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

iders on horses that gallop to the right. 539 Variations in the treatments of both horses and
riders have led to the suggestion that more than one artist was at work. 540 This
suggestion has been, in turn, central to the scholarly debate regarding the possible
Laconian or Corinthian origin of the second krater from Trebenishte. 541
The third example of appliqué relief decoration on bronze kraters is a small (18.3
cm tall) bronze relief figure of a bearded warrior in the process of putting on his greaves
that was found in Edessa (Fig. 28). 542 The figure has a flat reverse side and preserves the
holes used for riveting it to a background, most likely, the neck of a bronze volute
Laconian krater produced around 540 B.C. 543
The evidence from these examples and from the Vix krater indicates that adding
decorative elements of various subjects by means of rivets to the frieze-like necks of
bronze kraters was a usual technique favored by sixth-century bronze-smiths. If one
were, therefore, to identify Herodotus’ zw|&dia with these decorative elements, the fact
that the latter refer to humans (hoplites, charioteers, riders, warrior), animals (horses,
cows), and also lifeless objects (chariots) suggests that Herodotus’ zw|&dia could be
understood as both animate and inanimate representational subjects applied to bronze
vessels as relief decoration.
539 Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 89-90, fig. 56, and 94, fig. 61, also 122, n. 87.
540 As Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 90, n. 160 points out, “the mane of one of the horses is plain, whereas
the other horses have vertically notched neck manes.” Also, none of the heads of the riders is identical to
any other. The first has a squarish face with wide eyes, the second has a triangular face with small eyes,
the third has a broad and angular head, whereas the fourth one “is distinguished by its broad round head.”
541 Stibbe, The Sons of Hephaistos 90-91.
542 Stibbe, Trebenishte 95, n. 19 (Athens, NM 7550); see, also S. Karouzou, “ΤΕΧΝΟΥΡΓΟΙ
ΚΡΑΤΗΡΩΝ: Fragmente bronzeren Volutenkratere,” AM 94 (1979) 79-80. Its exact provenance and date
of discovery are uncertain. One of the earliest reference to it is G. P. Oikonomos, “Bronzen von Pella,” AM
51 (1926) 87-88, who mentions that the figure was found by M. Dimitsas, and cites an earlier reference: A.
De Ridder, Catalogue des bronzes de la société archaeologique d’Athènes (1889) 103.
543 Stibbe, Trebenishte 94-95, 105, fig. 63; also Karouzou, “ΤΕΧΝΟΥΡΓΟΙ ΚΡΑΤΗΡΩΝ” 79-80, pl. 15,
figs. 1-3, where the flatness of the reverse side and the holes for the rivets are clearly visible.
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