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

Georgopapadakos. 344 On the basis of this reconstruction, it appears that the phenomena
of phonetic development and contraction 345 are responsible for the different forms of the
verb zw~ meaning primarily “to live.” 346 Adding to this is Georgopapadakos’s
suggestion that the initial type of the verb zw~ could have been dia&w (a1w, a1hmi) meaning
not only “to live,” but also “to breathe.” 347 This idea accords well with Buck’s statement
that in most Indo-European languages, the notions of “breathing and living” are central to
the word for “animal.” 348
On the basis of this evidence, it appears that the primary meaning of zw|~on was
something alive and breathing, therefore, animated, and as an extension “living being”
and “animal.” These explanations do not shed light onto how the meanings of zw|~on as
“image” and “figure” came to be; nevertheless, they are important, for they provide a
glimpse into the mechanics of ancient thought and language in regards to the rise of
zw|~on and the notions it was thought to stand for. As was mentioned earlier, the
contracted form zw|~on is not attested in pre-Classical texts. Therefore, the following
discussion illustrates the use of zw|~on in literary and epigraphical sources of Classical
date. The focus is on contexts that are directly associated with the visual arts.
344 M. C. Oikonomou, Γραµµατική της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής—Ancient Greek Grammar (Athens, 1996)
208, 240, 300; A. Georgopapadakos, Λεξικό Ανωµάλων Ρηµάτων της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Γλώσσης—
Lexicon of Irregular Verbs of the Ancient Greek Language (Thessaloniki, 1964) 88-89. For additional
evidence on this suggestion, see the discussion by L. R. Palmer, The Greek Language (New Jersey, 1980)
210-211, who focuses on examples of words where ζ is traceable to a palatalized d or g.
345 For an introduction to the phenomenon of contraction in ancient Greek, in particular, its embrace by the
Attic dialect, see Buck, Comparative Grammar 264-265.
346 For a discussion of sound development of the stems of Greek verbs, see Palmer, The Greek Language
264 and 225 with specific reference to the alteration: zww/zh-. This may be further linked to Palmer’s
discussion (215-220) on vowel gradation. He defines the latter as “the alternation of vowels observed in
morphological systems such as noun and verb formation, noun declension and verbal conjugation” (216).
Finally, for a discussion of zw- and zww- as stems of personal names in Mycenaean documents, see
Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique 403.
347 Georgopapadakos, Lexicon of Irregular Verbs 89.
348 C. D. Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (Chicago,
1949) 137; Also in Plato’s Cratylus (427b), Socrates, while discussing etymology, he connects the letter z
with the notion of life by stating that it is a letter pronounced with an expulsion of breath.
221