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

Chapter 4: The Word Zw|~on in the Context of the Visual Arts in Classical Greece
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the duality in the meaning of the term zw|~on.
The Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott defines zw|~on as a fifth-century term,
whose meaning oscillates between two broad categories: a) “animal,” which is the usual
meaning assigned to the word, “living being” and “plant,” and 2) “image” and “figure.”
335 These categories indicate a semantic split that is directly dependent upon the context
in which the term occurs. The definitions of “image,” and “figure,” in particular, imply a
context directly associated with the visual arts. Although this semantic split has not
passed undetected in modern scholarship, no study exists that treats thoroughly the
meaning of zw|~on when applied to the visual arts. 336 This chapter discusses in detail the
meaning of zw|~on in direct association with the visual arts of the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C., that is, the period in which the word first appears in the extant record. The
discussion starts with an analysis of the etymology of zw|~on and proceeds to examine in
chronological order the appearances of the word in both literary texts and inscriptions
directly involved with the visual arts. The discussion demonstrates the existence of
different meanings for the word zw|~on when used in the context of paintings, sculpture,
bronze-work, and textiles: “image,” “subject of representation,” “representation of both
animate and inanimate subjects taken from real life, “decorative element,” “finished
335 LSJ 9 , 143, s.v. zw|~on.
336 For a brief discussion of the meaning of zw|~on as “image,” for example, see Gordon, “The Real and the
Imaginary” 9; also H. P. Cooke, ed., tr., Aristotle I. The Categories. On Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.
and London, 1938; repr. 1996) 12, n. b, who is more explicit when he states that: “zw|~on in Greek had two
meanings, that is to say, living creature, and secondly, a figure or image in painting, embroidery,
sculpture.”
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