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

the epigrams in the order followed above, but, first, draw attention to another important
aspect of these poems.
The Conventional Nature of the Praise of Lifelike Works of Art
The epigrams, while focusing on the aliveness of Myron’s bronze cow, are not
only useful for highlighting the centrality of animals in connection with artistic
lifelikeness. They also provide evidence for the conventional nature of praise of lifelike
works of art in antiquity. The epigrams are not consistent regarding the identity and
appearance of Myron’s famous statue. Some of them, for example, identify the statue as
that of a cow (bou~j)—a mature female of a bovine animal—and, some others, as that of
a heifer, that is, a young cow that has not produced a calf (da&malij; boi/dion). Also, in
some epigrams, the statue announces that it is equipped with a yoke, whereas, in another,
it asks for one. This evidence indicates that the poems are variations of a basic theme,
Myron’s lifelike statue of a cow, but do not require any experience of the statue. All
epigrams, however, focus on placing high value on the lifelikeness of the statue, which
they perceive as aliveness. In view of this evidence, a cow or a heifer is presented as
utterly real, thus suggesting the importance of animals in connection with the ancient
Greek experience of lifelikeness in art.
Several epigrams give a sense of the inconsistency regarding the identity of
Myron’s statue. The following five are good examples of this situation:
Stranger, it was Myron who moulded this cow (bou~n),
on which this calf fawns as if it were alive, taking it for
its mother. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.733) [24]
The horned cow (bou~j) would have spoken, though
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