underscore
242 Detienne and Vernant, Cunning Intelligence 3, emphasize that one of the difficulties in unlocking the
semantics of mh~tij stems from the fact that the concept “is never clearly revealed in a theoretical work that
aims to define it. It always appears more or less below the surface, immersed as it were in practical
operations which, even when they use it, show no concern to make its nature explicit or to justify its
procedures.”
243 The Classical Greek term for “bed” is kli/nh not eu)nh&n; for a brief discussion of the term kli/nh in
Classical literary and epigraphical sources, see D. Andrianou, “Chairs, Beds, and Tables: Evidence for
Furnished Interiors in Hellenistic Greece,” Hesperia 75 (2006) 232-233.
244 Heath, The Talking Greeks 225, no. 26, does not include this example from the watchman’s speech in
his discussion of the term. He demonstrates his point, however, by referring to specific examples from the
Homeric poems. In the Iliad, the term is used especially of a deer’s lair (2.115, 15.580, and 22.190). In the
Odyssey, the same term denotes the nests of owls, falcons, sea crows (5.65), and a pig-pen (14.14); also the
places, where Menelaus and his men, disguised as seals, wait for Proteus are called eu)na~j (4.438).
Aeschylus’s veering towards Homeric language should not be surprising since there is ancient testimony
that he viewed his works as “slices from Homer’s great banquets” (Ath. Deipn. 8.347e) and recognized
how beneficial the poets of the past like Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and Musaeus had been (Ar. Frogs 1030-
1036). For a detailed discussion of the tendency of Aeschylus to adapt words and images to his own
intentions, see M. M. Lee, “The Myth of the Classical Peplos” (diss. Bryn Mawr College, 1999) 79.
162

Aeschylus’s intention to liken the watchman to a watchdog. Such intention suggests that
Aeschylus considered his audience not only familiar with the behavior and qualities of a
watchdog, but also ready to “think with a watchdog in mind,” 245 evidence that, in turn,
suggests the centrality of this canine role in contemporary thought.
Further evidence of this centrality is seen in another passage from Aeschylus’s
Agamemnon, which has a reference to the role and behavior of the dog as guardian of the
house. Clytemnestra has just found out that Agamemnon is on his way back to Argos
from Troy. While dictating to a herald a message she wants delivered to him, she relates
her behavior as her husband’s regent:
Take this message away to my husband, to come as soon as possible;
he is the city’s beloved darling. As to his wife,
I wish he may find her when he comes just as faithful in his home
as the one he left behind, the house’s watchdog (ku&na) true to him while
hostile to ill-wishers and similar in everything else,
with no seal broken in the length of time. (A. 604-610) [7]
Clytemnestra clearly states the contrasting behavior she assumed during
Agamemnon’s absence. She remained faithful to her duty of guarding the palace and its
affairs as a dog is faithful to its master. 246 Like a dog, she also kept enemies at bay by
245 The phase is an adaptation of the idea of Lévi-Strauss, Totemism 126, that “animals are good to think
with.” For a discussion of the marginalization of the animals of the mind, that is, animals in sayings,
dreams, games, stories, superstitions and the language itself, in modern society, see J. Berger, About
Looking (New York, 1980) 13.
246 For a discussion of Clytemnestra’s loyalty to the affairs of the palace, see A. Betensky, “Aeschylus’
Oresteia: The Power of Clytemnestra,” Ramus 7 (1978) 15. The image of the loyal dog that Clytemnestra
claims for herself is reminiscent of Argos, Odysseus’ faithful dog, described in the Iliad (1.291-17.327) as
an old character, who has endured discomfort and neglect—he is full of ticks and lies on a heap of dung—
but waits patiently for a sight of his master. Despite his wretched condition, Argos remains alert, a
characteristic indicated by his keen sense of smell that actually enables him to identify Odysseus after
twenty years of absence. Shortly after this episode Argos dies. It is actually the timing of his death, which
follows his sight of Odysseus, that is presented by Homer as the embodiment of this dog’s loyalty to his
master. Argos was also the name of the ever-watchful giant with one hundred eyes (hence his epithet
Panoptes, “All-Seeing”), set by Hera as guardian of Io, a priestess of Hera in Argos, whom Zeus seduced
and transformed into a heifer in order to escape detection from Hera. Argos was killed by Hermes (hence
his epithet Argeiphontes, “Slayer of Argos”). Aeschylus refers to the myth of Argos and Io in his
Prometheus Bound (566-574, 640-680), and Suppliant Women (292-315). For the suggestion that the myth
163

eing hostile to them. 247 Her behavior is consistent with the ancient Greek ethical
principle that one’s duty is to help one’s friends and harm one’s enemies, which is also
based on a contrast. 248 Clytemnestra takes pride in her having behaved like a guard
dog. 249 Such behavior is instructive, for it suggests that loyalty to the house a dog
guarded and hostility towards strangers were two opposing aspects of behavior for which
the animal was known. Like the watchman, Clytemnestra uses figurative language to
convey the affinity between her behavior and that of a dog. In this way, it becomes clear
once again that fifth-century Athenian society observed the dog carefully and used its
behavior as a model for describing human behavior.
Further evidence regarding Classical Greek knowledge of the contrasting
behaviors of the guard dog is found in a passage from Plato’s Republic. Here, two
persons speak of the dog as an exemplar for the guardian of the state:
“It may be observed in other animals, but especially in that which we likened to
the guardian. You surely have observed in well-bred hounds that their natural
disposition is to be most gentle to their familiars and those whom they recognize,
but the contrary to those whom they do not know.” “I am aware of that.” “The
was known to Homer and Hesiod, see W. Burkert, tr. P. Bing, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient
Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley, 1983) 164, n. 14.
247 This type of behavior is also alluded to in a short passage from Hesiod’s Works and Days (604-605),
which contains a recommendation to the farmer in regards to his guard dog: the farmer should be kind and
generous with the daily portions of food provided to his dog; otherwise the animal will not be able to avail
potential robbers.
248 For a discussion of this idea being central to traditional Greek morality, as evidenced by the tragedies of
Sophocles, see M. W. Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies. A Study in Sophocles and Greek
Ethics (New York and New Rochelle, 1989); L. G. Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes, “Friends and Enemies in
Athenian Politics,” GR 43 (1996) 11-30, for the place of friendship in fifth- and fourth-century political
activity in Athens, and also for that of enmity in politics of the classical period; and also D. Konstan,
“Anger, Hatred, and Genocide in Ancient Greece,” Common Knowledge 13 (2007) 170-187, who explores
the role of hostile emotions, especially anger and hatred, as morally defensible in daily life and in time of
war in ancient Greece.
249 For a discussion of Clytemnestra’s reference to herself as a guard dog and the wider function of this
image in the plot, particularly the fact that, by murdering Agamemnon, she actually proved to do the
opposite of what a guard dog would do, see R. M. Harriott, “The Argive Elders, the Discerning Shepherd
and the Fawning Dog: Misleading Communication in the Agamemnon,” CQ 32 (1982) 15-16.
164

thing is possible then,” said I, “and it is not an unnatural requirement that we are
looking for in our guardian.” “It seems not.” (Resp. 375d-375e) [147]
Plato’s interlocutors appear to be well acquainted with the behavior of the dog as a
guardian: gentle toward familiar faces and aggressive toward strangers. 250 They know
that such a contrasting behavior was dictated by circumstance, yet they believe that it was
not unrelated to the natural disposition of the animal. The discussion therefore sheds
light on the way observation of and ideas about the dog assisted in the interpretation of its
behavior within fourth-century Greek society. What the discussion does not reveal,
however, is whether the contrast in this behavior cast the dog in a negative light.
We get a sense that it did from an earlier text, a fragment of Sophocles that
preserves the following exclamation: “You fawn on men as you bite them and are a
treacherous dog” (885 Radt) [186]. The speaker addresses a dog directly, pointing out
the combination of two acts in its behavior that occur simultaneously and are conflicting:
fawning and biting. 251 The regard of this combination as inappropriate is emphasized by
the characterization of the dog as treacherous. The term implies that deception,
untrustworthiness, and danger were all aspects of this dog’s inappropriate behavior, but it
does not indicate whether such behavior was considered typical of all dogs. What
strengthens the last possibility is the well-known behavior of Cerberus, the loyal
250 This type of canine behavior features also in the Odyssey (16.4-16.10), where Eumaeus’s watchdogs
fawn on Telemachos, whom they already know, but (14.29-14.30) they are aggressive towards Odysseus,
whom they have never seen before.
251 Modern studies on the behavior of dogs guarding livestock also mark the ambiguity of their behavior.
As R. Coppinger and R. Schneider, “Evolution of Working Dogs,” in J. Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog: Its
Evolution, Behavior and Interactions with People (Cambridge, 1995) state: “guarding dogs protect by
disrupting predators by means of behavior that is ambiguous or contextually inappropriate: barking, tail
wagging, social greeting, play behavior, and, occasionally, aggression.” D. McFarland, ed., The Oxford
Companion to Animal Behavior (Oxford and New York, 1982) 15-16, speaks of ambivalent behavior in
animals as “typical of a conflict situation in which an animal has simultaneous tendencies to perform two
incompatible activities,” and also “of threat situations in which there is generally a conflict between attack
and escape.”
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watchdog of Hades, whom Hesiod in the Theogony (769-773) describes as a creature that
accepts all newcomers to the underworld by fawning his ears and tail, but devours anyone
who attempts to escape. Monstrous Cerberus does so, instead of merely biting, thus
showing the extreme to which he takes an aspect of what must have been otherwise
known as typical canine behavior.
As mentioned above, by calling this dog treacherous, the speaker of the fragment
highlights the animal’s ability to deceive. This ability is important, for it endows the
animal again with the power of mh~tij. As Detienne and Vernant suggest, deceit is a
ruling constituent of this ancient Greek concept:
Mh~tij is itself a power of cunning and deceit. It operates through disguise. In
order to dupe its victim it assumes a form which masks, instead of revealing its
true being. In mh~tij appearance and reality no longer correspond to one another
but stand in contrast, producing an effect of illusion, a)pa&th, which beguiles the
adversary into error and leaves him as bemused by his defeat as by the spells of a
magician. 252
In light of this evidence, the ability of the dog to exhibit contrasting behavior, as
evidenced by its simultaneous fawning and biting, makes it a living trap. It is thus
reasonable to suggest that this fragment is likely the result of this apprehension on the
side of the speaker.
Evidence from comedy further highlights Classical Greek knowledge of the
contrasting behavior of the guard dog, particularly its aggression toward strangers. In
Lysistrata (411 B.C.), Aristophanes has the leader of the chorus of women announce that
poor citizens should feel free to visit her house and receive food supplies. They should
be wary, though, of the dog by her door:
252 Dietenne and Vernant, Cunning Intelligence 21.
166

If anyone’s out of bread
but has slaves to feed
and lots of little kids,
you can get flour from my house—
puny grains, true,
but a pound of them grow up to be
a loaf that’s very hearty to see.
And of the poor are welcome
to come to my house with sacks
and bags to carry the flour away;
my houseboy will pour it in for them.
A warning though:
Don’t come to my door—
beware of the watchdog there!
(Lys. 1203-1215) [41]
The leader of the chorus expects her dog to exhibit aggressive behavior towards
unfamiliar visitors to her house. Thus, she not only warns these visitors, but also advises
them to stay away from the animal. Her warning suggests observation and knowledge of
canine behavior, and as such, it parallels similar knowledge seen previously in the works
of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato, and Aristotle. Unlike the watchman in the Agamemnon,
who stood on a roof like a dog, and the dog in Aristotle’s Great Ethics that chose a roof
as its sleeping place, this dog stands by a door, thus adding to the variety of domestic
spots associated with the animal in Classical times. 253 It is uncertain, however, whether
253 The earliest texts that attest to dogs’ guarding doors of houses are the Homeric epics: in the Iliad
(22.66-22.66), Priam is afraid that the dogs that he raised to guard the gates of his palace, will rip him in
front of his doorway. Also in the Odyssey (7.91) Homer describes a pair of gold and silver dogs as flanking
the door of the house of Alkinoos. Turning to material evidence, the warning of the speaker of the chorus
is reminiscent of the inscription CAVE CANEM (Beware the Dog) from a threshold mosaic from the
vestibule of the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. The mosaic depicts a large black dog attached by a
collar to a chain. The animal is in the act of menacing the unwary visitor. The depiction is reminiscent of
an episode from Petronius’ Satyricon (29) where Encolpius upon entering the house of Trimalchio mistakes
for real a dog tethered by a chain, painted on the wall to the left of the entrance, and accompanied by the
warning: beware the dog. The layout of the house in Pompeii dates to the second century B.C., but its
decoration is later, that is, shortly after the earthquake of A.D. 62: M. Ranieri Panetta, ed., Pompeii. The
History, Life and Art of the Buried City (Turin, 2004) 342; Similarly, the entry to another Pompeian House,
that of Cuspius Pansa, is decorated with a mosaic that depicts a crouching guarding dog wearing a collar
that is attached to a chain, additionally attached to one of the leaves of a half-opened door: Ranieri Panetta,
Pompeii 312; Another mosaic depicting a watchdog comes from the entrance of the house of L. Caecilius
Jucundus also in Pompeii: Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii 102, fig. 161; Finally, a guard dog wearing
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the door by which this dog stood belonged to the main entrance of the house or to any of
the rooms inside. 254 As a result, it is not possible to detect where exactly in the house this
dog was expected to be found. 255
a jeweled collar is depicted on the wall of the front room of the shop of Sotericus on the Via dell’
Abbondanza in Pompeii: A. King, “Mammals. Evidence from Wall Paintings, Sculpture, Mosaics, Faunal
Remains, and Ancient Literary Sources,” in W. F. Jashemski and F. G. Meyer, eds., The Natural History of
Pompeii (Cambridge, 2002) 412, fig. 340. For the depiction of a dog’s collar on a red-figured aryballos
dated to 490-480 B.C., and found in a tomb (no. 1099) during rescue excavations at the Kerameikos Station
in Athens, see E. Baziotopoulou-Valavani, “Red-Figure Aryballos,” in L. Parlama and N. C. Stampolidis,
eds., Athens: The City beneath the City. Antiquities from the Metropolitan Railway Excavations (Athens,
2001) 309, no. 311. Also for the bronze studs of a collar found in a dog’s grave (no. 82) that was uncovered
in rescue excavations at the Parliament Square in Athens, and dates to the transitional period from the first
to the second centuries A.D., see N. C. Stampolidis, “Bronze Studs from the Collar of a Dog,” in Parlama
and Stampolidis, eds., Athens: The City beneath the City 177, no. 164 and 157, fig. 10.
254 Archaeological evidence suggests that the spatial arrangement of the Classical Greek house
corresponded to a structure with a single street entrance leading, sometimes though a lobby (pro&quron)
with a second door, to a court through which access was gained to the remainder of the house. As L. C.
Nevett, “Between Urban and Rural: House-Form and Social Relations in Attic Villages and Deme
Centers,” in B. A. Aunt and L. C. Nevett, eds., Ancient Greek Houses and Households. Chronological,
Regional, and Social Diversity (Philadelphia, 2005) 84, suggests: “Excavation both at Athens and at other
large settlements has revealed high numbers of houses following a relatively standardized pattern of
organization, the single entrance, courtyard house. The only street door in such houses generally opens
onto an open central court, which in turn provides access to various rooms, their entrances normally shaded
by a portico (a prostas, pastas, or peristyle). ” Similarly, and in reference to the spatial organization of the
Classical houses excavated on the north slope of the Areopagus in Athens, B. Tsakirgis, “Living and
Working Around the Athenian Agora: A Preliminary Case Study of Three Houses,” in Aunt and Nevett,
eds., Ancient Greek Houses and Households 69, maintains that a standard feature of these houses is a
roughly centrally placed courtyard usually entered directly from the street, rather than from a vestibule.
The same site has also provided an example of a fourth-century house with a single entrance leading to a
lobby with an interior door leading into the court: L. C. Nevett, “Gender Relations in the Classical Greek
Household: The Archaeological Evidence,” BSA 90 (1995) 376, n. 62.
255 It is reasonable to assume that, when the leader of the chorus advises her visitors not to approach the dog
by her door, she does not mean the main entrance to her house; otherwise her invitation does not make any
sense since it presupposes that these persons are welcome to her house, but advised not to approach its
main entrance. Additional evidence that she is not referring to the main entrance derives from the sequence
of the instructions she relates: first, visitors are welcome to her house, second, her slave will assist them in
pouring flour in bags, and third, they should be cautious about the dog by her door. These successive
phases of their visit, especially their assistance by the slave, presuppose the physical presence of visitors
within the house. This line of thinking fits well with the suggestion that the courtyard of the Classical
Greek house was the place to which visitors were admitted first. As L. C. Nevett, House and Society in the
Ancient Greek World (Cambridge, 1999) 70, states the spatial arrangement of the court in the middle of the
Classical Greek house marks it as part of the “public” part of the house, the center of domestic life and the
place that visitors would see first, since it was the only area through which access to the other “public” part
of the house—andron—and the remainder of the house could be attained. At the Classical site of Olynthus,
the “public” function of the courts of the excavated houses is corroborated by the use of colored walls,
terracotta figurines, and metal ornaments for decoration.
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c. Molossian Dogs as Guardians of the House: Their Ferocity and Value
The connection between guard dogs and aggressive behavior towards strangers is
seen elsewhere in the comedies of Aristophanes. In Women at the Thesmophoria (411
B.C.) a specific breed—Molossian—is portrayed as exceptionally frightening and,
therefore, suitable for guarding the house and its residents. The play opens in the middle
day of the festival of the Thesmophoria. Female participants deliberate the punishment
of the tragic poet Euripides, whose plays portray them as wicked individuals. A woman
called Mica remarks how the behavior of men towards women has changed after being
influenced by Euripides’ slander against women:
Then again, because of him, they now keep close guard on us, putting seals and
bars on the doors of the women’s quarters, and on top of that they keep Molossian
dogs to frighten the wits (mormolukei=a) out of seducers. (Th. 414-417) [45]
Mica states clearly the use of Molossian dogs as guardians of the house in late fifth-
century Athens. To her, these dogs are exceptionally frightening. As she says, Athenian
men use these dogs as mormolukei=a in order to scare their wives’ lovers away from the
house. According to Alan Sommerstein, the term “mormolukei=a” means “bogies”; as
such, it implies that the thought of a Molossian dog was as scary to an adult as the
thought of a bogy was to a child. 256 From this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude
that Molossian dogs were highly aggressive toward strangers in the houses they guarded,
and the fear this behavior evoked helped shape their image in contemporary thought.
The comedies of Aristophanes are not the only texts in which the aggressiveness
of Molossian dogs is cited. An excerpt from Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals
256
A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Thesmophoriazusae (The Comedies of Aristophanes 8; Warminster, 1994)
184, line 417.
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(A.D. II-III) preserves an anecdote from the life of the Athenian poet Eupolis (a
contemporary of Aristophanes), 257 that notes the death of a thief after having been
attacked by a Molossian dog:
Augeas of Eleusis gave Eupolis, the writer of comedies, a hound of fine
appearance, a Molossian, which Eupolis named after the donor. Now Augeas the
hound, pampered in its feeding and influenced by long association with its master,
came to love him. On one occasion a young fellow-slave of the name of Ephialtes
stole some plays from Eupolis, and the theft did not pass unnoticed, for the hound
saw him, fell upon him, and biting him mercilessly, killed him. Some time
afterwards Eupolis ended his days in Aegina and was buried there, and the hound,
howling and lamenting after the manner of dogs, let himself pine away through
grief and starvation and, disgusted with life, died soon after on the grave of the
master that had fed it. And in memory of the sad event the place is named
Hound’s Dirge. (NA 10.41) [5]
The story of Augeas is a prime example of how the ferocity, beauty, and devotion of
Molossian dogs to their owners defined their image in Classical times. Aelian relates that
Augeas killed Ephialtes who dared to steal the plays of his owner. 258 To judge from this
257 I. C. Storey, “Dating and Re-Dating Eupolis,” Phoenix 44 (1990) 7, 29, notes that the plays of Eupolis
should be dated to the last quarter of the fifth century B.C. (i.e., 429-411 B.C.).
258 That the ferocity of Molossian dogs and their valor as guards were two traits deeply engraved on the
Roman mind as well, is evident from a passage from Virgil (G. 403-408), where his advice on feeding dogs
contains the following comment about Molossians: “feed swift Spartan whelps and fierce Molossians in
fattening whey. Never, with them on guard need you fear for your stalls a midnight thief, or onslaught of
wolves, or restless Spaniards in your rear.” A marble statue depicting a Molossian dog, 1.18m tall, also
known as “Alcibiades’ Dog” or “Jennings’ Dog” was until recently (2001) in the possession of the family
of Charles Duncombe of Duncombe Park in Yorkshire, Britain. Considered a Roman copy of a Greek
bronze original, and dated to the middle of the third century B.C., the statue was allegedly discovered in
Rome in the 1750s, but, in reality, its provenance is unknown. It was restored by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi,
the leading restorer of ancient sculpture in eighteenth-century Rome. For the history of the provenience of
the statue, see C. A. Picón, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi: Eighteenth Century Restorations of Ancient Marble
Sculpture from English Private Collections. A Loan Exhibition at the Clarendon Gallery LTD (London,
1983) 80-83, cat. no. 22. The statue was once on display in Britain in 1983 and as part of an exhibit
organized in 1985 by the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.: C. A. Picón, “The Dog of
Alcibiades,” in G. Jackson-Stops, ed., The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Private
Patronage and Art Collecting (New Haven and London, 1985) 318, cat. no. 243. In 2001, it was put up for
sale by its owners, and the museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas expressed interest in buying it. The
same year and as part of a fundraising campaign to prevent it from being sold overseas, the British Museum
exhibited the statue in its premises and managed to raise the required funds ($943,000) for its acquisition:
British Museum, 2001, November. British Museum Acquires Jennings Dog.
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/newsroom/archive 2001/jenningsdog.html. Two well-preserved
marble statues, also depicting Molossian dogs and thought to be Roman copies of Greek originals of
Hellenistic date (II B.C.), are currently on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. G. Di Pasquale and F.
Paolucci, Uffizi. The Ancient Sculptures (Florence, 2001) 16, 69, maintain that these statues, whose height
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incident, Aegeas was a ferocious Molossian dog. His behavior, however, is consistent
with that of the watchdog that Clytemnestra claimed to be in the Agamemnon: helpful to
his master and harmful to his enemies; it is, therefore, to be judged as appropriate and
worthy of praise rather that condemn. Aelian also relates that Aegeas was a beautiful dog
that Eupolis received as a gift, suggesting therefore that Molossian dogs were a highly
esteemed breed in fifth-century Athens. Aelian records that the death of Aegeas, who
was named after his donor, was a reaction to that of Eupolis, and thus evidence of the
love and devotion of this dog to his master. Aelian describes Augeas’s grief (howling,
lamenting), self-imposed starvation, and finally passing on his master’s grave in Aegina,
a spot which was named afterwards Hound’s Dirge. His description of such details gives
the impression that the story, despite its antiquity, was preserved intact in his own time.
Aegeas’s story is similar to the slightly earlier story of Xanthippos’s dog that took
place also in Athens, but instead of Aegina involved the adjacent island of Salamis.
Plutarch (A.D. I-II) records that in fear of the Persian invasion (480 B.C.), Xanthippos,
the father of Pericles, embarked on a boat to Salamis, leaving his canine companion
behind. Unable to endure separation from his master, the dog swam along with the boat
to Salamis, where it died of exhaustion. The spot of his death was still called “Dog’s
Mound” in his time, Plutarch says (Them. 10) [162]. The similarity between the two
stories may pose questions regarding their reality or fiction, but it is important to keep in
is 1.11m each, were found in Rome. In their discussion, the authors present also the possibility that these
sculptures may have formed part of a group, thought to represent a mythological hunt, consisting also of the
statue of a boar (currently on display in a separate location within the gallery) and that of a hunter seriously
destroyed by fire in 1762. Another idea favored is that these statues of dogs could have been funerary
works guarding a tomb. For a summary of their provenience, identification of their marble as Pentelic, and
good illustrations, see G. A. Mansuelli, Galleria degli Uffizi: Le sculture I (Rome, 1958) 77-78, figs. 48-49.
Besides this pair of marble dogs, there is also another one housed in the Vatican Museums: B. Andreae et
al., Bildkatalog der Skulpturen des vaticanischen Museums (DAI II; Berlin and New York, 1998) 13-14,
pls. 144-147, figs. 64-65. Finally, a sixth marble statue of a dog found at Castel Fusano near Ostia is
housed in the Palazzo Chigi in Rome: Picón, “The Dog of Alcibiades” 318.
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mind that the canine devotion which these stories mark remains consistent with the image
of the loyal dog in the fifth century.
Further evidence for the ferocity of Molossian dogs is found in a letter of
Alciphron (A.D. II-III) that purports to give a sketch of life in fourth-century Athens.
Horologius, a parasite, relates to one of his friends how Molossian dogs that guarded the
house of Phanias attacked him after he appropriated a silver pitcher for himself:
All of a sudden watchdogs surrounded and attacked me, one on this side, another
on that; they were savage and deep-throated, Molossians and Cnosians, and there
was nothing to hinder me from being rent asunder by their jaws (as if I had
offended Artemis) so thoroughly that not even my hands and feet would remain
next day for burial by those who might be prepared to pity and commiserate.
(Epistles III. 11) [11]
Like Augeas, Eupolis’s Molossian dog who attacked and killed Ephialtes, a thief,
Phanias’s Molossian dogs were ferocious to Horologius, also a thief. Unlike Ephialtes,
who succumbed to his wounds, Horologius lived to tell his story. His encounter with
these dogs was a traumatic experience. They were savage and deep-throated, and he
vividly recalls the fear and despair they caused in him: “there was nothing to hinder me
from being rent asunder by their jaws.” As a parasite, Horologius may be a ridiculous
figure, but his experience of the ferocity of Molossian dogs accords well with
Aristophanes’ portrayal of them as intimidating watchdogs.
Their ferocity aside, Molossian dogs were also known in Classical times for their
exceptional size and courage. Aristotle, states, for example, in the History of Animals:
The kind of hounds in Molossia is no different from those elsewhere in respect of
hunting, but in shepherding it is superior by reason of size and of courage in
facing wild animals. (HA 608a) [66]
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Aristotle indicates that Molossian dogs were employed in both hunting and shepherding,
but excelled in the latter because their size and courage made them a threat to predators
of herds. His statement implies that Molossian dogs were exceptionally large and bold.
It is of great interest that, in another passage, he speaks of Epeirus, the greater area to
which Molossia belonged, and from where these dogs were though to originate, (hence
their name), as being rich in large animals, especially cattle and dogs. The issue of
geography influencing animal size looms large in his mind, as he states that:
In Phasis there is a breed of small cattle every one of which yields a copious
supply of milk. In Epeirus there are large cows which yield an amphora and half
of this from the two teats. The milker has to stand upright, bending slightly
forward, because he would not be able to reach far enough if seated. In addition
to the cattle, all the quadrupeds (except the ass) in Epeirus are large in size, and in
proportion the cattle and the dogs are the largest. (HA 522b) [60]
Aristotle’s contrast between the small cattle of Phasis and the large one of Epeirus clearly
suggests that, in his mind, geography was a determining cause of animal size. 259 Of
importance also is his mention of dogs being among the largest animals in Epeirus, for it
explains well his previous note on Molossian dogs being singled out for their size. His
accounts, therefore, offer a useful insight into the conception of the exceptional size of
Molossian dogs as being tied to their physical seat of origin.
259 The responsibility of Molossia in shaping the exceptional qualities of its dogs is also attested in later
authors, such as Aelian (A.D. II-III), who sees a strong affinity between the natural disposition of
Molossian dogs and Molossian men. As he says: “among hounds the Molossian is the most high-spirited,
for the men of Molossia are hot-tempered” (NA 3.2) [1]. The basis of such a link is further explained by
Pollux, whose Onomasticon (A.D. II) states a mythological bond between these dogs and the Molossians,
the principle tribe of rulers in Epeirus: “the Chaonians and the Molossians are descendants of a dog which
Hephaestus forged from Demonesian bronze, put a soul into, and gave to Zeus” (Onom. 5.39) [164]. That
the link between Molossian hounds and Zeus held alive as far back as the early fourth century B.C. is
evident from the iconography of the silver coinage of Epeirus that dates from this period, and depicts on the
obverse, the local breed of hound and on the reverse, the thunderbolt of Zeus of Dodona: C. M. Kraay,
Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976) 129, pl. 24, fig. 444.
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Although it does not specify their size, evidence that Molossian dogs were highly
valued as early as the sixth century B.C. comes from a passage from Athenaeus’
Deipnosophists. The author cites two late fourth-century authors, Clytus, a disciple of
Aristotle, and Alexis, a comic poet, who count Molossian dogs among the most special
animals collected by Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos (ca. 538-522 B.C.):
Clytus the Aristotelian, in his work On Miletus, says of Polycrates the tyrant of
Samos that his instinct for luxury moved him to get together the special products
of every country—hounds from Epeirus, goats from Scyros, sheep from Miletus,
and swine from Sicily. Alexis, too, in the third book of Samian Chronicles says
that Samos was enriched by Polycrates with the products of many cities: he
imported Molossian and Laconian hounds, goats from Scyros and Naxos, and
sheep from Miletus and Attica. (Deipn. 12.540c-12.540d) [76]
Both fragments indicate that Molossian dogs were already known as the special animals
of Epeirus in the late sixth century B.C. By attesting that Polycrates included them
among his luxurious possessions, 260 the fragments also suggest that the exceptional social
status that Molossian dogs signified in pre-Classical times was still relevant as a topic,
and therefore, included in the writings of fourth-century authors.
The literary evidence cited so far indicates that in Classical Greece the
relationship between humans and the dog was governed by an anthropocentric attitude.
The dog lived together with humans in the same domestic setting, and served as a
guardian of this setting, its residents, and their possessions. Fidelity and vigilance—an
essential feature of cunning intelligence—were two qualities for which the animal was
esteemed, whereas its ability to fawn and bite at once marked it as a deceptive and
260 For a discussion of the Greek adoption of Persian practices as a sign of prosperity and power, and
literary evidence (e.g., Klearchos in Ath. Deipn. 12.54) that charges Polycrates with the establishment of
his own animal park (paradeisos) in emulation of Sardis, see M. C. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth
Century B.C. A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge, 1997) 188-189.
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untrustworthy animal. So pervasive was this contradictory behavior of the dog that
contemporary language adopted it as a figure of speech that marked similar behavior in
humans. Among guard dogs, the Molossian breed was highly valued for its exceptional
ferocity, size, fine appearance, and love and devotion to its owners; as such, Molossian
dogs were considered valuable possessions and gifts.
SECTION 2
a. Dogs Stealing and Gobbling Food
Evidence regarding the Classical Greek view of the feeding behavior of the dog
comes from the comedies of Aristophanes. A passage from the Knights, for example,
portrays stealing and gobbling food as two types of behavior closely associated with the
animal. Produced in 424 B.C., the Knights is a sustained attack on Cleon, a real-life
politician identified throughout the play with a tanner named Paphlagon, and also likened
to a dog that howls on behalf of the demos—Athenian assembly (e.g., Eq. 1023-1024).
Nikias and Demosthenes, representing two real-life generals, disapprove of Paphlagon’s
behavior as a demagogue, and, driven by an oracle, seek to replace him with a sausage
seller. In an attempt to win the support of Demos, portrayed here as an old, decrepit man,
the sausage seller invites the audience to see Cleon/Paphlagon as:
The dog Cerberus, trafficker in bodies,
who wags his tail at you when you’re dining and
watches, and when you happen to gape in another direction,
eats up your entrée, and at night steals into your kitchen
all unseen, and doglike licks clean the plates and the islands.
(Eq. 1030-1034) [38]
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In this passage, the conflation of Cleon with Cerberus, the deceptive watchdog of
the underworld, who fawned affectionately at newcomers by wagging his tail, but traded
their bodies, (or, as noted earlier, devoured them) urges the audience to see Cleon’s
behavior as equally deceptive. Such behavior parallels also that of the treacherous dog in
the fragment of Sophocles that fawned at and bit people at once. In this way,
Aristophanes’s use of canine behavior as a means for describing human behavior remains
consistent with the use of the same model in the texts discussed previously.
The passage also conflates the stealing of public money by Cleon, an act of which
he was accused in real life, with a dog that steals food from the kitchen and licks the
plates clean. Alan Sommerstein explains that Aristophanes alludes to this act when he
refers to Cleon as licking clean “the islands.” 261 The conflation is instructive, for it
reveals that stealing and eating food down to its last morsel were behaviors for which the
dog was known. The reference, in particular, to Cleon’s licking clean the islands in a
doglike manner hints at the exploitation of large amounts of money and, therefore,
implies the ability of the dog to consume equally large quantities of food. 262 Further, the
fact that the dog goes into the kitchen at night like an undetected thief adds to the
domestic places in which the animal has been seen so far (roof, door), and suggests its
free roaming in and around the house. Along with the kitchen, the passage also places
261 A. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Knights (The Comedies of Aristophanes 2; Warminster, 1981) 199, line 1034,
comments that the term “islands” denotes “the allied states generally, of which the Aegean islands were the
nearest to Athens….The allegation appears to be that Cleon takes bribes from the allied states in return for
ensuring that their tribute assessment is lower than it would be otherwise, thus in effect diverting the money
from the state to himself.”
262 This evidence accords well with modern observations regarding the feeding behavior of dogs. As C.
Thorne, “Feeding Behavior of Domestic Dogs and the Role of Experience,” in J. Serpell, ed., The Domestic
Dog, 106, states: “some breeds of domestic dog still demonstrate a remarkable ability to gorge, and will eat
exceptionally large quantities of food whenever it is available. This behavior is a characteristic of some of
the pack hounds, such as beagles and foxhounds, although this may be the result of the competitive group
feeding that has been the usual husbandry practice for these breeds.”
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the dog’s stealing of food within a dining context and space, thus suggesting the lively
presence of the animal in the daily routine of the household. 263 Equally suggestive is
also the description of a specific aspect of its behavior—waiting for those moments of
laxity, when diners look at another direction, in order to steal and eat their food. This
behavior implies that vigilance was the quality that enabled the dog to profit from the
lack of vigilance of humans, switch from fawning to stealing and thus become a
deceptive creature. The scene also suggests awareness of the fact that the dog observed
human behavior, which, in turn, recognizes a degree of intelligence in the animal. 264
Considering that vigilance was thought to be an essential feature of mh~tij, the cunning
intelligence that the dog was seen previously to hold, then the intelligence with which
this passage from the Knights charges the animal can be securely identified as mh~tij.
The canine tendency to steal and gobble food is also seen in the slightly later (422
B.C.) comedy of Aristophanes, Wasps. The play tells the story of an old man,
Philocleon, who believes that serving as a juror provides him with exceptional power.
Objecting to this view is his son Bdelycleon, who tries to keep his father away from the
courts. Confined in his son’s house, Philocleon is allowed to have a private court and try
263 The presence of dogs in a context that refers to dining appears as early as the Homeric poems. In the
Iliad (22.69) [127], for example, Priam talks of the dogs that dwell in his house as dogs that he reared at his
table (trapezh~aj qurawrou&j) in order to guard his door; also in the Iliad (23.173), the two dogs
sacrificed by Achilles as part of the funeral of Patroclus, belonged to a total of nine dogs that had been fed
beneath the table (trapezh~ej ku&nej) of their master; finally, in the Odyssey (17.309-17.310) Odysseus,
upon his return to Ithaca, asks Eumaeus, whether his dog Argos is like table dogs (trapezh~ej ku&nej),
which their masters keep for show. Regarding the visual record, an example of a dog featuring underneath
a table appears as part of a symposium scene on an Attic red-figured crater that dates to c. 475-465 B.C.,
and has been attributed to the Pig Painter. For a discussion of this vase, see E. Pottier, CVA (France 5;
Louvre 4) 17, cat. no. G355, pl. 25, fig. 9.
264 For modern accounts of dogs’ observation of human behavior and mannerisms, see E. M. Thomas, The
Social Life of Dogs. The Grace of Canine Behavior (New York, 2000) 41-48.
177

domestic cases. While Bdelycleon and some slaves set up a courtroom, another slave,
Xanthias, complains about the behavior of the dog living in the house:
XANTHIAS
To hell with you! To think that we keep a dog like that!
BDELYCLEON
Tell me, what’s the matter?
XANTHIAS
If it isn’t that dog Labes! He just dashed through (para|&caj)
into the kitchen, grabbed (a(rpa&saj) a long Sicilian cheese,
and he’s eaten it all up.
BDELYCLEON
Then that must be the first crime I bring before my father.
You be here to prosecute.
XANTHIAS
No, not me; actually the other dog says he’ll be prosecuting
if a charge is brought into court. (Vesp. 835-843) [46]
The words of Xanthias indicate that not one, as was the case in the house of Chremylus
(Ar. Plut. 1105), but two dogs lived in the house of Bdelycleon. The name of one of
them, Labes, which translates as “Grabber,” 265 even though, is fictitious, appears to be
inspired by the dog’s grabbing the cheese. Unlike Augeas, Eupolis’ Molossian dog, who
was named after his donor, the name of Labes indicates that dogs were assigned names
on the basis of their behavior. This tendency is also seen in Xenophon, whose fourth-
century treatise On Hunting suggests that Phonax, meaning “The Loud One,” is a good
name for a hound (Cyn. 7.5.4). 266 The same tendency is also seen in the case of
265 A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wasps (The Comedies of Aristophanes 4; Warminster, 1983) 208, line 836.
266 For a comprehensive catalogue of names given to dogs in classical antiquity, see F. Mentz, “Die
klassischen Hundenamen,” Philologus 88 (1933) 104-129, 181-202, 415-442. For a compilation of ancient
texts referring to names of dogs, and modern scholarship on them, see J. Diggle, ed., tr., Theophrastus.
Characters (Cambridge, 2004) 411-412. Regarding material evidence, the inscribed name of a female dog
called FILOQERA, which translates as “Lover of Hunting” appears on a sixth-century (525-500 B.C.)
Boeotian black-figured skyphos, which depicts women in the process of making bread. For a brief
description of this vase, see M. Brouskari, The Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum (Athens, 1985)
178

mythological dogs, such as those of the huntsman Actaeon, whose names, to mention
only two, are Harpalos (Ov., Met. 3.222; Hyg. Fab.181.11) and Harpyia (Hyg.
Fab.181.9; Poll., Onom. 5. 47); they correspond respectively to the masculine and
feminine versions of “Snatcher.” 267 As seen, the names of these dogs are attested in later
authors, but their inclusion here is relevant in that their etymology complies with the
behavior of Labes, who “snatched” (a(rpa&saj) the cheese from the kitchen.
Commenting on the term, Douglas McDowell states that it denotes the snatching of food
by dogs and other animals. 268 Douglas Olson clarifies that it refers to the snatching of
50, no. 384; also J.-J. Maffre, “Collection Paul Canellopoulos: Vases Béotiens,” BCH 99 (1975) 467-476,
figs. 29a-b, and 30a-b. Although dating from a later period (A.D. III), the masculine version of the canine
name “Lover of Hunting” appears in the inscription that accompanies the relief sculpture of a dog on a
funerary stele from the grave of a dog found at Pergamon. The inscription reads: “My name is
FILOKUNHGOS because I hunted ferocious prey with my swift feet”; M. Fränkel, Die Inschriften von
Pergamon (Altertümer von Pergamon vol. 8. pt. 2; Berlin, 1895) 513, no. 3559. For an illustration of the
stele, see S. Georgoudi, “Funeral Epigrams for Animals,” Αρχαιολογíα 11 (1984) 38, fig. 3. Also the
inscribed names of two dogs, Methepon and Ormenos, translated respectively as “Pursuer” and “Rusher”
appear in the depiction of the Calydonian boar hunt on the François Vase dated to ca. 570 B.C. For an
illustration of this scene and additional discussion of the sixth- and fifth-century iconography of this subject
primarily on pottery, see J. M. Barringer, The Hunt in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London, 2001) 147-
161, fig. 82, 172-173.
267 As such, but in the plural form, translates also the name of Harpies, imaginary beings who appear in
myth as wind-storms that snatch the daughters of Pandareus and give them as servants to the Erinyes (Il.
16.150; Od. 1.241, 14.371, 20.77), and also as winged women who continuously snatch the food and befoul
the table of the blind, Thracian king Phineus (Hesiod frs. 150-156 in R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, eds.,
Fragmenta Hesiodea [London, 1967] 73-77; Apollonius of Rhodes [2.234-2.434]). For a thorough
summary of ancient literary references to and artistic representations of Harpies, see L. Kahil and A.
Jacquemin, “Harpyiai,” LIMC IV.1; IV.2 (Zurich and Munich, 1988) 445-450; 266-271. For a discussion
of the sustained relation of Harpies with the realm of the dead and their equation to demons, see S. I.
Johnston, Restless Dead. Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley, 1999)
180, n. 52. For a discussion of depictions of Harpies on ancient Greek pottery, with special reference to
their wings springing from the front of their shoulders as being a visual clue of their otherworldliness, see
B. Cohen, “Red-Figure Vases Take Wing,” in J. Oakley et al., eds., Athenian Potters and Painters. The
Conference Proceedings (Oxbow Monograph 67; Oxford, 1997) 141-155. For the frequent tendency to
confuse artistic representations of Harpies with those of Sirens, the most famous example being the socalled
Harpy Tomb in Lycia, see D. Tsiafakis, ““PELWRA”: Fabulous Creatures and/or Demons of
Death?,” in J. M. Padgett, ed., The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art (New Haven
and London, 2004) 99, n. 36; also C. Smith, “Harpies in Greek Art,” JHS 13 (1892-93) 103-114.
268 D. M. McDowell, ed., Aristophanes. Wasps (Oxford, 1971) 243, line 837. A quick perusal of the
comedies of Aristophanes provides us with two additional examples of dogs snatching food (a(rpa&sasa,
Ach. 1160; u(farpa&sei, Nub. 490), 268 and one where the culprit is a kite (a(rpa&saj, Av. 892); three
examples were also found where food is snatched by humans as well (a(rpa&somai, Hierocles, Pax 1118; an
anonymous man, Eccl. 866; a(rpa&zein, poor people, Plut. 598).
179

food that belongs to others, 269 hence, stealing. In light of this evidence, Labes’ stealing
the cheese from the kitchen fits perfectly with the image of the dog stealing food from the
kitchen, in the Knights. 270 In both cases, the dogs eat all the food that they have stolen.
Further, both cases are used to describe the theft of public money by political figures in
real life. Like Cleon’s embezzlement from the islands that was equated to a dog’s
stealing and eating food, Labes’ stealing and eating the cheese also stands for a similar
episode taken from the political scene of the day. In this case, even the identification of
the stolen food with cheese is of particular importance to the intended allusion.
As McDowell explains, the stealing of cheese by Labes is an episode that satirizes
a recent event from real life: Laches, a general who had served (in 427/6 and 426/5 B.C.)
with the Athenian navy in Sicily, a region famous for its cheeses, had been accused by
269 S. D. Olson, ed., Aristophanes. Acharnians (New York, 2002) 351, lines 1159-1161.
270 Iconographic evidence that may attest to the presence of a dog in a kitchen comes from the sixth and
fifth centuries B.C. First is a terracotta figurine housed in the Louvre Museum (CA 634) (Fig. 16). The
figurine is allegedly from Tanagra, Boeotia, and has been dated to the last quarter of the sixth century B.C.
Fixed on a plaque is the seated figure of a female cook, who stirs with a ladle the contents of a pot that is
placed on the ground in front of her. To her right is a dog with his head raised upward towards her and its
right foreleg slightly elevated. For a description of this figurine, see S. Mollard-Besques, Catalogue
raisonné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grecs étrusques et romaines I (Paris, 1954) 20-21, cat. no. B
118, pl. XV; also A. Vigneau, The Photographic Encyclopaedia of Art: The Louvre Museum II (Paris,
1936) 172-173, fig. D. For the belief that this figurine belongs to the category of genre pieces, see E.
Pottier, “Les sujets de genre dans les figurines archaïques de terre cuite,” BCH 24 (1900) 510. For genre
pieces being terracotta figurines “whose subjects are men and women engaged in their daily occupations,
treated with almost photographic realism, and with the commonest scenes being taken from the kitchen,”
see R. A. Higgins, Greek Terracottas (London, 1967) 77; for a recent discussion on the notion of “genre”
as a still alive, but not safe approach to the interpretation of images in ancient Greek art, see G. Ferrari,
Figures of Speech. Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London, 2002) 6. For the
manufacturing techniques of figurines of this type, see M. Szabó, Archaic Terracottas of Boeotia (Rome,
1994) 121-131. For another Boeotian figurine depicting the same subject, dated to the late sixth or early
fifth century B.C., and housed in the State Museum in Kassel (523) (Fig. 17), see U. Sinn, Antike
Terrakotten. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel (Kassel, 1977) pl. I, 25. A third terracotta figurine
depicting a woman with a quadruped, most likely a dog, by her side comes from Cyprus and dates to the
sixth century B.C. (V 1674) (Fig. 18). For a discussion of this figurine, see A. Bernhard-Walcher et al.,
The Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, 1999) 139, 143-144, cat.
no. 58. For a recent discussion of all these and additional terracotta figurines that depict scenes from daily
life, see M. Pisani, “Vita quotidiana nel mondo Greco tra il IV e il V secolo A.C. Un contributo per la
classificazione delle rappresentazioni fittili,” Bolletino d’Arte 123 (2003) 3-24.
180

Cleon of embezzling money while campaigning on the island. 271 The allusion to this
event is also apparent in the pun that involves the name of the general Laches and that of
the dog Labes, which, as mentioned earlier, means “Grabber.” 272 It is clear, therefore,
that Aristophanes uses the stealing of food by Labes as an allusion to the stealing of
money by a real politician. But the scene with Labes, when seen in isolation, is
particularly instructive, for it shows that canine behavior was observed in real life. When
Xanthias describes Labes’ behavior to Bdelycleon, for example, he maintains that the dog
dashed through into the kitchen (para|&caj). 273 This is a type of behavior that indicates
agility and swiftness, both of which are features essential to cunning intelligence known
as mh~tij and shown earlier to be a canine quality. 274
Taken together, the incidents of dogs’ stealing and eating food that are described
in the Knights and the Wasps are two identical versions of the same intention: to highlight
and, at the same time, ridicule the stealing of public money by political figures. The use
of canine behavior as a metaphor for describing human behavior suggests that
271 For this event being taken from real life, and for the prosecution of Laches by Cleon, which is
mentioned earlier in the play (Vesp. 240-244), see S. D. Olson, “Politics and Poetry in Aristophanes’
Wasps,” TAPA 126 (1996) 138-139; D. M. McDowell, Aristophanes and Athens. An Introduction to the
Plays (Oxford, 1995) 167.
272 For the ways in which various characters in the comedies of Aristophanes are named, and the use to
which these names are put within the wider context of each play, see S. D. Olson, “Names and Naming in
Aristophanic Comedy,” CQ 42 (1992) 304-319.
273 Labes’ behavior brings to mind the story of the dog dashing through the Erechtheion, a story quoted by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (On Dinarchus 3) who, in turn, attributes it to Philochorus, a fourth-century
B.C. scholar-historian and a contemporary of Dinarchus, the last of the canon of ten Attic orators.
According to J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (London, 1898; second ed., 1913) 338, the
story of Philochorus runs as follows: “On the Acropolis the following portent took place. A bitch entered
the temple of the Polias, and having gone down into the Pandrosium, ascended the altar of Zeus of the
Courtyard which stands under the olive-tree, and there lay down. Now it is an old established custom with
the Athenians that no dog shall ascend the Acropolis.”
274 Detienne and Vernant, Cunning Intelligence 30, do not refer to explicit examples of animals who are
agile and swift, but consider the qualities of agility, suppleness, swiftness, and mobility as fundamental to
both huntsmen and fishermen, who in order to be successful need to exhibit mh~tij that surpasses that of
their prey. Such attitude, they state, accords well with “the one unalterable rule for animals and men alike,
be they hunting or fishing: the only way to get better of a polumh~tij one (‘one with a lot of mh~tij’) is to
exhibit even more mh~tij.”
181

Aristophanes’s audiences were not only familiar with the feeding behavior of the dog, but
also considered it an appropriate means of thinking and expressing themselves in
everyday life.
b. Punishment of Dogs
Comedy also provides information regarding the punishment of dogs for stealing
and eating food. Cited by Athenaeus, a fragment of Anaxandrides’s lost play Poleis,
(fourth century B.C.), focuses on the cultural differences between Greece and Egypt. The
speaker, a Greek, addresses an Egyptian by telling him, among other things, that he beats
his dog when he catches it eating stolen food:
I couldn’t bring myself to be an ally of yours
For neither our manners not our customs agree, but
stand a long distance apart from each other.
You worship the cow, but I sacrifice it to the gods.
You hold the eel to be mighty divinity, we hold it
by far the mightiest of dainties.
You eat no pork, but I like it very much.
You worship the bitch, I beat her when I catch her eating
up my best food. (Deipn. 7.299f) [73]
The speaker suggests that catching his dog eating stolen food and beating it was a regular
occurrence. The physical assault against the dog of which the speaker boasts suggests
behavior that is in alignment with the anthropocentric Classical Greek assumption of
dominion over animals. The speaker also contrasts his beating of the animal with its
worship in Egypt, thus revealing his belief that punishing the dog in this way is behavior
that sets him apart from his Egyptian addressee. This contrast demonstrates the treatment
of the dog as a marker of ethnicity.
182

Although not provoked by the act of stealing food, beating features elsewhere as a
violent treatment of the dog. In Aristophanes’ Knights, for example, the sausage seller
launches the following threat to Paphlagon: “I’ll beat your back like a dog’s!” (Eq. 289)
[36]. The simile is instructive in showing that beating was treatment regularly meted out
to the animal. Also by equating his intended beating of Paphlagon to that of a dog, the
sausage seller presents a strong case for wanting his threat to come across as severe. In
this way, the simile demonstrates the function of a dog’s beating as a sign of severity.
This evidence is further instructive, for it confirms the prominence not simply of the
animal, but also of its physical suffering in the mind and language of contemporary
society.
c. Food for Dogs
The physical assault of the dog as exemplified by beating contrasts sharply with
textual evidence that suggests that a considerable degree of care was invested in
providing food for the animal. First, however, reference should be made to the prevailing
Classical Greek belief that the dog did not have specific preferences, but ate any food that
came to its attention. 275 This belief is clearly stated in Aristophanes’ Peace (421 B.C.).
The play opens in the courtyard of the house of Trygaeus, a country man. Two slaves
prepare stinking food for a greedy dung-beetle located inside a room of the house. One
slave is kneading into dung-cakes the contents of a mixing bowl, while another keeps
dashing in and out of the room in the course of feeding these cakes to the dung-beetle.
275 The fact that comic texts provide evidence for food for dogs accords well with the scholarly status of
comedy as the most useful literary genre regarding food in Classical Greece. For a discussion of the value
of comedic context as evidence for the consumption of food in Classical Greece, see J. Wilkins, “Comic
Cuisine: Food and Eating in the Comic Polis,” in G. W. Dobrov, ed., The City as Comedy. Society and
Representation in Athenian Drama (Chapel Hill and London, 1997) 250-268.
183

Unable to keep up with the quick pace of the creature’s eating, the slave decides to bring
the entire bowl to it. Released from the unpleasant task of kneading foul substances, the
other slave exclaims:
SECOND SLAVE
By heaven, you can take it to hell, and yourself with it!
(to the spectators) If any of you knows where I can buy an
unperforated nose, please tell me! Because there’s no job
more wretched than kneading food to serve to a beetle. A
pig or a dog will simply gobble up any shit that falls, but
this conceited thing puts on airs and won’t deign to eat
anything that I don’t spend the whole day mashing and
serve kneaded into a ball, as for a lady. (Pax 19-28) [42]
As in the case of the dog and the pig living in the house of Chremylus (Ar. Plut. 1100-
1105), the passage again presents these two animals living in a domestic context. Unlike
the dung-beetle, for which specific food was being prepared, the dog did not require such
investment because it would eat anything. In particular, the slave’s assertion that the
animal would gobble up food suggests hasty consumption, thus recalling Labes, who ate
on the spot the cheese he had stolen from the kitchen. Also by stating that the food was
to be falling, most likely from a table, the slave places the dog within a context that
suggests dining or preparation of food, thereby confirming the lively presence of the
animal within the house. At the same time, the passage demonstrates that slaves were
residents of the house whose interaction with the dog allowed them to observe the animal
closely and acquire knowledge of its behavior and habits. 276
276 Even though it is later in date (A.D. II), and according to D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient
Greece (Chicago and London, 1964) 49, addresses hunt servants, the following passage from Arrian’s
treatise On Hunting (Cyn. 9.1-9.2) [71] exemplifies the knowledge of canine behavior that servants, most
likely slaves, acquired through their proximity to and cohabitation with the animal: “there is nothing like a
good warm bed. The best is that with a human being, because hounds are made fond of people this way,
and they rejoice in human skin and love the person they sleep with no less that the one who feeds them.
And you should notice which of the hounds was unhappy, so as to provide for one which was thirsty in the
night and for one urged on by its necessities, and you would know also how it rested. For if it were
wakeful or if it dripped frequently in its sleep or threw up some of its food, taking it on a hunt would not be
184

Apart from labeling dogs as indiscriminate eaters, textual evidence shows that
owners of dogs in Classical Greece fulfilled the nutritional needs of the animal by
providing it with a variety of foods. In Aristophanes’ Wasps, for example, Bdelycleon
states that Labes, the dog living in his house, will eat meat-scraps and fish-bones (968-
969) [47]. The statement reveals the diverse types of food that Labes ate. Although this
food appears to have been a discarded part of human diet, still does not fail to make a
strong case for the care that Labes received by having his meals provided to him.
Additional information regarding the food provided to dogs is to be found in
Xenophon. In his treatise On Hunting the author advises his audience that milk should be
included for a year in the diet of newborn puppies (Cyn. 7.4) [191]. 277 His advice gives
the impression that it was the owners’ responsibility to provide a diet that met the
nutritional needs of puppies. As with the diet of Labes, Xenophon’s statement reveals
that supplying food to the dog was part of the care that the animal received.
Perhaps the most interesting evidence for the type of food furnished to the dog
occurs in Aristophanes’ Knights. A fierce discussion between the sausage seller and
Paphlagon shows that hand-wipes, which were made of edible material, were, in turn,
recycled as the food par-excellence for dogs:
safe. The man sleeping with it would know these things”; translation: Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient
Greece 170.
277 To this evidence should be added a large beef bone found near the nose of a dog buried in a fourthcentury
round pit unearthed behind the Stoa of Attalos in Athens. This bone may be interpreted as
representing the favorite food of this animal, even though the possibility of a different meaning contingent
upon the funerary context should not be ruled out. For the excavation of this grave, see H. A. Thompson,
“Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1950,” Hesperia 20 (1951) 52, n. 14. For a discussion of beef being
the first choice among food preferred by dogs, see Thorne, “Feeding Behavior of the Domestic Dogs,” in
Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 104.
185

SAUSAGE SELLER
Well, I swear by the fists whose blows I’ve borne many on many
a time from a child up, and by the slashes of butchers’ knives,
I think I will surpass you in that. Otherwise it would be for nothing
that I’ve grown to such a size on a diet of hand-wipes (a)pomagdalia&j).
PAPHLAGON
Hand-wipes (a)pomagdalia&j), like a dog? Poor rascal, how on a diet
of dog’s food do you expect to fight with a dog-faced baboon?
(Eq. 411-416) [37]
Paphlagon identifies his rival’s diet of hand-wipes with that of a dog. This identification
implies that hand-wipes were made of edible material, a point that will be discussed
shortly. The surprise and pity that Paphlagon expresses, when the sausage seller alleges
to have been raised on hand-wipes, demonstrates that this was food befitting only dogs.
This line of thought reveals that the contemporary anthropocentric attitude that viewed
humans as a category separate from and superior to that of animals extended even to the
domain of food. 278 The statement of the sausage seller, however, that he grew to an
exceptional size owing to eating hand-wipes, suggests that they were considered
nutritious food. As with the milk for puppies seen above, this evidence suggests that a
criterion for selecting food for dogs was its nutritional value, which in turn suggests that a
degree of care was invested on the well-being of the animal.
The definition of the term a)pomagdalia&j as “hand-wipes” is based on a note by
a scholiast, who explains that the objects on which diners wiped their fingers were made
of dough and, after dinner was completed, were given to dogs as food. 279 Similarly, a
fragment from the Epistle Concerning Obscure Words, a work ascribed to Polemon (c.
278
For a detailed discussion of this attitude, see Renehan, “The Greek Anthropocentric View of Man,” 239-
259. Although it refers to food for humans, an interesting discussion of food as “divisive [and] being
distributed and consumed in accordance with existing hierarchies,” can be found in P. Garsney, Food and
Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999) xi; also 6, where the author also remarks that, “food
separates and divides…in existential, cultural, social and economic terms.”
279
D. M. Jones, ed., Scholia Vetera in Aristophanis Equites (Scholia in Aristophanem 1.2; Groningen and
Amsterdam, 1969) 104, 414a-414c.
186

190 B.C.), and cited in Athenaeus’s discussion on ancient table manners, clarifies that
“[diners] used to smear their hands with perfumes, spurning the crumbs of bread
(a)pomagdalia&j) which the Spartans called ‘dog-bits’ (kuna&daj)” (Deipn. 9.409d) [75].
In this case, the etymology of the word kuna&daj, which shares the same root with the
ancient Greek term for dog (ku&wn) supports the connection between these items and the
animal. 280 Further information regarding the material of which a)pomagdalia&j were
made is related by Pollux, who refers to them as soft pieces of dough or bread (Onom.
6.93), 281 and also by Hesychius, whose lexicon (A.D. V) also identifies them as pieces of
dough made of flour. 282
Additional evidence regarding the food provided to dogs comes from a short
fragment of Diphilus (born c. 360-350 B.C.). The fragment preserves an episode in
which a mysterious woman attempts to feed a dog: 283
This young miss is one of a kind even father never kisses
and house-dog won’t take crusts (a1rton) from,
so dark she makes day night. (fr. 91 Kock) [84]
280
Regarding the visual record, a scene on a black-figured Boeotian lekythos (c. 550 B.C.) that depicts a
dog in the presence of women involved in the process of making bread has been interpreted as an allusion
to the dog’s waiting to receive bits of this bread, most likely, in the form of discarded napkins; B. A.
Sparkes, “The Greek Kitchen,” JHS 82 (1962) 126-127, pl. VII, fig. 2; for additional illustrations of the
same lekythos without, however, focusing on the dog, see S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An
Iconographic Handbook (London and New York, 2002) 69, fig. 2.10. To this visual repertoire can also be
added the Boeotian, black-figured skyphos that depicts two dogs, FILOQERA being one of them, in the
presence of women making bread, and is slightly later in date (525-500 B.C.).
281
E. Bethe, ed., Pollucis Onomasticon (Lexicographi Graeci IX) I (Leipzig, 1900, 1931; repr. Stuttgart,
1967) 26-27.
282
E. Munksgaard, ed., Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon I (Copenhagen, 1953) 219, s.v. a ) pomagdali/a
283
The image of a dog being offered food appears frequently in the arts of the Classical period, as, for
example, on a red-figured miniature chous, dated to ca. 420 B.C. and housed at the A. M. Sackler Museum,
Harvard University Art Museums. The vase depicts a boy holding offering a treat, perhaps meat or grapes,
to a dog that rises onto its hind legs to reach it. For a discussion and an illustration of this vase, see J. Neils
and J. Oakley eds., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New
Haven, 2003) 146 and 285, no. 95.
187

The fragment clearly identifies bread (a1rton) as the food presented to the dog. 284
Considering that the term a1rtoj designated a leavened wheat loaf, 285 and that cereals
like wheat were thought to have high nutritional value in Classical Greece, 286 it is again
evident that the animal was fed with its well-being in mind.
The fragment is further illuminating in terms of the canine behavior it describes:
so unsympathetic was the woman who tried to feed the dog that the animal declined to
take food from her. 287 This behavior contrasts sharply with that seen earlier: decided
eagerness to steal and gobble food. Although such contrasts in behavior can be attributed
to a possible difference in breeds, 288 what cannot be overlooked is that the dog was aware
of the woman’s dark character and therefore avoided being fed by her. Such evidence
grants wisdom and foresight to the animal and recognizes in it a level of mental capacity;
it also presupposes canine observation of human character and behavior, a circumstance
already seen in the Knights (1030-1034), where the dog waits for the diners to look in
another direction in order to steal their food. We have already seen from the analysis of
284
The emphasis on bread as the best food for dogs is also found in both Greek and Latin authors of later
periods. Varro (Rust. 2.9.8-2.9.10) [188], for example, recommends that dogs should be fed barley bread.
Similarly, Columella (Rust.7.12.10) [78] recommends barley flour with whey or bread made from the flour
of emmer or bread-wheat mixed with the liquid of boiled beans. Arrian (Cyn. 8.1-8.2) [70] states that dogs
“enjoy wheat bread or barley bread, for this food is best for a hound and there is no fear lest they be filled
too full of it. Then it is better if they like their food dry, but even if you soak it in water and they like it, it
is not bad”; translation: D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London, 1964)
170. Finally, Nemesianus (Cyn. 151-156) [134] says that bread should be given to puppies.
285
A. Dalby, Siren Feasts. A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece (London and New York, 1996)
91.
286
Garsney, Food and Society 17-21.
287
Such evidence contrasts with the scene on an Attic red-figured lekythos that dates to 470-460 B.C. The
scene depicts a woman feeding a dog that sits on its hind legs and looks upward toward the food suspended
from her hand (Fig. 19). For a short discussion of this lekythos, now in Rome (Accademia dei Lincei
2478), see Lewis, The Athenian Woman 70-71, fig. 2.13; and 159-166 for further discussion of scenes on
Classical Greek pottery that depict women being surrounded by animals (e.g., dogs, hares, tortoises, mice,
and birds).
288
Thorne, “Feeding Behavior,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 106, presents a discussion of modern
observations regarding the feeding behavior of dogs and how it is manifested in different breeds: “the
Labrador retriever shows a tendency to over-eat when given the opportunity, while other breeds,
particularly some of the toy and giant breeds, are so finicky that it is often difficult to maintain their
optimum body weight.”
188

Detienne and Vernant that wisdom and foresight were essential features of cunning
intelligence (mh~tij). 289 With the emphasis it places upon the dog’s shunning the woman,
Diphilus’s fragment confirms the wisdom and foresight of the animal and classifies it,
once again, among those creatures endowed with mh~tij.
d. Dogs as Scavengers
Unlike the textual evidence just cited, which illuminates the types of food
provided to domestic dogs, a passage from Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian
war sheds lights on the type of food to which dogs were reduced when they were
responsible for feeding themselves. The context of the passage indicates difficult
circumstances, as it refers to the epidemic that decimated Athens during the second year
of the war (430 B.C.). Thucydides says:
Indeed the character of the disease proved such that it baffles description,
the violence of the attack being in each case too great for human nature to endure,
while in one way in particular it showed plainly that it was different from any of
the familiar diseases: the birds, namely, and the four-footed animals which
usually feed upon human bodies, either would not now come near them, though
man lay unburied, or died if they tasted them. The evidence for this is that birds
of this kind became noticeably scarce, and they were no longer to be seen either
about the bodies or anywhere else; while the dogs gave a still better opportunity to
observe what happened, because they live with man. (2.50) [187]
Thucydides states clearly that observation of dogs’ behavior during the outbreak of the
disease was part of the effort to understand its nature. Regarding this behavior, his
comment is straightforward: dogs either ran away from human corpses lying in the streets
or fed on them and died. Thucydides implies that some dogs were able to detect danger
and thus abstained from scavenging on corpses. On a mental level, the ability to
289 Detienne and Vernant, Cunning Intelligence 3; also 27-48 for a discussion of sea creatures (e.g., starfish,
octopus) and land animals (e.g., fox) as exhibiting wisdom and foresight, and therefore considered
endowed with this type of intelligence.
189

anticipate forthcoming danger endows these animals with forethought. Considering that
forethought was seen earlier to be a feature of mh~tij, then the abstinence from
scavenging that Thucydides relates can be identified as behavior again stemming from
the dog’s possession of this type of intelligence. Further, the dogs’ abstinence from
feeding on corpses can be interpreted as a result of their acute sense of smell. Ancient
knowledge of this canine quality is attested in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, for
example, where the author maintains that tracking the scent of hares makes dogs aware of
the presence of these animals (EN 3.10.7) [53]. 290 Thucydides states, however, that some
other dogs did feed on human corpses, evidence which implies that their sense of smell
may have not been as acute as those who abstained from scavenging. If canine sense of
smell is to be taken as a guide here, then Thucydides’ distinction between dogs who fed
on corpses and those who did not may suggest that he was aware of differing degrees of
olfaction in the animal. 291 To judge from this evidence and in combination with that
290 This evidence accords well with a much earlier incident: In the Odyssey, Argos was able to recognize
Odysseus owing to his keen sense of smell. This sense is perhaps symbolized by the depiction of dogs on
Attic grave stelai with their noses touching the ground. Considering that the road to the underworld was
imagined as complicated, twisted and therefore, treacherous, a keen sense of smell made dogs invaluable
companions in that they could perceive their surroundings accurately and promptly and thus eliminate
lurking dangers. An example of a stele depicting a sniffing dog is given in Kaltsas, Sculpture 153, cat. no.
300 (Athens, NM 2894) where the animal is placed between two male figures who shake hands (Fig. 20).
The stele, which was found near the Dipylon gate in Athens, is made of Pentelic marble and has been dated
to ca. 410-400 B.C. For the Classical Greek vision of the path to the underworld as treacherous, see S. G.
Cole, “Landscapes of Dionysos and Elysian Fields,” in M. B. Cosmopoulos, ed., The Archaeology and
Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults (London and New York, 2003) 193-217.
291 This suggestion is exemplified in a fragment of Aristophanes of Byzantium, later in date (III-II B.C.),
that classifies female Laconian dogs as cleverer than males because they have a better sense of smell. The
fragment also alleges that the opposite holds true for Molossian dogs. They have such discriminating sense
of smell, it is said, that, even if they are given the flesh of another dog as food, they do not touch it. That
dogs were believed to have a keen sense of smell, and avoided dog flesh as food is also mentioned by
Aelian (HA 4.40) [2]. The ancient evidence regarding differences in the olfactory acuity of dogs accords
well with the results of modern studies. As Thorne, “Feeding Behavior,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog
108, maintains: “Olfaction is particularly important in food selection. Olfactorily intact dogs show a clear
preference ranking of different meats, such as beef, pork, lamb, chicken or horse-meat, but anosmic dogs
are unable to distinguish the meats, although they can still differentiate meat from cereal.”
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egarding mh~tij, the canine behavior that Thucydides describes may be reflective of his
knowledge of the physiological and mental abilities of the dog.
Thucydides does not distinguish between domestic and stray dogs, and in the
absence of such distinction, one is left with the assumption that he talks about dogs living
in the streets, where the unburied bodies were lying. 292 His assertion that dogs would
feed on corpses, although it has been doubted by modern scholarship, is a well-
established idea in ancient Greek thought. 293 Homer, for example, in the beginning of the
Iliad, speaks of the corpses of the Achaeans becoming carrion for dogs and birds (1.1-
1.5) [124]; 294 and later on, Priam fears the moment when his own trusted dogs will
mutilate his dead body (22.66-22.76) [127]. 295 Also, in Aeschylus’ Suppliants, the
Danaids, while contemplating suicide, think of how their corpses will become prey to
dogs and birds (800-801) [8]. And in Sophocles’ Antigone, Creon decrees that the body
292 That animals had a prominent presence in Classical Greek cities, among them Athens, is evident from
the large amounts of animal dung that designated servants called koprologoi were assigned to remove from
the streets. Even if this evidence is taken to mean that the dung removed was of animals living in the
house, still it does not preclude the possibility that it could also refer to the dung of animals, among them
dogs, living in the streets. For a discussion of the profession of koprologoi, and the literary and
epigraphical evidence documenting their duties, see E. J. Owens, “The Koprologoi at Athens in the Fifth
and Fourth Centuries B.C.,” CQ 33 (1983) 44-50. Pertinent here is also the fact that the Classical Greek
philosopher, Diogenes the Cynic (“Doggish”), who lived in the streets of Athens had adopted dog-like
behavior, which included public defecation (Dio Crys. Or. 8.36).
293 K. F. Kitchell, Jr., “Man’s Best Friend? The Changing Role of the Dog in Greek Society,” in B. Santillo
Frizell ed., PECUS. Man and Animal in Antiquity, Proceedings of the Conference at the Swedish Institute
in Rome, September 9-12, 2002 (The Swedish Institute in Rome. Projects and Seminars 1; Rome, 2004)
181, maintains that the statement of Thucydides presents as normal the behavior of dogs feeding on dead
bodies, but does not think that it provides evidence for this behavior taking place while the disease plagued
Athens.
294 For an example of birds feeding on corpses in a battlefield, see the fragmented limestone stele of
Eannatum or Stele of the Vultures that dates to the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2500 B.C.), and was found at
the Sumerian site of Girsu, in Mesopotamia. The stele commemorates the victory of Eannatum, ruler of
Lagash, over Enakalle of Umma, and portrays birds of prey and lions tearing the flesh of the corpses of the
dead as the lay in the battlefield. For a discussion and illustrations of this stele, see I. J. Winter, “After the
Battle is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and the Beginning of Pictorial Narrative in the Art of the Ancient
Near East,” in H. L. Kessler and M. S. Simpson, eds., Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
(Studies in the History of Art 16; Washington D.C., 1985) 11-32.
295 Also in the Odyssey (18.85-18.87), Antinoos threatens Irus that he will mutilate his body and give his
nose, ears, and genitals as raw food for dogs to eat. For a thorough summary of all the Homeric passages
where dogs are presented as feeding on dead bodies, see M. Faust, “Die künstlerische Verwendung von
κύων ‘Hund’ in den homerischen Epen,” Glotta 48 (1970) 8-29.
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of Polynices shall not be buried, but left for birds and dogs to devour and savage (198-
206) [185]. 296 Further, in his account of Persian burial customs, Herodotus maintains that
the corpses of Persians were not buried before they had been mangled by birds or dogs
(1.140) [98]. That this type of behavior was recorded by both theatrical and prose writers
and noted with reference to different cultures implies widespread comprehension of the
wild and savage nature of the dog. In addition, the context of the epidemic in which
Thucydides places this behavior suggests that the danger of the dog reverting to it was
imminent only under certain circumstances, 297 or, to turn it around, that the animal had
the ability to adjust its behavior to emerging circumstances. 298 This evidence, further
suggests that even though the dog was enfolded into Classical Greek society, its feral
disposition continued to shape its collective perception.
296
For a discussion of the prominence of this idea in tragedy, see Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 53-
68.
297
Modern accounts of dogs feeding on human corpses feature in journalistic literature as shocking and
almost incredulous incidents, but always in association with extraordinary circumstances, such as
starvation. For an example of a pet dog feeding on the corpse of its owner, see CNN, 2002, 15 May.
Starving Dog Eats Its Owner. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/05/15/austria.dog/index.html.
For a similar account of dogs gnawing on human corpses, see O. S. Dewaw, “Army Mechanic is Acquitted
on Desertion Charge,” The New York Times (July 29, 2005) 15. What is interesting in these accounts is that
even though the wild nature of dogs is implied as a background, it is always the circumstances that bear
responsibility for dogs resorting to this behavior. Such a condition may stem from the fact that the idea of
dogs feeding on corpses contrasts sharply with the popular perception of the animal nowadays. As L. A.
Hart, “Dogs as Human Companions,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 162, points out, the vast majority
of dogs residing in modern households are thought of as social companions. Similarly, R. Coppinger and
R. Schneider, “Evolution of Working Dogs,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 22, maintain that “when we
think of dogs we tend to think of animals that were selected for behavior performed in the service of
people.” Both statements suggest that the modern conception of the dog is based primarily on selected and
preferred aspects of its behavior, and when disturbing aspects of its behavior emerge, they feature
prominently in journalistic literature.
298
According to D. W. McDonald and G. M. Carr, “Variation in Dog Society: Between Resource
Dispersion and Social Flux,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 211, a study of free-living dogs in certain
areas of Italy (e.g., Altopiano) showed that these animals adjusted their social behavior to their local
circumstances. Thus, in villages, they adopted “a ‘fox-like’ existence in which individuals live in loose
social groups that defend a territory, but pursue a relatively solitary existence. In the countryside, sylvatic
dogs adopted a more wolf-like lifestyle, generally operating as a pack, although individuals sometimes
travel alone.”
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e. The Savage Nature of Dogs
Historical and philosophical writings provide evidence for the division of dogs
into specific breeds as well as the genetic factors that contributed to the rise of these
breeds. The prevailing idea in these writings is that certain canine breeds were the
progeny of interbreeding between a wild animal and the dog. As noted earlier,
Xenophon, for example, in his treatise On Hunting asserts that a particular breed of
Laconian hounds called Vulpine was a hybrid between a fox and a dog (Cyn. 3.1)
[189]. 299 In agreement with him is Aristotle, who refers to additional examples of
hybrids. After concluding his discussion on mice, for example, he says:
Other animals too are produced from the mixing of different breeds, as in Cyrene
the wolves mate with the dogs and generate young, and from fox and dog come
the Laconian hounds. They say too that the Indian hounds come from tiger and
dog, not immediately, but after the third mating; for they say the first offspring is
like a savage beast. They take the bitches to deserted places and tie them up; and
many are devoured, if the wild animal does not happen to be excited for mating.
(HA 7.607a) [65]
The passage confirms the idea that crossbreeding between a specific wild animal and the
dog produced a specific canine breed. The discussion of the breed of Indian hounds,
however, is important, for it sheds light on specific beliefs about the savage nature of the
dog. Aristotle identifies the breed of Indian hounds as the offspring of a third-generation
mating between a dog and a tiger. 300 His statement demonstrates that he conceived of a
299
In addition, Pollux notes that in Hycarnia, a region to the south of the Caspian Sea, dogs were crossed
with lions (Onom. 5.38) [163].
300
For the suggestion that the Indian dog that Aristotle describes here was a real dog, see A. Platt, “On the
Indian Dog,” CQ 3 (1909) 241-243; also R. H. A. Merlen, De Canibus. Dog and Hound in Antiquity
(London, 1971) 31-32. The earliest reference to Indian dogs is that of Herodotus (7.187), who records that
when Xerxes invaded Greece in the early fifth century B.C., his army included vast numbers of “Indian”
dogs. The earliest literary evidence for the use of dogs in warfare comes from Polyaenus, a second-century
A.D. author, who refers to a sixth-century B.C. battle between Alyattes, the king of Lydia, and the
Cimmerians: “When the monstrous and the bestial Cimmerians made an expedition against him, Alyattes
brought out for battle his strongest dogs along with the rest of his force. The dogs set upon the barbarians
as if they were wild animals, killed many and forced the rest to flee shamefully” (Strategems 7.2.1-7.2.6;
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eed as the result of a successive process of hybridization. 301 Further, his explanation
that the progeny of the first crossbreeding between a dog and a tiger was “like a savage
beast” is instructive, for it suggests two ideas: 1) that this savage nature manifested itself
in an obvious way, perhaps in terms of appearance and/or behavior, and 2) that it was
thought to diminish as each successive phase of inbreeding occurred. In other words,
until it reached the desirable, subsided stage that marked the breed of Indian hounds, the
characteristic of canine wildness underwent an evolutionary process that was each time
spurred by a genetic factor. 302
translation: P. Krentz and E. L. Wheeler, eds., trs., Polyaenus. Strategems of War II (Chicago, 1994) 625.
Polyaenus mentions a second incident of warlike character in which dogs are featured. Referring to the
Persian invasion of Egypt (525 B.C.) by Cambyses, he says: “Cambyses was besieging Pelusium. The
Egyptians stoutly resisted by blocking the entries to Egypt, and bringing up many batteries of artillery they
shot quick-firing catapult bolts, stones, and fire. Cambyses drew up in front of his army as many animals
as the Egyptians worshipped—dogs, sheep, cats, ibexes. The Egyptians stopped shooting for fear of
striking one of the holy animals. Thus Cambyses captured Pelusium and entered Egypt” (Strategems 7.9.1-
7.9.9); translation: Krentz and Wheeler, Polyaenus. Strategems 639. Evidence that dogs were used in
warfare in the Classical period, derives from Aelian, who mentions that a dog had served in the battle of
Marathon (490 B.C.):
An Athenian took with him a Dog as fellow-soldier to the battle of Marathon, and both are figured
in a painting in the Stoa Poecile, nor was the Dog denied honor but received the reward of the
danger it had undergone in being seen among the companions of Cynericus, Epizelus, and
Callimachus. They and the dog were painted by Micon, though some say it was not his work but
that of Polygnotus of Thasos (NA 7.38) [3].
Pausanias’s account of this picture (1.15.3), however, does not mention this detail.
301 A passage from Aelian, that cites knowledge of the Aristotelian reference to Indian hounds, is crucial in
understanding how the particular steps of this process of inbreeding were thought to have occurred:
Indian histories teach us the following facts also. Huntsmen take thoroughbred bitches
which are good at tracking wild animals and are very swift of foot to places infested by
these animals; they tie them to trees and then go away, simply, as the saying is, trying a
throw of the dice. And if tigers find them when they have caught nothing and are famished,
they tear them to pieces. If however they arrive on heat and full-fed they couple with the
bitches, for tigers too when gorged turn their thoughts to sexual intercourse. From this union,
so it said, a tiger is born, not a hound. And from this tiger and a bitch again a tiger would be
born, although the offspring of this last and of a bitch takes after its dam, and the seed
degenerates and a hound is born. Nor will Aristotle contradict this. Now these hounds which
can boast a tiger for sire scorn to pursue a stag or to face a boar, but are glad to rush at lions and
thereby give proof of their pedigree (NA 8.1) [4].
302 The parallel between this process and the modern understanding of how, for example, the domestication
of the dog—thought to be initially a wolf—occurred is striking. J. Clutton-Brock, “Origins of the Dog:
Domestication and Early History,” in Serpell, ed., The Domestic Dog 15, hypothesizes that, after the wolf
was incorporated into the social structure of the human community and was tamed, it would have become
less and less like its wild forbears “because inherently variable characters, such as coat color, carriage of
the ears and tail, overall size and the proportions of the limbs would have been altered by the combined
194

The textual evidence discussed in this section indicates that stealing and gobbling
food were two aspects of feeding behavior for which the dog was known in Classical
Greece. This canine behavior served as a metaphor for discussing similar behavior in
humans, more specifically, political figures accused of appropriating public money for
themselves. During the process of stealing food, the dog was observed to exhibit three
specific characteristics: vigilance, agility, and swiftness. That these characteristics were
essential to the type of cunning intelligence known as mh~tij indicates that the dog was
considered to hold this mental capacity. The punishment that the dog received for its
stealing of food was beating, a cruel treatment that features in the texts as both a
conscious and culturally specific behavior. This physical aggression toward the animal
contrasts sharply with evidence that domestic dogs were provided with a variety of foods
selected on the basis of their nutritional value. The texts also indicate that the savage
nature and scavenging behavior of the dog was integral parts of its collective image.
Such behavior evoked the image of human corpses becoming carrion for dogs, an image
that inspired fear and anxiety, and also served as a reminder that dangerous feral traits of
the animal had not completely died out. Unlike the fear that the thought of the dog
feeding on human flesh evoked, however, canine flesh as food does not seem to have
generated human responses of the same type. On the contrary, the texts that are
discussed next, present the practice of eating dog flesh as one from which Classical
Greek society did not shy away.
effects of artificial and natural selection. In this way, the wolf became a dog; that is, it was no longer a wild
carnivore but a part of human society with physical and behavioral characteristics adapted to its economic,
aesthetic or ritual functions.”
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SECTION 3
Dogs as Food
The practice of eating dog flesh features in two types of Classical texts: comic
accounts and medical treatises. In terms of frequency, the references to consumption of
dog flesh contained in the treatises outnumber by far those found in comedy. Later Greek
authors, however, such as Galen, Sextus Empiricus (both A.D. II), and Porphyry (A.D.
III), advocate abstinence from consuming dog flesh, and include Greece among those
parts of the world that, in their times, shared this attitude. Sextus Empiricus, in
particular, conveys this information by pointing out its sharp contrast with the practice of
fourth-century B.C. Greek physicians of prescribing dog flesh to their patients as dietary
treatment. The following discussion begins with the post-Classical Greek attitudes to the
consumption of dogs, and proceeds to comic and medical accounts of the Classical
period, which indicate that contemporary Greek society did not abstain from eating dogs.
a. Post-Classical Greek Attitudes to the Practice of Eating Dogs
The dietary treatises of Galen of Pergamon, a philosopher and physician who
worked in Alexandria and mostly Rome in the second century A.D., provide evidence
regarding the practice of eating dogs in that time. In his treatise On the Properties of
Foodstuffs, Galen notes: “As for dogs, what can I say? In some countries they are often
eaten when they are young and plump, and particularly after they have been castrated”
(3.664) [93]. 303 As can be seen, Galen’s statement is quite general in its character. He
303 This statement accords well with the results of the examination of skeletons of puppies found in twenty-
six assemblage deposits in an area of both domestic and commercial activity at the site of Sardis. Dated
between the late seventh and early to mid-fifth century B.C., each of these deposits, thought to be part of a
196

efers to some countries as consumers of dog flesh, which suggests his view of the
practice as a cultural and perhaps ethnic marker, but does not specify which these
countries are. It may be reasonable to assume that he thinks of them as distant and/or
foreign. Although absent from his statement, evidence that this was most likely the case
comes from the next passage, in which Galen clearly states that Asia, Greece, and Italy,
the immediate world in which he lived, worked, and traveled, abstained from eating dogs.
In his treatise On the Thinning Diet, he says:
As for dogs and foxes—I have never tasted their meat, since it is not the custom
to eat it either in Asia or in Greece, or indeed in Italy. But there are apparently
many parts of the world where they are eaten, and my conjecture would be that
their effects would be similar to those of the hare; for hare, dog, and fox are all
equally dry. (Vict. Att. 8) [94]
In this passage, Galen points out that he never ate dog meat. He also counts Greece
among the places which abstained from this practice in his day. As was the case above,
Galen reports that many parts of the world did not shun eating dogs, thus suggesting
again his conception of the practice as a cultural marker. Galen states that dog meat, like
that of the hare and fox, would be dry as food. As it will be seen later, the idea of the
dryness of dog flesh features prominently in the Hippocratic treatises, evidence
suggesting that Galen was well acquainted with his predecessors’ writings.
The Greek practice of abstaining from eating dogs is also attested in the writings
of Sextus Empiricus, another philosopher and physician of the second century A.D. In
ritual meal, comprises an one-handled jug, an oinochoe, a skyphos, a shallow dish, an iron knife, and the
bones of a puppy placed in the jug. Regarding these bones, C. H. Greenewalt, Jr., Ritual Dinners in Early
Historic Sardis (Berkeley, 1978) 24, remarks that: “in no case is the baculum (or penis) present, but this
need not imply that the puppies were all females as this bone is rather small and fragile in male canids as
young as this.”
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his treatise Outlines of Pyrrhonism, he presents a specific reason for not eating dogs,
while highlighting both contemporary and ancient cases of evidence to the contrary:
Eating dog’s flesh, too, is thought by us [Greeks] to be sinful (a)ni/eron), but some
of the Thracians are reported to be dog-eaters. Possibly this practice was
customary also amongst the Greeks; and on this account Diocles, too, starting
from the practices of the Asclepiadae, prescribes that hounds’ flesh should be
given to certain patients. (P. 3.225) [184]
Along with considering it sinful, the passage associates the consumption of dog flesh
with a specific cultural group, the Thracians. In this way, the approach to this practice as
a cultural marker is again clear. The passage also expresses the suspicion that eating
dogs was a Greek habit of the past. 304 The reference to Diocles, a physician of the fourth
century B.C., and his prescription of dog flesh as a dietary treatment suggests that
contemporary medicine did not recognize the curative properties that its ancient
counterpart attributed to dog flesh. Like Galen, Sextus Empiricus appears to be well-
acquainted with ancient medical literature.
Additional evidence regarding the consumption of dog flesh comes from
Porphyry. In his treatise On Abstinence from Killing Animals, the author categorically
denies involvement in this practice: “and though the war against the beasts is just, we
abstain from many that live with humans. That is why the Greeks do not eat dogs, or
horses, or donkeys” (1.14) [165]. In this statement, the reference to dogs as animals
304 The Early Bronze Age site of Lerna is the earliest Greek site that has yielded evidence for the
consumption of dogs in levels that date from 2200 to 1900 B.C.; N.-G. Gejwall, Lerna I: A Preclassical
Site in the Argolid: The Fauna (Princeton 1969) 17-18. Additional evidence comes from the Bronze
through Iron Age site of Kastanas: C. Becker, Kastanas. Ausgrabungen in einem Siedlungshügel der
Bronze-und Eisenzeit Makedoniens 1975-1979, die Teirnochenfunde (Prähistorische Archäologie in
Südosteuropa 5; Berlin, 1986) 88-97, 276-279; also from the Iron Age though Orientalizing Period site of
Kastro in East Crete; L. M. Snyder and W. E. Klippel, “From Lerna to Kastro: Further Thoughts on Dogs
as Food in Ancient Greece; Perceptions, Prejudices and Reinvestigations,” in E. Kotjabopoulou et al., eds.,
Zooarchaeology in Greece: Recent Advances (London, 2003) 221-231.
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living together with humans brings to mind Aristotle’s earlier designation of dogs as
“symbiotic with humans”[61]. What is striking, however, is that Porphyry presents this
symbiosis as the main reason for abstaining from eating dog flesh. This evidence
suggests that spatial closeness and interaction between humans and the dog might have
been responsible for producing a sympathetic attitude towards the animal. 305
It is clear from the literary evidence cited here that the practice of eating dogs was
not customary among Greeks in the second and third centuries A.D. The medical and
philosophical writings of Galen, Sextus Empiricus, and Porphyry indicate that specific
ideas, such as the one that considered eating dogs a sin, provided the basis for advocating
abstinence from it. In recording that many cultures, such as the Thracians, practiced
eating dogs, these authors also indicate their approach to the practice as a sign of cultural
otherness. Yet they maintain an awareness that this very same practice was
recommended as treatment by Greek physicians in the fourth-century B.C. In their
minds, therefore, the attitude towards eating dogs was not a point where past and present
met.
305 The emotional dimension of the relationship between humans and dogs, especially in second- and thirdcentury
A.D. Greece, is a topic that deserves further attention, given the literary and material evidence that
exists. As examples are mentioned here Aelian’s reference to dogs as tro&fimoi, which translates as “foster
children,” (NA 11.36; 16.39); also the affection (storgh&) of the bitch Parthenope for her owner is recorded
on the inscription (I.G. XII. 2, no. 459) on a funerary stele that depicts a dog in relief. The stele was found
at Mytilene, Lesbos and has been dated to the second century A.D. For the suggestion that this inscription
marked the grave of a dog, see S. Georgoudi, “Funeral Epigrams for Animals” 37. For a discussion of the
specific terms, such as storgh& (affection), used to expressed the emotions that marked the relationship
between animals and their owners in ancient Greece during this period, see L. Bodson, “Motivation for Pet-
Keeping in Ancient Greece and Rome: A Preliminary Survey,” in A. L. Podberschek et al., eds.,
Companion Animals and Us: Exploring the Relationships between People and Pets (Cambridge, 2000) 35.
199

. Dogs as Food in Classical Greece
Comedy
A passage from Aristophanes’ Knights that refers to the selling of sausages made
of dog meat constitutes the earliest comic reference to dogs as food. Cleon/Paphlagon
and the sausage seller, who seeks to replace the former as representative of the Athenian
assembly (demos), rival each other in order to win the favor of the demos represented
here by a homonymous old man. Demos sides with the sausage seller, who proposes the
following punishment to be inflicted on Paphlagon:
DEMOS
And Paphlagon, who behaved this way, tell me how you’ll
punish him.
SAUSAGE SELLER
Nothing severe; he’s merely going to take my old job. He’ll
have his own sausage stand at the city gates, hashing up
dog (ku&neia) and ass meat instead of politics (pra&gmasin),
getting drunk and trading insults with the whores,
and drinking the runoff from the public baths. (Eq. 1395-1401) [39]
Despite its allusion to dog flesh as food, the proposal of the sausage seller that Paphlagon
should be demoted to a person who stuffs the meats of dog and ass into sausages, 306 and
sells them at the gates of the city, 307 has been interpreted as evidence that dog flesh was
not consumed in Classical Greece. Commenting on the subject, René Merlen, for
306 Dalby, Siren Feasts 60, discusses a passage from Galen’s On the Properties of Foods (3.1.9), as
evidence that ass flesh was sometimes eaten in historic times in ancient Greece. Pollux (Onom. 9.47-9.48)
indicates that the place where asses’ flesh was sold in the agora was called memno&neia; also Erotian
(Glossarium Hippocraticum 82.8), who cites Aristophanes as his source, says that the place in the agora
where carrion was sold was called kene/breion after the word for the flesh of carrion. For these testimonia,
see R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora III. Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia (Princeton, 1957) 186,
197. J. Wilkins, The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy (Oxford, 2000) 180,
n. 136, notes that the location of these stalls is unknown.
307 Additional evidence that sausages were sold both in the agora and at the gates derives from another part
of Aristophanes’ Knights, where Paphlagon asks the sausage seller: “Did you really sell your sausages in
the agora, or at the gates?”(1245-1247); translation: Sommerstein, Knights 126. For further discussion of
both of these areas as the ones were various goods were sold, see Wilkins, The Boastful Chef 180, ns. 133-
135.
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example, states that “these lines surely indicate beyond all doubt that meat of this kind
never passed the lips of the Greeks.” 308 Similarly, Frederick Simoons refers to this
passage as evidence that “seems to confirm the fact that dog flesh was not a usual food”
in Classical Greece. 309 He also suggests that the reference to dog flesh “may have been
an attempt at ridicule by Aristophanes,” but does not explain who the subject of this
ridicule may have been. 310 Further, Lilja sees the passage as an indication “that the
Greeks did not normally eat dog’s or ass’s flesh.” 311 In her view, Aristophanes used the
reference to dog flesh as an opportunity to ridicule the learned opinion of his great
contemporary, Hippocrates, who prescribed dog’s flesh as a curative food for certain
diseases. 312 Mainoldi elucidates the connection between Aristophanes and Hippocrates
by pointing out that the term ku&neia, which the former uses to refer to “dog flesh” (Eq.
1398), is also used in the Hippocratic treatises, where dog flesh features as therapeutic
food. 313 Furthermore, in these treatises, she explains, the term ku&neia is usually
accompanied by the term kre/ata, which translates as “meats,” and which Aristophanes
replaced with the term pra&gmata (Eq. 1399) in order to evoke the political affairs of the
city. 314 Although these are reasonable arguments, they do not detract from the fact that
308 Merlen, De Canibus 86.
309 F. J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (Madison, 1994)
235.
310 Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh 235.
311 Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 72.
312 Lilja, Dogs in Ancient Greek Poetry 72.
313 Mainoldi, L’image du loup et du chien 174. For various examples from the Hippocratic Collection
where this term is used, see infra p. 56.
314 Mainoldi, L’image du loup et du chien 174; also for the tendency of Aristophanes to draw upon the
medical terminology of his time, the influence on and the literal or metaphorical use of these terms in his
plays, see H. W. Miller, “Aristophanes and Medical Language,” TAPA 76 (1945) 74-84. This suggestion
should not be taken to mean, however, that the terms ku&neia and kre/asin constituted medical terminology.
They are used frequently by Hippocrates, but fit better into the language of butchery and processing of
animal products. Given this evidence, their alteration to ku&neia pra&gmasin in the Knights accords well
with the fact that, in this play, both Paphlagon, a tanner, and the sausage seller are essentially processors of
meat products, who sell them in the agora, a place also linked here with the selling of political favors; for a
201

the passage refers to dog flesh as an ingredient of sausages, and thus indicates the
consumption of this flesh in the fifth century B.C. The only scholar who has recognized
the importance of this evidence is Geoffrey Arnott, who states that Aristophanes’s
comment should be taken to mean that dog meat was indeed eaten, but only by the
poor. 315 In support of his argument, Arnott presents a fragment of the comic poet Alexis
(c. 375-275 B.C.) that refers to the consumption of dog meat by a poor devotee of the
Pythagoreans. The fragment, which belongs to Alexis’s comedy Men of Tarentum, and is
cited by Athenaeus, is a discussion between two persons of the types of food from which
the Pythagoreans abstained:
A. The devotees of Pythagoras, we hear, eat neither fish nor anything else
that has life, and they are the only ones who drink no wine.
B. Yes, but Epicharides devours dogs, and he is a Pythagorean.
A. Of course, after he has killed one, for then it no longer has life!
(Deipn. 4.161b-4.161c) [72]
This fragment refers directly to the consumption of dog flesh. Epicharides, a
Pythagorean, ignored the dietary laws of his sect and ate dog flesh. His behavior appears
shameful, when seen in the context of evidence that Pythagoras considered dogs to be
reincarnated human souls, and proposed abstinence from eating them because it was like
eating deceased friends. 316 Arnott suggests that Epicharides should be considered a poor
man. According to him, in fourth-century comedic contexts, the term “Pythagorean,”
which Alexis applies to Epicharides, signified, usually with contempt, beggarly ascetics,
succinct discussion of these interconnected ideas, see Wilkins, “Comic Cuisine,” in Dobrov, ed, The City as
Comedy 259.
315 W. G. Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary (Cambridge, 1996) 636, n. 1.
316 For the ancient sources for Pythagoras, see C. Osborne, “Boundaries in Nature: Eating with Animals in
the Fifth Century B.C.,” BICS 37 (1990) 23-24.
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and thus poor men. 317 On the basis of this evidence, Arnott interprets Epicharides’s
eating of dog meat as evidence that this was food for the low strata of fourth-century
Athenian society. The consumption of dog meat in Aristophanes’ Knights implies the
same thing for the fifth century, he argues. 318 His analysis offers an insight into the
valuation of the dog as food in Classical Athens.
Additional evidence regarding the consumption of dog flesh in Classical Greece
comes from two other texts of Aristophanes, an extant fragment of his lost play
Banqueters (427 B.C.), and a passage from Plutus (388 B.C.). The fragment of the
Banqueters, which seems to be part of a dialogue between two persons, preserves the
following question:
What does this mean? You’ve bought a little white pup (kuni/dion)
on which the goddess at the cross may sup? (fr. 204 Kock) [40]
By considering a white puppy as food offering to the goddess of the crossroads, the
fragment alludes to the sacrifice of dogs as part of a religious observance. 319 Regarding
317 Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments 581-582, 635, presents the texts of Aristophon (e.g., 9.12, 12.3), another
fourth-century comic poet, as additional evidence for this contempt.
318 Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments 636, n. 1.
319 Additional evidence reminiscent of the situation described in the Banqueters comes from Plutarch (A.D.
I-II), whose discussion of the dog focuses on the past: “Nor, in fact, did the men of old think that this
animal was wholly pure, for it was never sacrificed to any of the Olympian gods; and when it is sent to the
cross-roads as a supper for the earth-goddess Hekate, it has its due portion among sacrifices that avert and
expiate evil. In Sparta they immolate puppies to the bloodiest of the gods Enyalius; and in Boeotia the
ceremony of public purification is to pass between the parts of a dog which has been cut in twain” (Quaest.
Rom. 290D) [161]. In another instance, he clarifies that the sacrifice of a dog was an act of purification:
“Nearly all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial victim for ceremonies of purification; and some, at least,
make use of it even to this day. They bring forth for Hekate puppies along with the other materials for the
purification, and rub round about with puppies such persons as are in need of cleansing and this kind of
purification they call periskylakismos” (Quaest. Rom. 280C) [160]. Pausanias (A.D. II) is also another
author, who presents evidence that links dog sacrifices to deities protecting crossroads: “Before the fighting
they sacrifice in the Phoebaeum which is outside the city, nor far distant from Therapne. Here each
company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalius, holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an
acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to
sacrifice puppies except the people of Colophon; these too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch, to the Wayside
203

the identity of the deity honored with this food, Ilmo Von Rudloff suggests that it may be
Hekate. 320 Although he does not explain his suggestion further, supporting evidence for
it comes from Sarah Johnston’s study, which maintains that “Hekate’s role as a goddess
of crossroads…is a single aspect of the broader role that she played from early times—
that of guiding individuals through liminal points and during transitions of many
types.” 321 Although instructive, this evidence does not eliminate the fact that there is
nothing explicit in the fragment that attests to dog flesh as being eaten by human beings
or in connection with honoring Hekate.
Evidence that supports these points can be found in a passage from Aristophanes’
Plutus in which the personified character of Poverty argues that all good things come to
people thanks to poverty and not wealth. Chremylus’s reply is this:
CHREMYLUS
You can get the answer from Hekate
as to whether it is better to be rich or to be hungry.
She says that the “haves,” the rich, offer her a dinner
every month, but the poor people snatch it away before
it’s even set down! (Plut. 594-597) [43]
The passage does not specify what type of food was presented to Hekate, but the earlier
reference of the Banqueters to a white puppy as food offering to the goddess at the
crossroad, has been used by Sommerstein as auxiliary evidence in identifying this food
Goddess (Enodio). Both the sacrifice of the Colophonians and that of the youths at Sparta are appointed to
take place at night” (3.14.9) [136].
320 I. R. Von Rudloff, “Hekate in Early Greek Religion” (diss. University of Victoria, 1992) 119.
321 S. I. Johnston, “Crossroads,” ZPE 88 (1991) 218; she also discusses literary evidence for hekataia, that
is, shrines or statues of Hekate at crossroads (219, n.10). For the role of Hekate as a guide to the transition
to the underworld, her association with liminal spaces, and also her connection with dogs, which in later
sources, such as the Chaldean Oracles (A.D. II) are represented as ghostly apparitions, see Johnston,
Restless Dead 203-211, and Hekate Soteira. A Study of Hekate’s Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and
Related Literature (Atlanta, 1990). For a depiction of the dogs of Hekate devouring the dead on a blackfigured
lekythos (c. 460-450 B.C.) of unknown provenance, but most likely, from a tomb in Athens, see S.
Karouzou, “An Underworld Scene on a Black-Figured Lekythos,” JHS 92 (1972) 64-73.
204

with dog flesh. 322 Further, on the basis of Chremylus’s explanation that poor people stole
this food, Sommerstein suggests that poor Athenians were reduced to eating dog flesh,
which has, in turn, prompted his suggestion that this was food of the lowest kind. 323 As
can be seen, this evidence accords well with Arnott’s suggestion that dog meat was eaten
by the poor.
Taken together, the accounts of the Banqueters and Plutus suggest that dog flesh
was presented as a food offering to Hekate, and served also as the food of the poor.
Hippocratic Treatises
Further evidence regarding dogs as food in Classical Greece comes from the
Hippocratic treatises in which dog flesh is presented as therapeutic food for various
diseases. Underlying these prescriptions is the belief that dog flesh held specific dietetic
properties. These properties are exemplified by the division of dog flesh into two kinds:
1) that of an adult dog, denoted by the terms ku&wn or ku&neia and considered of curative
value, but hard to digest, therefore thought of as causing constipation; 2) that of a puppy,
designated by the terms sku&lac, skula&kion, or skula&keia, also considered curative
food, but easy to digest, and therefore, recommended as a laxative.
322 Sommerstein, Wealth 178.
323 For the suggestion that the food referred to in the Plutus should be identified with dog flesh, and the
subsequent designation of this food as of a low type, see Sommerstein, Wealth 178, lines 594 and 597
respectively.
205

The Properties of Dog Flesh
Evidence that dog flesh was considered medicinal food appears in the treatise
entitled The Sacred Disease (c. 450-400 B.C.), which refers to epilepsy. 324 The author,
most likely a physician, is a vehement opponent of the popular belief that the disease is
the outcome of divine intervention. He considers responsible for such misconceptions
those magicians and charlatans who resorted to treat the disease with the following
procedures:
They [magicians and charlatans] used purifications and incantations; they forbade
the use of baths, and of many foods that are unsuitable for sick folk—of sea
fishes: red mullet, black-tail, hammer and the eel (these are the most harmful
sorts); the flesh of (krew~n) goats, deer, pigs, and dogs (kuno&j) (meats that disturb
most the digestive organs). (Morb. sacr. 1.28-1.35) [118]
In this passage, the speaker clearly states his negative opinion of magicians and
charlatans. He rejects their view of dog meat as an appropriate food for patients, in
general, and epileptics, in particular. 325 To the contrary, he associates the consumption of
dog meat (kuno&j) with causing problems in the digestive system. His rejection of dog
324 J. Jouanna, tr. M. B. DeBovoise, Hippocrates (Baltimore and London, 1999) 411.
325 The belief in dog flesh as appropriate food for epilepsy is also attested in Pliny (HN 30.27), who
includes “a sucking puppy taken in wine and myrrh after the head and the feet have been cut off” among
the most suitable diets for the treatment of the disease. Pliny’s suggestion regarding the preparation of the
carcass brings to mind the archaeological evidence from the site of Kastro in Crete, where the canine
skeletons discovered indicated removal of the head from the body along with that of the front and hind
limbs: Snyder and Klippel, “From Lerna to Kastro,” in Kotjabopoulou et al., eds., Zooarchaeology in
Greece 225. For the suggestion that, in Classical Athens, “the consumption of the head meat of a fish or an
animal was sought after for flavor and texture by those who had the power to choose,” see Wilkins, “Comic
Cuisine,” in Dobrov, ed., The City as Comedy 256, n. 11.
The Classical Greek belief in the ability of the dog to provide a cure for various medical conditions is also
attested in two inscriptions found at the sanctuary of Asclepios at Epidaurus and dating to the fourth
century B.C. They recount incidents of dogs healing persons suffering from blindness and a tumor
respectively: [A 20]: “Lyson of Hermione, a blind boy. The boy, while awake, had his eyes treated by one
of the dogs about the sanctuary, and went away well.” Also B 6 (26): A dog cured a boy from Aigina. He
had a growth on his neck. When he had come to the god, a dog from the sanctuary took care of him, with
its tongue while he was awake, and made him well.” L. R. LiDonnici, The Epidaurian Miracle
Inscriptions: Text, Translation and Commentary (Text and Translations 36, Graeco-Roman Religion Series
11; Atlanta, 1995) 99, 105.
206

flesh as medicinal food notwithstanding, his statement suggests that, in the fifth century,
dog flesh was both eaten and observed for its effect on the human body.
The discussion of dog flesh and its effect on the human body is seen elsewhere is
the Hippocratic treatises. In the Regimen, (late fifth/early fourth century B.C.), 326 a clear
distinction is made between the effects of the meat of an adult dog and that of a puppy,
again on the digestive system:
Dogs’ flesh (ku&neia) dries, heats, and affords strength, but does not pass by stool.
The flesh of puppies (skula&keia) moistens and passes by stool, still more by
urine. (Vict. 2.46) [122]
The passage clearly states that the flesh of adult dogs (ku&neia) causes constipation,
whereas that of puppies (skula&keia) is a laxative. The passage indicates that that the age
of the animal had a direct effect on its assessment as medicinal food. Also, by noting that
“dogs’ flesh dries” the passage presents itself as a possible source of Galen’s previously
seen remark on the dryness of dog flesh.
The flesh of an adult dog was not only thought of as causing constipation; its
curative effect on the human body was also known. In the Internal Affections, (400-390
B.C.), 327 for example, it features as a suitable food for dropsy. The instructions provided
to the physician run as follows:
It benefits the patient if you dry out his cavity (belly) by giving him fresh warm
dark whole-wheat bread, and as main dish the meat of ass, mature dog (kuno_j
telei/ou), swine, and sheep, these very fat and boiled, or meat of fowl, roasted
and warm.” (Int. 22.10-22.13) [112]
326 Jouanna, Hippocrates 409.
327 Jouanna, Hippocrates 395.
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The passage identifies the meat of an adult dog (kuno_j telei/ou) as curative food for
dropsy. The age of the animal is again specified, but two additional conditions are now
noted: the meat has to be very fat and boiled. 328 The passage does not explain the reasons
for these conditions, but a statement in the Affections (c. 380 B.C.), 329 sheds light on the
preference for boiled dog flesh, when it clarifies that: “the lightest meats for the body are
well-boiled dog (ku&neia), fowl, and hare; heavy are beef and pork” (6.17-6.19) [107].
The Affections provides further evidence for boiling being the preferred method of
preparing the meat not only of an adult dog, but also of a puppy. The advice probably of
a physician to another on a general diet for patients states:
When you wish to moisten a patient’s cavity by means of foods, give barley-cake
and, as main-dishes slices of seafoods in a mixed dish, meat of a very young
lamb, kid, puppy (sku&lakoj) or fowl, these boiled, and beets, blites, docks or
gourd if they are in season. (Aff. 43.1-43.4) [109]
As in the Regimen, the focus here is on puppy meat as a laxative food. The passage
highlights this quality of dog meat by including it in a diet that consists of items of
328 The emphasis on boiling may be indicative of a wider belief regarding the effect that this method of
cooking had on the human body and mind. Such belief seems plausible in view of Aristophanes’ Knights
1321and 1336, where Demos, the senile and decrepit old man who stands for the Athenian public, is
restored to his full powers by boiling in the cauldron of the sausage seller. For a discussion of this and
additional examples from mythology that associate boiling with rejuvenation, see A. M. Bowie,
Aristophanes. Myth, Ritual and Comedy (Cambridge, 1993; repr. 1996) 76, n. 136; also in reference to the
affect that boiled food was thought to have on the body, Galen in his treatise On the Properties of
Foodstuffs (156) expresses the belief that everything pre-boiled in water provides a moister food.
The advice that dog meat should be very fat and boiled when eaten accords well with the results of
archaeozoological research at the site of Kastro in Crete. As Snyder and Klippel, “From Kastro to Lerna,”
in Kotjabopoulou et al., eds., Zooarchaeology in Greece 225, observe, the canine bones discovered at the
site show a preference for reducing the carcass to smaller segments, as indicated by the deliberate breakage
of long bone diaphyses. This evidence, along with the absence of burning, suggests that these smaller
segments were then boiled or perhaps placed on a brazier rather than being roasted on fire. According to
the authors, this process of cooking maximized retention of fats in muscle tissue and bone marrow cavities.
329 Regarding the suggested date of this treatise, see Jouanna, Hippocrates 374. Scholarly opinion is split
on whether it was intended for a lay or specialized audience. Jouanna, Hippocrates 373, for example, states
that the treatise “was intended for lay readers rather than specialists. In contrast, P. Potter, ed., tr.,
Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988) 4-5, n. 2, maintains that “first, in every single
instance in which the reader is addressed in the second person, the context dictates that it must be the
physician, and not the layman, that is meant. Second, the general level of technical sophistication evident
in Affections is no different from that of other Hippocratic works universally held to be addressed to
physicians.”
208

ordinary food, but is not connected to a specific disease. The passage suggests that
puppy meat was an accepted item of food in the dietary treatment of patients in general.
Both puppy meat and that of an adult dog are also prescribed as curative food for
diseases that are explicitly identified in the Hippocratic treatises. All these prescriptions
include other accepted items of ordinary food, such as fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and
wine. The dominance, however, of puppy meat over that of an adult dog is striking.
The Flesh of Adult Dogs as Dietary Treatment for Certain Diseases
1. Erysipelas of the Lungs
In Internal Affections (c. 400-390 B.C.) the discussion of the disease identified as
erysipelas (inflammation) of the lungs begins with the description of the accompanying
symptoms—expectoration of sputum, chills, fever, and vomiting. As treatment, the
patient is advised to follow a diet of silphium juice, dry wine, garlic, and radishes. When
the chills and fever subside, the food to be eaten should be switched to cereals and the
meats of boiled ass or dog (kunei/oisi) (6.26-6.32) [110]. The boiled flesh of an adult dog
again features as curative food. Of interest here is the specified time at which the patient
could eat this food: after the chills and fever subside. Such evidence seems to be related
to the idea seen previously in the Regimen that dogs’ flesh dries [and] heats,” an idea,
which automatically makes it an unsuitable food for patients with fever, and explains the
above recommendation. From this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the
medicinal properties of dog flesh were so carefully observed that they even determined
the time when dog flesh was administered as treatment within the course of a disease.
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2. Disease of the Spleen
The part of Internal Affections that discusses a disease of the spleen maintains
that, as the illness progresses, the patient becomes pale yellow, experiences severe pain,
and does not accept food. When this point has been reached, the physician is advised to
prescribe a diet of Cnidian berries, lentil-soup, boiled beets, and dark dry wine; he should
also have the patient rest, and allow only shorts walks in the shade. From then on, the
patient’s diet should include whole-wheat bread, the ground meat of an adult dog (kuno_j
me/zonoj), sheep or goat, and Cadiz salt-fish or saperdes (30.18-30.22) [114]. Even
though it does not provide any evidence regarding the boiling of dog flesh, the passage is
informative in showing that grinding furnished an additional way in which this flesh was
administered as curative food.
The Flesh of Puppies as Dietary Treatment for Certain Diseases
1. Pleurisy
A considerable section (chapters 44-62) of the treatise Diseases II, which dates to
the middle of the fifth century B.C., 330 focuses on diseases of the chest and back.
Regarding the pain occurring in the chest and spine due to pleurisy, advice is provided
regarding the diet that could alleviate this pain. Apart from drinking millet-juice mixed
with honey, diluted white wine, and eating beets, the patient should also eat a little of the
meat of boiled puppy (sku&laka) or fowl, and drink the sauce in which it is cooked
(Diseases II, 44.16-44.19) [115]. As can be seen, the boiled meat of a puppy features
again as medicinal, in this case, analgesic food.
330 Jouanna, Hippocrates 383, states that this should be a possible date for the treatise, but clarifies that
instances of rewritings detected in some cases point to the fact that not all its sections are contemporaneous.
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2. Disease of the Back
Similar to this diet is also the one recommended for a disease of the back.
According to the instructions for treatment, fourteen days after the appearance of
symptoms, the patient should be allowed to have millet, and towards the evening, s/he
should eat the boiled meat of a puppy (skulaki/ou) or a fowl, and also drink the sauce in
which this meat is cooked (Diseases II, 56.11-56.12) [116]. This prescription again
shows that the boiled meat of a puppy was considered medicinal food. Although left
unexplained, of interest here is the fact that dog flesh features again as treatment to be
administered at a specific time (fourteen days) within the course of the disease. In this
respect, the prescription parallels that for erysipelas of the lungs.
3. Tubercles
Similar in content is also the diet recommended for patients suffering from
tubercles on their sides, and recorded in the Internal Affections: While boiled barley-
water with honey, and white wine diluted with water should be consumed the first eleven
days of the disease, after that, the patient’s diet should be switched to small amounts of
cereals, and the warmed meats of a puppy (skulakei/oisin qermoi=si) or a fowl boiled
well into a soup (9.4-9.11) [111]. Again the administration of the meat of a puppy
features here as dietary prescription to be followed only at a certain stage within the
course of a disease, and in combination with cereals.
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4. Disease of the Liver
Adhering to the same rules is also the diet recommended for a disease of the liver.
As the author of Internal Affections states:
After the disease’s crisis, treat by giving fine cereals in small amounts; if the
patient eats bread, let him take it very hot, if barley-cake, let it be unpounded but
mixed a while before it is baked. As main dish, let him have boiled puppy
(skulaki/ou), pigeon or chicken, taking all these boiled, and of fish dogfish,
torpedo, sting-ray and small skates, also all boiled. (Int. 27.39-27.43) [113]
As was the case above, the boiled meat of a puppy (skulaki/ou) and cereals are again
prescribed as dietary treatment for a disease.
5. Gynecological Diseases
The consumption of boiled puppy flesh features also in the discussion of
gynecological diseases. In the treatise Sterile Women (end of fifth/ beginning of the
fourth century B.C.), 331 the author proposes as treatment for female sterility the
consumption of fat and well-boiled puppies (skula&kia) (217) [119]. The prescription is
identical to that for dropsy in the Internal Affections, with the exception of the flesh of an
adult dog being essential there. Further, another instance of the author’s discussion of
female sterility suggests that apart from puppy meat, equally helpful in fighting the
condition were considered its entrails (skula&kion e0ntosqi/dia) in fumigations (230)
[120].
Although not directly referring to canine flesh as curative food, an excerpt from
the treatise Nature of Women, which is of the same date as Sterile Women, 332 provides
additional evidence for the use of the dog as medicinal food. The author of the treatise,
which is a discussion regarding birth, advises that successful delivery of the fetus can be
331 Jouanna, Hippocrates 384, 386.
332 Jouanna, Hippocrates 385-386.
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ensured only if one is willing to “rub well silphium equal to one grain of vetch, together
with cardamom and mix it with wine or the milk of dog (kuno_j ga&lakti), and give it to
drink. This should deliver the fetus” (32.48-32.49) [121]. This short passage suggests
that that not only the fleshy part of a dog’s body was seen as holding curative powers, but
also its milk as well.
6. Non-Hyperthermic Patients
Affections, a treatise slightly later (c. 380 B.C.) than the Nature of Women, proves
traditional in terms of the type of dog meat it recommends as medicinal food. In a
passage which refers to patients, who have skipped or already gone through the stage of
high body temperature, boiled puppy meat is recommended as the suitable food:
If the patients do not have fever give the inner part of a loaf of white bread
crumbled into soup, or barley-cake and a slice of boiled fish, or meat of very
young lamb, fowl, or puppy, these boiled or beets or gourd or blites; after the
meal let them drink dilute fragrant old white wine. (Aff. 41.7-41.11) [108]
The passage again presents boiled puppy meat as curative food. Considering the above
discussion on the drying and warming effects of this food on the body, its prescription
here to non-hyperthermic patients makes perfect sense. In this way, the parallel with the
case of the erysipelas of the lungs, where the flesh of an adult dog was to be administered
only after the patients’ fever subsided, is clear.
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7. Disease of the Kidneys
Explicit reference to the boiled flesh of a puppy as a curative is made in a part of
Epidemics VII (c. 350 B.C.), 333 which discusses the case of a person who suffered from
nephritic affections. According to the text, the patient abstained from food for seven
days, and drank melicrat in a strong mixture. Afterwards, he ate bean broth and
sometimes pea soup, and drank water; later, he ate some boiled young dog (skulaki/ou),
and a little barley cake (7.62) [117]. The passage again shows that dog flesh was given to
the patient at a specific, that is, later stage of his condition.
Dog Flesh as Non-Indicated Dietary Treatment
Apart from accepting the flesh of a puppy as curative food, the Hippocratic
treatises also preserve an instance of a prescription in which this food is to be avoided: in
the treatment of surfeit. As the author of Regimen III, (end of fifth/beginning of fourth
century B.C.), 334 suggests, the physician should “use warm, fermented bread, crumbling
it into dark wine or into pork broth. Also fish boiled in acrid brine. Use also fleshy
meats, such as pig’s feet well boiled and fat roast pork, but be sparing of sucking-pig, and
the flesh of puppies (skula&kwn) and kids” (3.75) [123]. The passage clearly states that
the flesh of puppies was not considered food that could help eliminate the feeling of
excessive fullness. Such advice implies that this food was probably conceived of as
having the opposite effect, that is, inducing appetite. This view of dog flesh may not be
divorced from the already seen propensity of the animal to steal food and eat it all up.
333 Jouanna, Hippocrates 390, maintains that some of the passages are later than 358-357 B.C.—the date of
the siege of Datum by Philip II mentioned in Epidemics VII, 121—whereas others are prior to 348 B.C.—
the date of the destruction of Olynthus by Philip II mentioned in Epidemics VII.
334 Jouanna, Hippocrates 409.
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The literary evidence contained in the Hippocratic treatises reveals that dog flesh
was part of the human diet in Classical Greece and valued for its curative effect on the
human body. The distinction drawn between the two kinds of adult and puppy flesh and
the specific qualities attached to them indicates that age was a determining factor in the
value of the dog as medicinal food. The prevalence of puppy meat as a curative for a
wide variety of medical conditions suggests its elevated status when compared to that of
the flesh of an adult dog. Also the use of canine milk and entrails in prescriptions further
suggests that not only the flesh, but also other bodily parts and substances of the animal
were thought to hold curative powers. The evidence, however, of the overall high
curative value of dog flesh contrasts with the evidence from comedy that dog flesh was
considered food of the lowest kind, and therefore, eaten only by the poor. In light of this
distinction, it seems reasonable to conclude that two different contexts existed—one
medical, the other social—which sustained two completely different views of the practice
of eating dogs within Classical Greek society.
Conclusion
Taken together, the references of tragic, comic, and prose writers show that
Classical Greek culture maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the dog. The animal
was an integral part of daily life, language, and thought, but did not escape unsympathetic
views and treatment. Its primary role in daily domestic life was that of the guardian of
the house, the family, and its possessions. It shared the same space with the human
occupants of the house, and was provided with food, but it was not considered a member
of the family. Molossian dogs were a famous breed of guard, hunting, and shepherding
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dogs, highly esteemed for their exceptional ferocity, size, fine appearance, and also love
and devotion to their owners.
Daily proximity to the dog allowed for its behavior to be closely observed and its
loyalty to be seen as its trademark quality. In addition, other characteristics of canine
behavior, such vigilance, agility, and swiftness, were interpreted as signs of cunning, thus
recognizing a certain type of intelligence in the animal. It was, however, the ability to
display gentle and aggressive behavior at once (fawning, biting) that shaped the view of
the dog as a deceptive and untrustworthy animal. This view was further sustained by the
feeding behavior of the animal, identified in the sources as stealing and gobbling food.
These two acts constituted mental benchmarks in the collective conception of the dog that
contrasted sharply with its view as a loyal creature. In fact, so pervasive was this
contradiction in Classical Greek thought that it was frequently employed as a metaphor
for describing human behavior. Further, the dog was punished with beating for its
stealing of food. This act of physical aggression against it was perceived as behavior that
set Greek culture apart from others. The dog was also known for its scavenging
behavior, its ability to exercise forethought, and also its acute sense of smell. Its
scavenging behavior was a well-established idea in ancient Greek thought. It promoted
the fear of human flesh becoming part of canine diet, and caused the dog to be thought of
as a dangerous animal. Such views of the animal did not, however, deter Classical Greek
society from including canine flesh in its diet. Dog flesh was believed to have a curative
effect on the human body, and as such, featured prominently in the dietary treatment of
many diseases. Outside this medical context, dog flesh appears to have served only as
the food of the lowest strata of society. These circumstances notwithstanding, the
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practice of eating dog meat indicates a specific view and treatment of the animal: in a
purely anthropocentric sense, Classical Greek culture placed the dog in the same category
with any other kind of animal that could be easily converted to food. It this way, the dog
appears to have been seen as a useful creature in service of human needs.
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Chapter 4: The Word Zw|~on in the Context of the Visual Arts in Classical Greece
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the duality in the meaning of the term zw|~on.
The Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott defines zw|~on as a fifth-century term,
whose meaning oscillates between two broad categories: a) “animal,” which is the usual
meaning assigned to the word, “living being” and “plant,” and 2) “image” and “figure.”
335 These categories indicate a semantic split that is directly dependent upon the context
in which the term occurs. The definitions of “image,” and “figure,” in particular, imply a
context directly associated with the visual arts. Although this semantic split has not
passed undetected in modern scholarship, no study exists that treats thoroughly the
meaning of zw|~on when applied to the visual arts. 336 This chapter discusses in detail the
meaning of zw|~on in direct association with the visual arts of the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C., that is, the period in which the word first appears in the extant record. The
discussion starts with an analysis of the etymology of zw|~on and proceeds to examine in
chronological order the appearances of the word in both literary texts and inscriptions
directly involved with the visual arts. The discussion demonstrates the existence of
different meanings for the word zw|~on when used in the context of paintings, sculpture,
bronze-work, and textiles: “image,” “subject of representation,” “representation of both
animate and inanimate subjects taken from real life, “decorative element,” “finished
335 LSJ 9 , 143, s.v. zw|~on.
336 For a brief discussion of the meaning of zw|~on as “image,” for example, see Gordon, “The Real and the
Imaginary” 9; also H. P. Cooke, ed., tr., Aristotle I. The Categories. On Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1938; repr. 1996) 12, n. b, who is more explicit when he states that: “zw|~on in Greek had two
meanings, that is to say, living creature, and secondly, a figure or image in painting, embroidery,
sculpture.”
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product of an artistic process,” “figural image,” and “image held by memory.” The
existence of these meanings within such an artistic context suggests that zw|~on can be
seen as part of the professional vocabulary of the arts in Classical Greece. In this way, a
word usually taken to mean “animal” appears to sit on one side of a linguistic duality,
while, on the other side, its completely different meanings in connection with the arts
reveal that animals, once again, offer an invaluable insight into the Classical Greek
understanding of representational art.
Although not directly connected to the previous chapters, this chapter maintains a
conceptual tie with them in that its focus on the semantic split in the meaning of the term
zw|~on is not far removed from the split into different types of deviations from naturalism
(inconsistency, incongruity, contradiction) that, as already noted, frame the style of
Classical Greek animal sculpture, as well as from the dichotomy that characterizes the
contemporary attitude towards animals.
1. The Etymology of Zw|~on
In his study of ancient Greek etymology, Pierre Chantraine considers the term
zw&ion and its contracted form—zw|~on—respective derivatives of the verb zw&w and its
contracted form zw~. According to him, this verb, which he translates as “to live,”
applies equally to human beings, animals and plants, and is employed also for
representations. He further explains that the uncontracted form—zw&w—is found in
Homer, whereas the contracted form—zw~—is characteristic of the Attic dialect. 337
Chantraine’s analysis of the linguistic history of the verb is in agreement with the earlier
337 P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique (Paris, 1968) 402, s.v. zw&ion and zw|~on, v. zw&w, zw~.
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study of Hjalmar Frisk on the same subject. The only new information that Chantraine
adds is that the uncontracted form—zw&w—is found not only in epic, but in lyric poetry
as well. 338 Hardy Hansen and Gerald Quinn, in their book on Attic Greek prose, agree
with the above scholars on the translation of zw~ as “to live,” but maintain that it drives
from the uncontracted ancestral form, za&w. 339 This information, when combined with
their introductory statement that their study focuses on the “dialect of Athens, as it
appears in prose authors of the fifth and fourth centuries,” implies that za&w is a
grammatical form used before or in the Classical period. 340 Turning to Liddell and Scott,
however, one finds that the uncontracted form za&w is attested only in the language of the
grammarians (e.g., Etymologicum Magnum 410.38). 341 More specifically, Émile Boisacq
states that za&w is an invention of the grammarians. 342 Finally, Carl Buck specifies that
the Attic verb zw~ is by itself an exceptional type of contracted verbs. As such, it does not
fall into any of the usual types of these verbs, meaning those whose uncontracted forms
end in -αω, -εω, -οω, but it comes from the uncontracted form, zh&w. In tracing the
etymology of the verb zh&w, Buck indicates that it means “to live,” and as it is unattested
in the extant sources, it is therefore a reconstructed form. It derives from the equally
unattested, but reconstructed zh&-iw, which Buck considers parallel to Homer’s
zw&w; the latter deriving from the unattested and therefore reconstructed zw&-iw. 343 In
agreement with his deriving zw~ from zh&w, are also Michael Oikonomou and Anastasios
338
H. Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1954) 618, s.v. zw&i+on, zw|~on, v. zw&w.
339
Hansen and Quinn, Greek 594-595.
340
Hansen and Quinn, Greek 1.
341 9
LSJ , 758, s.v. zw~.
342
E. Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Heidelberg and Paris, 1923) 309.
343
C. D. Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (Chicago, 1933) 265, n. 3.
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Georgopapadakos. 344 On the basis of this reconstruction, it appears that the phenomena
of phonetic development and contraction 345 are responsible for the different forms of the
verb zw~ meaning primarily “to live.” 346 Adding to this is Georgopapadakos’s
suggestion that the initial type of the verb zw~ could have been dia&w (a1w, a1hmi) meaning
not only “to live,” but also “to breathe.” 347 This idea accords well with Buck’s statement
that in most Indo-European languages, the notions of “breathing and living” are central to
the word for “animal.” 348
On the basis of this evidence, it appears that the primary meaning of zw|~on was
something alive and breathing, therefore, animated, and as an extension “living being”
and “animal.” These explanations do not shed light onto how the meanings of zw|~on as
“image” and “figure” came to be; nevertheless, they are important, for they provide a
glimpse into the mechanics of ancient thought and language in regards to the rise of
zw|~on and the notions it was thought to stand for. As was mentioned earlier, the
contracted form zw|~on is not attested in pre-Classical texts. Therefore, the following
discussion illustrates the use of zw|~on in literary and epigraphical sources of Classical
date. The focus is on contexts that are directly associated with the visual arts.
344 M. C. Oikonomou, Γραµµατική της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής—Ancient Greek Grammar (Athens, 1996)
208, 240, 300; A. Georgopapadakos, Λεξικό Ανωµάλων Ρηµάτων της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Γλώσσης—
Lexicon of Irregular Verbs of the Ancient Greek Language (Thessaloniki, 1964) 88-89. For additional
evidence on this suggestion, see the discussion by L. R. Palmer, The Greek Language (New Jersey, 1980)
210-211, who focuses on examples of words where ζ is traceable to a palatalized d or g.
345 For an introduction to the phenomenon of contraction in ancient Greek, in particular, its embrace by the
Attic dialect, see Buck, Comparative Grammar 264-265.
346 For a discussion of sound development of the stems of Greek verbs, see Palmer, The Greek Language
264 and 225 with specific reference to the alteration: zww/zh-. This may be further linked to Palmer’s
discussion (215-220) on vowel gradation. He defines the latter as “the alternation of vowels observed in
morphological systems such as noun and verb formation, noun declension and verbal conjugation” (216).
Finally, for a discussion of zw- and zww- as stems of personal names in Mycenaean documents, see
Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique 403.
347 Georgopapadakos, Lexicon of Irregular Verbs 89.
348 C. D. Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (Chicago,
1949) 137; Also in Plato’s Cratylus (427b), Socrates, while discussing etymology, he connects the letter z
with the notion of life by stating that it is a letter pronounced with an expulsion of breath.
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2. Zw|~on in the Fifth Century B.C.
A. Literary Texts
Two authors of the fifth century B.C. use the term zw|~on and its derivative
zw|&dion in contexts that are directly associated with the visual arts: Empedocles and
Herodotus. In the works of these authors, the terms zw|~on and zw|&dion carry the
meanings of “image,” “subject of representation,” “representations of both animate and
inanimate subjects taken from real life,” and “decorative element.” The terms are used in
connection with a variety of media, namely, painting, sculpture, bronze work, and
textiles. The text of Herodotus in particular, carries instances of zw|~on standing for the
absence of a distinction between image and subject.
Empedocles
The earliest fifth-century text in which zw|~on appears is a fragment of
Empedocles. Preserved in an extract from Theophrastus’ treatise On Piety (IV-III B.C.)
that itself survives in Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals (A.D. III), the
fragment points to the meaning of zw|~on as an image of some kind, most likely, a picture:
Theophrastus uses examples from many ancestral customs of different
peoples to show that the ancient form of sacrifice was of crops; he says too that
even earlier grass was collected. He also explains libations, as follows. For most
people, ancient rites were sober: libations of water are sober, and so are the
libations of honey which came after them (for this was the first liquid crop we had
to hand, taken from the bees). Then there were libations of oil, and finally, last of
all, came libations of wine.
Evidence for this comes not only from the kubreis, which are really a kind
of transcription of the Corybantic rites from Crete, but also from Empedocles,
who comments on sacrifices in expounding his theory:
No Ares was to them a god, no Battle-noise,
No Zeus was king, no Kronos, no Poseidon:
Kypris was queen—
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that is Friendship.
They made her kind (i9la&skonto) with pious a)ga&lmasin
With graptoi=j zw|&oisi and with subtle scents,
With sacrifice of purest myrrh of frankincense
Sweet-scented; and they poured upon the ground
Libations from the tawny bees.
These practices are still preserved among some peoples, like traces of
truth:
the altar was not soaked by violent deaths
of bulls. (Abst. 2.20-2.21) [166]
Through citing Theophrastus, Porphyry reaches back to a fragment of Empedocles to
support his argument in defense of bloodless sacrifice. Owing to this theme, the fragment
is considered to be part of Empedocles’ poem Katharmoi, which, according to Hippolytus
of Rome (A.D. II-III), discussed, though not exclusively, the affiliated theme of
prohibition against eating meat. 349 The idea of ascribing bloodless sacrifice and
abstinence from meat to early times is a traditional feature of the Classical Greek
conception of early men as simple, innocent, and morally superior beings. 350 In the
349 For a discussion of the fragment of Empedocles as part of his Katharmoi on the basis of Hippolytus’s
remark (RH 7.30.3), see M. R. Wright, ed., Empedocles: The Extant Fragments (New Haven and London,
1981) 81, n. 20. For the division of Empedocles’ quotations into two poems, Physics and Katharmoi, on
the basis of subject matter (i.e., scientific, religious), and the idea that this division is a historiographic
invention of post-Classical, most likely, second- to third-century A.D. date, see C. Osborne, “Empedocles
Recycled,” CQ 37 (1987) 24-50. For Empedocles as an adamant proponent of abstinence from sacrificing
and eating animals, and how this idea influences his wider philosophical stand, see Sorabji, Animal Minds
and Human Morals 174-175; also Osborne, “Boundaries in Nature” 23-24. For Porphyry’s excessive
borrowing from writers, such as Theophrastus and Empedocles in order to strengthen his argument for not
killing and eating animals, see G. Clark, tr., Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Ithaca, New
York, 2000) 19-20.
350 For a detailed discussion of this idea and its prominence in ancient Greek thought, see W. K. C. Guthrie,
In the Beginning: Some Greek Views on the Origins of Life and the Early State of Man (Ithaca, New York,
1957; repr. 1965) 69-73. A representative advocate of the belief that early men did not sacrifice animals is
Plato, who states in the Laws (782c): “the custom of men sacrificing one another, is, in fact, one that
survives even now among many peoples; whereas amongst others we hear of how the opposite custom
existed, when they were forbidden so much to eat an ox, and their offerings to the gods consisted, not of
animals, but of cakes of meal, grain, and honey, and other such bloodless sacrifices, and from flesh they
abstained as though it were unholy to eat it or to stain with blood the altars of the gods; instead of that,
those of us men who then existed lived what is called an “Orphic life,” keeping wholly to inanimate food,
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fragment, these standards are exalted by the ruling of Kypris (Friendship), 351 whom early
men propitiated (i9la&skonto) not with sacrifices of animals, but, instead, with
eu)sebe/essin (“pious”) a)ga&lmasin and graptoi=j (“painted,” “drawn”) zw|&oisi. The
reference to Kypris in combination with the terms “propitiated” and “pious” establish the
context of the fragment as that of religious practice. Within this context, both
a)ga&lmasin and zw|&oisi feature as standard offerings of some kind to Kypris.
0Aga&lmasin is the dative plural form of a1galma, a word, which, in fifth-century
literature, is used “for statues in general and individual images of gods,” but holds also
the meanings of “ornament,” “delight,” and “picture.” 352 This evidence suggests that the
term was directly involved with the arts. In this case, the general meaning of “statues”
has been applied to a)ga&lmasin, and also the ever-general one of “images,” which,
although fitting, underscores our difficulty in understanding and consequent tendency to
generalize Greek terms that stood in and for a broad, yet refined, spectrum of images. 353
That these “statues” are described as pious (eu)sebe/essin) makes it probably safe to
and contrariwise, abstaining wholly from things animate”; translation: R. G. Bury, ed., tr., Plato IX. Laws I
[London and Cambridge, Mass., 1926; repr. 1952] 493).
351 For the identification of Kypris with Philia, that is, Friendship, in fragments of the so-called Physics of
Empedocles (e.g., 62 [73], 70 [75].2, 83 [98].3, and 87 [95]), see Wright, Empedocles 283.
352 Donohue, Xoana 24, n. 59, and 25, n. 61 respectively, for examples of a1galma as “statue” in: a) Pindar,
Pyth. 5.40, and Nem. 5.1, and b) Aeschylus, Sept. 258-265; also 25, n. 61, for a1galma as “statue of a god”
in Aeschylus, Sept. 258-265, and 26, n. 63 for the same word and meaning in Euripides, Hipp. 116, 1399,
and Andr. 115, 246; also 25, n. 61 for a1galma as “ornament” being the most frequent meaning in
Aeschylus (without citations); 26, n. 63 for a1galma as a “delight” in Euripides, Suppl. 632, IT 273, and
Hel. 262 as a “picture.” For the development of the meaning of a1galma from the sixth to the fifth
centuries B.C., see H. Philipp, Tektonon Daidala. Der bildende Künstler und sein Werk in vorplatonischen
Schrifttum (Berlin, 1988) 103-108.
353 Statues: W. W. Fortenbaugh et al., eds., trs., Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his Life, Writings
Thought and Influence II (Leiden and New York, 1993) 417; Images: Wright, Empedocles 282; Clark,
Porphyry 63. For a discussion of the “poorly understood [Greek] vocabulary relating to images”, see A. A.
Donohue, “The Greek Images of the Gods: Considerations of Terminology and Methodology,” Hephaistos
15 (1997) 34, ns. 11-18, where, along with a1galma, she also mentions a)ndria&j, a)fi/druma, bre/taj,
e3doj, ei1dwlon, ei0kw&n, and kolosso&j; similarly, Schnapp, “Are Images Animated,” in Renfrew and
Zubrow, eds., The Ancient Mind 41, who notes that “the Greek language does not possess a word for
‘statue.’ Instead of this, the Greeks used a range of very different formulations: bretas, xoanon, agalma,
idruma, kolossos, eidolon, eikon.”
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assume that they referred to images of gods, although the possibility of their being
images of animals that were not sacrificed cannot be precluded. At the same time, they
can simply mean “delightful things.” Apart from these definitions, the a)ga&lmata of the
fragment have been also thought to mean “offerings” and “gifts.” 354 That these
a)ga&lmata were presented to Kypris cannot be denied, but their identification with
“images,” in particular, pious “statues,” establishes them as works of art of religious
significance, and therefore allows a close-up view of their meaning. This view comes
from the meaning of a1galma as a “statue, [more precisely], an inanimate image, which
makes the living gods present,” which, despite its attestation in a later, but still Classical
author (Plato), when applied to the a)ga&lmata of Kypris’s age, illuminates the particular
meaning that these statues might have held for Empedocles and his contemporaries. 355 In
addition, the fact that Empedocles associates these pious statues with an early age like
that of Kypris is suggestive of the centrality of the visual arts in religious practice as a
prominent feature of the Greek conception of the past. 356 That the Egyptians—a race
much older than the Greek in the Greek imagination—were credited with inventing this
354 Offerings: Guthrie, In the Beginning 73; gifts: W. E. Leonard, tr., The Fragments of Empedocles
(Chicago, 1908) 59. There is a strong suspicion that these translations may be influenced, not by the
featuring of a)ga&lmata as offerings to Kypris in the context of the fragment, but by the fact that, the early
meaning of a1galma (e.g., in Homer and Hesiod) was that of a gift to a human being as well as to a god. It
is only in the first half of the sixth century, that the meaning of the term appears to be confined to that of an
object dedicated to the gods. For these definitions, see Philipp, Tektonon Daidala 103-104; also A. E.
Raubitschek, rev. of “H. Bloesh, Agalma, Kleinod, Weihgeschenk, Götterbild, ein Beitrag zur
frühgriechischen Kultur und Religionsgeschichte (Bern, 1943),” in AJA 50 (1946) 197.
355 Plato (Laws 931a): “some of the gods whom we honor we see clearly, but of other we set up statues
[a)ga&lmata] as images [ei0ko&naj], and we believe that when we worship these, lifeless though they be, the
living gods beyond feel great good-will towards us and gratitude”; translation: R. G. Bury, ed., tr., Plato
IX. Laws II (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1926; repr. 1952) 449. For the value of this passage in
expressing the meaning of a1galma as a statue, that is, an inanimate image that makes the living gods
present, see Schnapp, “Are Images Animated,” in Renfrew and Zubrow, eds., The Ancient Mind 43.
356 Such a connection between the past and art contrasts with the Greek idea of the past as an age before art.
For a discussion of the idea of an age before art, its featuring in the Greek conception of the past, and also
in antiquarian writings like those of Callimachus, Plutarch, and Pausanias on the history of art, see
Donohue, Xoana 196-197, and more generally, 177-205. This is evidence for the existence of several
Greek conceptions of the past that cannot be reconciled.
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practice is an idea of Herodotus that implies an age before art and will be discussed
later. 357
Along with a)ga&lmata offered to Kypris, Empedocles’ fragment also mentions
zw|~a. In terms of spelling, zw|&oisi deviates slightly from the correct spelling zw=oij,
which is the dative plural of zw|~on. It seems that for reasons of metrical cohesion with
adjacent terms (i.e., eu)sebe/essin a)ga&lmasin, mu&roisi), zw|&oisi has its last syllable
terminating in an additional iota (i). 358 The fact that these zw|&oisi are called graptoi=j
(“painted” or “drawn”), which derives from gra&fw (“to paint, “to draw,” “to write”),
and are mentioned right after pious a)ga&lmata suggests a context directly involved with
the arts in a religious setting. 359 This context, in turn, creates the impression that zw|&oisi
are images of some kind, perhaps pictures, rather than “animals,” as the predominant
meaning of the term would urge one to conclude. Furthermore, the absence of additional
description relating to zw|&oisi implies that, even though this is a term for some kind of
images, it refers to them in a general way.
Modern translations of zw|&oisi offer a striking variety of meanings ranging from
“pictures,” and “figures” to “animal figures,” “pictured creatures,” and “images of living
things.” 360 As can be seen, some of these definitions provide zw|&oisi with its traditional
meaning of animal and its wider notions, whereas others stress its belonging to the realm
of images. More generally, this dichotomy indicates scholarly awareness of the split in
357 For the Greek perspective on Egypt as a land of ancient wisdom and a culture that preceded the Greek
one, see T. Harrison, “Upside Down and Back to Front: Herodotus and the Greek Encounter with Egypt,”
in R. Matthews and C. Roemer, eds., Ancient Perspectives on Egypt (London, 2003) 146.
358 For the use of dactylic hexameter verse in the writings of Empedocles, see J. P. Hershbell,
“Empedocles’ Oral Style,” CJ 63 (1968) 351-357.
359 LSJ 9 , 359, s.v. grapto&j. The word derives from gra&fw (360, s.v.), whose primary meaning is “to
write,” but it means also “to paint” and “to draw.”
360 Pictures: Fortenbaugh et al., Theophrastus 417; figures: Guthrie, In the Beginning 73; animal figures:
Wright, Empedocles 282; pictured creatures: Clark, Porphyry 63; images of living things: Leonard, The
Fragments 59.
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the meaning of zw|~on in the fifth century. As stated above, zw|&oisi stand for painted and
perhaps drawn images of some kind rather than animals. A digression to the various
translations, however, provides the opportunity to emphasize how modern definitions,
when applied to zw|&oisi, may complicate rather than assist in deciphering its ancient
meaning. The situation starts to become thorny, for example, when seen that some of the
modern terms that have been applied to zw|&oisi do not hold a single meaning but rather
numerous nuanced ones. The primary meaning of “picture,” for example, is that of “an
image or likeness of an object, person or scene produced on a flat surface, especially by
painting, drawing, or photography.” 361 This meaning seems appropriate for zw|&oisi
considering that the latter is defined in the ancient text as graptoi=j (“painted” or
“drawn”). But the modern term “picture” carries also the meanings of “perfect likeness,”
“anything closely resembling or strikingly typifying something else,” and also “anything
regarded as having the compositional beauty of a painting or a drawing.” 362 Faced with
these nuances of meaning it is difficult to determine which, if any, of them the translator
of zw|&oisi had in mind when deciding on “pictures.”
A similar situation is also detected in the correspondence of zw|&oisi to “figures.”
For a modern audience, and in the context of the visual arts, the term “figure” refers to
the representation of a bodily form, especially the human one. 363 Current discussions of
visual art, however, indicate that “figure” is also used for the description of the bodily
361
D. B. Guralnik, ed., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (New York, 1970;
second ed., 1980) 1077, s.v. picture.
362
Guralnik, Webster’s New World Dictionary 1077, s.v. picture.
363
R. Mayer, ed., The Harper Collins Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques (New York, 1969; second
ed., 1991) 151, s.v. figure; K. Reynolds and R. Seddon, eds., Illustrated Dictionary of Art Terms. A
Handbook for the Artist and Art Lover (New York, 1984) 68, s.v. figure; also P. B. Gove, ed., Webster’s
Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (Springfield, Mass., 1961; repr.
1986) 848, s.v. figure.
227

form of animals. 364 The expandable meaning of the term is also witnessed in the Object
Names Thesaurus of the British Museum, whose notes regarding the description of
objects, state that “figure” has been used for all animate subjects, and “model” for all
inanimate ones. 365 This distinction, however, does not seem to carry on in the additional
meanings of “figure.” As glosses in modern dictionaries explain, “figure” may also stand
for “a likeness or representation of a person or a thing,” and for “an object significant or
noticeable only in its form.” 366 Such an array of semantic possibilities puts in question
whether Empedocles’ “figures” should be understood synthetically, that is, as figural
images (representations) of both animate and inanimate subjects, or in association with a
particular meaning from the pool of those that “figure” has been seen to carry.
Returning to the remainder of modern definitions of zw|&oisi, one sees that the
attempts to identify the ancient term with “animal figures,” “pictured creatures,” and also
“images of living beings” are at home with, and decisively affected by, the Classical
meanings of zw|~on as “animal,” “creature” and “living being.” A closer view of these
definitions, however, reveals an intriguing common element, namely, their understanding
of zw|&oisi as subjects of representation. This treatment, when juxtaposed to the above
definition of “pictures,” which makes one to think of images, indicates two different
angles from which the meaning of zw|&oisi has been approached. Although this is
evidence that cannot be overlooked, its value lies in bringing to the foreground the
modern distinction between image and subject. As it has been remarked, however, the
364 The discussion, for example, of the Geometric phase of Greek art, in A. F. Janson, rev. H. W. Hanson,
History of Art I (fourth edition; New York, 1991) 151, opens with the following statement: “toward 800
B.C. human and animal figures begin to appear within the geometric framework, and in the most mature
examples these figures could form elaborate scenes.”
365 British Museum Object Names Thesaurus: http://www.mda.org.uk/bmobj/Obthesf1.htm.
366 First quotation: Guralnik, Webster’s New World Dictionary 521, s.v. figure; Second quotation: Gove,
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 848, s.v. figure.
228

tendency not to distinguish between these two was an existing characteristic of the Greek
discussion of works of art. 367 That zw|~on constituted a term that did not escape from this
tendency will be shown in later parts of this discussion.
Herodotus
The second fifth-century author who uses the word zw|~on in connection with the
visual arts is Herodotus. The word appears eight times in his Histories, seven in its
regular form (zw|~on), and one in its diminutive (zw|&dion); it is associated with a variety of
media, namely, clothes, sculpture, painting, and bronze work; it carries both the meanings
of “image” and “subject of representation,” thus suggesting that it was used
interchangeably, and, therefore, stood for the absence of a distinction between image and
subject. The following discussion examines, first, the occurrences of zw|~on, and then that
of zw|&dion in the Histories.
a. Zw|~a on Clothes from the Caucasus
The first occurrence of zw|~on is in relation to clothes that feature in the first book
of the Histories. Like Empedocles, Herodotus uses the term to refer to images of some
kind, most likely, pictures. After his conquest of Sardis (546 B.C.), the Persian king
Cyrus (reign ca. 557-530 B.C.) campaigned against the Massagetae, a group of people
living in the area east of the Caspian Sea. Before narrating this encounter, and in an
attempt to be faithful to the concept of symmetry, 368 Herodotus describes the customs of
367 Donohue, Xoana 39, for the absence of distinction between image and subject, and 23, for the
unimportance of the idea of image as an object.
368 For a discussion of Herodotus’ penchant for geographical symmetry and its implementation in his
descriptions, see R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context. Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion
229

the people living in the area west of the Caspian Sea, that is, around the mountain range
of Caucasus:
Many and every sort of nation the Caucasus contains within itself, most of them
living from the fruit of the wild trees. Among them, they say, there are trees with
leaves such that, when they crush them and mix them with water, they can paint
(e0ggra&fein) on their clothes (e0sqh~ta) zw|~a. These zw|~a do not wash out but
grow old with the wool, as though they were woven into it at the beginning.
(1.203) [99]
All that can be understood from this passage is that the plural zw|~a are some kind of
decorative elements on clothes (e0sqh~ta) from a distant place in the Caucasus. 369 As was
the case with Empedocles’ fragment, the passage provides no information about the
appearance of zw|~a—a usage that again suggests the general sense of the term. Unlike
those of the previous fragment, however, these zw|~a do not appear in a religious context.
The meaning of zw|~a is not easy to determine, and this difficulty is reflected in the
variety of the modern translations of the term. Alfred Godley, for example, translates
zw|~a as “figures.” 370 In agreement with him are Joseph Blakesley, Liddell and Scott,
George Macaulay and David Lateiner, and Robin Waterfield. 371 Aubrey De Sélincourt
and John Marincola distinguish between two different meanings for the twice-mentioned
(Cambridge, 2000) 75-101; for Herodotus’ contribution to a conceptual remodeling of the geography, and
therefore, picture of the world in the fifth century B.C., see J. S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient
Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton, 1992) 32-41.
369 For e0sqh&j and the Latin “vestis” as words that refer primarily to clothing, see Donohue, The Problem of
Description 181-182, n. 86; also Lee, “The Myth of the Classical Peplos” 87, maintains that, in
Aeschylus’s Persians (472 B.C.) and Seven against Thebes (467 B.C.), the term e0sqh&j describes women’s
clothes. That Greek women were familiar with a garment called Kimberikon derives from Aristophanes’
Lysistrata (411 B.C.; line 45), where Calonike exclaims that she will wear a Kimberikon in order to force
men to stop fighting. The ancient scholia explain Kimberikon as a type of clothing, whose name results
from geography; they also give the variant reading kimm-, which may be associated with the Cimmerians, a
group of people living in the North Caucasus. For a detailed account of these scholia, and the suggestion
that the variant reading may be the result of confusion with the Cimmerians, see Donohue, The Problem of
Description 185, n. 95.
370 A. Godley, ed., tr., Herodotus I (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1920; repr. 1946) 257.
371 J. W. Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary (London, 1854) 152, n. 685; LSJ 9 760, s.v. zw|~on; G. C.
Macaulay, tr., rev. D. Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus (New York, 2004) 74; R. Waterfield, tr.,
Herodotus. The Histories (Oxford and New York, 1998) 89.
230

zw|~a. Thus, they translate the first zw|~a as “figures,” and the second as “designs.” 372
David Grene, in contrast, suggests that both zw|~a are “figures of animals,” and Elizabeth
Barber says simply “animals.” 373 Finally, in his commentary on the first book of
Herodotus’ Histories, George Sheets translates the term as “creatures.” 374 The variety of
modern definitions for zw|~a reflects scholarly awareness of the split in the fifth-century
meaning of zw|~on, a situation, which is reminiscent of the treatment of zw|&oisi in
Empedocles’ fragment.
Syntactically, the term zw|~a is the object of the word e0ggra&fein, which is a
compound of the preposition e0n (“in”) and the verb gra&fw, whose meaning, as noted
earlier, is “to write,” “to draw,” and “to paint.” Given this evidence, it can be seen why
Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon defines e0ggra&fw as “to make incisions into,” “to mark in or
on,” and “to paint”). 375 Regarding this e0ggra&fein, De Sélincourt and Marincola, Grene,
Godley, Macaulay and Lateiner, and Waterfield suggest that it refers to painting. 376 In
her analysis, Barber maintains that Herodotus’ e0ggra&fein denotes that the inhabitants of
the Caucasus painted or drew all over their clothes. 377 These suggestions, which rely on
the semantic dependence of e0ggra&fw on gra&fw, place zw|~a, the direct object of
e0ggra&fein, in close proximity with Empedocles’ grapta& (also from gra&fw, and
therefore, “painted” or “drawn”) zw|~a. As seen earlier, the latter were images of some
372
A. De Sélincourt, tr., rev. J. Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories (London and New York, 1996; rev.
ed., 2003) 89.
373
D. Grene, tr., The History. Herodotus (Chicago and London, 1987) 126; E. J. W. Barber, Prehistoric
Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean
( Princeton, 1991) 226.
374
G. A. Sheets, Herodotus Book 1. Commentary (Bryn Mawr, 1981) 73.
375 9
LSJ , 468, s.v. e0ggra&fw.
376
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 89; Grene, The History. Herodotus 126; Godley,
Herodotus 257; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 74; Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories
89.
377
Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 206 and 226 respectively.
231

kind, most likely pictures, and not actual animals. In light of this evidence, the same
meaning can be applied to Herodotus’ zw|~a; the fact, however that these zw|~a were
applied on clothes raises the question of the employment of a particular technique.
Barber cautions that e0ggra&fein offers no particular clue as far as a particular
technique is concerned, but on the basis of material evidence, she suggests that the term
may be connected with resist-dyeing. 378 Her discussion of archaeological parallels
focuses on two examples of clothes that were found in Classical tombs at the site of
Kertch (ancient Pantikapaion) in the Black Sea area—the western boundary of the
Caucasus Mountains. The first example, which belongs to a tomb dating from the fifth
century B.C., is “a plain-woven cloth of wool that had been painted or resist-dyed in tan,
dark red, and black with waves, meanders, squares, dotted rosettes, braids, and
checkers.” 379 The second example is remnants of a woolen cloth that functioned as a pall
for a wooden sarcophagus that was found in a tomb dated to the early fourth century (c.
400 B.C.) Regarding the provenience, construction and decoration of this cloth, Barber
notes that it “was locally made,...sewn together from eleven long strips and ‘painted’ with
frieze after frieze of figures from Greek mythology.” 380 Michael Vickers remarks that
these figures were set against a dark background. 381 In some cases, Barber continues,
several letters of names inscribed above these figures have been preserved and allow their
reading as Jocasta, Phaidra, Eilemene, Mopsos, Hippomedon, and Iolaus. The decoration
of the cloth consists also of horses and chariots and its entire arrangement has been
378
Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 226.
379
Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 206.
380
Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 206, and 380, where she states that the cloth was “not new when laid into
the tomb, [as] suggested by the careful mend that it contain[ed].”
381
M. Vickers, Images on Textiles. The Weave of Fifth-Century Athenian Art and Society (Xenia 42;
Konstanz, 1999) 21.
232

econstructed as five consecutive friezes (Fig. 21). 382 Barber refers to the decorative
elements of the cloth as “resist-painted” and provides a succinct explanation of their
technical process, citing Dora Gerzinger, who equates it with what is today known as hot
batik. 383 The latter refers to the process of decorating a woven cloth by “using a [molten]
wax compound to cover those parts of the cloth which are to resist a particular color
during the dyeing process,” and is widely used today in Indonesia and South-East Asia. 384
Worth mentioning, only because it brings immediately to mind Herodotus’ e0ggra&fein, is
that the word batik originates from the Javanese work ambatik, which carries the
meanings of “painting,” “drawing,” and “writing.” 385
The surviving textiles from Kertch place the decoration of clothes by means of
resist-dyeing in the vicinity of the geographical area mentioned by Herodotus. Ranging
from waves, meanders, and checkers to horses, chariots, and human beings with their
names inscribed, the decorative elements on these textiles provide a visual example of
what Herodotus might have had in mind when mentioning zw|~a. It is impossible to
determine, however, whether his zw|~a refer to all these elements in general, or to a
specific kind of them. In view of this evidence, the modern definitions of zw|~a as
“figures” “designs,” “figures of animals,” or simply “animals” and “creatures” can be
neither dismissed nor substantiated. If one is to use the etymology of zw|~on—in its most
general sense of a living being—as a guide here, then the closest one can come to the
382 Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 206-207, fig. 7.11, and 379, fig. 16.15.
383 Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 207, where the caption of fig. 7.11 refers to the reconstructed cloth as
“resist-painted”; also, 206 for citation of D. Gerziger, “Eine Decke aus dem sechsten Grab der ‘Sieben
Brüder,’ AK 18 (1975) 51, who identifies the process of decoration as hot batik.
384 S. Fraser-Lu, Indonesian Batik. Process, Patterns and Places (Oxford and New York, 1986) 1, and 6-11
for a description of the application of molten wax to clothes as part of the process of decoration.
385 Fraser-Lu, Indonesian Batik 1.
233

meaning of these zw|~a, whose sense is also very general, is that they are decorative
elements that depict animate subjects.
The truth is that Herodotus is silent about this possibility; therefore, it should not
be considered conclusive. What he does talk about, and what actually agrees well with
the evidence for resist-dyeing, is that these zw|~a cannot be washed out (ta_ de\ zw|~a ou)k
e0kplu&nesqai). In fact, so fascinated is he by this exceptional quality of the zw|~a, that he
attributes it to the use of ground-up tree leaves and water as a compound for their
application on clothes. Within this context, zw|~a gain their meaning as decorative
elements of indelible quality from the use of natural substances. 386 These substances, in
turn, lend qualitative value to the technical process of e0ggra&fein.
Apart from connecting zw|~a with e0ggra&fein, Herodotus also mentions that they
looked as if they have been woven in from the beginning (kata& per e0nufanqe/nta
a)rxh&n). This evidence does not rule out Barber’s suggestion that zw|~a were produced by
means of resist-dyeing, but rather highlights that this was a term for both painted, most
likely resist-dyed, and woven-in decorations of some kind on textiles. Although not
mentioning zw|~a per se, a passage from Euripides’ Ion is illuminating, for it suggests that
fifth-century Athenian audiences paid attention to and valued greatly elaborate
decorations that were woven in textiles from the conceived as adjacent to Caucasus, land
of the Amazons, and other foreign places in general. 387
386 Interestingly, Fraser-Lu, Indonesian Batik 15, mentions that “traditional batik dyes came from a variety
of natural substances,” and “the oldest and first dye to be applied in classical Indonesia batik was blue
made from the leaves of the indigo plant.”
387 In Euripides’ Ion (1145-1165), the leader of the chorus describes the setting up of a tent by Ion in the
following way: “Then he took sacred tapestries from the storerooms and draped them for shade over the
frame, a marvelous sight for men to see. First on the top he put a covering of garments dedicated by
Heracles, garments which the son of Zeus offered the god as spoils from the Amazons. On them were
woven the following. Heaven was mustering the stars in the circle of the sky. Helios was driving his
horses toward his final gleaming, bringing on the brightness of Eveningstar. Night, robed in black, was
234

To conclude the discussing of Herodotus, two points assuring that the context the
author had in mind when describing these zw|~a was that of the visual arts are that resist-
dyeing is overall a method of painting, and that weaving was considered part of the
ancient system of the arts. 388 This context, which is in good accord with that of
Empedocles’ grapta& zw|~a, suggests that Herodotus’ zw|~a need not be “animals,” but
could rather be a technical term directly borrowed from the fifth-century vocabulary of
the visual arts.
b. Egyptians: The First to Carve Zw|~a on Stones
The next three occurrences of zw|~on as applied to the arts are all in the second
book of the Histories, which is a detailed account of Egypt its geography, topography,
flora, fauna, and customs. All these occurrences point to the meaning of the term as a
carved image of some kind, most likely, in relief. The first of them is in direct
connection with the antiquity of the nomenclature of the Egyptian gods and their
worship:
making her chariot, drawn by a pair with no trace horses, swing forward, and the stars were accompanying
the goddess. The Pleiades were passing through mid heaven and so was Orion with his sword, while above
them the Bear turned its golden tail about the Pole. The circle of the full moon, as at mid month, darted her
beams, and there were the Hyades, clearest sign for sailors, and Dawn the Daybringer putting the stars to
flight. On the walls of the tent he spread as a covering other tapestries, barbarian work: there were finely
oared ships facing ships of the Greeks, half-beast men, horsemen chasing hinds, and the hunting of wild
lions. Near the entrance he put Cecrops, winding himself in coils, standing next to his daughters, a work
dedicated by an Athenian; translation: D. Kovacs, ed., tr., Euripides IV. Trojan Women. Iphigenia among
the Taurians. Ion (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1999) 455-457. For a detailed discussion of decorated
textiles, both foreign and domestic, and their position in fifth-century Athenian society and economy, see
M. Vickers, Images on Textiles 15-28, 37-38.
388 Plato (Resp. 3.400d) includes weaving in his discussion of the arts. For a detailed discussion of the
differences between ancient and modern notions of Art, see P. O. Kristeller, “The Modern System of the
Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics Part I,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12, 4 (Oct., 1951) 498,
who eloquently summarizes this point when he observes that: “the Greek term for Art (τέχνη) and its Latin
equivalent (ars) do not specifically denote the ‘fine arts’ in the modern sense, but were applied to all kinds
of human activities which we would call crafts or sciences.”
235

These authorities also say that the Egyptians were the first to use the names of the
twelve gods, and that the Greeks took these from them, and that the Egyptians
were the first to assign altars and a)ga&lmata and temples to the gods and to carve
(e0gglu&yai) zw|~a on stones (e0n li/qoisi). (2.4) [100]
To judge from the zw|~a that are mentioned, Herodotus applies the word to images of
some kind, which he counts among the standard equipment for an Egyptian religious
setting. As was the case previously, the word again appears in the plural and in
connection with religion, whereas the absence of any description of how these zw|~a
looked again highlights that it was a term of general description. The reference to
Egyptians’ being the first people to include zw|~a among their installations for worship
gives the impression that Herodotus considered zw|~a elements of the long-ago practice of
an activity that was current and familiar. 389 Further, that he associates these zw|~a with
the arts is evident from his mention of them along with a)ga&lmata, which brings
immediately to mind the fragment of Empedocles. As noted above, this fragment placed
both these kinds of artistic images well into a religious context and in direct association
with the Greek idea of the past.
Regarding the use of the term a1galma in the Histories, John Powell states that it
occurs sixty six times. 390 As for its meaning, A. A. Donohue says that it is Herodotus’
usual word for “statue” and that he uses it for images of both men and gods. 391 The
general reference of the passage to a)ga&lmata does not allow specific identification with
either of these two types of images; therefore, the term can be only broadly defined as
“statues.”
389 For a brief discussion of the importance of “firsts” in Herodotus, and further bibliography on the subject,
see J. Marincola, Greek Historians (Oxford, 2001) 30, n. 52. For the Classical Greek image of Egypt as the
source of ancient wisdom and Greek practice and ideals, see Harrison, “Upside Down and Back to Front,”
in Matthews and Roemer, eds., Ancient Perspectives on Egypt (London, 2003) 145-155.
390 J. E. Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus (Hildesheim, 1966) 1, s.v. a1galma.
391 Donohue, Xoana 26-27, n. 64.
236

Turning to zw|~a, one sees that Herodotus is more generous with their description.
The phrase “e0n li/qoisi e0gglu&yai,” which accompanies zw|~a, is crucial for gaining an
understanding of the meaning of the term, which once again appears in the plural and
severed from any description of appearance. 0En li/qoisi (“in stones”) defines the
material of zw|~a as stone and therefore points to sculpture. To the same direction points
also the term e0gglu&yai, which derives from e0gglu&fw. The latter is a compound word
formed by the preposition e0n [“in”] and the verb glu&fw, which means “to carve” and “to
engrave.” 392 Liddell and Scott and also Powell translate e0gglu&fw as “to carve.” 393 As
such, e0gglu&yai defines zw|~a, which are its direct object, as carved images of some kind;
in this way the connection of the term with sculpture is once again verified. When
juxtaposed to the previous connection of zw|~a with being painted on and woven into
clothes, the etymological evidence suggests that it was a term bound to neither a specific
process nor a material of manufacture.
The dependence of e0gglu&yai on glu&fw is reminiscent of the relationship
between gra&fw and e0ggra&fein, the term that, as seen earlier, Herodotus used in direct
connection with zw|~a and that suggests their being painted, perhaps resist-dyed, on
clothes. Although the compound verbs e0gglu&yai and e0ggra&fein connote opposing
processes (i.e., carving, painting), the use of the same preposition (i.e., e0n, “in,” “at”) in
conjunction with each one of them is striking. The observation that all ancient Greek
prepositions were originally adverbs, and Herodotus was among those writers who still
regarded them as such, is crucial here; 394 for it suggests that the author incorporated the
392 LSJ 9 , 353, s.v. glu&fw.
393 LSJ 9 , 467, s.v. e0gglu&fw; Powell, Lexicon 96, s.v. e0gglu&fw.
394 A. Kaegi, tr. J. A. Kleist, Kaegi’s Greek Grammar (twenty-first edition; Wauconda, Illinois, 1995) 123.
237

preposition e0n, whose meaning shows a preoccupation with location, into words intended
to convey both where and how zw|~a were produced. Therefore, in a similar way that
zw|~a were images painted into the surface of clothes, they were also images carved into
the surface of stones. On the basis of this evidence, the use of e0gglu&yai in this passage
may be seen as indicative of relief sculpture. A proponent of this idea is Alan Lloyd,
who states broadly that e0gglu&yai should be seen here as a clear indication of relief
work. 395
Additional evidence pointing to the direction of relief sculpture may also derive
from the prepositional phrase e0n li/qoisi. As seen above, the traditional English
translation of this phrase is “on stone,” but as pointed out, its literal meaning is “in
stones.” The phrase acquires additional importance in view of the observation that “as
adverbial locative particles, the prepositions are frequently joined to the oblique cases
[i.e., genitive, dative, accusative] in order to bring out more clearly, and define more
plainly, their local meaning.” 396 In view of this evidence, Herodotus’ e0n li/qoisi, the
latter word being the dative plural of li/qoj (“stone”), suggests that zw|~a were images of
some kind literally carved in stones, therefore not parted from them, as if not separated
from the matrix; in concrete terms, that zw|~a were images of some kind carved in relief.
This line of thinking gains additional value when seen that Herodotus actually
distinguishes zw|~a from, and therefore, contrasts them with a)ga&lmata. In view of this
contrast, a)ga&lmata, which were seen to indicate statues in general, may now be seen to
stand for freestanding statuary in specific.
395 A. B. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II. Commentary 1-98 II (Leiden, 1976) 32-33.
396 Kaegi, Kaegi’s Greek Grammar 123.
238

With regard to the modern definition of zw|~a in this passage, the majority of
translations says “figures.” Grene and Waterfield embrace this meaning, and so do
Godley, Macaulay, and also De Sélincourt and Marincola. 397 Similarly, the
commentaries of Lloyd, Blakesley, and Walter How and Joseph Wells accept the
meaning of zw|~a as “figures.” 398 The last two authors, in particular, clarify that the word
does not refer to “hieroglyphs (which the Greeks did not borrow) but [to] ‘figures’ of
animals, men, [and] plants.” 399 It should be kept in mind, however, that large-scale
hieroglyphs can function as images. As Jeffrey Hurwit points out, “the word that means
‘hieroglyph’ or ‘sign’ can also mean ‘representation.’” 400 Also Liddell and Scott include
this passage of Herodotus in their entry zw|~on, which they define as “figure” and
“image.” 401 Despite their disagreement on the meaning of zw|~a, these translations
provide the first instance of the understanding of the term as something other than
“animals.” It is important to remember that what enables this scholarly consensus is its
recognition of the context in which zw|~a occurs and, more specifically, the direct
connection of this context with the visual arts.
c. Zw|~a on Khufu’s Causeway
The second occurrence of the term in the second book of the Histories is in
connection with architecture. This time zw|~a, which refer again to carved images in
397
Grene, The History. Herodotus 132; Godley, Herodotus 279; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories.
Herodotus 80; De Sélincourt and Marincola, The Histories. Herodotus 97.
398
Lloyd, Herodotus Book II II 32; Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 170, n. 17; W. W. How and
J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus I (Oxford,1912; repr. 1957) 159.
399
How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus 159, do not explain what type of source led them to this
suggestion. Similar obscurity characterizes also their reference to Egyptian scarabs as objects on which
such “figures” were to be found.
400
J. M. Hurwit, “The Words in the Image: Orality, Literacy, and Early Greek Art,” Word and Image 6
(1990) 180.
401 9
LSJ , 760, s.v. zw|~on.
239

elief, are mentioned in the context of the logistics of the construction of the pyramid
complex of Cheops (Khufu; reign c. 2596-2573 B.C.). Herodotus’ description of the
materials, techniques, and labor force employed for the construction of the causeway of
this king’s pyramid complex runs as following:
The people worked in gangs of one hundred thousand for each period of three
months. The people were afflicted for ten years of time in building the road along
which they dragged the stones—in my opinion a work as great as the pyramid
itself. For the length of the road is more than half a mile, and its breadth is sixty
feet, and its height, at its highest, is forty-eight feet. It is made of polished stone
(li/qou te cestou~), and there are zw|&wn carved (e0ggeglumme/nwn) on it.
(2.124) [101]
Zw|&wn is the genitive plural form of zw|~on. As with all previous examples, Herodotus
does not comment on how these zw|&wn looked. The lack of specificity and the use of the
plural again indicate that it was a term of general description for images. The word
e0ggeglumme/nwn, which defines zw|&wn, derives from the verb e0gglu&fw, which, as was
shown previously, refers to carved material, most likely in relief, and therefore points to
sculpture. To the same process points also the reference to zw|~a as being made of stone
(li/qou). In addition, the fact that this stone was polished (cestou~) suggests fine quality,
but more precisely, “fine work intricate of process and accomplished of
workmanship.” 402 These aspects of zw|~a establish that the context which Herodotus had
in mind while describing them was directly involved with the arts. Given that the
causeway to which these zw|~a belonged was part of a pyramid complex associated with
the funerary cult of a king, then the term should be seen in direct association with an
artistic context set within a funerary/religious one.
402 For a discussion of the meaning of the verb ce/w from which cestou~ derives, as carrying these
associations, see Donohue, Xoana 28, n. 66.
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Regarding modern translations of zw|&wn, the majority agrees on the meaning of
“figures,” except for two that interpret zw|&wn as “animals.” 403 To judge from previous
examples of zw|~a in an artistic context, these zw|&wn can be only generally understood as
images of some kind, but the passage provides no additional clue in support of a more
precise identification of “figures” or “animals.”
The fact that Herodotus mentions the polished stone of carved zw|&wn as the
material of the causeway, immediately after he discusses its dimensions, strongly
suggests that his description centers on the architecture of the structure. It is thus
probably safe to assume that, when he speaks of li/qou te cestou~ kai zw|&wn
e0ggeglumme/nwn, he means refined carved images of some kind, most likely in relief
sculpture, that adorned the walls of the causeway, rather than freestanding sculpture.
What cannot be clarified is whether these were the internal or external walls of the
structure. Additional evidence against freestanding sculpture is also suggested by the fact
that if Herodotus had this kind of sculpture in mind, then, given his usual, and already
noted, references to statues as a)ga&lmata, it is reasonable to assume that he would have
used this term here instead of zw|&wn. In apparent support of this point, although it can be
mere coincidence, is the picture that emerges from the archaeological record: almost no
statues were found in the cult complex of Khufu at Giza. 404 The picture is no different
403 “Figures”: Grene, The History. Herodotus 185; Godley, Herodotus 427; Macaulay and Lateiner, The
Histories. Herodotus 120; Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 145. “Animals”: H. Goedicke, Re-Used
Blocks from the Pyramid of Amenemhet I at Lisht (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition,
no. 20; New York, 1971) 8, n. 2; De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 124.
404 Z. Hawass, “The Programs of the Royal Funerary Complexes of the Fourth Dynasty,” in D. O’Connor
and D. P. Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship (Leiden and New York, 1995) 236, states that “no
statuary program can be established for Khufu because no statues have yet been found at Giza, except for
the alabaster bases found inscribed with the king’s name.” Such evidence should not be taken to mean that
all causeways of Old Kingdom pyramid complexes were devoid of freestanding statues. As D. Arnold,
“Royal Cult Complexes of the Old and Middle Kingdoms,” in B. E. Shafer, ed., Temples of Ancient Egypt
(Ithaca, 1997) 73, n. 128, suggests, the walls of causeways of pyramid complexes of the fifth and sixth
241

when it comes to the architecture and architectural decoration of the causeway, which are
central aspects of Herodotus’ description of this structure.
Herodotus’ o(do&j has been identified with the causeway that connected the lower
or valley temple to the upper or mortuary temple of the pyramid complex of Khufu at
Giza (Fig. 22). 405 The structure has never been examined in detail, but archaeological
investigations of two different phases (1968 and 1990) have traced its course and located
a small section of its architecture. 406 Starting from the recently discovered valley temple,
the causeway follows a westward course, which (after approximately 125 to 150
meters) 407 turns 32 degrees southwest and from thereon continues to the mortuary
temple. 408 In scholarly accounts, the overall length of this structure oscillates between
658.60 and 825 meters. 409 These numbers do not fit Herodotus’ observation that the
dynasties were most likely lined with limestone statues (about 84 cm high) that depicted kneeling African,
Libyan, Asiatic, and perhaps Puntite prisoners of war “with their arms drawn back and lashed at the
elbows.” For a discussion of two of these statues dating from the reign of Pepi II (sixth dynasty), and their
secondary archaeological context, which obscures their original location, see M. Hill, “Kneeling Captive,”
in J. P. Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids (exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, September 16, 1999-January 9, 2000 and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,
February 13-May 22, 2000; New York, 1999) 440-441, nos. 173-174.
405
Lloyd, Herodotus. Book II 64; M. Lehner, The Complete Pyramids (London, 1997) 109; G. Goyon, “La
chausée monumentale et le temple de la vallée de la pyramide de Khéops,” BIFAO 67 (1969) 49; M. Haase,
Eine Stätte für die Ewigkeit. Der Pramidenkomplex des Cheops aus baulicher, architektonischer und
kulturhistorischer Sicht (Mainz am Rhein, 2004) 57, n. 176. Regarding Herodotus’ reference to this road as
one along which stones were dragged, Lloyd, 124, argues that Herodotus had probably confused it with a
building ramp; otherwise, he states, the risk of damaging the stone work of the causeway would have been
far too great; also A. B. Lloyd, “Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings: A Test Case,” in A. Powell, ed., The
Greek World (London and New York, 1995) 276, n. 5.
406
Goyon, “La chausée” 49-69; Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’ Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient
Egyptian Kingship 221-262.
407
Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 226, says 125
meters; Haase, Eine Stätte für die Ewigkeit 57, says 150 meters, and points out, 57, n. 177, the discrepancy
between the 125 meters recorded by Hawass and 150 meters, also recorded by Z. Hawass, “Recent
Discoveries at Giza Plateau,” in S. Curto et al., eds., Atti Sesto Congresso Internazionale di Egittologia I.
Settembre 1-8, Torino (Turin, 1992) 242.
408
Haase, Eine Stätte für die Ewigkeit 57.
409
This discrepancy in the measured length of the causeway may be the result of the fact that the initial
excavations of 1968 examined only the upper part of the structure, that is, close to the mortuary temple.
Thus, Goyon, “La chausée,” 63, who was the first excavator, and also Lloyd, Herodotus Book II 65, who
cites him, record the known length of the causeway to be 658.60 meters. The 1990 excavations, however,
focused on the lower remainder of the causeway and its connection to Khufu’s valley temple, which was
242

length of the causeway was 5 sta&dioi, that is, somewhere between 891 and 1065
meters. 410 The only measurement that finds Herodotus and modern excavations in
agreement is the width of the causeway, whose actual figure of 18.50 meters is not far
away from Herodotus’ ten o)rguiai/, which lie between 17.80 and 21.30 meters. 411 As for
the height of the structure, Herodotus’ allegation that its highest point was eight o)rguiai/
has been translated to mean forty-eight feet (c. 14.5 meters), 412 but as Lloyd remarks, the
absence of material evidence makes this measurement impossible to establish. 413 The
foundations of the structure have been estimated to have reached more than 40 meters
(131 feet) in height, 414 and it has been thought to have been roofed. 415 The architectural
evidence that has been excavated so far amounts only to “a fragment of the south wall of
also located during this investigation. The literature following this investigation, however, records no
consistent measurement of the length of the causeway. Thus, Hawass, “The Programs,”in O’Connor and
Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 226, states that the overall length of the causeway was
approximately 825 meters; Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 109, says 739.8 meters; Haase, Eine Stätte für
die Ewigkeit 58, estimates that the overall length of the causeway was approximately 700 meters, but does
caution that there is no fixed measurement of the structure in the existing literature.
410 Lloyd, Herodotus. Book II 65, equates Herodotus’ measurement to 925 meters, but the same author,
“Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings,” in Powell, ed., The Greek World 278, says that this measurement
should be somewhere between 891 and 1065 meters.
411 For the width of the causeway being 18.50 meters, see Goyon, “Le chausée” 58, and also Lloyd,
Herodotus. Book II 65. For the suggestion that this width was 18.35 meters, and the further attempt to
decipher Herodotus’ figure, see Lloyd, “Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings,” in Powell, ed., The Greek
World 278.
412 Forty eight feet: De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 146; Macaulay and Lateiner,
The Histories. Herodotus 120; eight fathoms: Godley, Herodotus 427; Waterfield, Herodotus. The
Histories 145.
413 Lloyd, Herodotus Book II 65.
414 Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 109; also Haase, Eine Stätte für die Ewigkeit, 58, fig. 59a, clarifies that
the difference in height of the causeway, between the valley and mortuary temples, was approximately 40
meters.
415 Z. Hawass and M. Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure (Archaeological
Report),” MDAIK 52 (1996) 17; also Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient
Egyptian Kingship 226; and Z. Hawass, Mountains of the Pharaohs. The Untold Story of the Pyramid
Builders (New York, 2006) 70, where he states that “enough of this causeway remained in the fifth century
B.C. for Herodotus to be able to describe it as a huge roofed structure decorated with birds and stars.” Also
in discussing the causeways of Old and Middle Kingdom pyramid complexes, D. Arnold, “Royal Cult
Complexes of the Old and Middle Kingdoms,” in Shafer, ed., Temples of Ancient Egypt 54-55, maintains
that as a structure, the causeway was a narrow, roofed, thus dark inside, space; finally, Lloyd, Herodotus.
Book II 65, rightly points out, that it is not clear whether the causeway of Khufu “was roofed like the
causeways of Chephren and Unas or unroofed like that of Snofru.”
243

the massive limestone revetment constructed to support the causeway east of the desert
edge.” 416 According to Zahi Hawass, this discovery has afforded the opportunity to draw
and photograph a clear view of the south side of the embankment, although a
considerable part of the north side is also exposed. 417
The extant evidence relating to the decoration of the causeway is scanty in
quantity and problematic in character. Attention should first be drawn to the fact that
Herodotus’ reference to zw|&wn e0ggeglumme/nwn and the extant relief sculpture that has
been ascribed to the valley and mortuary temples of Khufu’s pyramid complex have been
used circularly to explain each other. This treatment has, consequently, given rise to the
suggestion that the inner walls of the causeway, which functioned as the corridor linking
the two temples was also decorated with relief sculpture. 418 The outer walls of the
causeway do not feature in scholarship as a possible space for relief decoration, on the
basis of archaeological evidence, albeit not extensive, that the outer walls of Old
Kingdom causeways carried minimum decoration, in general. 419
The evidence regarding the architectural decoration of Khufu’s causeway consists
of two examples of sculpture in relief. The first is a fragment showing Khufu’s cartouche
resting on a board, and the head of a female personification of a royal estate (Fig. 23).
416 Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’ Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 226.
417 Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’ Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 226.
418 None of the carved reliefs ascribed to the valley and mortuary temples of Khufu’s pyramid complex has
been found in situ. They belong to fragments of stone blocks inscribed with the name of Cheops, and were
found to be reused as building material in the pyramid of the twelfth-dynasty king Amenmehet I at Lisht.
The fragments assigned to the valley temple of Khufu at Giza are executed in low relief and depict a
Libyan prisoner, the titulary of Khufu, personifications of royal estates bringing offerings to the king, and
also scenes from the palace. For a discussion and illustrations of these fragments, see Goedicke, “Re-used
Blocks,” 11-22. The fragments identified as belonging to the mortuary temple of Khufu are also in low
relief and depict ritual aspects of the Sed festival in the presence of various deities (e.g., Meret), the king,
religious personnel, and also royal officials. For a discussion and illustrations of these fragments, see also
Goedicke, “Re-used Blocks” 29-47.
419 Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure” 179, mention, for
example, that the external decoration of the causeway of the fifth-dynasty king Nyeserre refers to its side
walls, which were battered, and their upper ends, which were decorated only with a cornice.
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The fragment was initially assigned to his valley temple, but it has recently been
discussed as perhaps belonging to the upper part of the causeway leading to the temple. 420
This suggestion has been made on the basis of preserved relief decoration from the
causeways of two other Old Kingdom rulers’ funerary complexes, those of fifth-dynasty
Unis and sixth-dynasty Pepi II, both at Saqqara. In both cases, the upper parts of the
causeways preserve representations of personifications of estates in relief sculpture. 421
In addition to this problematic fragment, the decoration of Khufu’s causeway has
also been linked to a number of equally problematic relief fragments that were allegedly
discovered in debris associated with the structure. 422 These seventeen fragments,
reported to be extremely small poorly preserve parts of two human faces, an ox, and a
bird. The remaining depictions defy identification. 423 As such, these fragments contribute
little to our knowledge of the decoration of Khufu’s causeway. 424
Despite the paucity of material evidence, the reconstruction of the relief
decoration of the inner walls of Khufu’s causeway has been attempted on the basis of the
surviving reliefs of the lower temples and causeways of three other Old Kingdom
420
For a brief, still informative, survey of material evidence regarding the decorative programs, function,
and overall meaning of causeways of the Old Kingdom, see Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered
Blocks of the Causeway of Sahure” 177-180; for a discussion of the relief fragment, as part of the wall
decoration of Khufu’s valley temple, see Goedicke, “Re-used Blocks” 16-17; for the possibility that this
block may belong to the causeway, see D. Arnold, “Head of a Female Personification of an Estate,” in J. P.
Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids (exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, September 16, 1999-January 9, 2000 and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, February
13-May 22, 2000; New York, 1999) 226-227.
421
Arnold, “Head of a Female Personification of an Estate,” in Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the
Pyramids 227, n. 7.
422
G. A. Reisner and W. S. Smith, A History of the Giza Necropolis II (Cambridge, Mass., 1955) 4.
423
Reisner and Smith, A History of the Giza Necropolis 4, refer to them as tiny; also their figure 7, which
illustrates these fragments, provides only their inventory numbers, but no dimensions, and reduces their
number to seventeen.
424
Reinser and Smith, A History of the Giza Necropolis 4; also Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered
Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure” 178.
245

pharaohs: Sneferu at Dahshur, Sahure at Abusir, and Pepi II at Saqqara. 425 This scholarly
approach reflects the opinion that Egyptian artists of Old Kingdom royal reliefs “repeated
a rather circumscribed set of iconographic configurations from temple to temple and from
wall to wall.” 426 In the case of the reliefs in the valley temple of Sahure, for example,
scenes on the north wall depict large griffins trampling on enemies while deities lead
bound prisoners toward them. The theme of prisoners is also repeated on the walls of the
causeway just behind the valley temple, “emphasizing movement from valley temple to
causeway and farther on to the pyramid temple.” 427 Additional evidence regarding the
decoration of Sahure’s causeway derives from four recently discovered blocks of low
reliefs (2m in length; 2m in height), which depict, in registers, men bearing offerings, the
slaughtering of animals, the bringing of the gilded capstone to the pyramid, and also men
identified as Bedouins. 428 The workmanship of these reliefs is reported to be so refined
that it recalls the use of the word cestou~ by Herodotus. 429 On the basis of these images,
from the causeway of Sahure, 430 and also supplementary evidence from Sneferu’s and
Pepi’s II causeways, Hawass has suggested that the lower end of Khufu’s causeway
would have depicted the king’s titles, representations of Libyan captives, and royal
425 Hawass, “The Programs,” in O’Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 230-231.
426 Arnold, “Royal Reliefs,” in Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids 83.
427 Arnold, “Royal Reliefs,” in Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids 94.
428 Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure,” 181-184.
429 Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure” 181: “the degree of
delicacy of the relief made the photographic recording of the blocks so difficult that it had to be done at
night with artificial illumination.”
430 Regarding the variety of the subject matter of the new scenes from Sahure’s causeway, Hawass and
Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure” 185, say that it “surpasses the hithertoheld
ideas about the monothematic decoration of the causeways of the Old Kingdom.” For a discussion
concerning the narrative character of the reliefs from Old Kingdom cult spaces, see Arnold, “Royal
Reliefs,” in Allen et al., Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids 84-87.
246

estates, whereas the middle part would have been decorated with a scene of a procession
of oxen, representing foreign offerings. 431
Notwithstanding the picture that emerges from this reconstruction, all that can be
said about the extant decoration of Khufu’s causeway is that it comprises a handful of
relief fragments that depict human and animal figures, and also objects, such as the board
on which the cartouche of Khufu stood. At most, these fragments attest that sculpture in
relief was used as wall decoration in the causeway of Khufu, which accords well with the
architectural sculpture, most likely, in relief, that Herodotus’ description seems to
suggest. As for the images on these fragments, they provide a glimpse into what
Herodotus’ literary zw|&wn might have meant.
d. Zw|~a on a Pyramid
The last occurrence of zw|~on in the second book of the Histories is in connection
with the decoration of an Egyptian pyramid. The meaning of the term again points to
carved images in relief. Herodotus places the pyramid beside a marvelous structure
which he refers to as the labyrinth. His account starts with a praise of the Egyptian
people for building such structures and proceeds to a detailed description, first, of the
labyrinth, and then of the pyramid:
Furthermore, they resolved to leave a memorial of themselves in common, and in
pursuance of resolve they made a labyrinth, a little above Lake Moeris, and
situated near what is called the City of Crocodiles. I saw it myself, and it is
indeed a wonder past words; for if one were to collect together all the buildings of
the Greeks and their most striking works of architecture, they would all clearly be
shown to have cost less labor and money than this labyrinth. Yet the temple at
Ephesus and that in Samos are surely remarkable. The pyramids, too, were
greater than words could tell, and each of them is the equivalent of many of the
431 Hawass and Verner, “Newly Discovered Blocks from the Causeway of Sahure” 178, n. 12; also Hawass,
“The Programs,” in O’Connor and Silverman, eds., Ancient Egyptian Kingship 231-232.
247

great works of the Greeks; but the labyrinth surpasses the pyramids also. It has
twelve roofed courts, with doors facing one another, six to the north and six to the
south and in a continuous line. One wall on the outside encompasses them all.
There are double sets of chambers in it, some underground and some above, and
their number is three thousand; there are fifteen hundred of each. We ourselves
saw the aboveground chambers, for we went through them and so we can talk of
them, but the underground chambers we can speak only from hearsay. For the
officials of the Egyptians entirely refused to show us these, saying that there are
in them the coffins of the kings who had built the labyrinth at the beginning and
also those of the holy crocodiles. So we speak from hearsay of these underground
places; but what we saw aboveground was certainly greater than all human works.
The passages through the rooms and the winding goings-in and out through the
courts, in their extreme complication, caused us countless marvelings as we went
through, from the court into the rooms, and from the rooms into the pillared
corridors, and then from these corridors into other rooms again, and from the
rooms into other courts afterwards. The roof of the whole is stone, as the walls
are, and the walls are full of tu&pwn e0ggeglumme/nwn, and each court is set round
with pillars of white stone, very exactly fitted. At the corner where the labyrinth
ends there is, nearby, a pyramid two hundred and forty feet high and e0n th|~ zw|~a
mega&la e0gge/gluptai. The road to this is made underground. (2.148) [102]
The building that Herodotus calls the labyrinth has been a topic of controversy
among scholars. The controversy has arisen from the fact that no securely identified
remains, in fact no remains exist at all that plausibly fit Herodotus’ description. Both the
labyrinth and the pyramid mentioned in this passage have been considered elements of
the pyramid enclosure of Amenemhat III constructed in the twelfth dynasty (ca. 1842-
1797) at Hawara in the central Fayum. The labyrinth has been equated with a structure,
also called the mortuary temple, located to the south of the pyramid and thought to be of
impressive dimensions. 432 What survives today of this structure is only a foundation bed
432 Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 183; Lloyd, Herodotus. Book II 121-124 provides a summary of all
classical authors, who refer to the labyrinth. His fig. 1 is a reconstruction of the structure based on
Herodotus’ description supplemented by those of Strabo and Pliny. Following the 1890 excavation report
and reconstruction of the structure by Flinders Petrie, he also suggests (122) that the labyrinth was an
oblong building (304.5m long; 243.6m wide) “divided across the middle from W. to E. by a cross wall, to
the south of which lay the aulai of Herodotus.” For a summary of the history of the exploration of the
Hawara labyrinth, and the issue of identification, see E. P. Uphill, Pharaoh’s Gateway to Eternity: The
Hawara Labyrinth of King Amenemhat III (London and New York, 2000) 1-9. For a brief discussion of the
discrepancy between Herodotus’ chronology (seventh century B.C.) of the construction of the labyrinth and
248

of sand and limestone chips. The poor preservation has been attributed to the heavy
quarrying of the site since Roman times. 433 The view that Herodotus’ labyrinth has been
correctly identified, but is long vanished, has been challenged by the suggestion that the
structure did not really exist at all, but was rather the fabulous product of Herodotus’
training in sixth-century Ionian logographic tradition. 434
What appears to be germane to the current discussion is Herodotus’ assertion that
the walls of the labyrinth were full (ple/oi) of tu&pwn e0ggeglumme/nwn. Although
Herodotus does not specify whether these were the internal or external walls of the
labyrinth, his comment automatically qualifies tu&pwn e0ggeglumme/nwn as meaning wall
decorations of some kind. As noted earlier, the word e0ggeglumme/nwn refers to carvings,
most likely, in relief; here, too the word brings immediately to mind the process of
sculpture. Tu&pwn is the genitive plural of the neuter noun tu&poj, a highly controversial
term, which is frequently cited as the ancient Greek equivalent of relief work, sometimes,
but not exclusively, in architectural settings. 435 Regarding its usage in the Histories, it
has been observed that “tu&poj occurs ten times, and seems to be restricted to relief
works of various kinds including reliefs carved from living rock and mummy cases.” 436
Given this evidence, Pollitt’s suggestion that the phrase tu&pwn e0ggeglumme/nwn ple/oi
the actual date of the identified remains in Amenmehat’s complex (1842-1797 B.C.), see Lloyd,
“Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings,” in Powell, ed., The Greek World 289.
433
Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 183.
434
O. K. Armayor, Herodotus’ Autopsy of the Fayoum: Lake Moeris and the Labyrinth in Egypt
(Amsterdam, 1985) 8-9, focuses on the circular, and according to him, misguided method used in the
archaeological discussion of the labyrinth in question.
435
For a number of examples of tu&poj as architectural reliefs in the text of Herodotus, see Pollitt, Ancient
View 273, and 284-292 for a commentary on the dispute among scholars on the meaning of the word; also
Donohue, Xoana 22, n. 52 and 26, n. 64.
436
Donohue, Xoana 26, n. 64; for the specific passages of Herodotus where the word occurs, see Powell,
Lexicon 363, s.v. tu&poj.
249

efers to architectural reliefs appears to be a sound one. 437 According with his suggestion
is also a group of 74 fragmentary architectural reliefs deriving from the material
excavated by Flinders Petrie at the alleged site of the labyrinth in Hawara, and housed
now at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden. 438 The fragments, which belong to
raised reliefs, are made of limestone, which in some cases is colored yellow, green,
brown, and white, and bears hieroglyphic inscriptions referring to “the king of Upper and
Lower Egypt.” The depictions on these fragments include: the Amun crown, the Amun-
Min headdress, sacrificial geese and birds, a sky symbol with five-pointed stars, a sun
disc, and also parts of a standing human figure, the fingers of another, a falcon with
outstretched wings, birds’ claws, cows’ horns, a royal kilt, an incense burner, and also
partially preserved hkr-friezes. 439 This evidence is much more useful in shedding light
onto what Herodotus’ tu&poi e0ggeglumme/noi might have looked like than the usual
rendering of the term as “figures” in modern translations of the Histories. 440
Appended to Herodotus’ description of the labyrinth is that of a pyramid, which
archaeological studies have identified with that of Amenemhat III at Hawara. The
existing structure, which is located on the axis of the so-called labyrinth and not at its
corner, as maintained by Herodotus, now consists of a mud-brick core that lacks its
437 Pollitt, Ancient View 273.
438 I. Blom, “Sculptured Fragments and Relief Fragments from the Labyrinth at Hawara in the
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden,” OMRO 69 (1989) 25.
439 Blom, “Sculptured Fragments and Relief Fragments” 25-50.
440 Grene, The History. Herodotus 196; Godley, Herodotus 457; Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 155;
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 157; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories.
Herodotus 129.
250

limestone mantle. 441 Its poor condition partly accounts for our inability to verify the
statement of Herodotus regarding its measurement of forty o)rguiai/ (tesserakonto&-
rguioj). Lloyd states that Herodotus never makes clear whether the figure of forty
o)rguiai/ refers to the height of the pyramid or the length of its side. 442
Along with this measurement, Herodotus also mentions zw|~a in connection with
the pyramid. All that can be understood from his description is that these zw|~a were
images of some kind. That their appearance is not described, along with the use of the
plural, again suggests that zw|~a was a term of general description. That these zw|~a were
mega&la suggests that they were big in size, but the possibility of being great in a
metaphorical way as opposed to actual size cannot be ruled out. 443 In addition, the word
e0gge/gluptai, which defines zw|~a, derives from e0gglu/fw and again appears to refer to
sculpture, most likely, in relief. Thus the context of these zw|~a seems again directly
involved with the arts, in the context of a funerary/religious building, as suggested by the
prepositional phrase e0n th|~ (“in it”), the dative case referring to the pyramid. In view of
Herodotus’ previous preference for prepositional phrases that refer to location, this phrase
should be also understood as defining the exact location of zw|~a, that is, in or at the
pyramid itself, but not necessarily inside it. Against the latter possibility is Herodotus’
subsequent comment, which shows change of thematic direction by pointing out that
access to the pyramid was through an underground passage. In sum, the picture that
441 For a description and an illustration of the pyramid, see Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 182; for a
discussion of its location, see Lloyd, “Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings,” in Powell, The Greek World 282.
442 Lloyd, “Herodotus on Egyptian Buildings,” in Powell, ed., The Greek World 282, where he also states
that the actual height of the existing structure is c. 58 meters and the actual length of its side c. 106.6
meters.
443 For a discussion of the literal and metaphorical meaning of the term me&geqoj with which mega&la is
directly associated, and the difficulty to determine which meaning is appropriate in connection with the
visual arts, see Pollitt, Ancient View 199-201.
251

emerges from this passage is that zw|~a were big or great images of an unspecified kind,
executed in relief and used as decorations on the surface of the pyramid.
Further, the impression that the zw|~a were one with the pyramid is heightened by
the fact that they are mentioned immediately after the reference to the measurement of
the structure, which implies that the Herodotus had its external view in mind. In absence
of further details, however, one wonders exactly where on the external surfaces of the
pyramid the zw|~a were placed. A possible answer may be found in the basalt capstone of
Amenemhat’s III first pyramid at Dahshur (Fig. 24). 444 All four sides of the base of the
capstone are decorated with a band of hieroglyphs. 445 The east side, which faced the
rising sun, additionally bears in low relief a winged sun disk flanked by two uraeus
serpents. The wings flank a set of eyes, which is below a hieroglyphic inscription, also in
low relief that mentions the name of the pharaoh Amenemhat and the phrase “son of Ra,”
both given in one cartouche; another contains the name ‘Nimaatra’ and the title ‘king of
Upper and Lower Egypt.’ Both cartouches are followed by wishes for eternal life for the
sovereign.” 446 Although the good condition of this capstone has raised the question
whether it had ever been set in place, its decoration is helpful in allowing a glimpse into
what Herodotus might have meant in speaking of zw|~a. Modern translations equate the
term with “hieroglyphics,” “figures,” “figures of animals,” and simply “animals.” 447
444 Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 180, mentions that the capstone was found in 1900 in debris along the
eastern base of the pyramid. For a detailed discussion of this pyramid of Amenemhet III, see D. Arnold,
Die Pyramidenbezirk des Königs Amenemhet III in Dahshur 1: Die Pyramide (DAIK-Archäologische
Veröffentlichungen 53; (Mainz am Rhein, 1987).
445 Lehner, The Complete Pyramids 180.
446 Quotations from S. Einaudi, “Pyramidion of the Pyramid of Amenemhat III,” in A. Bongioanni et al.,
eds., The Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (Cairo, 2001) 126.
447 Hieroglyphics: Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 280, n. 452 and 52, n. 238; How and Wells, A
Commentary on Herodotus 242; figures in general: Godley, Herodotus 459; Macaulay and Lateiner, The
Histories. Herodotus 129; figures of animals: De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 157;
animals: Grene, The History. Herodotus 197.
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Undoubtedly, these zw|~a did show something. The fact, however, that Herodotus never
explains what raises the question whether he knew or cared about their content.
e. Zw|~a on the Breastplate of Amasis
The next occurrence of the term in Herodotus is in the third book of the Histories.
Here zw|~a are mentioned as images of some kind decorating a linen breastplate that the
Egyptian king Amasis (reign c. 570-526 B.C.) sent as a gift to the Spartans, but the
Samians stole from them. Herodotus relates the story, while speaking of another conflict
between Sparta and Samos. 448 In an attempt to reverse their expulsion from their
homeland, a group of Samian citizens who had recently returned from Egypt, and whom
the Samian tyrant Polycrates (reign 535-522 B.C.) suspected of overthrowing him,
appealed to Sparta. Herodotus’ account starts with the Spartan response to their request:
After this, having made their preparations, the Lacedaemonians made their
expedition against Samos. As the Samians tell the story, this was to repay the
kindness done to the Lacedaemonians by the Samians when they helped them
against Messenia. However, the Lacedaemonians say that this was not the reason
for their assisting the Samians in their need; rather, they themselves wanted to
take revenge for the theft of the bowl that the Samians stole from them when they
were taking it up to Croesus, and also to the theft of the breastplate that Amasis,
king of Egypt, had sent to them, the Spartans, as a gift. The Samians had stolen
the breastplate the year before they took the bowl. The breastplate was of linen
and with many (suxnw~n) zw|&wn woven into (e0nufasme/nwn) it, and decorated
with gold and ei0ri/oisi a)po_ cu&lou embroidery. The greatest wonder (qwma&sai
a1cion) of it is that each single fine thread of the fabric has in itself three hundred
and sixty strands, and they all can be seen to be there. One exactly like it was
dedicated by Amasis, in Lindus, to Athena. (3.47) [103]
Herodotus uses zw|&wn, the genitive plural of zw|~on, to refer to the decorative elements of
a linen breastplate, but, as seen previously, he is not concerned with conveying what
448 For an historical analysis of the relationship between Sparta and Samos, see L. H. Jeffery and P.
Cartledge, “Sparta and Samos: A Special Relationship?” CQ 32 (1982) 243-265; and for the contribution of
Herodotus’ text to the modern understanding of this relationship, see B. M. Mitchell, “Herodotus and
Samos,” JHS 95 (1975) 77-78.
253

these zw|&wn looked like. This evidence again indicates that the term was one of general
description for decorative elements of some kind on fabric, a situation that recalls the
zw|~a on the clothes from the Caucasus. The word suxnw~n, which modifies zw|&wn and
translates as “many,” suggests a busy display of them on the surface of the breastplate.
The term e0nufasme/nwn, which also modifies zw|&wn, has been most frequently translated
as “woven in.” 449 Stephen Newmyer rightly notes that the term derives from the verb
e0nufai/nw, which he explains as “to weave in,” but his translation of e0nufasme/nwn as
“embroidered on” is incorrect. 450 The designation of zw|&wn as “woven in” makes certain
the connection with weaving and therefore recalls Herodotus’ assertion that the painted,
possibly resist-dyed zw|~a on the clothes from the Caucasus also looked as if they had
been woven in from the beginning (e0nufanqe/nta a)rxh&n) [99].
Many translations have been assigned to the zw|~a of this passage. Waterfield, for
example, maintains that the term refers to “creatures” 451 and Newmyer, to “animals.” 452
In partial agreement with him are also De Sélincourt and Marincola, who prefer “figures
of animals.” 453 Godley, in contrast, and also Grene, and Macaulay and Lateiner suggest
that the term should be translated as “figures.” 454
Herodotus’ description of the breastplate indicates that it was an object of
exquisite materials and of elaborate workmanship. The breastplate, he states, was made
of linen and presented as a gift of the Egyptian king Amasis to the Lacedaemonians. His
449
Waterfield, Herodotus 189; Grene, The History. Herodotus 232; Godley, Herodotus 61; De Sélincourt
and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 191; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 158; LSJ 9 ,
579 s.v. e0nufai/nw.
450
Newmyer, Herodotus 28.
451
Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 189; for the modern confusion between ancient weaving and
embroidery, see A. J. B. Wace, “Weaving or Embroidery?” AJA 52 (1948) 51-55.
452
S. T. Newmyer, Herodotus Book III. Commentary (Bryn Mawr, 1986) 28.
453
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 191.
454
Godley, Herodotus 61; Grene, The History Herodotus 232; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories.
Herodotus 158.
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statement accords well with the prominent position that ancient Egypt held in the
production of linen, and therefore points to the high value and exotic origin of the
material used. 455 In addition to the zw|~a, the breastplate was decked with gold and
ei0ri/oisi a)po_ cu&lou threads—a phrase that is taken to mean “embroidery,” thus pointing
to elaborate work. 456 Gold threads also point to valued material. 457 The phrase ei0ri/oisi
a)po_ cu&lou, whose literal meaning is “the wool of the tree,” has been interpreted as
“cotton.” 458 As Barber suggests, in Herodotus’ era, cotton was a novelty among textiles
in the Mediterranean, and so the passage points, most likely to another valued material. 459
Elaborate workmanship along with superior quality are also implied by the fineness of
each thread of the linen from which the breastplate was made, and also the extraordinary
number of 360 strands comprising each thread. 460 All these details justify Herodotus’
455
For a discussion of the prominent position of ancient Egypt in the cultivation of flux and production of
linen followed by references to visual evidence and archaeological remains, dating as early as the first
dynasty, see Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 145-162.
456
Grene, The History. Herodotus 232; Godley, Herodotus 61.
457
For a discussion of golden garments featuring as valued and exceptional pieces in the ancient sources,
see Vickers, Images on Textiles 20-22. Gold thread was also used for the production of the trapezoidshaped
cloth in which were wrapped the cremated remains of a female found in a larnax in the antechamber
of the late fourth-century tomb II at Vergina: M. Andronikos, Vergina: The Royal Tombs and the Ancient
City (Athens, 1984) 192, 195, figs. 156-157; also S. Drougou, “Τό ύφασµα της Βεργίνας: Πρώτες
παρατηρήσεις,” in ΑΜΗΤΟΣ: Τιµητικός τόµος για τον καθηγητή Μανώλη Ανδρόνικο
(Thessaloniki, 1987) 303-323. The same tomb yielded also a breastplate made of iron sheets with lining
that preserves remnants of cloth and leather, and external decoration in the form of bands and lions’ heads
in real gold. Its gold decoration may provide a parallel to what the gold embroidery on Herodotus’
breastplate might have looked like. For this breastplate, see Andronikos, Vergina 138-139, figs. 95-96, and
140-144.
458
For the translation of the phrase as “cotton,” see Newmyer, Herodotus 28; Grene, The History.
Herodotus 232. Reference to trees producing wool is also made in Herodotus’ description of India (3.106):
“There are also wild trees there which produce a kind of wool which is more attractive and of better quality
than sheep’s wool, and which is used by the Indians for their clothing”; translation: Waterfield, Herodotus.
The Histories 213.
459
Barber, Prehistoric Textiles 33, where she also mentions that the site of Trakhones in Attica has yielded
a fifth-century example of cotton fabric.
460
A description of the breastplate dedicated to Athena in Lindus with emphasis on the destructive results
that the examination of its high quality produced is provided by Pliny, NH 19.12, who says: “this may
surprise people who do not know that in a breastplate that belonged to a former king of Egypt named
Amasis, preserved in the temple of Minerva at Lindus on the island of Rhodes, each thread consisted of 365
separate threads, a fact which Mucianus, who held the consulship three times quite lately, stated that he had
proved to be true by investigation, adding that only remnants of the breastplate now survive owing to the
255

designation of this breastplate as a wonder (qwma&sai a1cion), which places it into the
category of exceptional man-made works. 461 Finally, the fact that these zw|~a existed on a
special breastplate that served as a dedication in a sanctuary again indicates the direct
connection of zw|&wn with the visual arts in a generalized religious context.
f. The zw|~on Set-Up by Darius
The next occurrence of zw|~on in relation to the visual arts is in the third book of
the Histories. Here zw|~on refers to the representational subject of a work of sculpture
directly inspired by and commemorating a specific event in Persian history: Darius’ seize
of royal power. Part of the third book of the Histories (chapters 61-87) focuses on the
aftermath of Cambyses’ death and the accession of Darius to the throne of the Persian
Empire. Following this section is another (chapters 88-119) that enumerates the people
who succumbed to Darius’ conquest. As a prelude to this part, Herodotus mentions, first,
the trick by which Darius won the throne, and second, the act with which this newly
assigned king commemorated his accession to the throne:
First of all he made and set up (e1sthse) a tu&pon of stone (li/qinon). On it
(e0nh~n) was a zw|~on of a man on horseback, with an inscription: “Darius, son
of Hystaspes, with the help of his horse’s excellence (he there mentioned the
stallion’s name) “and that of Oebares the groom, won the kingship of Persia.”
(3.88) [104]
The words tu&pon and zw|~on are singular forms of tu&poi and zw|~a, both of which we
have encountered in Herodotus’ description of the decoration of the labyrinth and the
damage done by persons examining this quality”; translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History
V. Books XVII-XIX (Cambridge, Mass., 1950) 429.
461 For a discussion on the use of the word qw~ma by Herodotus, see Thomas, Herodotus in Context 135-
153; also for qw~ma as a literary parallel of the notion of otherness in Herodotus, and the designated word
for a splendid man-made object, see F. Hartog, tr. J. Lloyd, The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation
of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley, 1988) 231-237.
256

pyramid in Egypt. Tu&pon is the accusative singular of tu&poj, whose meaning is thought
to be “relief work.” Pollitt states explicitly that the word refers in the passage to
sculpture in “relief.” 462 Waterfield, in contrast, here translates tu&poj as “statue.” 463
Adhering to a more general meaning, Macaulay and Lateiner, and also Newmyer think of
tu&poj as “carving.” 464 Godley translates it together with li/qinon as “carved stone,”
whereas Grene, and De Sélincourt and Marincola understand tu&pon itself as a
“monument.” 465 The word li/qinon, which modifies tu&pon, establishes that its material
was indeed stone, which, in turn, suggests the artistic process of sculpture, and its status
as a work of art. To define the action of Darius in regard to this li/qinon tu&pon,
Herodotus uses the term e1sthse, the aorist of the verb i#sthmi, whose meaning Liddell
and Scott define as “to set up.” 466 Blakesley maintains that “e!sthse conveys the notion
of a Greek who had in his head the conception of a sculptured group ‘set up.’” 467 The
meaning of e1sthse is indeed “set up,” but it should be remembered that it also carries the
notions of “standing” or more precisely, “making to stand”; 468 as such, the possibility that
tu&poj refers to statuary cannot be ruled out.
Although it is hard to render in English, it cannot not be overlooked that the word
tu&pon is preceded by the phrase prw~ton me/n nun, which forms part of an antithetical
scheme answered by the words zw|~on de/. It is a truism that the ancient Greek structure
me/n de/, which calls attention to contrasts of various kinds, is to be rendered by on the one
462 Pollitt, Ancient View 273.
463 Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 208.
464 Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 174; Newmyer, Herodotus Book III 48.
465 A. D. Godley, Herodotus II (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1938; repr. 2000) 117; Grene, The History.
Herodotus 251; De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 211.
466 LSJ 9 . 841, s.v. i#sthmi; Powell, Lexicon 174, s.v. i#sthmi.
467 Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 367, n. 241.
468 LSJ 9 , 841, s.v. i#sthmi.
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hand on the other hand, or indeed but, but is often left without being translated. 469 The
terms tu&pon and zw|~on thus emerge here as elements of a syntactical phenomenon that
marks a contrast between them.
Macaulay and Lateiner and Newmyer translate zw|~on as “figure.” 470 Similarly,
Liddell and Scott include this passage of Herodotus in their discussion of the meaning of
zw|~on as “figure” and “image.” 471 De Sélincourt and Marincola understand the word to
mean “carving,” whereas Grene says “engraving.” 472 Finally, Waterfield equates it with
“featuring.” 473 Herodotus explains that this zw|~on was a man on horseback (a)nh_r
i9ppeu&j), thus establishing that zw|~on referred to the subject represented by Darius’
tu&poj. This meaning is further strengthened by the appearance—between zw|~on and
a)nh_r i9ppeu&j—of the word e0nh~n, which Godley translates as “whereon.” 474 )Enh~n
derives from the verb e1neimi, which means “to be in” or “to be present in a place”; as
such, e0nh~n suggests that zw|~on refers to the image, as content, that is shown on the
tu&poj, a physical thing. This is the first explicit example of the meaning of zw|~on as that
of the representational subject of a work of art. When placed next to the previously
discussed references to zw|~on as an image in a work of art, this passage suggests that the
term was used to indicate both subject and image, evidence which, in turn, points to the
absence of a distinction between these two notions. 475
469
H. W. Smyth, rev. G. M. Messing, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, 1956) 656.
470
Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 174; Newmyer, Herodotus Book III 48.
471 9
LSJ , 760, s.v. zw|~on.
472
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 211; Grene, The History. Herodotus 250.
473
Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 208.
474
Godley, Herodotus II 117; similarly, Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 174. Blakesley,
Herodotus, with a Commentary 367, n. 241, considers the use of the word crucial without, however,
clarifying any further what this statement means.
475
For a brief discussion of the absence of distinction between image and subject in ancient Greece, see
Gordon, “The Real and the Imaginary” 7-8.
258

Herodotus provides further insight into the meaning of zw|~on. According to him,
the inscription that accompanied the zw|~on of a man on horseback set up by Darius read
as following: “Darius, son of Hystaspes, with the help of his horse’s excellence (he there
mentioned the stallion’s name) “and that of Oebares the groom, won the kingship of
Persia.” The inscription first implies that the image of the rider was a representation of
Darius or at least one that had some connection to him. Second, when seen in the
immediate context of the Histories, the inscription emerges as a succinct, shorter version
of the story narrated in the preceding sections (3.84-3.87), in which Herodotus explains
that the groom Oebares, who rigged a horse race, was instrumental in establishing the
royal power of Darius. This evidence suggests that Herodotus perceived zw|~on, the man
on horseback represented on the work of sculpture set up by Darius as being directly
inspired by a contemporary historical event, or, to put it simply, taken from real life.
The authenticity of both the image of the rider and the story of the trick has,
however, been repeatedly doubted. The doubt arose because of the absence of the rider
in monumental Achaemenid art. Thus, How and Wells, and also De Sélincourt and
Marincola state firmly that Achaemenid monumental art supplies no evidence that
matches Herodotus’ account. 476 In agreement with them is Stephanie West, who remarks
that “the extant remains of Achaemenid monumental art provide no parallel for the work
here described, though the material at our disposal is not so abundant that an argument
from silence may be regarded as conclusive.” 477 Margaret Root does not take this lack of
476 How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus 280: “neither at Behistun nor on his tomb at Nakhsh-I-
Rustam is Darius represented on horseback. But Herodotus may well have seen some ‘relief,’ now
destroyed, resembling the façade of Tagh-I-Bostan”; De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The
Histories 648, n. 30: “no monument of this sort has been discovered, nor should we expect that it will,
given the portrait of Darius’ rise to power in the Behistun inscription.”
477 S. West, “Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests,” CQ 35 (1985) 297.
259

material evidence to mean that Herodotus’ account is unreliable or that Achaemenid
sculpture did not feature this subject. Therefore, she includes this passage of Herodotus
in her discussion of ancient texts referring to royal Achaemenid sculpture, and says that
“sculptural representations of a man on horseback (and perhaps the king on horseback)
might well have formed an important part of Achaemenid repertoire.” 478 That the image
of the king as a horseman was not foreign to Achaemenid culture is demonstrated by
Achaemenid royal inscriptions, more specifically, the statement of Darius inscribed on
the façade of his tomb at Naqsh-i Rustam: “As a horseman I am a good horseman. As a
bowman I am a good bowman both on foot and on horseback. As a spearman I am a
good spearman both on foot and on horseback.” 479 The centrality of horsemanship in
Achaemenid life is further attested in Herodotus, who states that that the Persians “train
their sons from their fifth to their twentieth year in three things only: horsemanship,
archery and truth telling” (1.136.2). His statement is in good accord with the image of
the Persian horseman, recognized by his distinct cap and the deeply fringed Persian
saddle cloth that appears on a considerable number of seals, gems, coins, and also on
metal vessels and swords that have all been dated to the Achaemenid period. 480 To this
478
M. C. Root, The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art. Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of
Empire (Acta Iranica 19; Leiden, 1979) 129-130.
479
R. G. Kent, Old Persian. Grammar. Texts. Lexicon (New Haven, 1950; second rev. ed., 1953) 140
(DNb, lines 40-45).
480
For the image of the Persian horseman on seals, see J. Boardman, Persia and the West: An
Archaeological Investigation of the Genesis of Achaemenid Art (London, 2000) 161, fig. 5.11, 172, fig.
5.40, 173, fig. 5.46. According to A. Farkas, “The Horse and Rider in Achaemenid Art,” Persica 4 (1969)
66, n. 34, the coins are those of Evagoras II of Salamis in Cyprus and date from his reign as Persian satrap,
351-349 B.C. She also mentions, 66-67, that the image appears on a silver roundel from the Oxus
Treasure, and on a gold sword hilt that was found in a Scythian late fifth-/early fourth-century tomb at the
site of Chertomlyk in South Russia. For further bibliography on these objects, see Farkas, 66-67, nos. 35-
36. To this evidence should be added the gold figure of a male rider from the Oxus treasure, and also a
bronze figurine of a horse and a rider of Achaemenid date (fifth-fourth centuries B.C.), both housed
currently at the British museum: J. Curtis and N. Tallis, eds., Forgotten Empire: The World of Achaemenid
Persia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005) 226, ns. 408-409. A Persian horseman is also depicted on each
260

evidence should be also added an Aramaic letter that was found in Egypt and dates to the
reign of Darius II (fifth century B.C.). Although the letter specifies no particular
medium, its content is instructive, for it describes the placing of an order by Arsam, the
satrap of Egypt, for a representation of a horse and its rider from a craftsman called
Hinzani. 481 There is, thus, considerable evidence for the centrality of the image of the
rider in both literary and visual material that is directly associated with the Achaemenid
Empire.
With respect to the trick that Herodotus relates, it has been suggested that the
account rests on “an ancient Indo-Iranian folktale that bound together horse racing and
kingship.” 482 This idea has been further sustained by the silence of Herodotus in regard
to the location of the image of the rider that Darius commissioned. 483 Approaching the
evidence from a different angle, Oswyn Murray suggests that Herodotus’ story of the
horse race attests to the Achaemenid practice of horse divination. 484 The trilingual text of
the inscribed rock relief at Bisitun, which records Darius’ proclamation of legitimate
kingship, does not mention the incident of the horse trick. 485 This evidence does not
of the gold plaques that form part of a necklace with the head of Bes at its center, housed now in the
Metropolitan Museum: Boardman, Persia and the West 195, figs. 5.77a, b.
481
For the scholarly debate on this letter and the possibility that the identification of the craftsman as a
sculptor is not secure, see S. A. Paspalas, “On Persian-Type Furniture in Macedonia: The Recognition and
Transmission of Forms,” AJA 105 (2000) 544, n. 85; also West, “Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests,” 297,
n. 92, where she states that the identification of Hinzani as a sculptor is an assumption; he could have been
a painter or seal-cutter.
482
J. M. Balcer, Herodotus and Bisitun: Problems in Ancient Persian Historiography (Stuttgart, 1987) 38,
n. 61.
483
West, “Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests” 297, where she states that “we are given no indication of the
location of this monument,” and that “it looks as if the story of Darius’ ruse (together, no doubt, with much
of the immediately preceding narrative) represents a Greek fantasy woven around a conspicuous monument
without regard to its real purport.”
484
O. Murray, “Herodotus and Oral History,” in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg and A. Kuhrt, eds., Achaemenid
History II. The Greek Sources. Proceedings of the Groningen 1984 Achaemenid History Workshop
(Leiden, 1987) 115.
485
E. A. W. Budge, The Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistun in Persia
(London, 1907) 1-207. The east pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (460s) shows that a similar
story involving a groom and a trick was also current in early Classical Greece. The pediment shows the
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automatically rule out Herodotus’ statement that Darius commemorated his royal status
with an inscribed work of art alluding to a historical event. The tendency of Darius to
commemorate those of his acts that had historical value with works of art is further
evidenced in a now-headless, granite statue that depicts him and was found at Susa. 486
The trilingual cuneiform texts (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian) and Egyptian
hieroglyphs inscribed on its base state that Darius had it made in Egypt to show that a
Persian man had taken this country. 487 The dominant scholarly opinion is that the statue
was intended to stand at the shrine of god Re in Heliopolis. 488 The fact that it was found
at Susa along with many other works of art of many periods indicates a special
circumstance, but, at the same time, highlights that works of art could travel throughout
the Achaemenid Empire, or be transported from its fringes to the center. 489 It is,
therefore, not unreasonable to suggest that the issue of location may have not been of
primary importance for Herodotus. In light of this evidence, the fact that Herodotus does
not mention the exact location of the monument of Darius does not serve to impeach the
reliability of his account. As was seen above, the surviving literary and visual evidence
suggests a strong presence of the image and subject of the horseman in both Achaemenid
language/narrative and minor arts.
preparation for the chariot race between Pelops, a hero (father of Atreus) worshipped at Olympia and
Oinomaos, the ruler of neighboring Pisa. According to the story, Pelops, although skilled in horsemanship,
won by bribing Oinomaos’ charioteer Myrtilos to substitute wax for metal lynch-pins on his chariot.
Oinomaos was thus killed, but in dying he cursed Pelops; or Pelops killed Myrtilos who, in turn, cursed him
and his house. For further discussion of the story of Pelops and its association with the east pediment of the
temple of Zeus at Olympia, see Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Classical Period 36-38.
486
D. Stronach, “La statue de Darius découverte à Suse,” CDAFI 4 (1974) 61-72; Root, The King and
Kingship in Achaemenid Art 68-72; also, Curtis and Tallis, Forgotten Empire 99, no. 88.
487
Curtis and Tallis, Forgotten Empire 99.
488
Boardman, Persia and the West 115, n. 55.
489
For a discussion of these ideas on the basis of the statue of Darius, see Paspalas, “ On-Persian Style
Furniture in Macedonia” 544, n. 84.
262

g. The Zw|~a of Mandrocles’ Painting
A further occurrence of the term zw|~on as applied to the visual arts appears again
in connection with Darius. The term occurs in the fourth book of the Histories and has
again the meaning of the representational subject of a work of art, in this case a painting
depicting one of Darius’ military feats. A section of the fourth book (chapters 83-98)
narrates this king’s crossing of the Hellespont and the Danube as part of his campaign
against the Scythians. When Darius left Susa (c. 513 B.C.), 490 he made his way to
Chalcedon, that part of the Bosporus, where a bridge had been built as part of his regional
military projects that aimed to facilitate his invasion of Scythia. Herodotus reports that
when Darius reached Chalcedon, he wanted to inspect the Euxine Sea and the Bosporus
and thus boarded a boat and sailed around the area. Pleased with the construction of the
bridge over the strait, Darius offered a reward to its head engineer, Mandrocles of Samos:
After that, Darius was so delighted with his bridge of boats, that he gave
Mandrocles every sort of reward. This man took the first-fruits of his honors and
zw|~a graya&menoj depicting the whole bridging of the Bosporus and of King
Darius sitting high over it and the army crossing; he dedicated it in the temple of
Hera and made this inscription:
This is the bridge of boats over the fish-haunted Bosporus;
Mandrocles built it, and Hera received it as her memorial;
A crown for himself its builder made it, a glory of Samos;
All that he wrought he accomplished by the will of the King,
Darius. (4.88) [105]
The word graya&menoj, which defines Mandrocles, is the aorist participle of the verb
gra&fw, which, as seen earlier, means “to paint”, “to draw” and “to write.” The object of
graya&menoj is the plural zw|~a. The presence of graya&menoj establishes that the
context of the passage is directly involved with the arts; therefore, the meaning of zw|~a
490 C. Dewald, “Introduction; Notes,” in R. Waterfield, tr., Herodotus: The Histories (Oxford and New
York, 1998) 653 notes that 513 B.C. is an approximate date for Darius’ expedition against the Scythians
and one that cannot be confirmed from Persian records.
263

here need not be “animals.” All modern renderings of zw|~a in this passage follow this
line of thinking, but their approach to the meaning of the term varies greatly. Thus, some
translations detach zw|~a from its surrounding vocabulary, and render it as “figures,”
whereas some others recognize its dependence on graya&menoj and render it as “a
picture made with figures,” “a painting made of figures,” and also “painted picture(s).” 491
Finally, some other translations combine both zw|~a and graya&menoj into one modern
term, which they translate as “painting” and “picture.” 492
The fact that all previous occurrences of zw|~a in the company of some form of
gra&fw or e0ggra&fw refer to images created by means of painting suggests that these
zw|~a, which are the direct object of graya&menoj, should be also understood as such.
Reginald Macan, however, points out that the passage does not clarify whether
these zw|~a referred to “a wall painting or a pi/nac,” the latter carrying multiple meanings,
among them, a writing or drawing tablet (e.g., Homer, Il. 6.169), a board for painting on
(Theophrastus, HP 3.9.7), and even the plank(s) of a ship (Homer, Od. 12.67). 493 In
absence of specific evidence, he finds it safe to assume that what Herodotus had in mind
was, most likely, a wall-painting. 494 Although this suggestion cannot be established with
certainty, its value lies in bringing to the foreground the modern tendency to use the term
“painting” for both the actual object and image produced by means of this process.
491 Figures: How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus 334; a picture made with figures: Grene, The
History. Herodotus 313; a painting made of figures: Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 224;
painted picture: De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 270; painted pictures: LSJ 9 , 760,
s.v. zw|~on.
492 Painting: Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 264; picture: Godley, Herodotus 2 291; Blakesley,
Herodotus, with a Commentary 491, n. 251; R. W. Macan, Herodotus. The Fouth, Fifth, and Sixth Books I
(London, 1895) 63-64, n. 88.
493 Macan, Herodotus 64, n. 88; LSJ 9 , 1405, s.v.pi/nac.
494 Macan, Herodotus 64, n. 88.
264

The passage is instructive for the sense in which it uses zw|~a. As Herodotus
explains these zw|~a were representations of three specific things: the bridge built over the
Bosporus, Darius sitting on a throne, and the Persian army crossing the bridge. This
description equates zw|~a with the representational subjects of Mandrocles’ painting.
More precisely, the bridge—a physical structure, 495 the throne of Darius—an item of
furniture, Darius himself—a human figure, and the Persian army crossing—additional
human figures in action, all suggest a combination of both animate and inanimate
subjects. The fact that all these subjects were taken directly out of a contemporary
historical achievement—the construction of a bridge marking the Persian advancing into
foreign territories—indicates that Herodotus perceived zw|~a as historically existing
subjects, taken from real life. In this sense, these zw|~a are reminiscent of the zw|~on of the
rider commemorating the historical ascension of Darius to the throne of the Persian
Empire. In addition, the equation of these zw|~a with both animate and inanimate subjects
taken from real life is instructive, for it allows an insight into how the etymology of
zw|~on should be perceived when the term is used in a context directly involved with the
arts. Within such a context, zw|~on does not necessarily denote a living or breathing
being, but rather both animate and inanimate subjects that exist in the real world. Thus,
zw|~on can be both a representation of a human figure and a chair in a work of art insofar
as they are both directly borrowed from the surrounding environment. It is important to
495 Grene, The History. Herodotus 313, n. 42, suggests that this was “a bridge of boats constructed of a
combination of boats or rafts tied together; [therefore, it can be also understood as] a raft.” Herodotus does
not provide the details of the construction of this bridge, and this treatment runs counter to the one he offers
for the construction of Xerxes’ bridge over the Hellespont (7.36). For a modern commentary on the
technical aspects of this bridge, see N. G. L. Hammond and L. J. Roseman, “The Construction of Xerxes’
Bridge over the Hellespont,” JHS 116 (1996) 88-107. Both descriptions have been interpreted as instances
of Herodotus’ belief in a predominantly Persian characteristic: the use of technology to dominate the
natural world, and, consequently, create a powerful empire. For a discussion of this concept, see J. Romm,
“Herodotus and the Natural World,” in C. Dewald and J. Marincola, eds., The Cambridge Companion to
Herodotus (Cambridge, 2006) 189-190.
265

keep in mind, however, that, as it is, this definition of zw|~on appears to stem from an
“essentialist” conception; no evidence exists to suggest an automatic connection with any
notion of realism in representation. The silence on this aspect, however, may mean that
we have here an aspect of a work of art that was taken for granted. In sum, this evidence
suggests that zw|~on may be very close to the modern definition of representational or
figural art, which may, in turn, explain why the term “figure” has been applied to the
ancient zw|~on indiscriminately.
Regarding the fact that Mandrocles’ painting centered on a historical subject,
William Childs recognizes an affiliation with Anatolian and Near Eastern art rather than
with that of the Greek mainland. 496 He sees a distant parallel between the painting of
Mandrocles and the historical reliefs of Lycian tombs, which, in accordance with
Assyrian iconographic tradition, depict cities and also sieges of cities. 497 In the same
way, for example, that representations of cities on the smaller frieze of the Nereid
Monument from Xanthos (ca. 380 B.C.) and the west wall of the Heroon from Trysa (ca.
370 B.C.) were parts of historical narratives that served to glorify the actual deeds of the
local dynasts, the bridge represented in the painting described by Herodotus can be seen
as glorifying the deed of both Mandrocles and Darius. 498 Tonio Hölscher suggests that
496 W. A. P. Childs, The City-Reliefs of Lycia (Princeton, 1978) 95, where he finds it pointless to “discredit
totally the historical bent of Greek art of the fifth century,” evident, for example, in the Attic vases, which
show the killing of Hipparchos by Harmodios and Aristogeiton. He does highlight, however (95) the
Eastern Greek interest in specific illustrations than in generic types, which he explains (95, n. 50) as “the
result of Oriental influence in accordance with the interest, however, rudimentary, in historical specificity.”
497 Childs, The City-Reliefs of Lycia 95. He discusses in detail (48-54) parallels between the iconography
of the city motif, primarily in battle and siege contexts, in Lycian and Assyrian reliefs. As an example, he
offers (52) the city sieges on the bronze gates of Shalmaneser from Balawat, where the seated figure of
Shalmaneser and his officials watch rows of soldiers attacking a city, while lines of prisoners are led away
from the city. The scene recalls that depicted on slab 878 of the Nereid Monument, where a siege mound,
soldiers, and figures leading prisoners away are depicted.
498 Childs, The City-Reliefs of Lycia 97, presents a tripartite division of the reliefs and the function of the
city motif on them. The city of Type I (e.g., Merehi Sarcophagus, Xanthos, exterior southeast wall of
Heroon at Trysa, City Sarcophagos, Telmessos), he states, 95, depicts in typical Oriental manner the power
266

the representations of enthroned Darius and rows of marching soldiers were elements
borrowed directly from the Achaemenid artistic tradition; he also states that the painting
aimed more at commemorating the engineering feat of Mandrocles rather than the
historical significance of Darius’ passage to Europe. 499 On the basis of this evidence, and
in combination with the fact that Mandrocles dedicated this painting at the Samian
Heraion, Hölscher attributes votive rather than historical value to it. 500 Mandrocles’
dedication of a painting with zw|~a at a sanctuary again connects the latter with a work of
art within a religious setting. Although the dedication may hint that personal glorification
was what Mandrocles had in mind, it does not appear to have dictated the choice of what
was depicted; Herodotus’ narrative implies instead that the subject of the painting was the
direct result of the historical circumstances that bound Mandrocles to Darius. Support for
this view is contained in the inscription of the painting, which identifies the depicted
bridge as Mandrocles’ achievement and continues: “All that he [Mandrocles] wrought he
accomplished by the will of the King, Darius.” That the historical value of such a
painting concerned not only its representational subject, but extended also to the act of
dedication itself is a subject that has drawn wide attention recently. As Stavros Paspalas
has noted, it is not unreasonable to see this painting as a medium through which the
relationship between the Persian king and those, like Mandrocles, who served him and
found favor with him, was presented to a wider audience in the West; 501 in other words,
as a form of propaganda. This suggestion acquires additional value in light of the
of the dynast. In type II, represented by the Nereid Monument, and the west wall of the Heroon at Trysa,
described in detail in 22-36, the city is part of a historical narrative, which aims at highlighting the deeds of
the local dynasts. The meaning of the city of Type III (e.g., Landscape tomb at Pinara, and stepped
monument of Izraza at Tlos) is elusive.
499 T. Hölscher, Griechische Historienbilder des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts V. Chr. (Würzburg, 1975) 36-37.
500 Hölscher, Griechische Historienbilder 37.
501 For a discussion of this painting as a representative of a medium through which Persian forms reached
audiences in the West, see Paspalas, “On Persian-Type Furniture in Macedonia” 545.
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observation that the word e0pigra&yaj, which Herodotus uses for the recording of the
inscription, as opposed to the graya&menoj used for the painting of the zw|~a, indicates
that Mandrokles composed the inscription himself. 502 In this way, not only is Mandrocles
presented as determined to show to the visitors of the sanctuary his relationship with the
Persian king, but even the personal act of supplying its dedication with an explanatory
inscription is highlighted as a historical act in itself.
h. Zw|&dia on a Bronze Krater
In addition to zw|~on, Herodotus also uses the term zw|&dion to refer to decorative
elements of some kind in connection with the visual arts. The term, which is the
diminutive of zw|~on, appears in a discussion of the pre-existing relations that led to a
sixth-century treaty between the Lacedaemonians and the Lydian King, Croesus. 503
Herodotus describes a bronze krater full of zw|&dia around its rim that the former offered
as a token of their gratitude to Croesus:
Because of that, and because he had given them precedence, in his choice for
friendship, over all the rest of the Greeks, the Lacedaemonians accepted the
alliance. So when he made the offer, they were ready; and, moreover, they made
a bronze mixing bowl, filling (plh&santej) it on the outside, around the rim (peri\
to_ xei=loj), with zw|di/wn (the mixing bowl itself was of a capacity of three
hundred amphorae) and sent it on its way to Croesus, wishing to match Croesus’
gift to them with one of their own to him. But this mixing bowl never did reach
Sardis, for which two reasons are given. The Lacedaemonians say that when, in
its transport toward Sardis, it came near Samos, the Samians found out about it,
sailed out with their long ships, and captured it; but the Samians themselves say
that the Lacedaemonians who were bringing it came too late, heard that Sardis
and Croesus had been captured, and sold the mixing bowl in Samos, and that
some private persons bought it and dedicated it in the temple of Hera. And
probably also those who sold it, when they arrived in Sparta, would say that it
had been taken from them by the Samians. That, then, is the story of the bowl.
(1.70) [97]
502 West, “Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests” 282, n. 16.
503 De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 629, n. 31, place this treaty to around 548/7 B.C.
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Herodotus gives no details about the appearance of zw|di/wn, which is the genitive
plural of zw|&dion. 504 This treatment suggests that zw|di/wn is used here in a general sense.
What can be understood from the passage is that they are decorative elements of some
kind on the outer rim of the bronze krater. In this sense, they are reminiscent of the zw|~a
encountered earlier on the clothes from the Caucasus, the breastplate of Amasis, and also
those on Egyptian buildings. The huge size of the krater, in combination with its being
made of bronze, a valuable material, suggests accomplished craftsmanship. 505 These two
characteristics justify its use as a diplomatic gift intended for a king, and its subsequent
dedication at the Samian Heraion, which is consistent with the long tradition of rich
votive gifts (e.g., tripods and cauldrons) at sanctuaries. Further, the fact that the
commissioners of this krater were Lacedaemonians accords well with the prominent
position that Laconia is thought to have held in the production of bronze vessels during
the Archaic period. 506 Herodotus uses the word plh&santej, which derives from the verb
pi/mplhmi, meaning “to fill,” to indicate a Laconian preference for covering the outer rim
with zw|&dia. 507 Plh&santej gives the impression of a densely covered surface, thus
suggesting abundant decoration and intricate craftsmanship. The plural zw|di/wn, which
504 9
LSJ , 758, s.v. zw|&dion; also for –idion as a standard suffix of neutral diminutives, see Smyth, Greek
Grammar 235.
505
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 31, suggest five hundred gallons; for a detailed
discussion of calculating the capacity of the krater and equated it with 7800 liters, see A. Rumpf, “Krath&r
Lakwniko&j,” in K. Schauenburg, ed., Charites. Festschrift für E. Langlotz (Bonn, 1957) 131. For bronze
as a valuable material of vessels, among them kraters, see C. Rolley, tr. R. Howell, Greek Bronzes
(London, 1986) 140; for a discussion of bronze as a costly material for vessels in the fifth century, and also
the higher status of bronze-smiths in comparison to that of potters, see M. Vickers and D. Gill, Artful
Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (Oxford, 1994) 98-99.
506
According to C. M. Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos: Aspects of the Archaic Greek Bronze Industry
(Rome, 2000) XIII, n. 3, Laconia was “the leading Greek centre for bronze working in the first half of the
sixth century.” For a discussion of both fictile and bronze examples of Lakonian mixing bowls, see also his
study, Laconian Mixing Bowls: A History of the Krater Lakonikos from the Seventh to the Fifth Century
B.C. (Amsterdam, 1989).
507
Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 52 translates the term as “filled up.” Similarly, Sheets,
Herodotus, Book 1 34, traces plh&santej to the verb pi/mplhmi, which means “to fill.”
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establishes more than one zw|&dion, in combination with the fact that they were around the
rim (peri\ to_ xei=loj) suggest a busy, continuous decoration, perhaps on the order of a
frieze. In view of this evidence, the association of zw|di/wn with the realm of fine crafts
appears to be firmly established.
As stated earlier, the word zw|di/wn is considered to be the diminutive of zw|~on. On
the basis of this evidence, it is probably safe to assume that the decoration on the outer
surface of the rim of the krater consisted of “little zw|~a.” Not all modern translations of
zw|di/wn, however, take this aspect into account. They all agree on the meaning of the
term as something other than animals; their majority interprets it as “figures.” To this
group belong How and Wells, Macaulay and Lateiner, Sheets, and Godley. 508 The first
two scholars clarify that these are “figures not of animals alone.” 509 In agreement with
this suggestion are Blakesley and also Henry Woods, who both state that the word
denotes figures of any kind. 510 In sustaining his opinion, Blakesley draws attention to
the role of the artistic context in the meaning of the word, and states that in the
description of plastic or architectural works, zw|&dion means figure of any kind. 511 Henry
Woods appears to be more concerned with the diminutive aspect of the term, and
therefore, maintains that “the figures were not full size.” 512 Similarly, Liddell and Scott,
include this passage of Herodotus in their discussion of the entry zw|&dion, the meaning of
which they translate as “small figure.” 513 Also the translation of the passage by Aubrey
De Sélincourt and John Marincola defines zw|di/wn as “small figures” and so does that of
508
How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus I 92; Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus
26; Sheets, Herodotus Book I 3; Godley, Herodotus I 85.
509
How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus I 92.
510
Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 52; H. G. Woods, Herodotus Book I (London and Oxford,
1873) 58.
511
Blakesley, Herodotus, with a Commentary 52.
512
Woods, Herodotus Book 1 58.
513 9
LSJ , 758, s.v. zw|&dion.
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Grene, who says “little figures.” 514 Powell, in contrast, maintains that zw|&dion means
“picture,” 515 and so does Waterfield, who translates these zw|di/wn as “pictures.” 516
The meaning of zw|di/wn has not been discussed independently from speculations
regarding the technique of their manufacture. In their reference to Herodotus’ passage,
Liddell and Scott, for example, point out that zw|di/wn should be defined as painted or
carved figures. 517 In addition, Godley understands the term to mean figures that were
graven, perhaps carved or engraved, on the rim of the krater. 518 The lack of a specific
term within the passage that supports this technical aspect of zw|di/wn, and the distinct
silence of Godley on the matter suggest that he considered this aspect a factor that
partook in the meaning of the term. Similarly, How and Wells, who also understand
zw|di/wn to mean figures, draw attention to the technique employed for their manufacture
by suggesting that they are figures in relief. 519 As with Godley, however, these authors
provide no corresponding term to this specific technique, which implies that they also
saw the latter as being incorporated into the meaning of the term.
Herodotus’ krater and its zw|&dia have been at the center of a search for
archaeological parallels. Andreas Rumpf was the first scholar (1954; 1957) to identify
this krater as a volute krater of the Vix type. 520 The latter refers to a bronze volute krater
of exceptional size (1.63m high; 1.27m diameter of body; 1m. diameter of mouth; 208.6
kg weight) and craftsmanship that was found in 1953 in a fifth-century, Celtic tomb at the
514
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 31; Grene, The History. Herodotus 65.
515
Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus 159, s.v. zw|&dion.
516
R. Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories (Oxford and New York, 1997) 31.
517 9
LSJ , 758, s.v. zw|&dion.
518
Godley, Herodotus 1 85.
519
How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus 92.
520
A. Rumpf, “Zum Krater von Vix,” BABesch 29 (1954) 10-11; also “Krath&r Lakwniko&j,” in
Schauenburg, ed., Charites 131.
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village of Vix in France (Fig. 25). 521 This krater has been considered an imported Greek
product of the sixth century B.C., but issues, such as its exact location of manufacture
and date are still debated. 522 Its neck is decorated with a continuous frieze of appliqué
relief figures, that is, figures with flat reverse sides fastened by rivets to the neck. 523
They depict hoplites on foot, and four-horse chariots with their charioteers in a
procession. The backs of these figures are marked with Greek letters, a recognized
method for their correct positioning on the vessel. 524 Rumpf considered these decorative
elements partial evidence for suggesting that the krater described by Herodotus was of
identical appearance. 525 Despite René Joffroy’s warning of 1954 that “it would be rash to
see in the krater from Vix the present of the Lacaedemonians to Croesus,” Rumpf’s
521 For the most recent discussion and illustrations of the krater from Vix, see C. Rolley, La tombe princière
de Vix (Paris, 2003) 77-90; also 90-106 for a catalogue of all the well-preserved bronze volute kraters and
parts of them found in Greek sites, such as Olympia, Delphi, and Athens. For earlier discussions of the Vix
krater, see R. Joffroy, Le Trésor de Vix (Côte d’Or) (Paris, 1954) 6; also Rolley, Greek Bronzes 146, fig.
129, where he explains that “the body and the neck are hammered in one piece; the two parts of the rim, the
handles, and the appliqué decoration on the neck and possibly also the foot are cast”: for a brief discussion
of the complex mathematics involved in the design of the krater, see Vickers and Gill, Artful Crafts 190, n.
223.
522 There are three major theses regarding the place of manufacture of the Vix krater: 1) Laconia, 2) South
Italy, 3) Corinth, and two regarding its date: 1) 570-560 B.C., 2) 530-520 B.C. The thesis of Laconian
manufacture is advocated by Stibbe, Laconian Mixing Bowls 63-67, who dates the Vix krater to 570-560
B.C. and attributes it to a Laconian workshop. He also stresses the close relationship between Laconian
fictile and bronze kraters. Rolley, Greek Bronzes 150, dates the krater between 530 and 520 B.C.,
considers it “inseparable from” two hydrias found in Paestum and Sala Consilina, and therefore attributes it
to a South Italian workshop located perhaps in Sybaris; also Les vases des bronze de l’ archaïsme recent en
Grande Grèce (Naples, 1982). For a most recent summary of these opposing theses and updated
bibliography on the debate, see C. M. Stibbe, “The Krater from Vix Again: A Review Article,” in C. M.
Stibbe, “Agalmata. Studien zur griechisch-archaischen Bronzekunst,” (BABesch Suppl. 11; Dudley, 2006)
310-321. The hypothesis of a Corinthian origin was advanced by M. Gjødesen, “Greek Bronzes: A Review
Article,” AJA 67 (1963) 333-351. For a list of additional scholars, each of whom adheres to one or another
thesis, see S. Hodkinson, “Laconian Artistic Production and the Problem of Spartan Austerity,” in N.
Fischer and H. van Wees, eds., Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence (London, 1998) 103,
n. 24.
523 Rolley, La tombe princière de Vix 79-83, pls. 8-11, and Greek Bronzes 146, fig. 129, where he refers to
the decoration of the frieze as “appliqué”; also Joffroy, Le Trésor de Vix 11, 21.
524 Rolley, La tombe princière de Vix 87-88.
525 It has to be mentioned that the decoration of the frieze played only a partial, but still supportive, role in
Rumpf’s identification of Herodotus’ krater as that of the Vix-type. Rumpf, “Krath&r Lakwniko&j,” in
Schauenburg, ed., Charites 131, went much further, especially in comparing the holding capacity of the
krater described by Herodotus with that of the krater from Vix. The latter has a capacity of 1200 litres,
whereas that of the one described by Herodotus, he estimated to be 7800 litres.
272

theory has dominated scholarship. 526 As Conrad Stibbe has recently (2006) remarked,
Rumpf’s idea that the krater of the Spartans was a volute krater of the Vix type, has met
general acceptance “because the [zw|&dia] ‘figures’ of Herodotus would correspond to the
[appliqué relief] figures on the neck of the krater from Vix.” 527 Although dominant, this
is not the only interpretation of Herodotus’ zw|&dia. In 1961, Emil Kunze suggested that
they could be figures in the round. 528 In 1991, however, Werner Gauer cautioned that on
the basis of the information provided by Herodotus it is impossible to determine whether
the zw|&dia of his krater were produced in relief or in the round, or if the vessel was
identical to that found in the tomb from Vix. 529 Recently (2006), Stibbe revived the
theory of Herodotus’ zw|&dia being appliqué relief figures like those on the Vix krater by
pointing out that the phrase e1cwqen peri\ to_ xei=loj (“outside and around the rim,”) that
Herodotus uses to indicate the position of the zw|&dia supports their identification as relief
figures. If Herodotus was thinking of figures in the round, Stibbe asserts, he would have
instead said upon (a1nwqen) the rim. 530
Apart from the krater from Vix, additional evidence of bronze kraters with
appliqué relief decoration comes from two sixth-century examples found at the
526
Joffroy, Le Trésor de Vix 22: “Il serait téméraire de voir dans le cratére de Vix le présent des
Lacédémoniens à Crésus.”
527
Stibbe, “The Krater from Vix Again,” in Stibbe, Agalmata 314.
528
E. Kunze, “Kleinplastik aus Bronze,” in E. Kunze, et al., VII. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in
Olympia (Berlin, 1961) 174, n. 68.
529
W. Gauer, Die Bronzegefässe von Olympia (Olympische Forschungen 20; Berlin and New York, 1991)
129.
530
C. M. Stibbe, “The Krater from Vix Again” in Stibbe, Agalmata 315, n. 43. Although not explicitly
stated by Stibbe, his contrast between the words e1cwqen and a1nwqen appears to be influenced by the
appearance of the latter in Athenaeus’ description of two gold Corinthian craters paraded in the grand
procession of Ptolemy II Philadelphus at Alexandria. Athenaeus, whose description is excerpted from the
work of third-century Kallixenos of Rhodes entitled About Alexandria, states that the craters had on their
upper part (a1nwqen) zw|~a seated in the round of beaten metal (kaqh&mena perifanh~ tetoreume/na),
and on the necks and bellies, carefully executed pro&stupa” (Deipn. 5.199e). E. E. Rice, The Grand
Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Oxford, 1983) 140-15, translates these zw|~a as “figures,” and
pro&stupa as “figures in low relief.”
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necropolis of Trebenishte, but of uncertain origin of manufacture, and also from a sixth-
century, bronze appliqué relief figure of a man found in Edessa and thought to have been
part of the decoration of a Laconian krater. 531 Dated to 560-550 B.C., the first krater
from Trebenishte was found in a tomb (no. I) in 1918. 532 It is a volute krater similar to
that from Vix, but of smaller size (e.g., 68cm high) (Fig. 26). 533 Its neck is decorated
with a continuous frieze of five appliqué relief figures of cows that walk to the right. 534
One side of the neck bears three cows, thus suggesting that the other side, which
currently bears only two, had originally three. Like the appliqué figures on the Vix
krater, Greek lettering on the back of these cows indicates the same method for correctly
positioning them on the neck. 535 Where exactly this krater was originally manufactured
is a topic of scholarly debate; Corinth, Laconia, and South Italy have all been considered
potential candidates. 536
The second bronze volute krater from Trebenishte was found in a tomb (no.
VIII) in 1930 and has been dated to around 500 B.C. (Fig. 27). 537 Owing to its poor state
of preservation and subsequent heavy restoration, its exact height has not been securely
established, but its size has been thought to be similar to that of the previous krater from
Trebenishte. 538 Each side of its neck is decorated with two appliqué relief figures of
531
For a recent account of the history of excavations at the necropolis of Trebenishte, see M. C. Stibbe,
Trebenishte. The Fortunes of an Unusual Excavation (Studia Archaeologica 121; Rome, 2003).
532
B. D. Filow, Die archaische Nekropole von Trebenischte am Ochrida-See (Berlin and Leipzig, 1927)
39-47 (Sofia, NM no inventory number).
533
Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 59, n. 14.
534
Stibbe, Trebenishte 75-78, figs. 33-37.
535
For both the suggestion that these cows were the work of two different artists, and also the lettering on
their backs, see Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 59, n. 16.
536
For these suggestions, see Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 63.
537
N. Vulić, “Das neue Grab von Trebenishte,” JdI 45 (1930) 299 (Belgrade, NM 174/1).
538
Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 88, n. 156.
274

iders on horses that gallop to the right. 539 Variations in the treatments of both horses and
riders have led to the suggestion that more than one artist was at work. 540 This
suggestion has been, in turn, central to the scholarly debate regarding the possible
Laconian or Corinthian origin of the second krater from Trebenishte. 541
The third example of appliqué relief decoration on bronze kraters is a small (18.3
cm tall) bronze relief figure of a bearded warrior in the process of putting on his greaves
that was found in Edessa (Fig. 28). 542 The figure has a flat reverse side and preserves the
holes used for riveting it to a background, most likely, the neck of a bronze volute
Laconian krater produced around 540 B.C. 543
The evidence from these examples and from the Vix krater indicates that adding
decorative elements of various subjects by means of rivets to the frieze-like necks of
bronze kraters was a usual technique favored by sixth-century bronze-smiths. If one
were, therefore, to identify Herodotus’ zw|&dia with these decorative elements, the fact
that the latter refer to humans (hoplites, charioteers, riders, warrior), animals (horses,
cows), and also lifeless objects (chariots) suggests that Herodotus’ zw|&dia could be
understood as both animate and inanimate representational subjects applied to bronze
vessels as relief decoration.
539 Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 89-90, fig. 56, and 94, fig. 61, also 122, n. 87.
540 As Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 90, n. 160 points out, “the mane of one of the horses is plain, whereas
the other horses have vertically notched neck manes.” Also, none of the heads of the riders is identical to
any other. The first has a squarish face with wide eyes, the second has a triangular face with small eyes,
the third has a broad and angular head, whereas the fourth one “is distinguished by its broad round head.”
541 Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 90-91.
542 Stibbe, Trebenishte 95, n. 19 (Athens, NM 7550); see, also S. Karouzou, “ΤΕΧΝΟΥΡΓΟΙ
ΚΡΑΤΗΡΩΝ: Fragmente bronzeren Volutenkratere,” AM 94 (1979) 79-80. Its exact provenance and date
of discovery are uncertain. One of the earliest reference to it is G. P. Oikonomos, “Bronzen von Pella,” AM
51 (1926) 87-88, who mentions that the figure was found by M. Dimitsas, and cites an earlier reference: A.
De Ridder, Catalogue des bronzes de la société archaeologique d’Athènes (1889) 103.
543 Stibbe, Trebenishte 94-95, 105, fig. 63; also Karouzou, “ΤΕΧΝΟΥΡΓΟΙ ΚΡΑΤΗΡΩΝ” 79-80, pl. 15,
figs. 1-3, where the flatness of the reverse side and the holes for the rivets are clearly visible.
275

B. Inscriptions
The fifth century is also the period when both the words zw|~on and its diminutive
zw|&dion appear for the first time in the epigraphical record. The words occur in direct
association with architectural sculpture and carry the meaning of representations of both
animate and inanimate subjects taken from the real world. In addition to this meaning,
zw|&dion is used in the inscriptions to refer to the distinct method of attaching works of
sculpture by rivets to a background. As in the case of the literary texts, the inscriptions
indicate that the term zw|~on indicated the absence of a distinction between image and
subject.
Erechtheion
The earliest epigraphical attestation of zw|~on in the fifth century is in the building
accounts of the Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis. These accounts, which were
inscribed on marble stelai, date from 409/8 to 406/5 B.C., and detail the state of the
unfinished parts of the building and expenditures for their completion. 544
A fragment of one of these stelai—also known as the Chandler stele—bears an
inscription that identifies its date as that of the first prytany of the year 409/8 B.C. 545 The
544
L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum (Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 277-
422; also IG I 3 .474-479.
545
For the date of the Chandler stele identified as that of the archonship of Diokles in 409/8 B.C., see
Caskey, “The Inscriptions” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 283. Caskey (277-321) explains that the
Chandler stele comprises six different fragments, which in his discussion are given the numbers II-VII (IG
I 3 .474.2). Fragments II, III, IV, and VA are on the obverse of the stele, whereas fragments VB and VII are
on the reverse. Fragment II, which is the largest (1.08 m. high, 0.505 m. wide, and 0.09 m. thick) and the
one discussed here, was found by Richard Chandler built into the steps of a house on the Acropolis in 1765.
Chandler took it to England for the Society of the Dilettanti and later presented it to the British Museum:
Caskey, 283; also Ferrari, “The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens,” AJA 106 (2002) 18, n. 48.
Fragment III was found between the Erechtheion and the Parthenon: Caskey, 281; Fragment III was “found
in [an] excavation on the Acropolis in 1836 (Ross) and re-discovered between the Erechtheum and the
Parthenon in 1838 (Pittakis)”: Caskey, 284; Fragments IV, V, and VI are of unknown provenance: Caskey,
276

inscription is in the form of a heading followed by a text arranged in two columns. The
heading (lines 1-7) records the names of a board of commissioners and their appointment
to compile a report on the state of construction of the building. The columnar text details
the incomplete parts of the building, and the materials lying on the site and inventoried by
the commissioners. The beginning of the first column (lines 8-39) concerns unfinished
parts “of the temple” (line 8), such as the wall blocks, wall-capital, and epistyle “at the
corner towards the Cecropium” (line 9). 546 The text continues with the following four
lines:
All the rest of the work round about begins
with the Eleusinian stone against which the
zw~ia (are to be fastened), and three blocks of it
have been placed under the present commissioners.
(IG I 3 . 474 [fr. II, col. I, 40-43]) [85]
Lacey Caskey translates the term zw~ia, which is the plural nominative of zw|~on, as
“figures.” 547 The Eleusinian stone against which (pro&j w{i) these zw~ia were to be
placed has been identified with the bluish-black limestone of the frieze of both the cella
and the north porch of the Erechtheion, specifically, its smooth background blocks. 548 Of
284, 285 and 319 respectively; Fragment VII was found in an excavation east of the Propylaea on the
Acropolis in 1835: Caskey, 319.
546 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 301, identifies the corner of the temple
towards the Cecropium with the southwest corner of the Erechtheion, on the basis of evidence that, in other
parts of the inscription (col. I, 58, 63, 83), the Porch of the Maidens, which is built against the west end of
its south wall, is referred to as the prostasis that looks “towards the Cecropium.” On the basis of additional
literary and epigraphical evidence, Ferrari, “The Ancient Temple” 21, understands the reference of the
inscription to the corner of the temple towards the Cecropium to mean the northwestern corner of the
archaic temple of Athena Polias, which has been identified with the poros temple discovered by Wilhelm
Dörpfeld in 1885 to the south of the Erechtheion. Central to Ferrari’s thesis is the argument, 17, that the
Pandroseum, Cecropium, and Erechtheion were parts of the temenos of the temple of Athena Polias, which
was sacked in the Persian attack of 480 B.C., but once repaired, continued to stand and function until the
second century A.D., when Pausanias (1.27.1) described it; based on this argument, she suggests, 21, that
the Erechtheion was “an ornate and elegant appendage to the temple of the Polias.”
547 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 289.
548 For a discussion of the dark stone used for the blocks that formed the background of the frieze of the
Erechtheion, see J. M. Paton, “Notes on the Construction of the Erechtheum,” in Paton, ed, The
Erechtheum 181, n. 4; L. T. Shoe, “Dark Stone in Greek Architecture,” Hesperia Supplement 8 (1949) 347-
348; also B. S. Ridgway, Prayers in Stone. Greek Architectural Sculpture Ca. 600-100 B.C. (Berkeley,
277

considerable importance is the phrase pro&j w{i, whose translation as “against this stone,”
suggests that zw~ia, whose position it defines, were some type of decoration separated
from, and therefore, not carved out of the same blocks that formed the background of the
frieze. 549 That this was actually the case is confirmed by the surviving material, which
refers to the blocks of the frieze, fragmentary sculpture, and also technical details
preserved on both types of evidence.
1999) 118 and 128, where she states that the use of such dark stone “had the primary architectural function
not only of connecting prostyle columns and cella, but also of establishing specific levels in a building
unusual for its irregular plan, both internal and external.” For an illustration of the position of the frieze of
the Erechtheion that emphasizes the dark color of its background blocks, see Jenkins, Greek Architecture
and Its Sculpture (Cambridge, Mass., 2006) 122, fig. 109.
According to H. N. Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 232, a frieze ran around all
sides of the cella, except for a portion of the northern wall, where it was interrupted by the roof of the north
porch. A frieze covered also all the exterior walls of the north portico including its peculiar southern side,
which corresponded to a short section that projected to the west of the main building. These essentially two
friezes were not identical in terms of size. As Fowler, 239, states “the height of the blocks of the
Eleusinian stone which formed the frieze about the cella is 0.617m., that of the frieze of the north portico
0.683m.” Regarding the blocks of the frieze over the cella only small sections of them survive today.
According to Fowler, 240, the most complete section is that of the eastern side and a short distance of the
eastern part of the southern side, both of which sum up to a total length of about 14 m. Similarly, J. M.
Paton et al., “Description of the Erechtheum,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 54, point out that only two
blocks are now in place at the southeast corner, whereas “the frieze from both [the] north and south walls
has wholly disappeared.” As for the original blocks of the frieze at the western end of the building, they
were damaged by fire in the first century B.C., and subsequently replaced with reused statue bases also
made of Eleusinian stone. As Fowler, 240, n. 1, explains, these replacements “are old statue bases, with the
tops turned toward the interior of the building. These tops show the foot marks of the statues which once
stood on them, but the outer surfaces are plain.” For a recent illustration of these bases forming a section of
the frieze of the western wall of the building, see O. Palagia, “Classical Athens,” in O. Palagia ed., Greek
Sculpture: Function, Materials, Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods (Cambridge, 2006) 143,
fig. 47. As for the background blocks of the frieze over the north porch, Fowler, 241, explains that “the
entire length of the frieze of the North Portico was about 25 m., and about 21 m. of the dark blocks now
exist. Those blocks are now, with the exception of a few fragments, secured in their proper places on the
building.” He also clarifies, 241, n. 1, that “the place of the missing blocks is supplied by blocks of bluish
“upper Pentelic” marble.” Pictures of the latest restoration (1976-1986) of the Erechtheion, which aimed at
a wide-ranging correction of an earlier erroneous one (1902-1909), show no changes in the arrangement of
the architectural members of the frieze as discussed by Fowler and Paton et al. For a discussion of this
restoration and accompanying illustrations, see C. Bouras and K. Zambas, The Works of the Committee for
the Preservation of the Acropolis Monuments on the Acropolis of Athens (Athens, 2002) 24-27, figs. 34-41.
549 This technique had been used earlier for the decoration of the frieze on the base—made also of
Eleusinian stone—of the cult statues of Athena and Hephaistos at the Hephaisteion made by Alkamenes
and completed around 415 B.C.: For a discussion of this base, see O. Palagia, “Meaning and Narrative
Techniques in Statue-Bases of the Pheidian Circle,” in N. K. Rutter and B. A. Sparkes, eds., Word and
Image in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh, 2000) 53 and 55, where the similarity with the Erechtheion frieze is
pointed out; also 55, fig. 4.1 for an illustration of a block of Eleusinian limestone that has been attributed to
the front of the base of this statue and carries five dowel holes for the attachment of figures.
278

The existing blocks that form the background of the frieze rest on a widened
epistyle 550 and carry holes indicating that something was fastened to them by means of
dowels. 551 In addition, holes exist in the top surface of the epistyle indicating that
something was fastened there as well. 552 Turning to the extant sculpture, marble
fragments are all that survive today. 553 Some of these fragments have flat bottom sides
550
Paton et al., “Description,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 24: “A scratch line on the top of the epistyle
marks the position of the frieze, which was set 0.054 m. back of the upper fascia of the epistyle”; also
Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, The Erechtheum 239, fig. 150, presents a reconstructed view of the
position of the epistyle, frieze, and cornice of the building, and further maintains that those portions of the
epistyle that were covered with decoration, which he identifies as sculpture, exhibit a lesser degree of
weathering than those that were not. The same idea is also expressed by P. N. Boulter, “The Frieze of the
Erechtheion,” AP 10 (1970) 7 and 20, who mentions that “the architrave was widened somewhat to
accommodate the bases [of pieces of sculpture].”
551
For an illustration of the shape of the dowels used, see Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The
Erechtheum 195, fig. 120, and pls. III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and LXVI for the positions of the dowel holes in the
blocks of the background. Using the frieze of the north porch as an example, Fowler, 242, pls. VI, XXI,
XLVI, maintains that “in the existing dark blocks of the frieze of this porch (about 21 m. in length) there
are 59 dowel holes, not including several small round holes which may have served for fastening
attributes.” He also states, 242, that each piece of sculpture “was fastened to the background by a single
dowel,” and 243, that “the dowels were fixed in the holes with lead.” Regarding the study of holes on the
stone blocks, he says, 242, n. 3, that “the average distance between the dowel holes is 0.536 m., and the
average number of holes per meter is 2.81 m.” On the basis of this evidence, he estimates that the frieze of
the north porch (total length ca. 25 m.) consisted of about 70 dowel holes that corresponded to a total of 70
pieces of sculpture. He does caution, however, that matching the dowel holes in the blocks to those of the
fragments does not lead to an accurate reconstruction of the frieze because exact correspondence in the
measurements of the holes cannot be expected. Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 8, n. 6, agrees
with Fowler’s conclusion; therefore, she considers his estimate of 70 pieces of sculpture for the frieze of
the north porch accurate. As for the overall spacing of these pieces, Fowler, 245, maintains that “the
positions of the dowel holes in the background show that the space was well filled without overcrowding.”
552
Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 243, n. 4; also Boulter, “The Frieze of the
Erechtheion” 20.
553
Although not everyone is so sure of marble identifications, both K. Glowacki, “A New Fragment of the
Erechtheion Frieze,” Hesperia 64 (1995) 325, and Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 7, identify the
marble of these fragments as Pentelic. Palagia, “Classical Athens,” in Palagia, ed., Greek Sculpture 142, n.
193, clarifies that the fragments “of the Erechtheion frieze are usually described as made of Pentelic
marble. They are in fact of Parian marble with a few exceptionally made of Pentelic, such as Acr[opolis]
Mus[eum] 1071,” which depicts two female figures. She attributes this phenomenon to the possibility that
“the contractors ran out of Parian marble and were obliged to use Pentelic near the end of the project.”
None of the extant sculpture was discovered in its original setting, and as Glowacki, 326, points out, one of
the major problems associated with the study of these fragments is the lack of their recorded provenience.
Eighteenth-century drawings of the Erechtheion (Paton, ed., The Erechtheum pls. L-LII) show no sculpture
associated with its frieze, thus providing the earliest illustrative evidence for the condition of this part of the
building. In addition, it is not clear whether the west side of the frieze of the cella, which was destroyed by
fire in the first century B.C., was supplied with sculpture after its restoration. As Fowler, “The Sculptures,”
in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 240, maintains, the replaced blocks on this side bear no evidence of dowel
holes for the attachment of sculpture. Some of the surviving sculpture, however, has been considered to be
of Roman workmanship, despite its close imitation of fifth-century style, and therefore, features
prominently in discussions of this side of the frieze. For such a discussion, see B. S. Ridgway, Fifth-
279

pierced in some cases by dowel holes, while some others have flat backs also pierced by
dowel holes. These technical characteristics suggest that the larger sculptures to which
these fragments initially belonged were placed on and attached to a flat surface, and also
placed against and attached to a flat background. 554 On the basis of this evidence, which
Century Styles in Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1981) 93, who is careful not to equate this sculpture with that
of the frieze of the west cella; for two examples of the sculpture of the frieze, which are thought to be
Roman replacements, owing to the deeply cut grooves of their drapery, and the “hard” appearance of their
modeling, see Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 18-19, figs. 17-20; for the suggestion that “the
restoration of the west frieze left it plain,” see Palagia, 142-143, ns. 194-195.
For an assembled bibliography of the earliest discussions of the sculpture of the frieze, see Fowler, “The
Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 241, n. 3. Fowler’s discussion, 246-276, although it enumerates
a total of 112 fragments in addition to 12 uncertain ones, does not state provenience for all of them. The
provenience, for example, of a fragment of a female figure, 249, no. 11, is confined to the statement: “it is
said to have been found in front of the north portico.” For the discovery of additional fragments following
Fowler’s publication, see O. Broneer, “Excavations on the North Slope of the Acropolis in Athens, 1931-
1932,” Hesperia 2 (1933) 349-350, figs. 20-21; “Excavations on the North Slope of the Acropolis in
Athens, 1933-1934,” Hesperia 4 (1935) 138-140, figs. 24-29; “Discoveries on the North Slope of the
Acropolis, 1938,” AJA 42 (1938) 445-450; also C. Koukouli, “Νέo Σύµπλεγµα από τη Ζωφόρο
του Ερεχθείου,” ADeltion 22 (1967) 133-148. For discussions of selective parts of this material including
some from Fowler’s study, see Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 7-28; also M. S. Brouskari,
“Ζώδια Λαΐνεα. Nouvelles figures de la fries de l’ Erechtheion,” in M. Schmidt, ed., Kanon: Festschrift
Ernst Berger zum 60. Geburtstag am 26. Februar 1988 gewidmet (Basel, 1988) 60-68. For a discussion of
the latest evidence and updated bibliography with special reference to studies of the reconstruction of the
frieze, see Glowacki 325-331.
554 For a discussion of these characteristics as central to the attribution of sculpture to the frieze of the
Erechtheion, see Glowacki, “A New Fragment of the Erechtheion Frieze” 325; for an example of a
fragment whose under and back sides are both flat, see Glowacki, 326, AS 196, pl. 65. The fragment
“depicts a Corinthian helmet set upon a thick, finished mass, which was modeled to create a slightly
undulating surface apparently intended to represent stone.” As Glowacki remarks, 326, “the bottom surface
is finished completely smooth, while the rear surface is flat and bears traces of a fine-pointed chisel.” For a
fragment that preserves evidence for holes on its under surface (one 0.01 m. in diameter, and six smaller
drill holes each 0.005 m. in diameter) see Fowler, “The Sculptures” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 257, no.
52. This fragment preserves the feet and part of the area above them of a female figure that is dressed in a
chiton and a himation and appears to walk slowly to her right. As Fowler, 326, indicates, the larger hole
contained lead, which functioned as adhesive substance for the iron dowel used to attach the piece to the
surface of the epistyle. Regarding the flat backs of the preserved fragments, Boulter, “The Frieze of the
Erechtheion” 20, maintains that they “were all uniformly worked first with a medium point over the rough
surface of the block as it came from the quarry. But there is a great variety in the degree of subsequent
finishing, perhaps because the work was left to assistants.” For example, the back of the fragmentary torso
of a male figure—Boulter, “The frieze of the Erechtheion” 18, no. AS 158, figs. 15-16—was worked with a
fine point. On the contrary, the back of a fragment preserving the lower portion of a female figure that is
seated on a rock—Boulter 17, no. 12, pl. 28b, fig. 10—appears to have been “first worked with a coarse
point and then smoothed with a claw chisel.” In addition, the back of a fragment that depicts a seated
female figure holding a boy on her lap—Boulter 13, no. 11, pls. 17-18, fig. 3, and 20—“was actually
finished with an abrasive.” Regarding examples of fragments that have a flat back and carry dowel holes,
246, no. 1 of Fowler’s study (246) preserves part of the thigh and adjacent portions of a standing figure
draped with a himation. According to Fowler, 246, “the flat surface at the back is dressed with a point and
chisel….and a dowel hole neatly wrought with a chisel is 0.17 m. from the lower edge.” Finally, it should
be mentioned that the presence of flat back and/or bottom sides and that of dowel holes are not the only
280

suggests a distinctive technique of attachment—also evident on the holes in the
background blocks of the frieze and the top of the epistyle—these fragments have been
attributed to the sculpture of the frieze of the Erechtheion. 555 Because of the flatness of
their bottom and back sides, and also the dowels used to secure them in position against a
background, these fragments have been referred to as appliqués, but their designation as
sculptures in relief is not absent from scholarly discussions. 556 This point aside, the
existence of these fragments is instructive, for it constitutes material evidence that can
help decipher the zw~ia of the Chandler stele.
The subject of the frieze of the Erechtheion is unknown, but the fragments of
sculpture attributed to it show a variety of representations. 557 They depict men, women
and children in different poses—running, sitting, standing— natural features (e.g., rocks,
tree trunks), animals (e.g., horses), and objects (e.g., chairs, helmets). 558 In particular, the
characteristics on the basis of which discovered fragments of sculpture have been assigned to the frieze of
the Erechtheion. As Glowacki, 325, says, criteria, such as technique, material, style, and scale have also
been taken into account.
555 Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 242-243; also Boulter, “The Frieze of the
Erechtheion” 7; Glowacki, “A New Fragment of the Erechtheion Frieze” 325.
556 Appliqué figures: Ridgway, Prayers in Stone 118; Palagia, “Classical Athens,” in Palagia, ed., Greek
Sculpture 143; sculpture in relief: Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 413; Boulter,
“The Erechtheion Frieze” 21. Although referring to images in clay or metal made from a mold, the
statement of Pollitt, Ancient View 288, that “when attached to a flat background,” these images are reliefs,
is helpful.
557 It is assumed that episodes from the life of Erechtheus are depicted, but no definite subject has been
identified. For a discussion of the scholarly attempts to determine the subject of the frieze, see Fowler,
“The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 244, n. 3; also for a recent summary of the topic, Jenkins,
Greek Architecture and Its Sculpture 127.
558 The original height of each piece of sculpture is estimated on the basis of the height of the frieze; for the
pieces of the north portico, where the height of the frieze is 0.683m., it has been suggested that the original
maximum height of each sculpture would have been about 0.65 m., whereas the maximum height of the
sculptures of the cella, where the height of the frieze was 0.617m., would have been slightly shorter, that is,
about 0.58m.: Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 7; also Palagia, “Classical Athens,” in Palagia, ed.,
Greek Sculpture 141.
For a fragment of a female figure running to the left, see Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton ed., The
Erechtheum 247, no. 4, pl. XL; also Boulter 8, no. 4, pls. 1-2. Although referring only to the upper part of
her body, namely, from the neck to the middle of her thighs, evidence that this figure was running is
preserved in the treatment of the chiton she wears. As Boulter 8, observes: “the curious fold of the chiton
on the right thigh, lying across the other drapery lines, not only varies the drapery pattern, but reinforces the
impression of rapid movement.” A now-headless female figure is depicted sitting on a seat “of no definite
281

variety of poses, which has been interpreted as a variety of action, has led to the
suggestion that the subject of the frieze was arranged “in separate groups or scenes rather
than in a continuous representation.” 559
Apart from this material, additional evidence regarding the sculpture of the frieze
of the Erechtheion derives from two fragmentary inscriptions that form part of the
building accounts that date to 408/7 B.C. These inscriptions record the payment that each
sculptor received for the works of sculpture he created. The text of the first of these
inscriptions (XVI, col. I; IG I 3 . 476) runs as follows:
- - the youth who is writing
and the man standing beside him, 120 dr.
- -, living in Kollytos
- - and the wagon without
the two mules, 90 dr.
Agathanor, living in Alopeke,
the two women beside the wagon,
and the two mules, 240 dr.
(IG I 3 . 476 [fr. XVI, col I. 150-157]) [87] 560
shape” and holding a headless naked boy on her lap: Fowler 263, no. 84, pl. XLIV; also Boulter 15, no. 84,
pls. 22, 23a. For a group of two male figures—one standing, the other kneeling in front of him—see
Fowler, 259, no. 66, pl. XLIII, who maintains that the plinth on which the group stands is intended to
imitate rock; also M. Brouskari, The Monuments on the Acropolis (Athens, 1997) 199, fig. 133, which
depicts the group against a dark, almost black background, probably in an attempt to capture the darkness
of the Eleusinian stone of the frieze. Also a group of two fragments depicts a frontal view of a standing
woman from the waist down. Behind the drapery of her garment at her left side is preserved the remnant of
what has been identified as a tree trunk. For this suggestion and an illustration of the figure, see Fowler
262, no. 8, pl. XLIV; also Boulter 9, 78, pls. 3-4; and Brouskari 188, fig. 130. For a fragment of the bodies
of a pair of horses pulling a chariot, see Fowler 267-268, no. 106, pl. XLVI; and also 268, no. 107, pl.
XLVI for a fragment of the broken forelegs and breast of a horse galloping to the left. As for objects,
chairs appear to be repeatedly represented on the sculpture of the frieze. For the depiction of an armchair on
which a female sits by leaning back, see Fowler 263, no. 85, pl. XLIV; also Boulter 12, no. 85, pls. 13-14,
16b. A partially preserved chair of which only the seat and one leg remain is also depicted beside the lower
part of a female figure standing next to it: Fowler 257, no. 56, pl. XLIII, and Boulter 14, no. 56, pls. 21,
23b. For a fragment of a helmet identified as that of Athena and set upon a mass that is thought to
represent stone, see Glowacki, “A New Fragment of the Erechtheion Frieze” 326, pl. 65, figs. a-b.
559 Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 244, who further explains that “some division
of scenes is inevitable in view of the different heights of the frieze of the cella and that of the North
Portico.”
560 This text corresponds to lines 1-8 of the first column of a marble inscribed fragment (XVI) that was
discovered in excavations southeast of the Erechtheum in 1839: Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed.,
The Erechtheum 375, 389. The fragment is part of a larger inscription comprising several fragments (XII-
XXV), some of which (i.e., XIII-XX) follow a stoichedon arrangement. All fragments deal with the
payments of workmen. Fragment XV preserves the name of the archon Euktemon, and, therefore, dates the
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The same type of information is recorded by part of the text of the second of these
inscriptions (XVII, col. I; IG I 3 . 476), which says:
-- the man holding the spear, 60 dr.
Phyromachos of Kephisia,
the youth beside the breast-plate, 60 dr.
Praxias, living in Melite,
the horse and the man appearing behind it 120 dr.
and striking it in the flank,
Antiphanes of Kerameis,
the chariot, and the youth,
and the two horses being harnessed, 240 dr.
Phyromachos of Kiphisia,
the man leading the horse, 60 dr.
Mynnion, living in Argyle,
the horse and the man striking it,
and he later added the stele, 127 dr.
Soklos, living in Alopeke,
the man holding the bridle, 60 dr.
Phyromachos of Kephisia,
the man leaning on a staff
behind the altar,
Iasos of Kollytos, the woman with the
little girl leaning against her, 80 dr.
sum total of payments for sculpture, 3315 dr.
(IG I 3 . 476 [fr. XVII, col. I, 159-181]) [88]
Both inscriptions are instructive, for they provide an insight into what the sculpture of the
frieze represented: human adults and children in different poses, such as leaning on a
staff or against each other, animals, such as mules and horses being harnessed, objects
such as a spear, a breastplate, a wagon, and a bridle, and also features of worship, such as
an altar. What is additionally instructive is that these inscriptions do not speak of
sculptors making a statue of someone or something, but instead someone or something
himself or itself. This mode of expression is crucial, for it suggests that the idea of an
account to 408/7 B.C.: Fowler 371-376. For an additional discussion of the payments of the workmen, see
R. H. Randall, Jr., “The Erechtheion Workmen,” AJA 57 (1953) 199-210.
283

image as an object was not important. 561 At the same time, the descriptions on these
inscriptions suggest that there was no distinction between image and subject, which
accords well with previous evidence for zw|~on. In regards to the variety of action and
also animate and inanimate subjects, the picture that emerges from these inscriptions
appears to be no different from the one formed by the extant sculpture. Given this
evidence, the zw~ia of the Chandler stele, which were to be placed against the Eleusinian
stone of the Erechtheion frieze can be identified with the sculptural representations of this
frieze as described in the inscriptions and preserved in the extant sculpture.
As noted earlier, Caskey defined the zw~ia of the Chandler stele as “figures.”
Although this definition is true, it does not do justice to all subjects represented by the
sculpture of the frieze. As mentioned earlier, the term figure refers to the representation
of a bodily form, especially the human one. In this respect, the translation of zw~ia as
“figures” is restrictive in the sense that it makes one think that human beings and animals
were represented by the sculpture of the frieze. As a result, the application of the modern
term “figures” onto zw~ia tends to dismiss the objects, and both natural and manmade
features that accompanied the human and animal figures placed there. It should be
remembered, however, that in the inscriptions that record the payments of the sculptors,
all objects and features seem to be inseparable elements of the human and animal figures.
More specifically, objects and features not only surround the figures described, but also
mark their specific positions. Two women are described as positioned beside a wagon
and two mules (fr. XVI, col. I, 153-154) [87], a boy behind a breastplate (fr. XVII, col. I,
161) [88], and a man as leaning on a staff beside an altar (XVII, col. I, 177-178) [88]. In
561 For a discussion of this idea, see Donohue, Xoana 23, n. 54.
284

addition, the inscriptions provide instances, in which objects function as attributes of
human figures, and as such, they define the identity of these figures. A man is identified
as the one who holds a spear, and another as the one who holds a bridle (XVII, col. I,
lines 159, 175 respectively) [88]. The view that all objects, features, and figures enjoy
equal status as subjects of the sculpture of the frieze is also supported by the extant
fragments, which, as was mentioned earlier, depict human figures in various poses and in
the presence of various objects and features, such as chairs, helmets, and tree trunks, and
also animal figures, such as horses.
In light of this combined evidence, the zw~ia of the Chandler stele should be
understood as representations of both human and animal figures, objects, and natural and
man-made features, or, more generally, of both animate and inanimate subjects. It may
be more accurate to suggest that zw~ia referred generally to all figural sculpture that
decorated the frieze of the Erechtheion. This general sense is reinforced by the fact that
the Chandler stele does not yield any information about the appearance of zw~ia. In this
way, the term is used in a way similar to that seen in the texts of Empedocles and
Herodotus. Another similarity with these texts is also witnessed in the fact that by
equating zw~ia with the figural sculpture of the frieze of a temple, such as the
Erechtheion, the inscription establishes a context for zw~ia that is directly involved with
the arts and sits in a religious setting.
In addition, and also in compliance with previous treatment, if one is to consider
here the centrality of the notion of living as seen in the previously discussed etymology
of zw|~on, then it may be suggested that these zw~ia were perceived as representations of
both animate and inanimate subjects borrowed from the surrounding (sensible) world.
285

That these subjects were still included under the blanket of one and the same term, further
suggests that they were seen as sharing a common characteristic; therefore, forming a
group of similar things despite their perceived differences in essence.
The next appearance of zw~ia in the building accounts of the Erechtheion is again
in connection with the frieze of the building. The term appears on an opisthographic
fragment (VIII= IG I 3 . 475) that like the Chandler stele, dates to 409/8 B.C., but has been
considered an addition to the report of the commissioners appearing on that stele. 562 The
fragment, which is one of five of a larger inscription (VIII-XII), preserves on its obverse
(VIIIA) a text, now restored, which regards payments for specific operations associated
with the construction of the frieze.
[- - - Stone-work. Payments for the setting in place and the
dressing of the top surface of the blocks of Eleusinian stone
against which ta& zw~ia (are to be placed) and their
backing stones.] (IG I 3 . 475 [fr. VIII A]) [86]
The passage opens with reference to payments for the setting (qe/sewj) and dressing
(e0pergasi/aj) of the blocks of Eleusinian stone, which, as was seen in the previous
inscription, refers to the background blocks of the frieze of the Erechtheion. 563 Equally
restored is the phrase “against which” (pro&j w{i), which as was also seen previously,
suggests that zw~ia were set against the backdrop of the frieze. If this restoration is
correct, the repetition of the distinctive method of attachment between the Eleusinian
562 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 323.
563 According to Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 344, the term qe/sewj does not
simply mean the setting in place of the stones, but “it includes any final chiseling that might be found
necessary after the block had been hoisted, to secure perfect jointing,” and also “the cutting of the holes for
the clamps and dowels, the insertion of these, and the fastening of them by means of molten lead.” Also,
the objective of dressing (e0pergasi/a) “was to secure a perfectly level and even bed for the next course to
be laid,” whereas “the preposition e0pi/ [which follows] shows that it was the top surface which received this
dressing.”
286

stone and zw~ia suggests a standard element of the stock language of the inscriptions
referring to the frieze. Additional evidence regarding this part of the Erechtheion is
witnessed in the use of the term a)ntiqema&twn, which, on the basis of its occurrence in
other inscriptions, is taken to mean the backing blocks of the frieze of a building. 564 Put
together, all this evidence confirms that the architectural part to which the inscription
refers is the frieze of the Erechtheion.
Like the zw~ia of the previous inscription, Caskey translates these zw~ia, which
were also to be placed against the Eleusinian stone of the background of the frieze, as
“figures.” 565 As was the case with the earlier zw~ia, the inscription employs again the
word in the plural form, and yields no information regarding their appearance. In this
way, the impression that zw~ia was a term of general description is once again reinforced.
In view of the association of zw~ia with the frieze of the Erechtheion as established in the
previous inscription, and also their meaning as sculptural representations of animate and
inanimate subjects taken, most likely, from the surrounding world, the current zw~ia
appear to carry the same meaning. In this way, the use of zw~ia in a context directly
connected with the visual arts and experienced in a religious setting is once again
confirmed.
The next two fragmentary inscriptions, which belong to the building accounts of
the Erechtheion that date to 408/7 B.C., attest to the use of the word zw&idia instead of
564 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 343, n. 1, explains that the term refers to the
non-visible blocks of the frieze, that is the ones to which the slabs of Eleusinian stone were attached. In
support of his point, he provides a series of inscriptions from: 1) another fragment of the building accounts
of the Erechtheion (X, col. II, I. 9), 2) Troezen (IG IV, 823, l.69), and 3) Didyma (IG II, 834b, l. 21), all of
which point to the meaning of the term as the backing stones of the frieze of a building.
565 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, The Erechtheum 327.
287

zw~ia. The first of these fragments (XIII, col. II; IG I 3 . 476), whose text is restored,
records payments
for taking down and carrying away the scaffolding
from the north wall, from which
the zw&idia were fastened in place,
to six men; to Prepon, 3 ob.; to Medos, 3 ob.;
to Apollodoros, 3 ob.; to - - -, 3 ob.;
to - - -, 3 ob.; - - - - - -
(IG I 3 . 476 [fr. XIII, col II, 135-140]) [89]
The operation recorded in this inscription refers to the removing of the scaffolding used
for the placement of zw&idia on the north wall of a building, which has been identified
with the Erechtheion. 566 Caskey translates zw&idia, which is restored except for its first
letter, as “figures of the frieze.” 567 As noted earlier in connection with Herodotus’ krater,
zw&idia is considered to be the diminutive of zw|~on. 568 On the basis of this observation,
Caskey’s translation of zw&idia should read “little figures,” but as can be seen, he omits
the association with size. Anastasios Orlandos and John Travlos, in contrast, include this
inscription in their discussion of the word zw|&dion, which they consider the diminutive
form of zw|~on; their translation of zw|&dion, however, favors a completely different
definition, that of “a small painted or sculptured picture.” 569 There is nothing in the
inscription under discussion, however, to support the idea that these zw&idia referred to
small painted or sculptured pictures or even figures. The inscription makes use of the
plural form of the word, which indicates more than one item, but does not describe what
these zw&idia looked like. In this respect, zw&idia appears to be a term of general
566
Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 416.
567
Caskey, “The inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 387, 413.
568 9
LSJ , 758, s.v. zw|&dion; also for –idion as a standard suffix of neuter diminutives, see Smyth, Greek
Grammar 235.
569
A. K. Orlandos and J. N. Travlos, Dictionary of Ancient Architectural Terms (Athens, 1986) 123, s.v.
zw|&dion.
288

description for something, and therefore, reminiscent of the zw~ia of the previous
inscriptions and also Herodotus’ zw|&dia. Further, the reference of the inscription to the
use of scaffolding for the placement of these zw&idia on the building suggests that they
were some type of architectural or decorative elements added separately to the structure
of the Erechtheion. In this way, zw&idia again appear to share a common element with
the earlier zw~ia, which were carved separately and then pegged to the bottom and back
surfaces of the frieze. The impression of zw&idia being used as architectural of
decorative elements establishes a context directly associated with the visual arts, and
therefore, in agreement with that of the previously seen zw~ia.
Given this closeness between zw&idia and zw~ia, and in view of the earlier
association of zw~ia with representations of both animate and inanimate subjects taken
from the real world, and employed in the sculpture of the frieze of the Erechtheion, it is
likely that these zw&idia stood for representations of the type designated by the earlier
zw~ia, but of smaller size. Critical for the notion of size as being central to the meaning
of zw&idia is the fact that, in this inscription, the location of zw&idia is specified as “on
the north wall.” This is the side of the Erechtheion where the discrepancy in size
between the frieze of the cella and that of the north porch is clearly witnessed. As
recorded, the height of the blocks that form the background of the frieze of the cella is
0.617m., whereas that of the blocks of the frieze of the north portico, 0.683m. This
discrepancy applies also to the respective sculpture of these essentially two friezes. It has
been estimated that the maximum height of the sculptures adorning the frieze of the cella
289

must have been 0.58m., whereas that of the north portico 0.65m. 570 When taken this
evidence into account, it is possible to speculate that the zw&idia of the inscription
referred to the smaller of the sculptures that formed the decoration of the friezes of north
wall of the Erechtheion. These sculptures would correspond to those of the frieze of the
cella.
The second of the inscriptions (XVII; col. II; IG I 3 . 476) that attests to the use of
the word zw&idia in the building accounts of the Erechtheion (408/7 B.C.), records
purchases of specific materials for operations related to the frieze of the building:
two talents of lead were bought
for the fastening of zwidi/wn,
from Sostratos, living in Melite. 10 dr.
(IG I 3 . 476 [fr. XVII, col. II, 296-299]) [90]
Zwidi/wn is the genitive plural of zw&idia and belongs to a restored section of the
inscription. As was mentioned earlier, zw&idia are the diminutive form of zw~ia, which
automatically qualifies these zwidi/wn to be read as “of little zw~ia.” Like the previous
inscription, however, this one does not comment on the appearance of zwidi/wn, which
again makes it difficult to gain an understanding of their meaning. This lack of
description in combination with the use of the plural reinforces the impression that
zwidi/wn was a term of general description for a group of things. What helps understand
what were these things is the clear statement of the inscription that lead was purchased
and used in the fastening (pro&sqesin) of these zwidi/wn. Judging from the extant
archaeological evidence, which refers to the widened bottom surface of the frieze of the
570 For the height of the blocks, see Fowler, “The Sculpture,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 239; for the
height of the sculptures, see Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 7; Palagia, “Classical Athens,” in
Palagia, ed., Greek Sculpture 141.
290

Erechtheion, and also fragments of its sculpture, lead was indeed used as adhesive for
fixing dowels in the holes cut in both the blocks and sculpture employed in this part of
the building. 571 Given this evidence, zwidi/wn can be understood as the sculptures placed
on the bottom and against the back sides of the frieze of the building. It is probably
because of this evidence that, unlike his previous consistent translation of both zw&idia
and zw~ia as “figures,” Caskey translates these zwidi/wn as “sculptures,” which implies
identification with objects rather than with images or subjects. 572 Although fitting and in
accordance with the general sense detected in the meaning of zwidi/wn, this translation
verifies the artistic context for the use of the term, but does not take into account an
aspect of zwidi/wn that clearly stands out: their fastening. The word pro&sqesin, which
indicates this technical aspect, also carries the meaning of “addition.” 573 As such it
qualifies zw&idia as sculptures added, in the sense of being attached to a surface,
therefore indicating their place in relation to the surrounding structure. Such evidence
may mean that apart from or along with implying small size, zw&idia were also
understood as appliqué sculptures. This evidence brings to mind the bronze works
riveted on the krater from Vix and those from Trebenishte, thus suggesting that the
material of manufacture was not central to the meaning of zw|&dion in the fifth century.
571 The bottom blocks of the frieze should be equated with the top surface of the architrave, which
functioned as the floor on which the sculpture of the frieze was placed. Fowler, “The Sculptures,” in Paton,
ed., The Erechtheum 243, n. 4, maintains that remnants of lead have been found in both the holes in the
surface of the architrave and in the extant sculpture: “there are also in the top of the architrave numerous
small round holes, and similar holes, some of which contain remains of iron pins or plugs and of lead, are
found in a few fragments of sculpture.” Boulter, “The Frieze of the Erechtheion” 20, states that a pour
channel—generally round and rather narrow—was required to allow the lead to flow into the dowel hole.
As an example she offers (20, fig. 23) an unpublished fragment of a female figure discovered on the north
slope of the Acropolis.
572 Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in Paton, ed., The Erechtheum 397.
573 LSJ 9 , 1514, s.v.pro&sqesij.
291

Although dating to the third century B.C., explicit evidence in support of this
point comes from two votive objects which, in the inventory lists from Delos, are called
zw&idia. The first is a combination of two silver figurines, one of Apollo, the other of
Artemis, mounted on a wooden base, and dedicated by a woman called Kleino in the
temple of Artemis. The second is a dedication of a man called Apollodoros described as
“two zw&idia on a semi-circular surface” that was kept at the temple of Apollo. 574 The
fact that the third-century Delian zw&idia were made of silver, whereas those of the fifth-
century frieze of the Erechtheion were made of marble, indicates with certainty that the
material of manufacture was not a determining factor in the meaning of the term zw&idia.
In sum, the meaning and usage of zw~ia and zw&idia in the inscriptions of the
building accounts of the Erechtheion can be described in the following way: Zw~ia are
figural images (representations) of animate and inanimate subjects taken from the real
world and referring to the sculptural composition of the Erechtheion frieze. In this way,
zw~ia appear to be directly connected with the visual arts set in a religious context as
indicated by the designation of the Erechtheion as a temple. The inscriptions also refer to
the sculpture of the frieze of this building as zw&idia. This term, which is the diminutive
form of zw~ia, designated zw~ia of small size that were employed in the frieze of the
574 On the basis of thirteen different surviving inventories that date from 279 to 145 B.C., E. Kosmetatou,
“Zw&idia in the Delian Inventory Lists,” Mnemosyne 57 (2002) 482, provides a composite description of
the text referring to the silver figurines as: “Two silver figurines of Apollo and Artemis on a wooden base,
unweighed. Inscription: Kleino, daughter of Admetos to Apollo and Artemis as fulfillment of a vow.” She
does specify, 482, however, that the phrase “on a wooden base” does not start to appear on the lists until
195 B.C. This is also the year, when the term zw&idia for these figurines switches to andria&ntia and
andrianti&dia. As for the second dedication and its reference to a semi-circular surface, she suggests, 483,
that “we know that semi-circular exedrae were in vogue as bases for group monuments in Greek
sanctuaries.” For additional discussion regarding the occurrence of zw&idia in the Delian inventory lists,
see M. C. Hellmann, Recherches sur le vocabulaire de l’ architecture grecque d’après les inscriptions de
Délos (Paris, 1992) 120, n. 9.
292

uilding, and also marked a technical aspect of them, namely, their fastening to the
background blocks of the frieze by means of iron dowels fixed in place with lead. The
extant sculpture attests, first, to this unusual method of attachment for the sculptured
pieces of the frieze, and, second, to the variety of both animate and inanimate subjects
represented by these pieces. The translations of both zw~ia and zw&idia as “figures” and
“pictures” indicate how entrenched these latter terms are in our descriptive vocabulary of
ancient works of art; it should be remembered, however, that such translations do not
capture accurately the meaning that these terms carried when used in fifth-century
contexts directly involved with the visual arts.
Taken together, the evidence from the literary texts and inscriptions of the fifth
century B.C. indicates that the word zw|~on and its derivative zw|&dion when used in direct
association with the visual arts as defined by painting sculpture, bronze-work, and textiles
held the meanings of “image,” “subject of representation” “representation of both
animate and inanimate subjects taken from real life,” and “decorative element.” The
fifth-century use of zw|~on indicates that no importance was placed on the distinction
between image and subject in contemporary Greece, while that of zw|&dion points out that
this was a term closely associated with the method of fastening images to a background
as part of creating works of art in various media, such as bronze-work and sculpture.
Contrary to the idea that fifth-century arguments about images in Greece are scarce, the
usage of the word in the literary texts and inscriptions examined here indicates that there
was a distinct vocabulary about the visual arts in fifth-century Greece. 575
575 For a discussion of the idea that “evidence for fifth-century arguments about images is scarce,” see
Halliwell, “Plato and Painting,” in Rutter and Sparkes, eds., Word and Image in Ancient Greece 100.
293

3. Zw|~on in the Fourth Century B.C.
The word zw|~on in association with the arts appears in four fourth-century
authors: Plato, Alcidamas, Aristotle, and Philemon. As was the case in the previous
century, the term does not carry a single meaning, but rather multiple nuanced ones, such
as “image,” “subject of representation,” “finished product of an artistic process,” “figural
image,” and also “image held by memory.” The majority of these meanings occurs
within the context of specialized discussions of painting and sculpture, thus suggesting
that the term was part of the professional vocabulary of the arts.
Plato
The first fourth-century author to use zw|~on in a context that directly involved the
visual arts is Plato. The word appears ten times in four of his dialogues and demonstrates
its application to the painting of both pictures and statuary. Zw|~on appears first in the
Cratylus, in which it carries the meaning of the finished product of painting. The
Cratylus is a discussion among three persons—Cratylus, Hermogenes, and Socrates on
the subjects of etymology and correctness of names. Socrates speaks of the processes of
painting and forming words:
SOCRATES. Just as painters (zwgra&foi), when they wish to produce an
imitation, sometimes use only red, sometimes, some other color, and sometimes
mix many colors, as when they are making a picture of a man or something of that
sort, employing each color, I suppose, as they think the particular picture demands
it. In just this way we, too, shall apply letters to things, using one letter for one
thing, when that seems to be required, or many letters together, forming syllables,
as they are called, and in turn combining syllables, and by their combination
forming nouns and verbs. And from nouns and verbs again we shall finally
construct something great and fair and complete. Just as in our comparison we
made the zw|~on by the art of painting (grafikh|~), so now we shall make language
by the art of naming, or of rhetoric, or whatever it be. (Cra. 424d-425a) [141]
294

Socrates likens the use of colors by painters to create pictures to the use of letters and
syllables by speakers, like himself and his interlocutors, to create words. His line of
thinking suggests a successive process, which, in the context of linguistics, terminates in
language and, in the context of painting, in a zw|~on. This evidence defines the singular
zw|~on as the finished product of the artistic process of painting, and establishes its direct
connection with the realm of the arts. What the passage does not clarify, however, is
whether this zw|~on refers to the object, image, or representational subject created by
means of painting. This lack of distinction between object, image, and subject is
reminiscent of the description of the zwia on the Erechtheion inscriptions. In Plato’s
passage, Socrates conceives of both language and zw|~on as great, fair, and complete. The
translation of the passage introduces a break between the reference to these qualities and
the terms “language” and zw|~on, but the ancient text shows uninterrupted speech.
Therefore, the epithet “complete” (o3lon) can also apply to zw|~on, a situation, which
strengthens the meaning of the term as the finished product of painting. Similarly, the
epithets “great” (me/ga) and “fair” (kalo_n) can also apply to zw|~on, and therefore, qualify
it as a splendid construction. Me/ga brings to mind the mega&la zw|~a in Herodotus’
description of the pyramid in Egypt. As was seen then, the word is a cognate of me/geqoj,
whose meaning in connection with the visual arts is twofold: a) literal, that is, “size,
stature,” and b) metaphorical, that is, “greatness, grandeur, and majesty.” 576 That me/ga
is applicable to both language and zw|~on—an intangible and tangible construct
respectively—suggests that the metaphorical meaning of the word is more apt here.
Kalo_n is affiliated, both etymologically and semantically, with the concept of ka&lloj,
576 Pollitt, Ancient View 199-200.
295

that is, “beauty.” 577 Both the concepts of greatness and beauty feature prominently in the
critical vocabulary of the visual arts in the Classical period to such an extent that their
pairing has been suggested to form an idiomatic phrase: ka&lloj kai/ me/geqoj. 578 In light
of this evidence, the connection of zw|~on with the visual arts is enhanced not only through
its meaning as the final product of painting, but also through its specific qualities of
greatness and beauty.
Despite the situation, instances where the meaning of this zw|~on has been
considered independently of its context are not absent. David Reeve, for example,
translates the word as “animal.” 579 Harold Fowler, in contrast, considers zw|~on along
with grafikh|~ and te&xnh; therefore, he translates zw|~on as a “picture,” made by the “art
of painting.” 580 In agreement with him is David Sedley, who notes that zw|~on is not an
“animal,” as suggested by Reeve, but a “picture,” which can be also understood as
“complete scenes.” 581 The translations of Fowler and Sedley suggest that the context of
painting has been considered crucial in their proposed definition of zw|~on as “picture.”
Considering that modern “picture,” however, is a term with multiple meanings, it is
difficult to determine which meaning these translators have applied here. 582 Only when
reduced to its modern definition of “a representation (as of a person, landscape, building)
577
Pollitt, Ancient View 191-194.
578
Pollitt, Ancient View 193, 200.
579
C. D. C. Reeve, tr., Plato. Cratylus (Indianapolis, 1998) 71.
580
H. N. Fowler, ed., tr., Plato. Cratylus. Parmenides. Greater Hippias. Lesser Hippias (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1963) 141.
581
D. Sedley, Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge, 2003) 128, n. 10.
582
Gove, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1711, s.v. picture: a) the act, process, or art of
painting, b) representation by painting, c) a representation (as of a person, landscape, building) on canvas,
paper, or other surface produced by painting, drawing, engraving, or photography, d) such representation as
a work of art, e) a description so vivid or graphic as to suggest a mental image or give an accurate idea of
the thing described, f) something that by its likeness vividly suggests some other thing, that is, copy, g) a
concrete embodiment of an abstraction as illusion or symbol, h) a transitory visible image or reproduction
due to the working of physical laws or made by utilizing such laws.
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on a surface produced by painting,” their “picture” appears semantically closer to this
zw|~on. In addition, Sedley’s paraphrase “complete scenes” may be seen as an attempt to
retain the aspect of completion in zw|~on, and is certainly preferable to Reeve’s “animal,”
but it is still an unsuitable modern equivalent of the ancient term.
Turning to the vocabulary of the passage, the terms that directly connect zw|~on to
painting are grafikh|~ te&xnh, literally meaning “the art of painting,” and zwgra&foi, that
is, painters. The first brings immediately to mind the words graptoi=j, e0ggra&fein and
graya&menoj, used by Empedocles and Herodotus in reference to painting and in direct
connection with zw|~a as painted images of some kind, resist-dyed decorations applied on
fabric, and also the historical subject of Mandrocles’ painting. These meanings do not
fall into the semantic range of the present zw|~on, but their sharing of a common context
with it—painting—highlights the dominance of this artistic process in dissociating zw|~on
from the meaning of “animal” in fifth- and fourth-century contexts directly associated
with the arts.
Further indication of this dominance can be seen in Plato’s use of the word
zwgra&foi for painters. The word appears numerous times in his dialogues, as, for
example, in Gorgias, where the status of Zeuxis as a painter is singled out and explained
as “o( ta_ zw|~a gra&fwn” (453c). Literally meaning “the one who paints zw|~a,” this
phrase is informative, for it, first, explains the etymology of the singular zwgra&foj—
painter, and second, defines zw|~a as the creations of his craft. 583 The phrase does not
distinguish among object, image and subject. As such, it supports the general meaning of
zw|~a as works produced by means of painting.
583 Also in the Sophist, where within the context of the art of painting, that is, grafikh|~ te&xnh| (234b) the
painter is coined poihth&j zw|&wn, that is, “maker of zw|&wn” (234a). For a brief discussion of this term, see
E. C. Keuls, Plato and Greek Painting (Leiden, 1978) 42.
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Additional evidence for these meanings of zw|~a and zwgra&foi in Plato is found
in the Cratylus, where Socrates describes different categories of painters and their
paintings as analogous to those of builders and their buildings:
SOCRATES. Some painters (zwgra&foi) are better, and others worse, are they
not?
CRATYLUS. Certainly.
SOCRATES. And the better produce better works (kalli/w)—that is, their
zw|~a—and the others worse works (faulo&tera)? And likewise some builders
build better houses and others worse? (Cra. 429a) [142]
Socrates divides painters and builders into good and bad on the basis of the quality of the
works they produce. He uses the plural zw|~a to refer to the works of painters in general,
but he does not state whether these zw|~a should be understood as objects or images. Both
Fowler and Reeve translate these zw|~a as “paintings.” 584 The general sense of the
meaning of zw|~a as “paintings” is also supported by Socrates’ assertion that zw|~a can be
both the finer (kalli/w) and worse works (faulo&tera) of analogous painters. This
evidence shows clearly that, in the context of fourth-century painting, the meaning of
zw|~a as “paintings” was not bound to any notion of quality.
The next occurrence of zw|~on in connection with painting in Plato is in the
Republic. Here the word refers to the subject represented by a work of sculpture; it is
used in a passage, in which Socrates explains to Adeimantus that in order to create a
happy state, all citizens and not only a small group of them, namely, the guardians must
be happy. To support his argument, he starts from the opposite premise, that is, the
584 Fowler, Plato. Cratylus 153; Reeve, Plato. Cratylus 76.
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outstanding allotment of happiness to the guardians. He compares this condition to a
hypothetically unsuited choice of color for the painting of the eyes of a statue:
What we are doing at the moment, we believe, is not separating off a few of the
inhabitants, and making them happy, but constructing a complete city, and making
that happy. We’ll have a look at its opposite later. Imagine we were putting the
colors [gra&fontaj] on a[n] a)ndria&nta, and someone came along and told us
we were doing it wrong, since we weren’t using the most beautiful colors for the
most beautiful parts of the zw|&ou. The eyes, the most beautiful feature, had been
colored black, not purple. We would regard it as a quite reasonable defense to say
to him: “Hang on a minute. You surely don’t think, do you, that we should make
the eyes—or any of the other parts of the body—so beautiful that they don’t even
look like eyes. The thing to ask yourself is whether by giving the right colors to
everything we are making the whole thing beautiful.” It’s the same with us. You
mustn’t start forcing us to give the guardians the kind of happiness which will
turn them into anything other than guardians. (Resp. 420c) [148]
In this passage, Socrates uses the word gra&fontaj to refer to the application of colors
on an a)ndria&nta. The latter is the accusative singular of a)ndria&j, a word which,
according to Gloria Ferrari, can be understood as “figure of manhood,” and its material
equivalent can be found in the kouros type in sculpture. 585 As she explains further:
“although from the fifth century B.C. onward, this word is used to mean “statue”—seated
as well as standing female as well as male—there are indications that it carried special
connotations involving manliness and Apollo.” 586 Regarding the meaning of the word in
the passage, Reginald Allen, Tom Griffith, and Paul Shorey agree on the meaning of
a)ndria&nta as “statue.” Griffith, in particular, translates it as “statue of a man.” 587
Liddell and Scott point out the etymological connection of a)ndria&j with a)nh&r, that is,
585 Ferrari, Figures of Speech 125-126, ns. 76-77 where she discusses material and literary evidence for the
occurrence of the word, such as the colossal Apollo dedicated by the Naxians on Delos which is called
a)ndria&j in the inscription on its base, and also ancient writers, such as Herodotus (6.118.12) and Diodorus
Siculus (13.108.4.1), who mention a)ndria&ntej representing Apollo.
586 Ferrari, Figures of Speech 125, n. 75, citing Philipp, Tektonon Daidala 106-107, for the meaning of the
word as a statue of both a male and female figure.
587 R. E. Allen, tr., Plato. The Republic (New Haven and London, 2006) 112; T. Griffith, tr., Plato. The
Republic (Cambridge, 2000) 112; P. Shorey, ed., tr., Plato. The Republic I (London and Cambridge, Mass.,
1930; repr. 1963) 319.
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“man,” and state that the former refers to statues of both male and female figures, and
also gods. 588 Given Ferrari’s suggestion, this a)ndria&j can be understood as a statue of a
man, most likely, of the type known as kouros. The painting of its eyes is the context of
the passage. The use of zw|&ou within this context again highlights the connection of this
term with the visual arts, thus suggesting its meaning as other than “animal” and it allied
notions. Despite this evidence, Griffith translates zw|&ou as “living creature.” Allen, on
the other hand, takes it to mean “statue” and Shorey “image.” 589 The latter, although
fitting, does not help to come closer to the ancient meaning of the word. Allen’s
conflation of a)ndria&nta and zw|&ou with “statue” gives the impression that both terms
designate one and the same thing, but their usage within the same sentence suggests
otherwise. Plato uses a)ndria&j in order to introduce the act of painting a statue, and
zw|~on to refer to the application of colors to a specific bodily part: its eyes. The shift
from one term to the other occurs within a description, which moves from the designation
of a type of a statue (kouros) to details of its embellishment. This evidence reinforces the
impression that zw|&ou was not equal to “statue,” but directly associated with the eyes of
whom the a)ndria&j represented. Therefore, this zw|&ou seems to apply to the subject that
is being represented by a work of sculpture. What this meaning brings to mind is the
similar use of zw|~on by Herodotus when referring to the subject, the rider represented by
the sculpture of Darius, and also the zw|~a of Mandrocles’ painting depicting the bridging
of the Bosporus by Darius. The application of the term to both works of sculpture and
painting suggests that the term was not bound to a specific medium or artistic process. In
addition, the fact that no details of the appearance of this zw|&ou are provided again
588 LSJ 9 , 128, s.v. a)ndria&j.
589 Griffith, Plato. The Republic 112; Allen, Plato. The Republic 112; Shorey, Plato. The Republic 319.
300

indicates that it was a term of general description for a subject of representation in
sculpture. This evidence expands the previously encountered meaning of zw|~on in Plato
as the object or image produced by means of painting.
The presence of zw|~on in the company of a)ndria&j also appears in another
passage from the Republic, in which zw|~on is used as a blanket term for images in
sculpture. Here Socrates asks Glaucon to construct mentally the picture of people living
as chained prisoners in a subterranean cave. These people are prevented from looking
anywhere other than ahead, but have light from a distant fire burning behind and above
them. In the space between them and the fire, but on a higher level, is a road along which
a low wall has been built. In addition to this image, Socrates asks Glaucon to
picture also, along the length of the wall, people carrying all sorts of implements
which project above it, and a)ndria&ntaj and a1lla zw|~a made of stone and wood
and all kinds of materials (pantoi=a ei0rgasme/na). As you’d expect, some of the
people carrying the objects are speaking, while others are silent.
(Resp. 514c-515a) [149]
Regarding the meaning of a)ndria&ntaj in the passage, Shorey, suggests that it should be
understood as “human images,” Griffith as “statues of people,” and Allen as “statues of
men.” 590 The previously seen meaning of a)ndria&j as “a figure of manhood” and its
connection with statuary of the kouros type make certain that the context of the passage
directly involved the visual arts. As for the term zw|~a, all three translators agree on its
meaning as “animals,” with Shorey, in particular, suggesting “shapes of animals.” 591 It
seems that the meaning of “animals” for zw|~a has been fueled by the belief that this term
contrasts with the perceived meaning of a)ndria&ntaj as “statues of human figures.”
590 Shorey, Plato. The Republic 121; Griffith, Plato. The Republic 220; Allen, Plato. The Republic 227.
591 Shorey, Plato. The Republic 121; Griffith, Plato. The Republic 220; Allen, Plato. The Republic 227.
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Considering that the context of the visual arts has been previously seen to dissociate
zw|~on from “animal,” these zw|~a, whose context is suggestive of the visual arts, do not
necessarily have to mean “animals” or “shapes of animals.” That they were made of
stone and wood and existed in the company of statues suggests that they were
representations of some kind in two different materials; therefore, their designation as
“shapes,” although inaccurate, deserves some merit. The phrase pantoi=a ei0rgasme/na,
that immediately follows, has been taken to mean that these zw|~a were made of “all other
materials” too, but “fashioned in all sorts of ways” is a more accurate translation. 592
Thus, apart from being images of some kind in stone and wood, these zw|~a were also the
products of various processes or techniques. This evidence indicates that the word was
not restricted with respect to the material or mode of manufacture of the pieces to which
it was applied.
One aspect that deserves further attention is the phrasing “a)ndria&ntaj kai\ a1lla
zw|~a.” The word “other,” which defines zw|~a, is important for it allows the latter to be
understood as a wider category or images to which a)ndria&ntej belonged. This evidence
qualifies zw|~a as a blanket term for images in sculpture, not necessarily for the subject of
representation in sculpture as held by the previous zw|~on in the company of a)ndria&j.
This nuance in the meaning of Plato’s zw|~on within the context of visual arts is crucial,
for it again reveals the Greek tendency not to distinguish between image and subject.
Additional evidence for this tendency in connection with zw|~on derives from a
passage of Plato’s Politicus (Statesman), whose topic is expert knowledge of the just
592 For the translation “all kinds of materials,” see Griffith, Plato. The Republic 220.
302

government of the state. Four persons participate in this dialogue—Socrates, Theodorus
of Cyrene, a Stranger, and Socrates the Younger. The word occurs twice in a passage in
which the Stranger highlights the incomplete state of his conversation with the younger
Socrates:
So we have made our discourse too long and after all have never made an end of
the tale, but our talk, just like a zw|~on, seems to have a good enough outline
(e1cwqen me\n perigrafh_n), but not yet to have received the clearness
[e0na&rgeian] that comes from pigments and the blending of colors. And yet it is
more fitting to portray (dhlou~n) any zw|~on by speech and argument than by
painting (grafh~j) or any handicraft (xeirourgi/aj) whatsoever to persons who
are able to follow the argument; but to others it is better to do it by means of
works of craftsmanship (dia_ xeirourgiw~n). (Plt. 277c) [146]
Plato’s Stranger describes the incomplete state of his discussion with the younger
Socrates as analogous to the artistic rendering of a zw|~on, whose outline is sketched, but
the application of colors to it has not yet been completed. 593 Harold Fowler translates this
zw|~on as a “picture of a living thing,” and Christopher Rowe as a “portrait.” 594 Within
this context, which points to painting and thus to the visual arts, the meaning of the first
zw|~on is not easy to determine. It can be understood both as an incomplete (just the
outline of an) image or subject of representation, underscoring again the tendency not to
distinguish between image and subject. Either way, the aspect of incompleteness that
dominates both possibilities is essential, for it contrasts with the previously seen meaning
of zw|~on as the finished product of painting. What this contrast reveals is that different
stages of the process employed for the production of a work of art to which zw|~on
referred did not affect the meaning of the word in the fourth century.
593 For a discussion of the connection between the notion of “outline sketchily,” and the ancient term
skiagraphia, see Keuls, Plato and Greek Painting 75.
594 H. Fowler, ed., tr., Plato. The Statesman. Philebus (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1925; repr. 1962)
77; C. J. Rowe, tr., Statesman, in J. M. Cooper, ed., Plato. Complete Works (Indianapolis and Cambridge,
1997) 319.
303

As for the second zw|~on of the passage, it has been taken to mean “living
being.” 595 The word is mentioned within a context that connects it directly to the art of
rhetoric as seen in speech and argument and also to that of painting: “it is more fitting to
portray (dhlou~n) any zw|~on by speech and argument than by painting.” 596 The word
dhlou~n suggests a direct link with the notion of “showing;” as such, it implies that zw|~on
was shown or presented to listeners and spectators, therefore, its meaning is fitting as that
of the subject of discussion and representation respectively. Such evidence accords well
with Else’s demonstration of the notion of mimesis as being rooted in the concept of
“mimicry” or the vocal and active imitation of voices and movement, and its application
to material “images” in Plato’s time 597 ; as such, it suggests that zw|~on carries a direct
connection with mimesis here. The meaning of this zw|~on as the subject of
representation, when juxtaposed with the ambivalent meaning of the first zw|~on, which
oscillated between the notions of image and subject, suggests that when used in an artistic
context, the term did not have a fixed meaning, but rather mirrored the tendency to leave
unmarked the distinction between image and subject.
Further evidence for zw|~on in direct association with the arts is found in a section
of the Laws, in which the term refers to the subject of representation in a work of art.
Three persons—Kleinias from Crete, Megalus from Sparta, and an unnamed Athenian—
595 Fowler, Plato. The Statesman 77, and Rowe, Statesman, in Cooper, ed., Plato Complete Works 319,
translate the second zw|~on of this passage as “living being” and “living beings” respectively.
596 For a discussion of the analogy between the words of sophists and the images of painters in ancient
Greece, see J. P. Vernant, “The Birth of Images,” in F. I. Zeitlin, ed., Mortals and Immortals. Collected
Essays (Princeton, 1992) 172-173.
597 Else, “‘Imitation’ in the Fifth Century” 87, where he traces the meaning of mimesis to the concept of
mimicry, more specifically, “the rendering of characteristic look, action, or sound through human means”
and further states that by the time Plato was born, “the concept of mimicry was transferred to material
“images”: pictures, statues, and the like.”
304

form a group of discussants on the subject of laws and constitutions of the ideal state.
The use of zw|~on occurs twice in the context of a discussion between the Athenian and
Kleinias on the criticism of the arts:
ATHENIAN. There are of course myriad images (a)peikasi/ai) which are visible
to our eye.
KLEINIAS. Yes.
ATHENIAN. What then, if someone doesn’t know what each of the bodies of the
memimhme/nwn is? Would he ever know what is correctly executed in them? What
I mean is something like this: doesn’t he have to know whether the imitation
captures the number and the arrangement of each of the parts, how many there are
and how they fit next to one another in the appropriate order, and also the colors
and shapes, or whether all these things have been put together in a confused way?
Do you think someone can ever know these things if he is completely ignorant of
what is the memimhme/non zw|~on?
KLEINIAS. How could he?
ATHENIAN. What if we were to know that the gegramme/non and peplasme/non
is a human being, and that all his own parts, colors, and shapes have been
captured by the art? Does it follow necessarily that whoever knows about these
things also readily knows whether the work is beautiful or just where it is
deficient in beauty?
KLEINIAS. That would mean, stranger, that all of us, so to speak, know what is
beautiful in any zw|&wn.
ATHENIAN. What you say is very correct. Isn’t it the case, then, that with
regard to each image (ei0ko&na), in grafikh|~ and in music and in all the rest, the
person who is going to be a prudent judge must have three kinds of knowledge?
He must know first what the thing is, and then know how correctly, and then—the
third thing—how well, any of the images (ei0ko&nwn) of it in words, tunes, and
rhythms are produced. (Leg. 668c-669b) [144]
By marking the abundance of images in the surrounding culture, the opening statement of
the Athenian expresses a concern with the visual arts. This concern is reiterated next in
the description of a hypothetical viewer, who is confronted with each of the bodies of the
memimhme/nwn, yet ignorance of specific aspects of their composition and appearance
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disqualifies him from judging if they are executed correctly. The word memimhme/nwn is
the perfect participle of the verb mime&omai, which is connected to mi/mhsij (mimesis), a
term which, as noted above, is critical to the Classical Greek, particularly Platonic, view
of “representation” in the arts. Liddell and Scott translate this memimhme/nwn as “artistic
representations.” 598 Considering that the Athenian speaks of “each of the bodies
(swma&twn) of the memimhme/nwn,” then, the latter phrase should be understood as each of
the bodies of subjects that have been represented in works of art. Swma&twn is the
genitive plural of sw~ma, a word that Liddell and Scott consider to be Plato’s usual term
for the body of a human being or animal. 599 If this observation is correct, then the above
memimhme/nwn should be understood as artistic representations of the bodies of human
beings and/or animals. Also in the Cratylus (400a-400c), Plato perceives of the soul as a
power which, when present in the body, “causes it to live and gives it the power to
breathe the air and be revitalized” (400a); thus, the body is “an enclosure or prison in
which the soul is securely kept” (400c). 600 This remark is important, for it implies that
for Plato representations of bodies were most likely deprived of life and animation.
To be able to judge artistic representations effectively one needs to be familiar
with specific aspects of their composition and appearance. To the Athenian, these
aspects correspond to “numbers” (a)riqmou&j), and “arrangement” (ta&cin), “colors”
(xrw&mata), and “shapes, designs, or forms” (sxh&mata). These elements belong to both
the original and the representation. Not surprisingly, these are all terms that feature
598 LSJ 9 , 1134, s.v. mime&omai.
599 LSJ 9 , 1749, s.v. sw~ma, suggest that Plato uses the word to refer to the body of a man (Resp. 469d) or
animal (Resp. 564a), as opposed to Herodotus, who uses it for “plant” and also “living body” (1.139).
600 Translations: Reeve, Plato. Cratylus 30 and 31, respectively.
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prominently in Plato’s discussion of criticism of the arts. 601 In this dialogue, their
importance in forming the first steps of the evaluating process for works of art culminates
in the Athenian’s question to Kleinias: “do you think that someone can ever know these
things (i.e., numbers, order, colors, and shapes), if he is completely ignorant of what is
the memimhme/non zw|~on?” The question is instructive, for it establishes that previous
knowledge of what is actually represented in a work of art is a prerequisite for effective
judgment of the artistic value of this work. The singular zw|~on is called memimhme/non,
thus establishing the previously suggested connection between zw|~on and mi/mhsij
(mimesis), that is, the notion of representation. Robert Bury suggests that this zw|~on
means “animal” and Thomas Pangle, “living being.” 602 Neither of these translations is
satisfactory. On the basis of the above evidence, zw|~on appears to refer mostly to the
subject being represented in a work of art, although the possibility of it referring to the
artistic image produced cannot be ruled out. As can be seen, zw|~on again stands for the
absence of distinction between the notions of subject and image in a work of art.
The Athenian’s next hypothesis, that this subject could be a human being offers
some insight into the question of the identity of an artistic subject. Although the noun
zw|~on is omitted from the Athenian’s sentence, the neuter adjectives gegramme/non
(“painted,” “sketched”) and peplasme/non (“sculptured”) agree with it in both gender
and grammatical case, thus indicating that their following by zw|~on is certain here. In this
way, memimhme/non zw|~on is to be more closely defined as a representational subject in
601 According to Pollitt, Ancient View 16-17, Plato considers “numbers” carefully in connection with the
concept of symmetria or commensurability of all parts of a work of art (Phil. 25d-e), and Aristotle (Metaph.
1090a) states that, for the Pythagoreans, numbers constituted the first principles of sensible physical bodies.
For the use of “color” and “shape, design, or form” both for visual appearance and for the art of painting
in Plato, see Keuls, Plato and Greek Painting 37-38; and Pollitt, Ancient View 258-262, for the second
term.
602 Bury, Plato. Laws I 143; T. L. Pangle, tr., The Laws of Plato (New York, 1980) 50.
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painting, sketching, and sculpture. The comment that this particular zw|~on could
represent a human being complements previous evidence that zw|~on in Plato referred to
animate subjects of representation in works of art; whereas its different versions here
confirm that it need not be the product of a specific artistic process.
The question that the Athenian next poses to Kleinias indicates that the parts,
colors, and shapes of the original were, as noted above, parts of the representation too.
What we learn here is that they were aspects on the basis of which a specific quality of a
work of art was judged: its beauty. “What if we were to know, [the Athenian asks,] that
all his own [a human being’s] parts, colors, and shapes have been captured by the art?
“Does it follow necessarily that whoever knows about these things also readily knows
whether the work is beautiful or just where it is deficient in beauty?” Kleinias’ response
that more or less all people are competent in judging the subject a work of art, in
particular, how correctly it is represented recalls the already seen connection between
accurate representation and lifelikeness as an artistic criterion for all audiences in
Classical Greece, regardless of their degree of sophistication. His response further
suggests, however, that knowledge of the excellence with which the work was executed
was a specialized criterion that only technical experts and connoisseurs possessed. It is
implied, therefore, that average spectators are excluded from this category because
otherwise, as Kleinias asserts: “that would mean, stranger, that all of us, so to speak,
know what is beautiful in any zw|&wn.” Once again, the appearance of zw|&wn, which is
here in the genitive plural form, is not described; therefore, its use in a very general sense
is once again confirmed. Bury suggests that these zw|&wn should be understood as
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“animals,” and Pangle, as “living beings.” 603 In view of the direct association of the
overall discussion with the arts, however, these translations do not appear fitting; on the
contrary, Kleinias’ use of zw|&wn within this context suggests that the term refers to
subjects and/or images represented in art. Finally, the direct association of these zw|&wn
with the concept of beauty as a criterion for aesthetic judgment places the term within the
framework of the vocabulary of the arts. That Plato’s Athenian intended to establish a
firm connection with this context is viewed in his closing statement which summarizes
clearly three kinds of knowledge that a qualified judge of a work of art needed to possess:
a) knowledge of the nature of the original, b) knowledge of the correctness of the copy,
and c) knowledge of the excellence with which the copy was executed. That these
criteria for judgment concerned “every image in painting, music, or any other art,”
establishes the overall concern of the dialogue with the realm of the arts.
Further mention of the zw|~on in connection with the arts, in particular paintning,
occurs in another section of the Laws, in which only the Athenian and Kleinias take part.
The former compares the processes of creating and preserving a painting to those of
making a law:
ATHENIAN. You know how the painters’ (zwgra&fwn) activity, for example,
never seems to finish working on each of the zw|&wn, but keeps touching up
(xrai/nein) or highlighting (a)poxrai/nein)—or whatever the painters’
(zwgra&fwn) disciples call such activity? It seems never to cease its adorning,
and hence never to reach a point where there can be no further improvement of
the paintings (gegramme/na) as regards beauty and clarity.
KLEINIAS. I too know pretty well these things you’re talking about, by
hearsay—for I am not at all practiced, at least, in such an art (te/xnh|).
603 Bury, Plato. Laws I 145; Pangle, The Laws of Plato 51.
309

ATHENIAN. That’s no hindrance for you. We’ll still make use of this allusion
to it that’s cropped up in our discussion now, in something like the following
way: suppose someone once took it into his head to paint (gra&yai) the most
ka&lliston zw|~on possible, one that would never get worse but would always
improve as time went by. Don’t you see that since he’s mortal, he’ll have to leave
behind a successor, able to make it right if the zw|~on suffers from decay at the
hands of time, as well as to make future touch-ups that improve the deficiencies
left by his own artistic weaknesses? Otherwise, won’t his very great labor last but
a brief time?
KLEINIAS. That’s true.
ATHENIAN. Well, then, don’t you think the lawgiver has such a purpose? He
first writes (gra&yai) his laws with as nearly adequate a precision as he can
muster. Then, with the passage of time, as his opinions are tried out in deed, do
you suppose there’s any lawgiver who is so imprudent as to be ignorant of the fact
that he must necessarily have left very many such things that require being set
right by some follower, if the regime and order of the city he has founded are
always to become in no way worse but instead better? (Leg. 769a-769d) [145]
In this dialogue, the prominence of painting is striking. Plato uses three different terms:
zwgra&fwn (“painters”), gra&yai (“painting”), and gegramme/na (“paintings”) all of
which bring to mind the previous connection between gra&fw and painting, and
therefore, establish firmly the context of this artistic process. Additional support for this
context derives also from the terms xrai/nein and a)poxrai/nein. Although their exact
meaning remains elusive, the suggestions of “touching-up” and “highlighting,” as in the
above translation, and also “coloring” and “shading,” show preoccupation with certain
technical aspects of painting; as such, these terms enhance the connection with the
technical vocabulary of the arts. 604 Within this context, the word zw|~on occurs three
times. The first time, the term appears in its genitive plural form—zw|&wn. The Athenian
states that painters never finish working on each of the zw|~a. Like the good and bad
works (zw|~a) of painters in the Cratylus, these zw|&wn stand for the works of painters in
604 For this suggestion and a discussion of the meaning of these terms and their translations as “coloring”
and “shading,” see Keuls, Plato and Greek Painting 115-117.
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general. Trevor Saunders attempts to capture this general sense by rendering the phrase
“each of the zw|&wn” as “painting a picture of anything.” 605 His translation does not
follow Plato’s text literally, and therefore, it qualifies as a paraphrase. Pangle, on the
contrary, understands zw|&wn as “figures,” and Bury as “subjects.” Bury’s equation of
zw|&wn with “subjects” seems appropriate, especially when seen in light of earlier
evidence that Plato perceived zw|~on as the subject of representation in painted works of
art.
The second zw|~on occurs in the part of the dialogue in which the Athenian asks
Kleinias to consider a hypothetical situation: “suppose someone once took it into his head
(e0pinoh&seie) to paint the most beautiful zw|~on possible.” The designation of zw|~on as
ka&lliston (“most beautiful”) makes it a construction of fine quality, a characteristic that
accords well with previous evidence from the Laws, which discussed zw|~a in conjunction
with the concept of beauty. As for the meaning of this zw|~on it is not without difficulties.
Pangle translates the term as “figure,” Bury as “object,” and Saunders as “picture.” 606
The truth is that it is not possible to determine whether this zw|~on refers to the subject,
image, or painting as a physical object. Given the situation, Plato appears to be using the
word in a similar manner as the earlier zw|&wn, which blurred the boundary between
subject, image, and object. What is worth noticing in this zw|~on, however, is that it is
perceived as the outcome of a mental process: “suppose someone took it into his head to
paint the most beautiful zw|~on,” says the Athenian. This comment is instructive, for it
links zw|~on with the realm of fourth-century discourse of visual perception.
605
T. Saunders, tr., Laws, in J. M. Cooper, ed., Plato. The Complete Works (Indianapolis and Cambridge,
1997) 1443.
606
Figure: Pangle, The Laws of Plato 156; Object: Bury, Plato. Laws I 451; Picture: Saunders, Laws, in
Cooper, ed., Plato. Complete Works 1443.
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Turning to the third zw|~on of the dialogue, one sees that it is used again by the
Athenian, who tells Kleinias that if a hypothetical painter wants his work to survive time,
he has to assign a successor. The latter should be able to preserve the zw|~on from the
destructive effects of time, provide touch-ups, and remedy any artistic deficiencies of the
original artist/work. This line suggests that zw|~on was the work of a painter. The term
has been translated as “painting” and “picture,” 607 but again it is not clear if what is
meant here is the subject, image, or painting as an object. The references to decay and
touch-ups suggest that the Athenian had in mind the material aspects of zw|~on. An
intriguing aspect of this zw|~on, however, is its status as the creation not of a single
painter, but successive generations of painters. In this respect, zw|~on is not a static artistic
creation, but one that undergoes changes progressively in order to reach perfection. This
evidence is of considerable importance, for it hints at the application of a teleological
model to the appreciation of works of art. In this way, zw|~on appears as a term of the
vocabulary of art criticism. As for the impression gained from the three separate
occurrences of the word in this passage all that can be said is that, when connected with
painting, zw|~on did not held in Plato’s mind a monolithic meaning, but rather a flexible
one, which blurred easily the boundaries among subject, image, and physical object.
Alcidamas
The second fourth-century author who makes use of zw|~on in a context that
directly involved the arts is Alcidamas. In his treatise On Those Who Write Written
Speeches or On Sophists (c. 390 B.C.), he uses the word to refer to paintings.
607
“Painting”: Pangle, The Laws of Plato 157; “picture”: Bury, Plato. Laws 451; also Saunders, Laws, in
Cooper, ed., Plato. Complete Works 1443.
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And I do not think it is right that speeches written down should even be called
speeches, but should be thought of as ei1dwla and sxh&mata and mimh&mata of
speeches, and we could reasonably have the same opinion about them as we have
about bronze a)ndria&ntwn and stone a)galma&twn and gegramme/nwn zw|&wn.
For, just as these are mimh&mata of a)lhqinw~n swma&twn and give delight to the
view, but offer no use in human life, in the same way the written speech, having a
single sxh&mati and ta&cei, produces certain striking effects when it is conned
from the book, but being fixedly unable to respond to critical moments, if of no
use to those who have got hold of it. Just as the real bodies present an appearance
far inferior to that of fine statues but yet as many times more useful for getting
things done, so too the speech spoken straight from the heart on the spur of the
moment has a soul in it and is alive and follows upon events and is like those real
bodies, while the written speech whose nature corresponds to a representation of
the real thing lacks any kind of living power. (Soph. 1.27) [10]
In this passage, Alcidamas argues the importance of improvised speeches by pointing out
the weaknesses of the written ones. He maintains that the latter should be thought of not
as speeches, but as the equivalents of works of art. That he had in mind the context of
visual arts, more precisely, that of sculpture and painting, is evident from his explicit
references to bronze a)ndria&ntwn, stone a)galma&twn, and gegramme/nwn zw|&wn. As
stated earlier, a)ndria&j is a statue of the kouros type, and a1galma an ordinary statue and
also that of a god; also zw|~on in the company of gegramme/non and other derivatives of
the verb gra&fw has been repeatedly seen to carry associations with painting; therefore,
the meaning of gegramme/nwn zw|&wn should here be defined as painted images of some
kind. This definition does not agree with that of “depictions of animals,” which has been
recently suggested. 608 Alcidamas’ reference to statues (a)ndria&ntwn, a)galma&twn) and
paintings is reminiscent of Empedocles’ fragment, which also referred to statues
(a)ga&lmasin) and painted images of some kind (graptoi=j zw|&oisi). 609 Alcidamas’ text
608 J. V. Muir, ed., tr., Alcidamas. The Works and Fragments (Bristol, 2001) 15, 17.
609 That Alcidamas was familiar with the work of Empedocles is a possibility that cannot be ruled out.
According to Muir, Alcidamas. The Works and Fragments vi: “there is an intriguing hint [i.e., Diog. Laert.
8.56] that Alcidamas may have written the lives of some of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, including Zeno
and Empedocles, in a book entitled the Physikon.”
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is, however, more explicit in its description. The examples of bronze a)ndria&ntej, stone
a)ga&lmata, and gegramme/na zw|~a to which it refers are all grouped together under the
same label: artistic representations of real bodies (mimh&mata tw~n a)lhqinw~n
swma&twn). This wording seems to be influenced by, if not a direct borrowing from,
Plato’s earlier reference in the Laws to the bodies of subjects represented in works of art
(tw~n memimhme/nwn…e3kaston tw~n swma&twn) [144]. 610 This impression is further
reinforced by Alcidamas’ use of the terms sxh&mati (form) and ta&cei (arrangement),
which were also used by Plato in the Laws. 611 As mentioned earlier, sw~ma is Plato’s
usual word for the body of a human being and animal. If the influence of Plato on
Alcidamas is considered here, then Alcidamas’ swma&twn may be perceived as bodies of
similar entities as well. What needs to be mentioned, however, is the contention that
ancient Greek conflated sw&mata (“bodies”) with images of human beings, a linguistic
usage which, in turn, reveals an anthropocentric infiltration in the vocabulary of the
arts. 612 That Alcidamas calls the bodies to which he refers a)lhqinw~n (“true”) is a detail
that deserves further attention. 0Alhqinw~n derives from a)lh&qeia, a word, whose
standard meaning is “truth,” but, when in connection with the visual arts, as is the case
here, has many implications and connotations. Pollitt identifies four different meanings
when a)lh&qeia is used in this context: a) “real experience” as opposed to “anticipation or
“imagined experience,” b) the “real thing,” an external physical reality, as opposed and
610
On the basis of evidence emerging from On Those Who Write Speeches, Alcidamas is considered a rival
of Isocrates (436-338), therefore, a contemporary of Plato (429-347 B.C.). For a discussion of the rivalry
between Alcidamas and Isocrates, see Muir, Alcidamas xii-xv.
611
In his commentary on this treatise of Alcidamas, Muir, Alcidamas. The Works and Fragments xiv,
speaks of the familiarity of this author with the work of Plato in the following way: “Perhaps the most
surprising evidence of a connection is with Plato/Socrates: Alcidamas had clearly picked up some notion of
the theory of the Forms and had also read at least the last section of the Phaedrus where the mythical story
of Theuth is taken up by Socrates to expand on the limitations of the written word.”
612
Schnapp, “Are Images Animated,” in Renfrew and Zubrow, eds., The Ancient Mind 42 (without
documentation).
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contrasted to the representations of it, c) “visible reality accurately represented,” as
opposed to “inaccurate representation,” and d) reality or truth as confirmed by
measurement. 613 That a)lhqinw~n swma&twn (“of true bodies”) refers to mimh&mata
(“artistic representations”) marks a contrast between the two nouns
(swma&twn and mimh&mata). This contrast, in turn, suggests that a)lhqinw~n defines
bodies as real, and physical. In light of this evidence, the fact that gegramme/nwn zw|&wn
(painted images of some kind) were mimh&mata tw~n a)lhqinw~n swma&twn (“artistic
representations of real, physical bodies”) suggests that zw|&wn were understood as
representations of real bodies or as figural images that lacked life. Alcidamas is explicit
about the lifeless status of these images: “[they] give delight to the view, but offer no use
in human life,” [and unlike real bodies, they are not] “useful for getting things done.” In
addition, written speech is like them, in the sense that it “corresponds to a representation
of the real thing, [but] lacks any kind of living power.” What is central in the meaning of
zw|&wn in view of these remarks is a general preoccupation with bodily form, but also
with conveying how physically inert the content of these forms (as images) was. When
bringing into this equation the etymology of zw|~on, which centers on the notions of
“living” and “breathing,” one sees its contribution to the realm of the arts. It stood for
and expressed a conscious understanding of two contrasting ideas inherent in the meaning
of zw|~on as an image: being borrowed from real life, but being deprived of all force of
body, therefore, breathing, and animation. 614 Finally, Alcidamas’ view of gegramme/nwn
zw|&wn as painted images of what is represented may be viewed in conjunction with the
phenomenon of speaking objects, that is, inscribed statues, stelai, and vessels, mostly of
613
Pollitt, Ancient View 131-133.
614
For a discussion of images (ei1dwla) as “deprived of all animation, of all force of body or mind,” see
Donohue, Xoana 41.
315

the Archaic and less often of the Classical periods, which address the beholder usually in
the first, but also third person. This treatment, as seen in the case of Myron’s cow, was a
conscious attempt to help the representational subject become alive/ animated by
borrowing the voice of the spectator and engage in conversation with him. 615
Aristotle
The next fourth-century author to use zw|~on in connection with the arts is
Aristotle. The word occurs eight times in three of his treatises: Generation of Animals,
Categories, and On Memory and Recollection.
In the Generation of Animals, Aristotle uses the term to refer to the subject of
representation in a painting. After his description of the formation of skin on an animal
embryo, Aristotle explains the formation of the body as a gradual process of
development:
Now the upper portion of the body is the first to be marked off in the course of the
embryo’s formation; the lower portion receives its growth as time goes on. (This
applies to the blooded animals. In the early stages the parts are all traced out in
outline; later on they get their various colors and softnesses and hardnesses, for all
the world as if a painter were at work on them, the painter being Nature. Painters,
as we know, first of all sketch in zw|~on in outline, and after that go on to apply the
colors. (GA 743b) [49]
615 Svenbro, Phrasikleia 30, clarifies that this phenomenon “does not mean to say that they [the objects] are
their own authors,” but rather the viewers, through reading, are the instruments that enable the objects to
speak. As for actual examples of objects of this type, he mentions (30) the inscription on the early
seventh-century bronze statuette of a man dedicated by Mandrokles to Apollo at Thebes: “Mandrokles
dedicated me”; the message (30, n. 19) written on a sixth-century amphora: “Kleimachos made me and I
am his”; the inscription (32, n. 25) written on a funerary monument: “Here I am, the tomb of Krites,”
which declares a sema from the plain of Marathon dating from 500 B.C.; and also 39, n. 58, “the dedication
by Praxiteles, inscribed on a votive base discovered at Olympia and dating from the first half of the fifth
century: “Praxiteles, a citizen of Syracuse, dedicated this statue…and this is the monument commemorating
his virtue.” For a similar discussion of inscribed objects in Greek culture, with emphasis on the Archaic
period, see Hurwit, “The Words in the Image” 180-190.
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Aristotle likens the formation of the body of an animal embryo to the creation of a
painted depiction. In his view, nature first forms the parts of the body in outline and then
proceeds to add color and texture to them. In this respect, nature is like a painter, who
first sketches the zw|~on in outline and then proceeds to add color to it. The word ζw|~on
has been translated as “animal,” but this rendering does not seem appropriate. Given the
direct association of the context with painting, the term can be better understood as the
image in general or the subject of representation that the painter intended to create. The
blurring between image and subject is not surprising here, since it conforms to an earlier
tendency already encountered in Herodotus and Plato. Regarding the sketching of this
zw|~on in outline, two aspects stand out clearly: first, it constitutes an early stage in the
process of painting, and second, it exhibits a concern with form. This aspect strengthens
the possibility that what Aristotle had actually in mind when using zw|~on was not so
much the image represented by a painting, but rather the representational subject itself.
In addition, Aristotle’s concern with form as expressed in his reference to outline recalls,
in general, Alcidamas’ preoccupation with form, and more specifically, Plato’s Stranger
in the Politicus. As seen earlier, the Stranger resembled the incomplete stage of his
discussion with the younger Socrates to that of a sufficiently outlined, but still colorless
zw|~on produced by means of painting [146]. Given this similarity, Plato’s outlined, but
still incomplete zw|~on can be easily merged with Aristotle’s perception of an outlined,
uncolored zw|~on as an early stage of the painting process. This evidence again links
zw|~on to the technical vocabulary of the arts. Explicit evidence that a preliminary outline
of the subject to be depicted in painting was not a literary invention, but, actually, one of
the steps in the painter’s procedure derives from the wall-paintings of the mid-fourth-
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century tomb of Persephone at Vergina. Contemporary with Aristotle, the painted
decoration that covers three (north, south, east) of the four walls of this cist grave has as
its subject the abduction of Persephone by Plutus. On the north wall, Hermes leads the
way for a quadriga driven by Plutus, whose right hand clasps the reins and a scepter,
while his left arm clutches the distressed figure of Persephone. Left behind, crouching on
the ground is the figure of a horrified female (Fig. 29). The east wall depicts the
perplexed figure of Demeter seated on a rock, and the south carries three seated female
figures. As has been noted, the painting of this episode supersedes a preliminary design
incised on the plastered surface of the walls and defining the outlines of the subjects
depicted. 616 It has also been suggested that the existence of multiple incisions for the
same member, as is the case with Hermes’ torso, for example, and “the deviation from all
the incisions in the final painting, which is observed in several places [e.g., Plutus’ face],
confirms that the artist did not have a ready-made design or stencil to be faithfully
reproduced on the wall.” 617 Notwithstanding this observation, the evidence of a
preparatory sketch underneath the final painting is crucial here, for it confirms Aristotle’s
contemporary assertion about this step as being standard in preceding the application of
colors on a painting. That Aristotle actually considered this step in the formation of a
work of art analogous to the early formation of the body of an animal that eventually
grows out of this phase is particularly illuminating: it implies that for Aristotle the
creation of a work of art in painting, and zw|~on as part of it was an evolving process. In
this sense, his argument is reminiscent of Plato’s earlier statement in the Laws that
616 M. Andronikos, Vergina II. The Tomb of Persephone (Athens, 1994) 92-96.
617 Andronikos, Vergina II 93; he also notes, (96-99), that this is not the earliest example of the use of a
preliminary sketch in Classical painting. According to him, (97-98, ns. 51-54), Attic black-figured and
white-ground vases, as well as the tomb of the Diver in Paestum present the earliest evidence of a
preliminary design preceding actual painting.
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paintings—also connected with zw&wn—evolved to perfection as time went on and the
touches of various painters were added to them.
The second occurrence of the word in association with the arts in Aristotle is in
the Categories. In the opening statement of this treatise Aristotle explicitly refers to the
dual meaning of zw|~on:
Things are equivocally named, when they have the name only in common, the
definition (or statement of essence) corresponding with the name being different.
For instance, while a man and a zw|~on gegramme/non can properly both be called
zw|~on these are equivocally named. For they have the name only in common, the
definitions (or statements of essence) corresponding with the name being
different. For if you are asked to define what being an animal means in the case
of the man and the zw|&w, you give in either case a definition appropriate to that
case alone. Things are univocally named, when not only they bear the same name
but the name means the same in each case—has the same definition
corresponding. Thus a man and an ox are called zw|~on. The name is the same in
both cases; so also the statement of essence. For if you are asked what is meant
by their both of them being called zw|&w| you give that particular name in both
cases the same definition. (Cat. 1a) [48]
In this passage, Aristotle distinguishes between two categories of things which he calls
homonymous and synonymous respectively. The first category includes things that have
only a name in common but differ in essence, whereas the second, things that have both
the name and the definition of essence in common. Aristotle’s employment of the word
zw|~on in this case as an example that demonstrates the validity of his classificatory groups
offers the earliest explicit reference to the dual meaning of the term in the Classical
period. In discussing the category of homonymous things, Aristotle states clearly that,
although it is widely known that they differ in essence, both a man and a thing, which is
gegramme/non (“painted,” “drawn”) can share the same definition and be called zw|~on,
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which in this case has been rendered as “animal.” 618 Although the equation of
a1nqrwpoj (“man”) with zw|~on (“animal”) seems reasonable, the statement does not
clarify how the term zw|~on, when defined as gegramme/non, should be understood. The
meaning of the adjective gegramme/non (“painted,” “drawn”) shows direct association
with the arts, but does not allow one to determine whether gegramme/non zw|~on should be
taken to mean the representational subject of a work of art produced by means of
painting/drawing or the image to which this work corresponded. Again the blurring of
the boundary between subject and image appears at the center of the meaning of zw|~on
when involved with the arts. Notwithstanding this situation, Aristotle’s statement is
valuable for it presents the difference of essence, which, in turn, justifies a difference in
context, as a crucial factor in shaping the split in the meaning of zw|~on. The centrality of
this conception is also seen in Aristotle’s remark that, if asked, anyone would be able to
explain the nuance in these two distinct definitions of zw|~on (ti/ e0stin au)tw~n e9kate/rw|
to_ zw|&w| ei]nai). By paying attention to context, this statement establishes the dual
meaning of zw|~on as common knowledge in the Greek thought of the fourth century B.C.
The importance placed on context is also found in Aristotle’s analysis of the category of
things, which he defines as synonymous. As stated above, this definition applies to
entities that are identical in essence, such as a man (a1nqrwpoj) and an ox (bou~j), which
are both called animal[s] (zw|&w). This grouping and labeling, as Aristotle says, can be
easily understood and explained by everyone. His comment again indicates a widespread
comprehension of the specific meaning that the term zw|~on could acquire when in
connection with a specific context.
618 Animal: H. P. Cooke, ed., tr., Aristotle. The Categories. On Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass., and
London, 1938; repr. 1996) 13; animals: J. K. Ackrill, tr., Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione
(Oxford, 1953) 3.
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The third occurrence of the term in Aristotle is in his treatise Memory and
Recollection, which considers these two functions products of the senses and places them
in the realm of the thinking faculty. Aristotle uses zw|~on to refer to an image held by
memory. He speaks of memory in clearly visual terms. According to him, memory is a
mental state sustained by a fa&ntasma, that is, an impression or image of a thing that has
been experienced through sense perception (ai1sqhsij) in the past, and is now stored onto
the soul (and the part of the body that contains it) in a certain capacity. 619 This capacity,
which is, in turn, affected by circumstances, such as the age of the percipient subject,
dictates the vigor with which the initial impression or image can be retrieved. Aristotle
perceives of this image as having a dual essence: it is a present affection, but, at the same
time, it resembles or stands for the absent thing that originally stimulated it; therefore, it
is an aid to memory. In order to elucidate this point, Aristotle draws an analogy from the
realm of the arts:
For example, the gegramme/non (picture drawn) on a tablet is both a zw|~o&n and
a[n] ei0kw&n, and one and the same thing in both of these, although what it is to be
these two things is not the same, and it is possible to behold it both as a zw|~on and
as a[n] ei0ko&na, so too one ought to conceive of the fa&ntasma that is in us as
being itself something in its own right, and as being of something else. Insofar,
then, as it is something in its own right, it is a (qew&rhma) or a fa&ntasma, but
insofar as it is of something else, it is a certain kind of ei0kw_n and reminder.
619 Important for understanding what Aristotle means by ai1sqhsij is his clarification (Mem. 450a) that “the
stimulus produced impresses a sort of likeness of the percept (ai0sqh&matoj), just as when men seal with
signet rings”; translation: W. S. Hett, ed., tr., Aristotle VIII. On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On Breath
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1936; repr. 1995) 295. Additional evidence for how Aristotle understood
the term derives from his treatise On the Soul (II. 12.424a), where he explains (ai%sqhsiv) in the following
way: “we must understand as true generally of every sense that sense is that which is receptive of the form
of sensible objects without the matter, just as the wax receives the impression of the signet-ring without the
iron or the gold, and receives the impression of the gold or bronze, but not as gold or bronze”; translation:
Hett, Aristotle VIII 135. According to W. J. T., Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago,
1986) 14, n. 13, the idea of memory images as impressions in a wax tablet is also discussed by Plato in the
Theaetatus (without documentation). For a brief discussion of Aristotle’s theory of fanta&smata and its
influence upon philosophers like Hobbes, Hume and also modern psychology, see Mitchell, Iconology 10-
11 and 14-15, n. 13.
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And so whenever the motion is at work that belongs to it insofar as it is something
in its own right, if the soul perceives it by this motion a certain sort of thought or
image seems to come before it; but if, insofar as it is of something else, the soul
beholds it in the same way that one beholds what is in a picture as an ei0ko&na and,
when one has not been seeing Coriscus, as Coriscus, and the experience of this
beholding then, and when one beholds it as a zw|~on gegramme/non, are different,
in the soul too it comes about in the one way only as a thought but in the other
way, because, as in the case of painting, it is a likeness, it becomes a reminder.
(Mem. 450b-451a) [52]
The passage states clearly the Aristotelian conception of fa&ntasma as the active holding
of a thing in memory and as equal to something that has been gegramme/non (“painted,”
“drawn,”) on a tablet. As seen in Plato and Aristotle’s Categories, the word
gegramme/non, which is a derivative of the verb gra&fw (“to paint,” “draw,” “write”), is
taken to mean the artistic processes of painting and/or drawing. That it is not easy to
determine which one of these processes is meant here is mirrored in the various
translations of gegramme/non: Walter Hett, for example, renders it as “painted” and Joe
Sachs as “drawn.” 620 In agreement with the former is Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-
century commentator on the Memory and Recollection, who also thought that
gegramme/non referred to something painted. 621 Regardless of this ambiguity, what is
important here is that the Aristotelian equation of fa&ntasma with gegramme/non invites
an understanding of the former term as picture or, more generally, image held by
memory.
Aristotle proceeds to explain the twofold essence of this image without departing
from the framework of the analogy with the arts. As he states, a fa&ntasma can be
perceived in two different ways: as an “object of speculation in its own right” (au)to& ti
620
Hett, Aristotle VIII 295. J. Sachs, tr., Aristotle’s On the Soul and On Memory and Recollection (Santa
Fe, New Mexico, 2001) 174.
621
K. White and E. M. Macierowski, trs., St. Thomas Aquinas. Commentaries on Aristotle’s “On Sense and
What Is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection” (Washington D.C., 2005) 202.
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kaq' au(to_ ei]nai…qew&rhma), and, at the same time, as “an image of something else”
(fa&ntasma& e0stin, h| { d' a1llou) that serves as aid to memory (mnhmo&neuma). When
transferred to the context of the arts, these two different ontological statuses correspond
to the two different ways that a painted or drawn picture/image (gegramme/non) could be
perceived: as a zw|~on and ei0kw&n. Simply put, this correspondence suggests that zw|~on
was, for Aristotle, “an object of speculation in its own right” and ei0kw&n, “an image of
something else.” Hett translates ei0kw&n as “portrait,” which implies a human subject.
Sachs, on the contrary, translates it as “likeness” and explains that: “a ‘likeness’ (ei0kw&n)
means not any and every thing that resembles something else (o(moi/wma), but something
derivative that imitates or represents the “original.” 622 In agreement with Hett is also
Thomas Aquinas, whose commentary on the passage suggests that he, too, understood
ei0kw&n as “likeness.” 623 Additional evidence that supports this meaning derives from his
statement that ei0kw&n stood for or represented something or someone perceived
previously, but out of sight now. This belief is exemplified in Aristotle’s reference to the
contemplation of an ei0ko&na of someone called Coriscus, which he defines as an image
representing this person, and therefore, functioning as a reminder of this person’s
existence to the viewer. Although not identical, this line of thought is very close to that
of Plato, who, as seen earlier, thought of a)ga&lmata as substitutes of the presence of
gods. Aristotle’s passage states, however, that the image held in memory (fa&ntasma)
maintained and exhibited these qualities of ei0kw&n, but it was also a zw|~on.
As noted above, Aristotle provides an explicit definition of this term as “an object
of speculation in its own right,” thus, not in relation to something else, or a fa&ntasma,
622 Sachs, Aristotle’s On the Soul and On Memory and Recollection 171, n. 4, where he refers to specific
passages, such as Plato’s Sophist (240b-240c), which carries this meaning.
623 White and Macierowski, St. Thomas Aquinas. Commentaries 202, n. 18.
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that is, an image held by memory. This evidence confirms the meaning of zw|~on as
image. It also provides a glimpse into how viewers approached this kind of image: as an
object of speculation. Informative is also Aristotle’s additional comment that when one
contemplates the object merely as a gegramme/non zw|~on, which has been translated as
“painted picture,” then this object appears in the soul as a mere thought. 624 This
clarification suggests that, apart from being an image in its own right, zw|~on was also
understood as visual material that registered directly in the thinking faculty. This
evidence, in turn, qualifies zw|~on as an important term in the fourth-century discourse on
optical theory.
Philemon
The last Classical zw|~on to be associated with the arts appears in a fragment of
Philemon, a comic poet of the mid-fourth to the mid-third centuries B.C. Athenaeus,
writing in the second century A.D., cites a fragment of Philemon, which relates the story
of a man becoming enamored of a stone zw|~on. Athenaeus uses the fragment of Philemon
as supporting evidence for Alexis’s description of similar behavior attributed to someone
whom he identifies as Cleisophus of Selymbria:
For he [Cleisophus of Selymbria], becoming enamored of the statue
[a)ga&lmatoj] in Parian marble at Samos, locked himself up in the temple,
thinking he should be able to have intercourse with it; and since he found that
impossible on account of the frigidity and resistance of the stone, he then and
there desisted from that desire and placing before him a small piece of flesh he
consorted with that. This deed is mentioned by the poet Alexis in the play entitled
A Picture: “Another case of a like sort occurred, they say, in Samos. A man
conceived a passion for a stone maiden, and locked himself up in the temple.”
And Philemon, mentioning the same, says, “Why, once on a time, in Samos, a
certain man fell in love with a stone zw|&ou; thereupon he locked himself in the
624 Painted picture: Hett, Aristotle VIII 293; Sachs, Aristotle’s On the Soul 172; White and Macierowski, St.
Thomas Aquinas. Commentaries 202, ns. 17, 19.
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temple.” Now the statue [a1galma] is the work of Ctesicles, as Adaeus of
Mytilene says in his work On Sculptors [ 1Agalma-Makers].
(Deipn. 13.606a13.606b) [77]
The fragment gives the impression that the genitive singular zw|&ou refers to an image of
some kind. The fact that this zw|~on was li/qinon (“made of stone”) indicates that it was
an image of some kind in sculpture. In agreement with this suggestion is Charles Gulick,
who translates Philemon’s liqi&nou zw|&ou as “stone image.” 625 In view of the previous
definition of zw|~on as an “object of speculation in its own right” this rendering seems
appropriate. As for the position of the term within the general spectrum of its Classical
usage, we see that once again zw|~on is used in a general sense and in connection with the
language of the arts. What is new in this case is the use of the term in comedy. The
fragment also shows that the context in which this zw|~on existed was a temple in Samos,
which indicates a religious setting. This evidence along with the above reference to stone
as the material of manufacture bring immediately to mind Herodotus’ assertion that
temples and zw|~a carved on stones were, along with altars and a)ga&lmata, the primary
components of religious activity first set by the Egyptians [100]. In this sense, the term
zw|~on again appears to be connected with religion. Unlike Herodotus, who, in that case,
distinguished between zw|~a and a)ga&lmata, in this passage, Athenaeus refers to
Philemon’s stone zw|&ou as a1galma, that is, “statue.” This evidence suggests a second-
century A.D. linguistic treatment, which is not distant, however, from that of Plato’s in
the Republic, who, as seen earlier, perceived of an a)ndria&v as a zw|~on [148]. The
similarity between the two authors hints at a consistent usage and understanding of the
term zw|~on, which apparently permeated chronological boundaries. This impression is
625
C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus VI. The Deipnosophists (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1937; repr.
1959) 267.
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further reinforced by Athenaeus’ suggestion that his understanding of Philemon’s
zw|&ou as an a1galma stems from the designation of this zw|&ou, in the 0Agalmatopoioi&
( @Agalma-Makers) of Adaeus of Mytilene (perhaps, third-century B.C.), as a work of
Ctesicles (perhaps, third-century B.C.). 626 These references aside, what is intriguing
about Philemon’s zw|&ou, and despite its anecdotal nature, is that it marks a specific
perception of and reaction to an artistic image at the end of the Classical period in
Greece. As the fragment states: “a certain man fell in love with a stone zw|&ou; thereupon
he locked himself in the temple.” This statement presents zw|~on as a sculptural image
that had the power to elicit an emotional response on the viewer and, in turn, condition
the viewer’s behavior towards it. In this way, the statement is instructive in explaining
the impact of an artistic image on the viewer as depending upon the interaction between
this image and the viewer. 627 That this zw|~on was made of stone suggests a lifeless
image, which accords with Plato’s and Alcidamas’s perception of zw|~a as representations
626 The date of Adaeus of Mytilene is uncertain. Additional evidence about him derives from a sepulchral
epigram of the Greek Anthology (7.305), which is inscribed “of Addaeus of Mytilene” and refers to the
death of a fisherman. Athenaeus (11.471f) refers also to an Adaeus as the author of a work called On the
Use of Words. Another epigram of the Greek Anthology (9. 228) is entitled “of Addaeus of Macedonia”
and refers to a deceased called Alcon. There is also a considerable number of epigrams which have been
attributed to Adaeus (7.51, 7.694) and Addaeus (6.258, 7.51, 7.238, 7.240, 9.300, 9.303, 9.544, and 10.20).
Some of these refer to the death of Euripides in the Macedonian locality of Arethusa (i.e., Adaeus, 7.51), to
Philip of Macedonia and the city of Aegae (i.e., Addaeus, 7.238), to the tomb of Alexander the Great
(Addaeus, 7.240), and also the city of Potidaea (i.e., Adaeus, 7.694). On the basis of these references, it has
been suggested that the names Ad(d)aeus and Adaeus of Macedon referred to the same epigrammatic poet,
who was, most likely from Macedonia, and lived during the time of Alexander the Great (W. Smith, ed.,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology I (Boston, 1870) 18; also
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0027.html. Whether this Macedonian Ad(d)aeus and Ad(d)eus of
Mytilene were one and the same person cannot be established. As for Ctesicles, Pollitt, Sources and
Documents 177, n. 2, notes that a Hellenistic painter called Ctesilas or Ctesicles is mentioned by Pliny (NH
35.140), but “the reading of this name in the manuscripts is uncertain.” He translates (177) the passage of
Pliny as following: “Ktesilas became famous because of his insult to Queen Stratonike, for since he was
denied honor by her, he painted a picture of her rolling about with a fisherman, with whom rumor said that
she was in love. He put his picture on view in the port of Ephesos and made a hurried escape by ship. But
the Queen, [feeling that] the likeness of both figures was marvelously expressed, forbade that the picture be
taken down.”
627 For a concise discussion of the active role of the viewer in defining various modes of viewing and
understanding works of art, see Rusnak, “The Active Spectator” esp. 1-27.
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of real bodies. When this meaning is applied to Philemon’s zw|~on, then the latter can be
also seen as a figural image. In sum, what this evidence suggests is that the term zw|~on
was a fundamental component of the vocabulary of the arts in the late fourth century
B.C., whose use was favored not only by prose writers, but comic poets as well.
Conclusion
The evidence for zw|~on in the fourth century indicates that authors such as Plato,
Alcidamas, Aristotle, and Philemon used it widely in their works and in connection with
the arts. Zw|~on in Plato can be understood as “the finished product of an artistic process,”
“image,” and “subject of representation” in painting and sculpture, thus suggesting no
clear distinction among object, image, and subject in the visual arts. Alcidamas’ zw|~on,
carries the meaning of “image” in general, but that of “figural image” too. Aristotle
provides the earliest explicit reference to the dual meaning of the term as “animal” when
used in a general context, and an “image” and/or “subject of representation” when in
connection with the visual arts. In addition to these meanings, Aristotle uses zw|~on as
“image held by memory,” thus expanding its use onto the contemporary discourse on
visual perception. Plato’s and Aristotle’s detailed discussions of painting and sculpture
in which zw|~on occurs suggest that this was a term of the professional vocabulary of the
arts. Finally, Philemon, like Alcidamas, uses the term to refer to “image,” most likely, a
figural one. That he is a comic poet using the term, unlike all other prose writers
mentioned above, suggests that, by the late fourth century, zw|~on was a standard
component of the terminology for the arts.
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The meaning and usage of zw|~on and its diminutive zw|&dion in the previous
century are not different. As the literary texts of Empedocles and Herodotus, and the
building inscriptions of the Erechtheion show the terms zw|~on and zw|&dion carry the
meanings of “image,” “subject of representation,” “representation of both animate and
inanimate subjects taken from real life,” and “decorative element.” Unlike the fourth-
century, here the terms are used in connection with a wider variety of media, which along
with painting and sculpture includes also bronze-work and textiles. This evidence
suggests that the term was an important element of the vocabulary of the arts, starting in
the fifth century B.C. Also, Herodotus, like Plato later on, provides instances of the use
of zw|~on in which no clear distinction exists between image and subject.
Taken together, the literary and epigraphical evidence of the fifth and fourth
centuries B.C. indicates that when used in direct association with the visual arts, zw|~on
held multiple, nuanced meanings that set it apart from its usual meaning as “animal.”
From a conceptual point of view, this duality in the linguistic usage of zw|~on is consistent
with the split into different types of frameworks (inconsistency, incongruity,
contradiction) that sustain the naturalistic style of contemporary animal sculpture and
also with the dichotomy in contemporary attitudes toward animals, as this discussion
demonstrated earlier. Such a consistency in the linguistic, artistic, and intellectual
approach to animals suggests that the latter are reliable sources for sharpening our
understanding of Classical Greek culture.
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Conclusions
Animals are fundamental components of the art, thought, and language of
Classical Greek culture. They are valuable guides to the ancient Greek understanding of
the phenomenon of naturalistic style in art. They help account for a range of deviations
from naturalism that is tied to the notions of inconsistency, incongruity, and contradiction
that hold together the elements of style in Greek art, in particular sculpture.
Representations of animals in Classical Greek funerary sculpture are especially valuable
in interpreting the phenomenon of naturalistic style by revealing that their contradictory
style is the material manifestation of a contemporary contradictory attitude toward
animals that is attested in the literary record and maintains a conceptual affinity with the
duality that characterizes contemporary linguistic usage concerning animals. In this way,
animals establish that the principle of combining essentially differing elements, as
defined by the conceptual context of Classical Greek culture, is the fundamental structure
on which the conception of style in contemporary art rests.
Ancient texts dating from the fifth century B.C. and the first and second centuries
A.D. indicate that in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. animals are favored and valued as
subjects of works of art in both sculpture and painting. As subjects of representation,
animals are a means by which artistic skill is measured and the fame of the artists is
established in both Classical Greece and throughout classical antiquity. This conclusion
is in opposition to the prevailing view in scholarship that places the animal form in a
position subordinate to that of the human one in Classical Greek art.
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The concept of naturalism has been central to scholarly interpretations of the
stylistic development of ancient Greek art. This development has been conceived in
terms of an evolution that moves steadily from inadequately rendered representations of
the human form to extremely accurate ones exemplified by those of the Classical period.
For example, the theories of Emanuel Löwy, Ernst Gombrich, and John Boardman about
naturalistic style in Greek art, and the psychological, historical, and technical conceptions
that shape them respectively, focus on the human form and rely on the idea of a
generalized advancement of Greek art toward absolute naturalism. Boardman’s theory in
particular perceives a link between the progression of Greek naturalism, especially during
the Archaic and Classical periods, and a parallel progress in artistic techniques and
materials.
The present study has shown that animals are valuable guides to the ancient Greek
understanding of the phenomenon of naturalistic style in art. The ancient Greeks valued
naturalism or, more precisely, lifelikeness as a quality of works of art. They understood
artistic lifelikeness in terms of two distinct notions: accurate representation and aliveness.
Ancient texts ranging from the fifth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. show that
animals occupied a central position in the ancient Greek, particularly Classical,
conception of artistic lifelikeness as such. In these texts, animals appear in two different
roles: as subjects of works of art that are praised for their lifelikeness and as judges of
lifelike art. Through their role as lifelike representational subjects, animals show that
ancient Greek society experienced lifelike art as alive while maintaining a conscious
understanding of its lifeless status. Further, through their role as judges of lifelike art,
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animals—as essential elements of the natural world and separate from human
cognition—uncover a specific attitude toward art itself: that it can rise above its essence
as an artificial creation and be acknowledged and, at the same time, experienced as
nature, even by nature itself. It is clear, therefore, that animals offer an invaluable insight
into the judgment of artistic lifelikeness in ancient Greece.
Modern scholarship has long considered the style of representations of animals in
Classical Greek sculpture problematic owing to its distinct combination of naturalistic
and non-naturalistic elements. Such realization does not fit well with the general
interpretation of naturalistic style, which, as noted above, defines the art of the Classical
period, and is known for its adherence to a strict imitation of the external world.
Scholarly works have variously interpreted the problematic style of Classical Greek
animal sculpture as the result of artists’ inability to render correctly animal anatomy
owing to mistake or misunderstanding, as revealing lack of real models, as the result of a
direct copying from Bronze Age animal art, as a mix of copying from Near Eastern
animal art and observation of only a few available comparable species, and also as a
combination of the apotropaic significance of more than one species of animals. Despite
these remarks, scholarly works have failed to recognize that the problematic style of
Classical Greek animal sculpture is actually based on a combination of differing—
naturalistic and non-naturalistic—elements. In fact, this combination is characterized by
a variety of types and degrees of interplay between these differing elements, namely,
inconsistency, incongruity, and contradiction.
331

What the modern scholar considers to be an artistic mistake or misunderstanding
could be as valid a stylistic element as any other to the Classical Greek viewer of animal
art. Plato maintains that, in his day, artistic representations of the human form were
scrutinized for their accuracy, and, frequently, considered defective, but he also admits
that non-human representational subjects were tolerated for their inaccuracies and
deceptiveness as long as they carried the smallest degree of likeness to their prototypes.
Unlike the modern critic, however, the Classical Greek viewer was open to inconsistent,
incongruous, and contradictory renderings of animals in art as long as s/he could
recognize what was represented on the basis of his/her previous knowledge. For Plato,
therefore, and his contemporaries, the convincingness of an artistic representation of an
animal was not always linked to accuracy. The notions, therefore, of inconsistency,
incongruity, and contradiction that shaped and, at the same time, bound together the
elements of the naturalistic style of an animal in art were acceptable, expected, and
dependent upon the knowledge of the represented animal available to the viewer.
By focusing on a small number of Classical Greek statues of animals, this study
has tried to draw attention to the conceptual context of Classical Greek culture with
regard to animals and how this context shapes the naturalistic style of animals
represented in art. As the fourth-century funerary statues of the lion from the grave
precinct of Dionysios of Kollytos in the Athenian Kerameikos and the dog from the grave
precinct of Lysimachides of Acharnai, also in the Kerameikos, show the naturalistic and
non-naturalistic elements in their inconsistent and contradictory styles respectively are
shaped by contemporary ideas about the lion and the dog. This is evidence that existing
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scholarly interpretations of the problematic style of representations of animals in
Classical Greek sculpture do not take into account.
The present study has also shown that the contradictory style of Classical Greek
animal sculpture, as exemplified by the above statue of the dog from the Kerameikos, is
rooted in the contradictory attitude toward animals that is reflected in Classical Greek
literature. Fifth- and fourth-century texts demonstrate that Greek culture was primarily
anthropocentric and held a contradictory attitude toward animals: on the one hand, it
allowed them to occupy an important position in everyday life and thought, but on the
other, it denigrated them. The dog is a case in point. While regarded as a standard
inhabitant of the Classical Greek household who had open access to shelter and food, and
a faithful protector of the property and human members of this household, the dog was, at
the same time, seen in a negative light. It was deemed a gluttonous, two-faced creature,
whose behavior was treacherous and dangerous as evident from its stealing food,
fawning, biting, and also scavenging on human corpses. The dog was beaten for stealing
food and eaten because its flesh was considered therapeutic food. This ambiguity in the
collective conception of the dog is a representative example of the generalized
contradictory attitude of Classical Greek culture toward animals. The contradiction
inherent in this attitude serves as the conceptual basis for the contradictory style of
animals in contemporary sculpture.
The dual attitude of Classical Greek culture toward animals is also reflected in
contemporary linguistic usage. The meaning(s) of the word zw|~on usually taken to mean
333

simply “animal,” and less often “living being” and “plant” extend(s) well beyond these
notions. By examining literary and epigraphical evidence of the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C. this study has demonstrated that when used in an artistic context, as defined by
paintings, sculpture, bronze-work and textiles, zw|~on carries the additional meanings of
“image,” “subject of representation taken from real life,” “decorative element,” “figural
image,” “finished product of an artistic process,” and also “image held by memory.” In
some cases, the use of zw|~on in specialized discussions of the arts suggests that the term
deserves to be considered part of the professional vocabulary of the arts in Classical
Greece. From a conceptual point of view, therefore, the dual attitude toward animals that
the literary record reveals is not far removed from the semantic split in the meaning of
zw|~on, or even the split into various types and degrees of deviation from naturalism that
form the conceptual foundation of the style of animals in Classical Greek sculpture. To
turn it around, for Classical Greek society, the inconsistent, incongruous, and
contradictory style of contemporary works of art that depicted animals was as logical as
its dual attitude toward animals or even the duality characterizing the meaning of the term
zw|~on. Like the combination of differing, that is, naturalistic and non-naturalistic
elements in artistic representations of animals, everyday thought, language, and life with
animals were characterized by a combination of equally differing—in some cases,
explicitly identified as positive and negative—ideas about these non-human creatures.
Animals, therefore, prove useful guides to the Classical Greek conception of naturalistic
style as not necessarily reflective of absolute naturalism, but rather of conceptual patterns
governing contemporary mentality and language about animals.
334

The literary, epigraphical, and sculptural evidence gathered in this study suggests
a new paradigm for considering the problematic style of Classical Greek animal art as
rooted in fundamental sets of inconsistencies, incongruities, and contradictions that are
reflected in other treatments of animals throughout Greek culture. There is strong
evidence that in ancient Greek art, the notion of combining differing, specifically
naturalistic and non-naturalistic, elements should be understood as the underlying
principle of style. The study of the problematic style of Classical animal sculpture is only
one part of a much larger situation. In acknowledging and essentially furthering the
observation of existing scholarly works that the problematic, specifically inconsistent,
style of Greek animal sculpture extends also into the Archaic period, this study considers
the notion of mixing traits that are different in essence as the binding element in the
conception of style in both Archaic and Classical Greek animal art. Further by
highlighting that the tendency of “non-matching” extends also to representations of the
human form, this study suggests that there is a continuum to this tendency as the principle
that drove the conception of style in Archaic and Classical Greek art. In view of this
evidence, this study suggests that the change in style from the Archaic to Classical Greek
art could be seen not so much as a progression or improvement in artistic practice as a
shift in the balance of elements and, in turn, of the ideas that sustain the underlying logic
of style.
The principle of combining differing elements that eventually shape the style of
Classical Greek art can be best understood not as an isolated phenomenon, but as one
directly influenced by the broad conceptual context of the society that formulated it.
335

Representations of animals in Classical Greek sculpture are able to support an
interpretation of this type. In this way, animals emerge as invaluable guides to the
ancient Greek understanding of the phenomenon of naturalistic style in art.
336

APPENDIX: TESTIMONIA
Note to the reader: appendix numbers referring to the sources below appear in text in
boldface and in brackets, e.g.: [1]. Inscriptions are listed alphabetically by provenance.
When no translator is named, the rendering is my own.
1
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 3.2 A.D. II-III
Text: R. Hercher, ed., Claudii Aeliani. De Natura Animalium Libri XVII. Varia Historia
Epistolae Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1864; repr. 1971).
Translation: A. F. Scholfield, ed., tr., Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals I
(London and Cambridge, Mass., 1958).
qumikw&tatoj de\ kunw~n Molosso&j, e0pei\ qumwde/statoi kai\ oi9 a1ndrej.
Among hounds the Molossian is the most high-spirited, for the men of Molossia are hottempered.
2
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 4.40 A.D. II-III
Text: R. Hercher, ed., Claudii Aeliani. De Natura Animalium Libri XVII. Varia Historia
Epistolae Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1864; repr. 1971).
Translation: A. F. Scholfield, ed., tr., Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals I
(London and Cambridge, Mass., 1958).
Kuno_j krani/on r(afh_n ou)k e1xei. dramw_n de\ e0pi\ple/on la&gnhj gi/netai, fasi/.
kuno_j de\ ghrw~ntoj a)mblei=j oi9 o)do&ntej kai\ melai/nontai. eu1rinoj de/ e0stin
ou3twj w(j mh&pot' a2n o)ptou~ kunei/ou kre/wj mhd' a2n karukei/a| th|~ poikilwta&th|
kai\ dolerwta&th| katagohteuqe/ntoj geu&sasqai.
A dog’s skull has no suture. Running, they say, makes a dog more lustful. In old age a
dog’s teeth are blunt and turn black. He is so keen-scented that he will never touch the
roasted flesh of a dog, be it bewitched by the subtlest and craftiest of rich sauces.
3
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 7.38 A.D. II-III
Text: R. Hercher, ed., Claudii Aeliani. De Natura Animalium Libri XVII. Varia Historia
Epistolae Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1864; repr. 1971).
Translation: A. F. Scholfield, ed., tr., Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals II
(London and Cambridge, Mass., 1959).
An Athenian took with him a Dog as fellow-soldier to the battle of Marathon, and both
are figured in a painting in the Stoa Poecile, nor was the Dog denied honor but received
337

the reward of the danger it had undergone in being seen among the companions of
Cynegirus, Epizelus, and Callimachus. They and the Dog were painted by Micon, though
some say it was not his work but that of Polygnotus of Thasos.
4
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 8.1 A.D. II-III
Text: R. Hercher, ed., Claudii Aeliani. De Natura Animalium Libri XVII. Varia Historia
Epistolae Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1864; repr. 1971).
Translation: A. F. Scholfield, ed., tr., Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals II
(London and Cambridge, Mass., 1959).
0Indikoi\ lo&goi dida&skousin h(ma~j kai\ e0kei=na. ta_j ku&naj a1gousin e0j ta_ e1nqhra
xwri/a oi9 qhratikoi\ ta_j eu)genei=j te kai\ i1xnh katagnw~nai qhri/wn a)gaqa_j kai\
w)ki/staj e0j dro&mon, kai\ toi=j de/ndroij prosdh&santej ei]ta me/ntoi
a)palla&ttontai, tou~to dh&pou to_ lego&menon a)texnw~j ku&bon a)narri/yantej. oi9 de\
ti/greij e0ntuxo&ntej au)tai=j, a)qhri/a| me\n kai\ limw|~ sumpeso&ntej diaspw~sin
au)ta&j: e0a_n de\ o)rgw~ntej a)fi/kwntai kai\ kekoresme/noi, sumple/kontai/ te au)tai=j
kai\ th~j a)frodi/thj e0n plhsmonh|~ kai\ e0kei=noi me/mnhntai. e0k de\ th~j o(mili/aj tau&thj
ou) ku&wn fasi\n a)lla_ ti/grij ti/ktetai. e0k de\ tou&tou kai\ kuno_j qhlei/aj e1ti ti/grij
texqei/h a1n, o( de\ e0k tou&tou kai\ kuno_j e0j th_n mhte/ra a)pokri/netai, kai\ katw&lisqen h(
spora_ pro_j to_ xei=ron, kai\ ku&wn ti/ktetai. pro_j tau~ta 0Aristote/lhj ou)k
a)ntifh&sei. ou{toi de\ a1ra oi9 ku&nej, oi[j pa&resti pate/ra au)xei=n ti/grin, e1lafon me\n
qhra~sai h2 sui\ sumpesei=n a)tima&zousi, xai/rousi de\ e0pi\ tou_j le/ontaj a| 1ttontej kai\
tou_j a1nw tou~ ge/nouj a)podeiknu&ntej e0nteu~qen.
Indian histories teach us the following facts also. Huntsment take thoroughbred bitches
which are good at tracking wild animals and are very swift of foot to places infested by
these animals; they tie them to trees and then go away, simply, as the saying is, trying a
throw of a dice. And if tigers find them when they have caught nothing and are
famished, they tear them to pieces. If however they arrive on heat and full-fled they
couple with the bitches, for tigers too when gorged turn their thoughts to sexual
intercourse. From this union, so it said, a tiger is born, not a hound. And from this tiger
and a bitch again a tiger would be born, although the offspring of this last and of a bitch
takes after its dam, and the seed degenerates and a hound is born. Nor will Aristotle
contradict this. Now these hounds which can boast a tiger for sire scorn to pursue a stag
or to face a boar, but are glad to rush at lions and thereby to give proof of their pedigree.
5
Aelian, De Natura Animalium 10.41 A.D. II-III
Text: R. Hercher, ed., Claudii Aeliani. De Natura Animalium Libri XVII. Varia Historia
Epistolae Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1864; repr. 1971).
Translation: A. F. Scholfield, ed., tr., Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals II
(London and Cambridge, Mass., 1959).
338

Eu)po&lidi tw|~ th~j kwmw|di/aj poihth|~ di/dwsi dw~ron Au)ge/aj o( 0Eleusi/nioj sku&laka
i0dei=n w(rai=on, Molotto_n to_ ge/noj, kai\ kalei= tou~ton o( Eu1polij o(mwnu&mwj tw|~
dwrhsame/nw| au)to&n. kolakeuqei\j ou}n tai=j trofai=j, kai\ e0k th~j sunhqei/aj
u(paxqei\j th~j makrote/raj, e0fi/lei to_n despo&thn o( Au)ge/aj o( ku&wn. kai/ pote
o(mo&douloj au)tw|~ neani/aj, o1noma 0Efia&lthj, u(fairei=tai dra&mata& tina tou~
Eu)po&lidoj, kai\ ou)k e1laqe kle/ptwn, a)lla_ ei]den au)to_n o( ku&wn, kai\ e0mpesw_n
a)feide/stata da&knwn a)pe/kteinen. xro&nw| de\ u3steron e0n Ai0gi/nh| to_n bi/on o( Eu1polij
kate/streye, kai\ e0ta&fh e0ntau~qa: o( de\ ku&wn w)ruo&meno&j te kai\ qrhnw~n to_n tw~n
kunw~n qrh~non, ei]ta me/ntoi lu&ph| kai\ limw|~ e9auto_n e0kth&caj a)pe/qanen e0pi\ tw|~ trofei=
kai\ despo&th|, mish&saj to_n bi/on o( ku&wn. kai\ o3 ge to&poj kalei=tai mnh&mh| tou~ to&te
pa&qouj Kuno_j Qrh~noj.
Augeas of Eleusis gave Eupolis, the writer of comedies, a hound of fine appearance, a
Molossian, which Eupolis named after the donor. Now Augeas the hound, pampered in
its feeding and influenced by long association with its master, came to love him. On one
occasion a young fellow-slave of the name of Ephialtes stole some plays of Eupolis, and
the theft did not pass unnoticed, for the hound saw him, fell upon him, and biting him
mercilessly, killed him. Some time afterwards Eupolis ended his days in Aegina and was
buried there, and the hound, howling and lamenting after the manner of dogs, let himself
pine away through grief and starvation and, disgusted with life, died soon after on the
grave of the master that had fed it. And in memory of the sad event the place is named
Hound’s Dirge.
6
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1-21 V B.C.
Text: D. L. Page, ed., Aeschyli. Septem quae supersunt tragoedias (Oxford, 1972).
Translation: C. Collard, tr., Aeschylus. Oresteia (Oxford, 2002).
FULAC
1 qeou_j me\n ai0tw~ tw~nd' a)pallagh_n po&nwn,
froura~j e0tei/aj mh~koj, h4n koimw&menoj
ste/gaij 0Atreidw~n a1gkaqen, kuno_j di/khn,
a1strwn ka&toida nukte/rwn o(mh&gurin
5 kai\ tou_j fe/rontaj xei=ma kai\ qe/roj brotoi=j
lamprou_j duna&staj, e0mpre/pontaj ai0qe/ri
a)ste/raj, o3tan fqi/nwsin a)ntolai=j te tw~n:
kai\ nu~n fula&ssw lampa&doj to_ su&mbolon,
au)gh_n puro_j fe/rousan e0k Troi/aj fa&tin
10 a(lw&simo&n te ba&cin: w{de ga_r kratei=
gunaiko_j a)ndro&boulon e0lpi/zon ke/ar:
eu}t' a2n de\ nukti/plagkton e1ndroso&n t' e1xw
eu)nh_n o)nei/roij ou)k e0piskopoume/nhn
e0mh&n: fo&boj ga_r a)nq' u3pnou parastatei=,
15 to_ mh_ bebai/wj ble/fara sumbalei=n u3pnwi:
o3tan d' a)ei/dein h2 minu&resqai dokw~,
u3pnou to&d' a)nti/molpon e0nte/mnwn a1koj,
339

klai/w to&t' oi1kou tou~de sumfora_n ste/nwn
ou)x w(j ta_ pro&sq' a1rista diaponoume/nou.
20 nu~n d' eu)tuxh_j ge/noit' a)pallagh_ po&nwn
eu)agge/lou fane/ntoj o)rfnai/ou puro&j.
WATCHMAN
I ask the gods for release from this misery, the
year-long watch I lie awake keeping on the roof
of the Atreidae, up above here like a dog;
I am familiar now with the night stars’ assembly,
and those brilliant potentates which bring men summer
and winter, conspicuous in the heaven;
I mark them closely as they fade, and the risings of others.
And now I am on watch for a beacon’s sign, a gleam of fire
bringing word from Troy and report of its capture: such is the
power here of a woman whose heart in its hope plans like a man.
Whenever I find myself shifting my bed about at night, wet with
dew, unvisited by dreams—because fear instead of sleep stands
at my side to stop my eyes closing fast in slumber—and whenever
I think to sing or to hum, dispensing this remedy from music against sleep,
then I weep in lament for this house’s misfortune;
it is not managed for the best as it was before. Now I wish for a happy
release from misery when the fire in the dark has appeared with its good
news.
7
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 604-610 V B.C.
Text: D. L. Page, ed., Aeschyli. Septem quae supersunt tragoedias (Oxford, 1972).
Translation: C. Collard, tr., Aeschylus. Oresteia (Oxford, 2002).
KLUTEMNUSTRA
tau~t' a)pa&ggeilon po&sei,
605 h3kein o3pwj ta&xist' e0ra&smion po&lei:
gunai=ka pisth_n d' e0n do&moij eu3roi molw_n
oi3anper ou}n e1leipe, dwma&twn ku&na
e0sqlh_n e0kei/nwi, polemi/an toi=j du&sfrosin,
kai\ ta1ll' o(moi/an pa&nta, shmanth&rion
610 ou)de\n diafqei/rasan e0n mh&kei xro&nou:
CLYTEMNESTRA
Take this message away to my husband,
to come as soon as possible; he is the city’s beloved darling.
As to his wife, I wish he may find her when he comes
just as faithful in his home as the one he left behind, the house’s watchdog
true to him while hostile to ill-wishers
and similar in everything else,
340

with no seal broken in the length of time.
8
Aeschylus, Supplices 800-801 V B.C.
Text: D. L. Page, ed., Aeschyli. Septem quae supersunt tragodias (Oxford, 1972).
Translation: P. Burian, tr., Aeschylus. The Suppliants (Princeton, 1991).
XOROS
800 kusi\n d' e1peiq' e3lwra ka)pixwri/oij
o1rnisi dei=pnon ou)k a)nai/nomai pe/lein:
CHORUS
Then let dogs feast, let birds
tear my flesh, no matter.
9
Aeschylus, Theori or Isthmiastae, (P. Oxy., vol. 18. no 2162, Radt, fr. 78a) pap. A.D. II
Text: S. Radt, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta vol. 3 (Göttingen, 1985).
Translation: H. Lloyd-Jones, ed., tr., “Theori or Isthmiastae,” in H. W. Smyth, ed., tr.,
Aeschylus II. Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides. Fragments (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1923; repr. 1983) no. 276.
h} ka&rt' o)fei/lw tw~nde/ soi: pro&frwn g?a_r ei].
a1koue dh_ pa~j si=ga d?eiq?e?l?eid? ?[ ?] ?
a1q?r?h?s?on ei0?
?[ ? ?] ? ?[ ]
ei1dwlon e?i]nai? t?o?u~t' e0mh|~ morfh|~ ple/on
to_ Dai?d?a& ?lou m[i/]m?hma: fw?n?h~j dei= mo&non.
tad[ ? ?] ?ei? ? ?
ora ? [ ?] ? ( ? )r ? [ ]
xwrei ma&la
eu)ktai=a ko&smon tau~ ?t? [a] tw|~ qew|~ fe/rw

I’m very grateful to you for this: you’re most obliging. Listen, all of you, and…in
silence. Look and see whether the eidolon could [possibly] be more [like] me, this
mimema by the Skillful One; it can do everything but talk! Look at these! You see? Yes,
come! Come! I bring this offering to the god to ornament his house, my lovely votive
picture. It would give my mother a bad time! If she could see it, she’d certainly run
shrieking off, thinking it was the son she brought up: so like me is this fellow.
Ho there! Look upon the house of the Lord of the Sea, the Shaker of Earth! And let each
fasten up the likeness of his handsome face, a truthful messenger, a voiceless herald to
keep off travelers; he’ll halt strangers on their way by his terrifying look. Hail, King, hail
Poseidon…protector….
10
Alcidamas, On Those Who Write Written Speeches or On Sophists 1.27 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. V. Muir, ed., tr., Alcidamas. The Works and Fragments (Bristol,
2001).
h(gou~mai d' ou)de\ lo&gouj di/kaion ei]nai kalei=sqai tou_j gegramme/nouj,
a)ll' w3sper ei1dwla kai\ sxh&mata kai\ mimh&mata lo&gwn, kai\ th_n au)th_n
kat' au)tw~n ei0ko&twj a2n do&can e1xoimen, h3nper kai\ kata_ tw~n xalkw~n a)ndria&ntwn
kai\ liqi/nwn a)galma&twn kai\ gegramme/nwn zw|&wn. w3sper ga_r
tau~ta mimh&mata tw~n a)lhqinw~n swma&twn e0sti/, kai\ te/ryin me\n e0pi\ th~j
qewri/aj e1xei, xrh~sin d' ou)demi/an tw|~ tw~n a)nqrw&pwn bi/w| paradi/dwsi,
to_n au)to_n tro&pon o( gegramme/noj lo&goj, e9ni\ sxh&mati kai\ ta&cei kexrhme/noj,
e0k bibli/ou me\n qewrou&menoj e1xei tina_j e0kplh&ceij, e0pi\ de\ tw~n kairw~n
a)ki/nhtoj w2n ou)demi/an w)fe/leian toi=j kekthme/noij paradi/dwsin.
And I do not think it is right that speeches written down should even be called speeches,
but should be thought of as images and patterns and imitations of speeches, and we could
reasonably have the same opinion about them as we have about bronze statues
and stone monuments and gegramme/nwn zw|&wn (=depictions of animals). For, just as
these are imitations of real bodies and give delight to the view, but offer no use in human
life, in the same way the written speech, having a single form and arrangement, produces
certain striking effects when it is conned from the book, but being fixedly unable to
respond to critical moments, if of no use to those who have got hold of it.
11
Alciphron, Epistles III.11 II/III A.D.
Text: M.A. Schepers, ed., Alciphronis Rhetoris Epistularum Libri IV (Leipzig, 1905; repr.
1969).
Translation: A. Rogers Benner and F. H. Fobes, eds., trs., The Letters of Alciphron,
Aelian and Philostratus (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1990).
9Wrolo&gioj Laxanoqauma&sw|
342

ku&nej de\ e0cai/fnhj oi0kouroi\ perixuqe/ntej a1lloj a)llaxo&qen xalepoi\ kai\ barei=j
th_n u(lakh_n e0ph|&esan Molottoi\ kai\ Knw&sioi, u(f' w{n ou)de\n e0kw&luse/ me w(j
h)dikhko&ta th_n 1Artemin diespa&sqai me/son, w(j mhde\ ta_ a)krwth&ria ei0j th_n
u(sterai/an perileifqh~nai pro_j tafh_n toi=j e9toi/moij ei0j e1leon kai\ sumpa&qeian.
Horologius to Lachanothaumasus
All of a sudden watchdogs surrounded and attacked me, one on this side, another on that;
they were savage and deep-throated, Molossians and Cnosians, and there was nothing to
hinder me from being rent asunder by their jaws (as if I had offended Artemis) so
thoroughly that not even my hands and feet would remain next day for burial by those
who might be prepared to pity and commiserate.
Alexis, fr. 220, 221 Kock (Men of Tarentum) IV B.C.
See Athenaeus 4.161b-4.161c [72].
12
Anacreon (?), Anthologia Palatina 9.715 ? I B.C.-A.D. I-VI
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Bouko&le, ta_n a)ge/lan po&rrw ne/me, mh_ to_ Mu&rwnoj
boi/dion w(j e1mpnoun bousi\ sunecela&sh|j.
Herdsman, pasture thy herd far from here, lest
taking Myron’s heifer to be alive thou drive it off
with the rest.
13
Anacreon (?), Anthologia Palatina 9.716 ? I B.C.-A.D. I-VI
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Boi/dion ou) xoa&noij tetupwme/non, a)ll' u(po_ gh&rwj
xalkwqe\n sfete/rh| yeu&sato xeiri\ Mu&rwn.
Myron pretended this heifer to be the work
of his hands, but it was never formed in the mould,
but turned into bronze owing to old age.
Anaxandrides, fr. 39 Kock (Cities) IV B.C.
See Athenaeus 7.299f [73].
343

14
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 7.62 ?
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology II (London and New
York, 1917; repr. 1925).
Ai0ete/, ti/pte be/bhkaj u(pe\r ta&fon h2 ti/noj, ei0pe/,
a)stero&enta qew~n oi]kon a)poskope/eij; —
Yuxh~j ei0mi Pla&twnoj a)poptame/nhj e0j 1Olumpon
ei0kw&n: sw~ma de\ gh~ ghgene\j 0Atqi\j e1xei.
Eagle, why standest thou on the tomb, and on whose, tell me, and
why gazest thou at the starry home of the gods?
I am the image of the soul of Plato that hath flown away to
Olympus, but his earth-born body rests here in Attic earth.
15
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 7.64 ?
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology II (London and New
York, 1917; repr. 1925).
a. Ei0pe/, ku&on, ti/noj a)ndro_j e0festw_j sh~ma fula&sseij;
b. Tou~ Kuno&j. a. 0Alla_ ti/j h}n ou{toj a)nh_r o( Ku&wn;
b. Dioge/nhj. a. Ge/noj ei0pe/. b. Sinwpeu&j. a. 4Oj pi/qon w| 1kei;
b. Kai\ ma&la: nu~n de\ qanw_n a)ste/raj oi]kon e1xei.
A. “Tell me, dog, who was the man on whose tomb thou standest keeping guard?” B.
“The Dog.” A. “But what man was that, the Dog?” B. “Diogenes.” A. “Of what
country?” B. “Of Sinope.” A. “He who lived in a jar?” B. “Yes, and how he is dead, the
stars are his home.”
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina
The text and translations of all anonymous epigrams of the Anthologia Palatina referring
to Myron’s cow are taken from the edition of W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek
Anthology III (London and New York, 1915; repr. 1925).
16
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.713 ?
Boi/dio&n ei0mi Mu&rwnoj, e0pi\ sth&lhj d' a)na&keimai.
bouko&le, kenth&saj ei0j a)ge/lhn m' a1page.
I am Myron’s little heifer, set up on a base. Goad
me, herdsman, and drive me off to the herd.
344

17
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.714 ?
Ti/pte, Mu&rwn, me to_ boi/dion e0ntauqoi= para_ bwmoi=j
e1stasaj; ou)k e0qe/leij ei0sage/men me/garon;
Why, Myron, didst thou set me here by the altars?
Wilt thou not lead me into the house?
18
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.721A ?
9H bou=v e0c a)ro&tou ne/on h2luqe, kai\ dia_ tou~to
o)knei=, kou)k e0qe9/lei bh~m' e0pi/prosqen a1gein.
The cow has just returned from plowing, and
owing to that is lazy and will not advance.
19
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.725 ?
Bou~n i0di/an pote\ bousi\ Mu&rwn mixqei=san e0reu&na:
eu{re mo&lij d' au)th_n ta_j bo&aj e0cela&saj.
Myron was looking for his own cow among the
others, and found it with difficulty by driving the
rest away.
20
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.726 ?
9A bou~j a( ti/ktous' a)po_ gaste/roj e1plase ta_n bou~n:
a( de\ Mu&rwnoj xei\r ou) pla&sen, a)ll' e1teken.
The cow, its mother, moulded this heifer
giving birth to it, but the hand of Myron did not mould
it, but gave birth to it.
21
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.727 ?
345

Kai\ xalkh~ per e0ou~sa la&lhsen a2n a( kerah_ bou~j,
ei1 oi9 spla&gxna Mu&rwn e1ndon e0texna&sato.
The horned cow would have spoken, though
made of bronze, if Myron had worked entrails inside it.
22
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.729 ?
Phkto&n moi/ tij a1rotron e0p' au)xe/ni kai\ zuga_ qe/sqw,
ei3neka ga_r te/xnaj sei=o, Mu&rwn, a)ro&sw.
Let someone attach me to the solid plough and
put a yoke on my neck, for as far as depends on
thy art, Myron, I will plough.
23
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.731 ?
[Wde Mu&rwn m' e1sthse to_ boi/dion: oi9 de\ nomh~ej
ba&llousi/n me li/qoij w(j a)poleipo&menon.
Myron placed me the heifer, here, but the herds-
men throw stones at me thinking I have strayed.
24
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.733 ?
Ta_n bou~n ta&nde Mu&rwn, cei=n', e1plasen, a4n o3de mo&sxoj
w(j zw~san sai/nei, mate/ra derko&menoj.
Stranger, it was Myron who moulded this cow, on which this calf
fawns as if it were alive, taking it for its mother.
25
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.735 ?
Sei=o, Mu&rwn, dama&lei paraka&tqane mo&sxoj a)laqei\j
kai\ ga&la pisteu&wn xalko_n e1swqen e1xein.
A calf died beside thy heifer, Myron, deceived
into thinking that the bronze had milk inside.
346

26
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.736 ?
Feu~ su&, Mu&rwn, pla&ssaj ou)k e1fqasaj: a)lla& se xalko&j,
pri\n yuxh_n bale/ein, e1fqase phgnu&menoj.
Alack! Myron, thou didst not have time to
complete thy casting, but the bronze hardened
before thou couldst put life into it.
27
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.737 ?
Xalkei/an tu&pteij da&malin: me/ga s' h1pafe te/xna,
bouko&le: ta_n yuxa_n ou) prose/qhke Mu&rwn.
Thou strikest the bronze heifer. Art deceived
thee much, herdsman: Myron did not add life.
28
Anonymous, Anthologia Palatina 9.741 ?
Xa&lkeoj h}j, e0pi\ soi\ de\ gewto&moj ei[lken a1rotron
kai\ zugo&desma fe/rwn, yeudome/na da&mali.
a)lla_ Mu&rwn te/xna| panupei/roxoj, o3j se di' e1rgwn
e1mpnoun w3j tina bou~n e0rga&tin ei0rga&sato.
Thou wast bronze, deceptive heifer, and the
husbandman came up to thee dragging a plough
and carrying a yoke. He far excels all other artists,
Myron, who by his labour made thee alive, just like
a labouring cow.
29
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 7.426 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology II (London and New
York, 1917; repr. 1925).
Ei0pe/, le/on, fqime/noio ti/noj ta&fon a)mfibe/bhkaj,
boufa≥ ti/j ta~j sa~j a1cioj h}n a)reta~j; —
Ui9o_j Qeudw&roio Teleuti/aj, o4j me/ga pa&ntwn
fe/rteroj h}n, qhrw~n o3sson e0gw_ ke/krimai.
347

ou)xi\ ma&tan e3staka, fe/rw de/ ti su&mbolon a)lka~j
a)ne/roj: h}n ga_r dh_ dusmene/essi le/wn.
Tell, lion, thou slayer of kine, on whose tomb thou standest there
and who was worthy of thy valour?
Teleutias, the son of Theodorus, who was far most valiant of
men, as I am judged to be of beasts. Not in vain stand I here, but
I emblem the prowess of the man, for he was indeed a lion to his
enemies.
30
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.720 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Ei0 mh& mou poti\ ta|~de Mu&rwn po&daj h3rmose pe/tra|,
a1llaij a2n nemo&man bousi\n o(mou~ da&malij.
If Myron had not fixed my feet to this stone I
would have gone to pasture with the other cows.
31
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.721 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Mo&sxe, ti/ moi lago&nessi prose/rxeai; e0j ti/ de\ muka|~;
a( te/xna mazoi=j ou)k e0ne/qhke ga&la.
Calf, why dost thou approach my flanks, and why
doast thou low? The artist put no milk in my udder.
32
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.722 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Ta_n da&malin, bouforbe/, pare/rxeo mhd' a)pa&neuqe
suri/sdh|j: mastw|~ po&rtin u(pekde/xetai.
Pass by the heifer, cowherd, and whistle not
to her from afar. She is expecting her calf to suckle it.
348

33
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.723 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
9A mo&liboj kate/xei me kai\ a( li/qoj: ei3neka d' a2n seu~,
pla&sta Mu&rwn, lwto_n kai\ qru&on e0drepo&man.
The lead and stone hold me fast, but, otherwise,
thanks to thee, sculptor Myron, I would be nibbling
lotus and rushes.
34
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.724 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
9A da&malij, doke/w, mukh&setai: h} r(' o( Promhqeu_j
ou)xi\ mo&noj, pla&tteij e1mpnoa kai\ su&, Mu&rwn.
I think the heifer will low. Of a truth it is not
Prometheus alone who moulds living creatures,
but thou too, Myron.
35
Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 9.728 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
9A da&malij, doke/w, mukh&setai: h2n de\ bradu&nh|,
xalko_j o( mh_ noe/wn ai1tioj, ou)xi\ Mu&rwn.
The heifer, I think, will low, and if its delays it
is the fault of the senseless bronze, not Myron’s.
36
Aristophanes, Equites 289 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. Henderson, ed., tr., Aristophanes. Acharnians. Knights
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1998).
ALLANTOPWLHS
kunokoph&sw sou to_ nw~ton.
349

SAUSAGE SELLER
I’ll beat your back like a dog’s!
37
Aristophanes, Equites 411-416 V B.C.
Text and translation: A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Knights (The Comedies of Aristophanes
2; Warminster, 1981).
ALLANTOPWLHS
1Egwge, nh_ tou_j kondu&louj, ou4j polla_ dh_ 'pi\ polloi=j
h)nesxo&mhn e0k paidi/ou, maxairi/dwn te plhga&j,
u(perbalei=sqai/ s' oi1omai tou&toisin, h2 ma&thn g' a2n
a)pomagdalia_j sitou&menoj tosou~toj e0ktrafei/hn.
PAFLAGWN
415 0Apomagdalia_j w3sper ku&wn; ]W pampo&nhre, pw~j ou}n
kuno_j bora_n sitou&menoj maxei= su_ kunokefa&lw|;
SAUSAGE-SELLER
Well, I swear by the fists whose blows I’ve borne many on many
a time from a child up, and by the slashes of butchers’ knives,
I think I will surpass you in that. Otherwise it would be for nothing
that I’ve grown to such a size on a diet of hand-wipes.
PAPHLAGON
Hand-wipes, like a dog? Poor rascal, how on a diet
of dog’s food do you expect to fight with a dog-faced baboon?
38
Aristophanes, Equites 1030-1034 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. Henderson, ed., tr., Aristophanes. Acharnians. Knights
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1998).
ALLANTOPWLHS
1030 ku&na Ke/rberon a)ndrapodisth&n,
o4j ke/rkw| sai/nwn s', o(po&tan deipnh|~j, e0pithrw~n
e0ce/detai/ sou tou1yon, o3tan su& poi a1llose xa&skh|j:
e0sfoitw~n t' e0j tou)pta&nion lh&sei se kunhdo_n
nu&ktwr ta_j lopa&daj kai\ ta_j nh&souj dialei/xwn.
SAUSAGE SELLER
The dog Cerberus, trafficker in bodies,
who wags his tail at you when you’re dining and
350

watches, and when you happen to gape in another direction,
eats up your entrée, and at night steals into your kitchen
all unseen, and doglike licks clean the plates and the islands.
39
Aristophanes, Equites 1395-1401 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. Henderson, ed., tr., Aristophanes. Acharnians. Knights
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1998).
DHMOS
1395 to_n de\ Paflago&na,
o4j tau~t' e1drasen, ei1f' o3 ti poh&seij kako&n.
ALLANTOPWLHS
ou)de\n me/g' a)ll' h2 th_n e0mh_n e3cei te/xnhn:
e0pi\ tai=j pu&laij a)llantopwlh&sei mo&noj,
ta_ ku&neia meignu_j toi=j o)nei/oij pra&gmasin,
1400 mequ&wn te tai=j po&rnaisi loidorh&setai,
ka)k tw~n balanei/wn pi/etai to_ lou&trion.
DEMOS
And Paphlagon, who behaved this way, tell me how you’ll
punish him.
SAUSAGE SELLER
Nothing severe; he’s merely going to take my old job. He’ll
have his own sausage stand at the city gates, hashing up
dog and ass meat instead of politics, getting drunk and
trading insults with the whores, and drinking the runoff
from the public baths.
40
Aristophanes, fr. 204 Kock (Banqueters) V B.C.
Text: Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta I (Leipzig, 1880).
Translation: J. M. Edmonds, ed., tr., The Fragments of Attic Comedy I (Leiden, 1957).
41
ti/ dai/; kuni/dion lepto_n e0pri/w th|~ qea|~
ei0j ta_j trio&douj;
What does this mean? You’ve bought a little white pup
on which the goddess at the cross may sup?
351

Aristophanes, Lysistrata 1203-1215 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. Henderson, ed., tr., Aristophanes. Birds. Lysistrata. Women at the
Thesmophoria (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2000).
XOROS
ei0 de/ tw| mh_ si=toj u(mw~n
e0sti, bo&skei d' oi0ke/taj kai\
smikra_ polla_ paidi/a,
1205 e1sti par' e0mou~ labei=n
puri/dia lepta_ me/n, o( d'
a1rtoj a)po_ xoi/nikoj i0-
dei=n ma&la neani/aj.
1210 3Ostij ou}n bou&letai tw~n penh&twn i1tw
ei0j e0mou~ sa&kouj e1xwn kai\
kwru&kouj: w(j lh&yetai purou&j. 9O ma-
nh~j d' ou(mo_j au)toi=j e0mbalei=.
pro&j ge me/ntoi th_n qu&ran
proagoreu&w mh_ badi/zein th_n e0mh&n, a)ll'
1215 eu)labei=sqai th_n ku&na.
CHORUS
If anyone’s out of bread
but has slaves to feed
and lots of little kids,
you can get flour from my house—
puny grains, true,
but a pound of them grow up to be
a loaf that’s very hearty to see.
And of the poor are welcome
to come to my house with sacks
and bags to carry the flour away; my houseboy
will pour it in for them.
A warning though:
Don’t come to my door—
beware of the watchdog there!
42
Aristophanes, Pax 19-28 V B.C.
Text and translation: J. Henderson, ed., tr., Aristophanes. Clouds. Wasps. Peace
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1998).
OIKETHS B &
nh_ to_n Di/' e0j ko&raka&j ge, kai\ sauto&n ge pro&j.
20 u(mw~n de/ g' ei1 tij oi]de/ moi kateipa&tw
po&qen a2n priai/mhn r(i=na mh_ tetrhme/nhn.
352

ou)de\n ga_r e1rgon h}n a1r' a)qliw&teron
h2 kanqa&rw| ma&ttonta pare/xein e0sqi/ein.
u{j me\n ga&r, w3sper a2n xe/sh| tij, h2 ku&wn
25 fau&lwj e0rei/dei tou~q': o( d' u(po_ fronh&matoj
brenqu&etai/ te kai\ fagei=n ou)k a)cioi=,
h2n mh_ paraqw~ tri/yaj di' h(me/raj o3lhj
w3sper gunaiki\ goggu&lhn memagme/nhn.
SECOND SLAVE
By heaven, you can take it to hell, and yourself with it!
(to the spectators) If any of you knows where I can buy an
unperforated nose, please tell me! Because there’s no job
more wretched than kneading food to serve to a beetle. A
pig or a dog will simply gobble up any shit that falls, but
this conceited thing puts on airs and won’t deign to eat
anything that I don’t spend the whole day mashing and
serve kneaded into a ball, as for a lady.
43
Aristophanes, Plutus 594-597
Text: V. Coulon and H. van Daele, eds., Aristophane V (Paris, 1930; repr. 1963).
Translation: A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wealth (The Comedies of Aristophanes 11;
Warminster, 2001).
XREMULOS
Para_ th~j 9Eka&thj e1cestin tou~to puqe/sqai,
595 ei1te to_ ploutei=n ei1te to_ peinh~n be/ltion. Fhsi\ ga_r au3th
tou_j me\n e1xontaj kai\ ploutou~ntaj dei=pnon kata_ mh~n' a)pope/mpein,
tou_j de\ pe/nhtaj tw~n a)nqrw&pwn a(rpa&zein pri\n kataqei=nai.
CHREMYLUS
You can get the answer from Hecate
as to whether it is better to be rich or to be hungry.
She says that the “haves,” the rich, offer her a dinner
every month, but the poor people snatch it away before
it’s even set down!
44
Aristophanes, Plutus 1100-1105
Text: V. Coulon and H. van Daele, eds., Aristophane V (Paris, 1930; repr. 1963).
Translation: A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wealth (The Comedies of Aristophanes 11;
Warminster, 2001).
KARIWN
353

1100 ou{toj, ei0pe/ moi,
su_ th_n qu&ran e1koptej ou(twsi\ sfo&dra;
ERMHS
ma_ Di/', a)ll' e1mellon: ei]t' a)ne/w|ca&j me fqa&saj.
0All' e0kka&lei to_n despo&thn tre/xwn taxu&,
e1peita th_n gunai=ka kai\ ta_ paidi/a,
1105 e1peita tou_j qera&pontaj, ei]ta th_n ku&na,
e1peita sauto&n, ei]ta th_n u{n.
CARION
Here, you, tell me,
was it you that was knocking so hard on the door just now?
HERMES
No, I didn’t; I was going to, but you opened the door first.
Now run quickly and call out your master,
then his wife and children,
then the servants, then the dog,
then yourself, and then the pig.
45
Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 414-417
Text and translation: A. H. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Thesmophoriazusae (The Comedies of
Aristophanes 8; Warminster, 1994).
MIKA
ei]ta dia_ tou~ton tai=j gunaikwni/tisin
415 sfragi=daj e0piba&llousin h1dh kai\ moxlou_j
throu~ntej h(ma~j, kai\ prose/ti Molottikou_j
tre/fousi mormolukei=a toi=j moixoi=j ku&naj.
MICA
Then, again, because of him, they now keep close guard on us,
putting seals and bars on the doors of the women’s quarters,
and on top of that they keep Molossian dogs
to frighten the wits out of seducers.
46
Aristophanes, Vespae 835-843 V B.C.
Text and translation: H. A. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wasps (The Comedies of Aristophanes
4; Warminster, 1983).
CANQIAS
354

835 ba&ll' e0j ko&rakaj. toioutoni\ tre/fein ku&na.
BDELUKLEWN
ti/ d' e0sti\n e0teo&n;
CANQIAS
ou) ga_r o( La&bhj a)rti/wj,
o( ku&wn, para|&caj ei0j to_n i0pno_n a(rpa&saj
trofali/da turou~ Sikelikh_n katedh&doken;
BDELUKLEWN
840 tou~t' a}ra prw~ton ta)di/khma tw|~ patri\
ei0sakte/on moi. su_ de\ kathgo&rei parw&n.
CANQIAS
ma_ Di/' ou)k e1gwg', a)ll' a3tero&j fhsin ku&wn
kathgorh&sein, h1n tij ei0sa&gh| grafh&n.
XANTHIAS
To hell with you! To think that we keep a dog like that!
BDELYCLEON
Tell me, what’s the matter?
XANTHIAS
If it isn’t that dog Labes! He just dashed through
into the kitchen, grabbed a long Sicilian cheese,
and he’s eaten it all up.
BDELYCLEON
Then that must be the first crime I bring before my father.
You be here to prosecute.
XANTHIAS
No, not me; actually the other dog says
he’ll be prosecuting if a charge is brought into court.
47
Aristophanes, Vespae 968-969 V B.C.
Text and translation: H. A. Sommerstein, ed., tr., Wasps (The Comedies of Aristophanes
4; Warminster, 1983).
BDELUKLEWN
ou{toj ga_r o( La&bhj kai\ traxh&li' e0sqi/ei
kai\ ta_j a)ka&nqaj, kou)de/pot' e0n tau)tw|~ me/nei.
355

BDELYCLEON
This Labes will eat meat-scraps
and fish-bones, and he never stays in one place for long.
48
Aristotle, Categoriae 1a IV B.C.
Text: L. Minio-Paluello, ed., Aristotelis Categoriae et Liber de Interpretatione (Oxford,
1949; repr. 1966).
Translation: H. P. Cooke, ed., tr., Aristotle I. Categories. On Interpretation. Prior
Analytics (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1938; repr. 1996).
9Omw&numa le/getai w{n o1noma mo&non koino&n, o( de\ kata_ tou1noma lo&goj th~j ou)si/aj
e3teroj, oi[on zw|~on o3 te a1nqrwpoj kai\ to_ gegramme/non: tou&twn ga_r o1noma mo&non
koino&n, o( de\ kata_ tou1noma lo&goj th~j ou)si/aj e3teroj: e0a_n ga_r a)podidw|~ tij ti/
e0stin au)tw~n e9kate/rw| to_ zw|&w| ei]nai, i1dion e9kate/rou lo&gon a)podw&sei. sunw&numa
de\ le/getai w{n to& te o1noma koino_n kai\ o( kata_ tou1noma lo&goj th~j ou)si/aj o( au)to&j,
oi[on zw|~on o3 te a1nqrwpoj kai\ o( bou~j: tou&twn ga_r e9ka&teron koinw|~ o)no&mati
prosagoreu&etai zw|~on, kai\ o( lo&goj de\ th~j ou)si/aj o( au)to&j: e0a_n ga_r a)podidw|~ tij
to_n e9kate/rou lo&gon ti/ e0stin au)tw~n e9kate/rw| to_ zw|&w| ei]nai, to_n au)to_n
lo&gon a)podw&sei. parw&numa de\ le/getai o3sa a)po& tinoj diafe/ronta th|~ ptw&sei
th_n kata_ tou1noma proshgori/an e1xei, oi[on a)po_ th~j grammatikh~j o( grammatiko_j
kai\ a)po_ th~j a)ndrei/aj o( a)ndrei=oj.
Things are equivocally named, when they have the name only in common, the definition
(or statement of essence) corresponding with the name being different. For instance,
while a man and a portrait can properly both be called ‘animals’ these are equivocally
named. For they have the name only in common, the definitions (or statements of
essence) corresponding with the name being different. For if you are asked to define
what the being an animal means in the case of the man and the portrait, you give in either
case a definition appropriate to that case alone.
Things are univocally named, when not only they bear the same name but the name
means the same in each case—has the same definition corresponding. Thus a man and an
ox are called ‘animals.’ The name is the same in both cases; so also the statement of
essence. For if you are asked what is meant by their both of them being called ‘animals’
you give that particular name in both cases the same definition. Things are ‘derivatively’
named that derive their own name form some other, that is given a new verbal form, as,
for instance, ‘grammarian’ from ‘grammar,’ from ‘heroism,’ ‘hero,’ and so on.
49
Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium 743b IV B.C.
Text: H. J. D. Lulofs, ed., Aristotelis de Generatione Animalium (Oxford, 1965; repr.
1972).
Translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Generation of Animals (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1943; repr. 1953).
356

Prw~ton me\n ou}n to_ a1nw ku&toj a)fori/zetai kata_ th_n ge/nesin,
to_ de\ ka&tw proi"o&ntoj tou~ xro&nou lamba&nei th_n au1chsin e0n toi=j e0nai/moij.
a3panta de\ tai=j perigrafai=j diori/zetai pro&teron, u3steron de\ lamba&nei ta_
xrw&mata kai\ ta_j malako&thtaj kai\ ta_j sklhro&thtaj, a)texnw~j w3sper
a2n u(po_ zwgra&fou th~j fu&sewj dhmiourgou&mena: kai\ ga_r oi9 grafei=j
u(pogra&yantej tai=j grammai=j ou3twj e0nalei/fousi toi=j xrw&masi to_ zw|~on.
Now the upper portion of the body is the first to be marked off in the course of the
embryo’s formation; the lower portion receives its growth as time goes on. (This applies
to the blooded animals). In the early stages the parts are all traced out in outline; later on
they get their various colors and softnesses and hardnesses, for all the world as if a
painter were at work on them, the painter being Nature. Painters, as we know, first of all
sketch in the figure of the animal in outline, and after that go on to apply the colors.
50
Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium 746a IV B.C.
Text: H. J. D. Lulofs, ed., Aristotelis de Generatione Animalium (Oxford, 1965; repr.
1972).
Translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Generation of Animals (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1943; repr. 1953).
Gi/gnetai de\ o( sunduasmo_j toi=j zw|&oij kata_ fu&sin me\n toi=j o(mogene/sin, ou) mh_n
a)lla_ kai\ toi=j me\n su&negguj th_n fu&sin e1xousin ou)k a)diafo&roij de\ tw|~ ei1dei, e0a_n
ta& te mege/qh paraplh&sia h|} kai\ oi9 xro&noi i1soi w}si th~j kuh&sewj. spa&nia me\n
ou}n gi/gnetai ta_ toiau~ta e0pi\ tw~n a1llwn, gi/gnetai de\ kai\ e0pi\ kunw~n kai\
a)lwpe/kwn kai\ lu&kwn : kai\ oi9 0Indikoi\ de\ ku&nej e0k qhri/ou tino_j
kunw&douj gennw~ntai kai\ kuno&j.
The partners in copulation are naturally and ordinarily animals of the same kind; but
beside that, animals that are closely allied in their nature, and are not very different in
species, copulate, if they are comparable in size and if their period of gestation are equal
in length. Although such crossing is infrequent among the majority of animals, it occurs
among dogs, foxes, wolves (and jackals); the Indian dog also is produced from the union
of a dog with some wild doglike beast.
51
Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium 747b IV B.C.
Text: H. J. D. Lulofs, ed., Aristotelis de Generatione Animalium (Oxford, 1965; repr.
1972).
Translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Generation of Animals (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1943; repr. 1953).
ei0 ga_r e0c o(moeidw~n a1rrenoj kai\ qh&leoj o(moeide\j gi/gnesqai pe/fuke toi=j
gennh&sasin a1rren h2 qh~lu, oi[on e0k kuno_j a1rrenoj kai\ qh&leoj ku&wn a1rrhn
h2 qh&leia, kai\ e0c e9te/rwn tw|~ ei1dei e3teron tw|~ ei1dei, oi[on ei0 ku&wn
357

e3teron le/ontoj, kai\ e0k kuno_j a1rrenoj kai\ le/ontoj qh&leoj e3teron
kai\ e0k le/ontoj a1rrenoj kai\ kuno_j qh&leoj e3teron:
Two animals which differ in species produce offspring which differs in species; for
instance, a dog differs in species from a lion, and the offspring of a male dog and a
female lion is different in species; so is the offspring of a male lion and a female dog.
52
Aristotle, De Memoria et Reminiscentia 450b-451a IV B.C.
Text: W. D. Ross, ed., Aristotle. Parva Naturalia (Oxford, 1955; repr. 1970).
Translation: W. S. Hett, ed., tr., Aristotle VIII. On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On Breath
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1995).
oi[on ga_r to_ e0n pi/naki gegramme/non zw|~on kai\ zw|~o&n e0sti kai\ ei0kw&n, kai\ to_ au)to_ kai\
e4n tou~t' e0sti\n a1mfw, to_ me/ntoi ei]nai ou) tau)to_n a)mfoi=n, kai\ e1sti qewrei=n kai\ w(j
zw|~on kai\ w(j ei0ko&na, ou3tw kai\ to_ e0n h(mi=n fa&ntasma dei= u(polabei=n kai\
au)to& ti kaq' au(to_ ei]nai kai\ a1llou [fa&ntasma]. h| { me\n ou}n kaq' au(to&, qew&rhma h2
fa&ntasma& e0stin, h| { d' a1llou, oi[on ei0kw_n kai\ mnhmo&neuma. w3ste kai\ o3tan e0nergh|~ h(
ki/nhsij au)tou~, a2n me\n h| { kaq' au(to& e0sti, tau&th| ai0sqa&nhtai h( yuxh_ au)tou~, oi[on
no&hma& ti h2 fa&ntasma fai/netai e0pelqei=n: a2n d' h| { a1llou kai\ w3sper e0n th|~ grafh|~ w(j
ei0ko&na qewrei= kai/, mh__
e9wrakw_j to_n Kori/skon, w(j Kori/skou, e0ntau~qa& te a1llo to_
pa&qoj th~j qewri/aj tau&thj kai\ o3tan w(j zw|~on gegramme/non qewrh|~, e1n te th|~ yuxh|~
to_ me\n gi/gnetai w3sper no&hma mo&non, to_ d' w(j e0kei= o3ti ei0kw&n, mnhmo&neuma.
Just as the picture painted on the panel is at once a picture and a portrait, and though one
and the same, is both, yet the essence of the two is not the same, and it is possible to think
of it as a picture and as a portrait, so in the same way we must regard the mental picture
within us both as an object of contemplation in itself and as a mental picture of something
else. In so far as we consider it in itself, it is an object of contemplation or a mental
picture, but in so far as we consider it in relation to something else, e.g., as a likeness, it
is also an aid to memory. Hence when the stimulus of it is operative, if the soul perceives
the impression as independent, it appears to occur as a thought, or a mental picture; but if
it is considered in relation to something else, it is as though one contemplated a figure in
the picture as a portrait, e.g., of Coriscus, although he has not just seen Coriscus. As in
this case the affection caused by the contemplation differs from that which is caused then
one contemplates the object merely as a painted picture, so in the soul the one object
appears as a mere thought, but the other, being (as in the former case) a likeness, is an aid
to memory.
53
Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 3.10.7 IV B.C.
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1926; repr. 1956).
ou)de\ ga_r tai=j o)smai=j tw~n lagww~n ai9 ku&nej
358

xai/rousin a)lla_ th|~ brw&sei, th_n d' ai1sqhsin h( o)smh_ e0poi/hsen:
Hounds do not take pleasure in scenting hares,
but in eating them; the scent merely made them aware of the hare.
54
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 488b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
ta_ d' e0leuqe/ria kai\ a)ndrei=a kai\ eu)genh~, oi[on le/wn.
Other [animals] are noble and brave and high-bred, e.g., the lion.
55
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 490b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
Tou~ de\ ge/nouj tou~ tw~n tetrapo&dwn zw|&wn kai\ zw|oto&kwn ei1dh me/n e0sti polla&,
a)nw&numa de/: a)lla_ kaq' e3kaston au)tw~n w(j ei0pei=n, w3sper a1nqrwpoj ei1rhtai,
le/wn, e1lafoj, i3ppoj, ku&wn kai\ ta}lla tou~ton to_n tro&pon,
There are many kinds included in the group of viviparous quadrupeds; but they are
unnamed. Each constituent, we may say, has been named individually, as man has, e.g.,
lion, deer, horse, dog, and the rest of them in the same way.
56
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 501a IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
1Eti de\ ta_ me/n e0sti karxaro&donta au)tw~n, oi[on le/wn kai\ pa&rdalij kai\ ku&wn.
Some of them [animals] are saw-toothed, e.g., the lion, the leopard, and the dog.
57
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 502a IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
359

1Exousi de\ ta_ zw|~a kai\ ta_ mege/qh diafe/ronta tou~ sto&matoj. Tw~n me\n ga&r e0sti
ta_ sto&mata a)nerrwgo&ta, w3sper kuno_j kai\ le/ontoj kai\ pa&ntwn tw~n
karxarodo&ntwn.
Animals vary in the sizes of their mouths. Some have mouths which open wide (e.g., the
dog, the lion, and all the saw-toothed animals.
58
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 507b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
a)lla_ ta_ me\n e1xei mei/zw th_n koili/an, w3sper u{j kai\ a1rktoj (kai\ h3 ge th~j u(o_j
o)li/gaj e1xei lei/aj pla&kaj), ta_ de\ polu_ e0la&ttw kai\ ou) pollw|~ mei/zw tou~ e0nte/rou,
kaqa&per le/wn kai\ ku&wn kai\ a1nqrwpoj.
Some [animals] have a comparatively large stomach (e.g., the pig and the bear; the pig’s
stomach has a few smooth folds in it); some have a much smaller one, not much larger
than the gut, e.g., the dog, the lion, and the man.
59
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 517a-517b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
tw~n d' e0xo&ntwn ta_ me/n e0stin eu)quw&nuxa, w3sper a1nqrwpoj, ta_ de\ gamyw&nuxa,
w3sper kai\ tw~n pezw~n le/wn kai\ tw~n pthnw~n a)eto&j.
Of the animals that possess nails, then, some have straight ones (e.g., man), others
crooked or curved ones (an example from walking animals is the lion, from flying ones,
the eagle.
60
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 522b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium I (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1965).
e0n Fa&sei me/n e0sti boi5dia mikra_ w{n e3kaston bda&lletai ga&la polu&, ai9 d'
0Hpeirwtikai\ bo&ej ai9 mega&lai bda&llontai e9ka&sth a)mfore/a kai\ tou&tou to_ h3misu
kata_ tou_j du&o mastou&j: o( de\ bda&llwn o)rqo_j e3sthken, mikro_n e0piku&ptwn, dia_ to_
mh_ du&nasqai a2n e0fiknei=sqai kaqh&menoj. Gi/netai d' e1cw o1nou kai\ ta}lla mega&la e0n
th|~ 0Hpei/rw| tetra&poda, me/gistoi d' oi9 bo&ej kai\ oi9 ku&nej.
360

In Phasis there is a breed of small cattle every one of which yields a copious supply of
milk. In Epeirus there are large cows which yield an amphoreus and half of this from the
two teats. The milker has to stand upright, bending slightly forward, because he would
not be able to reach far enough if seated. In addition to the cattle, all the quadrupeds
(except the ass) in Epeirus are large in size, and in proportion the cattle and the dogs are
the largest.
61
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 542a IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium II (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1970).
a1nqrwpoj de\ ma&lista pa~san w3ran, kai\ tw~n sunanqrwpeuome/nwn zw|&wn polla_
dia_ th_n a)le/an kai\ eu)trofi/an, o3swn kai\ ai9 kuh&seij o)ligoxro&nioi/ ei0sin, oi[on u(o_j
kai\ kuno&j, kai\ tw~n pthnw~n o3sa pleona&kij poiou~ntai tou_j to&kouj.
Human beings pair and breed at any and every season, and so also do many domesticated
animals owing to the shelter and the plentiful food they get by their association with man:
I refer to those whose gestation periods are short, such as the sow and the bitch, and those
birds which raise several broods.
62
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 579b IV B.C.
Text and translation: A. L. Peck, ed., tr., Aristotle. Historia Animalium II (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1970).
spa&nion ga_r to_ ge/noj to_ tw~n leo&ntwn e0sti\ kai\ ou)k e0n pollw|~ gi/netai to&pw|,
a)lla_ th~j Eu)rw&phj a(pa&shj e0n tw|~ metacu_ tou~ 0Axelw|&ou kai\ tou~ Ne/ssou
potamou~.
It is a fact that the lion is a scarce animal, and is not found in many places—
in the whole of Europe it occurs only in the tract of country between the rivers
Acheloös and Nessos.
63
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 594b IV B.C.
Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
9O de\ le/wn sarkofa&gon me/n e0stin, w3sper kai\ ta}lla o3sa a1gria kai\
karxaro&donta, th|~ de\ brw&sei xrh~tai la&brwj, kai\ katapi/nei polla_ o3la ou)
diairw~n, ei]q' h(me/raj du&o h2 trei=j a)sitei=: du&natai ga_r dia_ to_ u(perplhrou~sqai.
0Oligo&poton d' e0sti/n. To_ de\ peri/ttwma proi5etai spani/wj: dia_ tri/thj ga_r h2
o3pwj a2n tu&xh| proxwrei=, kai\ tou~to sklhro_n kai\ e0cikmasme/non, o3moion kuni/.
361

Proi5etai de\ kai\ th_n fu~san sfo&dra drimei=an kai\ to_ ou}ron e1xon o)smh&n, dio_ w3sper
oi9 ku&nej o)sfrai/netai tw~n de/ndrwn: ou)rei= ga_r ai1rwn to_ ske/loj w3sper oi9 ku&nej.
The lion is a carnivore like all others that are wild and saw-toothed. Its manner of
devouring is violent, and it swallows much of its food without dividing it up, and then
goes without food for two or three days: it can do this because it is over-full. It does not
drink much. It discharges excrement sparsely: it is voided every other day or at random
intervals, and is dry and desiccated like a dog’s. Also the wind that it discharges is very
pungent and its urine has a smell; hence the dogs sniff at the trees, for it urinates lifting
its leg like dogs.
64
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 606b IV B.C.
Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
1Eti de\ le/ontej me\n e0n th|~ Eu)rw&ph ma~llon, kai\ th~j 0Eurw&phj e0n tw|~ metacu_ to&pw|
tou~ 0Axelw|&ou kai\ Ne/ssou potamou~ mo&non:
Whereas lions occur more in Europe (only in fact in that region of Europe that lies
between the Achelous and Nessus), leopards on the other hand occur in Asia and not in
Europe.
65
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 607a IV B.C.
Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
gi/netai de\ kai\ a1lla e0k mi/cewj mh_ o(mofu&lwn, w3sper kai\ e0n Kurh&nh|
oi9 lu&koi mi/sgontai tai=j kusi\ kai\ gennw~si, kai\ e0c a)lw&pekoj kai\ kuno_j oi9
Lakwnikoi/. Fasi\ de\ kai\ e0k tou~ ti/grioj kai\ kuno_j gi/nesqai tou_j 0Indikou&j, ou)k
eu)qu_j d' a)ll' e0pi\ th~j tri/thj mi/cewj: to_ ga_r prw~ton gennhqe\n qhriw~dej gi/nesqai/
fasin. 1Agontej de\ desmeu&ousin ei0j ta_j e0rhmi/aj ta_j ku&naj: kai\ pollai\
katesqi/ontai, e0a_n mh_ tu&xh| o)rgw~n pro_j th_n o)xei/an to_ qhri/on.
Other animals too are produced from the mixing of different breeds, as in Cyrene the
wolves mate with the dogs and generate young, and from fox and dog come the Laconian
hounds. They say too that the Indian hounds come from tiger and dog, not immediately,
but after the third mating; for they say the first offspring is like a savage beast. They take
the bitches to deserted places and tie them up; and many are devoured, if the wild animal
does not happen to be excited for mating.
66
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 608a IV B.C.
362

Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
To_ d' e0n th|~ Molotti/a| ge/noj tw~n kunw~n to_ me\n qhreutiko_n ou)de\n diafe/rei pro_j to_
para_ toi=j a1lloij, to_ d' a)ko&louqon toi=j proba&toij tw|~ mege/qei kai\ th|~
a)ndrei/a| th|~ pro_j ta_ qhri/a.
The kind of hounds in Molossia is no different from those elsewhere in respect of
hunting, but in shepherding it is superior by reason of size and of courage in facing wild
animals.
67
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 629b IV B.C.
Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
0En de\ tai=j qh&raij o(rw&menoj me\n ou)de/pote feu&gei ou)de\ pth&ssei, a)ll' e0a_n kai\ dia_
plh~qoj a)nagkasqh|~ tw~n qhreuo&ntwn u(pagagei=n ba&dhn u(poxwrei= kai\ kata_
ske/loj, kata_ braxu_ e0pistrefo&menoj: e0a_n me/ntoi e0pila&bhtai dase/oj,
feu&gei taxe/wj, e3wj a2n katasth|~ ei0j fanero&n: to&te de\ pa&lin u(pa&gei ba&dhn.
0En de\ toi=j yiloi=j e0a&n pot' a)nagkasqh|~ ei0j fanero_n dia_ to_ plh~qoj feu&gein,
tre/xei katatei/naj kai\ ou) phda|~. To_ de\ dro&mhma sunexw~j w3sper kuno&j e0sti
katatetame/non: diw&kwn me/ntoi e0pirri/ptei e9auto&n, o3tan h|} plhsi/on.
When it [lion] is being hunted, even if it is in view it never runs away nor takes cover, but
if it is compelled to withdraw because of the number of hunters it retreats at a walk, step
by step, and turning its head at short intervals; nevertheless if it reaches thick cover it
runs away fast until it has come into full view; then in again withdraws at a walk. In
open country if it has been forced by the crowd to run away into full view, it runs
extended and does not leap. The running gait is continuously extended like a hound’s;
when it is pursuing, however, it hurls itself on the prey when it is near.
68
Aristotle, Historia Animalium 630a IV B.C.
Text and translation: D. M. Balme, ed., tr., Aristotle XI. History of Animals. Books VII-X
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1991).
Feu&gousi d' e0ni/ote katatei/nantej th_n ke/rkon w3sper ku&nej. 1Hdh d' w}ptai le/wn
kai\ u(i6 e0piti/qesqai me/llwn, kai\ w(j ei]den a)ntifri/canta, feu&gwn. 1Esti de\ pro_j
ta_j plhga_j ei0j me\n ta_ koi=la a)sqenh&j, kata_ de\ to_ a1llo sw~ma de/xetai polla_j kai\
kefalh_n e1xei i0sxura&n. 3Osa d' a2n da&kh| h2 toi=j o1nucin e9lkw&sh|, e0k tw~n e9lkw~n
i0xw~rej r(e/ousin w)xroi\ sfo&dra kai\ e0k tw~n e0pide/smwn kai\ spo&ggwn u(p' ou)deno_j
duna&menoi e0kklu&zesqai: h( de\ qerapei/a h( au)th_ kai\ tw~n kunodh&ktwn e9lkw~n.
363

Sometimes they [lions] run away stretching the tail straight out like hounds. A lion has
been seen before now to attack a pig, and running away when it saw it bristling in
defence. Agianst blows to the flanks it is weak, but it can take many over the rest of its
body and its head is strong. Whatever it has bitten or wounded with its claws, the
wounds run with ichors which are deep yellow and cannot be washed out of the bandages
and sponges. The treatment is the same as for wounds caused by dogbite.
69
Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1208b IV B.C.
Text and translation: G. C. Armstrong, ed., tr., Aristotle. The Oeconomica and Magna
Moralia (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1935).
fasi\n de\ kai\ kuno&j pote a)ei\ kaqeudou&shj e0pi\ th~j au)th~j kerami=doj,
e0rwthqe/nta to_n 0Empedokle/a, dia_ ti/ pote h( ku&wn e0pi\ th~j au)th~j kerami=doj
kaqeu&dei,ei0pei=n o3ti e1xei ti th|~ kerami=di o3moion h( ku&wn, w(j dia_ to_ o3moion th_n ku&na
foitw~san.
There is also a story of a dog that always would sleep upon the same tile; and of how
Empedocles, when asked why it did so, declared that there was some affinity between the
dog and the tile which caused the former always to seek the latter.
70
Arrian, Cynegeticus 8.1-8.2 A.D. II
Text: A.G. Roos and G. Wirth, eds., Flavii Arriani quae Exstant Omnia II. Scripta
Minora et Fragmenta (first corr. ed.; Leipzig, 1968).
Translation: D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London,
1964).
e0sqi/ousin de\ ai4 me\n la&brwj ai4 de\ kosmi/wj, kai\ to_ ko&smion gennaio&teron tou~
a)ko&smou. a)gaqai\ de\ o3sai mh_ kako&sitoi, a)ll' a1rtw| h2 ma&zh| xai/rousin: kra&tiston
ga_r kuni\ tou~to siti/on, kai\ ou) de/oj mh_ u(peremplhsqei/h a)p' au)tou~. a1meinon de\ ei0
kai\ chra|~ th|~ trofh|~ xai/roien. ei0 de\ kai\ u3dati katabre/xoij kai\ tou&tw| xai/roien, ou)
kako&n.
Enjoy wheat bread or barley bread, for this food is best for a hound and there is no fear
lest they be filled too full of it. Then it is better if they like their food dry, but even if you
soak it in water and they like it, it is not bad.
71
Arrian, Cynegeticus 9.1-9.2 A.D. II
Text: A.G. Roos and G. Wirth, eds., Flavii Arriani quae Exstant Omnia II. Scripta
Minora et Fragmenta (first corr. ed.; Leipzig, 1968).
Translation: D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London,
1964).
364

ou)de\n de\ oi[on eu)nh_ malqakh_ kai\ a)lleeinh&. krati/sth de\ h( met' a)nqrw&pou, o3ti kai\
fila&nqrwpoi a)potelou~ntai, kai\ tw|~ xrwti\ tw|~ a)nqrwpi/nw| xai/rousin, kai\
filou~sin ou) mei=on to_n sugkaqeu&donta h2 to_n tre/fonta. ka2n tw~n lupou&ntwn th_n
ku&na tij ai0sqa&noito, w(j diyw&sh| te e0n nukti\ e0pikourh~sai kai\ e0peigome/nh| u(po& tou
tw~n a)nagkai/wn: gnoi/h d' a2n kai\ o3pwj a)nepau&sato. ei0 ga_r a)grupnh&seien,
e0ca&gein e0pi\ qh&ran ou)k a)sfale/j, ou)d' ei0 e0pista&ceien qamina_ e0n tw|~ u3pnw|, ou)d' ei1 ti
a)peme/seien tw~n siti/wn: tau~ta de\ gnoi/h a2n o( sunanapauo&menoj.
There is nothing like a good warm bed. The best is that with a human being, because
hounds are made fond of people this way, and they rejoice in human skin and love the
person they sleep with no less tham the one who feeds them. And you should notice
which of the hounds was unhappy, so as to provide for one which was thirsty in the night
and for one urged on by necessities, and you would know also how it rested. For if it
were wakeful or of it dripped frequently in its sleep or threw up some of its food, taking it
on a hunt would not be safe. The man sleeping with it would know these things.
72
Athenaeus 4.161b-4.161c A.D. II-III
(=Alexis, fr. 220, 221 Kock [Men of Tarentum])
Text: G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, I (Leipzig, 1887;
repr. Stuttgart, 1961).
Translation: C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists II (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1928; repr. 1957).
a. oi9 puqagori/zontej ga&r, w(j a)kou&omen, ou1t' o1yon e0sqi/ousin ou1t' a1ll' ou)de\ e4n
e1myuxon, oi]no&n t' ou)xi\ pi/nousin mo&noi. b. 0Epixari/dhj me/ntoi ku&naj katesqi/ei,
tw~n Puqagorei/wn ei[j. a. a)poktei/naj ge/ pou: ou)k e1ti ga&r e0st' e1myuxon.
A. “The devotees of Pythagoras, we hear, eat neither fish not anything else that has life,
and they are the only one who drink no wine.” B. “Yes, but Epicharides devours dogs,
and he is a Pythagorean.” A. “Of course, after he has killed one, for then it no longer has
life!”
73
Athenaeus 7.299f A.D. II-III
(=Anaxandrides fr. 39 Kock (Cities))
Text: G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, II (Leipzig, 1887;
repr. Stuttgart, 1965).
Translation: C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists III (London and New
York, 1929).
ou)k a2n dunai/mhn summaxei=n u(mi=n e0gw&:
ou1q' oi9 tro&poi ga_r o(monoou~s' ou1q' oi9 no&moi
h(mw~n, a)p' a)llh&lwn de\ die/xousin polu&.
365

ou~n proskunei=j, e0gw_ de\ qu&w toi=j qeoi=j:
th_n e1gxelun me/giston h(gei= dai/mona,
h(mei=j de\ tw~n o1ywn me/giston para_ polu&.
ou)k e0sqi/eij u3ei', e0gw_ de/ g' h3domai
ma&lista tou&toij: ku&na se/beij, tu&ptw d' e0gw&,
tou1yon katesqi/ousan h(ni/k' a2n la&bw.
I couldn’t bring myself to be an ally of yours,
for neither our manners not our customs agree, but
stand a long distance apart from each other.
You worship the cow, but I sacrifice it to the gods.
You hold the eel to be mighty divinity, we hold it
by far the mightiest of dainties.
You eat no pork, but I like it very much.
You worship the bitch, I beat her when I catch her eating
up my best food.
74
Athenaeus 7.308c-7.308d A.D. II-III
Text: G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, II (Leipzig, 1887;
repr. Stuttgart, 1965).
Translation: C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists III (London and New
York, 1929).
le/cw de\ kai\ mh_ problhqe/ntoj dia_ ti/ oi9 Puqagorikoi\ tw~n me\n a1llwn e0myu&xwn
metri/wj a3ptontai, tina_ de\ kai\ qu&ontej, i0xqu&wn mo&nwn ou) geu&ontai to_
para&pan…. h2 dia_ th_n e0xemuqi/an; qei=on ga_r h(gou~ntai th_n siwph&n. e0pei\ ou}n kai\
u(mei=j, w} Molottikoi\ ku&nej, pa&nta me\n siwpa~te, puqagori/zete de\ ou1, h(mei=j me\n
a1llouj i0xquologh&somen.
I will also explain, even if the question has not been asked, why the Pythagoreans, who
eat moderately of other live animals, some of which they even sacrifice, nevertheless
utterly refuse to touch fish alone. Is it because of their silence? They regard silence, in
fact, as divine. Since then you also, Molossian hounds, are altogether silent though you
are no Pythagoreans, we will proceed to the discussion of other fish.
75
Athenaeus 9.409d A.D. II-III
(=Polemon fr. 77 Preller [Epistle Concerning Obscure Words])
Text: G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, II (Leipzig, 1887;
repr. Stuttgart, 1965).
Translation: C. G. Gulick, tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists IV (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1930; repr. 1957).
366

e1ti de\ kai\ eu)w&desi ta_j xei=raj katexri/onto ta_j a)pomagdali/aj a)tima&santej, a4j
Lakedaimo&nioi e0ka&loun kuna&daj, w3j fhsi Pole/mwn e0n th|~ peri\ o)noma&twn a)do&cwn
e0pistolh|~.
Further, they used to smear their hands with perfumes, spurning the crumbs of bread
which Spartans call “dog-bits,” as Polemon avers in his Epistle concerning Obscure
Words.
76
Athenaeus 12.540c-12.540d A.D. II-III
Text: G. Kaibel, Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, III (Leipzig, 1890;
repr. Stuttgart, 1962).
Translation: C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists V (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1933; repr. 1963).
Klu&toj d' o( 0Aristoteliko_j e0n toi=j peri\ Milh&tou POLUKRATHN fhsi\ to_n
Sami/wn tu&rannon u(po_ trufh~j ta_ pantaxo&qen suna&gein, ku&naj
me\n e0c 0Hpei/rou, ai]gaj de\ e0k Sku&rou, e0k de\ Milh&tou pro&bata, u{j d' e0k Sikeli/aj.
1Alecij d' e0n tri/tw| Sami/wn 3Wrwn e0k pollw~n po&lew&n fhsin kosmhqh~nai
th_n Sa&mon u(po_ tou~ Polukra&touj, ku&naj me\n Molottika_j kai\ Lakai/naj
ei0sagago&ntoj, ai]gaj d' e0k Sku&rou kai\ Na&cou, pro&bata d' e0k Milh&tou kai\ th~j
0Attikh~j.
Clytus the Aristotelian, in his work On Miletus, says of Polycrates the tyrant of Samos
that his instinct for luxury moved him to get together the special products of every
country—hounds from Epeirus, goats from Scyros, sheep from Miletus, and swine from
Sicily. Alexis, too, in the third book of Samian Chronicles says that Samos was enriched
by Polycrates with the products of many cities: he imported Molossian and Laconian
hounds, goats from Scyros and Naxos, and sheep from Miletus and Attica.
77
Athenaeus 13.606a-13.606b A.D. II-III
(= Philemon fr. 139 Kock)
Text: G. Kaibel, ed., Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, III (Leipzig,
1890; repr. Stuttgart, 1962).
Translation: C. B. Gulick, ed., tr., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists VI (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1937).
u{toj ga_r tou~ e0n Sa&mw| Pari/ou a)ga&lmatoj e0rasqei\j kate/kleisen
au(to_n e0n tw|~ naw|~, w(j plhsia&sai dunhso&menoj: kai\ w(j h)duna&tei dia& te th_n
yuxro&thta kai\ to_ a)nti/tupon tou~ li/qou, thnikau~ta th~j e0piqumi/aj a)pe/sth kai\
proballo&menoj to_ sarki/on e0plhsi/asen. th~j pra&cewj tau&thj mnhmoneu&ei kai\
1Alecij o( poihth_j e0n tw|~ e0pigrafome/nw| dra&mati Grafh|~ le/gwn w{de:
gege/nhtai d', w(j le/gousin, ka)n Sa&mw| toiou~q' e3teron. liqi/nhj e0pequ&mhsen ko&rhj
a1nqrwpoj e0gkate/kleise/ q' au(to_n tw|~ new|~.
367

kai\ Filh&mwn tou~ au)tou~ mnhmoneu&wn fhsi/n:
a)ll' e0n Sa&mw| me\n tou~ liqi/nou zw|&ou pote\ a1nqrwpoj h)ra&sqh tij: ei]t' ei0j to_n
new_n kate/kleisen au(to&n.
Kthsikle/ouj d' e0sti\n e1rgon to_ a1galma, w3j fhsin 0Adai=oj o( Mitulhnai=oj e0n tw|~
peri\ 0Agalmatopoiw~n.
For he [Cleisophus of Selymbria], becoming enamored of the statue in Parian marble at
Samos, locked himself up in the temple, thinking he should be able to have intercourse
with it; and since he found that impossible on account of the frigidity and resistance of
the stone, he then and there desisted from that desire and placing before him a small piece
of flesh he consorted with that. This deed is mentioned by the poet Alexis in the play
entitled A Picture : “Another case of a like sort occurred, they say, in Samos. A man
conceived a passion for a stone maiden, and locked himself up in the temple.” And
Philemon, mentioning the same, says: “Why, once on a time, in Samos, a certain man fell
in love with the stone zw|&ou (image); thereupon he locked himself in the temple.” Now
the statue is the work of Ctesicles, as Adaeus of Mytilene says in his work On
Sculptors[ 1Agalma-Makers].
78
Collumella, De Re Rustica 7.12.10 A.D. I
Text and translation: E. S. Foster amd E. H. Heffner, eds., trs., Lucius Junius Moderatus
Columella. On Agriculture. Books V-IX (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1954;
repr. 1997).
Cibaria fere eadem sunt utrique generi praebenda. Nam si tam laxa rura sunt, ut
sustineant pecorum greges, omnes sine discrimine canes hordeacea farina cum sero
commode pascit. Sin autem surculo consitus ager sine pascuo est, farreo vel triticeo pane
satiandi sunt, admixto tamen liquore coctae fabae, sed tepido: nam fervens rabiem creat.
Practically the same food should be given to both types of dog. If the farm is extensive
enough to support herds of cattle, barley-flour with whey is a suitable food for all dogs
without distinction; but if the land is closely planted with young shoots and affords no
pasture, they must be given their fill of bread made with flour of emmer or bread-wheat,
mixed, however, with the liquid of boiled beans, which must be lukewarm, for, if it is
boiling, it causes madness.
79
Demetrias, Thessaly V B.C.
Square marble base for a Sphinx
Text: SEG Thessaly 23:453. Friedländer and Hoffleit 1948, 139A.
Translation: P. Friedländer and H. B. Hoffleit, Epigrammata: Greek Inscriptions in Verse
from the Beginnings to the Persian Wars (Berkeley, 1948).
Sfίξ, ίdao [k]ύoν, τ̣ί̣ν’ [χouσa . . .]opιd[. . fu]lάσ(σ)εις
368

μέν[a έν f]ρo[uρ ί k ]do[ς p]ofqιμ[ένou];
Ξε[ινokρ tεoς tόdε σ a . . .]
A: O Sphinx, dog of Hades, whom do you…watch over,
sitting [on guard over] the dead?
B: Xe[nocrates’ tomb this is…]
80
Demetrius of Bithynia, Anthologia Palatina 9.730 II B.C. (?)
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
1Hn m' e0si/dh| mo&sxoj, mukh&setai: h2n de/ ge tau~roj,
bh&setai: h2n de\ nomeu&j, ei0j a)ge/lan e0la&sei.
If a calf sees me, it will low; a bull will mount
me, and the herdsman drive me to the herd.
81
Diogenes Laertius 4.20 A.D. III
Text and translation: R. D. Hicks, ed., tr., Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent
Philosophers I (London and New York, 1925).
h}n de\ kai\ filosofoklh~j, kai\ ma&lista e0n e0kei/noij o3pou kata_ to_n
kwmiko_n ta_ poih&mata au)tw|~
ku&wn tij e0do&kei sumpoiei=n Molottiko&j.
He loved Sophocles, particularly in those passages where it seemed as if, in the phrase of
the comic poet,
A stout Molossian mastiff lent him aid.
82
Diogenes Laertius 6.55 A.D. III
Text and translation: R. D. Hicks, ed., tr., Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent
Philosophers II (London and New York, 1925) 57.
e0rwthqei\j potapo_j ei1h ku&wn, e1fh, peinw~n Melitai=oj, xortasqei\j de\
Molottiko&j, tou&twn ou4j e0painou~ntej oi9 polloi\ ou) tolmw~si dia_ to_n po&non
sunecie/nai au)toi=j e0pi\ th_n qh&ran:
369

Being asked what kind of hound he was, he replied, “When hungry, a Maltese; when full,
a Molossian—two breeds which most people praise, though for fear of fatigue they do
not venture out hunting with them.”
83
Dioscorides, Anthologia Palatina 9.734 III B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Tau~re, ma&thn e0pi\ mo&sxon e0pei/geai: e1sti ga_r a1pnouj:
a)lla& s' o( boupla&staj e0capa&thse Mu&rwn.
In vain, bull, thou rushest up to this heifer, for it
is lifeless. The sculptor of cows, Myron, deceived thee.
84
Diphylus, fr. 91 Kock IV/III B.C.
Text: T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta II (Leipzig, 1884).
Translation: J. M. Edmonds, ed., tr., The Fragments of Attic Comedy III A (Leiden,
1961).
h4n ou)d' o( path_r e0fi/lhsen ou)depw&pote,
par' h{j to_n a1rton h( ku&wn ou) lamba&nei,
me/laina d' ou3twj w3ste kai\ poiei=n sko&toj.
This young miss is one of a kind even father never kisses
And house-dog won’t take crusts from,
So dark she makes day night.
Empedocles, fr. DK128 V B.C.
See Porphyry, De Abstinentia 2.20-2.21 [166].
(= Theophrastus, fr. 12 Pötscher, [155 Nauck 2 ]
85
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 474 (fr. II, col. I, 40-43)
Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 289.
το̑ δὲ λοιπο̑ ἔργο ℎάπαντος
ἐγ κύκλοι ἄρχει ℎο Ἐλευσινιακὸς
370

λίθος πρὸς ℎο̑ι τὰ ζο̑ια, καὶ ἐτέθε
ἐπὶ το̑ν ἐπιστατο̑ν τούτον.
All the rest of the work round about begins
with the Eleusinian stone against which the
zw~ia (are to be fastened), and three blocks of it
have been placed under the present commissioners.
86
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 475 (fr. VIII A)
Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 327.
[— — — λιθοργικο̑· θέσεος καὶ ἐπερ-]
[γασίας το̑ Ἐλευσινιακο̑ λίθο πρὸς ℎο̑ι]
[τὰ ζο̑ια καὶ ἀντιθεμάτον·]
[- - - Stone-work. Payments for the setting in place and the
Dressing of the top surface of the blocks of Eleusinian stone
against which ta& zw~ia (are to be placed) and their backing stones.
87
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 476 (fr. XVI, col I, 150-157)
Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 389.
[..]ς τ[ὸγ γρ]άφοντα νεα[νίσ]κον
καὶ τ[ὸμ πρ]ο[σ]ε[στ]ο̑τα ℎαυτο̑ι : Η.
[Μ]υνν[ίον] ἐν Κολλυτο̑ι ℎοικ[ο̑ν]
[…]ο[.. κ]αὶ τὲν ἅμαχσαν πλ̣[ὲν]
[τοῖν ἑμιόν]οιν . .ΔΔΔΔ. Ἀγ[α]θάν-
155 [ορ Ἀλοπεκε̑σι] ℎοικο̑ν τὸ γυνα-
[ῖκε τὸ πρὸς τε̑ι ἁμ]άχσει καὶ τ-
[ὸ ℎεμιόνο ΗΗΔΔΔΔ..6…]ν ἐκ
- - the youth who is writing
and the man standing beside him, 120 dr.
- -, living in Kollytos
- - and the wagon without
371

the two mules, 90 dr.
Agathanor, living in Alopeke,
the two women beside the wagon,
and the two mules, 240 dr.
88
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 476 (fr. XVII, col. I, 159-181)
Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 389.
ὸν τὸ δ]όρυ ℎέχοντα, . .Δ. Φυρόμα-
160 [χος Κ]εφισιεύς, τὸν νεανίσκο-
[ν τὸ]ν παρὰ τὸν θόρακα, . .Δ. Πραχ-
[σίας] ἐμ Μελίτει ℎοικο̑ν, τὸν ℎ-
[ίππο]ν καὶ τὸν ℎοπισθοφανε̑ τ-
[ὸν πα]ρακρόοντα, ΗΔΔ. Ἀντιφάν-
165 [ες ℎεκ] Κεραμέον, τὸ ἅρμα καὶ τ-
[ὸν νε]ανίσκον καὶ τὸ ℎίππο τὸ
[ζευγ]νυμένο, ΗΗΔΔΔΔ. Φυρόμαχ-
[ος Κε]φισιεύς, τὸν ℎάγοντα τὸ-
[ν ℎί]ππον, . .Δ: Μυννίον ℎαγρυλε̑-
170 [σι] ℎοικο̑ν, τὸν ℎίππον καὶ τὸν
[ℎά]νδρα τὸν ℎεπικρόοντα καὶ
[τὲ]ν στέλεν ℎύστερον προσέθ-
[εκ]ε :ΗΔΔ. . . . . . . Σο̑κλος ℎαλοπεκε̑-
[σι] ℎοικο̑ν, τὸν τὸν χαλινὸν ℎέ-
175 [χο]ντα, . .Δ: Φυρόμαχος Κεφισιε-
[ύς], τὸν ℎάνδρα τὸν ℎεπὶ τε̑ς βα-
[κτ]ερίας εἱστεκότα τὸν παρὰ
[τὸ]ν βομὸν, . .Δ: ℎίασος Κολλυτε-
[ύς], τὲγ γυναῖκα ἑ̑ι
ἑ παῖς προσ-
180 [πέ]πτοκε, . .ΔΔΔ v κεφάλαιον ℎα-
[γα]λματοποϊκο̑, ΧΧΧΗΗΗΔ. .
-- the man holding the spear, 60 dr.
Phyromachos of Kephisia,
the youth beside the breast-plate, 60 dr.
Praxias, living in Melite,
372

the horse and the man appearing behind it 120 dr.
and striking it in the flank,
Antiphanes of Kerameis,
the chariot, and the youth,
and the two horses being harnessed, 240 dr.
Phyromachos of Kiphisia,
the man leading the horse, 60 dr.
Mynnion, living in Argyle,
the horse and the man striking it,
and he later added the stele, 127 dr.
Soklos, living in Alopeke,
the man holding the bridle, 60 dr.
Phyromachos of Kephisia,
the man leaning on a staff
behind the altar,
Iasos of Kollytos, the woman with the
little girl leaning against her, 80 dr.
sum total of payments for sculpture, 3315 dr.
89
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 476 (fr. XIII, col II, 135-140)
Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 387.
Μαμμάνοι :. .: [. . . .10. . . . :. .: ℎίκ]-
135 ρια καθελο̑[σι καὶ ἀποκομίσα]σι
ℎαπὸ το̑ το[ίχο το̑ πρὸς βορέ]ο
ℎαφ’ ὁ̑ν
τὰ ζ[όιδια ἐτέθε, ℎέχς]
ἀνδράσι, Π[ρέποντι :ΙΙΙ: Μέδοι :ΙΙΙ: Ἀ]πολλοδό[ροι
:ΙΙΙ: . . . . .12. . . . .]
140 αίοι :ΙΙΙ[. . . . . . .17. . . . . . . .]
for taking down and carrying away the scaffolding
from the north wall, from which
the zw&idia were fastened in place,
to six men; to Prepon, 3 ob.; to Medos, 3 ob.;
to Apollodoros, 3 ob.; to - - -, 3 ob.;
to - - -, 3 ob.; - - - - - -
90
Erechtheion, Acropolis, Athens V B.C.
Text: IG I 3 . 476 (fr. XVII, col. II, 296-299)
373

Translation: L. D. Caskey, “The Inscriptions,” in J. M. Paton, ed., The Erechtheum
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) 397.
μόλυβδος ℎεονέθε [δύ]ο
ταλάντο ℎεις πρόσθεσι[ν το̑]ν
ζοιδίον παρὰ Σοστράτ[ο ἐμ Μ]ελίτει
ℎοικο̑ντος : Δ :
two talents of lead were bought
for the fastening of zwidi/wn,
from Sostratos, living in Melite. 10 dr.
91
Euenos of Paros, Anthologia Palatina 9.717 V B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
2H to_ de/raj xa&lkeion o3lon boi6 ta|~d' e0pi/keitai
e1ktoqen, h2 yuxh_n e1ndon o( xalko_j e1xei.
Either a complete hide of bronze clothes here a
real cow, or the bronze has a soul inside it.
92
Euenos of Paros, Anthologia Palatina 9.718 V B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Au)to_j e0rei= ta&xa tou~to Mu&rwn: Ou)k e1plasa tau&tan
ta_n da&malin, tau&taj d' ei0ko&n' a)neplasa&mhn.
Perhaps Myron himself will say this: “I did not
mould this heifer, but its image.”
93
Galen, De alimentorum facultatibus libri iii 664 A.D. II
Text: G. Helmreich, Galeni de alimentorum facultatibus libri iii (Corpus medicorum
Graecorum 5.4.2; Leipzig, 1923).
Translation: M. Grant, tr., Galen on Food and Diet (London and New York, 2000).
peri\ de\ kunw~n ti/ dei= kai\ le/gein, w(s tou_s ne/ous te kai\ liparou_s au)tw~n,
kai\ ma&lisq' o3tan eu)nouxisqw~si, kat' e1nia tw~n e0qnw~n e0sqi/ousi pa&mpolloi.
374

As for dogs, what can I say? In some countries they are often eaten when young and
plump, and particularly after they have been castrated.
94
Galen, De victu attenuante 8 A.D. II
Text: K. Kalbfleisch, Galeni De victu attenuante (Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.4.2.
Leipzig, 1923).
Translation: M. Grant, ed., tr., Galen on Food and Diet (London and New York, 2000).
As for dogs and foxes—I have never tasted their meat, since it is not the custom to eat it
either in Asia or in Greece, or indeed in Italy. But there are apparently many parts of the
world where they are eaten, and my conjecture would be that their effects would be
similar to those of the hare; for hare, dog, and fox are all equally dry.
95
Geminus, Anthologia Palatina 9.740 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
9H ba&sij h( kate/xousa to_ boi/dion, h| { pepe/dhtai:
h2n d' a)feqh|~ tau&thj, feu&cetai ei0j a)ge/lhn.
muka~tai ga_r o( xalko&j: i1d', w(j e1mpnoun o( texni/taj
qh&kato: ka2n zeu&ch|j a1llon, i1swj a)ro&sei.
It is the base to which it is attached that keeps
back the heifer, and if freed from it will run off
to the herd. For the bronze lows. See how much
alive the artist made it. If you yoke a fellow to it,
perhaps it will plough.
96
Herodas, Mime 4, 56-78 III B.C.
Text and translation: J. Rusten, I. C. Cunningham and A. D. Knox, Theophrastus:
Characters. Herodas. Mimes. Cercias and the Choliambic Poets (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1993).
[FI.] ou)k o)rh~ij, fi/lh Kunnoi=;
oi]' e1rga kei= 'nh~n: tau~t' e0rei=j 0Aqhnai/hn
glu&yai ta_ kala&—xaire/tw de\ de/spoina.
to_n pai=da dh_ gumno_n h2n kni/sw tou~ton
ou)k e1lkoj e1cei, Ku&nna; pro_j ga&r oi0 kei=ntai 60
ai0 sa&rkej oi]a qerma_ qerma_ phdw~sai
375

e0n th~i sani/skhi. tw)rgu&reun de\ pu&raustron
ou)k h2n i1dh Mu&lloj h2 Pataiki/skoj
o) Lampri/wnoj, e0kbaleu~si ta_j kou&raj
dokeu~ntej o1ntwj a)rgu&reun pepoih~sqai; 65
o) bou~j de\ kw) a1gwn au)to_n h1 t' o)marteu~sa
kw) grupo_j ou}toj kw) [a)n]a&silloj a1nqrwpoj
ou)xi\ zoh_n ble/pousi kh)me/rhn pa&ntej;
ei0 mh_ e0do&keun ti me/zon h2 gunh_ prh&ssein,
a)nhla&lac' a1n, mh& m' o) bou~j ti phmh&nhi: 70
ou1tw e0pilocoi=, Kunni/, th~i e0te/rhi kou&rhi.
[KU.] a)lhqinai/, Fi/lh, ga_r ai0 0Efesi/ou xei=rej
e0j pa&nt' 0Apelle/w gra&mmat': ou)d' e0rei=j “kei=noj
w1nqrwpoj e2n me\n ei]den, e2n d' a)phrnh&qh”,
a)ll' w}i e0pi\ nou~n ge/noito kai\ qe/wn yau&ein 75
h)pei/get'. o2j d' e0kei=non h2 e1rga ta_ e0kei/nou
mh_ pamfalh&saj e0k di/khj o)rw&rhken,
podo_j kre/mait' e0kei=noj e0n gnafe/wj oi1kwi.
PHILE. Don’t you see, dear Kynno, what works are here! You would say
that Athene carved these lovely thing—greetings, Lady. This naked
boy, I scratched him, won’t he have a wound, Kynno? For the flesh is
laid on him in the painting, pulsing like warm springs. And the silver
fire-tongs, if Myellos or Pataekiskos son of Lamprion sees them, won’t
they lose their eyes thinking they are really made of silver? And the ox,
and the man leading it, and the woman following, and this hook-nosed
man and the one with his hair sticking up, don’t they all have the look of
life and day? If I don’t think I was acting too boldly for a woman, I
should have cried out, in case the ox might do some harm: he glances
sideways so, Kynno with the one eye.
KYNNO. Yes, Phile, the hands of the Ephesian Apelles are truthful in
every line, nor would you say ‘That man looked at one thing but rejected
another,’ but whatever came into his mind he was quick and eager to
attempt; and anyone who has looked on him or his works without just
excitement ought to hang by the foot in the fuller’s house.
Herodotus V B.C.
Text: The text of all passages of Herodotus is taken from the edition of C. Hude, ed.,
Herodoti Historiae (Oxford, 1908; repr., 1990).
Translations are taken from the edition of D. Grene, tr., The History. Herodotus (Chicago
and London, 1987).
97
Herodotus 1.70
376

Tou&twn te w}n ei3neken oi9 Lakedaimo&nioi th_n summaxi/hn
e0de/canto, kai\ o3ti e0k pa&ntwn sfe/aj prokri/naj 9Ellh&nwn
ai9re/eto fi/louj. Kai\ tou~to me\n au)toi\ h}san e3toimoi e0paggei/lanti,
tou~to de\ poihsa&menoi krhth~ra xa&lkeon zw|di/wn te
e1cwqen plh&santej peri\ to_ xei=loj kai\ mega&qei" trihkosi/ouj
a)mfore/aj xwre/onta h}gon, dw~ron boulo&menoi a)ntidou~nai
Kroi/sw|. Ou{toj o( krhth_r ou)k a)pi/keto e0j Sa&rdij di' ai0ti/aj
difasi/aj legome/naj ta&sde: oi9 me\n Lakedaimo&nioi le/gousi
w(j, e0pei/te a)go&menoj e0j ta_j Sa&rdij o( krhth_r e0gi/neto kata_
th_n Sami/hn, puqo&menoi Sa&mioi a)peloi/ato au)to_n nhusi\
makrh|~si e0piplw&santej: au)toi\ de\ Sa&mioi le/gousi w(j, e0pei/te
u(ste/rhsan oi9 a1gontej tw~n Lakedaimoni/wn to_n krhth~ra,
e0punqa&nonto de\ Sa&rdij te kai\ Kroi=son h(lwke/nai, a)pe/donto
to_n krhth~ra e0n Sa&mw|, i0diw&taj de\ a1ndraj priame/nouj
a)naqei=nai/ min e0j to_ 3Hraion: ta&xa de\ a2n kai\ oi9 a)podo&menoi
le/goien, a)piko&menoi e0j Spa&rthn, w(j a)paireqei/hsan
u(po_ Sami/wn. Kata_ me/n nun to_n krhth~ra ou3twj e1sxe.
Because of that, and because he had given them precedence, in his choice for friendship,
over all the rest of the Greeks, the Lacedaemonians accepted the alliance. So when he
made the offer, they were ready; and, moreover, they made a bronze mixing bowl, filling
it on the outside, around the rim, with little figures [zw|di/wn] (the mixing bowl itself was
of a capacity of three hundred amphorae) and sent it on its way to Croesus, wishing to
match Croesus’ gift to them with one of their own to him. But this mixing bowl never
did reach Sardis, for which two reasons are given. The Lacedaemonians say that when,
in its transport toward Sardis, it came near Samos, the Samians found out about it, sailed
out with their long ships, and captured it; but the Samians themselves say that the
Lacedaemonians who were bringing it came too late, heard that Sardis and Croesus had
been captured, and sold the mixing bowl in Samos, and that some private persons bought
it and dedicated it in the temple of Hera. And probably also those who sold it, when they
arrived in Sparta, would say that it had been taken from them by the Samians. That, then,
is the story of the bowl.
98
Herodotus 1.140
Tau~ta me\n a)treke/wj e1xw peri\ au)tw~n ei0dw_j ei0pei=n. Ta&de me/ntoi w(j krupto&mena
le/getai kai\ ou) safhne/wj peri\ tou~ a)poqano&ntoj, w(j ou) pro&teron qa&ptetai
a)ndro_j Pe/rsew o( ne/kuj pri\n a2n u(p' o1rniqoj h2 kuno_j e9lkusqh|~.
These things I know surely about them, for I speak from personal knowledge. But the
following are described as secret and obscure and have to do with the dead. They say
that the corpse of no Persian man is buried until it is dragged and torn by bird or dog.
99
377

Herodotus 1.203
1Eqnea de\ a)nqrw&pwn polla_ kai\ pantoi=a e0n e9wutw|~ e1xei o( Kau&kasij, ta_ polla_
pa&nta a)p' u3lhj a)gri/hj zw&onta. 0En toi=si kai\ de/ndrea fu&lla toih~sde i0de/hj
parexo&mena ei]nai le/getai, ta_ tri/bonta&j te kai\ parami/sgontaj u3dwr zw|~a
e9wutoi=si e0j th_n e0sqh~ta e0ggra&fein: ta_ de\ zw|~a ou)k e0kplu&nesqai, a)lla_
sugkataghra&skein tw|~ a1llw| ei0ri/w| kata& per e0nufanqe/nta a)rxh&n.
Many and every sort of nation the Caucasus contains within itself, most of them living
from the fruit of the wild tress. Among them, they say, there are trees with leaves such
that, when they crush them and mix them with water, they can paint on their clothes
figures of animals [zw|~a]. These figures of animals [zw|~a] do not wash out but grow old
with the wool, as though they were woven into it at the beginning.
100
Herodotus 2.4
Duw&deka te qew~n e0pwnumi/aj e1legon prw&touj Ai0gupti/ouj nomi/sai kai\
3Ellhnaj para_ sfe/wn a)nalabei=n, bwmou&j te kai\ a)ga&lmata kai\ nhou_j qeoi=si
a)ponei=mai sfe/aj prw&touj kai\ zw|~a e0n li/qoisi e0gglu&yai. Kai\ tou&twn me/n nun ta_
ple/w e1rgw| e0dh&loun ou3tw geno&mena.
These authorities also say that the Egyptians were the first to use the names of the twelve
gods, and that the Greeks took these from them, and that the Egyptians were the first to
assign altars and images [a)ga&lmata] and temples to the gods and to carve [e0gglu&yai]
figures [zw|~a] on stone [e0n li/qoisi]. Most of these things the showed me by clear proof.
101
Herodotus 2.124
0Erga&zonto de\ kata_ de/ka muria&daj a)nqrw&pwn ai0ei\ th_n tri/mhnon e9ka&sthn. Xro&non
de\ e0ggene/sqai tribome/nw| tw|~ lew|~ de/ka e1tea me\n th~j o(dou~ kat' h4n ei[lkon tou_j
li/qouj, th_n e1deiman e1rgon e0o_n ou) pollw|~ tew| e1lasson th~j purami/doj, w(j e0moi\
doke/ein (th~j ga_r mh~koj me/n ei0si pe/nte sta&dioi, eu}roj de\ de/ka o)rguiai/, u3yoj de/, th|~
u(yhlota&th e0sti\ au)th_ e9wuth~j, o)ktw_ o)rguiai/), li/qou te cestou~ kai\ zw|&wn
e0ggeglumme/nwn.
The people worked in gangs of one hundred thousand for each period of three months.
The people were afflicted for ten years of time in building the road along which they
dragged the stones—in my opinion a work as great as the pyramid itself. For the length
of the road is more than half a mile, and its breadth is sixty feet, and its height, at its
highest, is forty-eight feet. It is made of polished stone [li/qou te cestou~], and there are
figures [zw|&wn] carved [e0ggeglumme/nwn] on it.
102
378

Herodotus 2.148
oi9 ga_r e0pestew~tej tw~n Ai0gupti/wn deiknu&nai au)ta_ ou)damw~j h1qelon, fa&menoi
qh&kaj au)to&qi ei]nai tw~n te a)rxh_n to_n labu&rinqon tou~ton oi0kodomhsame/nwn
basile/wn kai\ tw~n i9rw~n krokodei/lwn. Ou3tw tw~n me\n ka&tw pe/ri oi0khma&twn
a)koh|~ paralabo&ntej le/gomen, ta_ de\ a1nw me/zona a)nqrwphi/wn e1rgwn au)toi\
w(rw~men. Ai3 te ga_r e1codoi dia_ tw~n stege/wn kai\ oi9 ei9ligmoi\ dia_ tw~n au)le/wn
e0o&ntej poikilw&tatoi qw~ma muri/on parei/xonto e0c au)lh~j te e0j ta_ oi0kh&mata
dieciou~si kai\ e0k tw~n oi0khma&twn e0j pasta&daj, e0j ste/gaj te a1llaj e0k
tw~n pasta&dwn kai\ e0j au)la_j a1llaj e0k tw~n oi0khma&twn. 0Orofh_ de\ pa&ntwn
tou&twn liqi/nh kata& per oi9 toi=xoi, oi9 de\ toi=xoi tu&pwn e0ggeglumme/nwn ple/oi,
au)lh_ de\ e9ka&sth peri/stuloj li/qou leukou~ a(rmosme/nou ta_ ma&lista. Th~j de\ gwni/hj
teleutw~ntoj tou~ laburi/nqou e1xetai purami\j tesserakonto&rguioj, e0n th|~ zw|~a
mega&la e0gge/gluptai: o(do_j d' e0j au)th_n u(po_ gh~n pepoi/htai.
Furthermore, they resolved to leave a memorial of themselves in common, and in
pursuance of resolve they made a labyrinth, a little above Lake Moeris, and situated near
what is called the City of Crocodiles. I saw it myself, and it is indeed a wonder past
words; for if one were to collect together all the buildings of the Greeks and their most
striking works of architecture, they would all clearly be shown to have cost less labor and
money than this labyrinth. Yet the temple at Ephesus and that in Samos are surely
remarkable. The pyramids, too, were greater than words could tell, and each of them is
the equivalent of many of the great works of the Greeks; but the labyrinth surpasses the
pyramids also. It has twelve roofed courts, with doors facing one another, six to the north
and six to the south and in a continuous line. One wall on the outside encompasses them
all. There are double sets of chambers in it, some underground and some above, and their
number is three thousand; there are fifteen hundred of each. We ourselves saw the
aboveground chambers, for we went through them and so we can talk of them, but the
underground chambers we can speak only from hearsay. For the officials of the
Egyptians entirely refused to show us these, saying that there are in them the coffins of
the kings who had builded the labyrinth at the beginning and also those of the holy
crocodiles. So we speak from hearsay of these underground places; but what we saw
aboveground was certainly greater than all human works. The passages through the
rooms and the winding goings-in and out through the courts, in their extreme
complication, caused us countless marvelings as we went through, from the court into the
rooms, and from the rooms into the pillared corridors, and then from these corridors into
other rooms again, and from the rooms into other courts afterwards. The roof of the
whole is stone, as the walls are, and the walls are full of engraved figures [tu&pwn], and
each court is set round with pillars of white stone, very exactly fitted. At the corner
where the labyrinth ends there is, nearby, a pyramid two hundred and forty feet high and
engraved with great animals [zw|~a]. The road to this is made underground.
103
Herodotus 3.47
379

Kai\ e1peita paraskeuasa&menoi e0strateu&onto Lakedaimo&nioi e0pi\ Sa&mon, w(j me\n
Sa&mioi le/gousi, eu)ergesi/aj e0kti/nontej o3ti sfi pro&teroi au)toi\ nhusi\ e0boh&qhsan
e0pi\ Messhni/ouj, w(j de\ Lakedaimo&nioi le/gousi, ou)k ou3tw timwrh~sai deome/noisi
Sami/oisi e0strateu&onto w(j tei/sasqai boulo&menoi tou~ krhth~roj th~j a(rpagh~j,
to_n h}gon Kroi/sw|, kai\ tou~ qw&rhkoj, to_n au)toi=si 1Amasij o( Ai0gu&ptou basileu_j
e1pemye dw~ron. Kai\ ga_r qw&rhka e0lhi/santo tw|~ prote/rw| e1tei" h2 to_n krhth~ra oi9
Sa&mioi, e0o&nta me\n li/neon kai\ zw|&wn e0nufasme/nwn suxnw~n, kekosmhme/non de\ xrusw|~
kai\ ei0ri/oisi a)po_ cu&lou: tw~n de\ ei3neka qwma&sai a1cion a(rpedo&nh e9ka&sth tou~
qw&rhkoj poie/ei: e0ou~sa ga_r lepth_ e1xei a(rpedo&naj e0n e9wuth|~ trihkosi/aj kai\
e9ch&konta, pa&saj fanera&j. Toiou~toj e3tero&j e0sti kai\ to_n e0n Li/ndw| a)ne/qhke th|~
0Aqhnai/h| 1Amasij.
After this, having made their preparations, the Lacedaemonians made their expedition
against Samos. As the Samians tell the story, this was to repay the kindness done to the
Lacedaemonians by the Samians when they helped them against Messenia. However, the
Lacedaemonians say that this was not the reason for their assisting the Samians in their
need; rather, they themselves wanted to take revenge for the theft of the bowl that the
Samians stole from them when they were taking it up to Croesus, and also to the theft of
the breastplate that Amasis, king of Egypt, had sent to them, the Spartans, as a gift. The
Samians had stolen the breastplate the year before they took the bowl. The breastplate
was of linen and with many figures [zw|&wn] woven into it, and decorated with gold and
cotton embroidery. The greatest wonder of it is that each single fine thread of the fabric
has in itself three hundred and sixty strands, and they all can be seen to be there. One
exactly like it was dedicated by Amasis, in Lindus, to Athena.
104
Herodotus 3.88
Prw~ton me/n nun tu&pon poihsa&menoj li/qinon e1sthse: zw|~on de/ oi9 e0nh~n a)nh_r i9ppeu&j,
e0pe/graye de/ [oi9] gra&mmata le/gonta ta&de: «Darei=oj o( 9Usta&speoj su&n
te tou~ i3ppou th|~ a)reth|~ (to_ ou1noma le/gwn) kai\ Oi0ba&reoj tou~ i9ppoko&mou e0kth&sato
th_n Perse/wn basilhi/hn.
First of all he made and set up [e1sthse] a monument [tu&pon] of stone [li/qinon]. On it
was an engraving [zw|~on] of a man on horseback, with an inscription: “Darius, son of
Hystaspes, with the help of his horse’s excellence” (he there mentioned the stallion’s
name) “and that of Oebares the groom, won the kingship of Persia.”
105
Herodotus 4.88
Darei=oj de\ meta_ tau~ta h(sqei\j th|~
sxedi/h| to_n a)rxite/ktona au)th~j Mandrokle/a to_n Sa&mion
e0dwrh&sato pa~si de/ka. 0Ap' w{n dh_ Mandrokle/hj a)parxh&n,
zw|~a graya&menoj pa~san th_n zeu~cin tou~ Bospo&rou kai\
380

asile/a te Darei=on e0n proedri/h| kath&menon kai\ to_n strato_n
au)tou~ diabai/nonta, tau~ta graya&menoj a)ne/qhke e0j to_
3Hraion, e0pigra&yaj ta&de:
Bo&sporon i0xquo&enta gefurw&saj a)ne/qhke
Mandrokle/hj 3Hrh| mnhmo&sunon sxedi/hj,
au(tw|~ me\n ste/fanon periqei/j, Sami/oisi de\ ku~doj,
Darei/ou basile/oj e0ktele/saj kata_ nou~n.
After that, Darius was so delighted with his bridge of boats, that he gave Mandrocles
every sort of reward. This man took the firstfruits of his honors and had a picture made
with figures depicting [zw|~a graya&menoj] the whole bridging of the Bosporus and of
King Darius sitting high over it and the army crossing; he dedicated it in the temple of
Hera and made this inscription:
This is the bridge of boats over the fish-haunted Bosporus;
Mandrocles built it, and Hera received it as her memorial;
A crown for himself its builder made it, a glory of Samos;
All that he wrought he accomplished by the will of the King, Darius.
106
Herodotus 7.125-7.126
Poreuome/nw| de\ tau&th| le/onte/j oi9 e0peqh&kanto th|~si sitofo&roisi kamh&loisi: kata-
foitw~ntej ga_r oi9 le/ontej ta_j nu&ktaj kai\ lei/pontej ta_ sfe/tera h1qea a1llou me\n
ou)deno_j a3ptonto ou1te u(pozugi/ou ou1te a)nqrw&pou, oi9 de\ ta_j kamh&louj e0kera&i"zon
mou&naj. Qwma&zw de\ to_ ai1tion, o3 ti kote\ h}n tw~n a1llwn to_ a)nagka&zon
a)pexome/nouj tou_j le/ontaj th|~si kamh&loisi e0piti/qesqai, to_ mh&te pro&teron
o)pw&pesan qhri/on mh&t' e0pepeire/ato au)tou~.
Ei0si\ de\ kata_ tau~ta ta_ xwri/a kai\ le/ontej polloi\ kai\ bo&ej a1grioi, tw~n ta_ ke/rea
u(permega&qea& e0sti ta_ e0j 3Ellhnaj foitw~nta. Ou}roj de\ toi=si le/ousi/ e0sti o3 te di'
0Abdh&rwn r(e/wn potamo_j Ne/stoj kai\ o( di' 0Akarnani/hj r(e/wn 0Axelw|~oj: ou1te ga_r
to_ pro_j th_n h)w~ tou~ Ne/stou ou)damo&qi pa&shj th~j e1mprosqe Eu)rw&phj i1doi tij a2n
le/onta, ou1te pro_j e9spe/rhj tou~ 0Axelw|&ou e0n th|~ e0piloi/pw| h)pei/rw|, a)ll' e0n th|~
metacu_ tou&twn tw~n potamw~n gi/nontai.
As Xerxes marched along, lions set upon his camels, which were carrying the corn. The
lions would come constantly at night, and leaving their usual haunts, would touch nothing
else, baggage animal or human; they ravaged the camels only. I wonder what the cause
can be that forced the lions to leave the other creatures alone and attack the camels, since
this was an animal that they had never seen before or had any experience of.
There are in these parts many lions and wild oxen, the enormous horns of which are
brought to Greece. The boundary of the lions is the river Nestus, which flows through
Abdera, and the Achelous, which flows through Acarnania. To the east of the Nestus, in
all of the nearer part of Europe, you will never see a lion, nor west of the Achelous in the
rest of the mainland; but they are found in the land between these rivers.
381

107
Hippocrates, De affectionibus 6.17-6.19 IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
Krew~n koufo&tata e0j to_ sw~ma ku&neia kai\ o)rni/qeia kai\ lagw|~a ta_ di/efqa:
bare/a de\ ta_ bo&eia kai\ ta_ xoi/reia.
The lightest meats for the body are well-boiled dog, fowl and hare;
heavy are beef and pork.
108
Hippocrates, De affectionibus 41.7-41.11 IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
toi=si de\ a)pu&roisin a1rtou kaqarou~ to_ e1swqen e0nqru&yaj e0n zwmw|~, h2 ma~zan
kai\ te/maxoj e9fqo_n, h2 kre/aj o)i"o_j w(j newta&thj, h2 o1rniqoj, h2 sku&lakoj e9fqo_n, h2
teu~tlon h2 koloku&nthn h2 blh~ton, kai\ meta_ to_ siti/on pi/nein oi]non eu)w&dea, palaio_n,
leuko_n, u(dare/a.
If the patients do not have fever give the inner part of a loaf of white bread crumbled into
soup, or barley-cake and a slice of boiled fish, or meat of very young lamb, fowl, or
puppy, these boiled or beets or gourd or blites; after the meal let them drink dilute
fragrant old white wine.
109
Hippocrates, De affectionibus 43.1-43.4 IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
3Otan koili/hn u(grai/nein a)po_ siti/wn a)sqene/ontoj e0qe/lh|j, dido&nai ma~zan kai\ o1ya,
qalassi/wn me\n tema&xea e9fqa_ e0n u(potri/mmati, kre/a de\ o)i"o_j w(j newta&thj, h2
e0ri/fou, h2 sku&lakoj, h2 o1rniqoj e9fqa_, kai\ teu~tla h2 blh~ta h2 la&paqa h2 koloku&nthn,
h2n h( w3rh h|}:
When you wish to moisten a patient’s cavity by means of foods, give barley-cake, and, as
main-dishes slices of seafoods in a mixed dish, meat of very young lamb, kid, puppy or
fowl, these boiled, and beets, blites docks or gourd if they are in season.
382

110
Hippocrates, De affectionibus interioribus 6.26-6.32 V-IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates VI (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
9Oko&tan de\ ai9 pe/nte h(me/rai pare/lqwsin, prw&i"oj nh~stij pine/tw e0n melikrh&tw| h2
oi0nome/liti o)po_n silfi/ou o(ko&son o1robon, kai\ sko&rodon trwge/tw kai\
r(afani=daj nh~stij, kai\ a1krhton oi]non e0pir)r(ofane/tw me/lana h2 leuko_n
au)sthro&n: pine/tw de\ kai\ e0pi\ si/tw| kai\ meta_ to_ si=ton: siti/oisi de\ chroi=si kai\
kre/asin o)nei/oisin h2 kunei/oisi xree/sqw e9fqoi=sin, h2n to_ r(i=goj kai\ o( pureto_j mh_
e0pilamba&nh|.
When the five days are up, early in the morning let the patient drink in the fasting taster
silphium juice, to the amount of a vetch, in melicrat or in wine and honey, eat garlic and
radishes, and on top of that take dry white or dark wine unmixed with water; let him also
take these things with his meal and after it. If chills and fever are not present, give dry
cereals and the meat of ass or dog boiled.
111
Hippocrates, De affectionibus interioribus 9.4-9.11 V-VI B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates VI (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
Ou{toj o3tan ou3twj e1xh|, e0n me\n th|~si prw&th|sin h(me/rh|sin e3ndeka r(ofh&masi
xree/sqw, ptisa&nhj xulw|~ kaqe/fqw| me/li paraxe/wn, o(ko&tan e9fqo_n to_ r(o&fhma h|}:
oi1nw| de\ xree/sqw leukw|~, glukei= h2 au)sthrw|~ kai\ u(darei=, kai\ r(ofa&nonta pleona&kij
tou~ oi1nou e0kptu&ein keleu&ein, kai\ tou~ u3pnou kwlu&ein, e1st' a2n ai9 e3ndeka h(me/rai
pare/lqwsin, meta_ de\ tau&taj ta_j h(me/raj siti/oisin o)li/goisin w(j ma&lista
xree/sqw, kre/asi skulakei/oisin h2 a)lektruonei/oisi qermoi=si: e0zwmeu~sqai de\ xrh_
kalw~j, kai\ to_n zwmo_n r(ofane/tw.
When the case is such, for the first eleven days let the patient take as gruel boiled-down
barley-water to which honey has been added after the gruel has been boiled, and drink
white wine—either sweet or dry—diluted with water; after he has had several drinks of
wine, order him to expectorate; prevent sleep until the eleven days have passed. After
that, let the patient take mainly cereals in small amounts, and meat of puppy or fowl
warmed; you must boil these well into a soup, and have the patient drink the soup.
112
Hippocrates, De affectionibus interioribus 22.10-22.13 V-VI B.C.
383

Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates VI (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
Tou&tw| cumfe/rei th_n koili/hn chrai/nein, dido&nta a1rton me\n au)topuri/thn, qermo_n,
mh_ e3wlon, o1yon de\ o1nou kre/aj kai\ kuno_j telei/ou, kai\ o1i"oj, kai\ u(o_j w(j o)pta_, kai\
a)lektruo&noj o)pta_ qerma_,
It benefits the patient if you dry out his cavity by giving him fresh warm dark wholewheat
bread, and as main dish the meat of ass, mature dog, swine, and sheep, these very
fat and boiled, or meat of fowl, roasted and warm.
113
Hippocrates, De affectionibus interioribus 27.39-27.43 V-VI B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates VI (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
Meta_ de\ th~j nou&sou th_n kri/sin meleth|~n, siti/a o)li/ga didou_j kaqara&: kh2n me\n
a1rton file/h| e0sqi/ein, a1rton qermo_n w(j ma&lista kaqaro_n e0sqie/tw: h2n de\ ma&zhn,
a1tripton e0sqie/tw, pro&teron profurh&saj: o1yon de\ e0xe/tw kre/a skulaki/ou e9fqa_
h2 peleia&doj h2 a)lektori/doj neossou~, e9fqoi=si pa~sin:
After the disease’s crisis, treat by giving fine cereals in small amounts; if the patient
eats bread, let him take it very hot, if barley-cake, let it be unpounded but mixed a while
before it is baked. As main dish, let him have boiled puppy, pigeon or chicken, taking all
these boiled.
114
Hippocrates, De affectionibus interioribus 30.18-30.22 V-VI B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates VI (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
To_n de\ loipo_n xro&non ta&de xrh_ prosfe/resqai: siti/on me\n a1rton au)topuri/thn,
o1yon de\ e0xe/tw kre/aj kuno_j me/zonoj h2 ai0go_j h2 oi0o_j tetrimme/non, kai\ ta&rixoj
Gadeiriko_n h2 sape/rdhn, kai\ ta_ o)ce/a kai\ ta_ a(lmura_ pa&nta prosfere/sqw
kai\ ta_ strufna&:
From then on, the following must be administered: of cereals let the patient have wholewheat
bread, as main dish ground meat of an adult dog, sheep or goat, and Cadiz salt-fish
or saperdes; administer all the acid and salty foods, and also the sour ones.
115
384

Hippocrates, De morbis ii 44.16-44.19 V B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
3Otan de\ o( pureto_j a)fh|~, h(me/raj me\n du&o to_n ke/gxron r(ofee/tw di\j th~j h(me/rhj,
kai\ teu~tla h(du&tata e0sqie/tw: e1peita meta_ tau~ta sku&laka h2 o)rni/qion ka&qefqon
poih&saj, tou~ zwmou~ r(ofee/tw, kai\ tw~n krew~n fage/tw o)li/ga:
When the fever remits, for two days have the patient drink the millet as gruel twice daily,
and eat seasoned beets; after that, make boiled puppy or fowl, and have him drink the
sauce and eat a little of the meat.
116
Hippocrates, De morbis ii 56.11-56.12 V B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: P. Potter, ed., tr., Hippocrates V (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988).
e0j e9spe/rhn de\ kre/a skulaki/ou h2 o)rni/qeia e9fqa_ e0sqi/ein, kai\ tou~ zwmou~ r(ofa&nein:
Towards evening eat boiled meat of puppy or fowl, and drink the sauce; on the first days
let him have as little food as possible.
117
Hippocrates, De morbis popularibus (=Epidemiae) 7.62
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate V (Paris, 1846; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: W. D. Smith, ed., tr., Hippocrates VII (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1994).
0Hsi/thsen h(me/raj e9pta_, meli/krhton a)krhte/steron e1pie, meta_ de\, xulo_n fakou~,
o(te\ de\ lepto_n to_ e1tnoj, e0pe/pinen u3dwr, meta_ de\, skulaki/ou e9fqou~, ma&zhj mikro_n
o3ti ma&lista pa&lai cugkeime/nhj: proi"o&ntoj de\, h2 bo&eia traxh&lia, h2 kwlh~naj
u(ei/wn krew~n e9fqw~n.
He abstained from food for seven days, drank melicrat in a strong mixture. Afterwards
bean broth and sometimes pea soup; he drank water; later some boiled young dog, and a
little barley cake which had been made as long before as possible. As time went on either
beef neck-meat or pork leg-bones.
118
Hippocrates, De morbo sacro 1.28-1.35 V B.C.
385

Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: W. H. S. Jones, ed., tr., Hippocrates II (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1923; repr. 1992).
kai\ lo&gouj e0pile/cantej e0pithdei/ouj th_n i1hsin katesth&santo e0j to_ a)sfale\j
sfi/sin au)toi=si, kaqarmou_j prosfe/rontej kai\ e0paoida_j, loutrw~n te a)pe/xesqai
keleu&ontej kai\ e0desma&twn pollw~n kai\ a)nepithdei/wn a)nqrw&poisi nose/ousin
e0sqi/ein, qalassi/wn me\n tri/glhj, melanou&rou, kestre/oj, e0gxe/luoj (ou{toi ga_r oi9
i0xqu&ej ei0si\n e0pikairo&tatoi), krew~n de\ ai0gei/ou kai\ e0la&fwn kai\ xoiri/wn kai\ kuno_j
(tau~ta ga_r krew~n taraktikw&tata& e0sti th~j koili/hj).
They used purifications and incantations; they forbade the use of baths, and of many
foods that are unsuitable for sick folk—of sea fishes: red mullet, black-tail, hammer and
the eel (these are the most harmful sorts); the flesh of goats, deer, pigs, and dogs (meats
that disturb most the digestive organs).
119
Hippocrates, De mulierum affectibus i-iii 217
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VIII (Paris, 1853; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
e0sqie/tw skula&kia sialw&dea di/efqa.
Eat well-boiled fattened puppies.
120
Hippocrates, De mulierum affectibus i-iii 230
Text: É. Littré, Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VIII (Paris, 1853; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
ta_ e0ntosqi/dia e0celw_n tou~ skulaki/ou e0mplh~sai kai\ sa&cai o3ti ma&lista tw~n
a)rwma&twn.
After taking out the entrails of the puppy, wash them and stuff them with aromatic herbs.
121
Hippocrates, De natura muliebri 32.48-32.49 V-IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d' Hippocrate VII (Paris, 1851; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
o)po_n silfi/ou o3son o1robon, kai\ karda&mou karpo_n tri/yaj lei=a kai\ cummi/caj e0n
oi1nw|, h2 e0n kuno_j ga&lakti, di/dou piei=n. Tou~to kai\ e1mbruon e0celau&nei.
386

Rub well silphium equal to one grain of vetch, together with cardamom and mix it with
wine or the milk of dog, and give it to drink. This should deliver the fetus.
122
Hippocrates, De victu 2.46 V-IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: W. H. S. Jones, ed., tr., Hippocrates IV (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1931; repr. 1959).
Ku&neia de\ qermai/nei kai\ chrai/nei kai\ i0sxu_n e0mpoie/ei, ou) me/ntoi diaxwre/ei:
skula&keia de\ u(grai/nei kai\ diaxwre/ei, ou)re/etai de\ ma~llon.
Dogs’ flesh dries, heats, and affords strength, but does not pass by stool. The flesh of
puppies moistens and passes by stool, still more by urine.
123
Hippocrates, De victu 3.75 V-IV B.C.
Text: É. Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate VI (Paris, 1849; repr. Amsterdam,
1962).
Translation: W. H. S. Jones, ed., tr., Hippocrates IV (Cambridge, Mass., and London,
1931; repr. 1959).
prw~ton me\n ou}n xrh_ a1rtw| qermw|~ xre/esqai zumi/th|, diaqru&ptonta e0j oi]non me/lana
h2 zwmo_n u(ei/wn krew~n: toi=si/ te i0xqu&sin e9fqoi=sin e0n a3lmh| drimei/h|: xre/esqai me\n kai\
toi=si sarkw&desin, oi[on a)krokwli/oisi/ te die/fqoisi toi=sin u(ei/oisi, toi=si/ te pi/osin
u(ei/oisin o)ptoi=si, toi=si de\ xoirei/oisi mh_ polloi=si kai\ skula&kwn mhde\ e0ri/fwn:
So first use warm, fermented bread, crumbling it into dark wine or into pork broth. Also
fish boiled in acrid brine. Use also fleshy meats, such as pig’s feet well boiled and fat
roast pork, but be sparing of sucking-pig, and the flesh of puppies and kids.
124
Homer, Iliad 1.1-1.5 VIII B.C.
Text and translation: G. P. Gould, ed., tr., Homer. Iliad I (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1924; second ed., 1999).
Mh~nin a1eide qea_ Phlhi"a&dew 0Axilh~oj
ou)lome/nhn, h4 muri/' 0Axaioi=j a1lge' e1qhke,
polla_j d' i0fqi/mouj yuxa_j 1Ai"di proi5ayen
h(rw&wn, au)tou_j de\ e9lw&ria teu~xe ku&nessin
5 oi0wnoi=si/ te pa~si.
The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles,
387

the accursed wrath which brought countless sorrows upon
the Achaeans, and sent down to Hades many valiant souls
of warriors, and made the men themselves to be the spoil for
dogs and birds of every kind.
125
Homer, Iliad 15.630-15.637
Text and translation: G. P. Gould, ed., tr., Homer. Iliad II (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1925; second ed., 1999).
630 au)ta_r o3 g' w3j te le/wn o)loo&frwn bousi\n e0pelqw&n,
ai3 r(a& t' e0n ei9amenh|~ e3leoj mega&loio ne/montai
muri/ai, e0n de/ te th|~si nomeu_j ou1 pw sa&fa ei0dw_j
qhri\ maxe/ssasqai e3likoj boo_j a)mfi\ fonh|~sin:
h1toi o4 me\n prw&th|si kai\ u(stati/h|si bo&essin
ai0e\n o(mostixa&ei, o4 de/ t' e0n me/ssh|sin o)rou&saj
bou~n e1dei, ai4 de/ te pa~sai u(pe/tresan: w4j to&t' 0Axaioi\
qespesi/wj e0fo&bhqen u(f' 3Ektori kai\ Dii\ patri\
pa&ntej.
But he [Hector] fell on them [Achaeans] like a lion of destructive mind
coming against cattle that are grazing in the bottom of a great marsh, and
there is no counting them, and among them is a herdsman who is yet
unskilled to fight with a wild beast over the carcase of a sleek heifer that
has been slain: he paces ever by their side, now abreast of the foremost of
the cattle, and now of the hindmost, but the lion leaps on the midmost, and
devours a heifer, and at that they all flee in terror; so wondrously were the
Achaeans one and all then driven in rout by Hector and father Zeus.
126
Homer, Iliad 16.756-16.763 VIII B.C.
Text and translation: G. P. Gould, ed., tr., Homer. Iliad II (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1925; second ed., 1999).
tw_ peri\ Kebrio&nao le/onq' w4j dhrinqh&thn,
w3 t' o1reoj korufh|~si peri\ ktame/nhj e0la&foio
a1mfw peina&onte me/ga frone/onte ma&xesqon:
w4j peri\ Kebrio&nao du&w mh&stwrej a)u+th~j
760 Pa&troklo&j te Menoitia&dhj kai\ fai/dimoj 3Ektwr,
i3ent' a)llh&lwn tame/ein xro&a nhle/i" xalkw|~.
3Ektwr me\n kefalh~fin e0pei\ la&ben ou)xi\ meqi/ei:
Pa&trokloj d' e9te/rwqen e1xen podo&j:
So the two joined in strife for Cebriones like two lions
388

that on the peaks of a mountain fight for a slain hind,
both of them hungering, both high of heart; so for Cebriones
the two masters of the war cry, Patroclus, son of Menoetius,
and glorious Hector, were eager each to cleave the other’s flesh
with the pitiless bronze. Hector, when once he has seized the
corpse by the head, would not loose his hold, and Patroclus on the
other side held fast hold of the foot.
127
Homer, Iliad 22.66-22.76 VIII B.C.
Text and translation: G. P. Gould, ed., tr., Homer. Iliad II (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1925; second ed., 1999).
au)to_n d' a2n pu&mato&n me ku&nej prw&th|si qu&rh|sin
w)mhstai\ e0ru&ousin, e0pei/ ke/ tij o)ce/i" xalkw|~
tu&yaj h)e\ balw_n r(eqe/wn e0k qumo_n e3lhtai,
ou4j tre/fon e0n mega&roisi trapezh~aj qurawrou&j,
70 oi3 k' e0mo_n ai[ma pio&ntej a)lu&ssontej peri\ qumw|~ ( 0)
kei/sont' e0n proqu&roisi. ne/w| de/ te pa&nt' e0pe/oiken
a1rhi" ktame/nw| dedai"gme/nw| o)ce/i" xalkw|~
kei=sqai: pa&nta de\ kala_ qano&nti per o3tti fanh&h|:
a)ll' o3te dh_ polio&n te ka&rh polio&n te ge/neion
75 ai0dw~ t' ai0sxu&nwsi ku&nej ktame/noio ge/rontoj,
tou~to dh_ oi1ktiston pe/letai deiloi=si brotoi=sin.
Myself then last of all before my doors will dogs that
eat raw flesh tear apart, when some man by thrust or cast
of the sharp bronze has taken the spirit from my limbs—
the dogs that in my halls I reared at my table to guard my door—
which then having drunk my blood in the madness of their hearts,
will lie there in the gateway. For a young man it is wholly fitting,
when he is slain in battle, to lie mangled by the sharp bronze; dead
though he is, all is fair that can be seen. But when dogs work shame
on the gray head and gray beard and on the nakedness of a slain old
man, that is the most piteous thing that falls to wretched mortals.
128
Isocrates, Antidosis 213-214 IV B.C.
Text and translation: G. Norlin, ed., tr., Isocrates II (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1929; repr. 1992) 305.
4O de\ pa&ntwn deino&taton, o3ti kaq' e3kaston to_n e0niauto_n qewrou~ntej e0n toi=j
qau&masin tou_j me\n le/ontaj prao&teron diakeime/nouj pro_j tou_j qerapeu&ontaj h2
tw~n a)nqrw&pwn e1nioi pro_j tou_j eu} poiou~ntaj, ta_j d' a1rktouj
389

kalindoume/naj kai\ palaiou&saj kai\ mimoume/naj ta_j h(mete/raj e0pisth&maj, ou)d' e0k
tou&twn du&nantai gnw~nai th_n paidei/an kai\ th_n e0pime/leian, o3shn e1xei du&namin,
ou)d' o3ti tau~ta polu_ a2n qa~tton th_n h(mete/ran fu&sin h2 th_n e0kei/nwn w)felh&seien:
But most absurd of all, they [Isocrates’ detractors] behold in the shows which are held
year after year lions which are more gentle toward their trainers than some people are
toward their benefactors, and bears which dance about and wrestle and imitate our skill,
and yet they are not able to judge even from these instances the power which education
and training have, nor can they see that human nature will respond more promptly than
the animals to the benefits of education.
129
Julian, Prefect of Egypt, Anthologia Palatina 9.738 A.D. VI
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
0En boi6 ta|~d' e0ma&xonto Fu&sij kai\ po&tnia Te/xna:
a)mfote/raij de\ Mu&rwn i]son o1passe ge/raj:
derkome/noij me\n ga_r Fu&sioj kra&toj h3rpase Te/xna:
au)ta_r e0faptome/noij h( Fu&sij e0sti\ fu&sij.
Nature and Queen Art strove in the matter of
this cow, and Myron gave to each a prize of equal
value. When one looks at it Art robs nature of
her superiority, but when one touches it Nature is nature.
130
Julian, Prefect of Egypt, Anthologia Palatina 9.739 A.D. VI
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
1Hpafe kai\ se\ mu&wpa Mu&rwn, o3ti ke/ntron e0rei/deij
pleurai=j xalkoxu&toij a)ntitu&poio boo&j.
ou) ne/mesij de\ mu&wpi. ti/ ga_r to&son; ei1 ge kai\ au)tou_j
o)fqalmou_j nome/wn h)pero&peuse Mu&rwn.
Myron deceived thee too, gadfly, that thou plungest
thy sting into the hard flanks of the bronze cow.
But the gadfly is excusable. What wonder! when
Myron deceived even the eyes of the herdsmen.
131
Leonidas of Tarentum, Anthologia Palatina 9.719 III B.C.
390

Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Ou)k e1plase/n me Mu&rwn, e0yeu&sato: boskome/nan de\
e0c a)ge/laj e0la&saj dh~se ba&sei liqi/nw|.
Myron did not mould me; he lied; but driving
me from the herd where I was feeding, he fixed me
to a stone base.
132
Macedonius the Consul, Anthologia Palatina 6.175 A.D. I (?)
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology I (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1916; repr. 1927).
To_n ku&na, to_n pa&shj kraterh~j e0pii/dmona qh&rhj,
e1cese me\n Leu&kwn, a1nqeto d' 0Alkime/nhj.
0Alkime/nhj d' ou)x eu{re, ti/ me/myetai: w(j d' i1d' o(moi/hn
ei0ko&na pantoi/w| sxh&mati fainome/nhn,
kloio_n e1xwn pe/laj h}lqe, le/gwn Leu&kwni keleu&ein
tw|~ kuni\ kai\ bai/nein: pei=qe ga_r w(j u(la&wn.
This dog trained in every kind of hunting, was carved by Leucon, and dedicated by
Alcimenes. Alcimenes had no fault to find, but when he saw the statue resembling the
dog in every feature he came up to it, with a collar, bidding Leucon to order the dog to
walk, for as it looked to be barking, it persuaded him it could walk too.
133
Marcus Argentarius, Anthologia Palatina 9.732 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
Bouko&lon h2n e0si/dh|j to_n e0mo&n, ce/ne, tou~t' e1poj au)tw|~
ei]pon, o3q' o( pla&sthj w{de/ m' e1dhse Mu&rwn.
Stranger, if thou seest my herdsman, give him
this message, that the sculptor Myron tied me up here.
134
Nemesianus, Cynegetica 151-156 A.D. III
Text and translation: J. W. Duff and A. M. Duff, eds., trs., Minor Latin Poets II
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1934; rev. ed. 1935; repr. 1982).
hos igitur genetrice simul iam vere sereno
391

molli pasce sero (passim nam lactis abundans
tempus adest, ablent plenis et ovilia mulctris),
interdumque cibo cererem cum lacte ministra,
155 fortibus ut sucis teneras cnplenere medullas
possint et validas iam tunc promittere vires.
These then along with their mother, now that it is clear spring,
you are to feed on soft whey (for everywhere the season that abounds
in milk has come, and sheepfolds are white with brimmimg milk-pails):
at times, too, add to their food bread with milk, so that they may be
able to fill their young marrows with powerful juices and even at that
time give promise of vigorous strength.
135
Pausanias 1.23.2 A.D. II
Text: F. Spiro, Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1903; repr. Stuttgart,
1967).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
tau&thn ga&r, e0pei/ te a)pe/qanen 3Ipparxoj, —le/gw de\ ou)k e0j suggrafh_n pro&teron
h3konta, pista_ de\ a1llwj 0Aqhnai/wn toi=j polloi=j— 9Ippi/aj ei]xen e0n ai0ki/a| e0j o4
die/fqeiren, oi[a e9tai/ran 0Aristogei/tonoj e0pista&menoj ou}san kai\ to_ bou&leuma
ou)damw~j a)gnoh~sai doca&zwn: a)nti\ de\ tou&twn, e0pei\ turanni/doj e0pau&qhsan oi9
Peisistrati/dai, xalkh~ le/aina 0Aqhnai/oij e0sti\n e0j mnh&mhn th~j gunaiko&j, para_ de\
au)th_n a1galma 0Afrodi/thj, o4 Kalli/ou te/fasin a) na&qhma ei]nai kai\
e 1 rgon Kala&midoj.
When Hipparchos [the son of Peisistratos] died—and what I am saying has never before
come to be written down but is generally belied by many Athenians—Hippias tortured
and killed [an Athenian woman named] Leaina [“Lioness”], knowing that she was the
mistress of Aristogeiton and believing that there was no way in which she could have
been ignorant of the plot. In reaction to this, when the tyranny of the Peisistratids came
to an end, the Athenians set up a bronze lioness as a memorial to the woman, next to the
image of Aphrodite, which they say, was a dedication of Kallias and a work of Kalamis.
136
Pausanias 3.14.9 A.D. II
Text: F. Spiro, ed., Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1903; repr. Stuttgart,
1967).
Translation: W. H. Jones and H. A. Ormedog, eds., trs., Pausanias. Description of
Greece II (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1926; repr. 1977).
kai\ ta&de a1lla toi=j e0fh&boij drw&mena& e0sti: qu&ousi pro_ th~j ma&xhj e0n tw|~
Foibai/w|: to_ de\ Foibai=o&n e0stin e0kto_j th~j po&lewj, Qera&pnhj ou) polu_
392

a)festhko&j. e0ntau~qa e9kate/ra moi=ra tw~n e0fh&bwn sku&laka kuno_j tw|~ 0Enuali/w|
qu&ousi, qew~n tw|~ a)lkimwta&tw| kri/nontej i9erei=on kata_ gnw&mhn ei]nai to_
a)lkimw&taton zw|~on tw~n h(me/rwn. kuno_j de\ sku&lakaj ou)de/naj a1llouj oi]da
9Ellh&nwn nomi/zontaj qu&ein o3ti mh_ Kolofwni/ouj: qu&ousi ga_r kai\ Kolofw&nioi
me/lainan th|~ 0Enodi/w| sku&laka. nukterinai\ de\ h3 te Kolofwni/wn qusi/a kai\ tw~n
e0n Lakedai/moni e0fh&bwn kaqesth&kasin.
Before the fighting they sacrifice in the Phoebeum, which is outside the city, not far
distant from Therapne. Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalius,
holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant
of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except
the people of Colophon; these too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch, to the Wayside
Goddess. Both the sacrifice of the sacrifice of the Colophonians and that of the youths at
Sparta are appointed to take place at night.
137
Pausanias 6.5.4 A.D. II
Text: F. Spiro, ed., Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1903; repr. Stuttgart,
1967).
Translation: W. H. S. Jones, ed., tr., Pausanias. Description of Greece III (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1933; repr. 1960).
pagkrati/ou me\n dh_ kai\ a1lloij h1dh gego&nasin e0pifanei=j ni=kai: Pouluda&manti de\
ta&de a)lloi=a para_ tou_j e0pi\ tw|~ pagkrati/w| stefa&nouj u(pa&rxonta& e0stin. h(
o)reinh_ th~j Qra|&khj, h( e1ndon Ne/stou potamou~ tou~ r(e/ontoj dia_
th~j 0Abdhritw~n, kai\ a1lla qhri/a, e0n de\ au)toi=j pare/xetai kai\ le/ontaj, oi4 kai\ tw|~
stratw|~ pote e0piqe/menoi tw|~ Ce/rcou ta_j a)gou&saj kamh&louj ta_ siti/a e0lumh&nanto.
ou{toi polla&kij oi9 le/ontej kai\ e0j th_n peri\ to_n 1Olumpon planw~ntai xw&ran:
tou&tou de\ tou~ o1rouj h( me\n e0j Makedoni/an pleura&, h( de\ e0pi\ Qessalou_j kai\ to_n
potamo_n te/traptai to_n Phneio&n: e0ntau~qa o( Pouluda&maj le/onta e0n tw|~
0Olu&mpw|, me/ga kai\ a1lkimon qhri/on, kateirga&sato ou)deni\ e0skeuasme/noj o3plw|.
proh&xqh de\ e0j to_ to&lmhma filotimi/a| pro_j ta_ 9Hrakle/ouj e1rga, o3ti
kai\ 9Hrakle/a e1xei lo&goj krath~sai tou~ e0n Neme/a| le/ontoj.
Other have won glorious victories in the pancratium, but Pulydamas besides the prizes for
the pancratium, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The
mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs through the land of
Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes,
and mauled the camels carrying the supplies. These lions often roam right into the land
around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the other
towards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on Mount Olympus Pulydamas slew a lion,
a huge and powerful beast, without the help of any weapon. To this exploit he was
impelled by an ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend
says, overthrew the lion at Nemea.
393

138
Pausanias 6.12.1 A.D. II
Text: F. Spiro, ed., Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1903; repr. Stuttgart,
1967).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
plhsi/on de\ a3rma te/ e0sti xalkou~n kai\ a)nh_r a)nabebhkw_j e0p' au)to&, ke/lhtej de\
i3ppoi para_ to_ a3rma ei[j e9kate/rwqen e3sthke kai\ e0pi\ tw~n i3ppwn kaqe/zontai
pai=dej: u(pomnh&mata de\ e0pi\ ni/kaij 0Olumpikai=j e0stin 9Ie/rwnoj tou~ Deinome/nouj
turannh&santoj Surakousi/wn meta_ to_n a)delfo_n Ge/lwna. ta_ de\ a)naqh&mata ou)x
9Ie/rwn a)pe/steilen, a)ll' o( me\n a)podou_j tw|~ qew|~ Deinome/nhj e0sti\n o( 9Ie/rwnoj, e1rga
de\ to_ me\n 0 Ona&ta tou~ Ai0ginh&tou to_ a3rma, K a l a & m i d o j de\ oi9 i3ppoi te oi9
e9kate/rwqen kai\ e0p' au)tw~n ei0sin oi9 pai=dej.
Nearby is a bronze chariot and a man mounted on it; race-horses stand by the chariot, one
on each side, and there are children seated on the horses. These are memorials to the
Olympic victories of Hieron the son of Deinomenes, who ruled as tyrant over the
Syracusans after his brother Gelon. But Hieron did not send these offerings: rather it was
Deinomenes the son of Hieron, who gave them to the god. The chariot was the work of
Onatas of Aigina, while the horses on either side of it and the children upon them are the
works of Kalamis.
139
Pausanias 9.30.1 A.D. II
Text: F. Spiro, ed., Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1903; repr. Stuttgart,
1967).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
tai=j Mou&saij de\ a)ga&lmata me\n prw~ta& e0sti Khfisodo&tou te/xnh
pa&saij, proelqo&nti de\ ou) polu_ trei=j me/n ei0sin au}qij K h f i s o d o & t o u ,
Strogguli/wnoj de\ e3tera tosau~ta, a)ndro_j bou~j kai\ i3ppouj a1rista
ei0rgasme/nou:
The first images of the Muses are the work of Kephisodotos, all of them; a little farther
on there are three more again by Kephisodotos, and then three others by Strongylion, an
artist responsible for excellent [images of] cattle and horses.
Philemon fr. 139 Kock IV-III B.C.
See Athenaeus 13.606a-13.606b [77].
140
Phillipus, Anthologia Palatina 9.742 A.D. I
394

Text and translation: W. R. Paton, ed., tr., The Greek Anthology III (London and New
York, 1915; repr. 1925).
1Apaire/ mou te/nontoj, w} gewpo&ne,
le/padna kai\ si/daron au)lakerga&tan:
xalko_n ga_r a(mw~n ou)k e0sa&rkwsen Mu&rwn,
te/xna d' e0zwpo&nhsen o1yin e1mpnoon,
w(j polla&kij me ka)pomuka~sqai qe/lein:
ei0j e1rga d' ou)k ei1ase prosdh&saj ba&sei.
Take off from my neck, husbandman, the collar,
and free me from the iron furrow-cutter; for Myron
did not make my bronze into flesh, but his art gave
me the aspect of being alive, so that often I even
wish to low. He did not, however, let me go to
work, but tied me to the base.
141
Plato, Cratylus 424d-425a IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera I (Oxford, 1900; repr. 1967).
Translation: H. N. Fowler, ed., tr., Plato. Cratylus. Parmenides. Greater Hippias. Lesser
Hippias (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1926; repr. 1963).
[SW.] w3sper oi9 zwgra&foi boulo&menoi a)fomoiou~n e0ni/ote me\n o1streon mo&non
e0ph&negkan, e0ni/ote de\ o(tiou~n a1llo tw~n farma&kwn, e1sti de\ o3te polla_ sugkera&-
santej, oi[on o3tan a)ndrei/kelon skeua&zwsin h2 a1llo ti tw~n toiou&twn—w(j a2n
oi]mai dokh|~ e9ka&sth h( ei0kw_n dei=sqai e9ka&stou farma&kou—ou3tw dh_ kai\ h(mei=j ta_
stoixei=a e0pi\ ta_ pra&gmata e0poi/somen, kai\ e4n e0pi\ e3n, ou{ a2n dokh|~ dei=n, kai\
su&mpolla, poiou~ntej o4 dh_ sullaba_j kalou~sin, kai\ sullaba_j au} suntiqe/ntej, e0c
w{n ta& te o)no&mata kai\ ta_ r(h&mata sunti/qentai: kai\ pa&lin e0k tw~n o)noma&twn kai\
r(hma&twn me/ga h1dh ti kai\ kalo_n kai\ o3lon susth&somen, w3sper e0kei= to_ zw|~on th|~
grafikh|~, e0ntau~qa to_n lo&gon th|~ o)nomastikh|~ h2 r(htorikh|~ h2 h3tij e0sti\n h( te/xnh.
SOCRATES. Just as painters, when they wish to produce an imitation, sometimes use
only red, sometimes, some other color, and sometimes mix many colors, as when they are
making a picture of a man or something of that sort, employing each color, I suppose, as
they think the particular picture demands it. In just this way we, too, shall apply letters to
things, using one letter for one thing, when that seems to be required, or many letters
together, forming syllables, as they are called, and in turn combining syllables, and by
their combination forming nouns and verbs. And from nouns and verbs again we shall
finally construct something great and fair and complete. Just as in our comparison we
made the zw|~on by the art of painting, so now we shall make language by the art of
naming, or of rhetoric, or whatever it be.
142
395

Plato, Cratylus 429a IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera I (Oxford, 1900; repr. 1967).
Translation: H. N. Fowler, ed., tr., Plato. Cratylus. Parmenides. Greater Hippias. Lesser
Hippias (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1926; repr. 1963).
[SW.] zwgra&foi ei0si/n pou oi9 me\n xei/rouj, oi9 de\ a)mei/nouj;
[KR.] Pa&nu ge.
[SW.] Ou)kou~n oi9 me\n a)mei/nouj ta_ au(tw~n e1rga kalli/w pare/xontai, ta_ zw|~a,
oi9 de\ faulo&tera; kai\ oi0kodo&moi w(sau&twj oi9 me\n kalli/ouj ta_j oi0ki/aj
e0rga&zontai, oi9 de\ ai0sxi/ouj;
[KR.] Nai/.
[SW.] ]Ar' ou}n kai\ nomoqe/tai oi9 me\n kalli/w ta_ [e1rga] au(tw~n pare/xontai, oi9 de\
ai0sxi/w;
SOCRATES: Some painters are better, and others worse, are they not?
CRATYLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the better produce better works—that is, their paintings—and the
others worse works? And likewise some builders build better houses and others worse?
143
Plato, Critias 107b-107e IV B.C.
Text and translation: R. Bury, ed., tr., Plato IX (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1960).
mi/mhsin me\n ga_r dh_ kai\ a)peikasi/an ta_ para_ pa&ntwn h(mw~n r(hqe/nta
xrew&n pou gene/sqai: th_n de\ tw~n grafe/wn ei0dwlopoii/an
peri\ ta_ qei=a& te kai\ ta_ a)nqrw&pina sw&mata gignome/nhn
i1dwmen r(a|stw&nhj te pe/ri kai\ xalepo&thtoj pro_j to_ toi=j
o(rw~sin dokei=n a)poxrw&ntwj memimh~sqai, kai\ katoyo&meqa o3ti
gh~n me\n kai\ o1rh kai\ potamou_j kai\ u3lhn ou)rano&n te su&m-
panta kai\ ta_ peri\ au)to_n o1nta kai\ i0o&nta prw~ton me\n a)gapw~-
men a1n ti/j ti kai\ braxu_ pro_j o(moio&thta au)tw~n a)pomimei=sqai
dunato_j h|}, pro_j de\ tou&toij, a3te ou)de\n ei0do&tej a)kribe\j peri\
tw~n toiou&twn, ou1te e0ceta&zomen ou1te e0le/gxomen ta_ gegram-
me/na, skiagrafi/a| de\ a)safei= kai\ a)pathlw|~ xrw&meqa peri\
au)ta&: ta_ de\ h(me/tera o(po&tan tij e0pixeirh|~ sw&mata a)peika&-
zein, o)ce/wj ai0sqano&menoi to_ paraleipo&menon dia_ th_n a)ei\
su&noikon katano&hsin xalepoi\ kritai\ gigno&meqa tw|~ mh_ pa&saj
pa&ntwj ta_j o(moio&thtaj a)podido&nti. tau)to_n dh_ kai\ kata_
tou_j lo&gouj i0dei=n dei= gigno&menon, o3ti ta_ me\n ou)ra&nia kai\
qei=a a)gapw~men kai\ smikrw~j ei0ko&ta lego&mena, ta_ de\ qnhta_
kai\ a)nqrw&pina a)kribw~j e0ceta&zomen. e0k dh_ tou~ paraxrh~ma
(e.) nu~n lego&mena, to_ pre/pon a2n mh_ dunw&meqa pa&ntwj a)podido&-
nai, suggignw&skein xrew&n: ou) ga_r w(j r(a|&dia ta_ qnhta_ a)ll'
w(j xalepa_ pro_j do&can o1nta a)peika&zein dei= dianoei=sqai.
396

The accounts given by all us must be, of course, of the nature of imitations and
representations; and if we look at the portraiture of divine and of human bodies as
executed by painters, in respect of the ease or difficulty with which they succeed in
imitating their subjects in the opinion of onlookers, we shall notice in the first place that
as regards the earth and mountains and rivers and woods and the whole of heaven,
with the things that exist and move therein, we are content if a man is also able to
represent them with even a small degree of likeness; and further, that, inasmuch as we
have no exact knowledge about such subjects, we do not examine closely or criticize the
paintings, but tolerate, in such cases, an inexact and deceptive sketch. On the other hand,
whenever a painter tries to render a likeness of our own bodies, we quickly perceive what
is defective because of our constant familiar acquaintance with them, and become sever
critics of him who fails to bring out to the full all the points of similarity. And precisely
the same thing happens, as we should notice, in the case of discourse: in respect of what
is celestial and divine we are satisfied if the account possesses even a small degree of
likelihood, but we examine with precision what is mortal and human. To an account
given now on the spur of the moment indulgence must be granted, should we fail to make
it a wholly fitting representation; for one must conceive of mortal objects as being
difficult, and not easy, to represent satisfactorily.
144
Plato, Leges 668c-669b IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera V (Oxford, 1907; repr. 1967).
Translation: T. L. Pangle, tr., The Laws of Plato (New York, 1980).
[AQ.] Ei0si\n dh&pou kata_ th_n o1yin h(mi=n a)peikasi/ai muri/ai.
[KL.] Nai/.
[AQ.] Ti/ ou}n ei1 tij kai\ e0n tou&toij a)gnooi= tw~n memimhme/nwn o3ti pot' e0sti\n
e3kaston tw~n swma&twn; a}r' a1n pote to& ge o)rqw~j au)tw~n ei0rgasme/non gnoi/h;
le/gw de\ to_ toio&nde, oi[on tou_j a)riqmou_j tou~ sw&matoj kai\ e9ka&stwn tw~n merw~n
ta_j qe/seij ei0 e1xei, o3soi te/ ei0sin kai\ o(poi=a par' o(poi=a au)tw~n kei/mena th_n
prosh&kousan ta&cin a)pei/lhfen—kai\ e1ti dh_ xrw&mata& te kai\ sxh&mata—h2 pa&nta
tau~ta tetaragme/nwj ei1rgastai: mw~n dokei= tau~t' a1n pote diagnw~nai/ tij to_
para&pan a)gnow~n o3ti pot' e0sti\ to_ memimhme/non zw|~on;
[KL.] Kai\ pw~j;
[AQ.] Ti/ d' ei0 gignw&skoimen o3ti to_ gegramme/non h2 to_ peplasme/non e0sti\n
a1nqrwpoj, kai\ ta_ me/rh pa&nta ta_ e9autou~ kai\ xrw&mata a3ma kai\ sxh&mata
a)pei/lhfen u(po_ th~j te/xnhj; a}ra& ge a)nagkai=on h1dh tw|~ tau~ta gno&nti kai\ e0kei=no
e9toi/mwj gignw&skein, ei1te kalo_n ei1te o3ph| pote\ e0llipe\j a2n ei1h ka&llouj;
[KL.] Pa&ntej menta2n w(j e1poj ei0pei=n, w} ce/ne, ta_ kala_ tw~n zw|&wn e0gignw&skomen.
[AQ.] 0Orqo&tata le/geij. a}r' ou}n ou) peri\ e9ka&sthn ei0ko&na, kai\ e0n grafikh|~ kai\ e0n
mousikh|~ kai\ pa&nth|, to_n me/llonta e1mfrona krith_n e1sesqai dei= tau~ta tri/a e1xein, o3
te/ e0sti prw~ton gignw&skein, e1peita w(j o)rqw~j, e1peiq' w(j eu}, to_ tri/ton, ei1rgastai
tw~n ei0ko&nwn h(tisou~n r(h&masi/ te kai\ me/lesi kai\ toi=j r(uqmoi=j;
ATHENIAN. There are of course myriad images which are visible to our eye.
397

KLEINIAS. Yes.
ATHENIAN. What then, if someone doesn’t know what each of the bodies of the things
imitated is? Would he ever know what is correctly executed in them? What I mean is
something like this: doesn’t he have to know whether the imitation captures the number
and the arrangement of each of the parts, how many there are and how they fit next to one
another in the appropriate order, and also the colors and shapes, or whether all these
things have been put together in a confused way? Do you think someone can ever know
these things if he is completely ignorant of what the living thing is that has been imitated?
KLEINIAS. How could he?
ATHENIAN. What if we were to know that the thing that has been painted and
sculptured is a human being, and that all his own parts, colors, and shapes have been
captured by the art? Does it follow necessarily that whoever knows about these things
also readily knows whether the work is beautiful or just where it is deficient in beauty?
KLEINIAS. That would mean, stranger, that all of us, so to speak, know what is beautiful
in any paintings of living things.
ATHENIAN. What you say is very correct. Isn’t it the case, then, that with regard to
each image, in painting and in music and in all the rest, the person who is going to be a
prudent judge must have three kinds of knowledge? He must know first what the thing
is, and then know how correctly, and then—the third thing—how well, any of the images
of it in words, tunes, and rhythms are produced.
145
Plato, Leges 769a-769d IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera V (Oxford, 1907; repr. 1967).
Translation: T. L. Pangle, tr., The Laws of Plato (New York, 1980).
[AQ.] Oi]sq' o3ti kaqa&per zwgra&fwn ou)de\n pe/raj e1xein h( pragmatei/a dokei= peri\
e9ka&stwn tw~n zw|&wn, a)ll' h2 tou~ xrai/nein h2 a)poxrai/nein, h2 o(tidh&pote kalou~si to_
toiou~ton oi9 zwgra&fwn pai=dej, ou)k a1n pote dokei= pau&sasqai kosmou~sa,
w3ste e0pi/dosin mhke/t' e1xein ei0j to_ kalli/w te kai\ fanerw&tera gi/gnesqai ta_
gegramme/na.
[KL.] Sxedo_n e0nnow~ a)kou&wn kai\ au)to_j tau~ta a4 le/geij, e0pei\ e0ntribh&j ge
ou)damw~j ge/gona th|~ toiau&th| te/xnh|.
[AQ.] Kai\ ou)de/n ge e0bla&bhj. xrhsw&meqa& ge mh_n tw|~ nu~n paratuxo&nti peri\ au)th~j
h(mi=n lo&gw| to_ toio&nde, w(j ei1 pote/ tij e0pinoh&seie gra&yai te w(j ka&lliston zw|~on
kai\ tou~t' au} mhde/pote e0pi\ faulo&teron a)ll' e0pi\ to_ be/ltion i1sxein tou~ e0pio&ntoj
a)ei\ xro&nou, sunnoei=j o3ti qnhto_j w1n, ei0 mh& tina katalei/yei dia&doxon tou~
e0panorqou~n te, e0a&n ti sfa&llhtai to_ zw|~on u(po_ xro&nwn, kai\ to_ paraleifqe\n u(po_
th~j a)sqenei/aj th~j e9autou~ pro_j th_n te/xnhn oi[o&j te ei0j to_ pro&sqen e1stai
faidru&nwn poiei=n e0pidido&nai, smikro&n tina xro&non au)tw|~ po&noj paramenei=
pa&mpoluj;
[KL.] 0Alhqh~.
[AQ.] Ti/ ou}n; a}r' ou) toiou~ton dokei= soi to_ tou~ nomoqe/tou bou&lhm' ei]nai; prw~ton
me\n gra&yai tou_j no&mouj pro_j th_n a)kri/beian kata_ du&namin i9kanw~j: e1peita
proi"o&ntoj tou~ xro&nou kai\ tw~n doca&ntwn e1rgw| peirw&menon, a}r' oi1ei tina_ ou3twj
398

a1frona gegone/nai nomoqe/thn, w3st' a)gnoei=n o3ti pa&mpolla a)na&gkh
paralei/pesqai toiau~ta, a4 dei= tina sunepo&menon e0panorqou~n, i3na mhdamh|~ xei/rwn,
belti/wn de\ h( politei/a kai\ o( ko&smoj a)ei\ gi/gnhtai peri\ th_n w| )kisme/nhn au)tw|~
po&lin;
ATHENIAN. You know how the painters’ activity, for example, never seems to finish
working on each of the figures, but keeps touching up or highlighting—or whatever the
painters’ disciples call such activity? It seems never to cease its adorning, and hence
never to reach a point where there can be no further improvement of the paintings as
regards beauty and clarity.
KLEINIAS. I too know pretty well these things you’re talking about, by hearsay—for I
am not at all practiced, at least, in such an art.
ATHENIAN. That’s no hindrance for you. We’ll still make use of this allusion to it
that’s cropped up in our discussion now, in something like the following way: suppose
someone once took it into his head to paint the most beautiful figure possible, one that
would never get worse but would always improve as time went by. Don’t you see that
since he’s mortal, he’ll have to leave behind a successor, able to make it right if the
painting suffers from decay at the hands of time, as well as to make future touch-ups that
improve the deficiencies left by his own artistic weaknesses? Otherwise, won’t his very
great labor last but a brief time?
KLEINIAS. That’s true.
ATHENIAN. Well, then, don’t you think the lawgiver has such a purpose? He first
writes his laws with as nearly adequate a precision as he can muster. Then, with the
passage of time, as his opinions are tried out in deed, do you suppose there’s any
lawgiver who is so imprudent as to be ignorant of the fact that he must necessarily have
left very many such things that require being set right by some follower, if the regime and
order of the city he has founded are always to become in no way worse but instead
better?
146
Plato, Politicus 277c IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera I (Oxford, 1900; repr. 1967).
Translation: H. N. Fowler, ed., tr., Plato. Politicus. Philebus (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1962).
dio_ makrote/ran th_n a)po&deicin pepoih&kamen kai\ pa&ntwj tw|~ mu&qw| te/loj ou)k
e0pe/qemen, a)ll' a)texnw~j o( lo&goj h(mi=n w3sper zw|~on th_n e1cwqen me\n perigrafh_n
e1oiken i9kanw~j e1xein, th_n de\ oi[on toi=j farma&koij kai\ th|~ sugkra&sei tw~n
xrwma&twn e0na&rgeian ou)k a)peilhfe/nai pw. grafh~j de\ kai\ sumpa&shj
xeirourgi/aj le/cei kai\ lo&gw| dhlou~n pa~n zw|~on ma~llon pre/pei toi=j duname/noij
e3pesqai: toi=j d' a1lloij dia_ xeirourgiw~n.
So we have made our discourse too long and after all have never made an end of the tale,
but our talk, just like a picture of a living creature, seems to have a good enough outline,
but not yet to have received the clearness that comes from pigments and the blending of
colors. And yet it is more fitting to portray any living being by speech and argument than
399

y painting or any handicraft whatsoever to persons who are able to follow the argument;
but to others it is better to do it by means of works of craftsmanship.
147
Plato, Respublica 375d-375e IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera IV (Oxford, 1902; repr. 1968).
Translation: P. Shorey, ed., tr., Plato. The Republic I (London and Cambridge, Mass.,
1930; repr. 1963).
1Idoi me\n a1n tij kai\ e0n a1lloij zw|&oij, ou) menta2n h3kista e0n w| { h(mei=j pareba&llomen
tw|~ fu&laki. oi]sqa ga&r pou tw~n gennai/wn kunw~n, o3ti tou~to fu&sei au)tw~n to_ h}qoj,
pro_j me\n tou_j sunh&qeij te kai\ gnwri/mouj w(j oi[o&n te pra|ota&touj ei]nai,
pro_j de\ tou_j a)gnw~taj tou)nanti/on. Oi]da me/ntoi. Tou~to me\n a1ra, h}n d' e0gw&,
dunato&n, kai\ ou) para_ fu&sin zhtou~men toiou~ton ei]nai to_n fu&laka. Ou)k e1oiken.
“It may be observed in other animals, but especially in that which we likened to the
guardian. You surely have observed in well-bred hounds that their natural disposition is
to be most gentle to their familiars and those whom they recognize, but the contrary to
those whom they do not know.” “I am aware of that.” “The thing is possible then,” said I,
“and it is not an unnatural requirement that we are looking for in our guardian.” “It seems
not.”
148
Plato, Respublica 420c IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera IV (Oxford, 1902; repr. 1968).
Translation: G. R. F. Ferrari, ed., and T. Griffith, tr., Plato. The Republic (Cambridge,
2000).
nu~n me\n ou}n, w(j oi0o&meqa, th_n eu)dai/mona pla&ttomen ou)k a)polabo&ntej o)li/gouj e0n
au)th|~ toiou&touj tina_j tiqe/ntej, a)ll' o3lhn: au)ti/ka de\ th_n e0nanti/an skeyo&meqa.
#Wsper ou}n a2n ei0 h(ma~j a)ndria&nta gra&fontaj proselqw&n tij e1yege
le/gwn o3ti ou) toi=j kalli/stoij tou~ zw|&ou ta_ ka&llista fa&rmaka prosti/qemen, oi9
ga_r o)fqalmoi\ ka&lliston o2n ou)k o)strei/w| e0nalhlimme/noi ei]en a)lla_ me/lani, metri/wj
a2n e0dokou~men pro_j au)to_n a)pologei=sqai le/gontej: “ ]W qauma&sie,
mh_ oi1ou dei=n h(ma~j ou3tw kalou_j o)fqalmou_j gra&fein, w3ste mhde\ o)fqalmou_j
fai/nesqai, mhd' au} ta}lla me/rh, a)ll' a1qrei ei0 ta_ prosh&konta e9ka&stoij
a)podido&ntej to_ o3lon kalo_n poiou~men.” kai\ dh_ kai\ nu~n mh_ a)na&gkaze h(ma~j
toiau&thn eu)daimoni/an toi=j fu&laci prosa&ptein, h4 e0kei/nouj pa~n ma~llon
a)perga&setai h2 fu&lakaj.
What we are doing at the moment, we believe, is not separating off a few of the
inhabitants, and making them happy, but constructing a complete city, and making that
happy. We’ll have a look at its opposite later. Imagine we were putting the colours on a
statue of a man, and someone came along and told us we were doing it wrong, since we
weren’t using the most beautiful colors for the most beautiful parts of the living creature.
400

The eyes, the most beautiful feature, had been colored black, not purple. We would
regard it as a quite reasonable defense to say to him: “Hang on a minute. You surely
don’t think, do you, that we should make the eyes—or any of the other parts of the
body—so beautiful that they don’t even look like eyes. The thing to ask yourself is
whether by giving the right colours to everything we are making the whole thing
beautiful.” It’s the same with us. You mustn’t start forcing us to give the guardians the
kind of happiness which will turn them into anything other than guardians.
149
Plato, Respublica 514c-515a IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera IV (Oxford, 1902; repr. 1968).
Translation: G. R. F. Ferrari, ed., and T. Griffith, tr., Plato. The Republic (Cambridge,
2000).
3Ora toi/nun para_ tou~to to_ teixi/on fe/rontaj a)nqrw&pouj skeu&h te pantodapa_
u(pere/xonta tou~ teixi/ou kai\ a)ndria&ntaj kai\ a1lla zw|~a li/qina& te kai\ cu&lina kai\
pantoi=a ei0rgasme/na,oi[on ei0ko_j tou_j me\n fqeggome/nouj, tou_j de\ sigw~ntaj tw~n
parafero&ntwn.
Picture also, along the length of the wall, people carrying all sorts of implements which
project above it, and statues of people and animals made of stone and wood and all kinds
of materials. As you’d expect, some of the people carrying the objects are speaking,
while others are silent.
150
Plato, Respublica 598b-598c IV B.C.
Text: J. Burnet, ed., Platonis opera IV (Oxford, 1902; repr. 1968).
Translation: P. Shorey, ed., tr., Plato. The Republic II (London and Cambridge, Mass.,
1935; repr. 1963).
[SW.] pro_j po&teron h( grafikh_ pepoi/htai peri\ e3kaston; po&tera pro_j to_ o1n, w(j
e1xei, mimh&sasqai, h2 pro_j to_ faino&menon, w(j fai/netai, fanta&smatoj h2 a)lhqei/aj
ou}sa mi/mhsij;
[GL.] Fanta&smatoj, e1fh.
[SW.] Po&rrw a1ra pou tou~ a)lhqou~j h( mimhtikh& e0stin kai/, w(j e1oiken, dia_ tou~to
pa&nta a)perga&zetai, o3ti smikro&n ti e9ka&stou e0fa&ptetai, kai\ tou~to ei1dwlon. oi[on
o( zwgra&foj, fame/n, zwgrafh&sei h(mi=n skutoto&mon, te/ktona, tou_j a1llouj
dhmiourgou&j, peri\ ou)deno_j tou&twn e0pai5wn tw~n texnw~n: a)ll' o3mwj pai=da&j ge
kai\ a1fronaj a)nqrw&pouj, ei0 a)gaqo_j ei1h zwgra&foj, gra&yaj a2n te/ktona kai\
po&rrwqen e0pideiknu_j e0capatw|~ a2n tw|~ dokei=n w(j a)lhqw~j te/ktona ei]nai.
SOCRATES. To which is painting directed in every case, to the imitation of reality as it
is or of appearance as it appears?
GLAUCON. Is it an imitation of a phantasm or of the truth? “Of a phantasm,” he said.
SOCRATES. Then the mimetic art is far removed from truth, and this, it seems, is the
401

eason why it can produce everything, because it touches or lays hold of only a small part
of the object and that a phantom; as, for example, a painter, we say, will paint us a
cobbler, a carpenter, and other craftsmen, though he himself has no expertness in any of
these arts, but nevertheless if he were a good painter, by exhibiting at a distance his
picture of a carpenter he would deceive children and foolish men, and make them believe
it to be a real carpenter.
151
Pliny 34.57-34.58 A.D. I
Text: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-XXXV (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
Myronem Eleutheris natum, Hageladae et ipsum discipulum, bucula maxime nobilitavit
celebratis versibus laudata, quando alieno plerique ingenio magis quam suo
commendantur. Fecit et Ladam et discobolon et Perseum et pristas et Satyrum
admirantem tibias et Minervam, Delphicos pentathlos, pancratiastas, Herculem, qui est
apud circum maximum in aede Pompei Magni. Fecisse et cicadae monumentum ac
locustae carminibus suis Erinna significant.
Myron, who was born at Eleutherai, and was a pupil of Ageladas, was most renowned for
his statue of a heifer, a work which is praised in well-known verses—for many people
gain their reputations through someone else’s inventiveness rather than their own. He
also made a dog, a Discus-thrower, a Perseus and the sea-monster, a Satyr marveling at
the flutes, and an Athena, contestants in the pentathlon at Delphi, pankratiasts, and a
Herakles which is now in the round temple of Pompey the Great in the Circus Maximus.
He also made a monument to a cicada and a locust, as Erinna indicates in her poem.
152
Pliny 34.71 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Calamidis enim quadrigae aurigam suum inposuit, ne melior in equorum effigie defecisse
in homine crederetur. Ipse Calamis et alias quadrigas bigasque fecit equis semper sine
aemulo expressis; sed, ne videatur in hominum effigie inferior, Alcmena nullius est
nobilior.
The kindness also of Praxiteles is represented in sculpture, as in the Chariot and Four of
Calamis he contributed the charioteer, in order that the sculptor might not be thought to
have failed in the human figure although more successful in representing horses. Calamis
himself also made other chariots, some with four horses and some with two, and in
executing the horses he was invariably unrivalled.
402

153
Pliny 34.72 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Amphicrates Leaena laudatur. Scortum haec, lyrae cantu familiaris Harmodio et
Aristogitoni. Consilia eorum de tyrannicidio usque in mortem excruciata a tyrannis non
prodidit; quam ob rem Athenienses, et honorem habere ei volentes nec tamen scortum
celebrasse, animal nominis eius fecere atque, ut intellegeretur causa honoris, in opere
linguam addi artifice vetuerunt.
Amphicrates is praised for his Leaena; she was a harlot admitted to the friendship of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton because of her skill as a harpist, who though put to the
torture by the tyrants till she died refused to betray their plot to assassinate them.
Consequently the Athenians wishing to do her honour and yet unwilling to have made a
harlot famous, had a statue made of a lioness, as that was her name, and to indicate the
reason for the honour paid her instructed the artist to represent the animal as having no
tongue.
154
Pliny 34.75 A.D. I
Text: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-XXXV (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
Canachus Apollinem nudum, qui Philesius cognominatur, in Didymaeo Aeginetica aeris
temperatura, cervumque una ita vestigiis suspendit, ut linum subter pedes trahatur alterno
morsu calce digitisque retinentibus solum, ita vertebrato ungue utrisque in partibus, ut a
repulsu per vices resiliat.
Kanachos [was the sculptor of] a nude Apollo, which bears the cognomen Philesios, in
the sanctuary at Didyma, made from bronze of the Aeginitan formula; and with it a stag
which is suspended in its tracks in such a way that a string can be drawn underneath its
feet, with the heel and toe alternately retaining their grip, for a “tooth” on each part is so
geared that when one is dislodged by pressure the other in its turn springs into place.
155
Pliny 34.80 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
403

Menaechmi vitulus genu premitur replicata cervice. Ipse Menaechmus scripsit de sua
arte.
There is a Bull-calf by Menaechmus, on which a man is pressing his knee as he bends its
neck back; Menaechmus has written a treatise about his own work.
156
Pliny 35.65-35.66 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Aequales eius et aemuli fuere Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus, Parrhasius.
Descendisse hic in certamen cum Zeuxide traditur et, cum ille detulisset uvas pictas tanto
successu, ut in scaenam aves advolarent, ipse detulisse linteum pictum ita veritate
repraesentata, ut Zeuxis alitum iudicio tumens flagitaret tandem remoto linteo ostendi
picturam atque intellecto errore concederet palmam ingenuo pudore, quoniam ipse
volucres fefellisset, Parrhasius autem se artificem. Fertur et postea Zeuxis pinxisse
puerum uvas ferentem, ad quas cum advolassent aves, eaden ingenuitate processit iratus
operi et dixit: ‘uvas melius pinxi quam puerum, nam si et hoc consummassem, aves
timere debuerant.’
His contemporaries and rivals were Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus and Parrhasius.
This last, it is recorded, entered into a competition with Zeuxis, who produced a picture
of grapes so successfully represented that birds flew up to the stage-buildings; whereupon
Parrhasius himself produced such a realistic picture of a curtain that Zeuxis, proud of the
verdict of the birds, requested that the curtain should now be drawn and the picture
displayed; and when he realized his mistake, with a modesty that did him honor he
yielded up the prize, saying that whereas he had deceived birds Parrhasius had deceived
him, an artist. It is said that Zeuxis also subsequently painted a Child Carrying Grapes,
and when birds flew to the fruit with the same frankness as before he strode up to the
picture in anger with it and said, “I have painted the grapes better than the child, as if I
had made a success of that as well, the birds would inevitably have been afraid of it”
157
Pliny 35.85 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Idem perfecta opera proponebat in pergola transeuntibus atque, ipse post tabulam latens,
vitia quae notarentur auscultabat, vulgum diligentiorem iudicem quam se praeferens;
feruntque reprehensum a sutore, quod in crepidis una pauciores intus fecisset ansas,
eodem postero die superbo emendatione pristinae admonitionis cavillante circa crus,
indignatum prospexisse denuntiantem, ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret, quod et ipsum
in proverbium abiit.
404

Another habit of his was when he had finished his works to place them in a gallery in the
view of passers by, and he himself stood out of sight behind the picture and listened to
hear what faults were noticed, rating the public as a more observant critic than himself.
And it is said that he was found fault with by a shoemaker because in drawing a subject’s
sandals he has represented the loops in one of them as one too few, and the next day the
same critic was so proud of the artist’s correcting the fault indicated by his previous
objection that he found fault with the leg, but Apelles indignantly looked out from behind
the picture and rebuked him, saying that a shoemaker in his criticism must not go beyond
the sandal—a remark that has also passed into a proverb.
158
Pliny 35.95 A.D. I
Text and translation: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-
XXXV (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Est et equus eius, sive fuit, pictus in certamine, quo iudicium ad mutas quadripedes
provocavit ab hominibus. Namque ambitu praevalere aemulos sentiens singulorum
pictures inductis equis ostendit: Apellis tantum equo adhinnivere, idque et postea simper
evenit, ut experimentum artis illud stentaretur.
There is, or was, a picture of a Horse by him painted in a competition, by which he
carried his appeal for judgment from mankind to the dumb quadrupeds; for perceiving
that his rivals were getting the better of him by intrigue, he had some horses brought and
showed them their pictures one by one; and the horses only began to neigh when they
saw the horse painted by Apelles; and this always happened subsequently, showing it to
be a sound test in artistic skill.
159
Pliny 35.131-35.133 A.D. I
Text: H. Rackham, ed., tr., Pliny. Natural History IX. Books XXXIII-XXXV (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1952; repr. 1995).
Translation: J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (1965;
second ed., Cambridge, 1990; repr. 1998).
Ephesi vero est megabyzi, sacerdotis Ephesiae Dianae, sepulchrum, Athenis necyomantea
Homeri. Hanc vendere Attalo regi noluit talentis LX potiusque patriae suae donavit
abundans opibus. Fecit et grandes picturas, in quibus sunt Calypso et Io et Andromeda;
Alexander quoque in Pompei porticibus praecellens et Calypso sedens huic eidem
adscribuntur. Quadripedum prosperrime canes expressit.
At Ephesos there is a Sepulchre of a Megabyzus, the priest of Artemis at Ephesos, and at
Athens the Nekyomanteia [“Invocation of the Dead”] after Homer. This picture he
[Nikias] refused to sell to King Attalos for 60 talents and gave it rather to his home town,
405

since he had plenty of money already. He also did some large pictures, among which are
a Calypso, an Io, and an Andromeda; also the very excellent Alexander in the porticoes of
Pompey and a Seated Calypso are ascribed to him. Of four-footed animals he rendered
dogs the best.
Plutarch, Moralia 280C A.D. I-II
See Plutach, Quaestiones Romanae 280C [160].
Plutarch, Moralia 290D A.D. I-II
See Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 290D [161].
160
Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 280C A.D. I-II
(=Moralia 280C)
Text: J.B. Titchener, ed., Plutarchi moralia II.I (Leipzig, 1935; repr. 1971).
Translation: F. C. Babbitt, ed., tr., Plutarch. Moralia IV (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1936; repr. 1993).
tw|~ de\ kuni\ pa&ntej w(j e1poj ei0pei=n 3Ellhnej e0xrw~nto kai\ xrw~ntai/ ge me/xri nu~n
e1nioi sfagi/w| pro_j tou_j kaqarmou&j: kai\ th|~ 9Eka&th| skula&kia meta_ tw~n
a1llwn kaqarsi/wn e0kfe/rousi kai\ perima&ttousi skulaki/oij tou_j a(gnismou~
deome/nouj, periskulakismo_n to_ toiou~to ge/noj tou~ kaqarmou~ kalou~ntej:
Nearly all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial victim for ceremonies of purification;
and some, at least, make use of it even to this day. They bring forth for Hecate puppies
along with the other materials for the purification, and rub round about with puppies such
persons as are in need of cleansing and this kind of purification they call periskylakismos
(“purification”).
161
Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 290D A.D. I-II
(=Moralia 290D)
Text: J.B. Titchener, ed., Plutarchi moralia II.I (Leipzig, 1935; repr. 1971).
Translation: F. C. Babbitt, ed., tr., Plutarch. Moralia IV (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
1936; repr. 1993).
ou) mh_n ou)de\ kaqareu&ein w| 1onto panta&pasin oi9 palaioi\ to_ zw|~on: o)lumpi/wn me\n
ga_r ou)deni\ qew~n kaqie/rwtai, xqoni/a| de\ dei=pnon 9Eka&th| pempo&menoj ei0j trio&douj
a)potropai/wn kai\ kaqarsi/wn e0pe/xei moi=ran. e0n de\ Lakedai/moni tw|~ fonikwta&tw|
qew~n 0Enuali/w| sku&lakaj e0nte/mnousi: Boiwtoi=j de\ dhmosi/a| kaqarmo&j e0sti kuno_j
dixotomhqe/ntoj tw~n merw~n diecelqei=n:
Nor, in fact, did the men of old think that this animal was holly pure, for it was never
sacrificed to any of the Olympian gods; and when it is sent to the cross-roads as a supper
406

for the earth-goddess Hecate, it has its due portion among sacrifices that avert and expiate
evil. In Sparta they immolate puppies to the bloodiest of the gods Enyalius; and in
Boeotia the ceremony of public purification is to pass between the parts of a dog which
has been cut in twain.
162
Plutarch, Themistocles 10 A.D. I-II
Text: K. Ziegler, ed., Plutarchi vitae parallelae I.1 (Leipzig, 1969).
Translation: B. Perrin, ed., tr., Plutarch’s Lives II (London and New York, 1914).
0Ekpleou&shj de\ th~j po&lewj toi=j me\n oi]kton to_ qe/ama, toi=j de\ qau~ma th~j to&lmhj
parei=xe, genea_j me\n a1llh| propempo&ntwn, au)tw~n d' a)ka&mptwn pro_j oi0mwga_j
kai\ da&krua gone/wn kai\ peribola_j diaperw&ntwn ei0j th_n nh~son. kai/toi polu_n me\n
oi9 dia_ gh~raj u(poleipo&menoi tw~n politw~n e1leon ei]xon, h}n de/ tij kai\ a)po_ tw~n
h(me/rwn kai\ suntro&fwn zw|&wn e0piklw~sa glukuqumi/a, met' w)rugh~j kai\
po&qou sumparaqeo&ntwn e0mbai/nousi toi=j e9autw~n trofeu~sin. e0n oi[j i9storei=tai
ku&wn Canqi/ppou tou~ Perikle/ouj patro&j, ou)k a)nasxo&menoj th_n a)p' au)tou~
mo&nwsin, e0nale/sqai th|~ qala&tth| kai\ th|~ trih&rei paranhxo&menoj e0kpesei=n ei0j th_n
Salami=na, kai\ lipoqumh&saj a)poqanei=n eu)qu&j: ou{ kai\ to_ deiknu&menon a1xri nu~n kai\
kalou&menon Kuno_j sh~ma ta&fon ei]nai le/gousi.
When the entire city was thus putting out to sea, the sight provoked pity in some, and in
others astonishment at the hardihood of the step; for they were sending off their families
in one direction, while they themselves, unmoved by the lamentations and tears and
embraces of their loved ones, were crossing over to the island where the enemy was to be
fought. Besides, many who were left behind on account of great age invited pity also,
and much affecting fondness was shown by the tame domestic animals, which ran along
with yearning cries of distress by the side of their masters as they embarked. A story is
told of one of these, the dog of Xanthippus the father of Pericles, how he could not
endure to be abandoned by his master, and so sprang into the sea, swam across the strait
by the side of his master’s trireme, and staggered out on Salamis, only to faint and die
straightway. They say that the spot which is pointed out to this day as “Dog’s Mound” is
his tomb.
Polemon, fr. 77 Preller (Epistle Concerning Obscure Words) II B.C.
See Athenaeus 9.409d [75].
163
Pollux, Onomasticon 5.38 A.D. II
Text: E. Bethe, ed., Pollucis Onomasticon (Lexicographi Graeci IX) I (Leipzig, 1900,
1931; repr. Stuttgart, 1967).
Translation: D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London,
1964).
407

le/gousi de\ ta_j me\n Lakai/naj e0c a)lwpe/kwn to_ a)rxai=on kai\ kunw~n genome/naj
klhqh~nai a)lwpeki/daj, ta_j d' 9Urkana_j e0k kunw~n kai\ leo&ntwn, kai\ klhqh~nai
leontomigei=j.
They say that the Laconians, originally bred from foxes and dogs, were called
“Vulpines,” and the Hyrcanians were bred from dogs and lions and were called
“Leonines.”
164
Pollux, Onomasticon 5.39 A.D. II
Text: E. Bethe, ed., Pollucis Onomasticon (Lexicographi Graeci IX) I (Leipzig, 1900,
1931; repr. Stuggart, 1967).
Translation: D. B. Hull, Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece (Chicago and London,
1964).
w3sper kai\ ta_j Xaoni/daj kai\ Molotti/daj a)pogo&nouj ei]nai/ fhsi kuno&j, o4n
3Hfaistoj e0k xalkou~ Dhmonhsi/ou xalkeusa&menoj, yuxh_n e0nqei/j, dw~ron e1dwke Dii\.
The Chaonians and the Molossians are descendants of a dog which Hephaestus forged
from Demonesian bronze, put a soul into, and gave to Zeus.
165
Porphyry, De Abstinentia 1.14 A.D. III
Text: A. Nauck, Porphyrii philosophi Platonici opuscula selecta (second ed.; Leipzig,
1886; repr. Hildesheim, 1963).
Translation: G. Clark, tr., Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Ithaca, New
York, 2000).
dikai/ou d' o1ntoj tou~ pro_j ta_ qhri/a pole/mou pollw~n a)pexo&meqa tw~n
sunanqrwpou&ntwn. o3qen oi9 3Ellhnej ou1te kunofagou~sin ou1q' i3ppouj e0sqi/ousin
ou1t' o1nouj.
And though the war against the beasts is just, we abstain from many that live with
humans. That is why the Greeks do not eat dogs, or horses, or donkeys.
166
Porphyry, De Abstinentia 2.20-2.21 A.D. III
(= Empedocles, fr. DK128).
(= Theophrastus, fr. 12 Pötscher, [155 Nauck 2 ] (On Piety).
Text: A. Nauck, Porphyrii philosophi Platonici opuscula selecta (second ed.; Leipzig,
1886; repr. Hildesheim, 1963).
Translation: G. Clark, tr., Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Ithaca, New
York, 2000).
408

dia_ pollw~n de\ o( Qeo&frastoj e0k tw~n par' e9ka&stoij patri/wn e0pidei/caj,
o3ti to_ palaio_n tw~n qusiw~n dia_ tw~n karpw~n h}n e1t' ei0pw_n pro&teron th~j po&aj
lambanome/nhj, kai\ ta_ tw~n spondw~n e0chgei=tai tou~ton to_n tro&pon.
ta_ me\n a)rxai=a tw~n i9erw~n nhfa&lia para_ polloi=j h}n, nhfa&lia d' e0sti\n ta_
u(dro&sponda, ta_ de\ meta_ tau~ta meli/sponda: tou~ton ga_r e3toimon para_ melittw~n
prw~ton e0la&bomen to_n u(gro_n karpo&n: ei]t' e0laio&sponda: te/loj d' e0pi\ pa~sin ta_
u3steron gegono&ta oi0no&sponda.
marturei=tai de\ tau~ta ou) mo&non u(po_ tw~n ku&rbewn, ai4 tw~n Krh&thqe/n ei0si
Korubantikw~n i9erw~n oi[on a)nti/grafa a1tta pro_j a)lh&qeian, a)lla_ kai\ par'
0Empedokle/ouj, o4j peri\ th~j qeogoni/aj dieciw_n kai\ peri\ tw~n quma&twn
paremfai/nei le/gwn:
ou)de/ tij h}n kei/noisin 1Arhj qeo_j ou)de\ Kudoimo_j
ou)de\ Zeu_j basileu_j ou)d' o( Kro&noj ou)d' o( Poseidw~n,
a)lla_ Ku&prij basi/leia,
h3 e0stin h( fili/a:
th_n oi3 g' eu)sebe/essin a)ga&lmasin i9la&skonto
graptoi=j te zw|&oisi mu&roisi/ te daidaleo&smoij
smu&rnhj t' a)kra&tou qusi/aij liba&nou te quw&douj
couqw~n te sponda_j melittw~n r(iptou~ntej e0j ou}daj,
a3per kai\ nu~n e1ti sw|&zetai par' e0ni/oij oi[on i1xnh tina_ th~j a)lhqei/aj o1nta,
tau&rwn d' a)kri/toisi fo&noij ou) deu&eto bwmo&j.
Theophrastus uses examples from many ancestral customs of different peoples to
show that the ancient form of sacrifice was of crops; he says too that even earlier grass
was collected. He also explains libations, as follows.
For most people, ancient rites were sober: libations of water are sober, and so are
the libations of honey which came after them (for this was the first liquid crop we had to
hand, taken from the bees). Then there were libations of oil, and finally, last of all, came
libations of wine.
Evidence for this comes not only from the kubreis, which are really a kind of
transcription of the Corybantic rites from Crete, but also from Empedocles, who
comments on sacrifices in expounding his theory:
No Ares was to them a god, no Battle-noise,
No Zeus was king, no Kronos, no Poseidon:
Kypris was queen—
that is Friendship.
They made her kind with pious images
With and with subtle scents,
With sacrifice of purest myrrh of frankincense
409

Sweet-scented; and they poured upon the ground
Libations from the tawny bees.
These practices are still preserved among some peoples, like traces of truth:
the altar was not soaked by violent deaths
of bulls.
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica III B.C
The text and translations of all passages of Pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomonica are
taken from the edition of W. S. Hett, ed., tr., Aristotle. Minor Works (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1936; repr. 2000)
167
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 806b III B.C.
ta_ de\ trixw&mata ta_ me\n malaka_ deilo&n, ta_ de\ sklhra_ a)ndrei=on. tou~to de\ to_
shmei=on ei1lhptai e0c a(pa&ntwn tw~n zw|&wn. deilo&taton me\n ga&r e0stin e1lafoj
lagwo_j pro&bata, kai\ th_n tri/xa malakwta&thn e1xei: a)ndreio&taton de\ le/wn,
u{j a1grioj, kai\ tri/xa sklhrota&thn fe/rei.
Soft hair shows timidity and stiff hair courage. This is based on observation of all the
animal kingdom. For the deer the hare and sheep are the most timid of all animals and
have the softest hair; the lion and wild boar are the bravest and have very stiff hair.
168
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 807a III B.C.
tw~n d' au} zw|&wn ta_ me\n a)ndrei=a baru&fwna& e0sti, ta_ de\ deila_ o)cu&fwna, le/wn
me\n kai\ tau~roj, kai\ ku&wn u(laktiko&j, kai\ tw~n a)lektruo&nwn oi9 eu1yuxoi baru&fwnoi
fqe/ggontai:
The brave animals have deep voices, and the cowardly high-pitched voices, the lion
and the bull, the barking dog, and the brave cocks are all deep-voiced.
169
Aristotle, Physiognomonica 807a III B.C.
0 Andrei/ou shmei=a tri/xwma sklhro&n, to_ sxh~ma tou~ sw&matoj o)rqo&n, o)sta~ kai\
pleurai\ kai\ ta_ a)krwth&ria tou~ sw&matoj i0sxura_ kai\ mega&la, kai\ koili/a platei=a
kai\ prosestalme/nh:
410

The characteristics of the brave man are stiff hair, an erect carriage of body, bones, sides
and extremities of the body strong and large, broad and flat belly.
170
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 808a III B.C.
qumw&douj shmei=a. o)rqo_j to_ sw~ma, tw|~ sxh&mati eu1pleuroj, eu1qumoj,
e0pi/purroj: w)mopla&tai diesthkui=ai kai\ mega&lai kai\ platei=ai: a)krw-
th&ria mega&la kai\ e0gkrath~: lei=oj kai\ peri\ ta_ sth&qh kai\ peri\ boubw~naj,
eu)pw&gwn: eu)auch_j o( peri/dromoj tw~n trixw~n, ka&tw katelhluqw&j.
These are the marks of the passionate temperament. The body is erect, in appearance it is
broad at the ribs, sanguine and ruddy, the shoulder-blades are wide apart, large and
broad; the extremities are large and powerful; he is smooth about the chest and groin, and
well-bearded; the growth of hair is considerable and starts low down.
171
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 808b III B.C.
tw~n me\n ou}n lofou&rwn koino&n e0stin u3brij, tw~n de\ o1nwn te kai\ suw~n h( peri\ ta_
a)frodi/sia e3cij.
All animals with bushy tails are aggressive, while asses and pigs show sexual excitement.
172
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 809b III B.C.
fai/netai tw~n zw|&wn a(pa&ntwn le/wn telew&tata meteilhfe/nai th~j tou~ a1rrenoj
i0de/aj. e1sti ga_r e1xwn sto&ma eu)me/geqej, to_ de\ pro&swpon tetragwno&teron, ou)k
a1gan o)stw~dej, th_n a1nw te ge/nun ou) proecesthkui=an a)lla_ i0sorropou~san th|~
ka&tw, r(i=na de\ paxute/ran h2 leptote/ran, xaropou_j o)fqalmou_j e0gkoi/louj, ou)
sfo&dra periferei=j ou1te a1gan promh&keij, me/geqoj de\ me/trion, o)fru_n eu)mege/qh,
me/twpon tetra&gwnon, e0k me/sou u(pokoilo&teron, pro_j de\ ta_j o)fru~j kai\ th_n r(i=na
u(po_ tou~ metw&pou oi[on ne/foj e0panesthko&j. a1nwqen de\ tou~ metw&pou kata_ th_n
r(i=na e1xei tri/xaj e0kklinei=j oi[on a2n a1silon, kefalh_n metri/an, tra&xhlon eu)mh&kh,
pa&xei su&mmetron, qrici\ canqai=j kexrhme/non, ou) fricai=j ou1te a1gan
a)pestramme/naij:
The lion of all animals seems to have the most perfect share of the male type. Its mouth is
very large, its face is square, not too bony, the upper jaw not overhanging but equally
balanced with the lower jaw, a muzzle rather thick than fine, bright deep-set eyes, neither
very round nor very narrow, of moderate size, a large eyebrow, square forehead, rather
hollow from the centre, overhanging towards the brow and nostril below the forehead like
a cloud. Above on the forehead towards the muzzle hair slopping outwards and like
411

istles, a head of moderate size, a long neck, with corresponding thickness, covered with
tawny hairs, neither very bristling nor too much turned back.
173
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 809b III B.C.
zw|~on a)sarko&teron ta_ i0sxi/a kai\ tou_j mhrou&j: ske/lh e0rrwme/na kai\ neurw&dh,
ba&sin te neanikh&n, kai\ o3lon to_ sw~ma a)rqrw~dej kai\ neurw~dej, ou1te li/an sklhro_n
ou1te li/an u(gro&n.
The animal [lion] has lean haunches and thighs; his legs are strong and muscular, his
walk is vigorous, and his whole body is well-jointed and muscular, neither very hard nor
very moist.
174
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 810b III B.C.
oi9 zwnoi\ filo&qhroi: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ tou_j le/ontaj kai\ tou_j ku&naj. i1doi d' a1n tij
kai\ tw~n kunw~n tou_j filoqhrota&touj zwnou_j o1ntaj.
Those that are small in the waist are hunters; witness lions and dogs. One can observe
that the dogs most fond of hunting are those which are narrow in the waist.
175
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 810b III B.C.
o3soi de\ ta_ sthqi/a e1xousi mega&la kai\ dihrqrwme/na, eu1rwstoi ta_j yuxa&j:
a)nafe/retai e0pi\ to_ a1rren.
Those who have large chests well jointed are strong in character; witness the male.
176
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 810b III B.C.
o3soij ai9 e 0 pwmi/dej e0chrqrwme/nai kai\ oi9 w}moi, eu1rwstoi ta_j yuxa&j:
a)nafe/retai e0pi\ to_ a1rren.
Those whose shoulders and shoulder-blades are well articulated have strong characters;
witness the male.
177
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 811a III B.C.
412

oi[j ta_ xei/lh lepta_ kai\ e0p' a1kraij tai=j sugxeili/aij xalara&, w(j e0pi\ tou~ a1nw
xei/louj pro_j to_ ka&tw e0pibeblh~sqai to_ pro_j ta_j sugxeili/aj, megalo&yuxoi:
a)nafe/retai e0pi\ tou_j le/ontaj. i1doi d' a1n tij tou~to kai\ e0pi\ tw~n mega&lwn
kai\ eu)rw&stwn kunw~n.
Those who have thin lips and slack parts at the joining of the lips, so that the upper lip
overhangs the lower at the join, are magnanimous; witness the lions. One can see the
same thing in large and powerful dogs.
178
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 811b III B.C.
o3soij o)fqalmoi\ mikro_n e0gkoilo&teroi, megalo&yuxoi: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ tou_j
le/ontaj.
Those whose eyes are slightly hollow are magnanimous; witness lions.
179
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 811b III B.C.
oi9 de\ sunnefe\j e1xontej au)qa&deij: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ tau~ron kai\ le/onta.
Those with an overhanging brow are overbold; witness the bull and the lion.
180
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 812b III B.C.
oi9 to_n nw~ton dasu_n e1xontej a1gan a)naidei=j: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ ta_ qhri/a. oi9 de\ to_n
au)xe/na o1pisqen dasu_n e1xontej e0leuqe/rioi: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ tou_j le/ontaj.
Those with a hairy back are excessively shameless; witness the wild beasts.
Those whose neck is hairy behind are generous; witness the lions.
181
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 812b III B.C.
ai9 a1krouloi a2n ei]en pro_j eu)yuxi/an a1gousai: a)nafe/retai de\ kai\ e0pi\ to_n le/onta. oi9
tou~ metw&pou to_ pro_j th|~ kefalh|~ a)nastei=lon e1xontej e0leuqe/rioi: a)nafe/retai e0pi\
tou_j le/ontaj.
413

Hair which curls at the ends tends towards stout-heartedness; witness the lion among
others. Those in whom the hair on the face near the head curls backwards are liberal;
witness the lions.
182
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 812b III B.C.
oi9 e0pi\ th~j kefalh~j prospefukui/aj e1xontej ta_j tri/xaj e0pi\ tou~ metw&pou kata_
th_n r(i=na a)neleu&qeroi: a)nafe/retai e0pi\ th_n e0pipre/peian, o3ti douloprepe\j to_
faino&menon.
Those [animals] whose hair inclines to grow down from the head towards the nose are
mean; this is appropriate as this appearance gives a servile look.
183
Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica 814b III B.C.
e0pikairo&tatoj de\ to&poj o( peri\ ta_ o1mmata& te kai\ to_ me/twpon kai\ kefalh_n kai\
pro&swpon, deu&teroj de\ o( peri\ ta_ sth&qh kai\ w1mouj, e1peita peri\ ta_ ske/lh te
kai\ po&daj: ta_ de\ peri\ th_n koili/an h3kista. o3lwj de\ ei0pei=n ou{toi oi9 to&poi
e0narge/stata shmei=a pare/xontai, e0f' w{n kai\ fronh&sewj plei/sthj e0pipre/peia
gi/netai.
The most favorable part for examination is the region round the eyes, forehead, head and
face; secondly, the region of the breast and shoulders, and lastly that of the legs and feet;
the parts about the belly are of least importance. Generally speaking, these regions
supply the clearest signs, in which there is greatest evidence of intelligence.
184
Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes 3.225 A.D. II-III
Text: H. Mutschmann, ed., Sexti Empirici opera I (Leipzig, 1912).
Translation: R. G. Bury, ed., tr., Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism I (London and
New York, 1933).
kunei/wn te geu&sasqai dokou~men h(mei=j a)ni/eron ei]nai, Qra|kw~n de\ e1nioi kunofagei=n
i9storou~ntai. i1swj de\ kai\ par' 3Ellhsi tou~to h}n su&nhqej: dio&per kai\ Dioklh~j a)po_
tw~n kata_ tou_j 0Asklhpia&daj o(rmw&menoj tisi\ tw~n pasxo&ntwn skula&keia
di/dosqai keleu&ei kre/a.
Eating dog’s flesh, too, is thought by us to be sinful, but some of the Thracians are
reported to be do-eaters. Possibly this practice was customary also amongst the Greeks;
and on this account, Diocles, too, starting from the practices of the Asclepiadae,
prescribed that hounds’ flesh should be given to certain patients.
414

185
Sophocles, Antigone 198-206 V B.C.
Text: H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson, eds., Sophoclis fabulae (Oxford, 1990; repr.
1992).
Translation: H. Lloyd-Jones, ed., tr., Sophocles. Antigone. The Women of Trachis.
Philoctetes. Oedipus at Colonus (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1994).
KREWN
to_n d' au} cu&naimon tou~de, Polunei/kh le/gw,
o4j gh~n patrw|&an kai\ qeou_j tou_j e0ggenei=j
200 fuga_j katelqw_n h)qe/lhse me\n puri\
prh~sai kat' a1kraj, h)qe/lhse d' ai3matoj
koinou~ pa&sasqai, tou_j de\ doulw&saj a1gein,
tou~ton po&lei th|~d' e0kkekh&ruktai ta&fw|
mh&te kteri/zein mh&te kwku~sai/ tina,
205 e0a~n d' a1qapton kai\ pro_j oi0wnw~n de/maj
kai\ pro_j kunw~n e0desto_n ai0kisqe/n t' i0dei=n.
CREON
But his brother, I mean Polynices,
who came back from exile, meaning
to burn tothe ground his native city and
the gods of his race, and meaning to drink
the people’s blood and to enslave its people,
as for him it is proclaimed to this city
that none shall bury or lament,
but they shall leave his body unburied
for birds and dogs to devour and savage.
186
Sophocles, fr. 885 Radt V B.C.
Text and translation: H. Lloyd-Jones, ed., tr., Sophocles III. Fragments (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1996).
sai/neij da&knousa kai\ ku&wn lai/qargoj ei]
You fawn on men as you bite them and are a treacherous dog.
Theophrastus, fr. 12 Pötscher, [155 Nauck 2 ] (On Piety) IV/III B.C.
See Porphyry, De Abstinentia 2.20-2.21 [166].
187
Thucydides 2.50 V B.C.
415

Text and translation: C. F. Smith, ed., tr., Thucydides I. History of the Peloponnesian War
Books I and II (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1919; rev. and repr. 1928; repr.
1980).
Geno&menon ga_r krei=sson lo&gou to_ ei]doj th~j no&sou ta& te a1lla xalepwte/rwj h2
kata_ th_n a)nqrwpei/an fu&sin prose/pipten e9ka&stw| kai\ e0n tw|~de e0dh&lwse ma&lista
a1llo ti o2n h2 tw~n cuntro&fwn ti: ta_ ga_r o1rnea kai\ tetra&poda o3sa a)nqrw&pwn
a3ptetai pollw~n a)ta&fwn gignome/nwn h2 ou) prosh|&ei h2 geusa&mena diefqei/reto.
tekmh&rion de/: tw~n me\n toiou&twn o)rni/qwn e0pi/leiyij safh_j e0ge/neto, kai\ ou)x
e9wrw~nto ou1te a1llwj ou1te peri\ toiou~ton ou)de/n: oi9 de\ ku&nej ma~llon ai1sqhsin
parei=xon tou~ a)pobai/nontoj dia_ to_ cundiaita~sqai.
Indeed the character of the disease proved such that it baffles description,
the violence of the attack being in each case too great for human nature to endure, while
in one way in particular it showed plainly that it was different from any of the familiar
diseases: the birds, namely, and the fourfooted animals, which usually feed upon human
bodies, either would not now come near them, though man lay unburied, or died if they
tasted them. The evidence for this is that birds of this kind became noticeably scarce, and
they were no longer to be seen either about the bodies or anywhere else; while the dogs
gave a still better opportunity to observe what happened, because they live with man.
188
Varro, Rustica 2.9.8-2.9.10 I B.C.
Text and translation: W. D. Hooper, ed., tr., Marcus Porcius Cato. On Agriculture.
Marcus Terentius Varro. On Agriculture; rev. H. B. Ash (Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1934; rev. and repr. 1935; repr. 1993).
Cibatus cnis proprior hominis quam ovis. Pascitur enim eduliis et ossibus, nn herbis aut
fronde. Diligenter ut habeat cibaria providendum. Fames enim hos ad quaerendum
cibum ducet, si non praebebitur, et a pecore abducet; nisi si, ut quidam putant, etiam illuc
pervenerint, proverbium ut tollant anticum vel etiam ut aperiant de Actaeone atque in
dominum adferant dentes. Nec non ita panem hordeaciim dandum, ut non potius eum in
lacte des intritum, quod eo consueti cibo uti a pecore non cito desciscunt. Morticinae
ovis non patiuntur vesci carne, ne ducti sapore minus se abstineant. Dant etiam ius ex
ossibus et ea ipsa ossa contuse. Dentes enim facit firmiores et os magis patulum,
propterea quod vehementius diducuntur malae, acrioresque fiunt propter medullarum
saporem. Cibum capere consuescunt interdiu, ubi pascuntur, vesperi, ubi stabulantur.
The food of dogs is morelike that of man than that of sheep: they eat scraps of meat and
bones, not grass and leaves. Great care must be taen for their supply of food; for hunger
wull drive them to hunt for food, if it is not provided, and take them away from the
flock—even if they do not, as some think, come to the point of disproving the ancient
proverb, or even go so far as to enact the story of Actaeon, and sink their teeth in their
master. You should also feed them barley bread, but not without soaking it in milk; for
when they have become accustomed to eating that kind of food they will not soon stray
from the flock They are not allowed to feed on the flesh of the dead sheep, for fear that
416

the taste will make them less inclined to spare the flock. They are also fed on bone soup
and even broken bones as well; for these make their teeth stronger and their mouths of
wider stretch, because their jaws are spread with greater force, and the savour of the
marrow makes them moe keen. Their habit is to eat during the day when they are out
with the flocks, and at evening when these are folded.
189
Xenophon, Cynegeticus 3.1 V-IV B.C.
Text and translation: E. C. Marchant, ed., tr., Xenophon VII. Scripta Minora (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1925; repr. 1984).
Ta_ de\ ge/nh tw~n kunw~n ditta&, ai9 me\n kasto&riai, ai9 de\ a)lwpeki/dej. e1xousi d' ai9 me\n
kasto&riai th_n e0pwnumi/an tau&thn o3ti Ka&stwr h(sqei\j tw|~ e1rgw| ma&lista au)ta_j
diefu&lacen: ai9 d' a)lwpeki/dej dio&ti e0k kunw~n te kai\ a)lwpe/kwn e0ge/nonto: e0n
pollw|~ de\ xro&nw| sugke/kratai au)tw~n h( fu&sij.
The hounds used are of two kinds, the Castorian and the Vulpine. The Castorian is so
called because Castor paid special attention to the breed, making a hobby of the business.
The Vulpine is a hybrid between the dog and the fox: hence the name. In the course of
time the nature of the parents has become fused.
190
Xenophon, Cynegeticus 4.1 V-IV B.C.
Text and translation: E. C. Marchant, ed., tr., Xenophon VII. Scripta Minora (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1925; repr. 1984).
Prw~ton me\n ou}n xrh_ ei]nai mega&laj, ei]ta e0xou&saj ta_j kefala_j e0lafra&j, sima&j,
a)rqrw&deij, i0nw&dh ta_ ka&twqen tw~n metw&pwn, o1mmata mete/wra, me/lana, lampra&,
me/twpa plate/a, ta_j diakri/seij baqei/av.
First, then, they [hunting dogs] should be big: Next, the head should be light, flat and
muscular; the lower parts of the forehead sinewy; the eyes prominent, black and
sparkling; the forehead broad, with a deep dividing line.
191
Xenophon, Cynegeticus 7.4 V-IV B.C.
Text and translation: E. C. Marchant, ed., tr., Xenophon VII. Scripta Minora (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1925; repr. 1984).
e0peida_n de\ plana~tai ta_ skula&kia h1dh, dido&nai ga&la me/xri e0niautou~ kai\ oi[j
me/llei to_n a3panta xro&non biw&sesqai, a1llo de\ mhde/n: ai9 ga_r barei=ai plhsmonai\
tw~n skulaki/wn diastre/fousi ta_ ske/lh, toi=j sw&masi no&souj e0mpoiou~si,
kai\ ta_ e0nto_j a1dika gi/gnetai.
417

As soon as the puppies can get about, give them milk for a year, and the food that will
form their regular diet, and nothing else. For heavy feeding warps the puppies’ legs and
sows the seeds of disease in the system, and their insides go wrong.
192
Xenophon, Cynegeticus 11.1 V-IV B.C.
Text and translation: E. C. Marchant, ed., tr., Xenophon VII. Scripta Minora (Cambridge,
Mass. and London, 1925; repr. 1984).
Le/ontej de\ kai\ parda&leij, lu&gkej, pa&nqhrej, a1rktoi kai\ ta}lla o3sa e0sti\
toiau~ta qhri/a a(li/sketai e0n ce/naij xw&raij peri\ to_ Pa&ggaion o1roj kai\ to_n
Ki/tton to_n u(pe\r th~j Makedoni/aj, ta_ d' e0n tw|~ 0Olu&mpw| tw|~ Musi/w| kai\ e0n Pi/ndw|,
ta_ d' e0n th|~ Nu&sh| th|~ u(pe\r th~j Suri/aj, kai\ pro_j toi=j a1lloij o1resin o3sa oi[a& t' e0sti\
tre/fein toiau~ta.
Lions, leopards, lynxes, panthers, bears and all similar wild beasts are captured in foreign
countries, about Mt. Pangaeus and Cittus beyond Macedonia, on Mysian Olympus and
Pindus, on Nysa beyond Syria, and in other mountain ranges capable of supporting such
animals.
193
Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.10.6-3.10.8
Text and translation: E. C. Marchant, ed., tr., Xenophon. Memorabilian and Oeconomicus
(Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1923; repr. 1965).
3Oti me/n, e1fh, w} Klei/twn, kaloi\ ou4j poiei=j drome/aj te kai\ palaista_j kai\
pu&ktaj kai\ pagkratiasta&j, o(rw~ te kai\ oi]da: o4 de\ ma&lista yuxagwgei= dia_ th~j
o1yewj tou_j a)nqrw&pouj, to_ zwtiko_n fai/nesqai, pw~j tou~to e0nerga&zh| toi=j
a)ndria~sin;
e0pei\ de\ a)porw~n o( Klei/twn ou) taxu_ a)pekri/nato, ]Ar', e1fh, toi=j tw~n zw&ntwn
ei1desin a)peika&zwn to_ e1rgon zwtikwte/rouj poiei=j fai/nesqai tou_j
a)ndria&ntaj;
Kai\ ma&la, e1fh.
Ou)kou~n ta& te u(po_ tw~n sxhma&twn kataspw&mena kai\ ta)naspw&mena e0n toi=j
sw&masi kai\ ta_ sumpiezo&mena kai\ ta_ dielko&mena kai\ ta_ e0nteino&mena kai\ ta_
a)nie/mena a)peika&zwn o(moio&tera& te toi=j a)lhqinoi=j kai\
piqanw&tera poiei=j fai/nesqai;
Pa&nu me\n ou}n, e1fh.
To_ de\ kai\ ta_ pa&qh tw~n poiou&ntwn ti swma&twn a)pomimei=sqai ou) poiei= tina
te/ryin toi=j qewme/noij;
Ei0ko_j gou~n, e1fh.
Ou)kou~n kai\ tw~n me\n maxome/nwn a)peilhtika_ ta_ o1mmata a)peikaste/on,
tw~n de\ nenikhko&twn eu)frainome/nwn h( o1yij mimhte/a;
Sfo&dra g', e1fh.
Dei= a1ra, e1fh, to_n a)ndriantopoio_n ta_ th~j yuxh~j e1rga tw|~ ei1dei proseika&zein.
418

“Cleiton, that your statues of runners, wrestlers, boxers, and fighters are beautiful I see
and know. But how do you e0nerga&zh| (produce in) them that illusion of life (to_ zwtiko_n
fai/nesqai) which is their most alluring charm to the beholder?”
As Cleiton was puzzled and did not reply at once, “Is it,” he added, “by faithfully
representing the form of living beings that you make your statues look as if they lived?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Then is it not by accurately representing the different parts of the body as they affected
by the pose—the flesh wrinkled or tense, the limbs compressed or outstretched, the
muscles taut or loose—that you make them look more real members and more
convincing?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Does not the exact imitation (a)pomimei=sqai) of the feelings that affect bodies in action
also produce a sense of satisfaction in the spectator?”
“Oh yes, presumably.”
“Then must not the threatening look in the eyes of fighters be accurately represented, and
the triumphant expression on the face of conquerors be imitated (mimhte/a)?”
“Most certainly.”
“It follows, then, that the sculptor must represent in his figures the
activities of the soul.”
419

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451

LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1 Classical statue of a dog from the Kerameikos, Kerameikos Museum P
670 (L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo. Maestri e scuole di
statuaria tra classicità ed ellenismo [Milan, 1993] fig. 185)
Fig. 2 Archaic statue of a lion from Miletus, Berlin 1790
(J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period. A Handbook
[London and New York 1978; repr. 1996] fig. 267)
Fig. 3 Classical statue of a bull from the Kerameikos, Kerameikos Museum (no
number) (L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo. Maestri e scuole di
statuaria tra classicità ed ellenismo [Milan, 1993] fig. 187)
Fig. 4 Classical inscription from a marble base of a statue from Demetrias,
Thessaly (L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. A Study of
the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and Its Development from the Eighth to
the Fifth Centuries B.C. [Oxford, 1961] pl. 11, fig. 8)
Fig. 5 Lion savaging a bull, Hekatompedon pediment, Acropolis, Athens,
Acropolis Museum 4 (J. M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis: History,
Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present
[Cambridge, 1999] 109, fig. 80)
Fig. 6 Archaic statue of a lion from Perachora, Corinth, Boston, MFA 97.289
(C. C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone. The Greek, Roman and Etruscan
Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston [Boston, 1974] 9, fig. 15)
Fig. 7 Classical statue of a lion from Rome (?), New York, MMA 09.221.3
(J. Marshall, “Statue of a Lion” M.M.A Bulletin 5 (1910) 213)
Fig. 8 Classical statue of a lion from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, London,
BM 1075 (G. B. Waywell, The Free-Standing Sculptures of the
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in the British Museum [London, 1978] pl.
37, fig. 1)
Fig. 9 Gold seal from Shaft Grave III at Mycenae, Athens, NM 34
(A. A. Donohue, “Zum Löwenschieber aus Schachtgrab III in Mykene,”
AA 93 (1978) 261, fig. 1)
Fig. 10 The lion of Amphipolis (fourth-third c. B.C. ?)
(L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo. Maestri e scuole di statuaria tra
classicità ed ellenismo [Milan, 1993] fig. 176)
Fig. 11 Archaic statue of a dog from the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia (?),
Acropolis, Athens, Acropolis Museum 143 (H. Payne and G. Mackworth-
452

Young, Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis [New York, 1951]
pl. 131, 3)
Fig. 12a Classical statue of a dog from Pella, Pella Museum (no number)
(P. M. Petsas, Pella. Alexander the Great’s Capital [Thessaloniki, 1978]
46, fig. 5)
Fig. 12b Classical statue of a dog from Pella, Pella Museum (no number)
(P. M. Petsas, Pella. Alexander the Great’s Capital [Thessaloniki, 1978]
47, fig. 6)
Fig. 13 Late Geometric II stand from the Kerameikos, Kerameikos Museum 407
(J. M. Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C.
[Ithaca and London] 114, fig. 53)
Fig. 14 Archaic marble base of a statue (cat-and-dog fight), right side, Athens,
NM 3476 (A. Kosmopoulou, The Iconography of Sculptured Statue Bases
in the Archaic and Classical Periods [Madison, 2002])
Fig. 15 Classical statue of a lion from the Kerameikos, Athens, NM 804
(L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo. Maestri e scuole di statuaria tra
classicità ed ellenismo [Milan, 1993] fig. 178)
Fig. 16 Late Archaic Boeotian terracotta figurine of a woman cooking with a dog
by her side, Louvre Museum, CA 634 (A. Vigneau, The Photographic
Encyclopaedia of Art: The Louvre Museum II [Paris, 1936] 172, fig. D)
Fig. 17 Late Archaic Boeotian terracotta figurine of a woman with a dog by her
side, Kassel Museum 523 (U. Sinn, Antike Terrakotten. Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Kassel [Kassel, 1977] pl. 1, fig. 25)
Fig. 18 Archaic Cypriot terracotta figurine of a woman baking and a dog, Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum V 1674 (A. Bernhard-Walcher et al., The
Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
[Vienna, 1999] 143, fig. 58)
Fig. 19 Classical Attic red-figured lekythos depicting a woman feeding a dog,
Rome, Accademia dei Lincei 2478, (S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An
Iconographic Handbook [London and New York 2002] 71, fig. 2.13)
Fig. 20 Classical Attic grave stele with a dog between two male figures, Athens
NM 2894 (N. Kaltsas, tr. D. Hardy, Sculpture in the National
Archaeological Museum, Athens [Los Angeles, 2002] 153, cat. no. and fig.
300)
453

Fig. 21 Reconstruction of part of a Classical resist-painted cloth from kurgan 6,
Kertch, Crimaea (E. J. W. Barber, Prehistoric Textiles. The Development
of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the
Aegean [Princeton, 1991] 207, fig. 7.11)
Fig. 22 Schematic representation of the funerary complex of Cheops with
causeway connecting the valley to the mortuary temple (M. Haase, Eine
Stätte für die Ewigkeit. Der Pyramidenkomplex des Cheops aus Baulicher,
Architektonischer und Kulturhistorischer Sicht [Mainz am Rhein, 2004]
56, fig. 56)
Fig. 23 Limestone fragment of an Old Kingdom (reign of Khufu) block that was
reused in the core of the pyramid of Amenemhat I at Lisht, New York,
MMA 1922, 22.1.7 (J. P. Allen et al., Art in the Age of the Pyramids
[exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
September 16, 1999-January 9, 2000 and the Royal Ontario Museum,
Toronto, February 13-May 22, 2000] 226, cat. no and fig. 41)
Fig. 24 Capstone of the pyramid of Amenemhat III in Dahshur, Cairo Museum
35133 and 35745 (M. Lehner, The Complete Pyramids (London, 1997) 34
Fig. 25 Archaic bronze krater from Vix, Châtillon sur Seine Musée Archélogique
(no number) (C. Rolley, La Tombe princière de Vix [Paris, 2003] pl. 4)
Fig. 26 Archaic bronze krater from tomb I, Trebenishte, tomb I, Sofia, NM (no
number) (B. D. Filow, Die archaische Nekropole von Trebenischte am
Ochrida-See [Berlin and Leipzig, 1927] pl. VII)
Fig. 27 Archaic bronze krater from tomb VIII, Trebenishte, Belgrade NM 174/1
(C. M. Stibbe, Trebenishte. The Fortunes of an Unusual Excavation
[Studia Archaeologica 121; Rome, 2002] 85, fig. 48)
Fig. 28 Bronze relief decorative figure of a warrior found in Edessa and presumed
to be from an Archaic bronze krater, Athens, NM 7550 (C. M. Stibbe,
Trebenishte. The Fortunes of an Unusual Excavation [Studia
archaeologica 121; Rome, 2002] 105, fig. 63)
Fig. 29 Figure of a horrified female from the north wall of the fourth-century B.C.
tomb of Persephone at Vergina (M. Andronikos, Vergina II. The Tomb of
Persephone [Athens, 1994] 25, fig. IX)
454

Fig. 1 Classical statue of a dog from the Kerameikos.
Fig. 2 Archaic statue of a lion from Miletus.

Fig. 3 Classical statue of a bull from the Kerameikos.

Fig. 4 Classical Inscription from a marble base of a statue from Demetrias, Thessaly.
Fig. 5 Lion savaging a bull, Hekatompedon pediment, Acropolis, Athens.

Fig. 6 Archaic statue of a lion from Perachora, Corinth.

Fig. 7 Classical statue of a lion from Rome (?) .

Fig. 8 Classical statue of a lion from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
Fig. 9 Gold seal from Shaft Grave III at Mycenae.

Fig. 10 The lion of Amphipolis (fourth-third c. B.C. ?).

Fig. 11 Archaic statue of a dog from the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia (?), Acropolis, Athens.
Fig. 12 (a-b) Classical statue of a dog from Pella.

Fig. 13 Late Geometric II stand from the Kerameikos.
Fig. 14 Archaic marble base of a statue (“cat-and-dog fight”), right side, Athens.

Fig. 15 Classical statue of a lion from the Kerameikos.

Fig. 16 Late Archaic Boeotian terracotta figurine of a woman
cooking with a dog by her side, Louvre Museum.
Fig. 17 Late Archaic Boeotian
terracotta figure of a woman
with a dog by her side, Kassel
Museum.
Fig. 18 Archaic Cypriot terracotta figurine of a woman baking and a dog, Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Fig. 19 Classical Attic red-figured lekythos Fig. 20 Classical Attic grave stele with a dog between
depicting a woman feeding a dog. two male figures.

Fig. 21 Reconstruction of part of a Classical resist-painted cloth from kurgan 6,
Kertch, Crimaea.

Fig. 22 Schematic representation of the funerary complex of Cheops with causeway connecting the valley to the
mortuary temple.

Fig. 24 Capstone of the pyramid of Amenenhat III at Dahshur.
Fig. 23 Limestone fragment of an Old Kingdom (reign of Khufu)
block that was reused in the core of the pyramid of
Amenemhat I at Lisht.

Fig. 25 Archaic bronze krater from Vix.

Fig. 26 Archaic bronze krater from tomb I, Trebenishte.

Fig. 28 Bronze relief decorative figure of a warrior
found in Edessa and presumed to be from an
Archaic bronze krater.
Fig. 27 Archaic bronze krater from tomb VIII, Trebenishte.

Fig. 29 Figure of a horrified female from the north wall of the fourth-century B.C. tomb of
Persephone at Vergina.