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

hand on the other hand, or indeed but, but is often left without being translated. 469 The
terms tu&pon and zw|~on thus emerge here as elements of a syntactical phenomenon that
marks a contrast between them.
Macaulay and Lateiner and Newmyer translate zw|~on as “figure.” 470 Similarly,
Liddell and Scott include this passage of Herodotus in their discussion of the meaning of
zw|~on as “figure” and “image.” 471 De Sélincourt and Marincola understand the word to
mean “carving,” whereas Grene says “engraving.” 472 Finally, Waterfield equates it with
“featuring.” 473 Herodotus explains that this zw|~on was a man on horseback (a)nh_r
i9ppeu&j), thus establishing that zw|~on referred to the subject represented by Darius’
tu&poj. This meaning is further strengthened by the appearance—between zw|~on and
a)nh_r i9ppeu&j—of the word e0nh~n, which Godley translates as “whereon.” 474 )Enh~n
derives from the verb e1neimi, which means “to be in” or “to be present in a place”; as
such, e0nh~n suggests that zw|~on refers to the image, as content, that is shown on the
tu&poj, a physical thing. This is the first explicit example of the meaning of zw|~on as that
of the representational subject of a work of art. When placed next to the previously
discussed references to zw|~on as an image in a work of art, this passage suggests that the
term was used to indicate both subject and image, evidence which, in turn, points to the
absence of a distinction between these two notions. 475
469
H. W. Smyth, rev. G. M. Messing, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, 1956) 656.
470
Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 174; Newmyer, Herodotus Book III 48.
471 9
LSJ , 760, s.v. zw|~on.
472
De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The Histories 211; Grene, The History. Herodotus 250.
473
Waterfield, Herodotus. The Histories 208.
474
Godley, Herodotus II 117; similarly, Macaulay and Lateiner, The Histories. Herodotus 174. Blakesley,
Herodotus, with a Commentary 367, n. 241, considers the use of the word crucial without, however,
clarifying any further what this statement means.
475
For a brief discussion of the absence of distinction between image and subject in ancient Greece, see
Gordon, “The Real and the Imaginary” 7-8.
258