Latin Ritual Terminology #1

(First part of a selection of excerpts from Sextus Pomponius Festus/his medieval Christian epitomator Paulus Diaconus; my translations and order. As I use only one source, and that an incompletely preserved one, this is only a partial overview of what is known of the terminology today.

When the text is confusing, the Latin is probably nearly as bad, although I will not claim that my translation is impeccable.)

A. Types of sacred rites (sacra)

‘Public sacra’: those which are held at public expense for the people, and those which are for mountains, districts, curias, or sacella (see below). And ‘private’ ones are those which are held for individual people, families, or clans.

‘Popular sacra’: those, as (Antistius) Labeo says, which all citizens hold, and which are not attributed to specific families: (e.g.) Forcanalia, Parilia, Laralia, the praecidian sow (on which in a future post).

‘Solemn sacra’: those which are habitually held at fixed times and in fixed years.

‘Secluded sacra’: what the Greeks call mysteries.

‘Curionia sacra’: those which used to take place in curias.

‘Consentia sacra’: those which are established from the consent of many.

B. Sacred things (sacra)

The ‘Sacred’ Mount (is the mountain) across the (river) Anio, a little beyond the third milestone (from Rome); when the common people, who had seceded from the patricians (to this mountain), scattered again after the plebeian tribunes had been established to be a help for them, they consecrated it to Jupiter.

     But a ‘sacred’ human is one whom the people have condemned because of a crime; it is not permitted (fas) for him to be killed (immolari), but, if someone does kill them, they are not convicted of parricide; because it is cautioned in the first tribunician law: “If someone has killed him who by plebiscite is sacred, he shall not be a parricide.” From which it is usual for any evil and vile person to be called sacred.

     Gallus Aetius says that ‘sacred’ is what is consecratum in whatever way and ordinance of the polity (civitatis), whether a temple (aedis), an alter (ara), a military banner (signum), a place, money, or whatever else that is dedicated and consecrated to the gods; but what private people dedicate of their things to a god because of their own piety (religionis), this the Roman pontiffs do not consider sacred. But when private sacra which by the pontiffs' ordinance are to be held on a certain day or in a certain place are somehow undertaken, these are called sacra in the sense of sacrifice (not sacred in the legal sense). The place where these private sacra are held hardly seems to be ‘sacred’.

‘Profane’: what is not sacred (sacrum). Plautus (frag. inc. 38): “Something sacred, if you keep it profane, is little regarded.”

‘Profane’: what is not bound by the religio of a shrine (fanum).

‘Religious’ is also (the same as) sacred, as all temples (templa), and ‘houses’ (aedes), which are also called consecrated (sacratae); […]

C. Religious attitude

‘Religious’: those who are conscientious in what divine things are to be done and to be omitted according to the usage (mos) of their society, and do not become entangled in superstitions.

‘Religious’ is someone who not only values the sanctity of the gods highly, but is also dutiful in respect to humans.

     But ‘religious days’ are those on which it used to be forbidden (nefas) to do anything (facere) that is not necessary; of this nature are the 36 so-called black (atri) days*, and the day of Allia (Alliensis)**, as well as those on which the mundus is open***.

     [The topic shifts back to religio in general:] Gallus Aelius says that it is not allowed to a human to do anything where, if they did do it, they would seem to do it against the will of the gods. Of this kind are the following: for a man to enter the temple of Bona Dea; to bring something to (the awareness of) the people (at large) against the rule of the mysteries; to bring a lawsuit to the praetor on a dies nefastus****.

     But between sacred and holy (sanctum) and religious, he most agreeably adduces (the following) distinctions: sacred is a building consecrated to a god; holy is a wall which is around a town; religious is a sepulchre where a dead person is interred or burief - he says this is quite certain. [unintelligible] but at times (?) they can be seen as the same: if something is indeed sacred, he believes the same to be holy by the law or ordinance of the ancestors (maiorum), so that it cannot be violated without punishment; and that the same is also religious, [unintelligible] which it is not allowed for a human to do there; which, if they did do it, they would seem to do it against the will of the gods. Similarly it must be said about the wall and the sepulchre that they become sacred, holy, as well as religious, but in the manner that was expounded above, when we talked about the sacred.

*The dies atri are those after the Kalends, Nones and Ides of each month.

**The anniversary of a disastrous battle at Allia, on the 18th of July.

***A kind of pit, opened on August 24, October 5, November 8.

****Days that are nefasti are somewhat similar to the religious days, but in the case of the former, the reason for the prohibitions are public festivals taking place on those days, in that of the latter, a tradition that the days are intrinsically of bad luck.

D. Synonyms for sacred rites (sacra)

‘Rite’: approved usage in the regulation of sacrifices.

‘Rite’: usage or habit. […]

‘Ceremonies’ some believe to be so called because of the city of Caere; others judge them to be named from care (caritas).

E. Some types of ritual actors

‘Armata’: a maiden who sacrifices, the edges of whose toga was thrown back on her shoulder (=armi). By laws, (the city of) Laurentum is holy (sanctum), so that fruit from a stranger may not be gathered on the armus, that is, what is the work of the shoulders*.

     *I have honestly no idea what this sentence means.

‘Ieiucanus’ (male): an assistant at sacrifice (victimarius).

‘Piatrix’ (female): a priest (sacerdos), who used to expiate*, whom some call a simulatrix**, others a saga, others an expiatrix. Piamenta, (i.e.) what they employ in expiation, others called purgamenta.

     *I.e. perform rituals of atonement/purification.

     **A woman who transforms people into animals, like Circe in the Odyssey.

‘Saga’: a woman expert in sacra (perita sacrorum), and ‘sagus’, a wise man; the first syllable is lengthened (when compared to sagax), perhaps to avoid ambiguity.

‘To presage’ is to divine (praedivinare), to foreknow. For sagax means sharp and skilfull.

‘Presagition’: what is called to presage and to sense acutely; wherefore old women (ănūs) who know much are called ‘sagae’, and dogs which have presentiments of the dens of wild beasts, ‘sagaces’.

F. Locales of sacrifice

A ‘curia’ is a place where they used to manage public concens (curas). They used to call the curia where the ordering of all sacra was manged (the curia) Calabra. Furthermore, they called curias those (buildings) in which each anything of each respective part of the Roman people was managed, like those (parts) into which Romulus divided the people, to the number of thirty, to which five were added later, so that each (part) used to hold public sacra and observe festivals (ferias) in their curia, and names of the Curian maidens are said to have been given to each of these curias. These maidens did the Romans once kidnap from the Sabines.

‘Accepted’ (captus): a place fit for legitimate sacrifices.

‘Temple’ (delubrum): they (originally) called a delibrated stick (this), that is, one with the bark (=liber) off, which they venerated as a god (pro deo).

‘Shrine’ (fanum): so called from Faunus, or from speaking (fando), because the pontiff speaks certain words when he dedicates it.

‘Sacella’: places without roofs consecrated to the gods.

G. Altars and Tables

‘Altars’ (altaria) are that on which sacrifice is made (adoletur) by fire.

‘Altars’ (altaria) are named from altitude, because of old they used to make sacra for the gods above on structures elevated from the earth; for the earthly gods on the earth, for the infernal gods in dug-out earth.

‘Acerra’: an altar (ara), which used to be placed before a dead person, on which fragrances used to be burnt. Others say that an arcula is an incense-box (turaria), that is, where incense used to be put.

‘Tables’: can be used in place of altars in temples (aedibus sacris). […]

‘Eating tables’ (escariae): (what) square tables on which people dine are called. An ‘anclabris’ (pl. anclabria) table is one which is anclatur in sacrificing to the gods, that is, which is taken and served upon.

Roman Afterlives and Aftermortalities #1

It is difficult, perhaps impossible to speak of a specifically Roman view of what happens after death. One idea that was current, of course, was that of a subterranean realm ruled by Dis (or Orcus) and Proserpine. But Proserpine is in origin the Greek goddess, Persephone, via the Etruscan Persipnei; and Dis takes much of his characteristics from the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. (This equivocation can be seen, among many other things, from the fact that Dis takes the byname Pluto, from Greek Plouton, which is another name of Hades; this has somehow led to the modern misconception that Pluto is the Roman equivalent of Hades.) Unlike the Etruscan conception of the underworld, which is populated by many beings unique to that culture, when the Roman poets describe the realm of Dis – which is usually called inferi, ‘those below, the dead’, by metonymy –, they name almost exclusively Greek figures, like the ferryman Charon, the three-headed dog Cerberus, and the snake-haired Furies. Although Furiae is a Latin term, meaning ‘ragings, wraths’, there is very little about them that does not exactly correspond to the Greek Erinnyes/Eumenides.

One wonderful evocation of this view of the underworld is the opening of Claudian’s Against Rufinus, written in the late 4^th century CE:

Dire Allecto once kindled with jealous wrath on seeing widespread peace among the cities of men. Straightway she summons the hideous council of the nether-world sisters (infernas sorores) to her foul palace gates. Hell’s (Erebi) numberless monsters (pestes) are gathered together, Night’s children of ill-omened birth. Discord, mother of war, imperious Hunger, Age, near neighbour to Death; Disease, whose life is a burden to himself; Envy that brooks not another’s prosperity, woeful Sorrow with rent garments; Fear and foolhardy Rashness with sightless eyes; Luxury, destroyer of wealth, to whose side ever clings unhappy Want with humble tread, and the long company of sleepless Cares, hanging round the foul neck of their mother Avarice. The iron seats are filled with all this rout and the grim chamber is thronged with the monstrous crowd. Allecto stood in their midst and called for silence, thrusting behind her back the snaky hair that swept her face and letting it play over her shoulders. Then with mad utterance she unlocked the anger deep hidden in her heart. (Against Rufinus I.25–44, transl. M. Platnauer 1922)

But this is poetry, and in any event has nothing to do with the dead. Nevertheless, the notion of the dead as being “those below”, in contrast to “the gods above”, the dii superi, is a specifically Roman way of speaking, even if it was articulated and contextualized largely in Greek terms – by which I mean not only the set dressing of the underworld as described in mythological poetry, but also significant parts of the terminology. The originally poetic word umbra, literally “shade, shadow,” for the dead either as they exist among the inferi or as they appear to the living (what we would call a ghost or an apparition) is modelled on the Greek skia. The same goes for a range of words along these lines, phantasma and idolon being taken directly from Greek, imago and simulacrum being loan translations. Whereas “shade” refers more to the state of existence of the dead (which are, so to speak, only shadows of themselves), these latter describe the primarily visual appearance of something, whether real or imagined, whether authentically what it appears to be or the trick of a daemon. Pliny the Younger’s hesitation in the opening to Letter 7.27 is representative:

Therefore I would very much like to know whether you believe that phantasmata exist and have their own shape and a sort of numen (divinity) or that empty nothingness (inania et vana) takes on a shape out of our fear. (my translation)

Incidentally, it is not only daemons who can trick people into thinking that the dead have appeared to them (this is mentioned as a possibility somewhere in Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Story, and of course the idea is familiar from the deceptive gods of the Iliad, who appear in dreams under pretended shapes). The soul of a dead person, especially one that has died a premature death and therefore still haunts the earth, may also fool the living by appearing as a god. I know of no examples of this in Latin, but it is an idea of the Roman period:

Likewise the famous Iamblichus, as I have handed down in my account of his life, when a certain Egyptian¹ invoked Apollo, and to the great amazement of those who saw the vision, Apollo came: “My friends,” said he, “cease to wonder; this is only the ghost of a gladiator.” So great a difference does it make whether one beholds a thing with the intelligence or with the deceitful eyes of the flesh. (Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers 473, transl. Wilmer C. Wright) 

¹ i.e. an Egyptian priest (or sorcerer, depending on your perspective).

The gladiator who has died a violent death is the prototypical untimely dead, or in Greek, biothanatos, ‘alive-dead’; Servius explains (on Aeneid 4.386):

The natural philosophers (physici) say that the souls of the biothanati are not received back to their (place of) origin until they complete the timespan allotted by fate (legitimum tempus fati) in roaming about. (my translation)

These roaming souls were nevertheless thought to cling to their gravesite, although perhaps for a different reason. As Plato had taught:

[I]f when [the soul] departs from the body it is defiled and impure, because it was always with the body and cared for it and loved it and was fascinated by it and its desires and pleasures, so that it thought nothing was true except the corporeal, which one can touch and see and drink and deat and employ in the pleasures of love, and if it is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which is shadowy and invisible to the eyes but is intelligible and tangible to philosophy—do you think a soul in this condition will depart pure and uncontaminated? [… S]uch a soul is weigend down by this and is dragged back into the visible world, through fear of the invisible and of the other world, and so, as they say, it flits about the monuments and the tombs, where shadowy shapes of souls have been seen, figures of those souls which were not set free in purity but retain something of the visible; and this is why they are seen. (Phaedo 81, transl. Harold North Fowler)

But did Pliny mean these sorts of sorry beings when he asked whether phantasms have a numen, divine power? Here I take him to be thinking less of the divine nature of the soul, which we can also read about in Plato, but of the Roman appellation dii manes for the dead: the manes, the dead, are a kind of dii, gods. This is why Roman tomb inscriptions begin with DM, an abbreviation for “to the dii manes”. Importantly, these are the manes gods of the one person whose tomb it is – the word manes does not have a singular form.

We should not think too rigidly here, however, as if shades and manes and souls were all clearly delineated from each other. In poetry particularly, even the distinction between the corpse and the manes is blurred, with shades arriving in the underworld still showing the wounds that killed them, and “the ashes or manes” of someone are interred. It is only the business of commentators to want to make clear sense of this:

And he very appropriately diminishes [the word manes?] by speaking not the soul, but the ashes and manes as interred. And he says this in line with the Epicureans, who say that the soul dies with the body. (Servius on Aeneid 4.34)

And in a different context:

“Dejected, life withdraws through air to the manes” (Aeneid 10.819): Life, i.e. the soul. And it is said inappropriately, since an image (simulacrum) rushes to those below, not the soul.

The background for this distinction lies in the Odyssey. One of the last figures Odysseus encounters in his journey to the underworld is Heracles; but three lines seem to have been inserted to distinguish what he is meeting from the Heracles who has received a place among the gods of Olympus:

And after him I marked the mighty Heracles—his [image (eidôlon)]; for he himself among the immortal gods takes his joy in the feast, and has to wife Hebe, of the fair ankles, daughter of great Zeus and of Here, of the golden sandals.—[etc.] (Odyssey 11.601–604, transl. A. T. Murray)

But these kinds of fine distinctions are academic. The dii manes are not usually unstood as something cleary different from souls, but it may be said that they belong to two different ways of thinking that only partially overlap. One solution for the problem of the singularity of the soul and the plurality of the manes is to identify the person only with the former, and identify the latter with a different kind of entity:

When we are born, we are alloted two genii; there is one who encourages good things, another who corrupts us (to do) bad things. According to their testimony (?), we are given a better life or convicted to a worse after our death; through this, we either merit (temporary) freedom (from the body) or a return to the body. Therefore what he calls manes are the genii, who we are allotted with life. (Servius on Aeneid 6.743)

This is a solution for one particular passage, and fits badly with most other ideas connected to the manes. Moreover, a person’s genius is again identified with the soul by some authors. (I use the singular here because the idea of a good and bad daemon is Greek in origin and not often applied to the Latin genius, to my knowledge.)

A better fit between philosophical thinking about the soul and the Roman discourse about manes is made in Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 3.63:

Manes are souls in that (period of) time in which, after having withdrawn from their former bodies, they have not yet went into the next. But they are noxious, and are named by antiphrasis [from the opposite meaning]: for manum […] means ‘good’.

But ancient scholars were usually happier with multiple explanations than with a single one, so even here he gives some alternatives:

Others understand the manes to be named from manare, ‘flowing’, since the places between the lunar and earthly sphere are full of souls, and they flow down from there. Some hand down that the manes are the gods below (deos infernos). Others say that the manes and the gods below are distinct; most have handed down that as (the) celestials (are the) gods of the living, so (the) manes (are) of the dead. Others, that the nocturnal manes are of that space which is between the heaven and the earth, and therefore have power over the moisture that falls at night; and that the morning (mane) is for this reason also called from these manes.

Here we can see that pagans even until the very end of antiquity were ambivalent about whether there really was a subterranean underworld, or whether all that was said about it by the poets should instead be referred to the sphere between the earth’s surface and the moon. If Servius is any indication, people seem to have held both conceptions with different degrees of conviction. At any rate it is clear enough that, at least in historical times, the reason for the exclusively plural manes was not that a dead person was imagined to become one with the anonymous ancestors, as some scholars would have it.

Although more could be said about the manes, I have already been quite prolix. In my next post, I will go on to discuss aftermortal fates from a broader perspective.

Lactantius Placidus on Infernal Matters

(A selection of passages from his commentary on Statius, Thebaid IV; my translations—lemmas freely expanded to clarify the sense. Translations of the quotes of Statius from D. R. Shackleton Bailey.)

Statius IV.443–472: “Here the aged seer (for well suited is the ground for Stygian rites, the soil fat with living gore is to his liking) gives order that sheep dark of fleece and black herds be stationed, all the finest necks that halter leads. Dirce and sad Cithaeron groaned and the echoing valleys marvelled at the sudden silence. Then with his own hands he twined the fierce horns with garlands dark of hue and at the edge of the familiar wood he first tips lavish draughts of Bacchus into the earth hollowed in nine places and gifts of vernal milk and Attic rain and blood persuasive to spirits. As much as the dry earth will drink is poured. Then they roll up tree trunks and the gloomy priest orders three hearths made for Hecate and as many for the virgin daughters of accursed Acheron. For you, ruler of Avernus, rises into the air a piny mound, though dug into the soil. Next to that is reared an altar of lesser pile to Ceres of the depth. In front and on every side lamented cypress twines. And now the cattle collapse into the strokes, their tall heads marked with steel and pure scattering of meal. Then maiden Manto makes first libation of blood received in bowls and moving thrice around all the pyres after the fashion of her venerable parent offers half-dead fibres and entrails still alive, nor delays to put consuming torches to the black leafage. When Tiresias himself perceived the branches crackling in the flames and the sad piles roaring (for fierce heat pants before his face and fiery vapour fills his hollow orbs), he exclaims (the pyres shuddered, his voice terrified the flame).

Lactantius on 443–444 ‘Here the aged seer (for well suited is the ground for Stygian rites, the soil fat with living gore is to his liking)’: He states the reason why Tiresias sacrifices there, namely because the place is now bloody with the blood of the earthborn, since those below (inferi) delight in blood.

451 ‘earth hollowed in nine places’: for nine trenches made, in which he sets a line (ductus) of water, which is necessary for the rites (sacris).

456 ‘three … for Hecate’: because she is of threefold shape (triformis), or because she is believed to be the same as the Mother of Gods (Deum Mater) and Proserpina or Earth (Terra) or Vesta; so Ovid (writes) about a similar sacrifice:

“Three altars to three Gods he made of turf.
     To thee, victorious Virgin, did he build
an altar on the right, to Mercury
     an altar on the left, and unto Jove
an altar in the midst. He sacrificed
     a heifer to Minerva, and a calf
to Mercury, the Wingfoot, and a bull
     to thee, O greatest of the Deities.” [Metamorphoses IV.752–755; transl. Brookes More]

456 ‘virgin daughters’: the Furies.

456 ‘daughters of accursed Acheron’: born from Acheron, since they are said to be born from Night as their mother and Acheron as their father.

459–460 ‘an altar of lesser pile to Ceres of the depth’: there are three places in sacrifices for the gods, by which we make piation (propitiatory [?] offering): we sacrifice by a little trench made for those below (inferis), atop the earth to terrestrial (gods), to the celestials with raised up hearths. “Altars” are called from this, since we stretch out our hands up above (in altum) when we sacrifice at (these latter).

462 ‘pure scattering of meal (frugum libamine)’: unsullied, unpolluted. But it means salted produce.

463 ‘the cattle collapse into the strokes’: the usage of priests (sacerdotum) is like this, that they either strike the victims themselves – they are also called agones – or someone else thrusts a knife into the victims – they are called victimatores. For this reason he said that the cattle fell into the strokes. […]

464 ‘makes first libation (praelibat) of blood’: first is immolation (i.e. the killing of the victim), then the libation of blood, third the offering, fourth the taking of omens (from the exta, ‘entrails’).

468–470 ‘When Tiresias himself perceived the branches crackling in the flames and the sad piles roaring’: ‘sad piles’, sacrifices, that he may predict the future. But the art of haruspicy (i.e. of taking omens from the victims) also consists of this, to consider the movement and the crackling of the incense and the movement and inclination of the fume, because these signs first show the promises of the exta, if they are good, or, if contrary, they “oppose”, as a book 'About signs of incense' attests, which is ascribed to Tiresias himself.

468 ‘perceived’: because the priest (sacerdos) had no eyes.

Statius IV. 472–487: “‘Dwellings of Tartarus, and dread realm of insatiable Death, and you, cruelest of the brothers, to whom are given the ghosts (manes) to serve you and the eternal punishments of the guilty, you whom the palace of the lowest world obeys, open to my knocking the silent places and the void of stern Persephone. Draw out the multitude laid by in hollow night and let the ferryman retrace Styx with a full boat. All step out together; but let the ghosts (manibus) have more ways than one of returning to the light. Daughter of Perses, separate the pious dwellers in Elysium from the concourse and let the misty Arcadian bring them with his potent rod; whereas for those who died in crime, in Erebus a majority and mostly of Cadmus’ blood, do you, Tisiphone, lead the way: open up the day, shaking out your snakes three times and marching before them with blazing yew; nor let Cerberus block with his heads and turn aside the shades that crave the light.’

Lactantius on 480f ‘All step out together; but let the ghosts (manibus) have more ways than one of returning to the light’: the harmful, he says, come from Tartarus, the pious from Elysium.

481–483 ‘Daughter of Perses, separate the pious dwellers in Elysium from the concourse and let the misty Arcadian bring them with his potent rod’: He commands Mercury and Libera [= Persephone/Hecate] to call forth the souls of the pious. Now, the reason why Hecate is ‘daughter of Perseus’ is that some consider her not to be Jupiter’s daughter but Perses’, and Hesiod follows this opinion in the books he wrote on the Theogony. Corvilius writes that there are three Mercuries. One, the son of Jupiter and Maia, another of Caelus and the Day (Diei), the third of Liber and Proserpine, the fourth of Jupiter and Cyllene: he was the one who killed Argus. The Greeks say that he was an exile for this reason, but that he taught the Egyptians their letters. Accordingly, they say that Mercury the son of Liber and Proserpine calls forth the souls. […]

484–486 ‘yew’: because the Furies are said to have torches made of this poisonous tree.

483–486 ‘Daughter of Perses … Arcadian … Tisiphone’: […] the sense is this: may Hecate and Mercury lead the pious souls, but Tisiphone the harmful ones.

Statius IV. 488–490; 500–530: “He spoke. The old man and Phoebus’ maiden were all attention. They had no fear, for the god was in their breasts. […] Then Tiresias, since the ghosts were not yet approaching: ‘I call you to witness, goddesses, for whom we have drenched this fire and with left hand given our cups to the torn earth, I can brook no further delay. Am I, the priest, heard for nothing? If a Thessalian witch’s rabid chant were to command you, will you come? Or when a Colchian drugged with Scythian poisons drives, shall Tartarus turn pale and start in fright? And do you care less for me? If I have no mind to raise bodies from tombs or empty urns filled with ancient bones or profane the gods of Erebus and heaven commingled or pursue bloodless faces with the knife and pluck the sick entrails of the dead, do not, I warn you, do not contemn my thinning years and the cloud upon my darkened brow. I too have means to be cruel. For I know whatever you fear spoken or known. I can harry Hecate, did I not respect you, Lord of Thymbra, him too, highest of the triple world, whom to know is blasphemy. Him—but I hold my peace: tranquil eld forbids. And now I—.’ Eagerly Phoebus’ Manto puts in her word: ‘You are heard, father; the bloodless multitude approaches. The Elysian void is revealed, the capacious darkness of hidden earth bursts asunder, woods and black rivers come to view: Acheron ejects livid sands, smoking Phlegethon rolls dark fires in his waters and interflowing Styx bars separated ghosts (manibus). Himself I see, pale upon his throne and around him the Furies, servants of his deadly works, and the stern bower and grim couch of Stygian Juno. Black Death sits on the lookout and counts the silent peoples for her master; a greater series wait their turn. The Gortynian judge shakes them in his harsh urn, demanding truth with threats, forces them to set forth their lives back to their beginning and confess at last the punishments they evaded. Why tell you of the monsters of Erebus, the Scyllas and idly raging Centaurs, the Giants’ chains twisted in solid adamant, and the cramped shade of hundredfold Aegaeon?’

Lactantius on 502 ‘with left hand given our cups to the torn earth’: […] we sacrifice libations to those below with the left hand.

511 ‘pursue bloodless faces with the knife and pluck the sick entrails of the dead’: the immolation of a human being, for the sake of necromancy (divination from corpses/ghosts). Those below (inferi) delight in these things.

515 ‘I can harry Hecate, did I not respect you, Lord of Thymbra’: appropriately—although he would perform magica, he honored Apollo, and on account of his reverence for him, he says that he does not want to abuse his sister through dread of the invocation of a god. Hecate is also said to be Diana.

516f 'highest of the triple world, whom to know is blasphemy. Him—but I hold my peace': [see a previous post, Lactantius Placidus on the Demiurge and Magic]

524 ‘interflowing Styx bars separated ghosts’: by its flow, it separates the manes from those above (superis). […] and for this reason he named her ‘interflowing’.

527 ‘grim couch of Stygian Juno’: Pythagoras says that there are two hemispheres, to which he assigns their own gods, and he makes the king of the upper one Jupiter, and its queen, Juno, and (says) that the (king of) the lower one, Dis, is an infernal Jupiter, but Proserpine an infernal Juno. And (that there are) two Venuses: one supernal and another, (Venus) Libitina (a goddess of corpses). He also organized the other gods by twos: as Dis is a Jupiter, so Hecate is this Stygian Juno. […]

Hunting Lore #6: Oppian of Apamea's Cynegetica

To thee, blessed one, I sing: thou glorious bulwark of the earth, lovely light of the warlike sons of Aeneas, sweet scion of Ausonian [=Italian] Zeus*, Antoninus**, whom Domna bare to Severus, mighty mother to mighty sire. Happy the husband whom she wedded and happy the son to whom she gave birth — bride of the best of men and mother of a noble son, Assyrian Cythereia [=Aphrodite], the uneclipsed Moon***; a son no meaner than the breed of Cronian Zeus (with favour of Titan Phaethon [=the Sun] be it spoken and of Phoebus Apollo!); to whom thy sire, by the labour of his mighty hands, gave in keeping all the dry land and all the wet sea. Yea, for thee doth earth, giver of all gifts, conceive and blossom; for thee again the sunny sea rears her splendid broods; for thee flow all the streams from Ocean; for thee with cheerful smile springs up the glorious Dawn.

(*L. Septimius Severus Pertinax Augustus, ruled 193-211 CE)
(**M. Aurelius Severus Antoninus Augustus [Caracalla], ruled 211-217 CE)
(***The "identification" with a deity, often in a rather indeterminate manner, is typical already of Hellenistic ruler cults, and is carried over into the Roman period)

Fain then am I to sing the glorious devices of the chase. So biddeth me [the Muse] Calliope, so Artemis herself. I hearkened, as is meet, I hearkened to the heavenly voice, and I answered the goddess who first to me spake thus. 

ARTEMIS. Arise, let us tread a rugged path, which never yet hath any mortal trodden with his song.

OPPIAN. Be gracious, holy Lady, and whatsoever things though thinkest in thy mind, these will we declare with our mortal voice.

ART. I would not now have thee sing Mountain-Bacchus [=Dionysus] of the triennial feast, nor his choir by the deep waters of Aonian Asopus.

OPP. We will leave, as thou biddest, the nightly rites of Sabazius [=Dionysus]; often have I danced around Dionysus, son of Thyone.

ART. Tell not of the race of heroes, tell not of the seafaring Argo; sing not the battles of men, sing not to me the Destroyer of Men.

OPP. I will not tell of wars, nor of Ares' works most evil; I have remarked the Parthians' woes and Ctesiphon.

ART. Be silent about deadly passion and leave alone the girdles18 of love: I abhor what men call the toys of the Daughter of the Sea. 

OPP. We have heard, O blessed Lady, that thou art uninitiate in marriage. 

ART. Sing the battles of wild beasts and hunting men; sing of the breeds of hounds and the varied tribes of horses; the quick-witted counsels, the deeds of skilful tracking; tell me the hates of wild beasts, sing their friendships and their bridal chambers of tearless love upon the hills, and the births which among wild beasts need no midwifery. 

Such were the counsels of the daughter of mighty Zeus. I hear, I sing: may my song hit the mark! But do thou, who rulest from the East unto the Ocean, with serene joy on thine immortal brows, vouchsafe thy right hand gracious and prosperous to land and cities and to songs of the happy chase.

So begins the Greek poem on hunting by Oppian of Apamea - not to be confused with Oppian of Cilicia. The earlier work he refers to are sadly lost, but at least we can tell from the prologue that it was not a single-minded passion that led him to the present subject. An interest in hunting must have played some role, as well as the fact that it had not been often treated in poetry, but the similarities of book 1 of the Cynegetica to the Latin Cynegeticon of Grattius suggest that the genre had formed its conventions before Oppian ever came to it. Nemesianus, who had read Grattius, claimed the same kind of originality, however, so it almost seems that this was a feature of the genre? At any rate, the following three-way distinction was already a very old convention:

Triple sorts of hunting hath [the] God bestowed on men — in air and on earth and on the sea delightful.

This Oppian, unlike the Cilician, considers the middle kind most honorable:

But thou, Nereus, and ye gods of Amphitrite and the choir of Dryads who love the birds, grant me your grace! For now dear themes of song invite me earnestly; I, turning back, proceed to sing to the gods of the chase.

Like the the other authors we have met in this series, Oppian devotes some space to the question of the origin of his art:

Come now, daughter of Zeus, fair-ankled Phoebe, maid of the golden snood, twin birth with Apollo, declare, I pray thee, who among men and mighty heroes received at thy hands the glorious devices of the chase.

By the foot of windy Pholoe did savage tribes, half-beast half-men, human to the waist but from the waist horses, invent the chase for pastime after the banquet. Among men it was invented first by him who cut off the Gorgon's head, even Perseus, the son of golden Zeus; howbeit he soared on the swift wings of his feet to capture Hares and Jackals and the tribe of wild Goats and swift Gazelles and the breeds of Oryx and the high-headed dappled Deer themselves. Hunting on horseback did Castor, bringer of light, discover; and some beasts he slew by straight hurling of his javelin to the mark; others he pursued on swift horses and put them to bay in the noontide chase. Saw-toothed dogs were first arrayed for battle with wild beasts by Polydeuces of Lacedaemon, son of Zeus; for he both slew baleful men in the battle of the fists and overcame spotted wild beasts with swift hounds. Pre-eminent in close combat on the hills shone the son of Oeneus, warlike Meleager. Nets again and nooses and curving hayes did Hippolytus first reveal to hunting men. Winged death for wild beasts did Atalanta invent, the glorious daughter of Schoeneus, the maiden huntress of the Boar. And snaring by night, the guileful hunting of the dark, crafty Orion first discovered. These were the mighty leaders of the chase in former days. But afterward the keen passion seized many; for none who has once been smitten by the charms of the delightful hunt would ever willingly forsake it again: he is held by wondrous bonds. (from book 2)

And like the other Oppian, the Apamean has an address to Eros:

Amphibious too is the Subus [unidentified]; for he also walks upon the land; but when he travels to the deep and ploughs the swift waves, then a great company of fishes attends him and travels the sea along with him; and they lick his limbs and rejoice in their horned friend, the Subus of tender body. Above all the Braize and the feeble Melanurus and the Needle-fish and the Red Mullet and the Lobster are attendant upon him. A marvel is this, a marvel unspeakable, when alien desires and strange loves distress wild beasts. For it is not alone for one another that [the] God has given them the compelling ordinance of mutual love, nor only so far that their race should wax with everlasting life. That is, indeed, a marvel, that the brute tribes should be constrained by the bonds of desire and should know the passions of their own kind and, albeit without understanding should feel mutual desire for one another, even as for men thought and intelligence opens the eye and admits love to the heart; but the wild races are also highly stirred by the frenzy of alien desires. What a passion is that of lordly Stag for the Francolin! How great that of the Partridge for that long-horned Gazelle! How again does the Bustard of the shaggy ear rejoice in the swift Horse! The Parrot again and the Wolf herd together; for Wolves have ever a passion for the grass-hued bird! 

Mighty Love, how great art thou! how infinite thy might! how many things dost thou devise and ordain, how many, mighty spirit, are thy sports! The earth is steadfast: yet is it shaken by thy shafts. Unstable is the sea: yet thou dost make it fast. Thou comest unto the upper air and high Olympus is afraid before thee. All things fear thee, wide heaven above and all that is beneath the earth and the lamentable tribes of the dead, who, though they have drained with their lips the oblivious water of Lethe, still tremble before thee. By thy might thou dost pass afar, beyond what the shining sun doth ever behold: to thy fire even the light yields place for fear and the thunderbolts of Zeus likewise give place. Such fiery arrows, fierce spirit, hast thou — sharp, consuming, mind-destroying, maddening, whose melting breath knows no healing — wherewith thou dost stir even the very wild beasts to unmeet desires. 

[...] About the Subus, indeed, the whole wandering tribe of fishes and all follow with him when he ploughs the wild waves and throng on either side for joy and the sea foams round about, lashed by their white fins. But he, recking not of their strange friendship, all lawlessly devours and banquets on them with bloody jaws. And they, though seeing doom before their eyes, hate him not even so nor desert their slayer. Wretched Subus, worker of evil, for thine own self hereafter shall the hunters devise death by sea, crafty though thou art and slayer of fishes! (from book 2)

But the poem has its own style, quite different from the other works we have seen: the gods generally appear at some distance from the voice of the poet (in the opening, that distance is created by the artifice of the direct encounter, which reminds one more of Ovid's conversation with Cupid at the beginning of the Amores than of any serious theophany), or in rather brief mentions:

Tell also, I pray thee, O clear-voiced Muse of diverse tones, of those tribes of wild beasts which are of hybrid nature and mingled of two stocks, even the Pard of spotted back joined and united with the Camel [camelopard = giraffe]. O Father Zeus, how many things hast thou devised, how many forms hast thou created for us, how many hast thou given to men, how many to the finny creatures of the sea! (from book 3)

Many are the modes of glorious and profitable hunting [...] Who could behold them all? Who could behold so much, being mortal? Only the Gods easily see all things. But I shall tell what I have seen with my own eyes when following in the woods the chase, splendid of boons, and whatever cunning mysteries of all manner of delightful craft I have learned from them whose business it is; fain as I am to sing of all these things to the son of Divine Severus. And do thou of thy grace, O lady goddess, queen of the chase, declare those things for quick royal ears, so that knowing before all the lore of thy works the king may slay wild beasts, blessed at once in hand and song.

Of wild beasts some are wise and cunning but small of body; others again are valiant in might but weak in the counsel of their breasts; others are both craven of heart and feeble of body, but swift of foot; to others again [the] God hath given all the gifts together — cunning counsel, valorous strength, and nimble knees. But they know each the splendid gifts of his own nature — where they are feeble and where they are deadly. (from book 4)

In another reminiscence of the Cilician:

Such constraining love of child and new-born babe hath [the] God instilled into the heart: not alone in men who devise all things by their wits but even in creeping things and fish and the ravenous wild beasts themselves and the high-ranging flocks of birds: so much is nature mightier than all beside. What care doth the Dolphin amind the waves take evermore of its children [...] (from book 3)

Then there are two set-pieces of anthropopoiia (personification), anthropomorphizing animal life:

A fierce and shameless frenzy stirs jealousy in all the [Wild Ass] males against their own young sons. For when the female is in the travail of Eileithyia [=goddess of birth], the male sits hard by and watches for his own offspring. And when the infant foal falls at the feet of his mother, [...] if he sees that it is a male, then, then the frenzied beast stirs his heart with deadly jealousy about the mother and he leaps forth, eager to rend with his jaws the privy parts of his child, lest afterward a new brood should grow up; while the mother, though but newly delivered and weak from the travail of birth, succours her poor child in the quarrel. 

As when in grievous war cruel warriors slay a child before the eyes of his mother and hale herself while she clings to her son yet writhing in his blood and wails with loud and lamentable cry and tears her tender cheek and is drenched below with the hot blood and warm milk of her breasts; even so the she Wild Ass is just as if she were piteously lamenting and sorrowfully wailing over her son. Thou wouldst say that all unhappy, bestriding her child, she was speaking honeyed words and uttering this prayer. "O husband, husband, wherefore is thy face hardened and thine eyes red that before were bright? It is not Medusa's brow who turned men to stone that thou beholdest near; not the venomous offspring of Dragoness implacable; not the lawless whelp of mountain-roaming Lioness. The child whom I, unhappy mother, bare, the child for whom we prayed to the gods, even thine own child, wilt thou with thine own jaws mutilate? Stay, dear, mar him not! Ah! why hast thou marred him? What a deed thou hast done! Thou  hast turned the child to nothingness and has made all his body blind. Wretched and unhappy I in my untimely motherhood, and altogether wretched thou, my child, in thy most sinful father. Wretched I, thrice miserable, who have travailed in vain, and wretched thou, marred not by the claws of Lions, but by the cruel lion jaws of thy sire." 

Thus one would say the unhappy mother speaks over her infant son, while the unheeding father with bloody jaws makes mirthless banquet of his child. O father Zeus, how fierce a heart hath Jealousy! Him hast thou made, O lord, mightier than nature to behold and hast given him the bitter force of fire, and in his right hand hast vouchsafed to him to wear a sword of adamant. He preserves not, when he comes, dear children to their loving parents, he knows nor comrade nor kin nor cousin, when he intervenes grievous and unspeakable. He also in former times arrayed against their own children heroes themselves and noble heroines — Theseus, son of Aegeus, and Athamas, son of Aeolus, and Attic Procne and Thracian Philomela and Colchian Medea and glorious Themisto. But notwithstanding, after the race of afflicted mortals, to wild beasts also he served up a banquet of Thyestes. (from book 3)

Here the gods are spoken by the writer's own persona, but in the voice of a tragedian, not of a didactic poet. In the other piece, the animal itself prays to the gods:

Notable is the care which the dam among these takes for her tender young and which the children take for their mother in her old age. And even as among men, when a parent is fettered in the grievous bonds of old age — heavy of foot, crooked of limb, feeble of hand, palsied of body, dim of eye — his children cherish and attend him with utmost heed, repaying the care of their laborious rearing: so do the young of the Goats care for their dear parents in their old age, when sorrowful bonds fetter their limbs. They cull with their mouths and proffer them dewy food and flowery, and for drink they bring them dark water which they draw from the river with their lips, while with their tongues they tend and cleanse all their body. Didst thou but take the mother alone in a snare, straightway thou mightst take young lambs with thy hands. 

For thou wouldst think that she was driving away her children with her words, entreating them afar with such bleatings as these: "Flee, children dear, the cruel hunters, lest ye be slain and make me your poor mother a mother no more!" 

Such words thou wouldst think she spoke, while they, standing before her, first sing, thou wouldst imagine, a mournful dirge about their mother, and then, breaking forth in bleating, speak in human accents and as if they used the speech of men and like as if they prayed, utter from their lips such language as this: "In the name of Zeus we pray thee, in the name of the Archer Maid herself, release to us our dear mother, and accept a ransom, even all that we unhappy can offer for our poor mother — even our hapless selves. Bend thy cruel heart and have regard unto the law of Heaven and to the old age of a parent, if thou hast thyself an aged parent left in thy bright home." 

Such prayer might one fancy that they utter. But when they see that thy heart is altogether inexorable, — how great their regard, how great their love for their parents! — they come to bondage of their own accord and of their own motion pass the bourne. (from book 2)

More attractive - in my personal estimation, which is of course subjective - than these (as I think) overwrought tragic passages, are four myths about the origins of various animals, as the lion:

First of all to the Lion let us dedicate the glorious lay. The Curetes were the nurses of the infant Zeus, the mighty son of Cronus, what time Rhea concealed his birth and carried away the newly-born child from Cronus, his sire implacable, and placed him in the vales of Crete. And when the son of Uranus beheld the lusty young child he transformed the first glorious guardians of Zeus and in vengeance made the Curetes wild beasts. And since by the devising of the god Cronus they exchanged their human shape and put upon them the form of Lions, thenceforth by the boon of Zeus they greatly lord it over the wild beasts which dwell upon the hills, and under the yoke they draw the terrible swift car of Rhea who lightens the pangs of birth. (from book 3)

And the mole:

Neither of a truth will minstrels sing the earth-born tribes of the Moles, eaters of grass and blind, albeit a rumour not to be believed has spread among men that the Moles boast themselves sprung from the blood of a king, even of Phineus, whom a famous Thracian hill nurtured. Against Phineus once on a time was the Titan Phaethon angered, wroth for the victory of prophet Phoebus, and robbed him of his sight and sent the shameless tribes of the Harpies, a winged race to dwell with him to his sorrow. But when the two glorious sons of Boreas, even Zetes and Calais, voyaged on the ship Argo in quest of the golden prize, assisting Jason, then did they take compassion on the old man and slew that tribe and gave his poor lips sweet food. But not even so did Phaethon lull his wrath to rest, but speedily turned him into the race of Moles which were before not; wherefore even now the race remains blind and gluttonous of food. (from book 2)

Leopards, whose origin story could be an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses, far longer than the usual allusions:

Very swift it is in running and valiant in a straight charge. Seeing it thou wouldst say that it sped through the air. Notwithstanding minstrels celebrate this race of beasts as having been aforetime the nurses of Bacchus, giver of the grape; wherefore even now they greatly exult in wine and receive in their mouths the great gift of Dionysus. What matter it was that changed glorious women from the race of mortals into this wild race of Leopards I shall hereafter sing. (from book 3)

Leopards are overcome also by the gifts of Dionysus, when crafty hunters pour for them the crafty draught, shunning not the anger of holy Dionysus. Leopards are now a race of wild beasts, but aforetime they were not fierce wild beasts but bright-eyed women, wine-drinking, carriers of the vine branch, celebrators of the triennial festival, flower-crowned, nurses of frenzied Bacchus who rouses the dance. For Ino, scion of Agenor, reared the infant Bacchus and first gave her breast to the son of Zeus, and Autonoe likewise and Agave joined in nursing him, but not in the baleful halls of Athamas, but on the mountain which at that time men called by the name of the Thigh (Mêros). For greatly fearing the mighty spouse of Zeus [=Hera] and dreading the tyrant Pentheus, son of Echion, they laid the holy child in a coffer of pine and covered it with fawn-skins and wreathed it with clusters of the vine, in a grotto where round the child they danced the mystic dance and beat drums and clashed cymbals in their hands, to veil the cries of the infant. It was around that hidden ark that they first showed forth their mysteries, and with them the Aonian women secretly took paint rites. 

And they arrayed a gathering of their faithful companions to journey from that mountain out of the Boeotian land. For now, now was it fated that a land, which before was wild, should cultivate the vine at the instance of Dionysus who delivers from sorrow. Then the holy choir took up secret coffer and wreathed it and set it on the back of an ass. And they came unto the shores of the Euripus, where they found a seafaring old man with his sons, and all together they besought the fishermen that they might cross the water in their boats. Then the old man had compassion on them and received on board the holy women. And lo! on the benches of his boat flowered the lush bindweed and blooming vine and ivy wreathed the stern. Now would the fishermen, cowering in god-sent terror, have dived into the sea, but ere that the boat came to land. 

And to Euboea the women came, carrying the god, and to the abode of Aristaeus, who dwelt in a cave on the top of a mountain at Caryae and who instructed the life of country-dwelling men in countless things; he was the first to establish a flock of sheep; he first pressed the fruit of the oily wild olive, first curdled milk with rennet, and brought the gentle bees from the oak and shut them up in hives. He at that time received the infant Dionysus from coffer of Ino and reared him in his cave and nursed him with the help of the Dryads and the Nymphs that have the bees in their keeping and the maidens of Euboea and the Aonian women. And, when Dionysus was now come to boyhood, he played with the other children; he would cut a fennel stalk and smite the hard rocks, and from their wounds they poured for the god sweet liquor. Otherwhiles he rent rams, skins and all, and clove them piecemeal and cast the dead bodies on the ground; and again with his hands he neatly put the limbs together, and immediately they were alive and browsed on the green pasture. And now he was attended by holy companies, and over all the earth were spread the gifts of Dionysus, son of Thyone, and everywhere he went about showing his excellence to men. 

Late and at last he set foot in Thebes, and all the daughters of Cadmus am to meet the son of fire. But rash Pentheus bound the hands of Dionysus that should not be bound and threatened with his own murderous hands to rend the god. He had not regard unto the white hair of Tyrian Cadmus nor to Agave grovelling at his feet, but called to his ill-fated companions to hale away the god — to hale him away and shut him up — and he drave away the choir of women. Now the guards of Pentheus thought to carry away Bromius in bonds of iron, and so thought the other Cadmeans; but the bonds touched not the god. And the heart of the women worshippers was chilled, and they cast on the ground all the garlands for and the holy emblems of their hands, and the cheeks of all the worshippers of Bromius flowed with tears. 

And straightway they cried: "Io! blessed one, O Dionysus, kindle thou the flaming lightning of thy faith and shake the earth and give us speedy vengeance on the evil tyrant. And, O son of fire, make Pentheus a bull upon the hills, make Pentheus of evil name a bull and make us ravenous wild beasts, armed with deadly claws, that, O Dionysus, we may rend him in our mouths." So spake they praying and the lord of Nysa speedily hearkened to their prayer. Pentheus he made a bull of deadly eye and arched his neck and made the horns spring from his forehead. But to the women he gave the grey eyes of a wild beast and armed their jaws and on their backs put a spotted hide like that of fawns and made them a savage race. And, by the devising of the god having changed their fair flesh, in the form of Leopards they rent Pentheus among the rocks. Such things let us sing, such things let us believe in our hearts! But as for the deeds of the women in the glens of Cithaeron, or the tales told of those wicked mothers, alien to Dionysus, these are the impious falsehoods of minstrels.

In this fashion does some hunter with his comrades devise a snare for the Leopards which love neat wine. They choose a spring in the thirsty land of Libya, a spring which, though small, gives forth in a very waterless place abundant dark water, mysterious and unexpected; nor does it flow onward with murmuring stream, but bubbles marvellously and remains stationary and sinks in the sands. Thereof the race of fierce Leopards come at dawn to drink. And straightway at nightfall the hunters set forth and carry with them twenty jars of sweet wine, which someone whose business is keeping of a vineyard had pressed eleven years before, and they mix the sweet liquor with the water and leave the purple spring and bivouac not far away, making shift to cover are valiant bodies with goat skins or merely with the nets, since they can find no shelter either of rock or leafy tree; for all the land stretches sandy and treeless. The Leopards, smitten by flaming sun, feel the call both of thirst and of the odour which they love, and they approach the Bromian spring and with widely gaping mouth lap up the wine. First they all leap about one another like dancers; then their limbs become heavy, and they gently nod their heads downwards to the goodly earth; then deep slumber overcomes them all and casts them here and there upon the ground. As when at a banquet youths of an age, still boys, with the down upon their cheeks, sing sweetly and challenge each other after dinner with cup for cup; and it is late ere they give over, and the strength of the wine is heavy on head and eye and throws them over one upon the other; even so those wild beasts are heaped on one another and become, without mighty toil, the prey of the hunters. (from book 4)

The final myth is about Oppian's native Syria:

The Syrian Bulls, the breed of the Chersonese, pasture about high well-builded Pella; tawny, strong, great-hearted, broad of brow, dwellers of the field, powerful, valiant of horn, wild of spirit, loud-bellowing, fierce, jealous, abundant of beard, yet they are not weighed down with fat and flesh of body, nor again are they lean and weak; so tempered are the gifts they have from heaven — at once swift to run and strong to fight. These are they which report said Heracles, the mighty son of Zeus, when fulfilling his labours, drove of old from Erytheia, what time he fought with Geryoneus beside the Ocean and slew him amid the crags; since he was doomed to fulfil yet another labour, not for Hera nor at the behest of Eurystheus, but for his comrade Archippus, lord of holy Pella. 

For aforetime all the [Syrian] plain by the foot of Emblonus was flooded; since evermore in great volume rushed [the river] Orontes in his eagerness, forgetting the sea and burning with desire of the dark-eyed nymph, the daughter of Ocean. He lingered amid the heights and he covered the fertile earth, unwilling to forgo his hopeless love of Meliboea. With mountains on either side was he encircled round, mountains that on either hand leaned their heads together. From the East came the lofty form of Diocleium, and from the West the left horn of Emblonus, and in the midst himself raging in the plains, ever waxing and drawing nigh the walls, flooding with his waters that mainland at once and island, mine own city. 

Therefore was the son of Zeus destined straightway with club and mighty hands to apportion their water unto each, and to give separate course from the plain for the waters of the fair-tressed lake and the fair-flowing river. And he wrought his mighty labour, when he cut the girdle of the encircling hills and undid their stony bonds, and sent the river belching to its mouth, surging incontinent and wildly murmuring, and guided it toward the shores. And loudly roared the deep sea, and the mighty body of the Syrian shore echoed to the din. Not with such violent flood descend those contrary-travelling rivers on either side the echoing sea: here Ister, cleaving the white barriers of the North through Scythia, roars loudly everywhere, trailing amid precipices and water-smitten heights; while on the other hand the sounding sea trembles at the holy stream of Egypt when from Libya it breaks about it. So the mighty river Orontes made a noise of dread bellowing about the shores; and mightily roared the headlands when they received within their bosom the swell of the new-come sea; and the black and fertile earth took heart again, arisen from the waves, a new plain of Heracles. 

And to this day the fields flourish everywhere with corn and everywhere the works of oxen are heavy on the prosperous threshing-floors around the Memnonian shrine, where the Assyrian dwellers mourn for Memnon, the glorious son of the Morning, whom, when he came to help the sons of Priam, the doughty husband of Deidameia swiftly slew. Howbeit the spacious glories of our fatherland we shall sing in due order with sweet Pimplean song; now I turn back to sing of glorious hunting. (from book 2)

Like his earlier work, this promised poem is also lost. One wonders what native god is identified with the mythical Memnon here?

Neither mythical or religious, but still interesting, is the following bit of natural history:

The hide of both [hyenas and wolves] the minstrels celebrate as terrible. If thou wert to cut off a piece of hide of the Hyena and wear it on thy feet, thou wouldst wear a great terror of mighty Dogs, and Dogs bark not at thee wearing those shoes, even if they barked before. 

And if thou shouldst flay a Wolf and from his hide make a sounding tabor, like the tabor of Dindymus which destroys increase, it alone of all sounds its deep note and it alone makes a din, while all the tabors that had a goodly sound before are silent and hush their noise. Sheep even when dead shudder at a dead Wolf. (from book 3)

The following is an allusion to a famous fragment of Hesiod:

The Stag, moreover, lives a long time, and of a truth men say that he lives four lives of a crow. (from book 2)

The original, in Evelyn-White's translation, runs like this:

A chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four times a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs, daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.

I have little to say about Oppian of Apamea by way of conclusion - there are no obvious running themes in what I've collected here, no important argument that I feel should be made from them, and no really startling idea or piece of lore. Nevertheless, I think that this is good literature and that it repays careful reading.

(The translation I have used is that of A. W. Mair, as found at LacusCurtius.)

Hunting Lore #5: Oppian of Cilicia's Halieutica

The extant Greco-Roman literature on hunting not only features two Xenophons (the Xenophon and Arrian, "the second Xenophon"), but also two Oppians, long thought to be the same person: Oppian of Cilicia (in Asia Minor), who wrote a long poem on fishing, the Halieutica, in the second century CE; and Oppian of Apamea (in Syria), who wrote a Cynegetica in the early third century. They were long thought to be the same person - and it is possible that the Apamean's real name is lost, and that he was called Oppian only by mistake.

Corycus and Hermes (Book 3)

The elder Oppian, at any rate, first mentions his Cilician hometown Corycus in the opening of the third book (out of five in total) of the Halieutica:

Come now, O Wielder of the Sceptre [=emperor], mark thou the cunning devices of the fisher's art and his adventures in the hunting of his prey, and learn the law of the sea and take delight in my lay. For under thy sceptre rolls the sea and the tribes of the haunts of Poseidon, and for thee are all deeds done among men. For thee the gods have raised me up to be thy joy and thy minstrel among the Cilicians beside the shrine of Hermes. And, O Hermes, god of my fathers, most excellent of the children of the Aegis-bearer, subtlest mind among the deathless gods, do thou enlighten and guide and lead, directing me to the goal of my song. The counsels of fishermen excellent in wit thou didst thyself, O Lord, first devise and didst reveal the sum of all manner of hunting, weaving doom for fishes. 

And thou didst deliver the art of the deep for keeping to Pan of Corycus, thy son, who, they say, was the saviour  of Zeus — the saviour of Zeus but the slayer of Typhon. For he tricked terrible Typhon with promise of a banquet of fish and beguiled him to issue forth from his spacious pit and come to the shore of the sea, where the swift lightning and the rushing fiery thunderbolts laid him low; and, blazing in the rain of fire, he beat his hundred heads upon the rocks whereon he was carded all about like wool. And even now the yellow banks by the sea are red with the blood of the Typhonian battle. 

O Hermes, glorious in counsel, thee especially do fishermen worship. Therefore invoking thee with the gods who aid their hunt I pursue the glorious song of their chase. 

First of all the fisher should have body and limbs both swift and strong, neither over fat nor lacking in flesh. [...] he must be fond of labour and must love the sea. So shall he be successful in his fishing and dear to Hermes.

What Cilician shrine of Hermes is meant, and why Pan is called "of Corycus", becomes clear somewhat later on:

Hear first the cunning mode of taking the Anthias [fish] which is practised by the inhabitants of our glorious fatherland above the promontory of Sarpedon, those who dwell in the city of Hermes, the town of Corycus, famous for ships, and in sea-girt Eleusa.

The scholia say that Oppian was from Anazarba, and there was a temple of Hermes there as well; but while it is possible that he had a connection to both towns, only that to Corycus is entirely certain.

Now, from what Oppian says here in book 3, you might think that, out of a sense of patriotism and personal piety, he has put the art of fishing entirely in the domain of Hermes, and that this would hold throughout the poem. But the Halieutica can serve as a good example of polytheistic devotion: even when the gods are invoked as rulers of the same domains, they remain distinct, and one does not eclipse the others.

Invocations of other gods

Thus early in the first book, Poseidon, the Sea itself, and the maritime gods are addressed, the obvious patrons for such a topic, along with the Muse:

But be thou gracious unto me, thou who art king in the tract of the sea, wide-ruling son of Cronus, Girdler of the earth [=Poseidon], and be gracious thyself, O Sea, and ye gods who in the sounding sea have your abode; and grant me to tell of your herds and sea-bred tribes; and do thou, O lady Goddess, direct all and make these gifts of thy song well pleasing to our sovereign lord [=the emperor] and to his son.

An interesting example of how divine praise works contextually, here Oppian praises the Sea by "demoting" the Earth from mother of all to mother of many:

[S]ince the sea is infinite and of unmeasured depth, many things are hidden, and of these dark things none that is mortal can tell; for small are the understanding and the strength of men. The briny sea feeds not, I ween, fewer herds nor lesser tribes than earth, mother of many. But whether the tale of offspring be debatable between them both, or whether one excels the other, the gods know certainly; but we must make our reckoning by human wits.

But in a later hymnic address to Zeus, she is "mother of all" again:

O Father Zeus, in thee and by thee are all things rooted, whether thou dwellest in the highest height of heaven or whether thou dwellest everywhere; for that is impossible for a mortal to declare. With what loving-kindness, although thou hast marked out and divided the bright sky and the air and the fluid water and earth, mother of all, and established them apart each from the other, yet hast thou bound them all one to another in a bond of amity that may not be broken and set them perforce under a common yoke not to be removed! For neither is the sky without air nor the air without water nor is the water sundered from the earth, but they inhere each in the other, and all travel one path and revolve in one cycle of change. Therefore also they pledge one another in the common race of the amphibians; [...]

Note how the praise of Zeus, although effusive - the poet refuses to decide between the Homeric god of the sky and the Stoic world god, and thus in effect acclaims Zeus as both -, serves to introduce the topic of amphibian animals; the "universalism" of this god serves a particular purpose, and he is neither more important to the economy of the poem than Poseidon, nor more central to the personal devotion of the poet than Hermes.

Beyond these examples from the first book, there is this invocation of Eros:

Other fishes doth tender love make for fishermen the spoil of their chase, and fatal mating they find and fatal their passion, hastening their own ruin through desire. [...]

O cruel Love, crafty of counsel, of all gods fairest to behold with the eyes, of all most grievous when thou dost vex the heart with unforeseen assault, entering the soul like a storm-wind and breathing the bitter menace of fire, with hurricane of anguish and untempered pain. The shedding of tears is for thee a sweet delight and to hear the deep-wrung groan; to inflame a burning redness in the heart and to blight and wither the bloom upon the cheek, to make the eyes hollow and to wrest all the mind to madness. Many thou dost even roll to doom, even those whom thou meetest in wild and wintry sort, fraught with frenzy; for in such festivals is thy delight. Whether then thou art the eldest-born among blessed gods and from unsmiling Chaos didst arise with fierce and flaming torch and didst first establish the ordinances of wedded love and order the rites of the marriage-bed; or whether Aphrodite of many counsels, queen of Paphos, bare thee a winged god on soaring pinions, be thou gracious and to us come gentle and with fair weather and in tempered measure; for none refuses the work of Love. Everywhere thou bearest sway and everywhere thou art desired at once and greatly feared; and happy is he who cherishes and guards in his breast a temperate Love. Nor doth the race of Heaven suffice thee nor the breed of men; thou rejectest not the wild beasts nor all the brood of the barren air; under the coverts of the nether deep dost thou descend and even among the finny tribes thou dost array thy darkling shafts; that naught may be left ignorant of thy compelling power, not even the fish that swims beneath the waters.

Again, there is a kind of universalism, but one that is clearly bounded by the peculiarity of the god in question; and none of these "universalized" gods, Hermes, Zeus, or Eros, displace the gods who are immediately responsible for certain areas of life, as Poseidon in this example from book 4:

The Hippurus, when they behold anything floating in the waves, all follow it, closely in a body, but especially when a ship is wrecked by the stormy winds, finding Poseidon terribly unkind, and the great waves break her up and carry hither and thither her scattered timbers, loosened by the rending assaults of the sea. Then the shoals of the Hippurus follow in the train of the drifting planks, and the fisherman who chances upon them wins easily great and unstinted spoil. But that may the Son of Cronos, the lord of the deep, avert from our sailors, and may their ships speed over the broad waves with gentle breezes, unhurt and unshaken, while they ply to and fro for cargo! And for the Hippurus men may contrive other devices and without the wreck of ships pursue their prey.

And in book 5, Oppian says that when divers

adventure to accomplish their mighty task, they make their vows to the blessed gods who rule the deep sea and pray that they ward from them all hurt from the monsters of the deep and that no harm may meet them in the sea.

Or take this imagined prayer of "one who has lingered more in landward haunts than among ships" again from book 5:

O Earth, dear mother, thou didst bear me and hast fed me with landward food, and in thy bosom let me die, when my destined day arrives! (Be the Sea and the works thereof gracious unto me and on the dry land let me worship Poseidon!) And may no tiny bark speed me among the grievous wavs nor let me scan the winds and the clouds in the air! Not enough is the so great terror of the waves, not enough for men the terror of distressful seafaring and the woe that they endure, ever riding with the storm-winds of evil noise, nor enough for them to perish by a watery doom: beyond all these they still await such banqueters as these, and find burial without a tomb, glutting the cavern of a wild beast's throat. I fear her who breeds such woes. Nay, O Sea, I greet thee — from the land, and — from afar — mayst thou be kind to me!

Of course this last passage is somewhat contrived, but the point still stands: cosmologically important gods are not therefore more important in all other sense, and any god is bounded in their relevance by their peculiar nature.

The emperors

So it is with the divine emperors, too - which makes it so misleading to call the imperial cult "a state religion", as many do. Because the emperors have their very particular profile as deities, they do not usurp the place of the other gods, even though they are addressed in hymnic tones several times, as at the very start of the first book:

The tribes of the sea and the far scattered ranks of all manner of fishes, the swimming brood of [sea goddess] Amphitrite, will I declare, O Antoninus, sovereign majesty of earth [...]

not bereft of pleasure art thou, if pleasure thou desirest, but sweet is the royal sport. A ship well-riveted, well-benched, light exceedingly, the young men drive with racing oars smiting the back of the sea; and at the stern the best man as steersman guides the ship, steady and true, to a wide space of gently heaving waves; and there feed infinite tribes of feasting fishes which thy servants ever tend, fattening them with abundant food, a ready choir of spoil for thee, O blessed one, and for thy glorious son, the flock of your capture. For straightway thou lettest from thy hand into the sea the well-woven line, and the fish quickly meets and seizes the hook of bronze and is speedily haled forth — not all unwilling — by our king; and thy heart is gladdened, O Lord of earth. For great delight it is for eye and mind to see the captive fish tossing and turning.

In book 4:

But do thou, I pray thee, mightiest of kings who have cities in their keeping, both thyself, O Antoninus1 and thy son of noble heart, graciously give ear and take pleasure in these delights of the sea wherewith the kindly Muses have furnished forth my mind and have crowned me with the gift divine of song and given me to mix a sweet draught for your ears and for your mind.

And again in book 5:

Next hear and mark, O lord of earth, that there is nothing impossible for men to do, either on mother earth or in the vasty gulf of the sea, but of a truth someone created men to be a race like unto the blessed gods, albeit he gave them inferior strength: whether it was the son of Iapetus, Prometheus of many devices, who made man in the likeness of the blessed ones, mingling earth with water, and anointed his heart with the anointing of the gods; or whether we are born of the blood divine that flowed from the Titans; for there is nothing more excellent than men, apart from the gods: only to the immortals shall we give place.

How many monster wild beasts of dauntless might doth man quench upon the mountains, how many tribes of birds that wheel in cloud and air doth he take captive, though he be of lowly stature! His valour prevents not the Lion from defeat, nor doth the windswift sweep of his wings save the Eagle. Even the Indian Beast, dark of hide and of tremendous weight, men make to bow to overwhelming force and under the yoke set him to do the patient hauling labour of the mule. And the huge Sea-monsters that are bred in the habitations of Poseidon are, I declare, no whit meaner than the ravaging children of the land, but both in strength and size the dauntless terrors of the sea excel. There is upon the mainland the breed of Tortoises which know no valour nor hurt: but the Tortoise of the sea no man shall confidently confront amid the waves. There are fierce Dogs upon the dry land: but not one could vie in shamelessness with the Dogs of the sea. [...] Such are the beasts which have their business in the sea. But notwithstanding even for them the dauntless race of men has devised grievous woe, and they perish at the hands of fishermen, when these set themselves to do battle with the Sea-monsters. The manner of hunting these with its heavy labour I will tell. And do ye hearken graciously, O kings, Olympian bulwarks of the earth.

Humans and the art of fishing

What we hear in this last passage resonates with what Oppian says elsewhere, e.g. when he first introduces the topic of his poem:

[I will tell] the crafty devices of the cunning fisher's art — even all that men have devised against the baffling fishes. Over the unknown sea they sail with daring heart and they have beheld the unseen deeps and by their arts have mapped out the measures of the sea, men more than human. 

That humans have mastered such great arts almost blurs the line between them and the gods:

Ah! whosoever first invented ships, the chariots of the sea, whether it was some god that devised them or whether some daring mortal first boasted to have crossed the wave, surely it was when he had seen that voyaging of a fish that he framed a like work in wood, spreading from the forestays those parts to catch the wind and those behind to control the ship.

But in a different context, the disinction is reasserted with force (book 2):

All these things, I ween, someone of the immortals hath showed to men. For what can mortals accomplish without the gods? Nay, not even so much as lift a foot from the ground or open the bright orbs of the eyes. The gods themselves rule and direct everything, being far, yet very near. And doom unshakable constrains men to obey, and there is no strength nor might whereby one may haughtily wrench with stubborn jaws and escape that doom, as a colt that spurns the bit. But evermore the gods who are above all turn the reins all ways even as they will, and he who is wise obeys before he is driven by the cruel lash unwillingly. 

The gods also have given to men cunning arts and have put in them all wisdom. Other god is namesake of other craft, even that whereof he hath got the honourable keeping. Deo hath the privilege of yoking oxen and ploughing the fields and reaping the fruitful harvest of wheat. Carpentry of wood and building of houses and weaving of cloth with the goodly wool of sheep — these hath Pallas taught to men. The gifts of Ares are swords and brazen tunics to array the limbs and helmets and spears and whatsoever things Enyo delights in. The gifts of the Muses and Apollo are songs. Hermes hath bestowed eloquence and doughty feats of strength. Hephaestus hath in his charge the sweaty toil of the hammer. 

These devices also of the sea and the business of fishing and the power to mark the multitude of fishes that travel in the water — these hath some god given to men; even he who also first filled the rent bowels of earth with the gathered rivers and poured forth the bitter sea and wreathed it as a garland, confining it about with crags and beaches; whether one should more fitly call him wide-ruling Poseidon or ancient Nereus or Phorcys, or other god that rules the sea. But may all the gods that keep Olympus, and they that dwell in the sea, or on the bounteous earth, or in the air, have a gracious heart toward thee, O blessed wielder of the sceptre, and toward thy glorious offspring and to all thy people and to our song.

As the arts, so also justice and the rule of the emperor are due to the gods (still book 2):

Among fishes neither justice is of any account nor is there any mercy nor love; for all the fish that swim are bitter foes to one another. The stronger ever devours the weaker; this against that swims fraught with doom and one for another furnishes food. [...]

The Grey Mullet, I hear, among all the fishes of the sea nurses the gentlest and most righteous mind. For only the kindly Grey Mullets harm neither one of their own kind nor any of another race. Nor do they touch with their lips fleshly food nor drink blood, but feed harmlessly, unstained of blood and doing no hurt, a holy race. Either upon the green seaweed they feed or on mere mud, and lick the bodies one of the other. Wherefore also among fishes they have honourable regard and none harms their young brood, as they do that of others, but refrain the violence of their ravenous teeth. Thus always and among all reverend Justice hath her privilege appointed and everywhere she wins her meed of honour. But all other fishes come fraught with destruction to one another [...]

Yet it is no marvel that Justice should dwell apart from the sea. For not long since that first of goddesses had no throne even among men, but noisy riots and raging ruin of destroying Wars and Strife, giver of pain, nurse of tearful wars, consumed the unhappy race of the creatures of a day. Nor different at all from wild beasts were many among men; but, more terrible than Lions, well-builded towers and halls and fragrant temples of the deathless gods they clothed with the blood of men and dark smoke of Hephaestus: until the Son of Cronus took pity on the afflicted race and bestowed upon you, the Sons of Aeneas, the earth for keeping. Yet even among the earlier kings of the Ausonians [=Italians] War still raged, arming Celts and proud Iberians and the great space of Libya  [=North Africa] and the lands of the Rhine and Ister [=Danube] and Euphrates. Wherefore need I mention those works of the spear? For now, O Justice, nurse of cities, I know thee to share the hearth and home of men, ever since they hold sway together, mounted on their mighty throne — the wondrous Sire [=the emperor] and his splendid scion: by whose rule a sweet haven is opened for me. Them, I pray, O Zeus and ye Sons of Heaven, the choir of Zeus, may ye keep and direct unfailingly through many tens of the revolving years, if there be any reward of piety, and to their sceptre bring the fulness of felicity.

Dolphins

But even beyond the example of the Grey Mullet, the contrast between the empire of humans on the earth and the maritime world is not absolute (book 1):

Ye gods, not alone then among men are children very dear, sweeter than light or life, but in birds also and in savage beasts and in carrion fishes there is inbred, mysterious and self-taught, a keen passion for their young, and for their children they are not unwilling but heartily eager to die and to endure all manner of woeful ill. 

Oppian is talking about seals and (especially) dolphins here:

Now all the viviparous denizens of the sea love and cherish their young but diviner than the Dolphin is nothing yet created; for indeed they were aforetime men and lived in cities along with mortals, but but by the devising of Dionysus they exchanged the land for the sea and put on the form of fishes; but even now the righteous spirit of men in them preserves human thought and human deeds. 

For when the twin offspring of their travail come into the light, straightway, soon as they are born they swim and gambol round their mother and enter within her teeth and linger in the maternal mouth; and she for her love suffers them and circles about her children gaily and exulting with exceeding joy. And she gives them her breasts, one to each, that they may suck the sweet milk; for god has given her milk and breasts of like nature to those of women. Thus for a season she nurses them; but, when they attain the strength of youth, straightway their mother leads them in their eagerness to the way of hunting and teaches them the art of catching fish; nor does she part from her children nor forsake them, until they have attained the fulness of their age in limb and strength, but always the parents attend them to keep watch and ward. 

What a marvel shalt thou contemplate in thy heart and what sweet delight, when on a voyage, watching when the wind is fair and the sea is calm, thou shalt see the beautiful herds of Dolphins, the desire of the sea; the young go before in a troop like youths unwed, even as if they were going through the changing circle of a mazy dance; behind and not aloof their children come the parents great and splendid, a guardian host, even as in spring the shepherds attend the tender lambs at pasture. As when from the works of the Muses children come trooping while behind there follow, to watch them and to be censors of modesty and heart and mind, men of older years: for age makes a man discreet; even so also the parent Dolphins attend their children, lest aught untoward encounter them.

Beyond the connection to Dionysus (through the myth of the Tyrrhenian pirates, multiple versions of which can be found at theoi.org), the dolphins are also beloved of Poseidon, the ruler of the sea:

The Dolphins both rejoice in the echoing shores and dwell in the deep seas, and there is no sea without Dolphins; for Poseidon loves them exceedingly, inasmuch as when he was seeking the dark-eyed daughter of Nereus [i.e. Amphitrite] who fled from his embraces, the Dolphin marked her hiding in the halls of Ocean and told Poseidon; and the god of the dark hair straightway carried off the maiden and overcame her against her will. Her he made his bride, queen of the sea, and for their tidings he commended his kindly attendants and bestowed on them exceeding honour for their portion.

In book 2, he comes back to dolphins:

This other excellent deed of the Dolphins have I heard and admire. When fell disease and fatal draws nigh to them, they fail not to know it but are aware of the end of life. Then they flee the sea and the wide waters of the deep and come aground on the shallow shores. And there they give up their breath and receive their doom upon the land; that so perchance some mortal man may take pity on the holy messenger of the Shaker of the Earth when he lies low, and cover him with mound of shingle, remembering his gentle friendship; or haply the seething sea herself may hide his body in the sands; nor any of the brood of the sea behold the corse of their lord, nor any foe do despite to his body even in death. Excellence and majesty attend them even when they perish, nor do they shame their glory even when they die.

And yet again in book 5, where Oppian declares the killing of dolphins equivalent to murder:

The hunting of Dolphins is immoral and that man can no more draw nigh the gods as a welcome sacrificer nor touch their altars with clean hands but pollutes those who share the same roof with him, whoso willingly devises destruction for Dolphins. For equally with human slaughter the gods abhor the deathly doom of the monarchs of the deep; for like thoughts with men have the attendants of the god of the booming sea: wherefore also they practise love of their offspring and are very friendly one to another.

And they cooperate with humans in fishing, too:

Behold now what manner of happy hunting the Dolphins kindly to men array against the fishes in the island of Euboea amid the Aegean waves. For when the fishers hasten to the toil of evening fishing, carrying to the fishes the menace of fire, even the swift gleam of the brazen lantern, the Dolphins attend them, speeding the slaughter of their common prey. Then the fishes in terror turn away and seek escape, but the Dolphins from the outer sea rush together upon them and frighten them and, when they would fain turn to the deep sea, they drive them forth towards the unfriendly land, leaping at them ever and again, even as dogs chasing the wild beast for the hunters and answering bark with bark. And when the fishes flee close to the land, the fishermen easily smite them with the well-pronged trident. And there is no way of escape for them, but they dance about in the sea, driven by the fire and by the Dolphins, the kings of the sea. But when the work of capture is happily accomplished, then the Dolphins draw near and ask the guerdon of their friendship, even their allotted portion of the spoil. And the fishers deny them not, but gladly give them a share of their successful fishing; for if a man sin against them in his arrogance, no more are the Dolphins his helpers in fishing.

Finally, he tells the story of a dolphin who fell in love with a human boy, and died of grief after the youth's death.

Conclusion

I have left out a few myths (which I will take up in a future post for this series), and ought to mention briefly the notion, mentioned in book 2, that a/the god/daemon has given the animals of the sea their abilities and the knowledge of how to use them. But apart from that, it remains only to cite the closing of the poem:

So much I know, O Wielder of the Sceptre [=emperor], nursling of the gods, of the works of the sea. But for thee may thy ships be steered from harm, sped by gentle winds and fair; and always for thee may the sea teem with fish; and may Poseidon, Lord of Safety, guard and keep unshaken the nether foundations which hold the roots of Earth.

(The translation I have used is that of A. W. Mair, as found at LacusCurtius.)