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

3. Zw|~on in the Fourth Century B.C.
The word zw|~on in association with the arts appears in four fourth-century
authors: Plato, Alcidamas, Aristotle, and Philemon. As was the case in the previous
century, the term does not carry a single meaning, but rather multiple nuanced ones, such
as “image,” “subject of representation,” “finished product of an artistic process,” “figural
image,” and also “image held by memory.” The majority of these meanings occurs
within the context of specialized discussions of painting and sculpture, thus suggesting
that the term was part of the professional vocabulary of the arts.
Plato
The first fourth-century author to use zw|~on in a context that directly involved the
visual arts is Plato. The word appears ten times in four of his dialogues and demonstrates
its application to the painting of both pictures and statuary. Zw|~on appears first in the
Cratylus, in which it carries the meaning of the finished product of painting. The
Cratylus is a discussion among three persons—Cratylus, Hermogenes, and Socrates on
the subjects of etymology and correctness of names. Socrates speaks of the processes of
painting and forming words:
SOCRATES. Just as painters (zwgra&foi), when they wish to produce an
imitation, sometimes use only red, sometimes, some other color, and sometimes
mix many colors, as when they are making a picture of a man or something of that
sort, employing each color, I suppose, as they think the particular picture demands
it. In just this way we, too, shall apply letters to things, using one letter for one
thing, when that seems to be required, or many letters together, forming syllables,
as they are called, and in turn combining syllables, and by their combination
forming nouns and verbs. And from nouns and verbs again we shall finally
construct something great and fair and complete. Just as in our comparison we
made the zw|~on by the art of painting (grafikh|~), so now we shall make language
by the art of naming, or of rhetoric, or whatever it be. (Cra. 424d-425a) [141]
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