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

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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