Who is the Goat?

We keep hearing about goats, or, indeed, seeing them. Let me submit two famous examples from the last day or two. The establishment artist Banksy has recently admitted that he is responsible for an image of a goat stencil-painted onto a wall somewhere near Kew Bridge in Richmond, London. Simone Biles, the acclaimed Olympic gymnast, has added to the gold medals in her jewellery collection by having had manufactured a diamond encrusted necklace in the shape of a goat. Are Banksy and Biles scapegoats? Are they tragic? Are they, er, sheep? Or are they greatest of all time? Are they, in fact, part of a government of all the talents?

The goat appears to be the most important animal in 2024: and is certainly one of the most significant animals of all time. I keep hearing about goats. So I think we need a bestiary of goats. Here is a capricornucopia.

A goat is an animal: on the face of it, it chews a lot, and stares stupidly with letterbox eyes. It can climb impossible heights, and can eat anything. If one comes across goats in the country they seem to be saying, slacked-jawed, “Eh, you again?” “Think you’re something, eh?” Most of us have little to do with goats. But they have entered our culture in strange ways: horses are noble, dogs loyal, cats sacred, sheep and cows obedient, pigs unconcerned, but the goat is something else entirely.

The goat was involved in the endless civil war carried out in antiquity between the Cains and Abels of the world: the farmers and the shepherds. Broadly speaking, farmers wanted to cover the country with grain, and perhaps even cities; while shepherds wanted to cover the country with animals. The two greatest Mediterranean civilisations of antiquity, Greece and Israel, differed on this. Greece was a land of cities and farms. Israel disliked cities and farmers. In the Bible Cain was a farmer, as well as a murderer: he was marked: he founded cities: and cities were not loved: consider the fates of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Babel. Whereas Greece loved cities: Greeks gave us the word ‘politics’.

Oddly, both Greece and Israel made much of goats.

John Ma opens his long history of the Greek city, Polis, published this year, with a vignette about the island called Herakleia, one of the Cycladic islands. In the last years of the 19th century a Frenchman discovered on this island a rare inscription, in which the Herakleiotes agreed not only that they would not allow goats on the island but also that they would prosecute anyone who sought to introduce them. Ironically, the island was found later to be covered in goats with hardly any humans. But when the Herakleiotes made their inscription, probably in the third century BC, there was probably something like a polis. The choice was whether the island was an island of men or an island of goats. There was a battle between a polis, a miniature Athens, and, as John Ma puts it, “something like the island of the Cyclops – a desert with goats and a few shepherds”.

In ancient Israel the goat was not a threat to society but a means by which a threat could be removed from it. In Leviticus 16 Aaron cast lots over two goats. The first goat was for Azazel: Aaron placed his hands on it and recited Israel’s sins over it before sending it into the wilderness. This was the origin of what we now call a ‘scapegoat’. The second goat was slaughtered and its blood used to purify the sanctuary. Calum Carmichael in ‘The Origin of the Scapegoat Ritual’ points out that the ‘scapegoat’ was not sent out into a mere wilderness, midbar, but to an eres gezera, a wholly isolated and inaccessible place. He adds that there is controversy about the meaning of Azazel. For some it is the name of a place; for others it is the name of the leader of the angels who lusted after the daughters of men and had giants for children. Sometimes Azazel is a sort of Prometheus. It is speculated that the name Azazel is taken from the Hebrew word for goat, ez: and might even be the name of the scapegoat. Hence Azazel could be a sort of Pan. Origen associated Azazel with Satan. We still use the word ‘scapegoat’ to refer to someone who is blamed for the sins of society.

Back over to Greece, we find that one of the most remarkable works of art is named for the goat. Tragedy comes from tragos oide, literally, ‘goat-song’. As usual, scholars vary: some think the word ‘tragedy’ might in fact have been taken from a Hittite word for dance, tarkuwai, and assimilated into Greek through its reminiscence of the Greek word for goat, tragos. But even in ancient times Aristotle and others thought that ‘tragedy’ was originally a form of song involving humans dressed as goats, wearing horned masks. It had its origins in the rough humour, song and dance of travelling players. The god Pan had the legs of a goat and horns on his head. He was associated with exuberant sexuality. In the ruins of Herculaneum was found a remarkable statue exhibiting Pan engaging in goatish behaviour with a goat.

Tragedy in the sense in which we know it is attributed to Thespis or his student Phrynichos. Thespis was invited by the tyrant Pisistratos to perform in Athens: Thespis is said to have invented acting, since he was the first performer to pretend to be others: he took different parts in performance, by the use of different masks. Phrynichos was said to have made tragedy grave, rather than gay, by bringing in political subjects, such as in The Fall of Miletus, performed in 511 BC. He was the ancestor of Aeschylus, Sophocles and the rest. Aristotle famously speculated that the purpose of tragedy was to purge the emotions. Not everyone has agreed, but it suggests, as with the ‘scapegoat’, an association between goats and the working off of sin and suffering.

At the intersection of Greece and Israel we have Jesus. In Matthew 25 he suggested that God would separate the sheep and the goats, placing the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. A good article by Kathleen Weber, ‘The Image of Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25:31-46’ notices the following things in trying to make sense of what Jesus said.

First, in ancient Greece, goats were typically associated with “eager, unrestrained and promiscuous sexuality”. We already have the evidence of Pan. But there also is an Idyll by Theocritus (written in the third century BC) in which a goatherd regrets not being able to couple as many times as his billy-goat. Broadly speaking, goats were considered lesser than sheep for this reason.

Second, in Israel, this was not the case. It was the ass, not the goat, that was associated with unbridled sexuality. The only negative reference to a goat was the scapegoat. Otherwise, throughout the Bible until Jesus, sheep and goats were equal in significance. They were never considered antithetical in the Old Testament.

Third, this means that the suggestion of Jesus that sheep would be distinguished from goats would have shocked everyone in Israel. Perhaps Jesus, who likely spoke Greek, was bringing two civilisations together. Be that as it may, Jesus gave the world the idea that ‘goats’ are sinners, as compared to the pure ‘sheep’.

Finally – as this is an illustrative not an exhaustive history – we come to our own time. In July 2024 Keir Starmer made many non-Parliamentary ministerial appointments to create what the Guardian called a “Government of all the talents“. One of the appointments, you will be glad to hear, was the renowned scientist and safe pair of hands, Sir Patrick Vallance. The phrase “Government of all the talents” had been used by Gordon Brown in 2007, when he appointed ministers from outside Parliament: who, on being raised to the peerage, were given the name ‘goats’. If I were writing an exhaustive history, I might look for evidence of goats being seen in such a positive light before 2007. But this is enough evidence to suggest that between the first and 21st centuries there had been what Nietzsche would have called a transvaluation of values about the goat. The only thing to observe about this – apart from the fact that there was a precedent in the short-lived Ministry of all the Talents of 1806 – is that in the 21st century, the goat, rather than being a means by which a city sends into exile its sin or purges its emotions, appears now to be a means by which a state imposes itself on the people by fiat. A goat is not a sacrifice, or a purgation, or a sinner, or a Satan, or a Pan, but a respectable and responsible government, by Jove.

The final twist. In the last ten or so years, it has become common to refer to the ‘greatest of all time’ in any sport as ‘the goat’. Here we have Usain Bolt, Novak Djokovic, Katy Ledecky, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Magnus Carlsen, Simone Biles. One can only be the greatest of all time if one combines evident skill with statistical success. Here we seem to be in that strange world of Tony Blair and the Brexit Man in which ‘Things Can Only Get Better’: for, somehow, the goats all seem to be practising their unnecessary but exquisite trades in the last year or two. So, again! – as David Starkey always says – there is a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. Before our time, the goat was associated with sin, with sexuality, and with a need to be freed from these, by some sort of ritual, sacrifice or tragedy. But now, in our secular age, the goats are the greatest exponents of some particular, usually extremely boutique, endeavour. We celebrate goats. Meanwhile, ‘sheep’ is a term for the compliant. Sheep are no longer pure: we live in a world in which the goats are pure, and the rest of us sheepishly accept the sin and suffering of our societies.

Beware. The goats not only rule us, but offer us exemplary models of success. We are in a goatish world. Make of that what you will. Anyhow, whether he knows it or not, and whether she knows it or not, Banksy and Biles are very much of their age.

Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.