When ‘Dumb’ Beasts Raise Their Voices: Speaking Animals in Ancient Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern Literature
April 2022 | Vol. 10.4
By Hedwig Schmalzgruber
A pig, loved by all, a young quadruped, here I lie, having left behind the soil of Dalmatia after being offered as a gift.
I walked Dyrrhachium and longing for Apollonia
I traversed the whole land on foot, alone, unfailingly.
But by the force of a wheel I have now lost the light, longing to see Emathia and the chariot of the phallus.
Here now I lie, owing nothing more to death.
A dead pig telling us how it died in a traffic accident on its way from Dalmatia to a religious festival in Macedonia might not be the most obvious example for ‘speaking animals’ in ancient texts, but it is certainly one of the most bizarre and sophisticated. It is thus an inspiring starting point to deal with ‘animal speech’ in ancient Greek, Latin and Egyptian literature and the Hebrew Old Testament.
Copy of the “pig stele” of Edessa with Greek inscription (original in the Edessa Archaeological Museum). The accompanying relief shows the pig twice: on the right, it is walking along before the accident, while on the left it is lying on the ground after being crushed by the wheels of the chariot, its skin ruffled in mortal agony. Photo by Philipp Pilholfer. CC-BY-SA 3.0.
The Greek epitaph on the “pig stele” of Edessa in Macedonia, which dates to the 2nd/3rd century CE, shows typical features of the most common sort of ‘animal speech’ in ancient Graeco-Roman literature. Here, the pig’s speech is used as an effective rhetorical strategy and is clearly fictitious because animals, whether dead or alive, are categorically denied reason and the ability of articulate speech. What is more, the pig also has human sentiments and the capacity of self-controlled action. By attributing this person-like status to the deceased pig, its owner shows his great appreciation for the animal.
Readers might, however, be more familiar with ‘talking animals’ in ancient Greek and Roman fables. There, animals often behave and speak like humans and represent human characters for mostly moral purposes while at the same time keeping their animal physiognomy. For example, in the fable of the fox and the stork by the Latin poet Phaedrus (2nd half of the 1st century CE), a fox invites a stork to dinner and sets before him a slab with soup which the stork is not able to eat. Then the stork invites the fox and sets before him a narrow-mouthed jar full of solid food into which he can easily enter his beak. While the hungry fox is vainly licking the neck of the jar the stork articulates the moral: “One who sets an example ought to bear it with patience when he gets the same in return.”
Parts of window frames, All Saints Monastery, Schaffhausen, Switzerland (12th century AD). On the left, the fox is eating from the slap while the stork cannot; on the right, the stork is eating from a narrow-mouthed keg while the fox remains hungry. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Speaking animals are also prominent in ancient Attic comedy, particularly in the plays written by Aristophanes (ca. 446-386 BCE). His comedies such as Wasps, Frogs, Birds and Knights teem with animal choruses and individual characters with animal associations. These characters not only wear more or less complete animal costumes, but some of them also mix animal sounds into their Greek, such as the Brekekex koax koax! of the frog chorus or the tio tio tio tinx! of the bird chorus. This blurring of lines between animals and humans creates grotesque and humorous effects and is perfect for parody.
Animal speech can also be used for philosophical reflections on the intellectual and emotive capacities of animals and the role of language and reason in moral distinctions. This is evident in a dialogue known as Gryllus by the Greek philosopher Plutarch (ca. 45-125 CE). Here Plutarch presents the Homeric hero Odysseus on the island of Circe debating with a former companion who has been transformed into a pig by the witch. Gryllus (“The Grunter”), as he is called, has been endowed with human speech by Circe for his conversation with Odysseus, to whom he explains why he and the other companions prefer to keep their animal form over returning home: animals are superior to humans due to their freedom from moral corruption and their natural capacity for virtue.
Archaic Greek bronze figure, 5th century BC, showing one of Odysseus’ companions turned into a pig swine by the sorceress Circe in Homer’s epic poem Odyssey. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. CC0.
A second sort of ‘animal speech’ in ancient Greek and Latin literature is found in contexts where a transcendental power uses a ‘mute’ animal as a mouthpiece to convey warning messages to humans. The most famous example is probably to be found in the 19th book of Homer’s Iliad. There, Xanthos, the horse belonging to the Greek hero Achilles, is given an articulate voice by the goddess Hera and prophesies his owner’s death (vv. 404–418). After this speech Xanthos is silenced again by the intervention of another divine power, the Furies.
Apart from these fictitious or supranatural cases of animal speech, various Greek and Latin literary sources provide more or less plausible evidence for the natural phenomenon that some animals can mimic human speech. Whether they ‘speak’ due to an intelligent use of human language or they just mechanically ‘parrot’ human sounds is the subject of philosophical debate. Most plausible are the reports of ‘speaking’ birds like parrots, crows or ravens, which in ancient Rome were trained to flatter the emperor and sold for a lot of money.
Ravens and crows are also popular motives in Roman mosaics and wall-paintings. In this mosaic from the Dominicans Museum in Rottweil, Germany, dated to the end of the 2nd century AD, a raven is sitting to the left of the famous singer Orpheus. Public Domain via Wikimedia
‘Speaking animals’ also become a widespread phenomenon in ancient Egyptian narratives from the New Kingdom onwards (ca. 1500 BCE), where they play a variety of roles. In the popular tale The Doomed Prince, a prince is fated to die through an attack by a crocodile, a snake or a dog, which gifts these animals with a certain numinosity and makes them agents of fate. Later in his life, a voiceless snake comes to attack the prince and is killed, but the fatal dog speaks to him, saying “I am your fate.” The prince flees into a lake where he encounters the fatal crocodile, saying “I am your fate that has come after you.” But instead of killing the prince, the crocodile enlists his help in its fight against a water demon.
Crocodiles were considered otherworldly creatures in Ancient Egypt and worshiped as deities. This faience amulet from the Ptolemaic period (304–247 BCE) probably depicts Sobek, a benevolent water deity. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1989.281.96. Public Domain.
In the same period, ostraca and ‘satirical papyri’ commonly interpreted as illustrations of long-lost folk tales depict animals behaving as and/or dressed up like humans. We might have to imagine these animals as speaking, although captions are missing in most of the cases. On the left of the papyrus below, a lion is playing a board game with a gazelle, while on the far right the same lion is standing over the gazelle which is lying on her back on a bed. The lion’s open mouth might suggest that he is speaking.
Turning from ancient Egypt to the Hebrew Old Testament, it is surprising that this text contains only two cases of animals talking with a humanlike voice: the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) that causes the Fall of man, and the donkey of the seer Balaam (Numbers 22) whose mouth is opened by God. As the ancient Israelites had a close but strictly functional relationship to animals, they were generally subordinated to man and rarely have a say in the texts. The serpent in paradise is an exceptional instance and proves to be a very clever communicator in remarking that man will not die by eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, because this will indeed not lead to immediate death but will make dying a necessity. The serpent’s role seems to be that of a ‘provocative mediator’ between God and man and the story explains the later enmity between serpents and humans.
Mosaic depicting the Fall in the Cathedral Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale, Palermo, Sicily (12th century CE). Pubilc Domain via Wikimedia.
2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil.”
To sum up, these examples from ancient Greek and Roman, Egyptian and Hebrew literature show that ‘animal speech’ can have very different functions and effects in ancient texts. What they all have in common is the fact that animals that are gifted with humanlike speech challenge the traditional boundaries between animals and humans, nature and culture, ‘instinct’ and intelligence. Furthermore, there is a fine line between using animals as ‘screens’ for our own thoughts and feelings and giving them an actual ‘voice’ to articulate their own interests – if humans can grasp these at all. It is this questioning of the so-called ‘anthropological difference’ and this fine line that are crucial to understanding literature with ‘speaking animals’ today.
Hedwig Schmalzgruber is a research associate at the Department of Classics and Ancient History of the University of Potsdam, Germany.
How to cite this article
Schmalzgruber, H. 2022. “When ‘Dumb’ Beasts Raise Their Voices: Speaking Animals in Ancient Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern Literature.” The Ancient Near East Today 10.4. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/schmalzgruber-animals/.
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