Dogs in Athenian Sculpture and Vase Painting of the Archaic and Classical Periods

Dogs appear in more than two thousand surviving scenes of Athenian sculpture and vase painting, accompanying hunters and warriors, appearing in homes and gymnasia, playing with children and standing beside gods, heroes and the dead. Katia Margariti brings this unusually rich visual record together to examine what canine imagery can reveal about the relationship between people and dogs in Archaic and Classical Athens.

Her catalogue of 2,026 scenes makes room for details that disappear in broader accounts of Greek art: how artists posed dogs, whom they accompanied and what their presence might suggest. The chapters move from hunting and warfare to the symposium, ritual and funerary monuments. A dog could signal status, help tell a myth or appear as a familiar companion in the life of an Athenian household.