Latin and Greek texts, relief sculptures, and mosaics from the second century CE are rich in images of animals that are both reflections of actual human encounters with nonhuman animals and projections of what humans thought about animals. My dissertation explores the variety of ways in which human animals in the second century CE conceptualized nonhuman animals. When one begins to explore this discourse about animals, questions concerning what it means to be human inevitably emerge. The animal is often the “other” against which human identity is posited. When one assigns another human being to the category of “animal,” s/he often places that individual outside the scope of ethical consideration. Ultimately, I hope this dissertation will show that the field of classical studies has much to contribute to the history of human–animal relationships and to ongoing investigations into how and why we construct boundaries between humans and other animals.