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

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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