The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt, 1854
Bronze head of a goat. Artist unknown; 3rd-1st cent. BCE (Hellenistic period). Now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo credit: Cleveland Museum of Art.
Rocky Mountain Goats, Albert Bierstadt, 1885
Goats and Sheep in a Landscape, Philipp Peter Roos (1655-1706)
The Glory of a Milk-Goat
Anthologia Palatina 9.224 = Crinagoras (Augustan period) Notes: “Caesar” = Augustus; “the Aegis-Bearer” = Zeus/Jupiter. When Caesar tasted me – the she-goat with swollen teats, Most milk-rich of all the goats whose udders the milk-pan has emptied – And took note of the rich taste I produced, as sweet as honey, He made me his voyage-comrade, sharing even a ship with him. I think that someday soon I shall reach the stars, as well. For the one I offered my teat to is no lower than the Aegis-Bearer. Αἶγά με τὴν εὔθηλον, ὅσων ἐκένωσεν ἀμολγεὺς οὔθατα πασάων πουλυγαλακτοτάτην, γευσάμενος μελιηδὲς ἐπεί τ’ ἐφράσσατο πῖαρ Καῖσαρ, κἠν νηυσὶν σύμπλοον εἰργάσατο. ἥξω δ’ αὐτίκα που καὶ ἐς ἀστέρας· ᾧ γὰρ ἐπέσχον μαζὸν ἐμόν, μείων οὐδ’ ὅσον Αἰγιόχου.
Goat, Francesco Londonio, between 1755 and 1765
Two horses flank a tripod, with a goat above. Detail from a Geometric oinochoe (wine jug) made in Athens and attributed to a painter of the Concentric Circle Group; ca. 735-730 BCE. Now in the British Museum. Photo credit: Zde/Wikimedia Commons.
Pot with lid of the Nguni people of South Africa. Artist unknown; 19th century. Now in the Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
Hellenistic bronze statuette of a nanny goat. Artist unknown; ca. 100 BCE. Now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Silenus (or a satyr) with a billy goat. Side A of an Attic black-figure kyathos, artist unknown; ca. 520 BCE. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons.