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

Although dating to the third century B.C., explicit evidence in support of this
point comes from two votive objects which, in the inventory lists from Delos, are called
zw&idia. The first is a combination of two silver figurines, one of Apollo, the other of
Artemis, mounted on a wooden base, and dedicated by a woman called Kleino in the
temple of Artemis. The second is a dedication of a man called Apollodoros described as
“two zw&idia on a semi-circular surface” that was kept at the temple of Apollo. 574 The
fact that the third-century Delian zw&idia were made of silver, whereas those of the fifth-
century frieze of the Erechtheion were made of marble, indicates with certainty that the
material of manufacture was not a determining factor in the meaning of the term zw&idia.
In sum, the meaning and usage of zw~ia and zw&idia in the inscriptions of the
building accounts of the Erechtheion can be described in the following way: Zw~ia are
figural images (representations) of animate and inanimate subjects taken from the real
world and referring to the sculptural composition of the Erechtheion frieze. In this way,
zw~ia appear to be directly connected with the visual arts set in a religious context as
indicated by the designation of the Erechtheion as a temple. The inscriptions also refer to
the sculpture of the frieze of this building as zw&idia. This term, which is the diminutive
form of zw~ia, designated zw~ia of small size that were employed in the frieze of the
574 On the basis of thirteen different surviving inventories that date from 279 to 145 B.C., E. Kosmetatou,
“Zw&idia in the Delian Inventory Lists,” Mnemosyne 57 (2002) 482, provides a composite description of
the text referring to the silver figurines as: “Two silver figurines of Apollo and Artemis on a wooden base,
unweighed. Inscription: Kleino, daughter of Admetos to Apollo and Artemis as fulfillment of a vow.” She
does specify, 482, however, that the phrase “on a wooden base” does not start to appear on the lists until
195 B.C. This is also the year, when the term zw&idia for these figurines switches to andria&ntia and
andrianti&dia. As for the second dedication and its reference to a semi-circular surface, she suggests, 483,
that “we know that semi-circular exedrae were in vogue as bases for group monuments in Greek
sanctuaries.” For additional discussion regarding the occurrence of zw&idia in the Delian inventory lists,
see M. C. Hellmann, Recherches sur le vocabulaire de l’ architecture grecque d’après les inscriptions de
Délos (Paris, 1992) 120, n. 9.
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