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

Herodotus provides further insight into the meaning of zw|~on. According to him,
the inscription that accompanied the zw|~on of a man on horseback set up by Darius read
as following: “Darius, son of Hystaspes, with the help of his horse’s excellence (he there
mentioned the stallion’s name) “and that of Oebares the groom, won the kingship of
Persia.” The inscription first implies that the image of the rider was a representation of
Darius or at least one that had some connection to him. Second, when seen in the
immediate context of the Histories, the inscription emerges as a succinct, shorter version
of the story narrated in the preceding sections (3.84-3.87), in which Herodotus explains
that the groom Oebares, who rigged a horse race, was instrumental in establishing the
royal power of Darius. This evidence suggests that Herodotus perceived zw|~on, the man
on horseback represented on the work of sculpture set up by Darius as being directly
inspired by a contemporary historical event, or, to put it simply, taken from real life.
The authenticity of both the image of the rider and the story of the trick has,
however, been repeatedly doubted. The doubt arose because of the absence of the rider
in monumental Achaemenid art. Thus, How and Wells, and also De Sélincourt and
Marincola state firmly that Achaemenid monumental art supplies no evidence that
matches Herodotus’ account. 476 In agreement with them is Stephanie West, who remarks
that “the extant remains of Achaemenid monumental art provide no parallel for the work
here described, though the material at our disposal is not so abundant that an argument
from silence may be regarded as conclusive.” 477 Margaret Root does not take this lack of
476 How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus 280: “neither at Behistun nor on his tomb at Nakhsh-I-
Rustam is Darius represented on horseback. But Herodotus may well have seen some ‘relief,’ now
destroyed, resembling the façade of Tagh-I-Bostan”; De Sélincourt and Marincola, Herodotus. The
Histories 648, n. 30: “no monument of this sort has been discovered, nor should we expect that it will,
given the portrait of Darius’ rise to power in the Behistun inscription.”
477 S. West, “Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests,” CQ 35 (1985) 297.
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