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

In the fourth epigram, also an anonymous, the poet addresses the statue directly
by marking its treatment by a husbandman as if it were a living, laboring cow:
Thou wast bronze, deceptive heifer, and the
husbandman came up to thee dragging a plough
and carrying a yoke. He far excels all other artists,
Myron, who by his labour made thee alive, just like
a labouring cow. (Anonymous, Anth. Pal. 9.741) [28]
The poet attributes the perceived aliveness of the statue to Myron himself while showing
his awareness that it is a work of art made by Myron. The poet notes the deception of a
husbandman by identifying his response to the statue as if it were alive: he carried a
plough and a yoke to it.
Another epigram, by Julian, Prefect of Egypt, dating probably from the sixth
century A.D., charges not only herdsmen, but also a gadfly with a mistaken reaction to
the statue. The poet addresses the gadfly directly:
Myron deceived thee too, gadfly, that thou plungest
thy sting into the hard flanks of the bronze cow.
But the gadfly is excusable. What wonder! when
Myron deceived even the eyes of the herdsmen.
(Julian, Prefect of Egypt, Anth. Pal. 9.739). [130]
The gadfly tries to sting the bronze cow; it responds to it as if it were alive. The behavior
of the gadfly speaks of the lifelikeness of the statue while indicating that non-human
creatures were used as guides to lifelikeness in art. Of interest is that the poet marks the
gadfly’s perception of this cow as a living animal as “excusable.” His wording implies
that insects were considered creatures of limited cognitive capacity, and thus the
deception of a gadfly comes as no surprise to him. Such a line of thinking expands
Plato’s category of viewers easily deceived by the lifelikeness of art. The fact, however,
that Myron “deceived even the eyes of the herdsmen,” that is, human beings with
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