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

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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