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

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.
143