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

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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