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

The meaning and usage of zw|~on and its diminutive zw|&dion in the previous
century are not different. As the literary texts of Empedocles and Herodotus, and the
building inscriptions of the Erechtheion show the terms zw|~on and zw|&dion carry the
meanings of “image,” “subject of representation,” “representation of both animate and
inanimate subjects taken from real life,” and “decorative element.” Unlike the fourth-
century, here the terms are used in connection with a wider variety of media, which along
with painting and sculpture includes also bronze-work and textiles. This evidence
suggests that the term was an important element of the vocabulary of the arts, starting in
the fifth century B.C. Also, Herodotus, like Plato later on, provides instances of the use
of zw|~on in which no clear distinction exists between image and subject.
Taken together, the literary and epigraphical evidence of the fifth and fourth
centuries B.C. indicates that when used in direct association with the visual arts, zw|~on
held multiple, nuanced meanings that set it apart from its usual meaning as “animal.”
From a conceptual point of view, this duality in the linguistic usage of zw|~on is consistent
with the split into different types of frameworks (inconsistency, incongruity,
contradiction) that sustain the naturalistic style of contemporary animal sculpture and
also with the dichotomy in contemporary attitudes toward animals, as this discussion
demonstrated earlier. Such a consistency in the linguistic, artistic, and intellectual
approach to animals suggests that the latter are reliable sources for sharpening our
understanding of Classical Greek culture.
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