Learning from Illusion: Myron’s Heifer and the Stoic Poetics of Ekphrasis

This paper is divided in three parts. In the first part, I deal with the Stoic notion of synkatathesis, that is, the “assent” by virtue of which certain sense-perceptions are classified by the intellect (hêgemonikon) as ‘correct’, others as ‘false’. In the second part, I show how synkatathesis works in the famous ekphrasis of Zeno’s hand. In the third part, I relate the Stoic theory of perception to the extant corpus of epigrams on Myron’s heifer (dating back from the 3rd century BCE to the Renaissance). A close analysis of the epigrams reveals that they do not limit themselves to vivid descriptions of the heifer; on the contrary, they show how a viewer should behave when confronted with perceptions that lead to perceptual errors due to the fact that they are vivid but illusory. In such cases, only a Stoic synkatathesis can help gaining a perceptual attitude that is free from errors.