Abstract

This chapter examines the place and role of animals in art history of the Classical period. It addresses questions concerning animal imagery within the visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean, the prominent place of animals in the canon of Classical art and the reception of specifically animal imagery within histories of art, as well as the use of art in the histories of animals. This chapter explains that artists throughout the Classical period paid close attention to the narrative, symbolic, and formal possibilities of animal depiction and animal forms populated many of the small items of day-to-day life. The theme that unites their works is that of human dominion over the animal kingdom.