Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924098822574 CORNELL UNIVERSiTY LIBRARY 3 1924 098 822 574 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2004 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE THE GOLDEN BOUGH A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION THIRD EDITION PART IV ADONIS ATTIS OSIRIS MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • cJjfUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO ADONIS A T T I S OSIRIS STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ORIENTAL RELIGION J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1907 First Eiiiion^ 1503 Second Edition, 1907 PREFACE These studies are an expansion of the corresponding sections in my book The Golden Bough, and they will form part of the third edition of that work, on the preparation of which I have been engaged for some time. By far the greater portion of them is new, and they make by themselves a fairly complete and, I hope, intelligible whole. I shall be glad if criticisms passed on the essays in their present shape should enable me to correct and improve them when I come to incorporate them in my larger work. In studying afresh these three Oriental worships, akin to each other in character, I have paid more attention than formerly to the natural features of the countries in which they arose, because I am more than ever persuaded that religion, like all other institutions, has been profoundly influenced by physical environment, and cannot be under- stood without some appreciation of those aspects of external nature which stamp themselves indelibly on the thoughts, the habits, the whole life of a people. It is a matter of great regret to me that I have never visited the East, and so cannot describe from personal know- ledge the native lands of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. But I have sought to remedy the defect by comparing the descriptions of eye-witnesses, and painting from them what may be called composite pictures of some of the scenes on which I have been led to touch in the course of this volume. vi PREFACE I shall not have wholly failed if I have caught from my authorities and conveyed to my readers some notion, however dim, of the scenery, the atmosphere, the gorgeous colouring of the East. J. G. FRAZER. Trinity College, Cambridge, 22nd July 1906. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In this second edition some minor corrections have been made and some fresh matter added. Where my views appear to have been misunderstood, I have endeavoured to state them more clearly ; where they have been disputed, I have carefully reconsidered the evidence and given my reasons for adhering to my former opinions. Most of the additions thus made to the volume are comprised in a new chapter (" Sacred Men and Women "), a new section (" Influence of Mother-kin on Religion "), and three new appendices (" Moloch the King," " The Widowed Flamen," and " Some Customs of the Pelew Islanders "). Among the friends and correspondents who have kindly helped me with information and criticisms of various sorts I wish to thank particularly Mr. W. Crooke, Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, Mr. G. F. Hill of the British Museum, the Reverend J. Roscoe of the Church Missionary Society, and Mr. W. Wyse. Above all I owe much to my teacher the Reverend Professor R. H. Kennett, who, besides initiating me into the charms of the Hebrew language and giving me a clearer insight into the course of Hebrew history, has contributed several valuable suggestions to the book and enhanced the kindness by reading and criticising some of the proofs. J. G. FRAZER. Trinity College, Cambridge, iind September 1907. CONTENTS BOOK FIRST ADONIS .Pp. 1-2 16 Chapter I. — The Myth of Adonis . . Pp. 3-8 Changes of the seasons explained by the life and death of gods, p. 3 ; magical ceremonies to revive the divine energies, 4 sq. ; prevalence of these ceremonies in Western Asia and Egypt, 5 sq. ; Tammuz or Adonis in Babylon, 6 sq. ; Adonis in Greek mythology, 8 sq. Chapter II. — Adonis in Syria . . .Pp. 10-26 Adonis and Astarte worshipped at Byblus, the kingdom of Cinyras, 10 sq. ; divinity of Semitic kings, 12 sqq. ; kings named Adonis, It, sq. ; "sacred men," 14 ■fj'. ; divinity of Hebrew kings, 15 sqq. ; the Baal and Baalath the sources of fertility, 22 sq. ; personation of the Baahby the Icing, 23 ; Cinyras, king of Byblus, 23 ; Aphaca and the vale of the Adonis, 23 sqq. Chapter III. — Adonis in Cyprus . . Pp. 27-49 Phoenician colonies in Cyprus, 27 sq. ; kingdom of Paphos, 28 sq. ; sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphos, 29 sq. ; the Aphrodite of Paphos a Phoenician or aboriginal deity, 30 ; her conical image, 30 sq. ; sacred prostitution in the worship of the Paphian Aphrodite and of other Asiatic goddesses, 32 sqq. ; the Asiatic Mother Goddess a personification of all the reproductive energies of nature, 34 ; her worship reflects a period of sexual com- munism, 35 sq. ; the daughters of Cinyras, 36 sq. ; the Paphian dynasty of the Cinyrads, 37 sq. ; incest of Cinyras with his daughter Myrrha and birth of Adonis, 38 sq. ; suggested explanation of legends of royal incest, 39 sq. ; the Flamen Dialis and his Flaminica at Rome, 40 sqq. ; Cinyras beloved by Aphrodite, 42; Pygmalion and Aphrodite, 42; the Phoenician X CONTENTS kings of Cyprus and their sons the hereditary lovers of the goddess, 42 sqq. ; the father and mother of a god, 44 sg. ; Cinyras as a musician, 45 ; the uses of music in religion, 45 sgg. ; traditions as to the death of Cinyras, 48 sg. Chapter IV. — Sacred Men and Women . Pp. 50-83 § I. An Alternative Theory, pp. 50-54. — Theory of the secular origin of sacred prostitution in Western Asia, p. 50 ; it fails to account for the facts, 5 1 -f??. § 2. Sacred Women in India, pp. 54-57. — The dancing-girls of Southern India are at once prostitutes and wives of the god, 54 sqq. § 3. Sacred Men and Women in West Africa, pp. 57-62. — Among the Ewe peoples the sacred prostitutes are regarded as the wives of the god, 5 7 sqq. ; sacred men and women in West Africa supposed to be possessed by the deity, 60 sqq, § 4. Sacred Women in Western Asia, pp. 62-64. — Sacred prostitutes of Western Asia probably viewed as possessed by the deity and married to him, 62 sq. ; wives of the god in Babylon and Egypt, 63 sq. § 5. Sacred Men in Western Asia, pp. 64-70. — The sacred men (kedeshim) of Western Asia may have been regarded as possessed by the deity and repre- senting him, 64 sq. ; the prophets, 66 sqq. ; " holy men " in modern Syria, 68 sqq. § 6. Sons of God, pp. 70-73. — Belief that men and women may be the sons and daughters of a god, 70 sq. ; sons of the serpent-god, 71 sqq. § 7. Reincarnation of the Dead, pp. 73-81. — Belief that the dead come to life as serpents, 73 sqq. ; reincarnation of the dead in America, Africa, India, and Australia, 77 sqq. § 8. Sacred Stocks and Stones amo7ig the Semites, pp. 81-83. — Procreative virtue apparently ascribed to sacred stocks and stones among the Semites, %l sq. ; the excavations at Gezer, 82 sq. Chapter V. — The Burning of Melcarth. Pp. 84-90 Semitic custom of sacrificing a member of the royal family, 84 ; the burning of Melcarth at Tyre, 84 sqq. ; the burning of Melcarth at Gades, 86 sq. ; the burning of a god or goddess at Carthage, 87 sq. ; the fire-walk at Tyre and at Castabala, 88 sq, ; burnt sacrifice of King Hamilcar, 89 sq. ; the death of Hercules a Greek version of the burning of Melcarth, 90. Chapter VI. — The Burning of Sandan . Pp. 91-138 § I. The Baal of Tarsus, pp. 91-93. — The Tyrian Melcarth in Cyprus, 91 ; the lion-slaying god, 91 sq. ; the Baal of Tarsus an Oriental god of corn and grapes, 92 sq. CONTENTS xi § 2. The God of Ibreez, pp. 93-97. — Counterpart of the Baal of Tarsus at Ibreez in Cappadocia, 93 sq. ; god of Ibreez a god of corn and grapes, 94 sq. ; fertility of Ibreez, 95 sq. ; the horned god, 96 sq. § 3. Sandan of Tarsus, pp. 97-100. — The god of Ibreez a Hittite deity, 97 sq. ; the burning of Sandan or Hercules at Tarsus, 98 sq. ; Sandan of Tarsus an Asiatic god with the symbols of the lion and double axe, 100. § 4. The Gods of Boghaz-Keui, pp. 100- no. — Boghaz-Keui the ancient capital of a Hittite kingdom in Cappadocia, 100 sq. ; the rock-sculptures in the sanctuary at Boghaz-Keui, the two processions, loi sq. ; the lion-god, 103 ; the god and his priest, 103 sq. ; the great Asiatic goddess and her consort, 105 sqq. ; the youth with the double axe on the lioness the divine son and lover of the goddess, 106 sq. ; the mystery of the lion-god, 107 sq. ; the Sacred Marriage of the god and goddess, 1 08 sq. § 5. Sandan and Baal at Tarsus, p. no. — Sandan at Tarsus apparently a son of Baal, as Hercules of Zeus, no. § 6. Priestly Kings of Olba, pp. 111-119. — Priests of Sandan or Hercules at Tarsus, in; kings of Cilicia related to Sandan, in; priestly kings of Olba bearing the names of Teucer and Ajax, n2 ; the Teucrids of Salamis in Cyprus, 112 sq. ; burnt sacrifices of human victims at Salamis, traces of similar custom elsewhere, 112, sq.; the priestly Teucers of Olba perhaps representatives of a native god Tark, 1153-^. ; Western or Rugged Cilicia, 116; the Cilician pirates, 116 sq. ; the gorges of Cilicia, liy sq.; the site and ruins of Olba, \iZsq. ; the temple of Olbian Zeus, 119. § 7. The God of the Corycian Cave, pp. 120-129. — Limestone caverns of Western Cilicia, 120 sq. ; the city of Corycus, 121 ; the Corycian cave, 121 sq. ; the priests of Corycian Zeus, 122 sq. ; the cave of the giant Typhon, 123 .fy. ; battle of Zeus and Typhon, 124 ; fossil bones of extinct animals a source of tales of giants, 124 j-^. ; chasm of Olbian Zeus at Kanytelideis, 125 -r?. ; the god of these chasms called Zeus by the Greeks, but probably a native god of fertility, 127 sq. ; analogy of these caverns to Ibreez and the vale of the Adonis, 128; the two gods of Olba perhaps a father and son, 128 sq. § 8. Cilician Goddesses, pp. 129-137. — Goddesses less prominent than gods in Cilician religion, 129 ; the goddess 'Atheh the partner of Baal at Tarsus, 12^ sq.; the lion-goddess and the bull-god, 130 sq.; the old goddess in later times the Fortune of the City, 131 Jj?. ; the Phoenician god El and his wife at Mallus, 132 sq.; Sarpedonian Artemis, 134; the goddess Perasia at Hieropolis-Castabala, 124- sqq. ; the fire- walk in the worship of Perasia, 135 ; insensibility to pain a mark of inspiration, 136 sq. § 9. The Burning of Cilician Gods, pp. 137 sq. — Interpretation of the fiery rites of Sandan and Perasia, 137 sq. CONTENTS Chapter VI I. — Sardanapalus and Hercules Pp. 139-154 § I. The Burning of Sardanapalus, pp. 139-141.— Tarsus said to have been founded by Sardanapalus, 139 J?. ; his legendary death in the fire, 140; historical foundation of the legend, 140 sq. § 2. The Burning of Croesus, pp. 141-146. — Improbability of the story that Cyrus intended to burn Croesus, 141 ^?. ; older and truer tradition that Croesus attempted to burn himself, 142 sq. ; death of Semiramis in the fire, 143 sq. ; "great burnings" for Jewish kings, 144 sqq. § 3. Piirification by Fire, pp. 146-148. — Death by fire a mode of apotheosis, 146 sq. ; fire supposed to purge away the mortal parts of men, leaving the immortal, 147 sq. § 4. The Divinity of Lydian Ki7igs,^^. 148-151. — Descent of Lydian kings from Hercules, the god of the double axe and the lion, 148 sq. ; Lydian kings held responsible for the weather and crops, 1 50 ; the lion-god of Lydia, 150 sq. ; identity of the Lydian and Cilician Hercules, 151. § 5. Hittite Gods at Tarsus and Sardes, pp. iSi-152.' — The Cilician and Lydian Hercules (Sandan or Sandon) apparently a Hittite deity, \<^\ sq. § 6. The Resurrection of Tylon, pp. 152-154. — Death and resurrection of the Lydian hero Tylon, 153 ; feast of the Golden Flower at Savdes, 153 sq. Chapter VIII. — Volcanic Religion . Pp. 155-181 § I. The Burning of a God, pp. 155-156. — The custom of burning a god perhaps intended to recruit his divine energies, 155 sq. § 2. The Volcanic Region of Cappadocia, pp. 156-158. — The custom of burning a god perhaps related to volcanic phenomena, 156 sq. ; the great extinct volcano Mount Argaeus in Cappadocia, 157 sq. § 3. Fire-Worship in Cappadocia, pp. 158-159. — Persian fire-worship in Cappa- docia, 158 ; worship of natural fires which burn perpetually, 158 sq. § 4. The Btcrnt Land of Lydia, pp. 160-161. — The Burnt Land of Lydia, 160 sq. ; its soil favourable to the cultivation of the vine, 161. § 5. The Earthquake God, pp. 161 -168. — Earthquakes in Asia Minor, 161 sq. ; worship of Poseidon, the earthquake god, 162 ; Spartan propitiation of Poseidon during an earthquake, 162 sq. ; East Indian and other modes of CONTENTS xiii stopping an earthquake, 164 sqq. ; religious and moral effects of earth- quakes, 167 ; the god of the sea and of the earthquake naturally con- ceived as the same, 168. § 6. Worship of Mephitic Vapours, pp. 169-172. — Poisonous mephitic vapours, 169; places of Pluto or Charon, 169; the valley of Amsanctus, 170; s.inctuaries of Charon or Pluto in Caria and Lydia or Phrygia, 1 70 sqq. § 7. Worship of Hot Springs, pp. 172- 181. — The hot springs and petrified cascades of Hierapolis, 172 sqq. ; Hercules the patron of hot springs, 174 sq. ; hot springs of Hercules at Thermopylae and Aedepsus, 175 sqq. ; reasons for the association of Hercules with hot springs, 178 sq. ; sacrifices to volcanoes, 179 sq. Chapter IX. — The Ritual of Adonis Pp. 182-193 Results of the preceding inquiry, 182 ; festivals of the death and resurrection of Adonis, 183 sq. ; date of the festival at Bybhis, 184; the anemone and the red rose the flowers of Adonis, 184 sq. ; festivals of Adonis at Athens and Antioch, 185 ; resemblance of these rites to Indian and European ceremonies, 1 85 sq. ; death and resurrection of Adonis a myth of the decay and revival of vegetation, 186 sqq. ; Tammuz or Adonis as a corn- spirit bruised and ground in a mill, i88 sq. ; the mourning for Adonis interpreted as a harvest rite, 189 sq. ; Adonis probably a spirit of wild fruits before he became a spirit of the cultivated corn, 190 sq. ; pro- pitiation of the corn-spirit perhaps fused with the worship of the dead, 191 sq. ; the festival of the dead a festival of flowers, 192 sq. Chapter X. — The Gardens of Adonis Pp. 194-216 Pots of corn, herbs, and flowers called the Gardens of Adonis, 194; these "gardens" charms to promote the growth of vegetation, 194 sq. ; the throwing of the "gardens" into water a rain-charm, 195; parallel customs of wetting the corn at harvest or sowing, 195 sqq. ; "gardens of Adonis" in India, 197 sqq. ; "gardens of Adonis" on St. John's Day in Sardinia and Sicily, 201 sqq. ; St. John perhaps a substitute for Adonis, 203 ; custom of bathing on the Eve or Day of St. John (Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day), 203 sqq. ; heathen origin of the custom, 206 sq. ; Midsummer festival of St. John formed perhaps by the union of Oriental and northern elements, 207 sq. ; midsummer fires and midsummer pairs, 208 sqq. ; divination by plants at midsummer, 210 sq. ; in Sicily "gardens of Adonis" sown in spring as well as at midsummer, 211 ; resemblance of Easter ceremonies to rites of Adonis, 212 sqq. ; worship of Adonis at Bethlehem and Antioch, 214 sq. ; the Star of Salvation, 215 sq. xiv CONTENTS BOOK SECOND ATTIS Pp. 217-265 Chapter I. — The Myth and Ritual of Attis Pp- 219-230 Attis the Phrygian counterpart of Adonis, 219 ; his relation to Cybele, 219 ; his miraculous birth, 219 j?. ; his death, 220 sq. ; Cybele and Attis at Rome, 221 sq. ; their spring festival, 222 sqq. ; the Day of Blood, 223 sq. ; eunuch priests in the service of Asiatic goddesses, 224 sq. ; the mourning for Attis, 226 sq. ; his resurrection, 227 sq. ; his mysteries, the sacrament and the baptism of blood, 228 sqq. ; diffusion of his religion from the Vatican, 230. Chapter II. — Attis as a God of Vegeta- tion ...... Pp. 231-234 Sanctity of the pine-tree in the vcorship of Attis, 231 sg. ; Attis as a corn-god, 232 sq. ; Cybele a goddess of fertility, 233 sq. Chapter III. — Attis as the Father God Pp. 235-238 Meaning of the name Attis, 235 ; relation of Attis to the Mother Goddess, 235 sq. ; Attis as a sky-god or Heavenly Father, 236 sqq. Chapter IV. — Human Representatives of Attis ...... Pp. 239-241 Personation of Attis by his high priest, 239 sq. ; name of Attis in the royal families of Phrygia and Lydia, 240 sq. Chapter V. — The Hanged God . . Pp. 242-249 Death of Marsyas on the tree, 242 sq. ; Marsyas apparently a double of Attis, 243; the hanging of Odin on the gallows-tree, 244; the hanging of Artemis, 244 sq. ; the hanging of sacrificial animals, 245 sq. ; skins of human victims used to effect the resurrection, 246 ; skins of men and horses set up at graves, 246 sq. ; skulls employed to ensure the fertility of the ground and of women, 248 sq. ; skin of the human representative of the god in Phrygia perhaps used for like purposes, 249. CONTENTS Chapter VI. — Oriental Religions in the West ...... Pp. 250-261 Popularity of the worship of Cybele and Attis in the Roman Empiie, 250 sq. ; effect of the spread of Oriental faiths on Greek and Roman civilisation, 251 sqq. ; popularity of the worship of Mithra, its rivalry with Chris- tianity, 253 sq. ; the festival of Christmas borrowed by the Church from the Mithraic religion, 254 sqq. ; the festival of Easter perhaps influenced by the festival of Attis, 256 sqq. ; compromise of Christianity with paganism, parallel with Buddhism, 260 sq. Chapter VII. — Hyacinth ... Pp. 262-265. Hyacinth interpreted as the vegetation which blooms and withers, 262 sq. ; tomb of Hyacinth at Amyclae, 263 sq. ; Hyacinth an aboriginal deity, 264 sq. ; his sister Polyboea perhaps originally his spouse, 265. BOOK THIRD OSIRIS . Pp. 267-400 Chapter I. — The Mytpi of Osiris . Pp. 269-277 Osiris the Egyptian counterpart of Adonis and Attis, 269 ; his myth, 269 sqq. ; Osiris a son of the earth-god and the sky-goddess, 269 sq. ; he introduces the cultivation of corn and vines, 270 sq. ; his violent death, 271 ; Isis searches for his body, and finds it at Byblus, 271 sqq. ; the members of Osiris treasured as relics in different places, 273 sq. ; Osiris as king and judge of the dead, 274 sq. ; his resurrection regarded by the Egyptians as a pledge of their own immortality, 275 sq, ; combat between Set and Horus, the brother and son of Osiris, for the crown of Egypt, 276 sq. Chapter II. — The Official Egyptian Calendar Pp- 278-282 The date of a festival sometimes a clue to the nature of the god, 278 ; the year of the Egyptian calendar a vague or movable one, 278 sq. ; divorce of the official calendar from the natural calendar of the seasons, 279 sq. ; attempt of Ptolemy III. to reform the calendar by intercalation, 280 sq. ; the fixed Alexandrian year instituted by the Romans, 281 sq. xvi CONTENTS Chapter III. — The Calendar of the Egyptian Farmer . . . Pp. 283-298 § I. The Rise and Fall of the Nile, pp. 283-285. — In Egypt the operations of husbandry dependent on the annual rise and fall of the Nile, 283 sq. ; irrigation, sowing, and harvest in Egypt, 284 sq. ; events of the agri- cultural year probably celebrated with religious rites, 285. § 2. Rites of Irrigation, pp. 285-291. — Mourning for Osiris at midsummer when the Nile begins to rise, 285 sq. ; Sirius regarded as the star of Isis, 286 sq. ; its rising in July the beginning of the sacred Egyptian year, 287 sq. ; ceremonies observed in Egypt at the cutting of the dams in August, 289 sqq. § 3. Rites of Sowing, pp. 291-295. — The sowing of the seed in November, 291 ; Plutarch on the mournful character of the rites of sowing, 291 sqq. ; his view that the worship of the fruits of the earth sprang from a verbal misunderstanding, 293 ; his theory an inversion of the truth, 293 sq. ; respect shown by savages for the fruits and animals which they eat, 294 sq. § 4. Rites of Harvest, pp. 296-298. — Lamentations of the Egyptian corn-reapers, 296 ; similar ceremonies observed by the Cherokee Indians in the culti- vation of the corn, 296 sqq. ; lamentations of Californian Indians at cutting sacred wood, 298 ; Arab ceremony of burying " the old man " at harvest, 298. Chapter IV. — The Official Festivals of USIRIS ...... Pp. 299-329 § I. The Festival at Sais, pp. 299-301.— The Egyptian festivals stationary in the solar year after the adoption of the Alexandrian calendar in 30 B.C., 299 sq. ; the sufferings of Osiris displayed as a mystery at Sais, 300 ; the illumination of the houses on that night suggestive of a Feast of All Souls, 300 sq. % 2, Feasts of All Souls, pp. 301-318.— Annual festivals of the dead among the natives of America, the East Indies, Eastern Asia, and Africa, 301-309 ; similar festivals of the dead in Europe, 309-315 ; the Feast of All Souls on 2nd November apparently an old Celtic festival of the dead, 315-317 ; similar origin suggested for the Feast of All Saints on 1st November, 317 sg- % 3. The Festival in the Month of Athyr, pp. 318-320.— Festival of the death and resurrection of Osiris in the month of Athyr, 318 sq. ; the finding of Osiris, 319 J-?. CONTENTS xvii § 4. The Festival in the Month of Choiak, pp. 320-322. — The great Osirian inscription at Dendera, 320 ; the death, dismemberment, and recon- stitution of Osiris represented at the festival of Choiak, 320 sqq. % 5. The Resurrection of Osiris, pp. 323-325. — The resurrection of Osiris represented on the monuments, 323 sq. ; corn-stuffed efBgies of Osiris buried with the dead to ensure their resurrection, 324 sq, § 6. Readjttstment of Egyptiaiz Festivals, pp. 325-329. — The festivals of Osiris in the months of Athyr and Choiak apparently the same in substance, 325 sq. ; the festival of Choiak perhaps transferred to Athyr when the Egyptians adopted the fixed Alexandrian year, 326 sq. ; at the same time the dates of all the official Egyptian festivals perhaps shifted by about a month in order to restore them to their natural places in the solar year, 327 sqq. Chapter V. — The Nature of Osiris . Pp. 330-345 § I. Osiris a Corn-God, pp. 330-339. — Osiris in the main a personification of the corn, 330 sq. ; the legend of his dismemberment perhaps a reminis- cence of a custom of dismembering human victims, especially kings, in the character of the corn-spirit, 331 sq. ; Roman and Greek traditions of the dismemberment of kings and others, 332 sq. ; modern Thracian custom, 333 sq. ; dismemberment of the Norse King Halfdan the Black, 334 sq. ; custom of dismembering a king and burying the pieces in different places, 335 ; fertilising virtue of genital member, 335 sq. ; precautions afterwards taken to preserve the bodies of kings from mutila- tion, 336 sq. ; Koniag custom of dismembering whalers, 338 ; red-haired Egyptian victims perhaps representatives of the corn-spirit, 338 sq, § 2. Osiris a Tree-Spirit, pp. 339-343. — Osiris as a tree-spirit, 339 sq. ; his image enclosed in a pine-tree, 340 ; the setting up of the dad pillar at the festival of Osiris, 34O sq. ; Osiris associated with the pine, the sycamore, the tamarisk, and the acacia, 341 sqq. ; his relation to fruit-trees, the vine, and ivy, 343. § 3. Osiris a God of Fertility, pp. 343-344. — Osiris perhaps conceived as a god of fertility in general, 343 ; coarse symbolism to express this idea, 343 •!■?• § 4. Osiris a. God of the Dead, pp. 344-345.— Osiris a god of the resurrection as well as of the com, 344 sq. ; great -popularity of his worship, 345. Chapter VI.— Isis .... Pp. 346-35° Multifarious attributes of Isis, 346 ; Isis compared and contrasted with the mother goddesses of Asia, 347 ; Isis perhaps originally a corn-goddess, 347 sq. ; refinement and spiritualisation of Isis in later times : the popu- larity of her worship in the Roman Empire, 348 sqq. CONTENTS Chapter VII. — Osiris and the Sun . Pp. 351-358 Osiris interpreted as the sun by many modern writers, 351 sq.; the later identification of Osiris with Ra, the sun-god, no evidence that Osiris was originally the sun, 352 sq. ; most Egyptian gods at some time identified with the sun, 353 sq. ; attempt of Amenophis IV. to abolish all gods except the sun-god, 354 sq. ; the death and resurrection of Osiris more naturally explained by the decay and growth of vegetation than by sunset and sunrise, 356-358. Chapter VIII. — Osiris and the Moon Pp. 359-368 Osiris sometimes interpreted by the ancients as the moon, 359 ; evidence of the association of Osiris with the moon, 359 sqq. ; identification of Osiris witli the moon apparently based on a comparatively late theory of the moon as the cause of growth and decay, 361 sq. ; practical rules founded on this theoiy, 362 sqq. ; the moon regarded as the source of moisture, 366 ; the moon naturally worshipped by agricultural peoples, 366 sq. ; later identification of the corn-god Osiris with the moon, 367 sq. Chapter IX. — The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy ..... Pp. 369-377 The doctrine of lunar sympathy, 369 sq. ; ceremonies at new moon often magical rather than religious, being intended not so much to propitiate the planet as to renew sympathetically the life of man, 370 sqq. ; the moon supposed to exercise special influence on children, 373 sqq. ; use of the moon to increase money or decrease sickness, 376 sq. Chapter X. — The King as Osiris . Pp. 378-382 Osiris personated by the King of Egypt, 378 ; the Sed festival intended to renew the king's life, 378 sqq. ; identification of the king with the dead Osiris at the festival, 380 sq. ; Professor Flinders Pete's explanation of the Sed festival, 381 sq. ■\ Chapter XI. — Mother- Kin and Mother Goddesses . . . . .Pp. 383-400 § I. Dying Gods and Mottming Goddesses, pp. 383-384. — Essential similarity of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, 383 ; superiority of the goddesses associated with Adonis, Attis, and Osiris a mark of the system of mother-kin, 383 sq. CONTENTS xix § 2. Influence of Mother- Kin on Religion, pp. 384-394. — Mother-kin and Tather- kin, 384 ; mother-kin and goddesses predominant among the Khasis, 384 sqq. ; mother-kin' and clan goddesses predominant among the Pelew Islanders, 386 sqq. ; in the Pelew Islands the importance of women based partly on mother-kin, partly on economic and religious grounds, 387 sqq. ; parallel between the Pelew Islands and the ancient East, 390 ; mother- kin not mother-rule, 390 sq. ; even with mother-kin the government in the hands of men, not of women, 391 sqq. ; gynaecocracy a dream but mother-kin a fact, 393 sq. ; influence of this fact on religion, 394. § 3. Mother-Kin and Mother Goddesses in the Ancient East, pp. 394-400. — Mother-kin in Western Asia, 394 sq. ; mother-kin in Egypt, 395 sq. ; Egyptian marriages of brothers and sisters based on the system of mother- kin, 395 sqq. ; the mythical marriage of Osiris with his sister Isis a reflec- tion of a real social custom, 398 ; conservatism of the Egyptians, 399 ; original type of Osiris better preserved than those of Adonis and Attis, 400. APPENDICES Pp. 401-438 I. Moloch the King . . Pp. 401-406 II. The Widowed Flamen . . Pp. 407-423 §1. The Pollution of Death . . . Pp. 407-410 § 2. The Marriage of the Roman Gods . Pp. 410-413 § 3. Children of Living Parents in Ritual . Pp. 413-423 III. A Charm to protect a Town . Pp. 424-427 IV. Some Customs of the Pelew Islanders Pp. 428-438 § I. Priests dressed as Women . . . Pp. 428-435 § 2. Prostitution of Unmarried Girls . Pp. 435-436 § 3. Custom of slaying Chiefs . . . Pp. 436-438 INDEX Pp- 439-452 BOOK FIRST ADONIS CHAPTER I THE MYTH OF ADONIS The spectacle of the great changes which annually pass The over the face of the earth has powerfully impressed the *e seasons minds of men in all ages, and stirred them to meditate explained on the causes of transformations so vast and wonderful. ^^^ ^fg^f^ Their curiosity has not been purely disinterested ; for even of gods, the savage cannot fail to perceive how intimately his own life is bound up with the life of nature, and how the same processes which freeze the stream and strip the earth of vegetation menace him with extinction. At a certain stage of development men seem to have imagined that the means of averting the threatened calamity were in their own hands, and that they could hasten or retard the flight of the seasons by magic art. Accordingly they performed ceremonies and recited spells to make the rain to fall, the sun to shine, animals to multiply, and the fruits of the earth to grow. In course of time the slow advance of knowledge, which has dispelled so many cherished illusions, convinced at least the more thoughtful portion of mankind that the alternations of summer and winter, of spring and autumn, were not merely the result of their own magical rites, but that some deeper cause, some mightier power, was at work behind the shifting scenes of nature. They now pictured to themselves the growth and decay of vegetation, the birth and death of living creatures, as effects of the waxing or waning strength of divine beings, of gods and goddesses, who were born and died, who married and begot children, on the pattern of human life. 3 4 THE MYTH OF ADONIS book i Magical Thus the old magical theory of the seasons was dis- tTrCTh-e^' placed, or rather supplemented, by a religious theory. For the failing although men now attributed the annual cycle of change thelods."*^ primarily to corresponding changes in their deities, they still thought that by performing certain magical rites they could aid the god, who was the principle of life, in his struggle with the opposing principle of death. They imagined that they could recruit his failing energies and even raise him from the dead. The ceremonies which they observed for this purpose were in substance a dramatic representation of the natural processes which they wished to facilitate ; for it is a familiar tenet of magic that you can produce any desired effect by merely imitating it. And as they now explained the fluctuations of growth and decay, of reproduction and dissolution, by the marriage, the death, and the rebirth or revival of the gods, their religious or rather magical dramas turned in great measure on these themes. They set forth the fruitful union of the powers of fertility, the sad death of one at least of the divine partners, and his joyful resurrection. Thus a religious theory was blended with a magical practice. The combination is familiar in history. Indeed, few religions have ever succeeded in wholly extricating themselves from the old trammels of magic. The inconsistency of acting on two opposite principles, however it may vex the soul of the philosopher, rarely troubles the common man ; indeed he is seldom even aware of it. His affair is to act, not to analyse the motives of his action. If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.^ 1 As in the present volume I am con- their own houses and families are en- cerned with the beliefs and practices of tirely strangers. We find astronomers Orientals I may quote the following who can predict eclipses, and yet who passage from one who has lived long believe that eclipses are caused by a in the East and knows it well : " The dragon swallowing the sun. We find Oriental mind is free from the trammels holy men who are credited with miracu- of logic. It is a literal fact that the lous powers and with close communion Oriental mind can accept and believe with the Deity, who live in drunkenness two opposite things at the same time. and immorality, and who are capable We find fully qualified and even learned of elaborate frauds on others. To the Indian doctors practising Greek medi- Oriental mind, a thingmustbeincredible cine, as well as English medicine, and to command a ready belief" ("Riots enforcing sanitary restrictions to which and Unrest in the Punjab, from a corre- CHAP. I THE MYTH OF ADONIS 5 Of the changes which the seasons bring with them, the The most striking within the temperate zone are those which ^""nJ^'ai affect vegetation. The influence of the seasons on animals, and of vege- though great, is not nearly so manifest. Hence it is 'o^fused natural that in the magical dramas designed to dispel in these winter and bring back spring the emphasis should be laid '^^^ on vegetation, and that trees and plants should figure in them more prominently than beasts and birds. Yet the two sides of life, the vegetable and the animal, were not dissociated in the minds of those who observed the ceremonies. Indeed they commonly believed that the tie between the animal and the vegetable world was even closer than it really is ; hence they often combined the dramatic representation of reviving plants with a real or a dramatic union of the sexes for the purpose of furthering at the same time and by the same act the multiplication of fruits, of animals, and of men. To them the principle of life and fertility, whether animal or vegetable, was one and indivisible. To live and to cause to live, to eat food and to beget children, these were the primary wants of men in the past, and they will be the primary wants of men in the future so long as the world lasts. Other things may be added to enrich and beautify human life, but unless these wants are first satisfied, humanity itself must cease to exist. These two things, therefore, food and children, were what men chiefly sought to procure by the performance of magical rites for the regulation of the seasons. Nowhere, apparently, have these rites been more widely Prevalence and solemnly celebrated than in the lands which border the ^^g^^^® Eastern Mediterranean. Under the names of Osiris, Tam- western muz, Adonis, and Attis, the peoples of Egypt and Western ^^p^"** Asia represented the yearly decay and revival of life, especially of vegetable life, which they personified as a god who annually died and rose again from the d^ad. In name and detail the rites varied from place to place : in substance they were the same. The supposed death and resurrec- tion of this oriental deity, a god of many names biit of spondent," The Times Weekly Edition, beliefs at the same time, we shall in May 24, 1907, p. 326). Unless we vain attempt to understand the history allow for this innate capacity of the of thought in general and of religion in human mind to entertain contradictory particular. 6 THE MYTH OF ADONIS book i essentially one nature, is the subject of the present inquiry. We begin with Tammuz or Adonis.^ Tammuz The worship of Adonis was practised by the Semitic fn B^b"'^ peoples of Babylonia and Syria, and the Greeks borrowed it Ionia. from them as early as the seventh century before Christ.^ The true name of the deity was Tammuz : the appellation of Adonis is merely the Semitic Adon, "lord," a title of honour by which his worshippers addressed him. In the Hebrew text of the Old Testament the same name Adonai, originally perhaps Adoni, "my lord," is often applied to Jehovah.^ But the Greeks through a misunderstanding con- verted the title of honour into a proper name. If scholars are right in deriving the name of Tammuz from a Sumerian phrase meaning " true son," or, more fully, " true son of the deep water,"* we must conclude that the Semites of Babylonia took over the worship from their predecessors the Sumerians, an ancient people apparently of the Turanian stock, who had occupied the country, tilled the soil, tended cattle, built cities, dug canals, and attained to a considerable pitch of civilisation before the Semitic hordes appeared on the banks of the Euphrates.'' Be that as it may, we first ^ The equivalence of Tammuz and On Adonis and his worship in general Adonis has been doubted or denied by see also ¥. C. Movers, Die Phoenizier, some scholars, as by Renan [Mission de i. 191 sqq. ; W. H. Engel, Kypros, ii. Phinicif, pp. 216, 235) and by Chwol- 536 sqq.; Ch. Vellay, Le mite ei les sohn [Die Ssabier und der Ssabisnuts^ fetes d^Adonis-Thajfwiojiz dans POj'ieni ii. 510). But the identification of them antique (Paxis, 1904). by Jerome [Epist. Iviii. 3, and Com- ^ The mourning for Adonis is men- ment. on Ezekiel, viii. 14, Migne's tioned by Sappho, who flourished about Patrologia Latina, xxii. 581, xxv. 600 B.C. See Th. Bergk's -Pce/ae ZjrjVj 82), Cyril of Alexandria [Comment. Graeci,^ m. 897; Pausanias, ix. 29. 8. on Hosea, iv. 15, Migne's Patrologia ^ Encyclopaedia Biblica, ed. T. K. Graeca, Ixxi. 136), and Melito (in Cheyne and J. S. Black, iii. 3327. W. Cureton's Spicilegium Syriacum, * Dumuzi, more fully Dumu-zi- p. 44), may be accepted as conclusive. abzu. See P. Jensen, Assyrisch- See W. W'. Graf Baudissin, Stitdien babylonische Mythen und Epen (Ber- zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. lin, 1900), p. 560 ; H. Zimmern, in 299; id., in Realeticyclopddie filr E. Schrader's Die Keilinschrifte7i utid protestantische T/itilogie und Kir- das Alte Testament'^ (Berlin, 1902), chengeschichte? s.v. "Tammuz''; W. p. 397. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- imd Feld- ^ C. P. Tiele, Geschichte der kulte, pp. 273 sqq. ; Ch. Vellay, Religion im Altertum, i. (Gotha, " Le dieu Thammuz," Revue de 1896), pp. 134 sqq.; L. W. King, VHistoire des Religions, xlix. (1904) Babylonian Religion and Mythology pp. 154-162. An Assyrian origin of (London, 1899), pp. i sqq.; H. the cult of Adonis was long ago VVinckler, in E. Schrader's op. cit. pp. affirmed by Macrobius [Sat. i. 21. i). \a sq., 349; Fr. Honimel, Grutidriss CHAP. I THE MYTH OF ADONIS 7 meet with Tammuz in the religious literature of Babylon. He there appears as the youthful spouse or lover of Ishtar, the great mother goddess, the embodiment of the repro- ductive energies of nature. The references to their con- nection with each other in myth and ritual are both fragmentary and obscure, but we gather from them that Descent of every year Tammuz was believed to die, passing away from the nether the cheerful earth to the gloomy subterranean world, and world to that every year his divine mistress journeyed in quest of tammuz. him " to the land from which there is no returning, to the house of darkness, where dust lies on door and bolt." During her absence the passion of love ceased to operate : men and beasts alike forgot to reproduce their kinds : all life was threatened with extinction. So intimately bound up with the goddess were the sexual functions of the whole animal kingdom that without her presence they could not be discharged. A messenger of the great god Ea was accordingly despatched to rescue the goddess on whom so much depended. The stern queen of the infernal regions, Allatu or Eresh-Kigal by name, reluctantly allowed Ishtar to be sprinkled with the Water of Life and to depart, in company probably with her lover Tammuz, that the two might return together to the upper world, and that with their return all nature might revive. Laments for the departed Tammuz are contained in several Babylonian hymns, which liken him to plants that quickly fade. His death appears to have been annually mourned, to the shrill music of flutes, by men and women about midsummer in the month named after him, the month of Tammuz. The dirges were seemingly chanted over an effigy of the dead god, which was washed with pure water, anointed with oil, and clad in a red robe, while the fumes of incense rose into the air, as if to stir his dormant senses by their pungent fragrance and wake him from the sleep of death.^ der Geographic tmd Geschichie des les Religions S^mitiques^ (VaLt'is, igo$), alien Orients, pp. 18 sqq. However, pp. 55 sq. Assyriologists are by no means agreed ' A. Jeremias, Die babylonisch-as- as to the occupation of Babylonia by syrischen Vorstellnngen vom Leben nach an alien race before the arrival of the dem Tode (Leipsic, 1887), pp. 4 sqq. ; Semites. See M. Jastrow, Religion of id., in W. H. Roscher's Lexicon der Babylonia and Assyria, pp.^ 21 sqq., griech. u. rom. Mythologie, ii. 808, 32 sqq. ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur iii. 258 sqq. ; M. Jastrow, The Religion THE MYTH OF ADONIS BOOK I Adonis in Greek mythology merely a reflection of the Oriental Tammuz. The tragical story and the melancholy rites of Adonis are better known to us from the descriptions of Greek writers than from the fragments of Babylonian literature or the brief reference of the prophet Ezekiel, who saw the women of Jerusalem weeping for Tammuz at the north gate of the temple/ Mirrored in the glass of Greek mythology, the oriental deity appears as a comely youth beloved by Aphrodite. In his infancy the goddess hid him in a chest, which she gave in charge to Proserpine, queen of the nether world. But when Proserpine opened the chest and beheld the beauty of the babe, she refused to give him back to Aphrodite. The dispute between the two goddesses of love and death was settled by Zeus, who decreed that Adonis should abide with Proserpine in the under world for one part of the year, and with Aphrodite in the upper world for another part. At last the fair youth was killed in hunt- ing by a wild boar, or by the jealous Ares, who turned himself into the likeness of a boar in order to compass the death of his rival. Bitterly did Aphrodite lament her loved and lost Adonis.^ In this form of the myth, the contest between Aphrodite and Proserpine for the possession ol Adonis clearly reflects the struggle between Ishtar and of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 565-576, 5S4, 682 sq. ; W. L. King, Babylonian Heligion and Mythology, pp. 178-183; P. Jensen, Assyrisch-babylonische My- then iind Epen, pp. 81 sgq., 95 sqq., 169; R, F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylottian LiteratU7-e (New York, 1901), pp. 316 sq., 338, 408 sqq. ; H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testa- ment,^ pp. 397 sqq., 561 sqq. Accord- ing to Jerome (on Ezekiel viii. 14) the month of Tammuz was June ; but according to modern scholars it corre- sponded rather to July, or to part of June and part of July. See F. C. Movers, Die Plwenizier, i. 210; F. Lenormant, " II mito di Adone- Tammuz nei documenti cuneiformi," Atti del IV. Congresso Intemazionale degli Orientalisti (Florence, 1880), i. 144 sq. ; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 275 ; En- cyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. "Months," iii. 3194. My friend W. Robertson Smith informed me that owing to the variations of the local Syrian calendars the month of Tammuz fell in different places at different times, from mid- summer to autumn, or from June to September. According to Prof. M. Jastrow, the festival of Tammuz was celebrated just before the summer solstice (op. cit. pp. 547, 682). He observes that "the calendar of the Jewish Church still marks the 17th day of Tammuz as a fast, and Houtsma has shown that the associa- tion of the day with the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, repre- sents merely the attempt to give an ancient festival a worthier interpreta- tion." ' Ezekiel viii. 14, 2 Apollodorus, iii. 14. 4 ; Bion, Idyl, i. ; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 831 ; Ovid, Metam. x. 503 sqq. CHAP. I THE MYTH OF ADONIS 9 Allatu in the land of the dead, while the decision of Zeus that Adonis is to spend one part of the year under ground and another part above ground is merely a Greek version of the annual disappearance and reappearance of Tammuz. CHAPTER II ADONIS IN SYRIA Worship The myth of Adonis was localised and his rites celebrated and^A^mrte ^ith much solemnity at two places in Western Asia. One at Bybius, of these was Byblus on the coast of Syria, the other was toifo/" Paphos in Cyprus. Both were great seats of the worship cinyias. of Aphrodite, or rather of her Semitic counterpart, Astarte ; ^ and of both, if we accept the legends, Cinyras, the father of Adonis, was king.^ Of the two cities Byblus was the more ancient ; indeed it claimed to be the oldest city in Phoenicia, and to have been founded in the early ages of the world by the great god El, whom Greeks and Romans identified with Cronus and Saturn respectively.' However that may have been, in historical times it ranked as a holy place, the religious capital of the country, the Mecca or Jerusalem of the Phoenicians.* The city stood on a height beside the sea,^ and contained a great sanctuary of Astarte," where in the midst of a spacious open court, surrounded by 1 The ancients were aware that the Caesar," in W. Cureton's Spicilegimn Syrian and Cyprian Aphrodite, the Syriacum (London, 1855)1 P- 44' mistress of Adonis, was no other than ^ Philo of Byblus, quoted by Euse- Astarte. See Cicero, De natura deo- bius, Praeparatio Evatigelii, i. 10 ; rum, iii. 23. 59 ; Joannes Lydus, De Fragme?ita Historicorum Graecoritm, mensibus, iv. 44. ed. C. Muller, iii. 568 ; Stephanus 2 As to Cinyras, see F. C. Movers, Byzantius, s.v. Bii^Xos. Byblus is a Die Phoenizier, i, 238 sqq., ii. 2. 226- Greek corruption of the Semitic Gebal 231 ; W. H. Engel, Kypros (Berlin, Cju), the name which the place still 1841), i. 168-173, "• 94-136; Stoll, retains. See E. Renan, Mission de in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon d. griech. Phinicie (Paris, 1864), p. 155. iL. rbtn. Mythologie, ii. 1 1 89 sqq. ** R. Pietschmann, Geschichte der Meliton calls the father of Adonis by Phoenizier (Berlin, 1889), p. 139. the name of Ciithar, and represents On the coins it is designated "Holy him as Icing of the Phoenicians with Byblus." his capital at Gebal (Byblus). See ^ Strabo, xvi. I. 18, p. 755. Meliton, " Oration to Antoninus ^ Lucian, De dea Syria, 6. BK. I. CH. II ADONIS IN SYRIA n cloisters and approached from below by staircases, rose a tall cone or obelisk, the holy image of the goddess.^ In this sanctuary the rites of Adonis were celebrated.^ Indeed the whole city was sacred to him,^ and the river Nahr Ibrahim, which falls into the sea a little to the south of Byblus, bore in antiquity the name of Adonis.* This was the kingdom of Cinyras.^ From the earliest to the latest times the city appears to have been ruled by kings, assisted perhaps by a senate or council of elders.^ The first of the kings of whom we have historical evidence was a certain Zekar-baal. He reigned about a century before Solomon ; yet from that dim past his figure stands out strangely fresh and lifelike in the journal of an Egyptian merchant or official named Wen-Ammon, which has fortunately been preserved in a papyrus. This man spent some time with the king at Byblus, and received from him, in return for rich presents, a supply of timber felled in the forests of Lebanon.'^ Another king of Byblus, who bore the name of Sibitti-baal, paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser III., king of Assyria, about the year 739 B.c.^ Further, from an inscription of the fifth or fourth century before our era we learn that a king of Byblus, by name Yehaw-melech, son of Yehar-baal, and grandson of Adom-melech or Uri-melech, dedicated a pillared portico with a carved work of gold and a bronze altar to the goddess, whom he worshipped under the name of Baalath Gebal, that is, the female Baal of Byblus.^ 1 The sanctuary and image are ^ '£,v&\.sX{^\\\%, Commentary on Diony- figured on coins of Byblus. See T. sins Periegetes, 912 (Geographi Graeci L. Donaldson, Architectura Numis- Minores, ed. C. Miiller, ii. 376) ; matica (London, 1859), pp. 105 sq. ; Meliton, in W. Cureton's Spicilegiiim E. Renan, Mission de Phinicie, p. Syriacutu, p. 44. 177 ; Parrot et Chipiez, Histoire de " Ezekiel xxvii. 9. As to the name FArt dans f Antiquity, iii. 60 ; R. Gebal see above, p. 10, note 3. Pietschmann, Geschichte der Phoe- ^ L. B. Paton, The Early History of nizier, p. 202 ; G. Maspero, Histoire Syria and Palestine (London, 1902), Ancienne, ii. 173. Renan excavated pp. 169-171. See below, p. 67. a massive square pedestal built of ' L. B. Paton, op. cit. p. 235 ; R. F. colossal stones, which he thought may Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian have supported the sacred obelisk Literature, p. 57 (the Nimrud inscrip- (op. cit. pp. 174-178). tion of Tiglatli-pileser in. ). 2 Lucian, De dea Syria, 6. ' The inscription was discovered by ' Strabo, xvi. I. 18, p. 755. Renan. See Ch. Vellay, Le culte et * Lucian, De dea Syria, 8 ; E. Renan, les fetes d^ Adonis - Thammouz dans Mission de Phhiicie, pp. 282 sqq. POrient antique, pp. 38 sg. ; G. A. 12 ADONIS IN SYRIA Divinity of Semitic kings. The names of these kings suggest that they claimed affinity with their god Baal or Moloch, for Moloch is only a corruption of melech, that is, " king." Such a claim at all events appears to have been put forward by many other Semitic kings.'' The early monarchs of Babylon were worshipped as gods in their lifetime.^ Mesha, king of Moab, perhaps called himself the son of his god Kemosh.^ Among the Aramaean sovereigns of Damascus, mentioned in the Bible, we find more than one Ben-hadad, that is, "son of the god Hadad," the chief male deity of the Syrians ; * and Josephus tells us that down to his own time, in the first century of our era, Ben-hadad I., whom he calls simply Adad, and his successor, Hazael, continued to be worshipped as gods by the people of Damascus, who held processions daily in their honour.^ Some of the kings of Edom seem to have gone a step farther and identified them- selves with the god in their lifetime ; at all events they bore his name Hadad without any qualification.® King Bar-rekub, Cooke, Text -book of North - Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1903), No. 3, pp. 18 sq. In the time of Alexander the Great the king of Bybhis was a ceitain Enylus (Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 20), whose name appears on a coin of the city (F. C. Movers, Die Phoe- tiizier, ii. i, p. 103, note 81). ' Oil the divinity of Semitic kings and the kingship of Semitic gods see W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites,''' pp. 44 sq., (s(s sqq. ^ II. Radau, £arly Babylonian His- tory (New York and London, 1900), pp. 307-317.^ ^ The evidence for this is the Moabite stone, but the reading of the inscription is doubtful. See S. R. Driver, in Encyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. "Mesha," vol. iii. 3041 sqq. ; G. A. Cooke, Text-book of Semitic Inscrip- tions, No. I, pp. I sq., 6. ^ 2 Kings viii. 7, 9, xiii. 24 sq. ; Jeremiah xlix. 27. As to the god Hadad see Macrobius, Saturn, i. 23. 1 7- 1 9 (where, as so often in late writers, the Syrians are called Assyrians) ; Philo of Byblus, in Fragtnetita Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, iii. 569 ; F. Baethgen, Beitrdge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin, 1888), pp. 66-68; G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North- Semitic Inscriptions, Nos. 61, 62, pp. 161 jy., 164, 173, 175 ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les Religions SJmitiques,'' pp. 93, 493, 496 sq. ^ Josephus, Antiqtiit. Jttd. ix. 4. 6. " Genesis xxxvi. 35 sq. ; i Kings xi. 14-22 ; I Chronicles i. 50 sq. Of the eight kings of Edom mentioned in Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) and in I Chron- icles (i. 43-50) not one was the son of his predecessor. This seems to indicate that in Edom, as elsewhere, the blood royal was traced in the female line, and that the kings were men of other families, or even foreigners, who succeeded to the throne by marrying the hereditary princesses. See my Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship (London, 1905), pp. 231 sqq. The Israelites were forbidden to have a foreigner for a king (Deuteronomy xvii. 15 with S. R. Driver's note), which seems to imply that the custom was known among their neighbours. It is significant that some of the names of the kings of Edom seem to be those of divinities, as Prof. A. H. Sayce observed long ago {Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 54). CHAP. II ADONIS IN SYRIA 13 who reigned over Samal in North-western Syria in the time of Tiglath-pileser (745-727 B.C.), appears from his name to have reckoned himself a son of Rekub-el, the god to whose favour he deemed himself indebted for the kingdom.^ The kings of Tyre traced their descent from Baal,^ and apparently professed to be gods in their own person.^ Several of them bore names which are partly composed of the names of Baal and Astarte ; one of them bore the name of Baal pure and simple.* The Baal whom they personated was no doubt Melcarth, " the king of the city," as his name signifies, the great god whom the Greeks identified with Hercules ; for the equivalence of the Baal of Tyre both to Melcarth and to Hercules is placed beyond the reach of doubt by a bilingual inscription, in Phoenician and Greek, which was found in Malta.^ In Hke manner the kings of Byblus may have assumed Divinit> the style of Adonis ; for Adonis was simply the divine Adon Phoenician or " lord " of the city, a title which hardly differs in sense kings of from Baal (" master ") and Melech (" king "). This conjecture J^^ Jj^g would be confirmed if one of the kings of Byblus actually Canaanite bore, as Renan believed, the name of Adom-melek, that is, Jerusalem. Adonis Melech, the Lord King. But, unfortunately, the read- ing of the inscription in which the name occurs is doubtful.^ ■1 G. A. Cooke, op. cit. Nos. 62, 63, by Eusebius, Chronic, i. pp. 118, 120, pp. 163, 165, 173 sqq., 181 sqq. ; M. ed. A. Schoene. J. Lagrange, op. cit. pp. 496 sqq. The '' G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North- god Rekub-el is mentioned along with Semitic Inscriptions, No. 36, p. 102. the gods Hadad, El, Reshef, and As to Melcarth, the Tyrian Hercules, Shamash in an inscription of King see Ed. Meyer, in W. H. Roscher's Bar-rekub's mortal father, King Pan- Lexikon d. griech. u. 7-0111. Mythologie, ammu (G. A. Cooke, op. cit. No. 61, ii. 26^,0 sqg. One of the Tyrian kings p. 161). seems to have been called Abi-niilk 2 Virgil, Aen. i. ^2<) sq., with \^^'-r^'f!'hu^^K'l'/,'%'^^ly.°! ■" Servius'f note; SUius Italicus, Punica, ^^-f ^ ^ /^^^ t^^f^L"^^ J^l 86 sqq. of Melcarth. A letter of his to the king of Egypt is preserved in the Tel- 3 Ezekiel xxviii. 2, 9. el-Amarna correspondence. See R. F. * Menander of Ephesus, quoted by Harper, Assyrian and Babylo7iian Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 18 and 2 1 ; Literatjire, p. 237. As to a title which Fragnienta Historicorum Graecorum, implies that the bearer of it was the ed. C. Mtillcr, iv. 446 sq. According father of a god, see below, pp. 44 sq. to the text of Josephus, as edited by ^ E. Renan, quoted by Ch. Vellay, B. Niese, the names of the kings in Le culte et lesfltes d'Adonis-Thammotiz, question were Abibal, Balbazer, Abd- p. 39. Mr. Cooke reads i'jdin (Uri- astart, Methusastart, son of Leastart, milk) instead of iteiN (Adon -milk) Ithobal, Balezor, Baal, Balator, Merbal. (G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North- The passage of Menander is quoted also Semitic Inscriptio7is, No. 3, p. 18). 14 ADONIS IN SYRIA book i Some of the old Canaanite kings of Jerusalem appear to have played the part of Adonis in their lifetime, if we may judge from their names, Adoni-bezek and Adoni-zedek,-' which are divine rather than human titles. Adoni-zedek means " lord of righteousness," and is therefore equivalent to Melchizedek, that is, " king of righteousness," the title of that mysterious king of Salem and priest of God Most High, who seems to have been neither more nor less than one of these same Canaanitish kings of Jerusalem.^ Thus if the old priestly kings of Jerusalem regularly played the part of Adonis, we need not wonder that in later times the women of Jerusalem used to weep for Tammuz, that is, for Adonis, at the north gate of the temple.^ In doing so they may only have been continuing a custom which had been observed in the same place by the Canaanites long before the Hebrews invaded The the land. Perhaps the " sacred men," as they were called, men^lt ^1"^° lodged within the walls of the temple at Jerusalem Jerusalem, down almost to the end of the Jewish kingdom,* may have acted the part of the living Adonis to the living Astarte of the women. At all events we know that in the cells of these strange clergy women wove garments for the asherim^ the sacred poles which stood beside the altar and which appear to have been by some regarded as embodiments of Astarte.* Certainly these " sacred men " must have dis- ' Judges i. 4-7 ; Joshua x. I sqq. 3 Ezekiel viii. 14. 2 Genesis xiv. 18-20, with Prof. * They were banished from the S. R. Driver's commentary ; Encydo- temple by King Josiah, who came to paedia Biblica, s.tjv. "Adoni-bezek," the throne in 637 B.C. Jerusalem fell "Adoni-zedek," "Melchizedek." It just fifty-one years later. See 2 Kings is to be observed that names com- xxiii. 7. As to these " sacred men " pounded with Adoni- were occasionally (kedeshim), see below, pp. 64 sqq. borne by private persons. Such names ^ 2 Kings xxiii. 7, where, following are Adoni-kam (Ezra ii. 13) and the Septuagint, we must apparently Adoni-ram (I Kings iv. 6), not to read d'M for the D'ria of the Massoretic mention Adoni-jah (i Kings i. 5 sqq.], Text. 'So R. Kittefand J. Skinner, who was a prince and aspired to the " The asherah (singular of ashenm) throne of his father David. These was certainly of wood (Judges vi. 26) : names are commonly interpreted as it seems to have been a tree stripped sentences expressive of the nature of the of its branches and planted in the god whom the bearer of the name ground beside an altar, whether of worshipped. See Prof. Th. Noldeke, Jehovah or of other gods (Deuteronomy vi\EncyclopaediaBMica,s.v."'^3.mes," xvi. 21; Jeremiah xvii. 2). That the iii. 3286. It is quite possible that asherah was regarded as a goddess, the names which once implied divinity were female partner of Baal, appears from afterwards degraded by application to iKingsxviii. 19; 2 Kings xxi. 3, xxiii. common men. 4 ; and that this goddess was identified CHAP. 11 ADONIS IN SYRIA 15 charged some function which was deemed religious in the temple at Jerusalem ; and we can hardly doubt that the prohibition to bring the wages of prostitution into the house of God, which was published at the very same time that the men were expelled from the temple,^ was directed against an existing practice. In Palestine as in other Semitic lands the hire of sacred prostitutes was probably dedicated to the deity as one of his regular dues : he took tribute of men and women as of flocks and herds, of fields and vine- yards and oliveyards. But if Jerusalem had been from of old the seat of a David as dynasty of spiritual potentates or Grand Lamas, who held of^^acred the keys of heaven and were revered far and wide as kings kings of and gods in one, we can easily understand why the upstart ^^'"^^^'"' David chose it for the capital of the new kingdom which he had won for himself at the point of the sword. The central position and the natural strength of the virgin fortress need not have been the only or the principal inducements which decided the politic monarch to transfer his throne from Hebron to Jerusalem.^ By serving himself heir to the ancient kings of the city he rrjight reasonably hope to inherit their ghostly repute along with their broad acres, to wear their nimbus as well as their crown.^ So at a later with Ashtoreth (Astarte) may be in- upon it. See W. Robertson Smith, ferred from a comparison of Judges ii. The Old Testament in the Jewish 13 with Judges iii. 7. Yet on the Church,^ pp. 256 sgq. ; 353 sqg. ; other hand the pole or tree seems by S. R. Driver, Critical and exegetical others to have been viewed as a male Commentary on Deuteronotny,^ ^-p.yM-v. power (Jeremiah ii. 27 ; see below, sgg. ; K. Budde, Geschichte der alike- p. 81), and the identification of the brdischen Litteratur (Leipsic, 1906), asherah with Astarte has been doubted pp. 105 sqq. or disputed by some eminent modern ^ He reigned seven years in Hebron scholars. See on this subject W. Robert- and thirty- three in Jerusalem (2 Samuel t,oT\?>\a\\!a, Religion of the Semites,''' ■^^. v. 5 ; i Kings ii. 11; i Chronicles 1 87 sqq. ; S. R. Driver, on Deuteronomy xxix. 27). xvi. 21 ; J. Skinner, onl Kings xiv. ^ Professor A. H. Sayce has argued 23 ; M. J. Lagrange, Mtudes stir les that David's original name was Elhanan religions Simitiques,''' pp. 173 sqq.; (2 Samuel xxi. 19 compared with xxiii. G. F. Moore, in Encyclopaedia Biblica, 24), and that the name David, which s.v. "Asherah." he took at a later time, should be ' Deuteronomy xxiii. 17 sq. (in written Dod or Dodo, "the Beloved Hebrew 18 sq.). The code of Deuter- One," which according to Prof. Sayce onomy was published in 621 B.C. in was a name for Tammuz (Adonis) in the reign of King Josiah, whose re- southern Canaan, and was in particular forms, including the ejection of the bestowed by the Jebusites of Jerusalem kedeshim from the temple, were based on their supreme deity. See A. H. i6 ABONIS IN SYRIA book i time when he had conquered Ammon and captured the royal city of Rabbah, he took the heavy gold crown of the Ammonite god Milcom and placed it on his own brows, thus posing as the deity in person.^ It can hardly, there- fore, be unreasonable to suppose that he pursued precisely the same policy at the conquest of Jerusalem. And on the other side the calm confidence with which the Jebusite inhabitants of that city awaited his attack, jeering at the besiegers from the battlements,^ may well have been born of a firm trust in the local deity rather than in the height and thickness of their grim old walls. Certainly the obstinacy with which in after ages the Jews defended the same place against the armies of Assyria and Rome sprang in large measure from a similar faith in the God of Zion. Traces of Be that as it may, the history of the Hebrew kings of ^Hebrew" presents some features which may perhaps, without straining kings. them too far, be interpreted as traces or relics of a time when they or their predecessors played the part of a divinity, and particularly of Adonis, the divine lord of the land. In life the Hebrew king was regularly addressed as Adoni-ham-melech, "My Lord the King," ^ and after Sayce, Lectures on the Religion of the version, has it. The reading Milcom, Ancient Babylonians (London and which involves no change of the original Edinburgh, 1887), pp. 52-57. If he Hebrew text, is supported by the read- is right, his conclusions would accord ing of the Septuagint MoXx^/" toO perfectly with those which I had reached ^oo-iX^us airCiv, where the three last independently, and it would become words are probably a gloss on MoXx(5/i. probable that David only assumed the See S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebreiu name of David (Dod, Dodo) after the Text of the Books of Samuel, p. 226 ; conquest of Jerusalem, and for the pur- Dean Kirkpatrick, in his note on pose of identifying himself with the god 2 Samuel xii. yi (Cambridge Bible for of the city, who had borne the same Schools and Colleges) ; Encyclopaedia title from time immemorial. But on Biblica, iii. 3085 ; R. Kittel, Biblia the whole it seems more likely, as Hebraica, i. 433 ; Brown, Driver, and Professor Kennett points out to me, Bdgg^, Hebrew a7td English Lexicoti of that in the original story Elhanah, a the Old Testa?nent,-p^. t,'jt^ sq. David's totally different person from David, son and successor adopted the worship was the slayer of Goliath, and that of Milcom and made a high place for the part of the giant-killer was thrust him outside Jerusalem. See I Kings on David at a later time when the xi. 5 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13. brightness of his fame had eclipsed o ,-, , , ^, . , that ofmany lesser heroes. J "" S^""""' ^- ^■''°- ' Chronicles ' 2 Samuel xii. 26-31 ; i Chronicles ' '*^' XX. 1-3. Critics seem generally to ^ See for example i Samuel xxiv. agree that in these passages the word 8; 2 Samuel xiv. 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, D^'^D must be pointed Milcom, not 19, 22, xv. 15, 21, xvi. 4, 9, xviii. malchain "their king," as the Masso- 28, 31, 32; i Kings i. 2, 13, 18, 20, retic text, followed by the English 21, 24, 27; i Chronicles xxi. 3, 23. CHAP. II ADONIS IN SYRIA 17 death he was lamented with cries of Hoi alii ! Hoi Adon ! " Alas my brother ! alas Lord ! " ^ These exclamations of grief uttered for the death of a king of Judah were, we can hardly doubt, the very same cries which the weeping women of Jerusalem uttered in the north porch of the temple for the dead Tammuz.^ However, little stress can be laid on such forms of address, since Adon in Hebrew, like " lord " in English, was a secular as well as a religious title. But whether identified with Adonis or not, the Hebrew kings certainly seem to have been regarded as in a sense divine, as representing and to some extent embodying Jehovah on earth. For the king's throne was called the throne of Jehovah ; ^ and the application of the holy oil to his head was believed to impart to him directly a portion of the divine spirit* Hence he bore the title of Messiah, which with its Greek equivalent Christ means no more than " the Anointed One." ' Jeremiah xxii. 18, xxxiv. 5. In the former passage, according to the Massoretic text, the full formula of mourning was, "Alas my brother! alas sister ! alas lord ! alas his glory ! " Who was the lamented sister ? Pro- fessor T. K. Cheyne supposes that she was Astarte, and by a very slight change (rrn for mn) he would read "Dodah" for "his glory," thus re- storing the balance between the clauses ; for "Dodah" would then answer to "Adon" (lord) as "sister" answers to "brother." I have to thank Pro- fessor Cheyne for kindly communicating this conjecture to me by letter. He writes that Dodah " is a title of Ishtar, just as Dod is a title of Tamdz," and for evidence he refers me to the Dodah of the Moabite Stone, where, however, the reading Dodah is not free from doubt. See G. A. Cooke, Text-book of Semitic Inscriptions, No. I, pp. I, 3, 1 1 ; Encyclopaedia Biblica, ii. 304S ; F. Baethgen, Beitrage zur semitischen Re- ligionsgeschichie, p. 234 ; H. Winckler, Geschichte Israels, ii. 258. As to Hebrew names formed from the root d6d in the sense of " beloved," see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testa- ment, pp. 187 sq. ; G. B. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, pp. 60 sqq. 2 This was perceived by Renan (Histoire du peuple d'Israel, iii. 273), and Prof. T. K. Cheyne writes to me : "The formulae of public mourning were derived from the ceremonies of the Adonia; this Lenormant saw long ago." 3 I Chronicles xxix. 23 ; 2 Chronicles ix. 8. * I Samuel xvi. 13, 14, compare id., X. I and 10. The oil waB poured on the king's head (l Samuel x. I ; 2 Kings ix. 3, 6). For the conveyance of the divine spirit by means of oil, see also Isaiah Ix. i. The kings of Egypt appear to have consecrated their vassal Syrian kings by pouring oil on their heads. See the Tell-el-Amarna letters. No. 37 (H. Winckler, Die Thontafeln von Tell-el-Amarna, p. 99). Some West African priests are consecrated by a similar ceremony. See below, p. 60. In some tribes of North- West America hunters habitually anointed their hair with decoctions of certain plants and deer's brains before they set out to hunt. The practice was probably a charm to secure success in the hunt. See C. Hill-Tout, The Home of the Salish and D^n^ (London, 1907), p. 72. C 1 8 ADONIS IN SYRIA book i Thus when David had cut off the skirt of Saul's robe in the darkness of a cave where he was in hiding, his heart smote him for having laid sacrilegious hands upon Adoni Messiah Jehovah, " my Lord the Anointed of Jehovah." ^ The Like other divine or semi-divine rulers the Hebrew kings SngsTeem Were apparently held answerable for famine and pestilence, to have When a dearth, caused perhaps by a failure of the winter responsible rains, had visited the land for three years, King David for drought inquired of the oracle, which discreetly laid the blame not famine. on him but on his predecessor Saul. The dead king was indeed beyond the reach of punishment, but his sons were not. So David had seven of them sought out, and they were hanged before the Lord at the beginning of barley harvest in spring ; and all the long summer the mother of two of the dead men sat under the gallows-tree, keeping off the jackals by night and the vultures by day, till with the autumn the blessed rain came at last to wet their dangling bodies and fertilise the barren earth once more. Then the bones of the dead were taken down from the gibbet and buried in the sepulchre of their fathers.^ The season when these princes were put to death, at the beginning of barley harvest, and the length of time they hung on the gallows, seem to show that their execution was not a mere punishment, but that it partook of the nature of a rain-charm. For it is a common belief that rain can be procured by magical ceremonies performed with dead men's bones,^ and it would be natural to ascribe a special virtue in this respect to the bones of princes, who are often ex- pected to give rain in their life. ' I Samuel xxiv. 6. Messiah in unction was originally performed with Hebrew is Mashiah (o'Eip). The Eng- the fat of a sacrificial victim, for which lish form Messiah is derived from the vegetable oil was a later substitute Aramaic through the Greek. See En- (Religion of the Semites,''' pp. 383 sq.). cyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. "Messiah,'' On the whole subject see J. Wellhausen, vol. iii. 3057 -f??. Why hair oil should " Zwei Rechtsriten bei den Hebraern," be considered a vehicle of inspiration is Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft, vii. by no means clear. It would have (1904), pp. 33-39; H. Weinel, " nE'D been intelligible if the olive had been und seine Derivate," Zeitschrift fiir die with the Hebrews, as it was with the alttestatnentliche Wissenschaft, xviii. Athenians, a sacred tree under the (1898), pp. 1-82. immediate protection of a deity : for 201' -.i, -n. ^, 5 iT iL J- • 2 Samuel xxi. I -14, with Dean then a portion of the divme essence ■,,. , . . , , ^ , . ... ,'^^, , .. , .J . ... ., K.irkpatrick s notes on I and 10. might be thought to reside in the oil. '^ W. Robertson Smith supposed that the ^ The Golden Bough,^ i. 99- 10 1. CHAP. 11 ADONIS IN SYRIA 19 In Israel the excess as well as the deficiency of Excessive rain seems to have been set down to the wrath of the ^^'^^^^^ deity.^ When the Jews returned to Jerusalem from the wrath the great captivity and assembled for the first time in deity* the square before the ruined temple, it happened that the weather was very wet, and as the people sat shelterless and drenched in the piazza they trembled at their sin and at the rain.^ In all ages it has been the strength or the weakness of Israel to read the hand of God in the changing aspects of nature, and we need not wonder that at such a time and in so dismal a scene, with a lowering sky overhead, the blackened ruins of the temple before their eyes, and the steady drip of the rain over all, the returned exiles should have been oppressed with a double sense of their own guilt and of the divine anger. Perhaps, though they hardly knew it, memories of the bright sun, fat fields, and broad willow-fringed rivers of Babylon,^ which had been so long their home, lent a deeper shade of sadness to the austerity of the Judaean landscape, with its gaunt gray hills stretching away, range beyond range, to the horizon, or dipping eastward to the far line of sombre blue which marks the sullen waters of the Dead Sea.* In the days of the Hebrew monarchy the king was Hebrew apparently credited with the power of making sick and apparently making whole. Thus the king of Syria sent a leper to the supposed king of Israel to be healed by him, just as scrofulous patients (3°se^e used to fancy that they could be cured by the touch of a ^nd stop French or English king. However, the Hebrew monarch, ^^' ^""'^°' with more sense than has been shown by his royal brothers 1 Ezekiel xiii. 11, 13, xxxviii. 22; * The line of the Dead Sea, lying Jeremiah, iii. 2 sq. The Hebrews in its deep trough, is visible from the looked to Jehovah for rain (Leviticus Mount of Olives ; indeed, so clear is xxvi. 3-S ; Jeremiah v. 24) just as the the atmosphere that the blue water Greeks looked to Zeus and the Romans seems quite near the eye, though in to Jupiter. fact it is more than fifteen miles off 2 Ezra X. 9-14. The special sin and nearly four thousand feet below which they laid to heart on this occa- the spectator. See Baedeker's Palestine sion was their marriage with Gentile andSyria,^-^.']']. When the sun shines women. It is implied, though not on it, the lake is of a brilliant blue expressly said, that they traced the (G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of inclemency of the weather to these the Holy Land, pp. 501 sq.); but its unfortunate alliances. brilliancy is naturally dimmed under 3 Psalm cxxxvii. clouded skies. 20 ADONIS IN SYRIA book i in modern times, professed himself unable to work any such miracle. " Am I God," he asked, " to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?"^ On another occasion, when pestilence ravaged the country and the excited fancy of the plague -stricken people saw in the clouds the figure of the Destroying Angel with his sword stretched out over Jerusalem, they laid the blame on King David, who had offended the touchy and irascible deity by taking a census. The prudent monarch bowed to the popular storm, acknowledged his guilt, and appeased the angry god by offering burnt sacrifices on the threshing-floor of Araunah, one of the old Jebusite inhabit- ants of Jerusalem. Then the angel sheathed his flashing sword, and the shrieks of the dying and the lamentations for the dead no longer resounded in the streets.^ The rarity To this theory of the sanctity, nay the divinity of the of refer- Hebrew kings it may be objected that few traces of it ences to the ° •' ^ t> i. r divinity of survive in the historical books of the Bible. But the force Sngsln the °f ^^^ objection is weakened by a consideration of the time historical and the circumstances in which these books assumed their books may ^^^j ^^^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ prophets of the eighth and the plained by seventh centuries by the spiritual ideals and the ethical stances'^'i^ fervour of their teaching had wrought a religious and moral which these reform perhaps unparalleled in history. Under their in- composed fluence an austere monotheism had replaced the old or edited. 1 2 Kings V. 5-7. them all staring up into the air to see 2 2 Samuel xxiv. ; i Chronicles xxi. what a woman told them appeared plain In this passage, contrary to his usual to her, which was an angel clothed in practice, the Chronicler has enlivened white with a fiery sword in his hand, the dull tenor of his history with some waving it or brandishing it over his picturesque touches which we miss in head. . . . One saw one thing and one the corresponding passage of Kings. It another. I looked as earnestly as the is to him that we owe the vision of the rest, but, perhaps, not with so much Angel of the Plague first stretching willingness to be imposed upon ; and out his sword over Jerusalem and then I said, indeed, that I could see nothing returning it to the scabbard. From but a white cloud, bright on one side, him Defoe seems to have taken a hint by the shining of the sun upon the in his account of the prodigies, real or other part." See Daniel Defoe, His- imaginary, which heralded the outbreak tory of the Plague in London (Edin- of the Great Plague in London. "One burgh, 18 10, pp. 33 sq.). It is the timebefore the plague was begun, other- more likely that Defoe had here the wise than as I have said in St. Giles's, I Chronicler in mind, because a few think it was in March, seeing a crowd pages earlier he introduces the prophet of people in the street, I joined with Jonah and a man out of Josephus with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found very good effect. CHAP. II ADONIS IN SYRIA 21 sensuous worship of the natural powers : a stern Puritanical spirit, an unbending rigour of mind, had succeeded to the old easy supple temper with its weak compliances, its wax- like impressionability, its proclivities to the sins of the flesh. And the moral lessons which the prophets inculcated were driven home by the political events of the time, above all by the ever-growing pressure of the great Assyrian empire on the petty states of Palestine. The long agony of the siege of Samaria ^ must have been followed with trembling anxiety by the inhabitants of Judaea, for the danger was at their door. They had only to lift up their eyes and look north to see the blue hills of Ephraim, at whose foot lay the beleaguered city. Its final fall and the destruction of the northern kingdom could not fail to fill every thoughtful mind in the sister realm with sad forebodings. It was as if the sky had lowered and thunder muttered over Jerusalem. Thenceforth to the close of the Jewish monarchy, about a century and a half later, the cloud never passed away, though once for a little it seemed to lift, when Sennacherib raised the siege of Jerusalem ^ and the watchers on the walls beheld the last of the long line of spears and standards disappearing, the last squadron of the blue-coated Assyrian cavalry sweeping, in a cloud of dust, out of sight.^ It was in this period of national gloom and despondency The that the two great reformations of Israel's religion were ^ ^'?™^' t> c> books were accomplished, the first by king Hezekiah, the second a composed century later by king Josiah.* We need not wonder then "njer'the that the reformers who in that and subsequent ages com- influence posed or edited the annals of their nation should have looked prophetic as sourly on the old unreformed paganism of their fore- reforma- fathers as the fierce zealots of the Commonwealth looked on the far more innocent pastimes of Merry England ; and 1 2 Kings xvii. 5 sq., xviii. 9 sq. or just before the reign of Hezekiah: ^ 2 Kings xix. 32-36. the Book of Deuteronomy, the corner- 3 We owe to Ezekiel (xxiii. 5 sq., 12) stone of king Josiah's reformation, was the picture of the handsome Assyrian produced in 621 B.C. ; and Jerusalem cavalrymen in their blue uniforms and fell in 586 B.C. The date of Hezekiah's gorgeous trappings. The prophet accession is a much-disputed point in writes as if in his exile by the waters the chronology of Judah. See the of Babylon he had seen the blue Introduction to Kings and Isaiah /.- regiments filing past, in all the pomp XXXIX. by J. Skinner and O. C. of war, on their way to the front. Whitehouse respectively, in The Cen- * Samaria fell in 722 B.C., during tuiy Bible. It 11 Adonis in syria book i that in their zeal for the glory of God they should have blotted many pages of history lest they should perpetuate the memory of practices to which they traced the calamities of their country. All the historical books passed through the office of the Puritan censor/ and we can hardly doubt that they emerged from it stript of many gay feathers which they had flaunted when they went in. Among the shed plumage may well have been the passages which invested human beings, whether kings or commoners, with the attributes of deity. Certainly no pages could seem to the censor more rankly blasphemous ; on none, there- fore, was he likely to press more firmly the official sponge. The Baal But if Semitic kings in general and the kings of female^ Byblus in particular often assumed the style of Baal or Baaiath Adonis, it follows that they may have mated with the the sources ,, , -n , , a ,-,. ^ ■ ^ of all goddess, the Baaiath or Astarte of the city. Certainly we fertility. j^g^,. gf kings of Tyre and Sidon who were priests of Astarte.^ Now to the agricultural Semites the Baal or god of a land was the author of all its fertility ; he it was who produced the corn, the wine, the figs, the oil, and the flax, by means of his quickening waters, which in the arid parts of the Semitic world are oftener springs, streams, and underground flow than the rains of heaven.^ Further, " the life-giving power of the god was not limited to vegetative nature, but to him also was ascribed the increase of animal life, the multiplication of flocks and herds, and, not least, of the human inhabitants of the land. For the increase of animate nature is obviously conditioned, in the last resort, by the fertility of the soil, and primitive races, which have not learned to differentiate the various kinds of life with precision, think of animate as well as vegetable life as ' Or the Deuteronomic redactor, as Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. i8 {Frag- the critics call him. See W. Robertson menta Historicorum Graetorum, eel. Smith, The Old Testament iti the C. Miiller, iv. 446) ; G. A. Cooke, Jewish Church,^ pp. 395 sq., 425 ; Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions, Encyclopaedia Biblica, ii. 2078 sqq.. No. 4, p. 26. According to Justin, 2633 sqq., iv. 4273 sqq. ; K. Budde, however, the priest of Hercules, that Geschichte der althebrdischen Litteratur is, of Melcarth, at Tyre, was distinct (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 99, 121 sqq., 127 from the king and second to him in sqq., 132 ; Prof. J. Skinner, in liis dignity. See Justin, xviii. 4. 5. introduction to Kings (in the Century ^ Hosea ii. 5 sqq. ; W. Robertson Bible], pp. 10 sqq. Smith, Religion of the Semites,'' pp. - Menander of Ephesus, quoted by 95-107. CHAP. II ADONIS IN SYRIA 23 rooted in the earth and sprung from it. The earth is the great mother of all things in most mythological philosophies, and the comparison of the life of mankind, or of a stock of men, with the life of a tree, which is so common in Semitic as in other primitive poetry, is not in its origin a mere figure. Thus where the growth of vegetation is ascribed to a particular divine power, the same power receives the thanks and homage of his worshippers for the increase of cattle and of men. Firstlings as well as first-fruits were offered at the shrines of the Baalim, and one of the commonest classes of personal names given by parents to their sons or daughters designates the child as the gift of the god." In short, " the Baal was conceived as the male principle of reproduction, the husband of the land which he fertilised." ^ So far, therefore, as the Semite personified the reproductive energies of nature as male and female, as a Baal and a Baaiath, he appears to have identified the male power especially with water and the female especially with earth. On this view plants and trees, animals and men, are the offspring or children of the Baal and Baaiath. If, then, at Byblus and elsewhere, the Semitic king was Persona- allowed, or rather required, to personate the god and marry BaaiV the the goddess, the intention of the custom can only have been king. to ensure the fertility of the land and the increase of men and cattle by means of homoeopathic magic. There is reason to think that a similar custom was observed from a similar motive in other parts of the ancient world, and particularly at Nemi, where both the male and the female powers, the Dianus and Diana, were in one aspect of their nature personifications of the life-giving waters.^ The last king of Byblus bore the ancient name ofcinyras, Cinyras, and was beheaded by Pompey the Great for his gybius. tyrannous excesses.^ His legendary namesake Cinyras is said to have founded a sanctuary of Aphrodite, that is, of Astarte, at a place on Mount Lebanon, distant a day's journey from the capital.* The spot was probably Aphaca, 1 W. Robertson Smith, Religion of 1905), pp. 152 sqq., 194 sqq., 213 the Semites,-" pp. 107 sq. m-^ 283 sqq. _ 2 See my Lectures on the Early ^ Strabo, xvi. I. iS, p. 755. History of the Kinphif (London, * Lucian, De dea Syria, 9. 24 ADONIS IN SYRIA book i at the source of the river Adonis, half-way between Byblus and Baalbec ; for at Aphaca there was a famous grove and sanctuary of Astarte which Constantine destroyed on Aphaca account of the flagitious character of the worship.^ The site vale oAhe of ^hc temple has been discovered by modern travellers near Adonis. the miserable village which still bears the name of Afka at the head of the wild, romantic, wooded gorge of the Adonis. The hamlet stands among groves of noble walnut-trees on the brink of the lyn. A little way off the river rushes from a cavern at the foot of a mighty amphitheatre of towering cliffs to plunge in a series of cascades into the awful depths of the glen. The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. There is something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness of these tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountain air, in the vivid green of the vegetation. The temple, of which some massive hewn blocks and a fine column of Syenite granite still mark the site, occupied a terrace facing the source of the river and commanding a magnificent prospect. Across the foam and the roar of the waterfalls you look up to the cavern and away to the top of the sublime precipices above. So lofty is the cliff that the goats which creep along its ledges to browse on the bushes appear like ants to the spectator hundreds of feet below. Seaward the view is especially impressive when the sun floods the profound gorge with golden light, revealing all the fantastic buttresses and rounded towers of its moun- tain rampart, and falling softly on the varied green of the woods which clothe its depths.^ It was here that, according 1 Eusebius, FzVa COTw/aBrt//;', iii. 55; i886), pp. 239-246; E. Renan, j1/;>- Sozomenus, Historia Ecclesiastica, ii. 5 ; sion de Phinicie, pp. 282 sqq. ; G. SoctAizs, Histmia Ecclesiastica, \. 18; Maspero, Histoire Ancienjie, ii. 175- Zosimus, i. 58. 179. Among the trees which line the 2 On the valley of the Nahr Ibrahim, valley are oak, sycamore, bay, plane, its scenery and monuments, see Edward orange, and mulberry (W. M. Thomson KohxaStOn, Biblical Researches in Pales- op. cit. p. 245). Travellers are titiei^ iii. 603-609 ; W. M. Thomson, unanimous in testifying to the extra- The Land and the Book, Lebanon, ordinary beauty of the vale of the Damascus, and beyond Jordan (London, Adonis, Thus Robinson writes ; CHAP, n ADONIS IN SYRIA 25 to the legend, Adonis met Aphrodite for the first or the last time,^ and here his mangled body was buried.^ A fairer scene could hardly be imagined for a story of tragic love and death. Yet, sequestered as the valley is and must always have been, it is not wholly deserted. A convent or a village may be observed here and there standing out against the sky on the top of some beetling crag, or clinging to the face of a nearly perpendicular cliff high above the foam and the din of the river ; and at evening the lights that twinkle through the gloom betray the presence of human habitations on slopes which might seem inaccessible to man. In antiquity the whole of the lovely vale appears to have been dedicated to Adonis, and to this day it is haunted by his memory ; for the heights which shut it in are crested at various points by ruined monuments of his worship, some of them overhanging dreadful abysses, down which it turns the head dizzy to look and see the eagles wheeling about their nests far below. One such monument exists at Ghineh. The face of a great rock, above a roughly hewn recess, is here carved with figures of Adonis and Aphrodite. He is portrayed with spear in rest, awaiting the attack of a bear, while she is seated in an attitude of sorrow.^ Her grief-stricken figure may well be the mourning Aphrodite of the Lebanon described by Macrobius,* and the recess in the rock is perhaps her lover's tomb. Every year, in the belief of his worshippers, Adonis was wounded to death on the mountains, and every year the face of nature itself was dyed with his sacred blood. So year by year the "There is no spot in all my wan- the cliffs that bounded it, was the most derings on which memory lingers with beautiful I had ever set eyes on." greater delight than on the sequestered ' Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. retreat and exceeding loveliness of A^asa, p. 175. Afka." Renan says that the land- ^ MeUton, "Oration to Antoninus scape is one of the most beautiful in Caesar," in W. Cureton's Spicilegium the world. My friend Mr. Francis Syriacum (London, 1855), p. 44. Galton writes to me (20th September ^ E. Renan, Mission de Phinicie, 1906) : " I have no good map of pp. 292-294. The writer seems to Palestine, but strongly suspect that have no doubt that the beast attacking my wanderings there, quite sixty years Adonis is a bear, not a boar. A view ago, took me to the place you mention, of the monument is given by A. above the gorge of the river Adonis. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Be that as it may, I have constantly Lichte des Alten Orients''- (Leipsic, asserted that the view I then had of a 1906), p. 90. deep ravine and blu? sea seen through * Macrobius, Saturn, i. 21. 5. 26 ADONIS IN S YRIA book i Syrian damsels lamented his untimely fate,^ while the red anemone, his flower, bloomed among the cedars of Lebanon and the river ran red to the sea, fringing the winding shores of the blue Mediterranean, whenever the wind set inshore, with a sinuous band of crimson. ' Lucian, De dea Syria, 8. CHAPTER III ADONIS IN CYPRUS The island of Cyprus lies but one day's sail from the coast Phoenician of Syria. Indeed, on fine summer evenings its mountains ^'priir '" may be descried looming low and dark against the red fires of sunset.^ With its rich mines of copper and its forests of firs and stately cedars, the island naturally attracted a com- mercial and maritime people like the Phoenicians ; while the abundance of its corn, its wine, and its oil must have rendered it in their eyes a Land of Promise by comparison with the niggardly nature of their own rugged coast, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea.^ Accordingly they settled in Cyprus at a very early date and remained there long after the Greeks had also established themselves on its shores ; for we know from inscriptions and coins that Phoenician kings reigned at Citium, the Chittim of the Hebrews, down to the time of Alexander the Great.^ ' F. C. Movers, Die Phoenizier, ii. her keel to her topsails, with the 2, p. 224 ; G. Maspero, Histoire native products of their island (Ammi- Ancieniie, ii. 199; G. A. Smith, His- anus Marcellinus, xiv. 8. 14). Urical Geogi-aphy of the Holy Land, •* G. A. Cooke, Text-book of Semitic p. 135. Inscriptions, Nos. 12-25, PP- 5S"76, 2 On the natural wealth of Cyprus 347-349 ; P. Gardner, New Chapters see Strabo, xiv. 6. 5 ; W. H. Engel, in Greek History, pp. 179, 185. It Kypros, i. 40-71 ; F. C. Movers, Die has been held that the name of Citium Phoenizier, ii. 2, pp. 224 sq. ; G. is etymologically identical with Hittite. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, ii. 200 If that was so, it would seem that the sq. ; E. Oberhummer, Die Insel Cy- town was built and inhabited by a non- pern, i. (Munich, 1903), pp. 175 sqq., Semitic people before the arrival of 243 sqq. As to the firs and cedars the Phoenicians. See Encyclopaedia of Cyprus see Theophrastus, Historia Biblica, s.v. " Kittim." Other traces Plantaruin, v.* 7. I, v. 9. I. The of this older race, akin to the primitive Cyprians boasted that they could stock of Asia Minor, have been de- build and rig a ship complete, from tected in Cyprus ; amongst them the 27 28 ADONIS IN CYPRUS book i Naturally the Semitic colonists brought their gods with them from the mother- land. They worshipped Baal of the Lebanon/ who may well have been Adonis, and at Amathus on the south coast they instituted the rites of Adonis and Aphrodite, or rather Astarte.^ Here, as at Byblus, these rites resembled the Egyptian worship of Osiris so closely that some people even identified the Adonis of Amathus with Osiris." The Tyrian Melcarth or Moloch was also worshipped at Amathus,* and the tombs discovered in the neighbourhood prove that the city re- mained Phoenician to a late period.^ Kingdom But the great seat of the worship of Aphrodite and ofPaphos. ^^Qj^jg jf^ Cyprus was Paphos on the south-western side of the island. Among the petty kingdoms into which Cyprus was divided from the earliest times until the end of the fourth century before our era Paphos must have ranked with the best. It is a land of hills and billowy ridges, diversified by fields and vineyards and intersected by rivers, which in the course of ages have carved for themselves beds of such tremendous depth that travelling in the interior is difficult and tedious. The lofty range of Mount Olympus (the modern Troodos), capped with snow the greater part of the year, screens Paphos from the northerly and easterly winds and cuts it off from the rest of the island. On the slopes of the range the last pine- woods of Cyprus linger, sheltering here and there monasteries in scenery not unworthy of the Apennines. The old city of most obvious is the Cyprian syllabary, Cyprus (London, 1877), p. 275. The the characters of which are neither scanty ruins of Amatlius occupy an Phoenician nor Greek in origin. See isolated hill beside the sea. Among P. Gardner, op. cit. pp. 154, I73-I75i them is an enormous stone jar, half 178 sq. buried in the earth, of which the four ' G. A. Cooke, Text-hook of North- handles are adorned with iigures of Semitic Inscriptions, No. 11, p. 52. bulls. It is probably of Phoenician ^ Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. ' KiM- manufacture. See L. Ross, Reisen ffoDs ; Pausanias, ix. 41. 2 sq. Ac- nach A'os, Halikarnassos, Rhodes und cording to Pausanias, there was a der Inset Cypern (Halle, 1852), pp. remarkable necklace of green stones 168 sqq. and gold in the sanctuary of Adonis ^ Stephanus Byzantius, j.z^. 'A^a^oCs. and Aphrodite at Amathus. The For the relation of Adonis to Osiris at Greeks commonly identified it with Byblus see below, pp. 272, 357. the necklace of Harmonia or Eriphyle. "* Hesychius, s.v. MaXiKa. A terra - cotta statuette of Astarte, * L. P. di Cesnola, Cyprus, pp. found at Amathus (?), represents her 254-283 ; Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire wearing a necklace which she touches de I' Art dans I' Antiquity, iii. 216- with one hand. See L. P. di Cesnola, 222. CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 29 Paphos occupied the summit of a hill about a mile from the sea ; the newer city sprang up at the harbour some ten miles off.^ The sanctuary of Aphrodite at Old Faphos Sanctuary (the modern Kuklia) was one of the most celebrated shrines Aphrodite in the ancient world. From the earliest to the latest at Papbos. times it would seem to have preserved its essential features unchanged. For the sanctuary is represented on coins of the Imperial age,^ and these representations agree closely with little golden models of a shrine which were found in two of the royal graves at Mycenae.' Both on the coins and in the models we see a fagade surmounted by a pair of doves and divided into three compartments or chapels, of which the central one is crowned by a lofty superstructure. In the golden models each chapel contains a pillar standing in a pair of horns : the central superstructure is crowned by two pairs of horns, one within the other ; and the two side chapels are in like manner crowned each with a pair of horns and a single dove perched on the outer horn of each pair. On the coins each of the side chapels contains a pillar or candelabra-like object : the central chapel contains a cone and is flanked by two high columns, each terminating in a pair of ball-topped pinnacles, with a star and crescent appearing between the tops of the columns. The doves are doubtless the sacred doves of Aphrodite or Astarte,* and the horns and pillars remind us of the similar religious emblems which 1 D. G. Hogarth, Devia Cypria of Hellenic Studies, ix. (1888), pp. (London, 1889), pp. 1-3 ; Encyclo- 193 sqq. Previous accounts of the paedia Britannica^ vi. 747 ; E. temple are inaccurate and untrust- Reclus, Nouvelk Giographie tfniver- worthy. selle, ix. 668. ^ ^- Schuchhardt, Schliemann' s 2 T. L. Donaldson, Architectitra Ausgrabangen,^ pp. 231-233; Perrot Numismatica, pp. 107-109, with fig. et Chipiez, Histoire de I'Art dans 31; Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. I' Antiquity, vi. 336 sq., 652-654; (1888) pp. 210-213 ; G. F. Hill, Cata- Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. (iS logue of the Greek Coins of Cyprus pp. 213 j^.; '?.G!i.x&a^t, New Chapters (London, 1904), pp. cxxvii - cxxxiv, in Greek History, ■^. 181. with plates xiv. 2, 3, 6-8, xv. 1-4, 7, * J. Selden, De dis Syris (Leipsic, xvi. 2, 4, 6-9, xvii. 4-6, 8, 9, xxvi. 3, 1668) pp. 274 sqq. ; S. Bochart, 6-l6 ; George Macdonald, Catalogue Hierozoicon, ii. 4 sqq. Compare the of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collec- statue of a priest with a dove in his tion, ii. 566, with pi. Ixi. 19. As to hand, which vpas found in Cyprus the existing remains of the temple, (Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de I'Art which were excavated by an English dans PAntiquiti, iii. 510, with fig. expedition in 1887-1888, ^^e. Journal 349). 3° ADONIS IN CYPRUS BOOK I The Aphrodite of Paphos a Phoeni- cian or aboriginal deity. Her conical image. have been found in the great prehistoric palace of Cnossus in Crete, as well as on many monuments of the Mycenaean or Minoan age of Greece.-^ If antiquaries are right in regarding the golden models as copies of the Paphian shrine, that shrine must have suffered little outward change for more than a thousand years ; for the royal graves at Mycenae, in which the models were found, can hardly be of later date than the twelfth century before our era. Thus the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphos was appar- ently of great antiquity.^ According to Herodotus, it was founded by Phoenician colonists from Ascalon ; ^ but it is possible that a native goddess of fertility was worshipped on the spot before the arrival of the Phoenicians, and that the newcomers identified her with their own Baalath or Astarte, whom she may have closely resembled. If two deities were thus fused in one, we may suppose that they were both varieties of that great goddess of motherhood and fertility whose worship appears to have been diffused all over Western Asia from a very early time. The supposition is confirmed as well by the archaic shape of her image as by the licentious character of her rites ; for both that shape and those rites were shared by her with other Asiatic deities. Her image was simply a white cone or pyramid.* In like manner, a cone was the emblem of Astarte at Byblus,^ of the native goddess whom the Greeks called ■ A. J. Evans, " Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Qv\X." Jmirnal of Hellenic Studies, xxi. {190 1) pp. 99 sqq. 2 Tacitus, Annals, iii. 62. ^ Herodotus, i. 105 ; compare Pau- sanias, i. 14. 7. Herodotus only speaks of the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Cyprus, but he must refer to the great one at Paphos. At Ascalon the goddess was worshipped in mermaid- shape under the name of Derceto, and fish and doves were sacred to her (Dio- dorus Siculus, ii. 4 ; compare Lucian, De dea Syria, 14). The name Derceto, like the much more correct Atargatis, is a Greek corruption of 'Attdr, the Aramaic form of Astarte. See E. Meyer, Gcschichte des Alterthutns, i. 246 sq. ^ It is described by ancient writers and figured on coins. See Tacitus, JUist, ii. 3 ; Maximus Tyrius, Dis- sert, viii. 8 ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. i. 720; T. h. Donaldson, A rckitectura Ntwiismatica, p. 107, with fig. 31 ; Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. (1888) pp. 210-212. According to Maximus Tyrius, the material ot the pyramid was unknown. Probably it was a stone. The English archaeo- logists found several fragments of white cones on the site of the temple at Paphos : one which still remains in its original position in the central chamber was of limestone and of somewhat larger size [Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. (1888) p. 180). ' See above, p. 11. CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 31 Artemis at Perga in Pamphylia/ and of the sun -god Heliogabalus at Emesa in Syria.^ Conical stones, wliich apparently served as idols, have also been found at Golgi in Cyprus, and in the Phoenician temples of Malta ; ' and cones of sandstone recently came to light at the shrine of the " Mistress of Torquoise " among the barren hills and frowning precipices of Sinai.* The precise significance of such an emblem remains as obscure as it was in the time of Tacitus.^ It appears to have been customary to anoint the sacred cone with olive oil at a solemn festival, in which people from Lycia and Caria participated.^ The custom of anointing a holy stone has been observed in many parts of the world, for example, in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.'^ To this day the old custom appears to survive at Paphos, for " in honour of the Maid of Bethlehem the peasants of Kuklia 1 On coins of Perga the sacred cone is represented as richly decorated and standing in a temple between sphinxes. See B. V. Head, Historia Ntimorum, p. 585 ; P. Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pi. XV. No. 3 ; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia (London, 1897), pi. xxiv. 12, 15, 16. How- ever, Mr. G. F. Hill writes to me : " Is the stone at Perga really a cone ? I have always thought it was a cube or something of that kind. On the coins the upper, sloping portion is apparently an elaborate veil or head- dress. The head attached to the stone is seen in the middle of this, surmounted by a tall kalathos." The sanctuary stood on a height, and a festival was held there annually (Strabo, xiv. 4. 2, p. 667). The native title of the goddess was Anassa, that is, "Queen." See B. V. Head, I.e. ; Wernicke in Pauly- Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie der classi- schen Altertumswissenschaft, ii. i, col. 1397. Aphrodite at Paphos bore the same title. See below, p. 38, note I. The worship of Pergaean Artemis at Halicarnassus was cared for by a priestess, who held office for life and had to make intercession for the city at every new moon. See Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,^ No. 601. 2 Herodian, v. 3. 5. This cone was of black stone, with some small knobs on it, like the stone of Cybele at Pessinus. It is figured on coins of Emesa. See B. V. Head, Historia Numorum, p. 659 ; P. Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pi. xv. No. i. The sacred stone of Cybele, which the Romans brought from Pessinus to Rome during the Second Punic War, was small, black, and rugged, but we are not told that it was of conical shape. See Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, vii. 49 : Livy, xxix. II. 7. ' Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de PArt dans P Antiquity, iii. 273, 298 sq., 304 sq. The sanctuary of Aphrodite, or rather Astarte, at Golgi is said to have been even more ancient than her sanctuary at Paphos (Pausanias, viii. 5. 2). ^ W. M. Flinders Petrie, Researches in Sinai (London, 1906), pp. 135 sq., 1 89. Votive cones made of clay have been found in large numbers in Baby- lonia, particularly at Lagash and Nippur. See M. Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 672- 674. * Tacitus, Hist. ii. 3. s We learn this from an inscription found at Paphos. See Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. (1888) pp. 188, 231. ' Pausanias, a. 24. 6, with my note. 32 A D ON IS IN CYPR US BOOK I anointed lately, and probably still anoint each year, the great corner-stones of the ruined Temple of the Paphian Goddess. As Aphrodite was supplicated once with cryptic rites, so is Mary entreated still by Moslems as well as Christians, with incantations and passings through perforated stones, to remove the curse of barrenness from Cypriote women, or increase the manhood of Cypriote men." ^ Thus the ancient worship of the goddess of fertility is continued under a different name. Even the name of the old goddess is retained in some parts of the island ; for in more than one chapel the Cypriote peasants adore the mother of Christ under the title of Panaghia Aphroditessa.^ Sacred In Cyprus it appears that before marriage all women in°the'""°" ^^""^ formerly obliged by custom to prostitute themselves to worship of strangers at the sanctuary of the goddess, whether she went Aphrodite" ^V ^^^ name of Aphrodite, Astarte, or what not.^ Similar and of customs prevailed in many parts of Western Asia. What- Asiatic ^ver its motive, the practice was clearly regarded, not as goddesses, ^n orgy of lust, but as a solemn religious duty performed in the service of that great Mother Goddess of Western Asia whose name varied, while her type remained constant, from place to place. Thus at Babylon every woman, whether rich or poor, had once in her life to submit to the embraces of a stranger at the temple of Mylitta, that is, of Ishtar or Astarte, and to dedicate to the goddess the wages earned by this sanctified harlotry. The sacred precinct was crowded with women waiting to observe the custom. Some of them had to wait there for years.* At Heliopolis or Baalbec in Syria, famous for the imposing grandeur of its ruined temples, the custom of the country ' D. G. Hogarth, A Wandering- Scholar in the Levant (London, 1896), pp. 179 sq. 2 Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de I' Art dans V Antiquity, iii. 628. 3 Herodotus, i; 199 ; Athenaeus, xii. II, p. 516 A; Justin, xviii. 5. 4; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i. 17 ; W. H. Engel, Kypros, ii. 142 sqq. Asiatic customs of this sort have been rightly explained by W. Mannhardt [Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, pp. 283 sqq. ). ^ Herodotus, i. 199 ; Strabo, xvi. I. 20, p. 745. As to the identity of Mylitta with Astarte see H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's Keilinschriften tmd das Alte Testament^ pp. 423, n. 7, 428, n, 4. According to him, the name Mylitta comes from 'Mu 'allidtu, "she who helps women in travail." In this character Ishtar would answer to the Greek Artemis and the Latin Diana. As to sacred prostitution in the worship of Ishtar see M. Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 475 sq., 484 sq. CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 33 required that every maiden should prostitute herself to a stranger at the temple of Astarte, and matrons as well as maids testified their devotion to the goddess in the same manner. The emperor Constantine abolished the custom, destroyed the temple, and built a church in its stead.' In Phoenician temples women prostituted themselves for hire in the service of religion, believing that by this con- duct they propitiated the goddess and won her favour.^ At Byblus the people shaved their heads in the annual mourning for Adonis. Women who refused to sacrifice their hair had to give themselves up to strangers on a certain day of the festival, and the money which they thus earned was devoted to the goddess.^ This custom may have been a mitigation of an older rule which at Byblus as elsewhere formerly compelled every ' Eusebius, Vita Constantini, hi. 58; Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, i. 18. 7-9 ; SiozomsTms, Hisloria Ecclesiastica, V. 10. 7. Socrates says that at Helio- polis local custom obliged the women to be held in common, so that paternity was unknown, "for there was no dis- tinction of parents and children, and the people prostituted their daughters to the strangers who visited them " (tois TrapLov'a(7(cr)os). It is perhaps a transla- tion of the Semitic Baalath. ' Plutarch, De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut viriute, ii. 8. The name of the gardener-king was Alynomus. That the Cinyrads existed as a family down to Macedonian times is further proved by a Greek inscription found at Old Paphos, which records that a certain Democrates, son of Ptolemy, head of the Cinj'rads, and his wife Eunice, dedicated a statue of their daughter to the Paphian Aphrodite. See L. Ross, " Inschriften von Cypem," Rheinisches Museum, N.F. \-ii. (1850) pp. 520 sq. It seems to have been a common practice of parents to dedicate statues of their sons or daughters to the goddess at Paphos. The inscribed pedestals of many such statues were found by the English archaeologists. See Jownal of Hellenic Studies, ix. (1888) pp. 228, 23s. 236, 237, 241, 244, 246, 255. ^ Tacitus, Hist. ii. 4 ; Pausanias, viii. 24. 6. * Plutarch, Cato the Younger, 35. CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 39 he is said to have begotten his son Adonis in incestuous intercourse with his daughter Myrrha at a festival of the corn-goddess, at which women robed in white were wont to offer corn-wreaths as first-fruits of the harvest and to observe strict chastity for nine days.^ Similar cases of incest with a daughter are reported of many ancient kings.^ It seems Legends unlikely that such reports are without foundation, and per- ?[(,g°[^'^ haps equally improbable that they refer to mere fortuitous suggested outbursts of unnatural lust. We may suspect that they are ^^^^^^^' based on a practice actually observed for a definite reason in certain special circumstances. Now in countries where the royal blood was traced through women only, and where consequently the king held office merely in virtue of his marriage with an hereditary princess, who was the real sove- reign, it appears to have often happened that a prince married his own sister, the princess royal, in order to obtain with her hand the crown which otherwise would have gone to another man, perhaps to a stranger.^ May not the same 1 Ovid, Metam. x. 298 sqq. ; Hy- ginus. Fab. 58, 64 ; Fulgentius, Myth- olog. iii. 8 ; Lactantius Placidius, Narrat. Fabul. x. 9 ; Servius on Virgil, Ed. x. 18, and Aen. v. 72 ; Plutarch, Parallela, 22 ; Schol. on Theocritus, i. 107. It is Ovid who describes (Metam. .\. 431 sqq.) the festival of Ceres, at which the incest was committed. His source was prob- ably the Metatnorphoses of the Greek writer Theodoras, which Plutarch (I.e.) refers to as his authority for the story. The festival in question was perhaps the Thesmophoria, at which women were bound to remain chaste (Schol. on Theocritus, iv. 25 ; Schol. on Nicander, Ther. 70 sq. ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiv. 59 ; Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, i. 134 (135); com- pare Aelian, De natura animalium, ix. 26). The corn and bread of Cyprus were famous in antiquity. See Ae- schylus, Suppliants, 549 (555); Hip- ponax, cited by Strabo, viii. 3. 8, p. 340 ; Eubulus, cited by Athenaeus, iii. 78, p. 112 f; E. Oberhummer, Die Insel Cypertt, i. 274 sqq. Ac- cording to another account, Adonis was the fruit of the incestuous inter- course of Tlieias, a Syrian king, with his daughter Myrrha. See ApoUo- dorus, iii. 14. 4 (who cites Panyasis as his authority) ; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 829 ; Antoninus Liberalis, Transform. 34 (who lays the scene of the story on Mount Lebanon). With the corn-wreaths mentioned in the text we may compare the wreaths which the Roman Arval Brethren wore at their sacred functions, and with which they seem to have crowned the images of the goddesses. See G. Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, pp. 24-27, 33 sq. Compare Pausanias, vii. 20. I sq. '^ A list of these cases is given by Hyginus, Fab. 253. It includes the incest of Clymemis, king of Arcadia, with his daughter Harpalyce (compare Hyginus, Fab. 206) ; that of Oeno- maus, king of Pisa, with his daughter Hippodamia (compare J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 156; Lucian, Charidemus, 19) ; that of Erechtheus, king of Athens, with his daughter Procris ; and that of Epopeus, king of Lesbos, with his daughter Nyctimene (compare Hyginus, Fab. 204). ' The custom of brother and sister marriage seems to have been especially 40 ADONIS IN CYPRUS BOOK I The Flamen Dialis and his Flaminica at Rome. rule of descent have furnished a motive for incest with a daughter ? For it seems a natural corollary from such a rule that the king was bound to vacate the throne on the death of his wife, the queen, since he occupied it only by virtue of his marriage with her. When that marriage terminated, his right to the throne terminated with it and passed at once to his daughter's husband. Hence if the king desired to reign after his wife's death, the only way in which he could legitimately continue to do so was by marrying his daughter, and thus prolonging through her the title which had formerly been his through her mother. In this connection it is worth while to remember that at Rome the Flamen Dialis was bound to vacate his priesthood on the death of his wife, the Flaminica.^ The rule would be intelligible if the Flaminica had originally been the more important functionary of the two, and if the Flamen held office only by virtue of his marriage with her.^ Elsewhere I have shown reason to suppose that he and his wife represented an old line of priestly kings and queens, who played the parts of Jupiter and Juno, or perhaps rather Dianus and Diana, respectively.^ If the supposition is correct, the custom which obliged him to resign his priesthood on the death of his wife seems to prove that of the two deities whom they personated, the goddess, whether named Juno or Diana, was indeed the better half But at Rome the goddess Juno always played an insignificant part ; whereas at Nemi her old double, Diana, was all-powerful, casting her mate, Dianus or Virbius, into deep shadow. Thus a rule which points to the superiority of the Flaminica over the Flamen, appears to indicate that the divine originals of the two were Dianus and Diana rather than Jupiter and Juno, and further, that if Jupiter and Juno at Rome stood for the principle of father- kin, or the predominance of the husband over the wife, Marquardt, Romische Sfaaisvenoaliung, common in royal families. See my note on Pausanias, i. 7. i (vol. ii. pp. 84 sq. ) ; as to the case of Egypt see below, pp. 396 sq. The tnie explana- tion of the custom was first, so far as I know, indicated by J. F. McLennan (The Patriarchal Theory, p. 95). ' Aiilus Gellius, x. 15. 22; J.' ^ Priestesses are said to have pre- ceded priests in some Egyptian cities. See W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Re- ligion of Ancient Eg}'pt, p. 74. 2 Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, pp. 202 sq., 214 sqq. CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 41 Dianus and Diana at Nemi stood for the older principle of mother-kin, or the predominance of the wife in matters of inheritance over the husband. If, then, I am right in holding that the kingship at Rome was originally a plebeian institu- tion and descended through women,^ we must conclude that the people who founded the sanctuary of Diana at Nemi were of the same plebeian stock as the Roman kings, that they traced descent in the female line, and that they worshipped a great Mother Goddess, not a great Father God. That goddess was Diana ; her maternal functions are abun- dantly proved by the votive offerings found at her ancient shrine among the wooded hills.^ On the other hand, the patricians, who afterwards invaded the country, brought with them father-kin in its strictest form, and consistently enough paid their devotions rather to Father Jove than to Mother Juno. A parallel to what I conjecture to have been the original Priestesses relation of the Flaminica to her husband the Flamen may to ^""j^ \^ a certain extent be found among the Khasis of Assam, who Assam. preserve to this day the ancient system of mother-kin in matters of inheritance and religion. For among these people the propitiation of deceased ancestors is deemed essential to tiie welfare of the community, and of all their ancestors they revere most the primaeval ancestress of the clan. Accordingly in every sacrifice a priest must be assisted by a priestess ; indeed, we are told that he merely acts as her deputy, and that she " is without doubt a survival of the time when, under the matriarchate, the priestess was the agent for the perform- ance of all religious ceremonies." It does not appear that the priest need be the husband of the priestess ; but in the Khyrim State, where each division has its own goddess to whom sacrifices are offered, the priestess is the mother, sister, niece, or other maternal relation of the priest. It is her duty to prepare all the sacrificial articles, and without her assist- ance the sacrifice cannot take place.^ Here, then, as among the ancient Romans on my hypothesis, we have the superiority of the priestess over the priest based on a corresponding 1 Lectures on the Early History of ^ Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The the Kingship, pp. 231 sqq. Khasis (London, 1907), pp. 109-112, 2 Ibid. p. 17. 120 sq. 42 ADONIS IN CYPRUS BOOK I Cinyras beloved by Aphrodite Pygmalion and Aphrodite. The Phoenician kings of Cyprus or their sons appear to have been hereditary lovers of the goddess. superiority of the goddess or divine ancestress over the god or divine ancestor ; and here, as at Rome, a priest would clearly have to vacate office if he had no woman of the proper relationship to assist him in the performance of his sacred duties. Cinyras is said to have been famed for his exquisite beauty ^ and to have been wooed by Aphrodite herself^ Thus it would appear, as scholars have already observed,^ that Cinyras was in a sense a duplicate of his handsome son Adonis, to whom the inflammable goddess also lost her heart. Further, these stories of the love of Aphrodite for two members of the royal house of Paphos can hardly be dissociated from the corresponding legend told of Pygmalion, the Phoenician king of Cyprus, who is said to have fallen in love with an image of Aphrodite and taken it to his bed.* When we consider that Pygmalion was the father-in-law of Cinyras, that the son of Cinyras was Adonis, and that all three, in successive generations, are said to have been con- cerned in a love-intrigue with Aphrodite, we can hardly help concluding that the early Phoenician kings of Paphos, or their sons, regularly claimed to be not merely the priests of the goddess ^ but also her lovers, in other words, that in their official capacity they personated Adonis. At all events Adonis is said to have reigned in Cyprus,^ and it appears to be certain that the title of Adonis was regularly borne by the sons of all the Phoenician kings of the island.'' It is ' Lucian, Rhetorum praeceptcrr, 1 1 ; Hyginus, Fab, 270. ^ Clement of Alexandria, Protrspt. 'i' 33> P- 29, ed. Potter. ■^ W. H. Engel, Kypros, ii. 585, 6l2 ; A. Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grice Atziiqtie, iii. 197, n. 3. * Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, vi. 22 ; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iV' S7> P- 5I1 sd. Potter; Ovid, Metain. X. 243-297. The authority for the story is the Greek histoiy of Cyprus by Philostephnnus, cited both by Arnobius and Clement. In Ovid's poetical Version of the legend Pygmalion is a sculptor, and the image with which he falls in love is that of a lovely woman, which at his prayer Venus endows with life. That King Pygmalion was a Phoenician is mentioned by Porphyry [De abstinentia, iv. 15) on the authority of Asclepiades, a Cyprian. * See above, pp. 37 sq. ^ Probus, on Virgil, Eel. x. 18. I owe this reference to Mr. A. B. Cook. ' In his treatise on the political insti- tutions of Cyprus, Aristotle reported that the sons and brothers of the kings were called "lords" (fii/a/fTes), and their sisters and wives " ladies " {hinuaai). See Harpocration and Suidas, s.v. 'AvaKres. Compare Iso- crates, ix. 72; Clearchusof Soli, quoted by Athenaeus, vi. 68, p. 256 A. Now in the bilingual inscription of Idalium, which furnished the clue to the Cypriote syllabary, the Greek version gives the title Fdva^ as the equivalent of the GHAP. HI ADONIS IN CYPRUS 43 true that the title strictly signified no more than " lord " ; yet the legends which connect these Cyprian princes with the goddess of love make it probable that they claimed the divine nature as well as the human dignity of Adonis. The story of Pygmalion points to a ceremony of a sacred marriage in which the king wedded the image of Aphrodite, or rather of Astarte. If that was so, the tale was in a sense true, not of a single man only, but of a whole series of men, and it would be all the more likely to be told of Pygmalion, if that was a common name of Semitic kings in general, and of Cyprian kings in particular. Pygmalion, at all events, is known as the name of the famous king of Tyre from whom his sister Dido fled ; ^ and a king of Citium and Idalium in Cyprus, who reigned in the time of Alexander the Great, was also called Pygmalion, or rather Pumi-yathon, the Phoenician name which the Greeks corrupted into Pygmalion.^ Further, it deserves to be noted that the names Pygmalion and Astarte occur together in a Punic inscription on a gold medallion which was found in a grave at Carthage ; the characters of the inscription are of the earliest type.' As the custom of religious prostitution at Paphos is said to have been founded by King Cinyras and observed by his daughters,* we may surmise that the kings Saci-ed of Paphos played the part of the divine bridegroom in a less "1^^^^^ innocent rite than the form of marriage with a statue ; in kings of Paphos. Phoenician Adon (pn). See Corpus Coins of Cyprus (London, 1904), pp. Inscriptionum Semiticartim, i. No. xl. sq., 21 sq., pi. iv. 20-24. He was 89; G. A. Cooke, Text-book of deposed by Ptolemy (Diodoriis Siculus, North- Semitic Inscriptions, p. 74, xix. 79. 4). Most probably he is the n. I. Pymaton of Citium who purchased the 1 Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 18, kingdom from a dissolute monarch ed. B. Niese ; Appian, Punica, l ; named Pasicyprus some time before Virgil, Aen. i. 346 sq. ; Ovid, Fasti, the conquests of Alexander (Athenaeus, ill. 574 i Justin, xviii. 4; Eustathius iv. 63, p. 167). In this passage of on Dionysius Periegetes, 195 i^Geo- Athenaeus the name Pymaton, which graphi Graeci Minores, ed. C. Milller, is found in the MSS. and agrees ii. 250 sq.), closely with the Phoenician Pumi- 2 Pumi-yathon, son of Milk-yathon, yathon, ought not to be changed is known from Phoenician inscriptions into Pygmalion, as the latest editor found at Idalium. See G. A. Cooke, (G. Kaibel) has done. Text-book of North-Semitic Inscrip- ' G. A. Cooke, op. cit. p. 55, n. I. tions, Nos. 12 and 13, pp. 55 sq., 57 Mr. Cooke remarks that the form of the sq. Coins inscribed with the name of name (p^DJS instead of [n'-os) must King Pumi-yathon are also in existence. be due to Greek influence. See G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek * See above, p. 36. 44 ADONIS IN CYPRUS book i fact, that at certain festivals each of them had to mate with one or more of the sacred harlots of the temple, who played Astarte to his Adonis. If that was so, there is more truth than has commonly been supposed in the reproach cast by the Christian fathers that the Aphrodite worshipped by Cinyras was a common whore.^ The fruit of their union would rank as sons and daughters of the deity, and would in time become the parents of gods and goddesses, like their fathers and mothers before them. In this manner Paphos, and perhaps all sanctuaries of the great Asiatic goddess where sacred prostitution was practised, might be well stocked with human deities, the offspring of the divine king by his wives, concubines, and temple harlots. Any one of these might probably succeed his father on the throne ^ or be sacrificed in his stead whenever stress of war or other grave junctures called, as they sometimes did,* for the death of a royal victim. Such a tax, levied occasionally on the king's numerous progeny for the good of the country, would neither extinguish the divine stock nor break the father's heart, who divided his paternal affection among so many. Sons and At all events, if, as there seems reason to believe, Semitic fathers^and ^^'"S^ were ofteu regarded at the same time as hereditary mothers of deities, it is easy to understand the frequency of Semitic '^ ^° ' personal names which imply that the bearers of them were the sons or daughters, the brothers or sisters, the fathers or mothers of a god, and we need not resort to the shifts employed by some scholars to evade the plain sense of the words.^ This interpretation is confirmed by a parallel ^ Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. had eighty-eight children (2 Chronicles ii. 13, p. 12; Arnobius, Adversus xi. 21) and King Abi-jah had thirty- Nationes, v. 9; Firmicus Maternus, eiglit (2 Chronicles xiii. 21). These De errore profanartim religione, 10. examples illustrate the possible size of 2 That the king was not necessarily the family of a polygamous king, succeeded by his eldest son is proved ' The Golden Bough,"^ ii. 34 sgq. by the case of Solomon, who on his * The names which imply that a accession executed his elder brother man was the father of a god have Adoni-jah (l Kings ii. 22-24). Simi- proved particularly puzzling to some larly, when Abimelech became king of eminent Semitic scholars. See W. Shechem, he put his seventy brothers Robertson Smith, Religion of the in ruthless oriental fashion to death. Semites,'^ p. 45, n. 2 ; Th. Noldeke, See Judges viii. 29-31, ix. S sq., 18. s.v. "Names," Encyclopaedia Biblica, So on his accession Jehoram, King of iii. 3287 sqq. Such names are Abi- Judah, put all his brothers to the sword baal ("father of Baal"), Abi-el ("father (2 Chronicles xxi. 4). King Rehoboam of El "), Abi-jah ("father of Jehovah "), CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 45 Egyptian usage ; for in Egypt, where the kings were wor- shipped as divine,^ the queen was called " the wife of the god " or " the mother of the god," ^ and the title " father of the god " was borne not only by the king's real father but also by his father-in-law.^ Similarly, perhaps, among the Semites any man who sent his daughter to swell the royal harem may have been allowed to call himself " the father of the god." If we may judge by his name, the Semitic king who cinyras, bore the name of Cinyras was, like King David, a harper ; ^!^^ ^'"^ for the name of Cinyras is clearly connected with the Greek harper. cinyra, " a lyre," which in its turn comes from the Semitic kinnor, " a lyre," the very word applied to the instrument on which David played before Saul.* We shall probably not err in assuming that at Paphos as at Jerusalem the music of the lyre or harp was not a mere pastime designed to while away an idle hour, but formed part of the service of religion, the moving influence of its melodies being perhaps set down, like the effect of wine, to the direct inspiration of a deity. Certainly at Jerusalem the regular clergy of The use of the temple prophesied to the music of harps, of psalteries, ""ans'of^ and of cymbals ; ^ and it appears that the irregular clergy prophetic also, as we may call the prophets, depended on some such among'the stimulus for inducing the ecstatic state which they took for Hebrews. immediate converse with the divinity.^ Thus we read of a band of prophets coming down from a high place with a psaltery, a timbrel, a pipe, and a harp before them, and and Abi-melech (" father of a king" or Titel ' Vater des (Joltes'als Bezeich- " father of Moloch"). On the hypo- nungfiir 'Vater oderSchwiegervaterdes thesis put forward in the text the father Konigs,'" Berichte uber die Verhand- of a god and the son of a god stood lungen der Kdniglich-.Siichsischen Gesell- precisely on the same footing, and the schaft der Wissenschaft zu Leipzig, same person would often be both one Philolog. Histor. Klasse, Ivii. (1905) and the other. Where the common pp. 254-270. practice prevailed of naming a father 4 p_ (^ Movers, Die Phoenizier, i. after his son ( The Golden Bough,-' 1. 412 243; Stoll, in ^. H. Roscher's Lexi- sq. ), adivine king in later life mightoften ^^„ ^^^ g^^^^_ „„^ ,.^.,„^ Mythologie, i. be called "father of such-and-such a 1191; i Samuel xvi. 23. ^°i'See my Lectures on the Early ^ ' Chronicles xxv. 1-3; compare History of the Kingship, pp. 148 sq. ^ Samuel vi. 5. 2 A. Erman, Aegypten und Aegyp- ^ W. Robertson Smith, 7;5« /Vo^/m^j- tisches Leben iin Altertum, p. 113. of Israel ,'' ■^^. 391 sq. ; E. Renan, jy/j- 2 L. Borchardt, "Der agyptische toire dti peiiple d' Israel, n. 280. 46 ADONIS IN CYPRUS book 1 prophesying as they went.^ Again, when the united forces of Judah and Ephraim were traversing the wilderness of Moab in pursuit of the enemy, they could find no water for three days, and were like to die of thirst, they and the beasts of burden. In this emergency the prophet Elisha, who was with the army, called for a minstrel and bade him play. Under the influence of the music he ordered the soldiers to dig trenches in the sandy bed of the waterless waddy through which lay the line of march. They did so, and next morn- ing the trenches were full of the water that had drained down into them underground from the desolate, forbidding mountains on either hand. The prophet's success in striking water in the wilderness resembles the reported success of modern dowsers, though his mode of procedure was different. Incidentally he rendered another service to his countrymen. For the skulking Moabites from their lairs among the rocks saw the red sun of the desert reflected in the water, and taking it for the blood, or perhaps rather for an omen of the blood, of their enemies, they plucked up heart to attack the camp and were defeated with great slaughter.^ The Again, just as the cloud of melancholy which from time influence ^^ ^j^^^ darkened the moody mind of Saul was viewed as of music -' on religion, an evil Spirit from the Lord vexing him, so on the other hand the solemn strains of the harp, which soothed and com- posed his troubled thoughts,' may well have seemed to the hag-ridden king the very voice of God or of his good angel whispering peace. Even in our own day a great religious writer, himself deeply sensitive to the witchery of music, has said that musical notes, with all their power to fire the blood and melt the heart, cannot be mere empty sounds and nothing more ; no, they have escaped from some higher sphere, they are outpourings of eternal harmony, the voice of angels, the Magnificat of saints.* It is thus that the rude imaginings of primitive man are transfigured and his feeble lispings 1 I Samuel x. 5. Moabites took the ruddy tight on the 2 2 Kings iii. 4-24. And for the water for an omen of blood rather explanation of the supposed miracle, than for actual gore. see W. Robertson Smith, The Old ' i Samuel xvi. 14-23. Testament in the Jewish Chtirch,^ pp. * J. H. Newman, Sertnons preached 146, sg. I have to thank Professor before the University of Oxford^ No. Kennett for the suggestion that the xv. pp. 346 sq. (third edition). CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 47 echoed with a rolling reverberation in the musical prose of Newman. Indeed the influence of music on the develop- ment of religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic study. For we cannot doubt that this, the most intimate and affecting of all the arts, has done much to create as well as to express the religious emotions, thus modifying more or less deeply the fabric of belief to which at first sight it seems only to minister. The musician has done his part as well as the prophet and the thinker in the making of religion. Every faith has its appropriate music, and the difference between the creeds might almost be expressed in musical notation. The interval, for example, which divides the wild revels of Cybele from the stately ritual of the Catholic Church is measured by the gulf which severs the dissonant clash of cymbals and tambourines from the grave harmonies of Palestrina and Handel. A different spirit breathes in the difference of the music.^ The legend which made Apollo a friend of Cinyras ^ may The be based on a belief in their common devotion to the lyre. f'^']'^"°" °f string But what function, we may ask, did string music perform in music in the Greek and the Semitic ritual ? Did it serve to rouse the ge'^^i'^jif"'' human mouthpiece of the god to prophetic ecstasy ? or did it ritual. merely ban goblins and demons from the holy places and the holy service, drawing as it were around the worshippers a magic circle within which no evil thing might intrude ? In short, did it aim at summoning good or banishing evil spirits ? was its object inspiration or exorcism ? The examples drawn from the lives or legends of Ellsha and David prove that with the Hebrews the music of the lyre might be used for either purpose ; for while Elisha employed it to tune himself to the prophetic pitch, David resorted to it for the sake of exorcising the foul fiend from Saul. With the Greeks, on the other hand, in historical times, it does not appear that string music served as a means of inducing the condition of trance or ecstasy in the human mouthpieces of Apollo and the other oracular gods ; on the contrary, its sober- ing and composing influence, as contrasted with the exciting 1 It would be interesting to pursue much does Catholicism owe to Fra a similar line of inquiry in regard to Angelico ? the other arts. What was the influence of Phidias on Greek religion? How ^ Pindar, Pyth. ii. 15 sq. 48 ADONIS IN CYPRUS book i influence of flute music, is the aspect whicii chiefly impressed the Greek mind.^ The religious or, at all events, the super- stitious man might naturally ascribe the mental composure wrought by grave, sweet music to a riddance of evil spirits, in short to exorcism ; and in harmony with this view, Pindar, speaking of the lyre, says that all things hateful to Zeus in earth and sea tremble at the sound of music.^ Yet the association of the lyre with the legendary prophet Orpheus as well as with the Oracular god Apollo seems to hint that in early days its strains may have been employed by the Greeks, as they certainly were by the Hebrews, to bring on that state of mental exaltation in which the thick-coming fancies of the visionary are regarded as divine communica- tions.^ Which of these two functions of music, the positive or the negative, the inspiring or the protective, predominated in the religion of Adonis we cannot say ; perhaps the two were not clearly distinguished in the minds of his worshippers. Traditions A Constant feature in the myth of Adonis was his death 'of premature and violent death. If, then, the kings of Paphos cinyras. regularly personated Adonis, we must ask whether they imitated their divine prototype in death as in life. Tradition varied as to the end of Cinyras. Some thought that he slew himself on discovering his incest with his daughter ; * others alleged that, like Marsyas, he was defeated by Apollo in a musical contest and put to death by the victor.^ Yet he cannot strictly be said to have perished in the flower of his youth if he lived, as Anacreon averred, to the ripe age of one hundred and sixty.® If we must choose between the two stories, it is perhaps more likely that he died a violent deatii 1 On the lyre and the flute in Greek have killed himself when he learned religion and Greek thought, see L. R. what he had done (Antoninus Liberalis, Farnell, The Cults of the Greei Slates, Transform. 34). iv. 243 sqg. ^ Scholiast and Eustathius on 2 Pindar, Pytk. i. 13 sgq. H"™^'^' ^''J!^' l\ ^o. Compare F. C. „ . , , . , . Movers, Z)ze Phoenizier, 1. 243 sq.; 3 This seems to be the view also of ^_ jj. Engel, Kypros, ii. 109-1 16 ; Dr. Farnell, who rightly connects the gj^,,^ ;„ ^^ ^ Roscher's Lexikon d. musica with the prophetic side of .^^;^_ ^^_ ^.„,_ Mythologie, ii. ngi. Apollo's character {op. at. iv. 245). Anacreon, cited by Pliny, Nat. * Hyginus, Fab. 242. So in the Hist. vii. 154. Nonnns also refers to version of the story which made Adonis the long life of Cinyras (Dionys, xxxii. the son of Theias, the father is said to 212 sq. ). CHAP. Ill ADONIS IN CYPRUS 49 than that he survived to an age which surpassed that of Thomas Parr by eight years/ though it fell far short of the antediluvian standard. The life of eminent men in remote ages is exceedingly elastic and may be lengthened or shortened, in the interests of history, at the taste and fancy of the historian. 1 Encyclopaedia Briiannica,^ xiv. 858. CHAPTER IV SACRED MEN AND WOMEN I. An Alternative Theory Sacred prostitu- tion of Western Asia. Theory of its secalar origin. In the preceding chapter we saw that a system of sacred prostitution was regularly carried on all over Western Asia, and that both in Phoenicia and in Cyprus the practice was specially associated with the worship of Adonis. As the explanation which I have adopted of the custom has been rejected in favour of another by writers whose opinions are entitled to be treated with respect, I shall devote the present chapter to a further consideration of the subject, and shall attempt to gather, from a closer scrutiny and a wider survey of the field, such evidence as may set the custom and with it the worship of Adonis in a clearer light. At the outset it will be well to examine the alternative theory which has been put forward to explain the facts. It has been proposed to derive the religious prostitution of Western Asia from a purely secular and precautionary practice of destroying a bride's virginity before handing her over to her husband in order that " the bridegroom's intercourse should be safe from a peril that is much dreaded by men in a certain stage of culture." ^ Among 1 L. R. Farnell, ' ' Sociological hypotheses concerning the position of women in ancient religion," Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft, vii. (1904) p. 88 ; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 366 sq. ; Fr. Cumont, Les religions orientates dans le faganisme Remain (Paris, 1907), pp. 286-288. A different and, in my judgment, a truer view of these customs was formerly taken by Prof. Nilsson. See his Studia de Dionysiis Atticis (Lund, 1900), pp. 119-121. For a large collection of facts bearing on this subject and a judicious discussion of them, see W. Hertz, "Die Sage vom Gift- madchen," Gesammelte Abhandltmgen 50 BK. I. CH. IV AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY 51 the objections which may be taken to this view are the following : — ( 1 ) The theory fails to account for the deeply religious The theory character of the customs as practised in antiquity all over f°c^ou°°'for Western Asia. That religious character appears from the the reiigi- observance of the custom at the sanctuaries of a great ""/^fthf' goddess, the dedication of the wages of prostitution to her, custom, the belief of the women that they earned her favour by prostituting themselves,^ and the command of a male deity to serve him in this manner.^ (2) The theory fails to account for the prostitution ofnorforthe married women at Heliopolis ' and apparently also at [^^^'^f"" Babylon and Byblus ; for in describing the practice at the married two latter places our authorities, Herodotus and Lucian, ^°'"«°' speak only of women, not of virgins.* In Israel also we know from Hosea that young married women prostituted themselves at the sanctuaries on the hilltops under the shadow of the sacred oaks, poplars, and terebinths.^ The prophet makes no mention of virgins participating in these orgies. They may have done so, but his language does not imply it : he speaks only of " your daughters " and " your daughters-in-law.'' The prostitution of married women is wholly inexplicable on the hypothesis here criticised. Yet it can hardly be separated from the prostitution of virgins, which in some places at least was carried on side by side with it. (3) The theory fails to account for the repeated and nor for the professional prostitution of women in Lydia, Cappadocia, p^rostitu^ Armenia, and apparently all over Palestine.^ Yet this tion of the same women, (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1905), pp. secular: the inscription which I have 195-219. My attention was drawn cited proves the contrary. Both he to this last work by Prof. G. L. and Dr. Farnell fully recognise the Hamilton of the University of Michigan religious aspect of most of these after my manuscript had been sent customs in antiquity, and Prof. Nilsson to the printer. With Hertz's treat- attempts, as it seems to me, unsuccess- ment of the subject I am in general fully, to indicate how a practice agreement, and I have derived from supposed to be purely secular in origin his learned treatise several references should have come to contract a to authorities which I had overlooked. religious character. 1 Above, p. 33. ' Above, p. 33. 2 Above, p. 34. Prof. Nilsson is * Above, pp. 32, 33. mistaken in affirming {op. cit. p. 367) ^ Hosea iv. 13 sq. that the Lydian practice was purely * Above, pp. 34, 36, note 2. 52 AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY BOOK I nor for the ' ' sacred men " be- side the ' ' sacred women," and is irre- concilable with the pajTnent of the women. habitual prostitution can in its turn hardly be separated from the first prostitution in a woman's life. Or are we to suppose that the first act of unchastity is to be explained in one way and all the subsequent acts in quite another ? that the first act was purely secular and all the subsequent acts purely religious ? (4) The theory fails to account for the Kedeshim (" sacred men ") side by side with the Kedeshoth (" sacred women ") at the sanctuaries ; ^ for whatever the religious functions of these " sacred men " may have been, it is highly probable that they were analogous to those of the " sacred women " and are to be explained in the same way. (5) On the hypothesis which I am considering we should expect to find the man who deflowers the maid remunerated for rendering a dangerous service ; and so in fact we commonly find him remunerated in places where the supposed custom is really practised.^ But in Western Asia it was just the contrary. It was the woman who was paid, not the man ; indeed, so well was she paid that in Lydia and Cyprus the girls earned dowries for themselves in this fashion.^ This clearly shows that it was the woman, and not the man, who was believed to render the service. Or are we to suppose that the man had to pay for rendering a dangerous service ? * These considerations seem to prove conclusively that whatever the remote origin of these Western Asiatic customs 1 See above, pp. 14 sq. 2 L. di Varthema, Travels (Hakluyt Society, 1863), pp. 141, 202-204 (Malabar) ; J. A. de Mandlesloe, in J. Harris's Voyages and Travels, i. (London, 1744), p. 767 (Malabar) ; Richard, " History of Tonquin," in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels., ix. 760 sq. (Aracan) ; A. de Morga, The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siatn, Cambodia, Japan, and China (Hakluyt Society, 1868), pp. 304 sq. (the Philippines) ; J. Mallat, Les Philip- pines (Paris, 1846), i. 61 (the Philip- pines) ; L. Moncelon, in Bulletins de la SociHi d'Anthropologte de Paris, 3me Serie, ix. (1886) p. 368 (New Cale- donia) ; H. Crawford Angas, in Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesell- schaft fiir Anthropologie, Ethnologie imd Urgeschichte, 1898, p. 481 (Azimba, Central Africa) ; Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1897), p. 410 (the Wa-Yao of Central Africa). See further, W. Hertz, " Die Sage vom Giftmadchen," Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp. 198- 204. 5 Herodotus, i. 93 ; Justin, xviii. 5. 4. Part of the wages thus earned was probably paid into the local temple. See above, pp. 32, 33. * This fatal objection to the theory under discussion has been clearly stated by W. Hertz, op. cit. p. 217. I am glad to find myself in agreement with so judicious and learned an enquirer. CHAP, IV AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY S3 may have been, they cannot have been observed in his- torical times from any such motive as is assumed by the hypothesis under discussion. At the period when we have to do with them the customs were to all appearance purely religious in character, and a religious motive must accordingly be found for them. Such a motive is supplied by the theory I have adopted, which, so far as I can judge, adequately explains all the known facts. At the same time, in justice to the writers whose views The I have criticised, I wish to point out that the practice from destroy1n°g which they propose to derive the sacred prostitution of virginity Western Asia has not always been purely secular in character. i\^^^ ^^.i For, in the first place, the agent employed is sometimes re- ^ religious ported to be a priest ; ^ and, in the second place, the sacrifice of virginity has in some places, for example at Rome and in parts of India, been made directly to the image of a male deity.^ The meaning of these practices is very obscure, and in the present state of our ignorance on the subject it is un- safe to build conclusions on them. It is possible that what seems to be a purely secular precaution may be only a degenerate form of a religious rite ; and on the other hand it is possible that the religious rite may go back to a purely physical preparation for marriage, such as is still observed among the aborigines of Australia.^ But even if such an I L. di Varthema, Travels (Hakluyt Gesammelte Abhandhmgen, pp. 204- Society, 1863), p. 141 ; J. A. de 207. For a criticism of the Malabar Mandlesloe, in J. Harris's Voyages and e\'idence see K. Schmidt, Jus primae Travels, i. (London, 1744), p. 767; noctis (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1881), A. Hamilton, "New Account of the pp. 312-320. East Indies," in Pinkerton's Voyages ^ Lactantius, Divin. Institut. i. 20 ; and Travels, viii. 374; Ch. Lassen, Arnobius, Adversus Nationes,^ iv. 7; Indische Alterthumskunde, iv. 408 ; Augustine, De civitate Dei, vi. 9, vii. A. de Herrera, The General History 24 ; D. Barbosa, Description of the of the Vast Continent atid Islands of coasts of East Africa and Malabar America (translated by Captain J. (Hakluyt Society, 1866), p. 96 ; Son- Stevens), iii. 310, 340; Fr. Coreal, nerat. Voyage aux Indes Orientales et Voyages aux Indes Occidentales (Am- iX la Chine (Paris, 1 782), i. 68; F. sterdam, 1722), i. 10 sg., 139 sq. ; Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 396 C. F. Ph. V. yi3x\.\\i.s, Beitrdge zur Eth- sq., 511 ; W. Hertz, "Die Sage vom nographie und Sprachenkunde Ameri- Giftmadchen," Gesammelte Abhand- lid's,\. wisq. The first three of these btngen, pp. 270-272. According to authorities refer to Malabar ; the Arnobius, it was matrons, not maidens, fourth refers to Cambodia ; the last who resorted to the image. This three refer to the Indians of Central suggests that the custom was a charm and South America. See further, W. to procure offspring. Hertz, " Die Sage vom Giftmadchen," ^ j^. Schomburgk, in Verhandlungen 54 SACRED WOMEN IN INDIA book i historical origin could be established, it would not explain the motives from which the customs described in this volume were practised by the people of Western Asia in historical times. The true parallel to these customs is the sacred prostitution which is carried on to this day by dedicated women in India and Africa. An examination of these modern practices may throw light on the ancient customs. § 2. Sacred Women in India Sacred In India the dancing-girls dedicated to the service of the^Tamii ^hc Tamil temples take the name of deva-dasis, " servants or temples of slaves of the gods," but in common parlance they are spoken India. of simply as harlots. Every Tamil temple of note in Southern India has its troop of these sacred women. Their official duties are to dance twice a day, morning and evening, in the temple, to fan the idol with Tibetan ox-tails, to dance and sing before it when it is borne in procession, and to carry the holy light called Kumbarti. Inscriptions show that in 1004 A.D. the great temple of the Chola King Rajaraja at Tanjore had attached to it four hundred "women of the temple," who lived at free quarters in the streets round about it and were allowed land free of taxes out of its en- dowment. From infancy they are trained to dance and sing. In order to obtain a safe delivery expectant mothers will often vow to dedicate their child, if she should prove to be a girl, to the service of God. Among the weavers of Tiru-kalli-kundram, a little town in the Madras Presidency, the eldest daughter of every family is devoted to the temple. Such Girls thus made over to the deity are formally married, women are . , . » , ■ i i /• sometimes somctimes to the idol, sometimes to a sword, before they married to enter on their duties ; from which it appears that they are and pos- often, if not regularly, regarded as the wives of the god.^ sessed by der Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthro- 95; id.. Northern Tribes of Central pologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, Australia, pp. 133-136. In Australia 1^79. pp. 235 sq. ; Miklucho-Maclay, the observance of the custom is ibid. 1880, p. 89 J W. E. Roth, regularly followed by the exercise of Studies among the North-west -central what seem to be old communal rights Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and of the men over the women. London, 1897), pp. 174 sq., 180; B. ' J. A. Dubois, Moeurs, Institu- Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native tions et Cirimonies des Peuples de Tribes of Central Atistralia, pp. 92- Flnde, ii. 353 sqq. ; J. Shortt, "The CHAP. IV SACRED WOMEN IN INDIA 55 In Mahratta such a female devotee is called Murli. Common folk believe that from time to time the shadow of the god falls on her and possesses her person. At such times the possessed woman rocks herself to and fro, and the people occasionally consult her as a soothsayer, laying money at her feet and accepting as an oracle the words of wisdom or folly that drop from her lips.^ Nor is the pro- fession of a temple prostitute adopted only by girls. In Tulava, a district of Southern India, any woman of the four highest castes who wearies of her husband or, as a widow and therefore incapable of marriage, grows tired of celibacy, may go to a temple and eat of the rice offered to the idol: Thereupon, if she is a Brahman, she has the right to live either in the temple or outside of its precincts, as she pleases. If she decides to live in it, she gets a daily allow- ance of rice, and must sweep the temple, fan the idol, and confine her amours to the Brahmans. The male children of these women form a special class called Moylar, but are fond of assuming the title of Stanikas. As many of them as can find employment hang about the temple, sweeping the areas, sprinkling them with cow-dung, carrying torches before the gods, and performing other menial offices. Some of them, debarred from these holy offices, are reduced to the painful necessity of earning their bread by honest work. The daughters are either brought up to live like their mothers or are given in marriage to the Stanikas. Brahman women who do not choose to live in the temples, and all the women of the three lower castes, cohabit with any man of pure descent, but they have to pay a fixed sum annually to the temple.^ In Travancore a dancing-girl attached to a temple is in Travan- ^^ ^^ core tri6 known as a D&si, or Divaddsi, or Devarati&r, " a servant of dancing- God." The following account of her dedication and way of 5'^= are ... regularly life deserves to be quoted because, while it ignores the baser married to the god. Bayadere or dancing-girls of Southern Southern India (Madras, 1906), pp. India," Memoirs of the Anthropological 36 sq., 40 sg. Society of London iii. (1867-69) pp , ^ ^^^^ ^.^_ ij_ j^^^. 182-194; E. Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India,^ i. 922 sqq. ; W. Francis, in ^ Francis Buchanan, "A Journey Census of India, 1 901, vol. xv. from Madras through the Countries of (Madras), Part I. pp. 151 sq.; E. Mysore, Canara, and Malabar," Pinker- Thurston, Ethnogrciphic Notes in ton's Voyages and Travels, viii. 749. 56 SACRED WOMEN IN INDIA book i Sacred Side of her vocation, it brings clearly out the idea of her '^fri's'^'"^ marriage to the deity. " Marriage in the case of a Devarati&l married to in its original import is a renunciation of ordinary family life Traran-'" ^"'^ ^ consccration to the service of God. With a lady-nurse core. at a Hospital, or a sister at a Convent, a DSvaddsi at a Hindu shrine, such as she probably was in the early ages of Hindu spirituality, would have claimed favourable comparison. In the ceremonial of the dedication -marriage of the Ddsi, elements are not wanting which indicate a past quite the reverse of disreputable. The girl to be married is generally from six to eight years in age. The bridegroom is the presiding deity of the local temple. The ceremony is done at his house. The expenses of the celebration are supposed to be partly paid from his funds. To instance the practice at the Suchindram temple, a Ydga or meeting of the chief functionaries of the temple arranges the preliminaries. The girl to be wedded bathes and goes to the temple with two pieces of cloth, a tdli, betel, areca-nut, etc. These are placed by the priest at the feet of the image. The girl sits with the face towards the deity. The priest kindles the sacred fire and goes through all the rituals of the Tirukkaly&nam festival. He then initiates the bride into the Panchdkshara mantra, if in a Saiva temple and the Ashtdks/iara, if in a Vaishnava temple. On behalf of the divine bridegroom, he presents one of the two cloths she has brought as offering and ties the Tdli around her neck. The practice, how old it is not possible to say, is then to take her to her house where the usual marriage festivities are celebrated for four days. As in Brahminical marriages, the Nalunku ceremony, i.e. the rolling of a cocoanut by the bride to the bridegroom and vice versa a number of times to the accompaniment of music, is gone through, the temple priest playing the bride- groom's part. Thenceforth she becomes the wife of the deity in the sense that she formally and solemnly dedicates the rest of her life to his service with the same constancy and devotion that a faithful wife united in holy matrimony shows to her wedded lord. The life of a Divaddst bedecked with all the accomplishments that the muses could give was one of spotless purity. Even now she is maintained by the temple. She undertakes fasts in connection with the temple CHAP. IV SACRED WOMEN IN INDIA 11 festivals, such as the seven days' fast for the Apam&rgam ceremony. During the period of this fast, strict continence is enjoined ; she is required to talce only one meal, and that within the temple — in fact to live and behave at least for a term, in the manner ordained for her throughout life. Some of the details of her daily work seem interesting ; she attends the Dipdradhana, the waving of lighted lamps in front of the deity at sunset every day ; sings hymns in his praise, dances before his presence, goes round with him in his processions with lights in hand. After the procession, she sings a song or two from Jaydeva's Gitagovinda and with a few lullaby hymns, her work for the night is over. When she grows physically unfit for these duties, she is formally invalided by a special ceremony, i.e. Totuvaikkuka, or the laying down of the ear-pendants. It is gone through at the Maha Raja's palace, whereafter she becomes a TAikkizhavi (old mother), entitled only to a subsistence- allowance. When she dies, the temple contributes to the funeral expenses. On her death-bed, the priest attends and after a few ceremonies immediately after death, gets her bathed with saffron- powder." ^ § 3. Sacred Men and Women in West Africa Still more instructive for our present purpose are the Among West African customs. Among the Ewe-speaking peoples ^lay\&s of the Slave coast "recruits for the priesthood are obtained of West in two ways, viz., by the affiliation of young persons, and by sacred pro- the direct consecration of adults. Young people of either s'itutes are , , . . regarded sex dedicated or affiliated to a god are termed kosio, from as the kono, ' unfruitful,' because a child dedicated to a god passes ^^^^^°^ into his service and is practically lost to his parents, and si, ' to run away.' As the females become the ' wives ' of the god to whom they are dedicated, the termination si in vodu-si [another name for these dedicated women], has been trans- lated ' wife ' by some Europeans ; but it is never used in the general acceptation of that term, being entirely restricted to persons consecrated to the gods. The chief business of ^ N. Subramhanya Aiyar, in Census Mr. W. CrooUe for referring ine to of India, 1901, vol. xxvi. (Travancore), this and other passages on the sacred pp. 276 sq. I have to thank my friend dancing-girls of India. 58 SACRED MEN AND WOMEN book i the female kosi is prostitution, and in every town there is at least one institution in which the best-looking girls, between ten and twelve years of age, are received. Here they remain for three years, learning the chants and dances peculiar to the worship of the gods, and prostituting themselves to the priests and the inmates of the male seminaries ; and at the termination of their novitiate they become public prostitutes. This condition, however, is not regarded as one for reproach ; they are considered to be married to the god, and their excesses are supposed to be caused and directed by him. Properly speaking, their libertinage should be confined to the male worshippers at the temple of the god, but practic- ally it is indiscriminate. Children who are born from such unions belong to the god."^ These women are not allowed to marry since they are deemed the wives of a god.^ The Again, in this part of Africa " the female Kosio of fTres of Dafih-gbi, or Dailh-sio, that is, the wives, priestesses, and the python- temple prostitutes of Dafih-gbi, the python-god, have their ^°^' own organisation. Generally they live together in a group of houses or huts inclosed by a fence, and in these enclosures the novices undergo their three years of initiation. Most new members are obtained by the affiliation of young girls ; but any woman whatever, married or single, slave or free, by publicly simulating possession, and uttering the conven- tional cries recognised as indicative of possession by the god, can at once join the body, and be admitted to the habitations of the order. The person of a woman who has joined in this manner is inviolable, and during the period of her novitiate she is forbidden, if single, to enter the house of her parents, and, if married, that of her husband. This inviolability, while it gives women opportunities of gratifying an illicit passion, at the same time serves occasionally to save the persecuted slave, or neglected wife, from the ill- treatment of the lord and master ; for she has only to go through the conventional form of possession and an asylum is assured." ^ The python-god marries these women secretly 1 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe -speaking ' A. B. Ellis, op. cit. pp. 148 sq. Peoples of the Slave - coast of West Compare Des Marchais, Voyage en- Africa, pp. 140 sq. Guinie et h Cayenne (Amsterdam, '^ A. B. Ellis, op. cit. p. 142. I73I). "• 144- IS' > P- Bouche, La CHAP. IV IN WEST AFRICA 59 in his temple, and they father their offspring on him ; but it is the priests who consummate the union.^ For our purpose it is important to note that a close Supposed connection is apparently supposed to exist between the between"" fertility of the soil and the marriage of these women to the fertility the serpent. For the time when new brides are sought for "^^ tir' the reptile-god is the season when the millet is beginning to marriage sprout. Then the old priestesses, armed with clubs, run to the frantically through the streets shrieking like mad women serpent. and carrying off to be brides of the serpent any little girls between the ages of eight and twelve whom they may find outside of the houses. Pious people at such times will sometimes leave their daughters at their doors on purpose that they may have the honour of being dedicated to the god.^ The marriage of wives to the serpent-god is probably deemed necessary to enable him to discharge the important function of making the crops to grow and the cattle to multiply ; for we read that these people " invoke the snake in excessively wet, dry, or barren seasons ; on all occasions relating to their government and the preservation of their cattle ; or rather, in one word, in all necessities and difficulties, in which they do not apply to their new batch of gods." ^ Once in a bad season the Dutch factor Bosman found the King of Whydah in a great rage. His Majesty explained the reason of his discomposure by saying " that that year he had sent much larger offerings to the snake -house than usual, in order to obtain a good crop ; and that one of his vice-roys (whom he showed me) had desired him afresh, in the name of the priests, who threatened a barren year, to send yet more. To which he answered that he did not intend to make any further offerings this year ; and if the snake would not bestow a plentiful harvest on them, he might let it alone ; for (said he) I cannot be more damaged thereby, the greatest part of my corn being already rotten in the field." * CSte des Esdaves (Paris, 1885), p. 128. 146 sq. The Abbe Bouche calls these women ^ W. Bosman, " Description of the danwis. Coast of Guinea," in Pinkerton's 1 A. B. Ellis, op. cit. p. 60 ; Des Voyages and Travels, xvi. 494. Marchais, op. cit. ii. 149 sq. * W. Bosman, I.e. The name of 2 Des Marchais, Voyage en Guin^e Whydah is spelt by Bosman as Fida, et & Cayenne (Amsterdam, 1731), ii. and by Des Marchais as Juda. 6o SACRED MEN AND WOMEN BOOK I Sacred men as well as women in West Africa : they are thought to be possessed by the deity. Among the negroes of the Slave Coast there are, as we have seen, male kosio as well as female kosio ; that is, there are dedicated men as well as dedicated women, priests as well as priestesses, and the ideas and customs in regard to them seem to be similar. Like the women, the men undergo a three years' novitiate, at the end of which each candidate has to prove'that the god accepts him and finds him worthy of inspiration. Escorted by a party of priests he goes to a shrine and seats himself on a stool that belongs to the deity. The priests then anoint his head with a mystic decoction and invoke the god in a long and wild chorus. During the sing- ing the youth, if he is acceptable to the deity, trembles violently, simulates convulsions, foams at the mouth, and dances in a frenzied style, sometimes for more than an hour. This is the proof that the god has taken possession of him. After that he has to remain in a temple without speaking for seven days and nights. At the end of that time, he is brought out, a priest opens his mouth to show that he may now use his tongue, a new name is given him, and he is fully ordained.^ Henceforth he is regarded as the priest and medium of the deity whom he serves, and the words which he utters in that morbid state of mental excitement which passes for divine inspiration, are accepted by the hearers as the very words of the god spoken by the mouth of the man.^ Any crime which a priest committed in a state of frenzy used to remain unpunished, no doubt because the act was thought to be the act of the god. But this benefit of clergy was so much abused that under King Gezo the law had to be altered ; and although, while he is still possessed by the god, the inspired criminal is safe, he is now liable to punishment as soon as the divine spirit leaves him. Never- theless on the whole among these people " the person of a priest or priestess is sacred. Not only must a layman not lay hands on or insult one ; he must be careful not even to knock one by accident, or jostle against one in the street. The Abbe Bouche relates^ that once when he was paying a visit to the chief of Agweh, one of the wives of the chief 1 A. B. Ellis, op. cit. pp. 142-144; No. 787 (4 juillet 1884), p. 322. Le R. P. Baudin, " Feticheurs 011 o . t> t-h- ministres religieux des N^gres de la ^- ^- ^"'=' "f- "'■ P?" '50 sq. Guinee," Les Missions Calholiqites, ' La C6te des Esdaves, ^■^. izy sq. CHAP. IV IN WEST AFRICA 6i was brought into the house by four priestesses, her face bloody, and her body covered with stripes. She had been savagely flogged for having accidentally trodden upon the foot of one of them ; and the chief not only dared not give vent to his anger, but had to give them a bottle of rum as a peace-offering." ^ Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, Similarly who border on the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast ^^^"xfhi to the west, the customs and beliefs in regard to the dedi- peoples of , , , , , . , , . , . , the Gold cated men and dedicated women, the priests and priestesses, coast there are very similar. These persons are believed to be from ^"^^ sacred ..,,,,. men and time to time possessed or inspired by the deity whom they women, serve ; and in that state they are consulted as oracles. They ™'^° "*_, , . . supposed work themselves up to the necessary pitch of excitement to be in- by dancing to the music of drums ; each god has his special j^^'^^'^jI'^ hymn, sung to a special beat of the drum, and accompanied by a special dance. It is while thus dancing to the drums that the priest or priestess lets fall the oracular words in a croaking or guttural voice which the hearers take to be the voice of the god. Hence dancing has an important place in the education of priests and priestesses ; they are trained in it for months before they may perform in public. These mouthpieces of the deity are consulted in almost every con- cern of life and are handsomely paid for their services.^ " Priests marry like any other members of the community, and purchase wives ; but priestesses are never married, nor can any ' head money ' be paid for a priestess. The reason appears to be that a priestess belongs to the god she serves, and therefore cannot become the property of a man, as would be the case if she married one. This prohibition extends to marriage only, and a priestess is not debarred from sexual commerce. The children of a priest or priestess are not ordinarily educated for the priestly profession, one generation being usually passed over, and the grandchildren selected. Priestesses are ordinarily most licentious, and custom allows them to gratify their passions with any man who may chance to take their fancy." ^ The ranks of the hereditary priest- 1 A. B. Ellis, op. cit. p. 147. peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa, pp. 120-138. 2 A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking ^ A. B. Ellis, op. cit. p. 121. 62 SACRED WOMEN book i hood are constantly recruited by persons who devote them- selves or who are devoted by their relations or masters to the profession. Men, women, and even children can thus become members of the priesthood. If a mother has lost several of her children by death, she will not uncommonly vow to devote the next born to the service of the gods ; for in this way she hopes to save the child's life. So when the child is born it is set apart for the priesthood, and on arriving at maturity generally fulfils the vow made by the mother and becomes a priest or priestess. At the ceremony of ordination the votary has to prove his or her vocation for the sacred life in the usual way by falling into or simulating convulsions, dancing frantically to the beat of drums, and speaking in a hoarse unnatural voice words which are deemed to be the utterance of the deity temporarily lodged in the body of the man or woman. ^ § 4. Sacred Women in Western Asia In like Thus in Africa, and sometimes if not regularly in India, Scred "^ ' ^ ^'^ sacred prostitutes attached to temples are regarded as prostitutes the wives of the god, and their excesses are excused on the Asia may™ g^ound that the women are not themselves, but that they act have been under the influence of divine inspiration. This is in substance possessed the explanation which I have given of the custom of sacred by the prostitution as it was practised in antiquity by the peoples married to of Western Asia. In their licentious intercourse at the the god. temples the women, whether maidens or matrons or pro- fessional harlots, imitated the licentious conduct of a great goddess of fertility for the purpose of ensuring the fruitful- ness of fields and trees, of man and beast ; and in discharging this sacred and important function the women were probably supposed, like their West African sisters, to be actually possessed by the goddess. The hypothesis at least explains all the facts in a simple and natural manner ; and in assum- ^ A. B. Ellis, op. at. pp. 120 sq., Volkes in Deutsch-Togo (Hsdm, 1 906), 129-138. The slaves, male and female, pp. 228, 229, 309, 450, 474, 792, dedicated to a god from childhood are 797, etc.). But his information does often mentioned by the German mis- not illustrate the principal points to sionary Mr. J. Spieth in his elaborate which I have called attention in the work on the Ewe people {Die Ewe- text. Stdmine : Material zur Kunde des Elbe- CHAP. IV IN WESTERN ASIA 63 ing that women could be married to gods it assumes a principle which we know to have been recognised in Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt.^ At Babylon a woman regularly slept in the great bed of Bel or Marduk, which stood in his temple on the summit of a lofty pyramid ; and it was believed that the god chose her from all the women of Babylon and slept with her in the bed. However, unlike the Indian and West African wives of gods, this spouse of the Babylonian deity is reported by Herodotus to have been chaste.^ Yet we may doubt whether she was so ; for these wives or perhaps para- mours of Bel are probably to be identified with the wives or votaries of Marduk mentioned in the code of Hammurabi, and we know from the code that female votaries of the gods might be mothers and married to men.^ At Babylon the sun -god Shamash as well as Marduk had human wives formally dedicated to his service, and they like the votaries of Marduk might have children.* It is significant that a name for these Babylonian votaries was kadishtu, which is the same word as ]}edesha, " consecrated woman," the regular Hebrew word for a temple harlot^ It is true that the law severely punished any disrespect shown to these sacred women ; ® but the example of West Africa warns us that a formal respect shown to such persons, even when it is enforced by severe penalties, need be no proof at all of their virtuous character.' In Egypt a woman used to sleep in the ' See my Lectures on the Early * C. H. W. Johns, " Notes on the History of the Kingship, pp. 170-173. Code of Hammurabi," I.e., where we „ ,-, , ■ o Ti • .- read (p. 104) of a female votary of 2 Herodotus 1. 181 .^. It IS no ghamash who had a daughter. clear whether the same or a different , ^^^ Hammtcrabi, § 181 ; woman slept every night in the temple. ^ ^ .^_ j^^^^^ ., j^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ 3 H. Winckler, Die Gesetze Ham- of Hammurabi," op. cit. pp. 100 sq, ; ;n2«ra*z2 (Leipsic, 1903), p. 31, § 182 ; S. A. Cook, 0/. cit. p. 148. Mr. C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Johns translates the name by " temple Assyrian Laws, Contracts, and Letters msXA" (Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, (Edinburgh, 1904), pp. 54, 55, 59, 60, Contracts, and Letters, p. 61). He is 61 {§§ 137> I44> I45i I46> i?^, 182, scrupulously polite to these ladies, but 187, 192, 193, of the Code of Ham- I gather from him that a far less chari- murabi). As to these female votaries table view of their religious vocation is see especially C. H. W. Johns, " Notes taken by Father Scheil, the first editor on the Code of Hammurabi," Ameri- and translator of the code. can Journal of Semitic Languages and * Any man proved to have pointed Literatures, xix. (January 1903) pp. the finger of scorn at a votary was 98-107. Compare S. A. Cook, The liable to be branded on the forehead Laws of Moses and the Code of Ham- [Code of Hammurabi, § 127). murabi (London, 1903), pp. 147-150. ' See above, pp. 60 sq. 64 SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA BOOK I temple of Ammon at Thebes, and the god was believed to visit her.^ Egyptian texts often mention her as " the divine consort," and in old days she seems to have usually been the Queen of Egypt herself.^ But in the time of Strabo, at the beginning of our era, these consorts or concubines of Ammon, as they vs^ere called, were beautiful young girls of noble birth, who held office only till puberty. During their term of office they prostituted themselves freely to any man who took their fancy. After puberty they were given in marriage, and a ceremony of mourning was performed for them as if they were dead.^ When they died in good earnest, their bodies were laid in special graves.* Similarly the sacred men [kede- s/iim) of Western Asia may have been regarded as pos- sessed by the deity and as acting and speaking in his name. § 5. Sacred Men in Western Asia As in West Africa the dedicated women have their counterpart in the dedicated men, so it was in Western Asia ; for there the sacred men [kedeshiin) clearly corre- sponded to the sacred women {kedeshotk), in other words, the sacred male slaves * of the temples were the complement of the sacred female slaves. And as the characteristic feature of the dedicated men in West Africa is their supposed possession or inspiration by the deity, so we may conjecture was it with the sacred male slaves (the ^edeskim) of Western Asia ; they, too, may have been regarded as temporary or permanent embodiments of the deity, possessed from time to time by his divine spirit, acting in his name, and speaking with his voice.^ At all events we know that this was so at the 1 Herodotus, i. 182. 2 A. Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buck, pp. 268 sq. See further my Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, pp. 171 sqq. 3 Strabo, xvii. I. 46, p. 816. The title " concubines of Zeus (Ammon) " is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (i- 47)- ' Diodorus Siculus, i. 47. * The IcpddovXoi, as the Greeks called them. ^ I have to thank the Rev. Professor R. H. ICennett for this important suggestion as to the true nature of the l:edeshim. The passages of the Bible in which mention is made of these men are Deuteronomy xxiii. 17 (in Hebrew 18) ; I Kings xiv. 24, xv. 12, xxii, 46 (in Hebrew 47) ; 2 Kings xxiii. 7 ; Job xxxvi. 14 (where kedsshim is translated " the unclean " in the English version). The usual rendering of kedeshim in the English Bible is not justified by any of these passages ; but it may perhaps derive support from a reference which Eusebius makes to the profligate rites observed at Aphaca ( Vita Constantini, iii. 55 ; Migne's Patrologia Graeca, xx. 1 1 20): ri)»'t3es yovv TLves dvdpes oiiK dvdpes, rd d^vov ttj's (^licews airapvqcrd.- /levoi, SriXelg. v6crif tt]v Balfiova iXeoSfTO, CHAP. IV SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA 65 sanctuary of the Moon among the Albanians of the Caucasus. The sanctuary owned church lands of great extent peopled by sacred slaves, and it was ruled by a high-priest, who ranked next after the king. Many of these slaves were inspired by the deity and prophesied ; and when one of them had been for some time in this state of divine frenzy, wander- ing alone in the forest, the high-priest had him caught, bound with a sacred chain, and maintained in luxury for a year. Then the poor wretch was led out, anointed with unguents, and sacrificed with other victims to the Moon. The mode of sacrifice was this. A man took a sacred spear, and thrust it through the victim's side to the heart. As he staggered and fell, the rest observed him closely and drew omens from the manner of his fall. Then the body was dragged or carried away to a certain place, where all his fellows stood upon it by way of purification.^ In this custom the prophet, or rather the maniac, was plainly supposed to be moon-struck in the most literal sense, that is, possessed or inspired by the deity of the Moon, who was perhaps thought by the Albanians, as by the Phrygians,^ to be a male god, since his chosen minister and mouthpiece was a man, not a woman.' It can hardly therefore be deemed improbable that at other sanctuaries of Western Asia, where sacred men were kept, these ministers of religion may have discharged a similar prophetic function, even though they did not share the tragic fate of the moon -struck Albanian prophet. Nor was the influence of these Asiatic prophets confined to Asia. In Sicily the spark which kindled the devastating Servile War was struck by a Syrian slave, who simulated the prophetic ecstasy in order to rouse his fellow-slaves to arms in the name of the Syrian goddess. To inflame still more his inflammatory words this ancient Mahdi ingeniously interlarded them with real fire and smoke, which by a common conjurer's trick he breathed from his lips.* But probably Eusebius is here speaking Lexikon der griech. u. rovi. Myth- of the men who castrated thenaselves in ologie, s.v. " Men," ii. 2687 sqq. honour of the goddess, and thereafter ' It is true that Strabo [l.€.) speaks wore female attire. See Lucian, De of the Albanian deity as a goddess, but dea Syria, 51 ; and below, pp. 224 sq. this may be only an accommodation to , _ , . the usage of the Greek language, in 1 Strabo, XI. 4. 7, p. 503. „hich the moon is feminine. 2 Drexler, in W. H. Roscher's * Florus, Epitoma, ii. 7 ; Diodorus 66 SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA book i Resem- In like manner the Hebrew prophets were believed to be theHeb/ew temporarily possessed and inspired by a divine spirit who prophets spoke through them, just as a divine spirit is supposed by sacred men West African negroes to speak through the mouth of the of Western dedicated men his priests. Indeed the points of resem- ^^"'"'' blance between the prophets of Israel and West Africa are close and curious. Like their black brothers, the Hebrew prophets employed music in order to bring on the prophetic trance ; ^ like them, they received the divine spirit through the application of a magic oil to their heads ; ^ like them, they were apparently distinguished from common people by certain marks on the face ; ^ and like them they were consulted not merely in great national emergencies but in the ordinary affairs of everyday life, in which they were expected to give information and advice for a small fee. For example, Samuel was consulted about lost asses,* just as a Zulu diviner is consulted about lost cows ; ^ and we have seen Elisha acting as a dowser when water ran short.^ Indeed, we learn that the old name for a prophet was a seer,'' a word which may be understood to imply that his special function was divination rather than prophecy in the sense of prediction. Be that as it may, Siculus, Frag, xxxiv. 2 (vol. v. pp. 87 as that of the crocodile or chameleon. sq., ed. L. Dindorf, in the Teubner The shoulders are frequently seen series). covered with an infinite number of 1 Above, pp. 45 sg. small marks like dots, set close 2 I Kings xix. 16 ; Isaiah Ix. I. together. All these marks are con- ^ I Kings XX. 41. So in Africa sidered sacred, and the laity are for- " priests and priestesses are readily bidden to touch them" (A. B. Ellis, distinguishable from the rest of the The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold community. They wear their hair long Coast, p. 146). The reason why the and unkempt. . . . Frequently both prophet's shoulders are especially appear with white circles painted round marked is perhaps given by the state- their eyes, or with various white devices, ment of a Zulu that "the sensitive marks, or lines painted on the face, part with a doctor [medicine -man] is neck, shoulders, or arms " (A. B. Ellis, his shoulders. Everything he feels The Eihe-speaking Peoples of the Slave is in the situation of his shoulders. Coast, p. 123). " Besides the ordinary That is the place where black men feel tribal tattoo-marks borne by all natives, the Amatongo " (ancestral spirits). See the priesthood in Dahomi bear a variety H. Callaway, The Religious System of of such marks, some very elaborate, and the Amazulu, part ii. p. 1 59. an expert can tell by the marks on a 4 j Samuel ix. 1-20. priest to what god he is vowed, and « r^ n -ri. n ?■ ■ c , jr '^ , ^ lui-ij'.i- J Callaway, The Keli'iotts System of ■what rank he holds m the order. ,, , , , •■■ T,, , . u • 1 1 • .. r Ih^ Amazulu, part ni. pp. 300 sag. Ihese hierarchical marks consist of '^ ir j 21 lines, scrolls, diamonds, and other See above, p. 46. patterns, with sometimes a figure, such ' i Samuel ix. 9. CHAP. IV SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA 67 prophecy of the Hebrew type has not been Hmited to Israel ; it is indeed a phenomenon of almost world-wide occurrence ; in many lands and in many ages the wild, whirling words of frenzied men and women have been accepted as the utterances of an indwelling deity. What does distinguish Hebrew pro- phecy from all others is that the genius of a few members of the profession wrested this vulgar but powerful instrument from baser uses, and by wielding it in the interest of a high morality rendered a service of incalculable value to humanity. That is indeed the glory of Israel, but it is not the side of prophecy with which we are here concerned. More to our purpose is to note that prophecy of the Inspired ordinary sort appears to have been in vogue at Byblus, ^ Bybius. the sacred city of Adonis, centuries before the life-time of the earliest Hebrew prophet whose writings have come down to us. When the Egyptian traveller, Wen-Ammon, was lingering in the port of Byblus, under the King's orders to quit the place, the spirit of God came on one of the royal pages or henchmen, and in a prophetic frenzy he announced that the King should receive the Egyptian stranger as a messenger sent from the god Ammon.'^ The god who thus took possession of the page and spoke through him was probably Adonis, the god of the city. With regard to the office of these royal pages we have no information ; but as ministers of a sacred king and liable to be inspired by the deity, they would naturally be themselves sacred ; in fact they may have belonged to the class of sacred slaves or kedeshim. If that was so it would confirm the conclusion to which the foregoing investigation points, namely, that origin- ally no sharp line of distinction existed between the prophets and the kedeshim ; both were " men of God," as the prophets I W. Max Mliller, in Mitteilmigen Scholars differ as to whether Wen- der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, Ammon's narrative is to be regarded 1900, No. I, p. 17; A. Erman, as history or romance; but even if it " Eine Raise nach Phonizien im were proved to be a fiction, we might II Tahrhundert v. Chr." Zeitschrift safely assume that the incident of the fiir Agyptische Sprache und Altertitms- prophetic frenzy at Byblus was based kuitde, xxxviii. {1900) pp. 5 sq. ; upon familiar facts. Prof. Wiedemann G. Maspero, Les contes fofulaires de thinks that the god who inspired the r Egypie Ancienue,^ ■p. 192; A. Wiede- page was the Egyptian Ammon, not mann, Altdgyptische Sagen und Mar- the Phoenician Adonis, but this view chen (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 99 sq- seems to me less probable. 68 SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA book i were constantly called ; ^ in other words, they were inspired mediums, men in whom the god manifested himself from time to time by word and deed, in short temporary incarna- tions of the deity. But while the prophets roved freely about the country, the kedesJiim appear to have been regularly attached to a sanctuary ; and among the duties which they performed at the shrines there were clearly some which revolted the conscience of men imbued with a purer morality. What these duties were, we may surmise partly from the behaviour of the sons of Eli to the women who came to the tabernacle,^ partly from the beliefs and practices as to " holy men " which survive to this day among the Syrian peasantry. '■ Holy Of these " holy men " we are told that " so far as they modern" are not impostors, they are men whom we would call insane, Syria. known among the Syrians as mejnAn, possessed by a jinn or spirit. They often go in filthy garments, or without clothing. Since they are regarded as intoxicated by deity, the most dignified men, and of the highest standing among the Moslems, submit to utter indecent language at their bidding without rebuke, and ignorant Moslem women do not shrink from their approach, because in their superstitious belief they attribute to them, as men possessed by God, a divine authority which they dare not resist. Such an attitude of compliance may be exceptional, but there are more than rumours of its existence. These ' holy men ' differ from the ordinary dervishes whom travellers so often see in Cairo, and from the ordinary madmen who are kept in fetters, so that they may not do injury to themselves and others. But their appearance, and the expressions regarding them, afford some illustrations of the popular estimate of ancient seers, or prophets, in the time of Hosea : ' The prophet is a fool, the man that hath the spirit is mad ' ° ; ' I Samuel ix. 6-8, lO; i Kings sacred women might be either married xiii. I, 4-8, II etc. or single; the married women had to 2 I Samuel ii. 22. Totally different swear that they had been true to their from their Asiatic namesakes were the husbands. See Dittenberger, Sylloge "sacred men" and "sacred women" Inscriptiontim Graecarum^^ No. 653; who were charged with the superin- Leges Graeconwi Sacrae, ed. J. de tendence of the mysteries at Andania Prott, L. Ziehen, Pars Altera, No. 58, in Messenia. They were chosen by pp. 166 sqg. lot and held office for a year. The ^ Hosea ix. 7. CHAP. IV SACRED MEN IN WESTERN ASIA 69 and in the time of Jeremiah,^ the man who made himself a prophet was considered as good as a madman." ^ To com- plete the parallel these vagabonds " are also believed to be possessed of prophetic power, so that they are able to foretell the future, and warn the people among whom they live of impending danger." ' We may conjecture that with women a powerful motive The license for submitting to the embraces of the " holy men " is a hope ^^^Hg.^ of obtaining offspring by them. For in Syria it is still "holy believed that even dead saints can beget children on barren b'e^x- ^'^ women, who accordingly resort to their shrines in order to plained by obtain the wish of their hearts. For example, at the Baths of women of Solomon in northern Palestine, blasts of hot air escape ^°^ °^- spring. from the ground ; and one of them, named Abu Rabah, is a famous resort of childless wives who wish to satisfy their maternal longings. They let the hot air stream up over their bodies and really believe that children born to them after such a visit are begotten by the saint of the shrine.* But the saint who enjoys the highest reputation in this respect is St. George. He reveals himself at his shrines which are scattered all over the country ; at each of them there is a tomb or the likeness of a tomb. The most celebrated of these sanctuaries is at Kalat el Hosn in northern Syria. Barren women of all sects, including Moslems, resort to it. " There are many natives who shrug their shoulders when this shrine is mentioned in connection with women. But it is doubtless true that many do not 1 Jeremiah xxix. 26. are reverenced not only by the 9 „ T ^ 1- r, ■ -^^ r -^^ peasantry, but also sometimes by the '■ S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic ' . ' . ■, , ' ^, „ ,. . ™ , ijoverning class. 1 have seen the Reh^^wn To-day, pp. 150 sq. ^.^^^ ^^ Nazareth ostentatiously pre- ' S. I. Curtiss, op. cit. p. 152. As paring food for a miserable and filthy to these "holy men," see further beggar, who sat in the justice-hall, and C. R. Conder, Tent-work in Palestine, was consulted as if he had been in- ii. 231 sq.: "The most peculiar class spired. A Derwish of peculiar emin- of men in the country is that of the ence is often dressed in good clothes, Derwishes, or sacred personages, who with a spotless turban, and is preceded wander from village to village, per- by a banner-bearer, and followed by a forming tricks, living on alms, and band, with drum, cymbal, and tam- enjoying certain social and domestic bourine. ... It is natural to reflect privileges, which very often lead to whether the social position of the scandalous scenes. Some of these men Prophets among the Jews may not have are mad, some are fanatics, but the resembled that of the Derwishes." majority are, I imagine, rogues. They * S. I. Curtiss, op. cit. pp. 116 sq. 70 SONS OF GOB book i know what seems to be its true character, and who think that the most puissant saint, as they believe, in the world can give them sons." " But the true character of the place is beginning to be recognised, so that many Moslems have forbidden their wives to visit it." ^ 8 6. Sons of God Belief that Customs like the foregoing may serve to explain the wom^n belief, which is not confined to Syria, that men and women may be the may be in fact and not merely in metaphor the sons and of a god. daughters of a god ; for these modern saints, whether Christian or Moslems, who father the children of Syrian mothers, are nothing but the old gods under a thin disguise. If in antiquity as at the present day Semitic women often repaired to shrines in order to have the reproach of barren- ness removed from them — and the prayer of Hannah is a familiar example of the practice,^ we could easily understand not only the tradition of the sons of God who begat children on the daughters of men,^ but also the exceedingly common occurrence of the divine titles in Hebrew names of human beings.* Multitudes of men and women, in fact, whose mothers had resorted to holy places in order to procure offspring, would be regarded as the actual children of the god and would be named accordingly. Hence Hannah called her infant Samuel, which means " name of God " or "his name is God";^ and probably she sincerely believed that the child was actually begotten in her womb by the deity.^ The dedication of such children to the service of ^ S. I. Curtiss, op. cit. pp. Il8, lig. phrase "sons of the prophets" means In India also some Mohammedan the prophets themselves. For more saints are noted as givers of children. examples of this idiom, see Brown, Thus at Fatepur-Sikri, near Agra, is Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and the grave of Salim Chishti, and child- English Lexicoti, p. I2I. less women tie rags to the delicate * For example, all Hebrew names tracery of the tomb, " thus bringing ending in -el or -iak are compounds of them into direct communion with the El or Yahwe, two names of the spirit of the holy man" (W. Crooke, divinity. See G. B. Gray, Studies in Natives of Northern India, p. 203). Hebrew Proper Names, pp. 149 sqq. ^ I Samuel i. ^ Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew ^ Genesis vi. 1-3. In this passage atid Etiglish Lexicon, p. 1028. But " the sons of God (or rather of the compare Encyclopaedia Biblica, iii. gods) " probably means, in accordance 3285, iv. 4452. with a common Hebrew idiom, no '' A trace of a similar belief perhaps more than " the gods," just as the survives in the narratives of Genesis CHAP. IV SONS OF GOD 71 God at the sanctuary was merely giving back the divine son to the divine father. Similarly in West Africa, when a woman has got a child at the shrine of Agbasia, the god who alone bestows offspring on women, she dedicates him or her as a sacred slave to the deity.^ Thus in the Syrian beliefs and customs of to-day we The saints probably have the clue to the religious prostitution practised g "^ are" in the very same regions in antiquity. Then as now women the equi- looked to the local god, the Baal or Adonis of old, the Abu the^andent Rabah or St. George of to-day, to satisfy the natural craving Baal or of a woman's heart ; and then as now, apparently, the part of the local god was played by sacred men, who in person- ating him may often have sincerely believed that they were acting under divine inspiration, and that the functions which they discharged were necessary for the fertility of the land as well as for the propagation of the human species. The purifying influence of Christianity and Mohammedanism has restricted such customs within narrow limits ; even under Turkish rule they are now only carried on in holes and corners. Yet if the practice has dwindled, the principle which it embodies appears to be fundamentally the same ; it is a desire for the continuance of the species, and a belief that an object so natural and legitimate can be accomplished by divine power manifesting itself in the bodies of men and women. The belief in the physical fatherhood of God has not Belief been confined to Syria in ancient and modern times. Else- J^jjysfcai where many men have been counted the sons of God in fatherhood the most literal sense of the word, being supposed to have confined"" been begotten by his holy spirit in the wombs of mortal 'o Syria. women. Here I shall merely illustrate the creed by a few examples drawn from classical antiquity.^ Thus in order to obtain offspring women used to resort to the great sanctuary Sons of the of Aesculapius, situated in a beautiful upland valley, to ^gl^"'' which a path, winding through a long wooded gorge, leads from the bay of Epidaurus. Here the women slept in the xxxi. and Judges xiii., where barren ' J. Spieth, Die E-we-Stdmiiie, pp. women are represented as conceiving 446, 448-450. children after the visit of God, or of an 2 Yox moce instances see H. Usener, angel of God, in the likeness of a man. Das Weihnachtsfest, i. 70 sqq. 72 SONS OF GOD book i Sons of the holy place and were visited in dreams by a serpent ; and TOd™' ^^^ children to whom they afterwards gave birth were believed to have been begotten by the reptile.^ That the serpent was supposed to be the god himself seems certain ; for Aesculapius repeatedly appeared in the form of a serpent,^ and live serpents were kept and fed in his sanctuaries for the healing of the sick, being no doubt regarded as his incarnations.^ Hence the children born to women who had thus visited a sanctuary of Aesculapius were probably fathered on the serpent-god. Many celebrated men in classical antiquity were thus promoted to the heavenly hierarchy by similar legends of a miraculous birth. The famous Aratus of Sicyon was certainly believed by his countrymen to be a son of Aesculapius ; his mother is said to have got him in intercourse with a serpent* Probably she slept either in the shrine of Aesculapius at Sicyon, where a figurine of her was shown seated on a serpent,^ or perhaps in the more secluded sanctuary of the god at Titane, not many miles off, where the sacred serpents crawled among ancient cypresses on the hill-top which over- looks the narrow green valley of the Asopus with the white turbid river rushing in its depths." There, under the shadow of the cypresses, with the murmur of the Asopus in her ears, the mother of Aratus may have conceived, or fancied she conceived, the future deliverer of his country. Again, the mother of Augustus is said to have got him by inter- course with a serpent in a temple of Apollo ; hence the emperor was reputed to be the son of that god.'' Similar tales were told of the Messenian hero Aristomenes, Alexander ' Dittenberger, Sylloge Imcrip- lines Ii6 sqq.; Ch. Michel, Recueil tionum Graecarum^ No. 803, lines d' Inscriptions Grecques, No. lo6g. 117 sqq., 129 sqq, 4 Pausanias, ii. 10. 3, iv. 14. 7 sq. 2 Pausanias, ii. 10. 3 (with my ^ xi){j_ ;;_ jg. 4. note), iii. 23. 7; Livy, xi. Epitome; " Ibid, ii, 11. 5-8. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxix. 72 ; Valerius ^ Suetonius, Diviis Augustus, 94 ; Maximus, i. 8. 2 ; Ovid, Metam. xv. Die Cassius, xlv. i. 2. Tame ser- 626-744; Aurelius Victor, De viris pents were kept in a sacred grove of illustr. 22 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. Apollo in Epirus. A virgin priestess 94- fed them, and omens of plenty and 3 Aristophanes, Plutus, 733 ; Pau- health or the opposites were drawn sanias, ii. 11. 8; Herodas, Mimiamhi, from the way in which the reptiles iv. 90 sq. ; Dittenberger, Sylloge In- took their food from her. See Aelian, scriptionum Graecarmn,'^ No. 802, Hat. Hist. xi. .i. SONS OF GOD 73 the Great, and the elder Scipio : all of them were reported to have been begotten by snakes.^ In the time of Herod a serpent, according to Aelian, in like manner made love to a Judaean maid.^ Can the story be a distorted rumour of the parentage of Christ ? § 7. Reincarnation of the Dead The reason why snakes were so often supposed to be Belief that the fathers of^ human beings is probably to be found in the con,/to common belief that the dead come to life and revisit their We in the old homes in the shape of serpents. serpents. This, for example, is believed by the Zulus and other Caffre tribes,^ the Ngoni,* the Wabondei,^ the Masai,^ the Dinkas of the Upper Nile,'' and the Betsileo and other tribes of Madagascar.^ Where serpents are thus viewed as ' Pausanias, iv. 14. 7 ; Livy, xxvi. 19 ; Aulus Gellius, vi. i ; Plutarch, Alexander, 2. All these cases have been already cited in this connection by L. Deubner, De incubatioiu (Leipsic, 1900), p. 33 note. ^ Aelian, De natura animalium, vi. 17. ^ Arbousset et Daumas, Voyage (V Exploration (Paris, 1842), p. 277 ; Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, part ii. pp. 140-144, 196- 200, 208-212 ; J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal, p. 162 ; E. Casalis, The Basutos, p. 246 ; {South African) Folk- lore Journal, ii. (i88q) pp. 101-103 ; A. Kranz, Natur- und Kulturleben der Zulus (Wiesbaden, 1880), p. 1 12; F. Speckmann, Die Herviannsburger Mission in Afrika, pp. 165-167; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 85-87. * V/. A. Elmslie, Among the Wild Ngoni (London, 1 899), pp. 71 sq. ^ O. Baumann, Usainbai'a und seine Nachbargebiete (Berlin, 1891), pp. 141 sq. 8 S. L. Hinde and H. Hinde, The Last of the Masai (London, 1901), pp. lOi sq. ; A. C. Hollis, The Masai (Oxford, 1905), pp. 307 sq. ; Sir H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate, ii. 832. ' E. de Pruyssenaere, Reisen und Forschungen im Gebiete des Weissen und Blauen Nil (Gotha, 1877), p. 27 {Peterma7in^s Mittheilungen, Ergan- zungsheft, No. 50). Compare G. Schweinfurth, Tlu Heart of Africa,^ i. 55. 8 G. A. Shaw, "The Betsileo," The Antananarivo Anntcal ajid Madagascar Magazine, Reprint of the First Four Numbers (Antananarivo, 1885), p. 411 ; H. W. Little, Mada- gascar, its History and People (London, 1884), pp. 86 sq. ; A. van Gennep, Tabou et Totimisme a Madagascar (Paris, 1904), pp. 272 sqq. Among the Bahima of Enkole dead chiefs turn into serpents, but dead kings into lions. See J. Roscoe, "The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole in the Uganda Protectorate, "yb!<;«a/ of the Anthropo- logical Institute, xxxvii. (1907) ; Major J. A. Meldon, "Notes on the Bahima of Ankole," Journal of the African Society, No. xxii. (January 1907), p. 151. Major Leonard holds that the pythons worshipped in Southern Nigeria are regarded as reincarnations of the dead ; but this seems very doubtful. See A. G. Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), pp. 327 sqq. Pythons are worshipped by the Ewe - speaking 74 REINCARNA TION OF THE DEAD book i ancestors come to life, the people naturally treat them with great respect and often feed them with milk,^ perhaps because milk is the food of human babes and tlie reptiles are treated as human beings in embryo, who can be born The again from women. The Romans and Greeks appear to Greeks and j^^ve also believed that the souls of the dead were incarnate Romans seem to in the bodies of serpents. Among the Romans the regular shared this Symbol of the genius or guardian spirit of every man was a belief. serpent,^ and in Roman houses serpents were lodged and fed in such numbers that if their swarms had not been some- times reduced by conflagrations there would have been no living for them.^ In Greek legend Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were turned at death into snakes.* When the Spartan king Cleomenes was slain and crucified in Egypt, a great serpent coiled round his head on the cross and kept off the vultures from his face. The people regarded the prodigy as a proof that Cleomenes was a son of the gods.^ Again, when Plotinus lay dying, a snake crawled from under his bed and disappeared into a hole in the wall, and at the same moment the philosopher expired.^ Apparently superstition saw in these serpents the souls of the dead men. In Greek religion the serpent was indeed the regular symbol or attribute of the worshipful dead,^ and we can hardly doubt that the' early Greeks, like the Zulus and other African tribes at the present day, really believed the soul of peoples of the Slave Coast, but ap- 2 l_ Preller, Romische Mythologie,^ parently not from a belief that the ii. 196.?^.; G.y j • TheRev. J. Roscoe tells me that serpents * Apollodorus, iii. 5. 4; Hyginus, are revered and fed with milk by the Fab. 6 ; Ovid, Metam. iv. 563-603. Bunyoro, to the north of Uganda ; 6 Plutarch, Cleomenes, 39. but he cannot say whether the creatures are supposed to be incarnations of the Porphyry, De vita Plotini, p. dead. The negroes of Whydah in '°3j ^idot edition (appended to the Guinea also feed with milk the serpents *'^^^ °^ Diogenes Laertius). which they worship (Astley's Voyages '' Plutarch, Cleomenes, 39 ; Scholiast and Travels, iii. 29). on Aristophanes, Plntus, 733. CHAP. IV REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD 75 the departed to be lodged in the reptile. The sacred serpent which lived in the Erechtheum at Athens, and was fed with honey-cakes once a month, may have been supposed to house the soul of the dead king Erechtheus, who had reigned in his lifetime on the same spot.^ Perhaps the libations of milk which the Greeks poured upon graves ^ were in- tended to be drunk by serpents as the embodiments of the deceased ; on two tombstones found at Tegea a man and a woman are respectively represented holding out to a serpent a cup which may be supposed to contain milk.' We have seen that various African tribes feed serpents with milk because they imagine the reptiles to be incarnations of their dead kinsfolk ; * and the Dinkas, who practise the custom, also pour milk on the graves of their friends for some time after the burial.* It is possible that a common type in Greek art, which exhibits a woman feeding a serpent out of a saucer, may have been borrowed from a practice of thus ministering to the souls of the departed." Further, at the sowing festival of the Thesmophoria, held The by Greek women in October, it was customary to throw fed^^t"the cakes and pigs to serpents, which lived in caverns or Thesmo- vaults sacred to the corn - goddess Demeter.'' We may have'been^ ' Herodotus, viii. 41 ; Plutarch, deemed a daughter of the serpent-god Themistocles, 10 ; Aristophanes, Ly- Aesculapius (Pausanias, i. 23. 4), and ^^ ^^^ sistra, 758 sj., with the Scholium ; was constantly associated with him in [igg^j Philostratus, Iniag. ii. 17. 6. See ritual and art. See, for example, further my note on Pausanias, i. 18. 2 Pausanias, i. 40. 6, ii. 4. 5, ii. II. 6, (vol. ii. pp. 168 sqq.). ii. 23. 4, ii. 27. 6, iii. 22. 13, v. 20.3, 2 Sophocles, Electra, 893 sqq. ; v. 26. 2, vii. 23. 7, viii. 28. 1, viii. Euripides, Orestes, 112 sqq. 31. 1, viii. 32. 4, viii. 47. I. The ^ Alittheilungen des Deutsch. Archdo- snake -entwined goddess whose image /«"'. Institutes in Aihen, iv. (1879) was found in a prehistoric shrine at pi. viii. Compare ib. pp. 135 sq., Gournia in Crete may have been a ibz sq. predecessor of the serpent - feeding * Above, pp. 73 sq. Hygieia. See R. M. Burrows, Tiie 5 E. de Pruyssenaere, I.e. (above. Discoveries in Crete (London, 1907), p. 73, note 7). pp. 137 -f?. I conjecture that the ^ See C. O. Miiller, Denhndler snakes, which were the regular symbol der alien Ktinst'^ (Gottingen, 1854), of the Furies, may have been originally pi. Ixi. with the corresponding text in nothing but the emblems or rather vol. i. (where the eccentric system of embodiments of the dead ; and that paging adopted renders references to it the Furies themselves may, like Aescul- practically useless). In these groups apius, have been developed out of the the female figure is commonly, and reptiles, sloughing off their serpent perhaps correctly, interpreted as the skins through the anthropomorphic Goddess of Health (Hygieia). It is tendency of Greek thought, to be remembered that Hygieia was '' Scholia on Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 76 REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD book i guess that the serpents thus propitiated were deemed to be incarnations of dead men and women, who might easily be incommoded in their earthy beds by the operations of husbandry. What indeed could be more disturbing than to have the roof of the narrow house shaken and rent over their heads by clumsy oxen dragging a plough up and down on the top of it? No wonder that at such times it was thought desirable to appease them with Reluctance offerings. Sometimes, however, it is not the dead but the the'^Earth Earth Goddess herself who is disturbed by the husbandman. Goddess. An Indian prophet at Priest Rapids, on the Middle Columbia River, dissuaded his many followers from tilling the ground because " it is a sin to wound or cut, tear up or scratch our common mother by agricultural pursuits."^ In Bengal the chief festival in honour of Mother Earth is held at the end of the hot season, when she is supposed to suffer from the impurity common to women, and during that time all ploughing, sowing, and other work cease.^ On a certain day of the year, when offerings are made to the Earth, the Ewe farmer of West Africa will not hoe the ground and the Ewe weaver will not drive a sharp stake into it, " because the hoe and the stake would wound the Earth and cause her pain." * When Ratumaimbulu, the god who made fruit-trees to blossom and bear fruit, came once a year to Fiji, the people had to live very quietly for a month lest they should disturb him at his important work. During this time they might not plant nor build nor sail about nor go to war ; indeed most kinds of work were forbidden. The priests announced the time of the god's arrival and departure.* These periods of rest and quiet would seem to be the Indian and Fijian Lent. Thus behind the Greek notion that women may conceive by a serpent-god ^ seems to lie the belief that they can con- ii. [Scholia in Lunanum,eA. H. Rabe, ' J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stdmme, p. Leipsic, 1906, pp. 275 sq.). As to 796. the Thesmophoria, see Encyclopaedia * J. E. Erskine, _/«(r«a/ ij/'a Cruise Britamiica,^ xxiii. 295 sqq. among the Islands of the Western 1 A. S. Gatschet, The Klamath ^«"> (London, '853), pp 245 .5-. _ Indians of South-western Oregon ^ Persons initiated into the mysteries (Washington, 1890), p. xcii. of Sabazius had a serpent drawn through the bosom of their robes, and the reptile 2 W. Crooke, Natives of Northern was identified with the god (6 5ta K6\Trov India (London, 1907), p. 232. &ioi (Clement of Alexandria, Pro- CHAP. IV REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD 77 ceive by the dead in the form of serpents. If such a belief Graves as were ever held, it would be natural that barren women should conception resort to graves in order to have their wombs quickened, and for women, this may explain why they visited the shrine of the serpent- god Aesculapius for that purpose ; the shrine was perhaps at first a grave. It is significant that in Syria the shrines of St. George, to which childless women go to get offspring, always include a tomb or the likeness of one ; '^ and further, that in the opinion of Syrian peasants at the present day women may, without intercourse with a living man, bear children to a dead husband, a dead saint, or a jinnee.^ In the East Indies also it is still commonly believed that spirits can consort with women and beget children on them.^ Such beliefs are closely akin to the idea, entertained by Reincar- many peoples, that the souls of the dead may pass directly into J',^"^" ^'^• the wombs of women and be born again as infants. Thus America the Hurons used to bury little children beside the paths in ^"'' '^'^"''''• the hope that their souls might enter the passing squaws and be born again ; * and similarly some negroes of West Africa throw the bodies of infants into the bush in order that their souls may choose a new mother from the women who pass by.^ Among the Bangalas, a tribe of cannibals in Equatorial Africa, to the north of the Congo, a woman was one day seen digging a hole in the public road. Her husband entreated a Belgian officer to let her alone, pro- mising to mend the road afterwards, and explaining that his wife wished to become a mother. The good-natured officer complied with his request and watched the woman. She continued to dig till she had uncovered a little skeleton, the remains of her first-born, which she tenderly embraced, trept. ii. l6, p. 14, ed. Potter). This * Halations des Jesuites, 1636, p. may be a trace of the belief that women 130 (Canadian Reprint). This and can be impregnated by serpents, thougli some of the following instances have it does not appear that the ceremony been already cited by Mr. J. E. King, was performed only on women. whosiiggests,with much probability, that 1 See above, p. 69. Among the the special modes of burial adopted for South Slavs women go to graves to infants in various parts of the world get children. See below, p. 79. may often have been intended to ensure 2 S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic iheir rebirth. SeeJ. E.King, "Infant Religion To-day, pp. 115 sqq. Burial," Classical Review, xvii. (1903) 3 A. C. Kx\xi]l, Het Animisme in den pp. 83^5'. Iiidischen Arcliipel (The Hague, l<)06), "Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in p. 398. f^^-f' Africa (London, 1897), p. 478. 78 REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD book i humbly entreating the dead child to enter into her and give her again a mother's joy. The officer rightly did not smile.^ In Uganda stillborn babes and children born feet fore- most who die in infancy are buried at cross-roads, and mounds are raised over their remains. When women or girls pass by such a grave, they throw grass, sticks, or dust on it for the purpose, as they allege, of preventing the ghost of the child from entering them and being reborn.^ Reiiicar- Again, when a child dies in Northern India it is usually the'dead buried uudcr the threshold of the house, " in the belief that as in India, the parents tread daily over its grave, its soul will be reborn in the family. Here, as Mr. Rose suggests, we reach an explana- tion of the rule that children of Hindus are buried, not cremated. Their souls do not pass into the ether with the smoke of the pyre, but remain on earth to be reincarnated in the household." ^ Among the Kois of the Godavari district, in Southern India, the dead are usually burnt, but the bodies of children and of young men and women are buried. If a child dies within a month of its birth, it is generally buried close to the house " so that the rain, dripping from the eaves, may fall upon the grave, and thereby cause the parents to be blessed with another child." * Apparently it is supposed that the soul of the dead child, refreshed and revived by the rain, will pass again into the mother's womb. Indian , criminal records contain many cases in which " the ceremonial killing of a male child has been performed as a cure for barrenness, the theory being that the soul of the murdered boy becomes reincarnated in the woman, who performs the rite with a desire to secure offspring. Usually she effects union with the spirit of the child by bathing over its body or in the water in which the corpse has been washed. Cases have recently occurred in which the woman actually bathed in the blood of the child." ^ On the fifth day after a death the Gonds perform the ceremony of bringing ^ Th. Masui, Guide de la Section de \>x\s&y m Journal of the Anthropological VEtat Indipendant du Congo h V Ex- Institute^ xxxii. {1902) p. 30. position de Bruxelles - Tervueren en ^ W. Crooke, Natives of Northern l8gy (Brussels, 1897), pp. 113 sq. India (London, 1907), p. 202. 2 From notes furnished to me by ■* E. Thurston, £th?iographic Notes the Rev. J. Roscoe, who had already in Southern India^ p. 155. described the custom somewhat more ^ W. Crooke, op. cit. p. 202. CHAP. IV REINCARNA TION OF THE DEAD 79 back the soul. They go to the bank of a river, call aloud the name of the deceased, and entering the water catch a fish or an insect. This creature they then take home and place among the sainted dead of the family, supposing that in this manner the spirit of the departed has been brought back to the house. Sometimes the fish or insect is eaten in the belief that it will be thus reborn as a child.^ This last custom explains the widely diffused story stones of of virgins who have conceived by eating of a plant or an Bj^th"^^'" animal or merely by taking it to their bosom.^ In all such cases we may surmise that the plant or animal was thought to contain the soul of a dead person, which thus passed into the virgin's womb and was born again as an infant. Among Reincar- the South Slavs childless women often resort to a grave in "^e'dead which a pregnant woman is buried. There they bite some among grass from the grave, invoke the deceased by name, and beg siavs°" her to give them the fruit of her womb. After that they take a little of the mould from the grave and carry it about with them thenceforth under their girdle.^ Apparently they imagine that the soul of the unborn infant is in the grass or the mould and will pass from it into their body. Among the aborigines of Central Australia, the lowest Reincar- savages of whom we have accurate accounts, beliefs of this "^e'dead^ sort are universal. They think that every person is the in Central reincarnation of a deceased ancestor, and that the souls of "^"■^'^• • R. V. Russell, in Census of India, Lyons, 1897), p. 153 ; A. Raffray, 1901, vol. xiii. (Central Provinces), "Voyage £l la c6te nord de la Nouv- part i. p. 93. elle Guinee," Bulletm de la SocMi 2 For stories of such virgin births de Giographie (Paris), VI« Serie, xv. see Comte H. de Charency, Le folklore (1878), pp. 392 sq. ; J. L. van der dans les deux Rlondes (Paris, 1894), Toorn, " Het animisme bij der Minang- pp. 121-256; E. S. Hartland, The kabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden," Legend of Perseus, vol. i. (London, Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-enVolken- i&'jii), pp. 71 sgg. ; and my note on kunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, xxxix. Pausanias vii. 17. 11 (vol. iv. pp. 138- (1890), p. 78; E. Aymonier, "Les 140). To the instances there cited by Tchames et leurs religions," Revue de me add: A. Thevet, Cosmographie VHistoire des Religions, xxiv. (1 90 1) Universelle (Paris, IS75), ii. 918 pp. 215 j-}-. ; Major P. R. T. Gurdon, [wrongly numbered 952] ; K. von den The Khasis (London, 1907), p. 195. Steinen, Unter den Natui-volkern In some stories the conception is Zetitral-Brasiliens, pp. 370, 373 ; brought about not by eating food but H. A. Coudreau, La France Eqiii- by drinking water. But the principle noxiale, ii. (Paris, 1887), pp. 184 sq. ; is the same. Relations des Jesuites, 1637, pp. 123 sq. (Canadian reprint) ; A. G. Morice, • ^ jr. g. Krauss, Sitte und Branch Ati pays de VOurs Noir (Paris and der Siid-Slaven, p. 531. 8o REINCARNATION OF THE DEAD book i Reincarna- the dead pass directly into the wombs of women, who give dead°in' ^ them birth without the need of commerce with the other sex. Central They believe that the spirits of the departed gather and dwell at particular spots, marked by a natural feature such as a rock or a tree, and that from these lurking-places they dart out and enter the bodies of passing women or girls. When a woman feels her womb quickened, she knows that a spirit has made its way into her from the nearest abode of the dead. This is their regular explanation of conception and childbirth. " The natives, one and all in these tribes, believe that the child is the direct result of the entrance into the mother of an ancestral spirit individual. They have no idea of procreation as being associated with sexual inter- course, and firmly believe that children can be born without this taking place." ^ The spots where the souls thus congre- gate waiting to be born again are usually the places where the remote ancestors of the dream -time are said to have passed into the ground ; that is, they are the places where the forefathers of the tribe are supposed to have died or to have been buried. For example, in the Warramunga tribe the ancestor of the Black -snake clan is said to have left many spirits of Black-snake children in the rocks and trees which border a certain creek. Hence no woman at the present day dares to strike one of these trees with an axe, being quite convinced that the blow would release one of the spirit-children, who would at once enter her body.^ Again, at several places in the wide territory of the Arunta tribe there are certain stones which are in like manner thought to be the abode of souls awaiting rebirth. Hence the stones are called " child-stones." In one of them there is a hole through which the spirit -children look out for passing women, and it is firmly believed that a visit to the stone would result in conception. If a young woman is obliged to pass near the stone and does not wish to have a child, she will carefully disguise her youth, pulling a wry face and hobbling along on a stick. She will bend herself 1 Spencer and Gillen, Noithem of Central Australia, ^p^, c^i, 123-125, Tribes of Central Australia, p. 330, 126, 132 sq., 265, 335-338. compare id. ibid. pp. xi, 145, 147- ^ Spencer and Gillen, Northern 151, 155 sq., 161 sq., 169 sq., 173 Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 162, sq., 174-176, 606; id.. Native Tribes 330 j-^. CHAP. IV REINCARNATION OF- THE DEAD 3i double like a very old woman, and imitating the cracked voice of age she will say, " Don't come to me, I am an old woman." Nay, it is thought that women may conceive by the stone without visiting it. If a man and his wife both wish for a child, the husband will tie his hair-girdle round the stone, rub it, and mutter a direction to the spirits to give heed to his wife. And it is believed that by performing a similar ceremony a malicious man can cause women and even children at a distance to be pregnant.^ \ 8. Sacred Stocks and Stones among the Semites Traces of beliefs and customs like the foregoing may Procreative perhaps be detected among the ancient Semites. When the ""^'"renti prophet Jeremiah speaks of the Israelites who said to a ascribed to stock or to a tree (for in Hebrew the words are the same), ^ocurind " Thou art my father," and to a stone, " Thou hast brought stones at me forth," ^ it is probable that he was not using vague s™ctii- rhetorical language, but denouncing real beliefs current ^"^s. among his contemporaries. Now we know that at all the old Canaanite sanctuaries, including the sanctuaries of Jehovah down to the reformations of Hezekiah and Josiah, the two regular objects of worship were a sacred stock and a sacred stone,^ and that these sanctuaries were the seats of profligate rites performed by sacred men {kedeshhn) and sacred women [kedeshoth). Is it not natural to suppose that the stock and stone which the superstitious Israelites regarded as their father and mother were the sacred stock (ashera) and the sacred stone {masseba) of the sanctuary, and that the children born of the loose intercourse of the sexes at these places were believed to be the offspring or 1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes xxiii. 14 ; Micah v. 13 sq. (in Hebrew, of Ceiitral Australia, ^•^. HI sq. 12 sq.); Deuteronomy xvi. 21 sq.; 2 Jeremiah ii. 27. The ancient W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Greeks seem also to have had a notion Semites,''' -f-^. 187 sqq., 203 sqq. ; Ency- that men were sprung from trees or clopaedia Biblica, svv., " Ashtrah" axiA rocks. See Homer, Od. xix. 163; "Massebah." In the early religion of F. G. Welcker, Criechische Gdtterlehre, Crete also the two principal objects of i. 777 sqq. ; A. B. Cook, " Oak and worship seem to have been a sacred Roclc;" Classical Review, xv. (1901) tree and a sacred pillar. See A. J. pp. T,22 sqq. Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar 3 T^x^ ashera a.n^ 'Ca& masseba. See C-a\i," Journal of Hellenic Studies, -xxi. I Kings xiv. 23; 2 Kings xviii. 4, (1901) pp. 99 J?f. G 83 .SACRED STOCKS AND STONES BOOK I These con- clusions confirmed by the excava- tion of a sanctuary at the Canaan - itish city of Gezer. The infants buried in the sanctuary may have been expected to be born again. emanations of these uncouth but worshipful idols in which, as in the sacred trees and stones of Central Australia, the souls of the dead may have been supposed to await rebirth ? On this view the sacred men and women who actually begot or bore the children were deemed the human embodiments of the two divinities, the men perhaps personating the sacred stock, which appears to have been a tree stripped of its branches, and the women personating the sacred stone, which seems to have been in the shape of a cone, an obelisk, or a pillar.^ These conclusions are confirmed by the result of recent re- searches at Gezer, an ancient Canaanitish city, which occupied a high, isolated point on the southern border of Ephraim, between Jerusalem and the sea. Here the English excava- tions have laid bare the remains of a sanctuary with the sacred stone pillars or obelisks (inasseboth) still standing in a row, while between two of them is set a large socketed stone, beautifully squared, which perhaps contained the sacred stock or pole {asherd). In the soil which had accumu- lated over the floor of the temple were found vast numbers of male emblems rudely carved out of soft limestone ; and tablets of terra-cotta, representing in low relief the mother- goddess, were discovered throughout the strata. These objects were no doubt votive-offerings presented by the worshippers to the male and female deities who were repre- sented by the sacred stock and the sacred stones ; and their occurrence in large quantities raises a strong presumption that the divinities of the sanctuary were a god and goddess regarded as above all sources of fertility. The supposition is further strengthened by a very remarkable discovery. Under the floor of the temple were found the bones of many new-born children, none more than a week old, buried in large jars. None of these little bodies showed any trace of mutilation or violence ; and in the light of the customs 1 As to conical images of Semitic goddesses, see above, pp. 30 sq. The sacred pole (ashera) appears also to have been by some peojDle regarded as the embodiment of a goddess (Astarte), not of a god. See above, p. 14, n. 6. Among the Khasis of Assam the sacred upright stones, which resemble the Semitic inasseboth^ are regarded as males, and the flat table-stones as female. See P. K. T. Gurdon, The Khasis (London, 1907), pp. 112 sq., I SO sqq. CHAP. IV AMONG THE SEMITES 83 practised in many other lands ^ we seem to be justified in conjecturing that the infants were still-born or died soon after birth, and that they were buried by their parents in the sanctuary in the hope that, quickened by the divine power, they might enter again into the mother's womb and again be born into the world.^ If the souls of these buried babes were supposed to pass into the sacred stocks and stones and to dart from them into the bodies of would-be mothers who resorted to the sanctuary, the analogy with Central Australia would be complete. That the analogy is real and not fanciful is strongly suggested by the modern practice of Syrian women who still repair to the shrines of saints to procure offspring, and who still look on " holy men " as human embodiments of divinity. In this, as in many other dark places of superstition, the present is the best guide to the interpreta- tion of the past ; for while the higher forms of religious faith pass away like clouds, the lower stand firm and indestructible like rocks. The " sacred men " of one age are the dervishes of the next, the Adonis of yesterday is the St. George of to-day. 1 See above, pp. 77 sqq. but many were grouped round a rock- ^ As to the excavations at Gezer, see hewn altar in a different part of the R. A. Stewart Macalister, Reports on hill. There is nothing to indicate that the Excavation of Gezer, pp. 76-89 any of the children were sacrificed : (reprinted from the Quarterly Statement the size of some of the skeletons pre- of the Palestine Exploration Fund) ; eludes the idea that they were slain at id. , Bible Side-lights from the Mound birth. Probably they all died natural of Gezer (iMn&aa, 1906), pp. 57-67, deaths, and the custom of burying them 73-75. Mr. Macalister now inclines in, or near the house or beside an altar to regard the socketed stone as a laver was intended to ensure their rebirth in rather than as the base of the sacred the family. See Dr. E. Sellin, "Tell pole. He supposes that the buried Ta'annek," Denkschriften der Kaiser. infantswere first-born children sacrificed Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philo- in accordance with the ancient law of sophisch-historische Klasse, 1. (Vienna, the dedication of the first-born. The 1904), No. iv. pp. 32-37, 96 sq. I explanation which I have adopted in have to thank Mr. R. A. Stewart Mac- the text agrees better with the uninjured alister for kindly directing my attention state of the bodies, and it is further to the excavations at Tell Ta'annek confirmed by the result of the Austrian (Taanach). It deserves to be mentioned excavations at Tell Ta'annek (Taanach) that in an enclosure close to the stand- in Palestine, which seem to prove that ing stones at Gezer, there was found a there children up to the age of two bronze model of a cobra (R. A. Stewart years were not buried in the family Macalister, Bible Side-lights, p. 76). graves but interred separately in jars. Perhaps the reptile was the deity of Some of these sepulchral jars were the shrine, or an embodiment of an deposited under or beside the houses, ancestral spirit. CHAPTER V THE BURNING OF MELCARTH Semitic If a custom of putting a king or his son to death in the s^rificing character of a god has left small traces of itself in Cyprus, a member an island where the fierce zeal of Semitic religion was early famiiy!^°^^ tempered by Greek humanity, the vestiges of that gloomy rite are clearer in Phoenicia itself and in the Phoenician colonies, which lay more remote from the highways of Grecian commerce. We know that the Semites were in the habit of sacrificing some of their children, generally the first-born, either as a tribute regularly due to the deity or to appease his anger in seasons of public danger and calamity.^ If commoners did so, is it likely that kings, with all their heavy responsibilities, could exempt them- selves from this dreadful sacrifice for the fatherland ? In point of fact, history informs us that kings steeled themselves to do as others did.^ It deserves to be noticed that if Mesha, king of Moab, who sacrificed his eldest son by fire, claimed to be a son of his god,^ he would no doubt transmit his divinity to his offspring ; and further, that the same sacrifice is said to have been performed in the same way by the divine founder of Byblus, the great seat of the worship of Adonis.* This suggests that the human representatives of Adonis formerly perished in the The flames. At all events, a custom of periodically burning Mekarth° the chief god of the city in effigy appears to have prevailed at Tyre. i y,^^ Golden Bottgh,'^ ii. 38 sqq. 3 See above, p. 12. See Appendix I., " Moloch the King," at the end of this volume. * Pliilo of Byblus, in Fragtnenta 2 Philo of Byblus, quoted by Historicorum Graecoru?n^ ed. C. Mtiller, Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. i. ID. 29 iii. pp. 5^9) 57°) 57i- See above, sq. ; 2 Kings iii. 27. p. 10. 84 BK. I. cH. V THE BURNING. OF MMLCARTN 85 at Tyre and in the Tyrian colonies down to a late time, and the ei^gy may well have been a later substitute for a man. For Melcarth, the great god of Tyre, was identified by the Greeks with Hercules,^ who is said to have burned himself to death on. a great pyre, ascending up to heaven in a cloud and a peal of thunder.^ The common Greek legend, immortalised by Sophocles, laid the scene of the fiery tragedy on the top of Mount Oeta,. but another version transferred it significantly to Tyre itself Combined with the other evidence which I shall adduce, this latter tradition raises a strong presumption that an effigy of Hercules, or rather of Melcarth, was regularly burned at a great festival in Tyre, That festival may have been the one known as " the awakening of Hercules," which was held in the month of Peritius, answering nearly to January.* The name of the festival suggests that the dramatic representation of the death of the god on the pyre was followed by a semblance of his resurrection. The mode in which the resurrection was supposed to be effected is perhaps indicated by the state- ment of a Greek writer that the Phoenicians used to sacrifice quails to Flercules, because Hercules on his journey to Libya had been slain by Typhon and brought to life again by lolaus, who held a quail under his nose : the dead god snuffed at the bird and revived.^ Such a festival might appropriately be held in spring, when the quails migrate northwards across the Mediterranean in great bands, and immense numbers of them are netted for the market.® In the month of March the birds return to Palestine by myriads 1 See above, p. 13- ^ Eudoxus of Cnidus, quoted by 2 Sophocles, Trachiniae, 1 191 sqq. ; Athenaeus, ix. 47, p. 392 D E. That Apollodorus, ii. 7. 7 ; Diodorus Siculus, the death and resurrection of Melcarth iv. 38 ; Hyginus, Fab. 36. were celebrated in an annual festival at 3 [s! Clementis Romani,] Recogni- Tyre has been recognised by scholars. Hones, x. 24, p. 233, ed. E. G. See Raoul-Rochette, " Sur I'Hercule. Gersdorf (Migne's Patrologia Graeca, Assyrian et Ph^nicien," Mimoires de i. 1434). I'Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles- * Josephus, Antiquit. Jnd. viii. J. 3, Lettres, xvii. Deuxi^me Partie (Paris, Contra Apionem, i. 18. Whether the 1848), pp. 25 sqq. ; H. Hubert et M. quadriennial festival of Hercules at Mauss, "Essai sur le sacrifice, "Z'^»»,^iS Tyre (2 Maccabees iv. 18-20) was a Sociologique, n. (1899) pp. 122, 124; different celebration, or only "the M.J. Lagrange, Ftiides sur les Reli- awakening of Melcarth" celebrated gions S^mitzqiies,'' pp. 208-311. with unusual pomp once in four years, ^ Alfred Newton, Dictionary of we do not know. Birds (London, 1893-96), p. 755. 86 THE BURNING OF MELCARTH book i in a single night, and remain to breed in all the open plains, marshes, and cornfields.^ Certainly a close connection seems to have subsisted between quails and Melcarth ; for legend ran that Asteria, the mother of the Tyrian Hercules, that is, of Melcarth, was transformed into a quail.^ It was probably to this annual festival of the death and resurrection of Melcarth that the Carthaginians were wont to send am- bassadors every year to Tyre, their mother-city.' Worship of In Gades, the modern Cadiz, an early colony of Tyre on at Gades, ^^^ Atlantic coast of Spain,* there was an ancient, famous, and trace and Wealthy sanctuary of Hercules, the Tyrian Melcarth, of burning Indeed the god was said to be buried on the spot. No him there image stood in his temple, but a perpetual fire burned on the altar, and incense was offered by white-robed priests, with bare feet and shorn heads, who were bound to chastity. Neither women nor pigs might pollute the holy place by their presence. In later times many distinguished Romans went on pilgrimage to this remote shrine on the Atlantic shore when they were about to embark on some perilous enterprise, and they returned to it to pay their vows when their petitions had been granted.* One of the last things Hannibal himself did before he marched on Italy was to ' H. B. Tristram, The Fauna and 20. 2 ; Philosfratus, Vita Apollonii, Flora of Palestine (London, 1884), p. v. 4 sq. ; Appian, Hispanica, 65. 124. Compare Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 16. 4. 2 The Tyrian Hercules was said to That the bones of Hercules were buried be a son of Zeus and Asteria (Eudoxus a' Gades is mentioned by Mela (I.e.). of Cnidus, quoted by Athenaeus, ix. 47, Compare Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, p. 392 D ; Cicero, De natura deorum, '• 3^- I" Italy women were not iii. 16. 42). As to the transformation allowed to participate in sacrifices of Asteria into a quail see Apollodorus, offered to Hercules (Aulus Gellius, xi. i. 4. l-y^.'izeXzftSySchol.onLycophron, 6. 2; Macrobius, Saturn, i. 12. 28; 401 ; Hyginus, Fab. 53 ; Servius on Sextus Aurelius Victor, De origine Virgil, Aen. iii. 73. Quails were per- gentis Romanae, vi. 6 ; Plutarch, haps burned in honour of the Cilician Quaestiones Romanae, 60). Whether Hercules or Sandan at Tarsus. See "^^ priests of Melcarth at Gades were below, p. 99, II. 2. celibate, or had only to observe con- 3 Quintus Curtius, iv. 2. 10 ; Arrian, ''"^""^^ ^' "^^I,'^'" seasons, does not Anabasis, ii. 24. 5. appear. At Tyre the priest of Mel- j „.. u ■•■ , czx\h might be married (Justin, xviii. m1 iii :/\^" ^' ^Y^w '^nV 4-5). The worship of Melcarth under Mela, m. 46; Scymnus Chms, Or*;. the name of Hercules continued to Descrzptzo, XS9.^e,l{Geograph^ Graec^ f,^^,;^^ ;„ (he south of Spain down to M^nores, ed. C. Muller, .. 200 sq.). ,he time of the Roman Empire. See ^ 5 Slims Italicus, iii. 14-32 ; Mela, J. Toutain, Les Cultes pdiens dans iii. 46 ; Stiabo, iii. 5. 3, 5, 7, pp. V Empire Remain, Premiere Partie, i. 169, 170, 172; Diodorus Siculus, v. (Paris, 1907) pp. 400.5'^. CHAP. V THE BURNING OF MELCARTH 87 repair to Gade"s and offer up to Melcarth prayers which were never to be answered. Soon after he dreamed an ominous dream.^ Now it would appear that at Gades, as at Tyre, though no image of Melcarth stood in the temple, an effigy of him was made up and burned at a yearly festival. For a certain Cleon of Magnesia related how, visiting Gades, he was obliged to sail away from the island with the rest of the multitude in obedience to the command of Hercules, that is, of Melcarth, and how on their return they found a monstrous man of the sea stranded on the beach and burning ; for the god, they were told, had struck him with a thunderbolt.^ We may conjecture that at the annual festival of Melcarth strangers were obliged to quit the city, and that in their absence the mystery of burning the god was consummated. What Cleon and the rest saw on their return to Gades would, on this hypothesis, be the smoulder- ing remains of a gigantic effigy of Melcarth in the likeness of a man riding on a sea-horse, just as he is represented on coins of Tyre.^ In like manner the Greeks portrayed the sea-god Melicertes, whose name is only a slightly altered form of Melcarth, riding on a dolphin or stretched on the beast's back.* At Carthage, the greatest of the Tyrian colonies, a Evidence reminiscence of the custom of burning a deity in effigy °j 'J '^"^?°™ seems to linger in the story that Dido or Elissa, the foundress a god or and queen of the city, stabbed herself to death upon a pyre, c^fh^g/' or leaped from her palace into the blazing pile, to escape the fond importunities of one lover or in despair at the cruel desertion of another.^ We are told that Dido ' Livy, xxi. 21. 9, 22. 5-9; Cicero, ffistoricorumGraecorum,ei.C.M.n\\er, De Divinatione, i. 24. 49; Silius i. 197. Compare W. Robertson Smith, Italicus, iii. i sqq., 158 sqq. Religion of the Semites^'' pp. 373 sqq. 2 Pausanias, x. 4. 5. The name of Dido has been plausibly 3 B. V. Head, Historia Numorum, derived by Gesenius, Movers, E.Meyer, p. 674 ; G. A. Cooke, Text-book of and A. H. Sayce from the Semitic ddd, North-Semitic Inscriptions, ^. 351. "beloved." See F. C. Movers, Die ■* F. Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, Phoenizier, i. 616; W. H. Roscher, Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias, Lexikon d. griech. und riim. Mythologie, pp. IO-I2, with pi. A ;. Stoll, in W. H. i. 1017 sq. ; A. H. Sayce, Lectures on Roscher's Lexikon d. griech. u. riim, the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, Mythologie, ii. 2634. pp. 56 sqq. If they are right, the ^. Justin, xviii. 6. 1-7; Virgil, ^eH. divine character of Dido becomes more iv. 473 sqq., v. i. sqq.; Ovid, Fasti, probable than ever, since "the Beloved" iii. 545 sqq. ; Timaeus, in Fragmenta (Dodah) seems to have been a title of a Tyre. 88 THE BURNING OF MELCARTH eooki was worshipped as a goddess at Carthage so long as the country maintained its independence.^ Her temple stood in the centre of the city shaded by a grove of solemn yews and firs.^ The two apparently contradictory views of her character as a queen and a goddess may be reconciled if we suppose that she was both the one and the other ; that in fact the queen of Carthage in early days, like the queen of Egypt down to historical times, was regarded as divine, and had, like human deities elsewhere, to die a violent death either at the end of a fixed period or whenever her bodily and mental powers began to fail. In later ages the stern old custom might be softened down into a pretence by substituting an effigy for the queen or by allowing her to The fire- pass through the fire unscathed. A similar modification of walk at ^jjg ancient rule appears to have been allowed at Tyre itself, the mother-city of Carthage. We have seen reason to think that the kings of Tyre, from whom Dido was descended, claimed to personate the god Melcarth, and that the deity was burned either in &'^gy or in the person of a man at an annual festival.^ Now in the same chapter in which Ezekiel charges the king of Tyre with claiming to be a god, the prophet describes him as walking " up and down amidst the stones of fire." * The description becomes at once intelligible if we suppose that in later times the king of Tyre com- pounded for being burnt in the fire by walking up and down on hot stones, thereby saving his life at the expense perhaps of a few blisters on his feet. It is possible that when all went well with the commonwealth, children whom strict law doomed to the furnace of Moloch may also have been mercifully allowed to escape on condition of running the fiery gauntlet. At all events, a religious rite of this sort has been and is still practised in many parts of the world : the performers solemnly pace through a furnace of heated stones or glowing wood-ashes in the presence of a multitude of spectators. Examples of the custom could be multiplied.^ Semitic goddess, perhaps Astarte. See ' Justin, xviii. 6. 8. above, p. 17, note i. According to ^ Silius Italicus, i. 81 sqq. Varro it was not Dido but her sister ^ See above, p. 13, 84 sqq. Anna who slew herself on a pyre for * Ezekiel xxviii. 14, compare 16, love of Aeneas (Servius on Virgil, Aen. * A. Lang, Modern Mythology, pp. jv. 682). 148 sqq. ; The Golden Bough,^ iii. CHAP. V THE BURNING OF MELCARTH 89 Here I will cite only one. At Castabala, in Southern The fire- Cappadocia, there was worshipped an Asiatic goddess whom ^^^^^'^j^ the Greeks called the Perasian Artemis. Her priestesses used to walk barefoot over a fire of charcoal without sustaining any injury. That this rite was a substitute for burning human beings alive or dead is suggested by the tradition which placed the adventure of Orestes and the Tauric Artemis at Castabala ; ^ for the men or women sacrificed to the Tauric Artemis were first put to the sword and then burned in a pit of sacred fire.^ Among theTheCar- Carthaginians another trace of such a practice may perhaps j-jng™^" be detected in the story that at the desperate battle ofHamiicar Himera, fought from dawn of day till late in the evening, the h'i^Jseif in Carthaginian king Hamilcar remained in the camp and kept '^^ S""^- sacrificing holocausts of victims on a huge pyre ; but when he saw his army giving way before the Greeks, he flung himself into the flames and was burned to death. Afterwards his countrymen sacrificed to him and erected a great monument in his honour at Carthage, while lesser monuments were reared to his memory in all the Punic colonies.' In public emergencies which called for extraordinary measures a king 306 sqq. ; E. Thurston, Ethnogaphic ^ Herodotus, vii. 167. This was Notes in Southern India (Madras, the Carthaginian version of the story. 1906), pp. 471-486. According to another account, Hamilcar 1 Strabo, xiv. 2. 7, p. 537. In was killed by the Greek cavalry. Greece itself accused persons used to (Diodorus Siculus, xi. 22. i). His prove their innocence by walking worship at Carthage is mentioned by through fire (Sophocles, Antigone, 264 Athenagoras [Stipplicatio pro Chris- sq., with Jebb's note). Possibly the iianis, p. 64, ed. J. C. T. Otto). I fire -walk of the prieste.sses at Casta- have called Hamilcar a king in accord- balla was designed to test their chas- ance with the usage of Greek writers tity. For this purpose the priests and (Herodotus, vii. 165 sq. ; Aristotle, priestesses of the Tshi-speaking people Politics, ii. 11 ; Polybius, vi. 51; of the Gold Coast submit to an ordeal, Diodorus Siculus, xiv. 54. 5). But standing one by one in a narrow circle the stiffetes, or supreme magistrates, of fire. This "is supposed to show of Carthage were two in number; whether they have remained pure, and whether they were elected for a year refrained from sexual intercourse, during or for life seems to be doubtful, the period of retirement, and so are Cornelius Nepos, who calls them worthy of inspiration by the gods. If kings, says that they were elected they are pure they will receive no injury annually {Hannibal, vii. 4), and Livy and suffer no pain from the fire " (A. B. (xxx. 7. 5) compares them to the Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the consuls; but Cicem (De re ptiblica, ii. Gold Coast, p. 138). 23. 42 sq.) seems to imply that they 2 Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, held office for life. See G. A. Cooke, 621-626. Compare Diodorus Siculus, Text-book of North-Semiiic.Inscriptions, XX. 14. 6. pp. IIS ^q- 90 THE BURNING OF MELCARTH BOOK I the burn- ing of Melcarth, of Carthage may well have felt bound in honour to sacrifice himself in the old way for the good of his country. That the Carthaginians regarded the death of Hamilcar as an act of heroism and not as a mere suicide of despair, is proved by the posthumous honours they paid him. The death The foregoing evidence, taken altogether, raises a a^&eek"'''^ ^'■''°"S presumption, though it cannot be said to amount version of to a proof, that a practice of burning a deity, and especi- ally Melcarth, in efifigy or in the person of a human representative, was observed at an annual festival in Tyre and its colonies. We can thus understand how Hercules, in so far as he represented the Tyrian god, was believed to have perished by a voluntary death on a pyre. For on many a beach and headland of the Aegean, where the Phoenicians had their trading factories, the Greeks may have watched the bale-fires of Melcarth blazing in the darkness of night, and have learned with wonder that the strange foreign folk were burning their god. In this way the legend of the voyages of Hercules and his death in the flames may be supposed to have originated. Yet with the legend the Greeks borrowed the custom of burning the god ; for at the festivals of Hercules a pyre used to be kindled in memory of the hero's fiery death on Mount Oeta.^ We may suppose, though we are not expressly told, that an efifigy of Hercules was regularly burned on the pyre. ^ Lucian, Amores, i and 54. CHAPTER VI THE BURNING OF SANDAN § I . The Baal of Tarsus In Cyprus the Tyrian Melcarth was worshipped side byTheTyrian side with Adonis at Amathus/ and Phoenician inscriptions j^ Cyprus. prove that he was revered also at Idalium and Larnax Lapethus. At the last of these places he seems to have been regarded by the Greeks as a marine deity and identified with Poseidon.^ A remarkable statue found at Amathus may represent Melcarth in the character ofTheUon- the lion -slayer, a character which the Greeks bestowed ^'^^'"^ on Hercules. The statue in question is of colossal size, and exhibits a thick-set, muscular, hirsute deity of almost bestial aspect, with goggle eyes, huge ears, and a pair of stumpy horns on the top of his head. His beard is square and curly : his hair falls in three pigtails on his shoulders : his brawny arms appear to be tattooed. A lion's skin, clasped by a buckle, is knotted round his loins ; and he holds the skin of a lioness in front of him, grasping a hind paw with each hand, while the head of the beast, which is missing, hangs down between his legs. A fountain must have issued from the jaws of the lioness, for a rectangular hole, where the beast's head should be, com- municates by a channel with another hole in the back of the statue. Greek artists working on this or a similar barbarous model produced the refined type of the Grecian Hercules with the lion's scalp thrown like a cowl over his head. Statues of him have been found in Cyprus, 1 See above, p. 28. Semitic Inscriptions, Nos. 23 and 29, PP- 73i 83 sq., with the notes on pp. 2 G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North- 81, 84. 91 92 THE BAAL OF TARSUS book i which represent intermediate stages in this artistic evolu- tion.'' But there is no proof that in Cyprus the Tyrian Melcarth was burned either in eflSgy or in the person of a human representative.^ The Baal On the Other hand, there is clear evidence of the an Oriental observance of such a custom in Cilicia, the country which god of corn lies across the sea from Cyprus, and from which the and grapes, ^^j-gjjjp ^f Adonis, according to tradition, was derived.^ Whether the Phoenicians ever colonised Cilicia or not is doubtful,* but at all events the natives of the country, down to late times, worshipped a male deity who, in spite of a superficial assimilation to a fashionable Greek god, appears to have been an Oriental by birth and character. He had his principal seat at Tarsus, in a plain of luxuriant fertility and almost tropical climate, tempered by breezes from the snowy range of Taurus on the north and from the sea on the south.^ Though Tarsus boasted of a school of Greek philosophy which at the beginning of our era surpassed those of Athens and Alexandria,'' the city apparently remained in manners and spirit essentially Oriental. The women went about the streets muffled up to the eyes in Eastern fashion, and Dio Chrysostom reproaches the natives with resembling the most dissolute of the Phoenicians rather than the Greeks whose civilisation they aped.^ On the coins of the city 1 Parrot et Chipiez, Histoire de Phoenizier, n. 2, ^-p. it"] -I'n, 20T sqq. PAri dans rAntiquit^, iii. 566-578. Herodotus says (vii. 91) that the The colossal statue found at Amathus Cilicians were named after Cilix, a may be related, directly or indirectly, son of the Phoenician Agenor. to the Egyptian god Bes, who is ^ As to the fertility and the climate represented as a sturdy misshapen of the plain of Tarsus, which is now dwarf, wearing round his body the very malarious, see E. J. Davis, Life in skin of a beast of the panther tribe, Asiatic Turkey {Jj^xAoa, 1879), chaps, with its tail hanging down. See E. i.-vii. The gardens for miles round A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the the city are very lovely, but wild Egyptians, ii. 284 sqq. ; A. Furt- and neglected, full of magnificent wangler, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon trees, especially fine oak, ash, orange, d.giiech.u.roiit.Mytkologie,i.2i^'^sq. and lemon-trees. The vines run to 2 However, human victims were *^ '°P °^ *« '''g'*"' branches, and burned at Salamis in Cyprus. See ^'™°'' ^^"^ g^''^^" resounds with below, p. 113. '"« s°"g °i '"« nightingale (E. J. , „ . , ■ Davis, 06. cit. p. 35). See above, p. 37- gtrabo, xiv. 513, pp. 673 sq. * For traces of Phoenician influence 7 Dio Chrysostom, Or. xxxiii. in Cilicia see F. C. Movers, Die vol. ii. pp. 14 jjt., 17, ed. L. Dindorf. ■CHAP. VI THE BAAL OF TARSUS 93 they assimilated their native deity to Zeus by representing him seated on a throne, the upper part of his body bare, the lovi^er limbs draped in a flowing robe, while in one hand he holds a sceptre, which is topped sometimes with an eagle but often with a lotus flower. Yet his foreign nature is indicated both by his name and his attributes ; for in Aramaic inscriptions on the coins he bears the name of the Baal of Tarsus, and in one hand he grasps an ear of corn and a bunch of grapes.^ These attributes clearly mark him out as a god of fertility in general, who con- ferred on his worshippers the two things which they prized above all other gifts of nature, the corn and the wine. He was probably therefore a Semitic, or at all events an Oriental, rather than a Greek deity. For while the Semite cast all his gods more or less in the same mould, and expected them all to render him nearly the same services, the Greek, with his keener intelligence and more pictorial imagination, invested his deities with individual character- istics, allotting to each of them his or her separate function in the divine economy of the world. Thus he assigned the production of the corn to Demeter, and that of the grapes to Dionysus ; he was not so unreasonable as to demand both from the same hard-worked deity. 8 2. The God of Ibreez Now the suspicion that the Baal of Tarsus, for all his The Baal posing in the attitude of Zeus, was really an Oriental is °[J^5^"^ confirmed by a remarkable rock-hewn monument which is counter- to be seen at Ibreez in Southern Cappadocia. Though the fbrLz'in place is distant little more than fifty miles from Tarsus as Cappa- the crow flies, yet the journey on horseback occupies five days ; for the great barrier of the Taurus mountains rises 1 F. C. Movers, Die Phoenizier, ii. Hunterian Collection, ii. (Glasgow, 2, pp. 171 i-?.; P. Gardner, Types of 1901) p. 547; Parrot et Chipiez, Greek Coins, pi. x. Nos. 29, 30 ; B. Histoire de PArl dans VAntiqiiiti, V. 'iie3.d,IIistoria Ntimorum, ^. 61^; iv. 727. In later times,' from about G. F. Hill, Catalogue of Greek Coins 175 B.C. onward, the Baal of Tarsus of Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia was completely assimilated to Zeus on (London, 1900), pp. 167-176, pi. the coins. .See B. V. Head, op. cit. xxix. -xxxii. ! G. Macdonald, Cata- p. 617; G. F. Hill, op. cit. pp. 177, logue of Greek Coins in the 181. 94 THE GOD OF IBREEZ book i like a wall between. The road runs through the famous pass of the Cilician Gates, and the scenery throughout is of the grandest Alpine character. On all sides the mountains tower skyward, their peaks sheeted in a dazzling pall of snow, their lower slopes veiled in the almost inky blackness of dense pine-forests, torn here and there by impassable ravines, or broken into prodigious precipices of red and grey rock which border the narrow valley for miles. The magnificence of the landscape is enhanced by the exhilar- ating influence of the brisk mountain air, all the more by contrast with the sultry heat of the plain of Tarsus which the traveller has left behind. The rock- The village of Ibreez is charmingly situated at the at"ibreer northern foot of the Taurus, some six or seven miles south represent a of the towu of EregH, the ancient Cybistra. From the and grapes town to the village the path goes through a richly cultivated adored district of wheat and vines along green lanes more lovely by his wor- /-t-n i- i-iii-iii shipper, than those of Devonshire, lined by thick hedges and rows a priest or ^f ^illow, poplar, hazel, hawthorn, and huge old walnut- trees, where in early summer the nightingales warble on every side. Ibreez itself is embowered in the verdure of orchards, walnuts, and vines. It stands at the mouth of a deep ravine enclosed by great precipices of red rock. From the western of these precipices a river clear as crystal, but of a deep blue tint, bursts in a powerful jet, and being reinforced by a multitude of springs becomes at once a raging impassable torrent foaming and leaping over the rocks in its bed. A little way from the source a branch of the main stream flows in a deep narrow channel along the foot of a reddish weather-stained rock which rises sheer from the water. On its face, which has been smoothed to receive them, are the sculptures. They consist of two colossal figures, representing a god adored by his worshipper. The deity, some twenty feet high, is a bearded male figure, wearing on his head a high pointed cap adorned with several pairs of horns, and clad in a short tunic, which does not reach his knees and is drawn in at the waist by a belt. His legs and arms are bare ; the wrists are encircled by bangles or bracelets. His feet are shod in high boots with turned-up toes. In his right hand he holds a vine-branch CHAP. VI THE GOD OF IBREEZ 95 laden with clusters of grapes, and in his raised left hand he grasps a bunch of bearded wheat, such as is still grown in Cappadocia ; the ears of corn project above his fingers, while the long stalks hang down to his feet. In front of him stands the lesser figure, some twelve feet high. He is clearly a priest or king, more probably perhaps both in one. His rich vestments contrast with the simple costume of the god. On his head he wears a round but not pointed cap, encircled by flat bands and ornamented in front with a rosette or bunch of jewels, such as is still worn by Eastern princes. He is draped from the neck to the ankles in a long robe heavily fringed at the bottom, over which is thrown a shawl or mantle secured at the breast by a clasp of precious stones. Both robe and shawl are elaborately carved with patterns in imitation of embroidery. A heavy necklace of rings or beads encircles the neck ; a bracelet or bangle clasps the one wrist that is visible ; the feet are shod in boots like those of the god. One or perhaps both hands are raised in the act of adoration. The large aquiline nose, like the beak of a hawk, is a conspicuous feature in the face both of the god and of his worshipper ; the hair and beard of both are thick and curly.^ The situation of this remarkable monument resembles The that of Aphaca on the Lebanon ; ^ for in both places we see ib^ez'' ° a noble river issuing abruptly from the rock to spread fertility contrasted through the rich vale below. Nowhere, perhaps, could man desolation more appropriately revere those great powers of nature to °f '^e sur- whose favour he ascribes the fruitfulness of the earth, and country. through it the life of animate creation. With its cool bracing air, its mass of verdure, its magnificent stream of 1 E. J. Davis, " On a New Hama- Messerschmidt, Corpus Inscriptionum thite Inscription at Ibreez," Trans- Heititicarum (Berlin, 1900), Tafel actions of the Society of Biblical xxxiv. Of this sculptured group Archaeology, iv. (1876) pp. 336-346 id.. Life in Asiatic Turkey (London 1879), pp. 245-260; Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de I'Art dans P Antiquity, iv, 723-729 ; Ramsay and Hogarth, " Pre hellenic Monuments of Cappadocia," Messrs. W. M. Ramsay and D. G. Hogarth say that "it yields to no rock-relief in the world in impressive character " {American Journal of Ar- chaeology, vi. (1890) p. 347). For the route from Tarsus to Ibreez (Ivriz) Recueil de Travaux relatifs ci la Philo- see E. J. Davis, Life in Asiatic Turkey, logie et h V Archiologie Egyptiennes et pp. 198-244. Assyriennes, xiv. (1903) pp. 77-81, 85 sq., with plates iii. and iv. ; L. ^ gee above, pp. 23 sqq. 96 THE GOD OF JBREEZ book i pure ice-cold water- — so grateful in the burning heat of summer — and its wide stretch of fertile land, the valley may well have been the residence of an ancient prince or high- priest, who desired to testify by this monument his devotion and gratitude to the god. The seat of this royal or priestly potentate may have been at Cybistra,^ the modern Eregli, now a decayed and miserable place straggling amid orchards and gardens full of luxuriant groves of walnut, poplar, willow, mulberry, and oak. The place is a paradise of birds. Here the thrush and the nightingale sing full-throated, the hoopoe waves his crested top-knot, the bright-hued woodpeckers flit from bough to bough, and the swifts dart screaming by hundreds through the air. Yet a little way off, beyond the beneficent influence of the springs and streams, all is desola- tion — in summer an arid waste broken by great marshes and wide patches of salt, in winter a broad sheet of stagnant water, which as it dries up with the growing heat of the sun exhales a poisonous malaria. To the west, as far as the eye can see, stretches the endless expanse of the dreary Lycaonian plain, barren, treeless, and solitary, till it fades into the blue distance, or is bounded afar off by abrupt ranges of jagged volcanic mountains, on which in sunshiny weather the shadows of the clouds rest, purple and soft as velvet.^ No wonder that the smiling luxuriance of the one landscape, sharply contrasting with the bleak sterility of the other, should have rendered it in the eyes of primitive man a veritable garden of God. The Among the attributes which mark out the deity of Ibreez as a power of fertility the horns on his high cap should not be overlooked. They are probably the horns of a bull ; for to primitive cattle-breeders the bull is the most natural emblem of generative force. At Carchemish, the great Hittite capital on the Euphrates, a relief has been discovered which represents a god or a priest clad in a rich robe, and wearing on his head a tall horned cap surmounted by a disc.^ Sculptures found at the palace of Euyuk in North- ' Strabo, xii. 2. 7, p. 537. 264 j^., 270-272. Compare W. J. ^ E. J. Davis in Transactions of the Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, Society of Biblical Archaeology, iv. Pontus, and Armenia, ii. 304-307. (1876) pp. 336 sq., 346; id.. Life in ^ L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites Asiatic Turkey, pp. 2^2. sq., 236 J?., (London, 1903), pp. 49 sq. On an horned god CHAP. VI THE GOD OF IBREEZ 97 western Cappadocia prove that the Hittites worshipped the bull and sacrificed rams to it.^ Similarly the Greeks con- ceived the vine-god Dionysus in the form of a bull.^ § 3. Sandan of Tarsus That the god of Ibreez, with the grapes and corn in his The god hands, is identical with the Baal of Tarsus, who bears the ° nuthe same emblems, may be taken as certain.^ But what was deity- his name ? and who were his worshippers ? The Greeks apparently called him Hercules ; at least in Byzantine times the neighbouring town of Cybistra adopted the name of Heraclea, which seems to show that Hercules was deemed the principal deity of the place.* Yet the style and costume of the figures at Ibreez prove unquestionably that the god was an Oriental. If any confirmation of this view were needed, it is furnished by the inscriptions carved on the rock beside the sculptures, for these inscriptions are composed in the peculiar system of hieroglyphics now known as Hittite. It follows, therefore, that the deity worshipped at Tarsus and Ibreez was a god of the Hittites, that ancient and little-known people who occupied the centre of Asia Minor, invented a system of writing, and extended their influence, if not their dominion, at one time from the Euphrates to the Aegean. From the lofty and arid table- lands of the interior, a prolongation of the great plateau of Central Asia, with a climate ranging from the most burning heat in summer to the most piercing cold in winter,^ these hardy highlanders seem to have swept down through the Assyrian cylinder, now in the British E. Meyer {Geschichte des Alterthums, Museum, we see a warlike deity with i. pp. 305, 309), Parrot et Chipiez bow and arrows standing on a lion, (Histoire de I'Art dans PAntiquiti, and wearing a similar bonnet decorated iv. 727), and P. Jensen {Hittiter und with horns and surmounted by a star Armenier, p. 145). or sun. See De Vogiie, Milanges 4 Ramsay and Hogarth, " Pre-Hel- cTArchMogie Onentale (Pans, 1868), [g^j^ Monuments of Cappadocia," p. 46, who interprets the deity as the Recueil de Travaux relatifs h la Philo- great Asiatic goddess. j^^^^ ^^ ^ VArchMogie Egyptiennes ef 1 See below, p. 104. Assyriennes, xiv. (1893) p. 79. 2 The Golden Bough,^ 11. 164 sg.; "^ Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to * G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 432 ii. 360-362 ; Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire sag., 537. <^« I'Art dans I' Antiquity, iv. ^J2sqq., s The identification is accepted by s86 sq. H 98 SANDAN OF TARSUS BOOK I mountain-passes and established themselves at a very early date in the rich southern lowlands of Syria and Cilicia.^ Their language and race are still under discussion, but a great preponderance of opinion appears to declare that neither the one nor the other was Semitic.^ In the inscription attached to the colossal figure of the Sandanor go^ at Ibreez two scholafs have professed to read the name of Sandan or Sanda.^ Be that as it may, there are independent grounds for thinking that Sandan, Sandon, or Sandes may have been the name of the Cappadocian and Cilician god of fertility. For the god of Ibreez in Cappadocia appears, as we saw, to have been identified by the Greeks with Hercules, and we are told that a Cappadocian and Cilician name of Hercules was Sandan or Sandes.* Now this Sandan or Hercules is said to have founded Tarsus, and the people of the city commemorated him at The Hercules at Tarsus. ' That the cradle of the Hittites was in the interior of Asia Minor, particu- larly in Cappadocia, and that they spread from there south, east, and west, is the view of A. H. Sayce, W. M. Ramsay, D. G. Hogarth, W. Max MuUer, F. Hommel, L. B. Paton, and L. Messerschmidt. See Palestine Ex- ploration Fund Quarterly Statement for 18S4, p. 49 ; A. H. Sayce, The Hittites^ (London, 1903), pp. Zosqq.; W. Max Muller, Asien iind Etiropa (Leipsic, 1893), PP- 319 ^91- > Fecneil de Travaux relatifs h la Philologie et h V Archiologie, xv. (1893) p. 94; F. Hommel, Gritndriss der Geo^raphie und Geschichte des alien Orients, pp. 42, 48, 54 ; L. B. Paton, The Early History of Syria and Pales- tine (London, 1902), pp. 103 sqq.; L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites (Lon- don, 1903), pp. 12, 13, 19, 20. 2 G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, ii. 351, note 3, with his references; L. B. Paton, op. cit. p. 109 ; L. Messerschmidt, The Hittites, p. 10 ; F. Hommel, op. cit. p. 42 ; V\^. Max Miiller, Asien mid Etiropa, p. 332. 3 A. H. Sayce, " The Hittite In- scriptions," Recueil de Travaux 7-elatifs a^ la Philologie et h r Archiologie Egyptiennes et Assyriennes, xiv. (1893) pp. 48 sq. ; P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier (Strasburg, 1898), 42 sq. pp. * Syncellus, Chronographia, vol. i. p. 290, ed. G. Dindorf: 'SpaKXia TLvh ie Phoenizier, i. 460) for the MS. reading Aia-ayddv, the AI having apparently arisen by dittography from the preceding AI ; and KMkuv is a correction of E. Meyer's (Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesell- schaft, xxxi. 737) for the MS. reading 'YKluv. Compare Jerome (quoted by Movers and Meyer ll.cc.) : Hercules cognomento Desanatis in Syria Phoenice clarus habetur. Inde ad nostram usque immoriam a Cappadocibus et Eliensibus (al. Deliis) Desanatts adhuc dicitur. If the text of Jerome is here sound, he would seem to have had before him a Greek original which was corrupt like the text of Syncellus or of Syncellus's authority. The Cilician Hercules is called Sandes by Nonnus {Dionys. xxxiv. 183 sq.). Compare Raoul- Rochette in Mimoires de PAcadimie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xvii. Deuxieme Partie (Paris, 1848), pp. 159 sqq. CHAP. VI SAND AN OF TARSUS 99 an annual or, at all events, periodical festival by erecting a fine pyre in his honour.^ Apparently at this festival, as at the festival of Melcarth, the god was burned in eiifigy on his own pyre. For coins of Tarsus often exhibit the pyre as a conical structure resting on a garlanded altar or basis, with the figure of Sandan himself in the midst of it, while an eagle with spread wings perches on the top of the pyre, as if about to bear the soul of the burning god in the pillar of smoke and fire to heaven.^ In like manner when a Roman emperor died leaving a son to succeed him on the throne, a waxen effigy was made in the likeness of the deceased and burned on a huge pyramidal pyre, which was reared upon a square basis of wood ; and from the summit of the blazing pile an eagle was released for the purpose of carrying to heaven the soul of the dead and deified emperor.' The Romans may have borrowed from the East a grandiose custom which savours of Oriental adulation rather than of Roman simplicity. 1 Amraianus Marcellinus, xiv. 8. 3 ; Dio Chrysostom, Or. xxxiii. vol. ii. p. 16, ed. L. Dindorf. The pyre is mentioned only by Dio Chrysostom, whose words clearly imply that its erection was a custom observed periodi- cally. On Sandan or Sandon see K. O. Miiller, " Sandon und Sardana- pal," Kunstarchaeologische Werke, iii. 6 sqq. ; F. C. Movers, Die Phoenizier, i. 458 sqq. ; Raoul-Rochette, " Sur I'Hercule Assyrien et Ph^nicien," Mimoires de f Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xvii. Deuxi^me Partie (Paris, 1848), pp. 178 sqq.; E. Meyer, " Ueber einige Semitische Gotter," Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgen- Idndischen Gesellschaft, xxxi. (1877) pp. 736-740- 2 P. Gardner, Catalogue of Greek Coins, the Sekucid Kings of Syria, pp. 72, 78, 89, 112, pi. xxi. 6, xxiv. 3, xxviii. 8 ; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia, pp. 180, 181, 183, 190, 221, 224, 225, pi. xxxiii. 2, 3, xxxiv. 10, xxxvii. 9 ; Journal of Hellenic Studies, xviii. (1898) pi. xiii. 1, 2. The structure represented on the coins is sometimes called not the pyre but the monument of Sandan. Certainly the cone resting on the square base reminds us of the similar structure on the coins of Byblus as well as of the conical image of Aphrodite at Paphos (see above, pp. 11, 30 sq^ ; but the words of Dio Chrysostom make it probable that the design on the coins of Tarsus represents the pyre. At the same time, the burning of the god may well have been sculptured on a permanent monument of stone. The legend OPTTrOeHEA, literally "quail-hunt," which appears on some coins of Tarsus (G. F. Hill, op. cit. pp. Ixxxvi. sq.), may refer to a custom of catch- ing quails and burning them on the pyre. This explanation of the legend was suggested by Raoul- Rochette {op. cit. pp. 201 - 205). See above, p. 85. However, Mr. G. F. Hill writes to me that "the interpretation of 'Oprvyodiipa as any- thing but a personal name is rendered very unlikely by the analogy of all the other inscriptions on coins of the same class." Doves were burnt on a pyre in honour of Adonis (below, p. 114). Similarly birds were burnt on a pyre in honour of Laphrian Artemis at Patrae (Pausanias, vii. 18. 12). ' Herodian, iv. 2. loo SAND AN OF TARSUS symbols of the lion and the double axe.- Sandan of The type of Sandan or Hercules, as he is portrayed on Tarsus an ^^ j^^^ ^j- Yarsus, IS that of an Asiatic deity standing on Asiatic god 1 1 J with the a lion. It is thus that he is represented on the pyre, and it is thus that he appears as a separate figure without the pyre. From these representations we can form a fairly accurate conception of the form and attributes of the god. They exhibit him as a bearded man standing on a horned and often winged lion. Upon his head he wears a high pointed cap or mitre, and he is clad sometimes in a long robe, sometimes in a short tunic. On at least one coin his feet are shod in high boots with flaps. At his side or over his shoulder are slung a sword, a bow-case, and a quiver, sometimes only one or two of them. His right hand is raised and sometimes holds a ilower. His left hand grasps a double-headed axe, and sometimes a wreath either in addition to the axe or instead of it ; but the double-headed axe is one of Sandan's most constant attributes.^ Boghaz- Keui the ancient capital of a Hittite kingdom in Cappa- docia. § 4. The Gods of Boghaz-Keui Now a deity of almost precisely the same type figures prominently in the celebrated group of Hittite sculptures which is carved on the rocks at Boghaz-Keui in North-western Cappadocia. The village of Boghaz-Keui, that is, " the village of the defile," stands at the mouth of a deep, narrow, and picturesque gorge in a wild upland valley, shut in by rugged mountains of grey limestone. The houses are built on the lower slopes of the hills, and a stream issuing from the gorge flows past them to join the Halys, which is distant about ten hours' journey to the west. Immediately above the modern village a great ancient city, enclosed by massive fortification *. F. Imhoof- Blumer, Monnaies Grecques (Amsterdam, 1883), pp. 366 sq., 433, 435, with plates F. 24, 25, H. 14 ( Verhandelingen der Koni7ik. Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, xiv. ) ; F. Imhoof-Blumer und O. Keller, Tier- ti7id Pflanzejibildcr auf Milnzen und Gemmen des klassi- schen Altertums (Leipsic, 1889), pp. 70 sq., with pi. xii. 7, 8, 9 ; F. Imhoof-Blumer, " Coin-types of some Cilician Cities," Journal of Hellenic Studies, xviii. (1898) pp. 169-171 ; P. Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, pi. xiii. 20 ; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia, pp. 178, 179, 184, 186, 206, 213, with plates xxxii. 13, 14, 15, 16, xxxiv. 2, xxxvi. 9 ; G. Macdonald, Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collection, ii. 548, with pi. Ix. II. The booted Sandan is figured by G. F. Hill, op. cit. pi. xxxvi. 9. CHAP. VI THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUJ loi walls, rose terrace above terrace on the rough broken ground of the mountain-side, culminating in two citadels perched on the tops of precipitous crags. A dense undergrowth of stunted oak coppice now covers much of the site. The ruins of a large palace, built of enormous blocks of stone, occupy a terrace in a commanding situation within the circuit of the walls. This vast city, some four or five miles in circum- ference, appears to have been the ancient Pteria, which Croesus, king of Lydia, captured in his war with Cyrus. It was probably the capital of a powerful Hittite empire before the Phrygians made their way from Europe into the interior of Asia Minor and established a rival state to the west of the Halys.-' From the village of Boghaz-Keui a steep and rugged The rock- path leads up hill to the sanctuary, distant about a mile and ,^n"^e™uter a half to the east. Here among the grey limestone cliffs sanctuary there is a spacious natural chamber or hall of roughly Keui°^ ^^ oblong shape, roofed only by the sky, and enclosed on three represent sides by high rocks. One of the short sides is open, and cessions through it you look out on the broken slopes beyond and meeting, the more distant mountains, which make a graceful picture set in a massy frame. The length of the chamber is about a hundred feet ; its breadth varies from twenty-five to fifty feet. A nearly level sward forms the floor. On the right- hand side, as you face inward, a narrow opening in the rocks leads into another but much smaller chamber, or rather passage, which would seem to have been the inner sanctuary or Holy of Holies. It is a romantic spot, where the deep shadows of the rocks are relieved by the bright foliage of walnut-trees and by the sight of the sky and clouds over- 1 Herodotus, i. 76; Steplianns "^isqq.; \V. M. Ramsay, "Historical Byzantius, s.v. JX-rifiov. As to the Relations of Phrygia and Cappadocia," situation of Boghaz-Keui and the ruins Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, of Pteria see W. J. Hamilton, Re- N.S., xv. (1883) p. 103; id.. His- searches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and torical Geography of Asia Minor Armenia (London, 1842), i. 391 sqq- ; (London, iSgo), pp. 28 sg., 33 sq. ; H. Barth, " Reise von Trapezunt Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de PArt durch die nordliclie Halfte Klein- dans VAntiquiti, iv. 596 sqq. ; K. Asiens " Ergdnzungsheft zu Peter- Humann und O. Puchstein, Reisen in mannas Geographischen Mittheilungen Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin, (No. 2), i860, pp. 44-52; H. F. 1890), pp. 71-80, with Atlas, plates Tozer, Turkish Armenia and Eastern xi.-xiv. ; E. Chantre, Mission en Cap- Asia Minor (London, 1881), pp. 64, padoce {Fans, 1898), pp. 13 sqq. I02 THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI book i head. On the rock-walls of both chambers are carved the famous bas-reliefs. In the outer sanctuary these reliefs represent two great processions which defile along the two long sides of the chamber and meet face to face on the short wall at the inner end. The figures on the left-hand wall are all men, clad for the most part in the characteristic Hittite costume, which consists of a high pointed cap, shoes with turned-up toes, and a tunic drawn in at the waist and falling short of the knees. The figures on the right-hand wall are women wearing tall, square, flat -topped bonnets with ribbed sides ; their long dresses fall in perpendicular folds to their feet, which are shod in shoes like those of the men. On the short wall, where the processions meet, the greater size of the central figures, as well as their postures and attributes, mark them out as divine. At the head of the male procession marches a bearded deity clad in the ordinary Hittite costume of tall pointed cap, short tunic, and turned-up shoes ; but his feet rest on the bowed heads of two men, in his right hand he holds a mace or truncheon topped with a knob, while his extended left hand grasps a "symbol, which apparently consists of a trident surmounted by an oval with a cross-bar. Facing him, at the head of the female procession, stands a goddess on a lioness or panther. Her costume does not differ from that of the women : her hair hangs down in a long plait behind : in her extended right hand she holds out an emblem to touch that of the god. The shape and meaning of her emblem are obscure. It consists of a stem with two pairs of protuberances, perhaps leaves or branches, one above the other, the whole being surmounted, like the emblem of the god, by an oval with a cross-bar. Under the outstretched arms of the two deities appear the front parts of two animals, which have been usually interpreted as bulls, but sometimes as goats or cats ; each of them wears on its head the high conical Hittite cap, and its body is concealed by that of the deity. Immediately behind the goddess marches a smaller and apparently youthful male figure, standing like her upon a lioness or panther. He is beardless and wears the Hittite dress of high pointed cap, short tunic, and shoes with turned-up toes. A crescent-hilted sword is girt at his side ; CHAP. VI THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI 103 in his left hand he holds a double-headed axe, and in his right a staff topped by an armless doll with the symbol of the cross-barred oval instead of a head. The entrance to the smaller chamber is guarded on The rock- either side by the figure of a winged monster carved on the i^n^he""^^'"' rock ; the bodies of both figures are human, but one of them inner has the head of a dog, the other the head of a lion. In the at'soghTz- inner sanctuary, to which this monster- guarded passage i^^ui. leads, the walls are also carved in relief On one side we see a procession of twelve men in Hittite costume marching with curved swords in their right hands. On the opposite wall is a colossal erect figure of a deity with a human head The Uon- and a body curiously composed of four lions, two above and ^°^' two below, the latter standing on their heads. The god wears the high conical Hittite hat : his face is youthful and beardless like that of the male figure standing on the lioness in the large chamber ; and the ear turned to the spectator is pierced with a ring. To the right of this deity a square panel cut in the face of the rock exhibits a group of two The god figures in relief The larger of the two figures closely Pf°'ec'mg resembles the youth on the lioness in the outer sanctuary. His chin is beardless ; he wears the same high pointed cap, the same short tunic, the same turned-up shoes, the same crescent-hilted sword, and he carries a similar armless doll in his right hand. But his left arm encircles the neck of the smaller figure, whom he seems to clasp to his side in an attitude of protection. The smaller, figure thus embraced by the god is clearly a priest. His face is beardless ; he wears a skull-cap and a long mantle reaching to his feet with a sort of chasuble thrown over it. The crescent-shaped hilt of a sword projects from under his mantle. The wrist of his right arm is clasped by the god's left hand ; in his left hand the priest holds a crook or pastoral staff which ends below in a curl. Both the priest and his protector are facing towards the lion-god. In an upper corner of the panel behind them is a divine emblem composed of a winged disc resting on what look like two Ionic columns, while between them appear three symbols of doubtful significance. The figure of the priest in this costume, though not in this attitude, is a familiar one ; for it occurs I04 THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI book i Other twice in the outer sanctuary and is repeated twice at the tfonToTthe g^'e^t Hittite palace of Euyuk, distant about four and a half priest at hours' ride to the north-east of Boghaz-Keui. In the outer KeuiTiid Sanctuary at Boghaz-Keui we see the priest marching in the Euyuk. procession of the men, and holding in one hand his curled staff, or lituus, and in the other a symbol like that of the goddess on the lioness : above his head appears the winged disc without the other attributes. Moreover he occupies a conspicuous place by himself on the right-hand wall of the outer sanctuary, quite apart from the two processions, and carved on a larger scale than any of the other figures in them. Here he stands on two heaps, perhaps intended to represent mountains, and he carries in his right hand the emblem of the winged disc supported on two Ionic columns with the other symbols between them, except that the central symbol is replaced by a masculine figure wearing a pointed cap and a long robe decorated with a dog-tooth pattern. On one of the reliefs at the palace of Euyuk we see the priest with his characteristic dress and staff followed by a priestess, each of them with a hand raised as if in adoration : they are approaching the image of a bull which stands on a high pedestal with an altar before it. Behind them . a priest leads a flock of rams to the sacrifice. On another relief at Euyuk the priest, similarly attired and followed by a priestess, is approaching a seated goddess and apparently pouring a libation at her feet. Both these scenes doubtless represent acts of worship paid in the one case to a goddess, in the other to a buU.^ ' W. J. Hamilton, Researches in Compare P. Jensen, Hittiter und Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia, i. Armenier, pp. 165 sqq. An interest- 393 ■ 395 ; H. F. Tozer, Turkish ing Hittite symbol which occurs both Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor, in the sanctuary at Boghaz-Keui and at pp. 59 sq., 66-78 ; W. M. Ramsay, the palace of Euyuk is the double- " Historical Relations of Phiygia and headed eagle. In both places it serves Asia Minor," Journal of the Royal as the support of divine or priestly Asiatic Society, N.S. xv. (1883) pp. personages. After being adopted as a 1 13-120; Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire badge by the Seljuk Sultans in the de VArt dans PAntiquiti, iv. 623- Middle Ages, it passed into Europe 655, 666-672; K. Humann und O. with the Crusaders and became in time Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien und the escutcheon of the Austrian and Nordsyrien, pp. SS-70, with Atlas, Russian empires. See W. J. Hamilton, plates vii.-x. 5 E. Chantre, Mission en op. cit. i. 383; Perrot et Chipiez, op. Cappadocey-pf. 3-5, 16-26; L. Messer- cit. iv. 681-683, with pi. viii. E; L. Schmidt, The Hittites, pp. 42 - 50. Messerschmidt, Ihe Hittites, p. 50. CHAP. VI THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI 105 We have still to inquire into the meaning of the rock- The two carvings at Boghaz-Keui. What are these processions vi^hich the head are meeting ? Who are the personages represented ? and °^ *^ ,. , ,. „ ; ,, processions What are they domg ? Some have thought that the scene at Boghaz- is historical and commemorates a great event, such as a ^^"' . D > appear treaty of peace between two peoples or the marriage of a to be the king's son to a king's daughter.^ But to this view it has |^^^^';^ been rightly objected that the attributes of the principal goddess figures prove them to be divine or priestly, and that the consort'. scene is therefore religious or mythical rather than historical. With regard to the two personages who head the processions and hold out their symbols to each other, the most probable opinion appears to be that they stand for the great Asiatic goddess of fertility and her consort, by whatever names these deities were known, whether as Ishtar and Tammuz, as Aphrodite and Adonis, as Sandan and Mylitta, or as Cybele and Attis ; for under diverse names a similar divine couple was worshipped with similar rites all over Western Asia.^ The tall flat-topped hat with perpendicular grooves which the goddess wears, and the lioness or panther on which she stands, remind us of the turreted crown and lion-drawn car of Cybele, who was worshipped in the neighbouring land of Phrygia across the Halys.^ So Atargatis, the great Syrian goddess of Hierapolis-Bambyce, was portrayed sitting on 1 W. J. Hamilton, Researches in Raoul Rochette, Lajard, W. M. Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia, i. Ramsaj', G. Perrot, and C. P. Tiele. 394 sq. ; H. Barth, in Monatsberichte See Raoul -Rochette, " Sur I'Hercule der k'dnigl. Preuss. Akademie der Assyrien et Phenicien,'' Mimoires de Wissenschaften, 1859, pp. 128 sqq. ; V Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles- id., " Reise von Trapezunt," Ergdn- Lettres, xvii. Deuxi^me Partie (Paris, zungsheft zu Petermamt's Geograpk. 1848), p. 180, n. I ; W. M. Ram- Mittheilungen (No. 2) (Gotha, i860), say, "On the early Historical Rela- pp. 45 sq.; H. F. Tozer, Turkish tions between Phrygia and Cappadocia," Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, p. 69; E. Chantre, Mission en Cap- N.S. xv. (1885) pp. 113-120; Perrot padoce, pp. 20 sqq. According to et Chipiez, Histoire de rArt dans Barth, the scene represented is the I' Atitiquite, iv. 630 sqq. ; C. P. Tiele, marriage of Aryenis, daughter of Geschichte der Religion im Altertum, Alyattes, king of Lydia, to Astyages, i. 255-257. son of Cyaxares, king of the Medes (Herodotus, i. 74). For a discussion ^ As to the lions and mural crown of various interpretations which have of Cybele see Lucretius, ii. 5oo sqq. ; been proposed see Perrot et Chipiez, Catullus, Ixiii. 76 sqq. ; Macrobius, Histoire de I' Art dans P Antiquite, iv. Saturn, i. 23. 20 ; Rapp, in W. H. 630 sqq. Roscher's Lexikon d. griech. u. rbm. 2 This is in substance the view of Mythologie, ii. 1644 sqq. io6 THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI The youth on the lioness, bearing the double axe, at Boghaz- Keui may be the divine son and lover of the goddess. lions and wearing a tower on her head.^ At Babylon an image of a goddess whom the Greeks called Rhea had the figures of two lions standing on her knees.^ But in the rock-hewn sculptures of Boghaz-Keui, who is the youth with the tall pointed cap and double axe who stands on a lioness or panther immediately behind the great goddess ? His figure is all the more remarkable because he is the only male who interrupts the long procession of women. Probably he is at once the divine son and the divine lover of the goddess ; for we shall find later on that in Phrygian mythology Attis united in' himself both these characters.' ' Ijacwa, De dea Syria, 31; Macr- obius, Saturn, i. 23. 19. Lucian's description of her image is confirmed by coins of Hierapolis, on which the goddess is represented wearing a high head-dress and seated on a lion. See B. V. Head, Historia Numorttm, p. 654 ; G. Macdonald, Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Htoiterian Collec- tion, iii. 139 sq. That the name of the Syrian goddess of Hierapolis-Bam- byce was Atargatis is mentioned by Strabo (xvi. i. 27, p. 748). On Egyptian monuments the Semitic god- dess Kadesh is represented standing on a lion. See W. Max Miiller, Asien und Europa, pp. 314 sq. It is to be remembered that Hierapolis-Bambyce was the direct successor of Carchemish, the great Hittite capital on the Euph- rates, and may have inlierited many features of Hittite religion. See A. H. Sayce, The Hittites,^ pp. 94 sqq., I OS sqq. 2 Diodorus Siculus, ii. 9. 5. ^ In thus interpreting the youth with the double axe I agree with Prof. W. M. Ramsay ("On the early Historical Relations between Phrygia and Cnppa- docia," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. xv. (1883) pp. 118, 120) and C. P. '^\fL\& [Geschichte der .Religion im Altertum, i. 246, 255). That the y0uthfi.1l figure on the lioness or panther represents the lover of the great goddess is the view also of Pro- fessors Jensen and Hommel. See P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier, pp. 173-17S) 180; F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients, p. 51. Prof. Perrot holds that the youth in question is a double of the bearded god who stands at the head of the male procession, their costume being the same, though their attributes differ (Perrot et Chipier, Histoire de FArt dans VAntiquiti, iv. 651). This opinion is not incon- sistent with that which I have adopted, for the divine son is naturally a double of his divine father. With regard to the lionesses or panthers, a bas-relief found at Carchemish, the capital of a Hittite kingdom on the Euphrates, shows two male figures in Hittite costume, with pointed caps and turned- up shoes, standing on a couching lion. The foremost of the two figures is winged and carries a short curved truncheon in his right hand. According to Prof. Perrot, the two figures repre- sent a god followed by a priest or a king. See Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de PArt dans FAntiqtiiti!, Iv. 549 sq. Again, on a sculptured slab found at Amrit in Phoenicia we see a god stand- ing on a lion and holding a lion's whelp in his left hand, while in his right hand he brandishes a club or sword. See Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. iii. 412-414. The type of a god or goddess standing or sitting on a lion occurs also in Assyrian art, from which the Phoe- nicians and Hittites may have borrowed it. See Perrot et Chipiez, op. cit. ii. 642-644. Much evidence as to the representation of Asiatic deities with lions has been collected by Raoul- Rochette, in his learned dissertation " Sur I'Hercule Assyrien et Phenicien," CHAP. VI THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI 107 The lioness or panther on which he stands marks his affinity with the goddess, who is supported by a similar animal. It is natural that the lion-goddess should have a lion-son and a lion-lover. For we may take it as probable that the Oriental deities who are represented standing or sitting in human form on the backs of lions and other animals were originally indistinguishable from the beasts, and that the complete separation of the bestial from the human or divine shape was a consequence of that growth of knowledge and of power which led man in time to respect himself more and the brutes less. The hybrid gods of Egypt with their human bodies and animal heads form an intermediate stage in this evolution of anthropomorphic deities out of beasts. We may now perhaps hazard a conjecture as to the The meaning of that strange colossal figure in the inner shrine at '"ys'fry of Boghaz-Keui with its human head and its body composed of god. lions. For it is to be observed that the head of the figure is youthful and beardless, and that it wears a tall pointed cap, thus resembling in both respects the youth with the double- headed axe who stands on a lion in the outer sanctuary. We may suppose that the leonine figure in the inner shrine sets forth the true mystic, that is, the old savage nature of the god who in the outer shrine presented himself to his worshippers in the decent semblance of a man. To the chosen few who were allowed to pass the monster-guarded portal into the Holy of Holies, the awful secret may have been revealed that their god was a lion, or rather a lion-man, a being in whom the bestial and human natures mysteriously co-existed. The reader may remember that on the rock beside this leonine divinity is carved a group which represents a god with his arm twined round the neck of his priest in an attitude of protection, holding one of the priest's hands in his own. Both figures are looking and stepping towards the lion-monster, and the god is holding out his right hand as if pointing to it. The scene may represent the deity revealing the mystery to the priest, or preparing him to act his part in some solemn rite for which all his strength and courage will 'Mimoires de VAcadimie des Inscriptions De Vogiie, Milanges dArchMogie et Belles-Lettres, xvii. Deuxi^me Partic Orientate, pp. 44 sqq. (Paris, 1848), pp. 106 sqq. Compare io8 THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI book i be needed. He seems to be leading his minister onward, comforting him with an assurance that no harm can come near him while the divine arm is around him and the divine hand clasps his. Whither is he leading him ? Perhaps to death. The deep shadows of the rocks which fall on the two figures in the gloomy chasm may be an emblem of darker shadows soon to fall on the priest. Yet still he grasps his pastoral staff and goes forward, as though he said, " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me : thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." The If there is any truth in these guesses — for they are little a[°Brhar '""°''^ — ^'^ three principal figures in the processional scene at Keui Boghaz-Keui represent the divine Father, the divine Mother, rep^resem ^"'^ ^'^^ divine Son. But we have still to ask, What are the Sacred they doing ? That they are engaged in the performance of ofThe^^^ some religious rite seems certain. But what is it ? We may god and conjecture that it is the rite of the Sacred Marriage, and that the scene is copied from a ceremony which was periodically performed in this very place by human representatives of the deities.^ Indeed, the solemn meeting of the male and female figures at the head of their respective processions obviously suggests a marriage, and has been so inter- preted by scholars, who, however, regarded it as the historical wedding of a prince and princess instead of the mystic union of a god and goddess, overlooking or explain- ing away the symbols of divinity which accompany the principal personages.^ We may suppose that at Boghaz- Keui, as at many other places in the interior of Asia Minor, the government was in the hands of a family who combined royal with priestly functions and personated the gods whose names they bore. Thus at Pessinus in Phrygia, as we shall see later on, the priests of Cybele bore the name of her consort Attis, and doubtless represented him in the ritual.' ' "There can be no doubt that view seems to differ from, though it ap- there is liere represented a Sacred proaches, the one suggested in the text. Marriage, the meeting of two deities ^ See above, p. 105. worshipped in different places, like the ' See below, p. 239. Compare the Horus of Edfu and the Hathor of remarks of Prof. W. M. Ramsay (" Pre- Dendera" (C. P. Tiele, Geschichte dsr Hellenic Monuments of Cappadocia," Religion im Altertum, i. 255). This Recueil de Travaux relatifs h la Philo- CHAP. VI THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI log If this was so at Boghaz-Keui, we may surmise that the chief pontiff and his family annually celebrated the marriage of the divine powers of fertility, the Father God and the Mother Goddess, for the purpose of ensuring the fruitfulness of the earth and the multiplication of men and beasts. The principal parts in the ceremony would naturally be played by the pontiff himself and his wife, unless indeed they preferred for good reasons to delegate the onerous duty to others. That such a delegation took place is perhaps suggested by the appearance of the pontiff himself in a subordinate place in the procession, as well as by his separate representation in another place, as if he were in the act of surveying the ceremony from a distance.^ The part of the divine Son at the rite would fitly devolve upon one of the high-priest's own offspring, who may well have been numer- ous. For it is probable that here, as elsewhere in Asia Minor, the Mother Goddess was personated by a crowd of sacred harlots,^ with whom the spiritual ruler may have been required to consort in his character of incarnate deity. But if the personation of the Son of God at the rites laid a heavy burden of suffering on the shoulders of the actor, it is possible that the representative of the deity may have been drawn, perhaps by lot, from among the numerous progeny of the consecrated courtesans ; for these women, as incarna- tions of the Mother Goddess, were probably supposed to transmit to their offspring some portion of their own divinity. Be that as it may, if the three principal personages in the processional scene at Boghaz-Keui are indeed the Father, the Mother, and the Son, the remarkable position assigned logic et a V Archdologie Egyptiennes wore the dress and represented the et Assyrienms, xiii. (1890) p. 78): person of the god, whose priests they " Similar priest-dynasts are a wide- were ; (2) they were lepiivv/j-oi, losing spread feature of the primitive social their individual name at their succession system of Asia Minor ; their existence to the office, and assuming a sacred is known with certainty or inferred name, often that of the god himself or with probability at the two towns some figure connected with the cultus Komana ; at Venasa not far north of the god. The priest of Cybele at of Tyana, at Olba, at Pessinous, at Pessinous was called Attis, the priests Aizanoi, and many other places. Now of Sabazios were Saboi, the worshippers there are two characteristics which of Bacchos Bacchoi." As to the priestly can be regarded as probable in regard rulers of Olba, see below, pp. 112 sgj. to most of these priests, and as proved ^ See above, p. 103 s^. in regard to some of them : (l) they ^ gee above, p. 32 sff. no THE GODS OF BOGHAZ-KEUI book i to the third of them in the procession, where he walks behind his Mother alone in the procession of women, appears to indicate that he was supposed to be more closely akin to her than to his Father. From this again we may con- jecturally infer that mother-kin rather than father-kin was the rule which regulated descent among the Hittites. § 5 . Sandan and Baal at Tarsus Sandan at Whatever may be thought of these speculations, one thing Tarsus seems fairly clear and certain. The figure which I have called appears to ^ ^ be a son of the divine Son at Boghaz-Keui is identical with the god San- Baai, as ^^in, who appears on the pyre at Tarsus. In both personages was a son the costume, the attributes, the attitude are the same. Both ° ^"^' represent a man clad in a short tunic with a tall pointed cap on his head, a sword at his side, a double-headed axe in his hand, and a lion or panther under his feet.^ Accordingly, if we are right in identifying him as the divine Son at Boghaz- Keui, we may conjecture that under the name of Sandan he bore the same character at Tarsus. The conjecture squares perfectly with the title of Hercules, which the Greeks bestowed on Sandan ; for Hercules was the son of Zeus, the great father-god. Moreover, we have seen that the Baal of Tarsus, with the grapes and the corn in his hand, was assimilated to Zeus.^ Thus it would appear that at Tarsus as at Boghaz-Keui there was a pair of deities, a divine Father and a divine Son, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus and Hercules respectively. If the Baal of Tarsus was a god of fertility, as his attributes clearly imply, his identification with Zeus would be natural, since it was Zeus who, in the belief of the Greeks, sent the fertilising rain from heaven.^ And the identification of Sandan with Hercules would be equally natural, since the lion and the death on the pyre were features common to both. Our conclusion then is that it was the divine Son, the lion-god, who was burned in ^^^y or in the person of a human representative at Tarsus, and 1 The figure exhibits a few minor 2 Above, p. 92 sq. variations on the coins of Tarsus. See the works cited above, p. 100, ^ 'L.Vx€Aa,Griechische Mytholo^e,^ note I. i. 1 1 7 sqq. CHAP. VI SANDAN AND BAAL AT TARSUS m perhaps at Boghaz-Keui. Semitic parallels suggest that the victim who played the part of the Son of God in the fiery furnace ought in strictness to be the king's son.^ But no doubt in later times an effigy would be substituted for the man. § 6. Priestly Kings of Olba Unfortunately we know next to nothing of the kings and Priests of priests of Tarsus. In Greek times we hear of an Epicurean ^"rcuies philosopher of the city, Lysias by name, who was elected by at Tarsus, his fellow-citizens to the office of Crown-wearer, that is, to the priesthood of Hercules. Once raised to that dignity, he would not lay it down again, but played the part of tyrant, wearing a white robe edged with purple, a costly cloak, white shoes, and a golden wreath of laurel. He truckled to the mob by distributing among them the property of the wealthy, while he put to death such as refused to open their money- bags to him.^ Though we cannot distinguish in this account between the legal and the illegal exercise of authority, yet we may safely infer that the priesthood of Hercules, that is of Sandan, at Tarsus continued down to late times to be an office of great dignity and power, not unworthy to be held in earlier times by the kings themselves. Scanty as is Kings of our information as to the kings of Cilicia, we hear of two related to whose names appear to indicate that they stood in some Sandan special relation to the divine Sandan. One of them was Sandu'arri, lord of Kundi and Sizu, which have been identi- fied with Anchiale and Sis in Cilicia.^ The other was Sanda-sarme, who gave his daughter in marriage to Ashur- banipal, king of Assyria.* It would be in accordance with • See above, p. 84. was the name of a Cilician fortress a 2 Athenaeus, V. 54, p. 215 B, c. The little way inland from Anchiale (Strabo, high-priest of the Syrian goddess at xiv. 5. 10, p. 672). Hierapolis held office for a year, and * E. Meyer, op. at. i. § 393, p. wore a purple robe and a golden tiara 4S0 ; C. P. Tiele, Babylotiisch- (Lucian, De dea Syria, 42). We may assyrische Geschichte, p. 360. San- conjecture that the priesthood of don and Sandas occur repeatedly as Hercules at Tarsus was in later times names of Cilician men. They are at least an annual office. probably identical with, or modifiied 3 E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alter- forms of, the divine name. See t/iu?ns, i. § 389, p. 475 ; H. Winckler, Strabo, xiv. 5. 14, p. 674; Plutarch, in E. Schrader's Keilinschriften und Poplicola, 17; Corpus Inscriptionum das Alte Testament,^ p. 88. Kuinda Graecarum, No. 4401; Ch. Michel, 112 PRIESTL Y KINGS OF OLBA Priestly kings of Olba who bore the names of Teucer and Ajax. The Teucrids of Salamis in Cyprus. analogy if the kings of Tarsus formerly held the priesthood of Sandan and claimed to represent him in their own person. We know that the whole of Western or Mountainous Cilicia was ruled by kings who combined the regal office with the priesthood of Zeus, or rather of a native deity whom, like the Baal of Tarsus, the Greeks assimilated to their own Zeus. These priestly potentates had their seat at Olba, and most of them bore the name either of Teucer or of Ajax,^ but we may suspect that these appellations are merely Greek distortions of native Cilician names. Teucer {Teukros) may be a corruption of Tark, Trok, Tarku, or Troko, all of which occur in the names of Cilician priests and kings. At all events, it is worthy of notice that one, if not two, of these priestly Teucers had a father called Tarkuaris,^ and that in a long list of priests who served Zeus at the Corycian cave, not many miles from Olba, the names Tarkuaris, Tarkumbios, Tarkimos, Trokoarbasis, and Trokombigremis, besides many other obviously native names, occur side by side with Teucer and other purely Greek appellations.^ In like manner the Teucrids, who traced Recueil d' Inscriptions Grecques, No. 878 ; R. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, " Reisen in Kilikien," Denkschriften d. Kaiser. Akademie d. Wissenschaften, Philosopk.-histor, Classe^ xliv. (Vienna, 1896) No. vi. pp. 46, 131 sq., 140 (Inscriptions 115, 218, 232). 1 Strabo, xiv. 5. 10, p. 672. The name of the high-priest Ajax, son of Teucer, occurs on coins of Olba, dat- ing from about the beginning of our era (B. V. Head, Historia Numorum, p. 609) ; and the name of Teucer is also known from inscriptions. See below, pp. 119, 126. 2 E. L. Hicks, " Inscriptions from Western Cilicia," Journal of Hellenic Studies, xii. (1891) pp. 226, 263; R. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, "Reisen in Kilikien, " Denkschriften der Kaiser. Akademie der Wissenschaften, xliv. (1896) No. vi. pp. 53, 88. ' Ch. Michel, Recueil d' Inscriptions Grecques, No. 878. Tarkondimotos was the name of two kings of Eastern Cilicia in the first century B.C. One of them corresponded with Cicero and fell at the battle of Actium. See Cicero, Epist. ad Familiares, x v. 1 . 2 ; Strabo, xiv. 5. 18, p. 676 ; Dio Cassius, xli. 63. i, xlvii. 26. 2, 1. 14. 2, li. 2. 2, li. 7. 4, liv. 9. 2 ; Plutarch, Antoninus, 61; B. V. Head, Historia Nuviorum, p. 618 ; W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscrip- tiones Selectae, Nos. 752, 753. More- over, Tarkudimme or Tarkuwassimi occurs as the name of a king of Erme (?) or Urmi (?) in a bilingual Hittite and cuneiform inscription engraved on a silver seal. See W. Wright, The Empire of the Hittites"^ (London, l886), pp. 163 sqq.; L. Messer- schmidt. Corpus Inscriptionum Hettiti- carum, pp. 42 sq., pi. xlii. 9 ; id.. The Hittites, pp. 29 sq. ; P. Jensen, Hittiter und Arvienier (Strasburg, 1898), pp. 22, 50 sq. In this inscription Prof. Jensen suggests Tarbibi- as an alter- native reading for Tarku-. Compare P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Spracke, pp. 362-364. CHAP. VI PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA U3 their descent from Zeus and reigned at Salamis in Cyprus/ may well have been a native dynasty, who concocted a Greek pedigree for themselves in the days when Greek civilisation was fashionable. The legend which attributed the foundation of the Cyprian Salamis to Teucer, son of Telamon, appears to be late and unknown to Homer.^ Burnt Moreover, a cruel form of human sacrifice which was of ^umln practised in the city down to historical times savours victims at rather of Oriental barbarity than of Greek humanity. Led ^nd traces or driven by the youths, a man ran thrice round the altar ; of ^ similar then the priest stabbed him in the throat with a spear and elsewhere. burned his body whole on a heaped-up pyre. The sacrifice was offered in the month of Aphrodite to Diomede, who along with Agraulus, daughter of Cecrops, had a temple at Salamis. A temple of Athena stood within the same sacred enclosure. It is said that in olden times the sacrifice was offered to Agraulus, and not to Diomede. According to another account it was instituted by Teucer in honour of Zeus. However that may have been, the barbarous custom lasted down to the reign of Hadrian, when Diphilus, king of Cyprus, abolished or rather mitigated it by substituting the sacrifice of an ox for that of a man.^ On the hypothesis here suggested we must suppose that these "Greek names of divine or heroic figures at the Cyprian Salamis covered more or less similar figures of the Asiatic pantheon. And in the Salaminian 1 Isocrates, Or. ix. 14 and 18 sq.; King Diphilus and Seleucus the Theo- Pausanias, ii. 29. 2 and 4 ; W. E. logian, I have ventured to assume, on Engel, Kyfros, i. 212 sqq. As to the the strength of Lactantius's statement, names Teucer and Teucrian see P. that they were contemporaries of Kretschmer, op. cit. pp. 189-191. Hadrian. But it is curious to find Prof. Kretschmer believes that the kings of Cyprus reigning so late, native population of Cyprus belonged Beside the power of the Roman to the non-Aryan stock of Asia Minor. governors, their authority can have „ „^ _ _ , ,, , . ^ been little more than nominal, like 2 W. E. Engel, Kypros, 1. 216. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^j^^ ^^.^j^^ j„ g^j^j^j^ j^^;^_ ' Porphyry, De absHnentia, ii. 54 Seleucus the Theologian may be, as sq.; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i. 21. Fabricius supposed (A'Ww^/4«i:a(7?-a«fa,* As to the date when the custom was ed. G. C. Harles, i. 86, compare abolished, Lactantius says that it was 522), the Alexandrian grammarian who done " recently in the reign of composed a voluminous work on the Hadrian." Porphyry says that the gods (Suidas, s.v. ZAeufcos). Sue- practice was put down by Diphilus, tonius tells an anecdote {Tiberius, 56) icing of Cyprus, "in the time of about a grammarian named Seleucus Seleucus the Theologian." As nothing who flourished, and faded prematurely, seems to be known as to the date of at the court of Tiberius. 114 PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA book i burnt-sacrifice of a man we may perhaps detect the original form of the ceremony which in historical times appears to have been performed upon an image of Sandan or Hercules at Tarsus. When an ox was sacrificed instead of a man, the old sacrificial rites would naturally continue to be ob- served in all other respects exactly as before : the animal would be led thrice round the altar, stabbed with a spear, and burned on a pyre. Now at the Syrian Hierapolis the greatest festival of the year bore the name of the Pyre or the Torch. It was held at the beginning of spring. Great trees were then cut down and planted in the court of the temple : sheep, goats, birds, and other creatures were hung upon them : sacrificial victims were led round : then fire was set to the whole, and everything was consumed in the flames.^ Perhaps here also the burning of animals was a substitute for the burning of men. When the practice of human sacrifice becomes too revolting to humanity to be tolerated, its abolition is commonly effected by substituting either animals or images for living men or women. At Salamis certainly, and perhaps at Hierapolis, the substitutes were animals : at Tarsus, if I am right, they were images. Burnt In this Connection the statement of a Greek writer as to the ofdovet worship of Adonis in Cyprus deserves attention. He says to Adonis, that as Adonis had been honoured by Aphrodite, the Cyprians after his death cast live doves on a pyre to him, and that the birds, flying away from the flames, fell into another pyre and were consumed.^ The statement seems to be a description of an actual custom of burning doves in sacrifice to Adonis. Such a mode of honouring him would be very remarkable, since doves were commonly sacred to his divine mistress Aphrodite or Astarte. For example, at the Syrian Hierapolis, one of the chief seats of her worship, these birds were so holy that they might not even be touched. If a man inadvertently touched a dove, he was unclean or tabooed for the rest of the day. Hence the 1 Lucian, De dea Syria, 49. tion. He compared it with the burning 2 Diogenianus, Praefatio, in Faroe- of Melcarth at Tyre. See his memoir, miographi Graeci, ed. Leutsch et " Sur I'Hercule Assyrian et Phenicien," Schneidewin, i. 180. Raoul-Rochette Mimoires de V Acadimie des Inscriptions regarded the custom as part of the et Belles-Lettres, xvii. Deuxieme Partie ritual of the divine death and resurrec- (1848), p. 32. PRIESTL Y KINGS OF OLBA "5 birds, never being molested, were so tame that they lived with the people in their houses, and commonly picked up their food fearlessly on the ground.^ Can the burning of the sacred bird of Aphrodite in the Cyprian worship of Adonis have been a substitute for the burning of a sacred man who personated the lover of the goddess ? If, as many scholars think, Tark or Tarku was the The name, or part of the name, of a great Hittite deity, some- Teucers times identified as the god of the sky and the lightning,^ we of oiba may conjecture that Tark or Tarku was the native name of personated the god of Olba, whom the Greeks called Zeus, and that the ^ native priestly kings who bore the name of Teucer represented the god Tark or Tarku in their own persons. This con- jecture is confirmed by the observation that Olba, the ancient name of the city, is itself merely a Grecised form of Oura, the name which the place retains to this day.^ The situa- ^ Lucian, De dea Syria, 54. 2 A. H. Sayce, in W. Wright's Empire of the HittiUs^ p. 186 ; W. M. Ramsay, " Pre - Hellenic Monu- ments of Cappadocia," Recueil de Travaux relatifs ^ la Philologie et i I'Arck^ologieEgyptiennesetAssyriennes, xiv. (1903) pp. 81 sq. ; C. P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion im Altertutn, i. 251 ; W. Max Miiller, Asien und EtiroJ>a, p. 333 ; P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier, pp. 70, 150 sqq., 155 sqq.; F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geo- graphie und Geschichte des alten Orients, pp. 44, 51 sq.; L. Messer- schmidt, The Hittites, p. 40. Prof. W. M. Ramsay thinks (I.e.) that Tark was the native name of the god who had his sanctuary at Dastarkon in Cappadocia and who was called by the Greeks the Cataonian Apollo : his sanctuary was revered all over Cappa- docia (Strabo, xiv. 2. S, p. 537). Prof. Hommel holds that Tarku or Tarchu was the chief Hittite deity, worshipped all over the south of Asia Minor. The Hittite thunder -god, whatever his name may have been, is supposed to be represented on two stone monuments of Hittite art which have been found at Zenjirli and Babylon. On both we see a bearded male god wearing the usual Hittite costume of tall cap, short tunic and shoes turned up at the toes : a crescent- hilted sword is girt at his side : his hands are raised : in the right he holds a single-headed axe or hammer, in the left a trident of wavy lines, which is believed to represent a bundle of thunder-bolts. On the Babylonian slab, which bears a long Hittite in- scription, the god's cap is ornamented with a pair of horns. See K. Humann and O. Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin, 1890), Atlas, pi. xiv. 3 ; Ausgra- bungen zu Sendschirli, iii. (Berlin, 1902) pi. xli. ; R. Koldewey, Die Hettitische Inschrift gefunden in der Konigshurg von Babylon (Leipsic, 1900), plates I and 2 (Wissenschaft- liche Verbffentlichungen der deutschen Orient - Gesellschaft, Heft I); L. Messerschmidt, Corpus Inscriptionum Hettiticarum, pi. i. 5 ^^d ^ > ^'^^ > The Hittites,^ p. 41, fig. 6 ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les Religions S^mitiques,^ p. 93. Prof. W. Max Mullet thinks that Targh or Tarkh did not designate any particular deity, but was the general Hittite name for "god." ^ J. T. Bent, " Explorations in Cilicia Tracheia," Proceedings of the R. Geographical Society, N.S. xii. ii6 PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA book i tion of the town, moreover, speaks strongly in favour of the view that it was from the beginning an aboriginal settle- ment, though in after days, like so many other Asiatic cities, it took on a varnish of Greek culture. For it stood remote from the sea on a lofty and barren tableland, with a rigorous winter climate, in the highlands of Cilicia. w^estern Great indeed is the contrast between the bleak windy Ciikia^"^*^ uplands of Western or Rugged Cilicia, as the ancients called it, and the soft luxuriant lowlands of Eastern Cilicia, where winter is almost unknown and summer annually drives the population to seek in the cool air of the mountains a refuge from the intolerable heat and deadly fevers of the plains. In Western Cilicia, on the other hand, a lofty tableland, ending in a high sharp edge on the coast, rises steadily inland till it passes gradually into the chain of heights which divide it from the interior. Looked at from the sea it resembles a great blue wave swelling in one uniform sweep till its crest breaks into foam in the distant snows of the Taurus. The surface of the tableland is almost every- where rocky and overgrown, in the intervals of the rocks, with dense, thorny, almost impenetrable scrub. Only here and there in a hollow or glen the niggardly soil allows of a patch of cultivation ; and here and there fine oaks and planes, towering over the brushwood, clothe with a richer foliage the depth of the valleys. None but wandering herdsmen with their flocks now maintain a precarious existence in this rocky wilderness. Yet the ruined towns which stud the country prove that a dense population lived and throve here in antiquity, while numerous remain* of wine-presses and wine-vats bear witness to the successful cultivation of the grape. The chief cause of the present desolation is lack of water ; for wells are few and brackish, perennial streams hardly exist, and the ancient aqueducts, which once brought life and fertility to the land, have long been suffered to fall into disrepair. The But for ages together the ancient inhabitants of these Cilician pirates. (1890) p. 458 ; id., "A Journey in Ramsay had shown grounds for think- Cilicia Tra.che\3.," journal of Hellenic ing that Olba was a Grecised form of Studies, xii. (1 891) p. 222 ; W. M. a native name Ourba (pronounced Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Ourwa) before Mr. J. T. Bent dis- Minor, pp. 22, 364. Prof. W^. M. covered the site and the name. CHAP. VI PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA 117 uplands earned their bread by less reputable means than the toil of the husbandman and the vinedresser. They were buccaneers and slavers, scouring the high seas with their galleys and retiring with their booty to the in- accessible fastnesses of their mountains. In the decline of Greek power all over the East the pirate communities of Cilicia grew into a formidable state, recruited by gangs of desperadoes and broken men who flocked to it from all sides. The holds of these robbers may still be seen perched on the brink of the profound ravines which cleave the tableland at frequent intervals. With their walls of massive masonry, their towers and battlements, overhanging dizzy depths, they are admirably adapted to bid defiance to the pursuit of justice. In antiquity the dark forests of cedar, which clothed much of the country and supplied the pirates with timber for their ships, must have rendered access to these fastnesses still more difficult. The great gorge of the Lamas River, which eats its way like a sheet of forked lightning into the heart of the mountains, is dotted every few miles with fortified towns, some of them still magnificent in their ruins, dominating sheer cliffs high above the stream. They are now the haunt only of the ibex and the bear. Each of these communities had its own crest or badge, which may still be seen carved on the corners of the mouldering towers. No doubt, too, it blazoned the same crest on the hull, the sails, or the streamers of the galley which, manned with a crew of ruffians, it sent out to prey upon the rich merchantmen in the Golden Sea, as the corsairs called the highway of commerce between Crete and Africa. A staircase cut in the rock connects one of these ruined The deep castles with the river in the glen, a thousand feet below. |°u|ge(i° But the steps are worn and dangerous, indeed impassable. Cilicia. You may go for miles along the edge of these stupendous cliffs before you find a way down. The paths keep on the heights, for in many of its reaches the gully affords no foothold even to the agile nomads who alone roam these solitudes. At evening the winding course of the river may be traced for a long distance by a mist which, as the heat of the day declines, rises like steam from the deep gorge and ii8 PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA book i hangs suspended in a wavy line of fleecy cloud above it. But even more imposing than the ravine of the Lamas is the terrific gorge known as the Sheitan dere or Devil's Glen near the Corycian cave. Prodigious walls of rock, glowing in the intense sunlight, black in the shadow, and spanned by a summer sky of the deepest blue, hem in the dry bed of a winter torrent, choked with rocks and tangled with thickets of evergreens, among which the oleanders with their slim stalks, delicate taper leaves, and bunches of crimson blossom stand out conspicuous.^ The site The ruins of Olba, among the most extensive and ofoiba"^ remarkable in Asia Minor, were discovered in 1890 by Mr. J. Theodore Bent. But three years before another English traveller had caught a distant view of its battle- ments and towers outlined against the sky like a city of enchantment or dreams.^ Standing at a height of nearly six thousand feet above the sea, the upper town commands a free, though somewhat uniform, prospect for immense distances in all directions. The sea is just visible far away to the south. On these heights the winter is long and severe. Snow lies on the ground for months. No Greek would have chosen such a site for a city, so bleak and chill, ' J. Theodore Bent, " Explorations carved on their towns see J. T. Bent, in Cilicia Tracheia," Proceedings of the " Cilician Symbols," Classical Review, Royal Geographical Society, N.S. xii. iv. (1890) pp. 321 sq. Among these (1890) pp. 445, 450-453; id., "A crests are a club (the badge of Olba), Journey in Cilicia Tracheia,'' Journal a bunch of grapes, the caps of the of Hellenic Studies, xii. (1891) pp. Dioscuri, the three-legged symbol, etc. 208, 210-212,217-219; R. Heberdey As to the cedars and shipbuilding und A. Wilhelm, " Reisen in Kilikien," timber of Cilicia in antiquity see Denkschriften der kaiser. Akademie der Theophrastus, Historia Plantaruni, iii. Wissenschaften, Philosoph.-historische 2. 6, iv. 5' S- The cedars and firs Classe, xliv. (Vienna, 1896) No. vi. have now retreated to the higher slopes pp; 49, 70 ; D. G. Hogarth and J. of the Taurus. Great destruction is A. R. Munro, "Modern and Ancient wrought in the forests by the roving Roads in Eastern Asia Minor," Royal Yuruks with their flocks ; for they Geographical Society, Supplementary light their fires under the trees, tap the Papers, vol. iii. part 5 (London, 1893), firs for turpentine, bark the cedars for pp. 653 sq. As to the Cilician pirates their huts and bee-hives, and lay bare see Strabo, xiv. 5. 2, pp. 668 sq. ; whole tracts of country that the grass Plutarch, Pompeius, 24 ; Appian, may grow for their sheep and goats. Bellum Mithridat. 92 sq. ; Dio Cas- See J. T. Bent, in Proceedings of the sius, xxxvi. 20-24 [3-6], ed. L. Din- R. Geogi: Society, N.S. xii. (1890) dorf; Cicero, De imperio Cn. Pompeii, pp. 453-458. II sq. ; Th. Mommsen, Roman His- tory (London, 1868), iii. 68-70, iv. ^ D. G. Hogarth, A Wandering 40-45, 1 18-120. As to the crests Scholar in the Levant, ■^^, '^T sq. CHAP. VI PRIESTLY KINGS OF OLBA 119 so far from blue water ; but it served well for a fastness of brigands. Deep gorges, one of them filled for miles with tombs, surround it on all sides, rendering fortification walls superfluous. But a great square tower, four stories high, rises conspicuous on the hill, forming a landmark and earning for this upper town the native name of Jebel Hissar, or the Mountain of the Castle. A Greek inscription cut on the tower proves that it was built by Teucer, son of Tarkuaris, one of the priestly potentates of Olba. Among other remains of public buildings the most notable are forty tall Corinthian columns of the great temple of Olbian Zeus. Though coarse in style and corroded by long exposure to The frost and snow, these massive pillars, towering above the q|"P'^ °^ ruins, produce an imposing effect. That the temple ofzeus. which they formed part belonged indeed to Olbian Zeus is shown by a Greek inscription found within the sacred area, which records that the pent-houses on the inner side of the boundary wall were built by King Seleucus Nicator and re- paired for Olbian Zeus by " the great high-priest Teucer, son of Zenophanes." About two hundred yards from this great temple are standing five elegant granite columns of a small temple dedicated to the goddess Fortune. Further, the remains of two theatres and many other public buildings attest the former splendour of this mountain city. An arched colonnade, of which some Corinthian columns are standing with their architraves, ran through the town ; and an ancient paved road, lined with tombs and ruins, leads down hill to a lower and smaller city two or three miles distant. It is this lower town which retains the ancient name of Oura. Here the principal ruins occupy an isolated fir-clad height bounded by two narrow ravines full of rock-cut tombs. Below the town the ravines unite and form a fine gorge, down which the old road passed seaward.^ 1 J. Theodore Bent, " Explorations A. Wilhelm, " Reisen in Kilikien,'' in Cilicia Tracheia," Proceedings of the Denkschriften der kaiser. Akademie der Royal Geographical Society, N. S. xii. Wissenschaften , Philos.-histor, Classe, (1890) pp.445 sg., 458-460; id., xliv. (Vienna, 1896) No. vi. pp. "A Journey in Cilicia Tracheia," 83-gi ; W. M. Ramsay and D. G. Journal of Hellenic Studies, xii. Hogarth, in American Journal of (1890) pp. 220-222; E. L. Hicks, Archaeology, vi. (1890) p. 345; " Inscriptions from Western Cilicia," Ch. Michel, Recueil d^ Inscriptions ib. pp. 262-270; R. Heberdey und Grecques, No. 1231. In one place I20 THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE § 7. The God of the Corycian Cave Limestone Nothing yet found at Olba throws light on the nature of caverns of ^.j^g gQ^ ^Jjq ^^s Worshipped there under the Greek name Ciiicia. of Zeus. But at two places near the coast, distant only- some fourteen or fifteen miles from Olba, a deity also called Zeus by the Greeks was revered in natural surroundings of a remarkable kind, which must have stood in close relation with the worship, and are therefore fitted to illustrate it. In both places the features of the landscape are of the same general cast, and at one of them the god was definitely identified with the Zeus of Olba. The country here consists of a tableland of calcareous rock rent at intervals by those great chasms which are so characteristic of a limestone formation. Similar fissures, with the accompaniment of streams or rivers which pour into them and vanish under ground, are frequent in Greece, and may be observed in our own country near Ingleborough in Yorkshire. Fossil bones of extinct animals are often found embedded in the stalagmite or breccia of limestone caves. For example, the famous Kent's Hole near Torquay contained bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, lion, hyaena, and bear ; and red osseous breccias, charged with the bones of quadrupeds which have long disappeared from Europe, are common in almost all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.^ Western Ciiicia is richer in Miocene deposits than any other part of Anatolia, and the limestone gorges of the coast near Olba are crowded with fossil oysters, corals, and other shells.^ Here, too, within the space of five miles the limestone plateau is rent by three great chasms, which Greek religion (Journ. Hellen. Stud., xii. 222) Bent Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, gives the height of Olba as 3800 feet ; Isauria, and Ciiicia, pi. xxii. 8. but this is a misprint, for elsewhere ,„. ^, , t n n- ■^7 j- in J z> ^ L c XT c •• ' bir Charles Lyel , Principles of {Proceed. R. Geogr. Soc, N.S. xu. „ , ,0 ■• , o 7- 1 ^ j- I46 a.<&\ he eives the heieht as G^o^^iy^^^ ^^- S^^m-i Encyclopaedia 440, 430J ne gives llic licigin as Rritanmrn^ ^ ■7) " Pavps " v l>fic m,7 exactly 5850 or roughly 6000 feet. ^' ''««'«". ^■■"- "-aves, v.2bi,sqq. The misprint has unfortunately been ^.""^^'l ""^ "°''' °" f^^"^^"'^^' '• 35- repeated by Messrs. Heberdey and '' ■ 9- • Wilhelm (op. cit. p. 84, n. i). The ^ J. T. Bent, in Proceedings of the tall tower of Olba is figured on the Royal Geographical Society, N.S. coins of the city. See G. F. Hill, (1890) p. 447. CHAP. VI THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE 121 associated with Zeus and Typhon. One of these fissures is the celebrated Corycian cave. To visit this spot, invested with the double charm of The city natural beauty and legendary renown, you start from the °f Corycus. dead Cilician city of Corycus on the sea, with its ruined walls, towers, and churches, its rock-hewn houses and cisterns, its shattered mole, its island-fortress, still imposing in decay. Viewed from the sea, this part of the Cilician coast, with its long succession of white ruins, relieved by the dark wooded hills behind, presents an appearance of populousness and splendour. But a nearer approach reveals the nakedness and desolation of the once prosperous land.^ Following the shore westward from Corycus for about an hour you come to a pretty cove enclosed by wooded heights, where a spring of pure cold water bubbles up close to the sea, giving to the spot its name of Tatlu-su, or the Sweet Water. From this bay a steep ascent of about a mile along an ancient paved road leads inland to a plateau. Here, The threading your way through a labyrinth or petrified sea of ^^"g''"^" jagged calcareous rocks, you suddenly find yourself on the brink of a vast chasm which yawns at your feet. This is the Corycian cave. In reality it is not a cave but an immense hollow or trough in the plateau, of oval shape and perhaps half a mile in circumference. The cliffs which enclose it vary from one hundred to over two hundred feet in depth. Its uneven bottom slopes throughout its whole length from north to south, and is covered by a thick jungle of trees and shrubs — myrtles, pomegranates, carobs, and many more, kept always fresh and green by rivulets, under- ground water, and the shadow of the great cliffs. A single narrow path leads down into its depths. The way is long and rough, but the deeper you descend the denser grows the vegetation, and it is under the dappled shade of whispering leaves and with the purling of brooks in your ears that you at last reach the bottom. The saffron which of old grew here among the bushes is no longer to be found, though it still flourishes in the surrounding district. This luxuriant bottom, with its rich verdure, its refreshing moisture, its grateful shade, is called Paradise by the wandering herdsmen. They 1 Fr. Beaufort, Karniania (London, 1817), pp. l/^o sq. 122 THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE book i tether their camels and pasture their goats in it and come hither in the late summer to gather the ripe pomegranates. At the southern and deepest end of this great cliff-encircled hollow you come to the cavern proper. The ruins of a Byzantine church, which replaced a heathen temple, partly block the entrance. Inwards the cave descends with a gentle slope into the bowels of the earth. The old path paved with polygonal masonry still runs through it, but soon disappears under sand. At about two hundred feet from its mouth the cave comes to an end, and a tremendous roar of subterranean water is heard. By crawling on all fours you may reach a small pool arched by a dripping stalactite -hung roof, but the stream which makes the deafening din is invisible. It was otherwise in antiquity. A river of clear water burst from the rock, but only to vanish again into a chasm. Such changes in the course of streams are common in countries subject to earth- quakes and to the disruption caused by volcanic agency. The ancients believed that this mysterious cavern was haunted ground. In the rumble and roar of the waters they seemed to hear the clash of cymbals touched by hands divine.^ Priests of If now, quitting the cavern, we return by the same path ^orycmn ^^ ^j^^ summit of the cliffs, we shall find on the plateau the ruins of a town and of a temple at the western edge of the great Corycian chasm. The wall of the holy precinct was built within a few feet of the precipices, and the sanctuary must have stood right over the actual cave and its subterranean waters. In later times the temple was ' Strabo, xiv. 5. 5, pp. 670 sq. ; embodying his recollections of the Mela, i. 72-75, ed. G. Parthey ; J. Corycian cave. All these modern T. Bent, "Explorations in Cilicia writers confirm the general accuracy of Tracheia," Proceedings of the Royal the descriptions of the cave given by Geographical Society, N.S. xii. (1890) Strabo and Mela. Mr. Hogarth indeed pp. 446-448; id., "A Journey in speaks of exaggeration in Mela's Cilicia Tracheia,"_/oa?-»a/ of Hellenic account, but this is not admitted by Studies, xii. (1890) pp. 212-214; R. Mr. A. Wilhelm. As to the ruins of Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, " Reisen the city of Corycus on the coast, distant in Kilikien," Deitkschriften der kaiser. about three miles from the cave, see Akademie der Wissenschafte?i, Philos.- Fr. Beaufort, Karniania (London, histor. Classe, xliv. (1896) No. vi. pp. 1817), pp. 232-238; R. Heberdey 70-79. Mr. D. G. Hogarth was so und A. Wilhelm, op. cit. pp. 67- good as to furnish me with some notes 7°' CHAP. VI THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE 123 converted into a Christian church. By pulling down a portion of the sacred edifice Mr. Bent had the good fortune to discover a Greek inscription containing a long list of names, probably those of the priests who superintended the worship. One name which meets us frequently in the list is Zas, and it is tempting to regard this as merely a dialectical form of Zeus. If that were so, the priests who bore the name might be supposed to personate the god.^ But many strange and barbarous-looking names, evidently foreign, occur in the list, and Zas may be one of them. However, it is certain that Zeus was worshipped at the Corycian cave ; for about half a mile from it, on the summit of a hill, are the ruins of a larger temple, which an inscription proves to have been dedicated to Corycian Zeus.2 But Zeus, or whatever native deity masqueraded under The cave his name, did not reign alone in the deep dell. A more °\'^ dreadful being haunted a still more awful abyss which opens Typhon. in the ground only a hundred yards to the east of the great Corycian chasm. It is a circular cauldron, about a quarter of a mile in circumference, resembling the Corycian chasm in its general character, but smaller, deeper, and far more terrific in appearance. Its sides overhang and stalactites droop from them. There is no way down into it. The only mode of reaching the bottom, which is covered with vegetation, would be to be lowered at the end of a long rope. The nomads call this chasm Purgatory, to distinguish it from the other which they name Paradise. They say that there is a subterranean passage between the two, and that the smoke of a fire kindled in the Corycian cave may be seen curling out of the other. The one ancient writer who expressly mentions this second and more grisly cavern is Mela, who says that it was the lair oT the giant Typhon, and that no animal let down into it could live.^ Aeschylus 1 The suggestion is Mr. A. B. Hellenic Studies, xii. (1890) pp. 214- Cook's. See his article, "The 216. For the inscription containing European Sky-god," Classical Review, the names of the priests see R. xvii. {1903) p. 418, n. 2. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, op. cit. pp. 2 J. T. Bent, in Proceedings of the 71-79; Ch. Michel, Recueil d^ Inscrip- Royal Geographical Society, N. S. xii. tions Greci]ues,'iso. %"]?>; ^ho^t,'^. 112. (1890) p. 448; id., in Journal of '^ Mela, i. 76, ed. G. Parthey. The 124 THE GOD OF THE CORYCTAN CAVE Battle of Zeus and Typhon. Fossil bones of extinct animals give rise to stories of giants. puts into the mouth of Prometheus an account of " the earth-born Typhon, dweller in Cicilian caves, dread monster, hundred-headed," who in his pride rose up against the gods, hissing destruction from his dreadful jaws, while from his Gorgon eyes the lightning flashed. But him a flaming levin bolt, crashing from heaven, smote to the very heart, and now he lies, shrivelled and scorched, under the weight of Etna by the narrow sea. Yet one day he will belch a fiery hail, a boiling angry flood, rivers of flame, to devastate the fat Sicilian fields.-^ This poetical description of the monster, confirmed by a similar passage of Pindar,^ clearly proves that Typhon was conceived as a personification of those active volcanoes which spout fire and smoke to heaven as if they would assail the celestial gods. The Corycian caverns are not volcanic, but the ancients apparently regarded them as such, else they would hardly have made them the den of Typhon. According to one legend Typhon was a monster, half man and half brute, begotten in Cilicia by Tartarus upon the goddess Earth. The upper part of him was human, but from the loins downward he was an enormous snake. In the battle of the gods and giants, which was fought out in Egypt, Typhon hugged Zeus in his snaky coils, wrested from him his crooked sword, and with the blade cut the sinews of the god's hands and feet. Then taking him on his back he conveyed the mutilated deity across the sea to Cilicia, and deposited him in the Corycian cave. Here, too, he hid the severed sinews, wrapt in a bear's skin. But Hermes and Aegipan contrived to steal the missing thews and restore them to their divine owner. Thus made whole and strong again, Zeus pelted his beaten adversary with thunderbolts, drove him from place to place, and at last overwhelmed him un"cler Mount Etna. And the spots where the hissing bolts fell are still marked by jets of flame.' It is possible that the discovery of fossil bones of large extinct animals may have helped to localise the story of the cave of Typhon is described by J. T. Bent, II. cc, ' Aeschylus, Prometheus Vinctiis, 351-372. ^ Pindar, Pyth. i. 30 sqq.^ who speaks of the giant as "bred in the many-named Cilician cave." ^ Apollodorus, i. 6. 3. CHAP. VI THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE 125 giant at the Corycian cave. Such bones, as we have seen, are often found in limestone caverns, and the limestone gorges of Cilicia are in fact rich in fossils. The Arcadians laid the scene of the battle of the gods and the giants in the plain of Megalopolis, where many bones of mammoths have come to light, and where, moreover, flames have been seen to burst from the earth and even to burn for years.^ These natural conditions would easily suggest a fable of giants who had fought the gods and had been slain by thunder- bolts ; the smouldering earth or jets of flame would be regarded as the spots where the divine lightnings had struck the ground. Hence the Arcadians sacrificed to thunder and lightning.^ In Sicily, too, great quantities of bones of mammoths, elephants, hippopotamuses, and other animals long extinct in the island have been found, and have been appealed to with confidence by patriotic Sicilians as con- clusive evidence of the gigantic stature of their ancestors or predecessors.' These remains of huge unwieldy creatures which once trampled through the jungle or splashed in the rivers of Sicily may have contributed with the fires of Etna to build up the story of giants imprisoned under the volcano and vomiting smoke and flame from its crater. " Tales of giants and monsters, which stand in direct contact with the finding of great fossil bones, are scattered broadcast over the mythology of the world. Huge bones, found at Punto Santa Elena, in the north of Guayaquil, have served as a foundation for the story of a colony of giants who dwelt there. The whole area of the Pampas is a great sepulchre of enormous extinct animals ; no wonder that one great plain should be called the ' Field of the giants,' and that such names as ' the hill of the giant,' ' the stream of the animal,' should be guides to the geologist in his search for fossil bones." * About five miles to the north-east of the Corycian caverns, but divided from them by many deep gorges and 1 Pausanias, viii. 29. I, with my 2 Pausanias, viii. 29. I. notes. Pausanias mentions (viii. 32. 5) ' A. Holm, Geschichte Siciliens im bones of superiiuman size wiiicli were Alterthum, i. pp. 57, 356. preserved at Megalopolis, and wiiich * E. B. Tylor, Early History of popular superstition identified as the Mankind,^ p. 222, who adduces much bones of the giant Hopladamus. more evidence of the same sort. 126 THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE book i impassable rocks, is another and very similar chasm. It may be reached in about an hour and a quarter from the sea by an ancient paved road, which ascends at first very steeply and then gently through bush-clad and wooded hills. Thus you come to a stretch of level ground covered with the well-preserved ruins of an ancient town. Remains of fortresses constructed of polygonal masonry, stately churches, and many houses, together with numerous tombs and reliefs, finely chiselled in the calcareous limestone of the neighbour- hood, bear witness to the extent and importance of the place. Yet it is mentioned by no ancient writer. Inscriptions prove Chasm of that its name was Kanyteldeis or Kanytelideis, which still oibian survives in the modern form of Kanidiwan. The great Zeus at ^ Kanytei- chasm opens in the very heart of the city. So crowded are ideis. ^j^g ruins that you do not perceive the abyss till you are within a few yards of it. It is almost a complete circle, about a quarter of a mile wide, three-quarters of a mile in circumference, and uniformly two hundred feet or more in depth. The cliffs go sheer down and remind the traveller of the great quarries at Syracuse. But like the Corycian caves, the larger of which it closely resembles, the huge fissure is natural ; and its bottom, like theirs, is overgrown with trees and vegetation. Two ways led down into it in antiquity, both cut through the rock. One of them was a tunnel, which is now obstructed ; the other is still open. Remains of columns and hewn stones in the bottom of the chasm seem to show that a temple once stood there. But there is no cave at the foot of the cliffs, and no stream flows in the deep hollow or can be heard to rumble underground. A ruined tower of polygonal masonry, which stands on the southern edge of the chasm, bears a Greek inscription stating that it was dedicated to Oibian Zeus by the priest Teucer, son of Tarkuaris. The letters are beautifully cut in the style of the third century before Christ. We may infer that at the time of the dedication the town belonged to the priestly kings of Olba, and that the great chasm was sacred to Oibian Zeus.^ 1 J. T. Bent, "Explorations in (1890) pp. 448 jj-. ; id., " A Journey Cilicia Tracheia," Proceedings of the mCVaa&'VxsLti'tiA!^" Journal of Hellenic Royal Geographical Society, N.S. xii. Studies, xii. (1891) pp. 208-210; R. CHAP. VI THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE 127 What, then, was the character of the god who was The deity worshipped under the name of Zeus at these two great °^^^l^^ natural chasms ? The depth of the fissures, opening chasms suddenly and as it were without warning in the midst of 2eus'^by^ a plateau, was well fitted to impress and awe the spectator ; the Greeks, and the sight of the rank evergreen vegetation at their probably bottom, fed by rivulets or underground water, must have ^ god of presented a striking contrast to the grey, barren, rocky embodied wilderness of the surrounding tableland. Such a spot '" vegeta- must nave seemed to simple folk a paradise, a garden of water. God, the abode of higher powers who caused the wilder- ness to blossom, if not with roses, at least with myrtles and pomegranates for man, and with grass and underwood for his flocks. So to the Semite, as we saw, the Baal of the land is he who fertilises it by subterranean water rather than by rain from the sky, and who therefore dwells in the depths of earth rather than in the height of heaven.^ In rainless countries the sky-god is deprived of one of the principal functions which he discharges in cool cloudy climates like that of Europe. He has, in fact, little or nothing to do with the water-supply, and has therefore small excuse for levying a water-rate on his worshippers. Not, indeed, that Cilicia is rainless ; but in countries border- ing on the Mediterranean the drought is almost unbroken through the long months of summer. Vegetation then withers : the face of nature is scorched and brown : most of the rivers dry up ; and only their white stony beds, hot to the foot and dazzling to the eye, remain to tell where they flowed. It is at such seasons that a green hollow, a shady rock, a murmuring stream, are welcomed by the wanderer in the South with a joy and wonder which the untravelled Northerner can hardly imagine. Never do the broad slow rivers of England, with their winding reaches, their grassy banks, their grey willows mirrored with the soft English sky in the placid stream, appear so beautiful as when the traveller views them for the first time after leaving behind him the aridity, the Heberdey imd A. Wilhelm, " Reisen Philosophisch-historische Classe, xliv. in Kilikien," Denkschriften der kaiser- (Vienna, 1896) No. vi. pp. 51-61. lichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ■ See above, pp. 22 sq. 128 THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE book i heat, the blinding glare of the white southern landscape, set in seas and skies of caerulean blue. Analogy We may take it, then, as probable that the god of the Corycian Corycian and Olbian caverns was worshipped as a source and Olbian of fertility. In antiquity, when the river, which now roars ibreerand Underground, still burst from the rock in the Corycian the vale cave, the scene must have resembled Ibreez, where the god Adonis. of the corn and the vine was adored at the source of the stream ; and we may compare the vale of Adonis in the Lebanon, where the divinity who gave his name to the river was revered at its foaming cascades. The three landscapes had in common the elements of luxuriant vegetation and copious streams leaping full-born from the rock. We shall hardly err in supposing that these features shaped the con- ception of the deities who were supposed to haunt the favoured spots. At the Corycian cave the existence of a second chasm, of a frowning and awful aspect, might well suggest the presence of an evil being who lurked in it and sought to undo the beneficent work of the good god. Thus we should have a fable of a conflict between the two, a battle of Zeus and Typhon. Two gods On the whole we conclude that the Olbian Zeus, perhap^a Worshipped at one of these great limestone chasms, and father and clearly identical in nature with the Corycian Zeus, was responding ^Iso identical with the Baal of Tarsus, the god of the corn to the and the vine, who in his turn can hardly be separated from Baal and , i/-ti -v r • .-ii Sandan of the god of Ibreez. If my conjecture is right the native Tarsus. name of the Olbian Zeus was Tark or Trok, and the priestly Teucers of Olba represented him in their own persons. On that hypothesis the Olbian priests who bore the name of Ajax embodied another native deity of unknown name, perhaps the father or the son of Tark. A comparison of the coin -types of Tarsus with the Hittite monuments of .Ibreez and Boghaz-Keui led us to the conclusion that the people of Tarsus worshipped at least two distinct gods, a father and a son, the father-god being known to the Semites as Baal and to the Greeks as Zeus, while the son was called Sandan by the natives, but Hercules by the Greeks. We may surmise that at Olba the names of Teucer and Ajax designated two gods who corresponded in type to the two CHAP. VI THE GOD OF THE CORYCIAN CAVE 129 gods of Tarsus ; and if the lesser figure at Ibreez, who appears in an attitude of adoration before the deity of the corn and the vine, could be interpreted as the divine Son in presence of the divine Father, we should have in all three places the same pair of deities, represented probably in the flesh by successive generations of priestly kings. But the evidence is far too slender to justify us in advancing this hypothesis as anything more than a bare conjecture. § 8. Cilician Goddesses So far, the Cilician deities discussed have been males ; Goddesses we have as yet found no trace of the great Mother Goddess '^ro^jnent who plays so important a part in the religion of Cappadocia than gods and Phrygia, beyond the great dividing range of the Taurus. reiSon.^" Yet we may suspect that she was not unknown in Cilicia, though her worship certainly seems to have been far less prominent there than in the centre of Asia Minor. The difference may perhaps be interpreted as evidence that mother - kin and hence the predominance of Mother Goddesses survived in the bleak highlands of the interior, long after a genial climate and teeming soil had fostered the growth of a higher civilisation, and with it the advance from female to male kinship, in the rich lowlands of Cilicia. Be that as it may, Cilician goddesses with or without a male partner are known to have been revered in various parts of the country. Thus at Tarsus itself the goddess 'Atheh was worshipped The along with Baal ; their effigies are engraved on the same coins -^j^g^^^ of the city. She is represented wearing a veil and seated upon partner of a lion, with her name in Aramaic letters engraved beside her.^ xarL^s', Hence it would seem that at Tarsus, as at Boghaz-Keui, the seems to Father God mated with a lion-goddess like the Phrygian a'fbrm^of' Cybele or the Syrian Atargatis. Now the name Atargatis Atargatis. is a Greek rendering of the Aramaic 'Athar-'atheh, a com- pound word which includes the name of the goddess of 1 B. V. Head, Historia Numoruin, as doubtful. I should think they be- p. 616. [However, Mr. G. F. Hill long further East. " In the uncertainty writes to me : " The attribution to which prevails on this point I have left Tarsus of the 'Atheh coins is un- the text unchanged. Note to Second founded. Head himself only gives it Edition.'] K 130 a LI CIA N GODDESSES BOOK I The lion- goddess and the bull-god. Tarsus/ Thus in name as well as in attributes the female partner of the Baal of Tarsus appears to correspond to Atargatis, the Syrian Mother Goddess whose image, seated on a lion or lions, was worshipped with great pomp and splendour at Hierapolis - Bambyce near the Euphrates.^ May we go a step farther and find a correspondence between the Baal of Tarsus and the husband - god of Atargatis at Hierapolis-Bambyce ? That husband-god, like the Baal of Tarsus, was identified by the Greeks with Zeus, and Lucian tells us that the resemblance of his image to the images of Zeus was in all respects unmistakable. But his image, unlike those of Zeus, was seated upon bulls.^ In point of fact he was probably Hadad, the chief male god of the Syrians, who is supposed to have been a god of thunder and fertility ; for his image at Heliopolis grasped in his left hand a thunderbolt and ears of corn,* and at Zenjirli he is represented with a bearded human head and horns, the emblem of strength and fertility^ Now we have seen that ' The name 'Athar-'atheh occurs in a Palmyrene insciiption. See G. A. Cooke, Text -book of North -Semitic Inscriptions, No. 112, pp. 267-270. In analysing Atargatis into 'Athar- 'atheh ('Atar-'ata) I follow E. Meyer (Gesckichte des Alterthums, i. § 205, p. 247), F. Baethgen (Beitrdge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, pp. 68- 75), G. A. Cooke {I.e.), C. P. Tiele (Gesckichte der Religion im Altertum, i. 24s), F. Hommel (Grundriss der Geo- graphic und Gesckichte des alien Orient, p£. 43 sq.), and Father Lagrange (Etudes sur les Religions Simitiques,'^ p. 130). In the great temple at Hierapolis - Bambyce a mysterious golden image stood between the images of Atargatis and her male partner. It resembled neither of them, yet combined the attributes of other gods. Some interpreted it as Dionysus, others as Deucalion, and others as Semiramis ; for a golden dove, traditionally associated with Semiramis, was perched on the head of the figure. The Syrians called the image by a name which Lucian translates "sign" (aTHx'qtov). See Lucian, De dea Syria, 33. It has been plausibly conjectured by F. Baethgen that the name which Lucian translates ' ' sign " was really ' Atheh (nnv)i which could easily be confused with the Syriac word for ' ' sign " (unN). See F. Baethgen, op. cit. p. 73- The modern writers cited in this note have interpreted this Syrian 'Atheh as a male god, the lover of Atargatis, and identical in name and character with the Phry- gian Attis. They may be right ; but none of them seems to have noticed that the same name 'Atheh (nnv) 's applied to a goddess at Tarsus. ^ As to the image, see above, pp. 105 sq. ' Lucian, De dea Syria, 3 1 . * Macrobius, Saturn, i. 23. 12 and 17-19. ^ G. A. Cooke, Text-book of North- Semitic Inscriptions, p. 164. On Hadad as the Syrian thunder-god see F. Baethgen, Beitrdge zur semitischen Religionsgesckichte, pp. 66-68 ; C. P. Tiele, Gesckichte der Religion im Alter- thuin, i. 248 sq. ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les Religions Simitiques,^ pp. 92 sq. That Hadad was the consort of Atargatis at Hierapolis- CHAP. VI CILICIAN GODDESSES 131 the god of Ibreez, whose attributes tally with those of the Baal of Tarsus, wears a cap adorned with bull's horns ; ^ that the Father God at Boghaz-Keui, meeting the Mother Goddess on her lioness, is attended * by an animal which according to the usual interpretation is a bull ; ^ and that the bull itself was worshipped, apparently as an emblem of fertility, at Euyuk near Boghaz-Keui.' Thus at Tarsus and Boghaz-Keui, as at Hierapolis-Bambyce, the Father God and the Mother Goddess would seem to have had as their sacred animals or emblems the bull and the lion respectively. In later times, under Greek influence, the goddess was in later apparently exchanged for, or converted into, the Fortune ^^^^ ^^^ of the City, who appears on coins of Tarsus as a seated goddess woman with veiled and turreted head, grasping ears of corn port^g 'of* and a poppy in her hand. Her lion is gone, but a trace of tbeCity. him perhaps remains on a coin which exhibits the throne of the goddess adorned with a lion's leg.* In general it would seem that the goddess Fortune, who figures commonly as the guardian of cities in the Greek East, especially in Syria, was nothing but a disguised form of Gad, the Semitic god of fortune or luck, who, though the exigencies of grammar required him to be masculine, is supposed to have been often merely a special aspect of the great goddess Astarte or Atargatis conceived as the patroness and protector of towns.^ In Oriental religion such permutations or com- binations need not surprise us. To the gods all things are possible. In Cyprus the goddess of love wore a beard,® and Alexander the Great sometimes disported himself in the costume of Artemis, while at other times he ransacked the divine wardrobe to figure in the garb of Hercules, of Hermes, and of Ammon.'' The change of the goddess 'Atheh of Tarsus into Gad or Fortune would be easy if we suppose Bambyce is the opinion of P. Jensen ' E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alter- (Hittiter und Armenier, p. 171), who thums, i. 246 sq. ; F. Baethgen, also indicates his character as a god Beitrdge zur semitisckm Religiom- both of thunder and of fertility (ib. geschichte, pp. 76 sqq. The idolatrous p_ 167). Hebrews spread tables for Gad, that is, ' See above, pp. 94, 96. for Fortune (Isaiah Ixv. 11, Revised 2 See above, p. 102. Version). 3 See above, p. 104. ° Macrobius, Saturn, iii. 8. 2 ; * G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Servius on Virgil, Aen. ii. 632. Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia, ' Ephippus, cited by Athenaeus, xii. pp. i8i, 182, 185, 188, igo, 228. S3, p. 537- 132 CILICIAN GODDESSES book i that she was known as Gad-'Atheh, " Luck of 'Atheh," which occurs as a Semitic personal name.^ In like manner the goddess of Fortune at Olba, who had her small temple beside the great temple of Zeus,^ may have been originally the consort of the native god Tark or Tarku. The Another town in Cilicia where an Oriental god and ^od mand goddess appear to have been worshipped together was Mallus. his wife at The city was built on a height in the great Cilician plain ahda^'" near the mouth of the river Pyramus.^ Its coins exhibit two winged deities, a male and a female, in a kneeling or running attitude. On some of the coins the male deity is represented, like Janus, with two heads facing opposite ways, and with two pairs of wings, while beneath him is the fore- part of a bull with a human head. The obverse of the coins which bear the female deity display a conical stone, sometimes flanked by two bunches of grapes.* This conical stone, like those of other Asiatic cities,^ was probably the emblem of a Mother Goddess, and the bunches of grapes indicate her fertilising powers. The god with the two heads and four wings can hardly be any other than the Phoenician El, whom the Greeks called Cronus ; for El was characterised oy four eyes, two in front and two behind, and by three pairs of wings.^ A discrepancy in the number of wings can scarcely be deemed fatal to the identification. The god may easily have moulted some superfluous feathers on the road from ' F. Baethgen, op. cit. p. 77; coins to Mallus is no longer maintained G. A. Cooke, Text -book of North- by any one. Imhoof-BIumer himself Semitic Inscriptions, p. 269. now conjecturally assigns them to 2 See above, p. 119. Aphrodisias in Cilicia, and Mr. Hill s Strabo, xiv. 5. 16, p. 675. regards this conjecture as very plausible. * B. V. Head, Historia Numorum, See F. Imhoof-BIumer, Kleinasiatische pp. 605 sq.; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of MUnzen (Vienna, 1901-1902), ii. 43S the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, sq. In the uncertainty which still pre- and Cilicia, pp. cxvii. sqq., 95-98, vails on the subject I have left the plates XV. xvi. xl. 9 ; G. Macdonald, text unchanged. For my purpose Catalogue of Greek Coins in the it matters little whether this Cilician Hunterian Collection, ii. 536 sq., pi. goddess was worshipped at Mallus or at lix. 11-14. The male and female Aphrodisias. Note to Second Edition. ] figures appear on separate coins. The ^ See above, pp. 30 sq. attribution to Mallus of the coins with * Philo of Byblus, in Fragmenta the female figure and conical stone has Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, been questioned by Messrs. J. P. Six iii. 569. El is figured with three pairs and G. F. Hill. I follow the view of wings on coins of Byblus. See G. of Messrs. F. Imhoof-BIumer and Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, ii. 174; B. V. Head. [However, Mr. G. F. Hill M. J. 'LagTa.nge, Etudes stir les Jieligiotts writes to me that the attribution of these Simitiques,^ p. 72. CHAP. VI CILICIAN GODDESSES I33 Phoenicia to Mallus. On later coins of Mallus these quaint Assimiia- Oriental deities disappear, and are replaced by corresponding ^'°j"^° Greek deities, particularly by a head of Cronus on one side Oriental and a figure of Demeter, grasping ears of corn, on the other.^ ^^Hl^ The change doubtless sprang from a wish to assimilate the divinities. ancient native divinities to the new and fashionable divinities of the Greek pantheon. If Cronus and Demeter, the harvest god and goddess, were chosen to supplant El and his female consort, the ground of the choice must certainly have been a supposed resemblance between the two pairs of deities. We may assume, therefore, that the discarded couple, El and his wife, had also been worshipped by the husbandman as sources of fertility, the givers of corn and wine. One of these later coins of Mallus exhibits Dionysus sitting on a vine laden with ripe clusters, while on the obverse is seen a male figure guiding a yoke of oxen as if in the act of ploughing.^ These types of the vine-god and the ploughman probably represent another attempt to adapt the native religion to changed conditions, to pour the old Asiatic wine into new Greek bottles. The barbarous monster with the multiplicity of heads and wings has been reduced to a perfectly human Dionysus. The sacred but deplorable old conical stone no longer flaunts proudly on the coins ; it has retired to a decent obscurity in favour of a natural and graceful vine. It is thus that a truly progressive theology keeps pace with the march of intellect. But if these things were done by the apostles of culture at Mallus, we cannot suppose that the clergy of Tarsus, the capital, lagged behind their pro- vincial brethren in their efforts to place the ancient faith upon a sound modern basis. The fruit of their labours seems to have been the more or less nominal substitu- tion of Zeus, Fortune, and Hercules for Baal, 'Atheh, and Sandan.^ 1 Imhoof-Blumer.inW. H. Roscher's masqueraded in Greek dress was prob- Lexikon der griech. und rdm. Mytho- ably the Olybrian Zeus of Anazarba or logic, ii. 1572; G. F. Hill, Catalogue Anazarbus, but of his true nature and of Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, worship we know nothing. See W. and Cilicia, pp. cxxii. 99, pi. xvii. 2. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscrip- „ „ ^ -r-™,, . -^ • o ^iones Selectae, No. 577 ; Stephanus 2 G. F. Hill, ./. at. pp. cxx,. sq., 98, gy^^^jj^^^ ..z,."A5am (where the MS. pi. xvu. I. reading'OXii^;3pos was wrongly changed 5 Another native Cilician deity who by Salmasius into'OXu/iiros) 134 CILICIAN GODDESSES book i Sarpe- We may suspect that in like manner the Sarpedonian Artemis Artemis, who had a sanctuary in South-eastern Cilicia, near the Syrian border, was really a native goddess parading in borrowed plumes. She gave oracular responses by the mouth of inspired men, or more probably of women, who in their moments of divine ecstasy were probably deemed The incarnations of her divinity.^ Another even more trans- Perasla at parently Asiatic goddess was Perasia, or Artemis Perasia, Hieropoiis- .vvho was worshipped at Hieropolis-Castabala in Eastern Castabala Cilicia. The extensive ruins of the ancient city, now known as Bodroum, cover the slope of a hill about three-quarters of a mile to the north of the river Pyramus. Above them towers the acropolis, built on the summit of dark grey precipices, and divided from the neighbouring mountain by a deep cutting in the rock. A mediaeval castle, built of hewn blocks of reddish-yellow limestone, has replaced the ancient citadel. The city possessed a large theatre, and was traversed by two handsome colonnades, of which some columns are still standing among the ruins. A thick growth of brushwood and grass now covers most of the site, and the place is wild and solitary. Only the wandering herdsmen encamp near the deserted city in winter and spring. The neighbourhood is treeless ; yet in May magnificent fields of wheat and barley gladden the eye, and in the valleys the clover grows as high as the horses' knees.^ The ambiguous nature of the goddess who presided over this City of the ■ Strabo, xiv. 5. 19, p. 676. The ^ ^.'^.'Da.vis, Life in Asiatic Turkey, expression of Strabo leaves it doubtful pp. 128-134; J. T. Bent, " Recent Dis- whether the ministers of the goddess coveries in Eastern CiWda," Journal of were men or women. There was a Hellenic Studies, xi. (1890), pp. 234 headland called Sarpedon near the sq. ; E. L. Hicks, " Inscriptions from mouth of the Calycadnus River in Eastern Cilicia," ibid. pp. 243 sqq. ; Western Cilicia (Strabo, xiii. 4. 6, p. R. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, oJ>. cit. 627, xiv. 5. 4, p. 670), where Sarpe- pp. 25 sqq. The site of Hieropolis- don or Sarpedonian Apollo had a temple Castabala was first identified by J. T. and an oracle. The temple was hewn Bent by means of inscriptions. As to in the rock, and contained an image the coins of the city, see Fr. Imhoof- of the god. See R. Heberdey und Blumer, " Zur Munzkunde Kilikiens, " A. Wilhelm, " Reisen in Kilikien," Zeitschrift fiir Numismatik, yi. (\%?,t,) Denkschriften der kaiser. Akademie pp. 267-290 ; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of der IVissenschaften, Philosoph.-histor. the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria, Classe, xliv. (Vienna, 1896) No. vi. and Cilicia, pp. c.-cii. 82-84, P'- xiv. pp. 100, 107. Probably this Sarpe- 1-6; G.'M.ii.cAoraXi., Catalogue of Greek donian Apollo was c native deity akin Coins in the Hunterian Collection, ii. to Sarpedonian Artemis. 534 ^9- CHAP. VI CILICIAN GODDESSES 135 Sa.nctua.ry (Hteropo/isy was confessed by a puzzled worshipper, a physician named Lucius Minius Claudianus, who confided his doubts to the deity herself in some very indifferent Greek verses. He wisely left it to the goddess to say whether she was Artemis, or the Moon, or Hecate, or Aphrodite, or Demeter.^ All that we know about her is that her true name was Perasia, and that she was in the enjoyment of certain revenues.^ Further, we may reasonably conjecture that at the Cilician Castabala she was worshipped with rites like those which were held in honour of her namesake Artemis Perasia at another city of the same name, Castabala in Cappadocia. There, as we saw, the priestesses of the goddess The fire- walked over fire with bare feet unscathed.' Probably the l^^,^°,'^f same impressive ceremony was performed before a crowd of Perasia. worshippers in the Cilician Castabala also. Whatever the exact meaning of the rite may have been, the goddess was in all probability one of those Asiatic Mother Goddesses to whom the Greeks often applied the name of Artemis ; ^ and grounds have been shown for thinking that the walk through the fire was a mitigation of an older custom of burning ' On the difference between Hiero- polis and Ilierapolis see W. M. Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor, pp. 84 sq. According to him, the cities designated by such names grew up gradually round a sanctuary ; where Greek influence prevailed the city in time eclipsed the sanctuaiy and became known as Hierapolis, or the Sacred City, but where the native element retained its predominance the city continued to be known as Hiero- polis, or the City of the Sanctuary. 2 E. L. Hicks, " Inscriptions from Eastern Cilicia," Journal of Hellenic Studies, xi. (1890) pp. 251-253; R. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, op. cit. p. 26. These writers differ somewhat in their reading and restoration of the verses, which are engraved on a lime- stone basis among the ruins. I follow the version of Messrs. Heberdey and Wilhelm. 3 J. T. Bent and E. L. Hicks, op. cit. pp. 235, 246 sg. ; R. Heberdey und A. Wilhelm, op. cit. p. 27. * Strabo, xii. 2. 7, p. 537. See above, p. 89. The Cilician Castabala, the situation of which is identified by inscriptions, is not mentioned by Strabo. It is very unlikely that, with his inti- mate knowledge of Asia Minor, he should have erred so far as to place the city in Cappadocia, to the north of the Taurus mountains, instead of in Cilicia, to the south of them. It is more prob- able that there were two cities of the same name, and that Strabo has omitted to mention one of them. Similarly, there were two cities called Comana, one in Cappadocia and one in Pontus ; at both places the same goddess was worshipped with similar rites. See Strabo, xii. 2. 3. P-. 535. xii. 3. 32, p. 557. The situation of the various Castabalas mentioned by ancient writers is dis- cussed by F. Imhoof-Blumer, Zeit- schrift fiir Numismatik, x. (1883) pp. 285-288. ^ See my article " Artemis and Hippolytus," Fortnightly Review, December 1904, p. 993. 136 CILICIAN GODDESSES book i human victims to death.-' The immunity enjoyed by the priestess in the furnace was attributed to her inspira- insensi- tion by the deity. In discussing the nature of inspiration pain*' '° °'' possession by a deity, the Syrian philosopher Jamblichus regardedas notes as One of its symptoms a total insensibility to pain. Tn^katiol. Many inspired persons, he tells us, " are not burned by fire, the fire not taking hold of them by reason of the divine inspiration ; and many, though they are burned, perceive it not, because at the time they do not live an animal life. They pierce themselves with skewers and feel nothing. They gash their backs with hatchets, they slash their arms with daggers, and know not what they do, because their acts are not those of mere men. For impass- able places become passable to those who are filled with the spirit. They rush into fire, they pass through fire, they cross rivers, like the priestess at Castabala. These things prove that under the influence of inspiration men are beside them- selves, that their senses, their will, their life are those neither of man nor of beast, but that they lead another and a diviner life instead, whereby they are inspired and wholly possessed." ^ Thus in traversing the fiery furnace the priestesses of Perasia were believed to be beside themselves, to be filled with the goddess, to be in a real sense incarnations of her divinity.' A similar touchstone of inspiration is still applied by some villagers in the Himalayan districts of North-western India. Once a year they worship Airi, a local deity, who is represented by a trident and has his temples on lonely hills and desolate tracks. At his festival the people seat them- selves in a circle about a bonfire. A kettle-drum is beaten, 1 See above, pp. 88 sq. The site of Magarsus appears to be at 2 Jamblichus, De mysteriis, iii. 4. Karatash, a hill rising from the sea at ' Another Cilician goddess was the southern extremity of the Cilician Athena of Magarsus, to whom Alex- plain, about forty-five miles due south ander the Great sacrificed before the of Adana. The walls of the city, built battle of Issus. See Arrian, Anabasis, of great limestone blocks, are standing ii. 5. 9 ; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. to a height of several courses, and an Md7a/)(ro5 ;' J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lyco- ' inscription which mentions the priests phron, 444. The name of the city seems of Magarsian Athena has been found to be Oriental, perhaps derived from the on the spot. See R. Heberdey und A. Semitic word for " cave " (nljip). As Wilhelm, " Reisen in Kilikien," Z)««/4- to the importance of caves in Semitic schriften der kaiser. Akademie der religion, see W. Robertson Smith, Wissenschnften, Philosoph. - histor. Religion of the Semites,'^ pp. 197 sqj Classe, xliv. (1896) No. vi. pp. 6-lo. CHAP. VI CILICIAN GODDESSES I37 and one by one his worshippers become possessed by the god and leap with shouts round the flames. Some brand themselves with heated iron spoons and sit down in the fire. Such as escape unhurt are believed to be truly inspired, while those who burn themselves are despised as mere pre- tenders to the divine frenzy. Persons thus possessed by the spirit are called Airi's horses or his slaves. During the revels, which commonly last about ten days, they wear red scarves round their heads and receive alms from the faithful. These men deem themselves so holy that they will let nobody touch them, and they alone may touch the sacred trident, the emblem of their god.^ In Western Asia itself modern fanatics still practise the same austerities which were practised by their brethren in the days of Jamblichus. " Asia Minor abounds in dervishes of different orders, who lap red-hot iron, calling it their ' rose,' chew coals of living fire, strike their heads against solid walls, stab themselves in the cheek, the scalp, the temple, with sharp spikes set in heavy weights, shouting ' Allah, Allah,' and always consistently avowing that during such frenzy they are entirely insensible to pain." ^ § 9. The Burning of Cilician Gods On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in concluding The divine that under a thin veneer of Greek humanity the barbarous 'Atheh, ^^ ' native gods of Cilicia continued long to survive, and that ™^^ among them the great Asiatic goddess retained a place, Tarsusmay though not the prominent place which she held in the have been 1 ..1 II'- c personated highlands of the mterior down at least to the begmnmg of by priests our era. The principle that the inspired priest or priestess ^"jg^fg^ggj represents the deity in person appears, if I am right, to have been recognised at Castabala and at Olba, as well as at the sanctuary of Sarpedonian Artemis. There can be no intrinsic improbability, therefore, in the view that at Tarsus also the divine triad of Baal, 'Atheh, 1 E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan 2 xhe Rev. G. E. White (Missionary Districts of the North- Western Pro- at Marsovan, in the ancient Pontus), in vinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) a letter to me dated 19 Southmoor pp. 826 jy. Road, Oxford, February 11, 1907. 138 THE BURNING OF CILICIAN GODS book i and Sandan may have been personated by priests and priestesses, who, on the analogy of Olba and of the great sanctuaries in the interior of Asia Minor, would originally be at the same time kings and queens, princes and princesses. Further, the burning of Sandan in effigy at Tarsus would, on this hypothesis, answer to the walk of the priestess of Perasia through the furnace at Castabala. Both were, if I . am right, mitigations of a custom of putting the priestly king or queen, or another member of the royal family, to death by fire. CHAPTER VII SARDANAPALUS AND HERCULES § I . The Burning of Sardanapalus The theory that kings or princes were formerly burned to Tarsus said death at Tarsus in the character of gods is singularly con- b°en*^^ firmed by another and wholly independent line of argument, founded For, according to one account, the city of Tarsus was founded ALyrian not by Sandan but by Sardanapalus, the famous Assyrian king Sar- monarch whose death on a great pyre was one of the most ^ho famous incidents in Oriental legend. Near the sea, within burned . . ... himself on a day s march of Tarsus, might be seen m antiquity the a pyre. ruins of a great ancient city named Anchiale, and outside its walls stood a monument called the monument of Sardanapalus, on which was carved in stone the figure of the monarch. He was represented snapping the fingers of his right hand, and the gesture was explained by an accompanying inscription, engraved in Assyrian characters, to the following effect : — " Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndar- axes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Eat, drink, and play, for everything else is not worth that," by which was implied that all other human affairs were not worth a snap of the fingers.^ The gesture may have been misin- 1 Strabo, xiv. 5. 9, pp. 671 sq. ; with the monument of Sardanapalus. Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 5 ; Athenaeus, See E. J. Davis, Life in Asiatic xii. 3g,p. 530 A,B. Compare Stephanus 7'«r&^, pp. 37-39 ; Perrot et Chipiez, Byzantius, s.v. ' A.yxi.6.\ri ; Syncellus, Histoire de PArt dans FAntiquiti, Chronographia, vol. i. p. 312, ed. G. iv. 536 sqq. But Mr. D. G. Hogarth Dindorf. The site of Anchiale has tells me that the ruins in question seem not yet been discovered. At Tarsus to be the concrete foundations of a itself the ruins of a vast quadrangular Roman temple. The mistake had structure have sometimes been identified already been pointed out by Mr. R. 139 I40 THE BURNING OF SARDANAPALUS book i terpreted and the inscription mistranslated/ but there is no reason to doubt the existence of such a monument, though we may conjecture that it was of Hittite rather than Assyrian origin ; for, not to speak of the traces of Hittite art and religion which we have found at Tarsus, a group of Hittite monuments has been discovered at Marash, in the upper valley of the Pyramus.^ The Assyrians may have ruled over Cilicia for a time, but Hittite influence was probably much deeper and more lasting.^ The story that Tarsus was founded by Sardanapalus may well be apocryphal,* but there must have been some reason for his association with the city. On the present hypothesis that reason is to be found in the traditional manner of his death. To avoid falling into the hands of the rebels, who laid siege to Nineveh, he built a huge pyre in his palace, heaped it up with gold and silver and purple raiment, and then burnt himself, his wife, his concubines, and his eunuchs Deaths of in the fire.' The story is false of the historical Sardanapalus, and^ °'"*" that is, of the great Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, but it is Assyrian true of his brother Shamashshumukin. Being appointed thepyra king of Babylon by Ashurbanipal, he revolted against his suzerain and benefactor, and was besieged by him in his capital. The siege was long and the resistance desperate, for the Babylonians knew that they had no mercy to expect from the ruthless Assyrians. But they were decimated by famine and pestilence, and when the city could hold out no more. King Shamashshumukin, determined not to fall alive Koldewey. See his article, " Das that the Hittite civilisation and the sogennante Grab des Sardanapal zu Hittite system of writing were developed Tarsus," Aus der Anoniia (Berlin, in Cilicia rather than in Cappadocia 1890), pp. 178-185. I^Asiemiiid Europa, p. 350). 1 See Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de d . ,. „ , . , PArt dans rAntiquiti, iv. 542 sq. ^ * According to Berosus and Aby- They think that the figure probably f ^""= ',' Y^ "°' Sardanapalus (Ashur- represented the king in a common »^^"'P^1) but Sennacher.b who bmlt or attitude of adoration, his right arm !L^^,"" ^^"".' ^^'," '.^« ^^'^'°" °^ raised and his thumb resting on his f"^'''""- •=^"='"f the river Cydnus to forefinger through the midst of the city. 2 L. Messerschmidt, Corpus Mscrip. ^^^ Fragmenta Historicortim Graec tionum Hettiticarum, pp. 17-19, plates ^T"^' ^%^: *^""7'/'- .5°4' '^^ ^82 5 xxi-xxv. ; PeiTOt et Chipiez, Histoire ^' T". J'^'^' Babylomsch- assyrtsche de PArt dans I'Antiqtciti, iv. 492, Geschichte, pp. 297 ^q- 494 -r?-. 528-530, 547. 6 Diodorus Siculus, ii. 27 ; Athen- 3 Prof. W. Max Miiller is of opinion aeus, xii. 38, p. 529 ; Justin, i. 3. CHAP. VII THE BURNING OF SARDANAPALUS 141 into the hands of his offended brother, shut himself up in his palace, and there burned himself to death, along with his wives, his children, his slaves, and his treasures, at the very moment when the conquerors were breaking in the gates.^ Not many years afterwards the same tragedy was repeated at Nineveh itself by Saracus or Sinsharishkun, the last king of Assyria. Besieged by the rebel Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, and by Cyaxares, king of the Medes, he burned himself in his palace. That was the end of Nineveh and of the Assyrian empire.^ Thus Greek history preserved the memory of the catastrophe, but transferred it from the real victims to the far more famous Ashurbanipal, whose figure in after ages loomed vast and dim against the setting sun of Assyrian glory. S 2. The Burning of Croesus Another Oriental monarch who prepared at least to die story that in the flames was Croesus, king of Lydia. Herodotus tells ^^ended how the Persians under Cyrus captured Sardes, the Lydian 'o burn capital, and took Croesus alive, and how Cyrus caused a aiive. great pyre to be erected, on which he placed the captive monarch in fetters, and with him twice seven Lydian youths. Fire was then applied to the pile, but at the last moment Cyrus relented, a sudden shower extinguished the flames, and Croesus was spared.^ But it is most improbable that it is the Persians, with their profound reverence for the sanctity "j^^^t the of fire, should have thought of defiling the sacred element Persians with the worst of all pollutions, the contact of dead bodies.* have Such an act would have seemed to them sacrilege of the polluted deepest dye. For to them fire was the earthly form of the element of fire. ' G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, of Shamashshumukin {Babylonisch- iii. 422 sq. assyrische Geschichie, pp. 410 sq.]. 2 Abydenus, in Fragment. Histoi: Zimri, king of Israel, also burned him- Graec, ed. C. Muller, iv. 282 ; Syn- self in his palace to escape falling into cellus, Chronogi-a/ihia, i. p. 396, ed. the hands of his enemies (I Kings xvi. G. Dindorf; E. Meyer, Geschichte des 18). Alterthums, i. 576 sq. ; G. Maspero, ^ Herodotus, i. 86 sq. Histoire Ancienne, iii. 482-485. C. * Raoul-Rochette, " Sur I'Hercule P. TieJe thought that the story of the et Phenicien," Mhnoires de VAcadimie death of Saracus might be a popular des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xvii. but mistaken duplicate of the death Deuxieme Partie (Paris, 1848), p. 274. 142 THE BURNING OF CROESUS BOOK I The older and truer tradition was that in the extremity of his fortunes Croesus attempted to burn himself. heavenly light, the eternal, the infinite, the divine ; death, on the other hand, was in their opinion the main source of corruption and uncleanness. Hence they took the most stringent precautions to guard the purity of fire from the defilement of death.^ If a man or a dog died in a house where the holy fire burned, the fire had to be removed from the house and kept away for nine nights in winter or a month in summer before it might be brought back ; and if any man broke the rule by bringing back the fire within the appointed time, he might be punished with two hundred stripes.^ As for burning a corpse in the fire, it was the most heinous of all sins, an invention of Ahriman, the devil ; there was no atonement for it, and it was punished with death.^ Nor did the law remain a dead letter. Down to the beginning of our era the death penalty was inflicted on all who threw a corpse or cow-dung on the fire, nay, even on such as blew on the fire with their breath.* It is hard, therefore, to believe that a Persian king should have com- manded his subjects to perpetrate a deed which he and they viewed with horror as the most flagitious sacrilege conceivable. Another and in some respects truer version of the story of Croesus and Cyrus has been preserved by two older witnesses — namely, by the Greek poet Bacchylides, who was born some forty years after the event,* and by a Greek artist who painted the scene on a red-figured vase about, or soon after, the time of the poet's birth. Bacchylides tells us that when the Persians captured Sardes, Croesus, unable to brook the thought of slavery, caused a pyre to be erected in front of his courtyard, mounted it with his wife and daughters, and bade a page apply a light to the wood. A bright blaze shot up, but Zeus extinguished it with rain from heaven, and Apollo of the Golden Sword wafted the pious king and his 1 J. Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta, vol. i. pp. Ixxxvi. , Ixxxviii. -xc. {Sacred Books of the East, iv. ). 2 Zend-Avesta, Vendtddd, Fargard, V. 7- 39-44 {Sacred Books of the East, iv. 6o sq.). ^ Zend-Avesta, translated by J. Darmesteter, i. pp. xc. 9, no sq. (Sacred Books of the East, iv. ). * Strabo, xv. 3. 14, p. 732. Even gold, on account of its resemblance to fire, might not be brought near a corpse {id. xv. 3. 18, p. 734). ' Sardes fell in the autumn of 546 B.C. (E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alter- thunis, i. 604). Bacchylides was probably born between 512 and 505 B.C. (R. C. Jebb, Bacchylides, the Poems and Fragments, pp. i sq,). CHAP. VII THE BURNING OF CROESUS 143 daughters to the happy land beyond the North Wind.^ In like manner the vase-painter clearly represents the burning of Croesus as a voluntary act, not as a punishment inflicted on him by the conqueror. He lets us see the king enthroned upon the pyre with a wreath of laurel on his head and a sceptre in one hand, while with the other he is pouring a libation. An attendant is in the act of applying to the pile two objects which have been variously interpreted as torches to kindle the wood or whisks to sprinkle holy water. The demeanour of the king is solemn and com- posed : he seems to be performing a religious rite, not suffering an ignominious death.^ Thus we may fairly conclude with some eminent modern scholars ' that in the extremity of his fortunes Croesus pre- pared to meet death like a king or a god in the flames. It was thus that Hercules, from whom the old kings of Lydia claimed to be sprung,* ascended from earth to heaven : it was thus that Zimri, king of Israel, passed beyond the reach of his enemies : it was thus that Shamashshumukin, king of Babylon, escaped a brother's vengeance : it was thus that the last king of Assyria expired in the ruins of his capital ; and it was thus that, sixty-six years after the capture of Sardes, the Carthaginian king Hamilcar sought to retrieve a lost battle by a hero's death.^ Semiramis herself, the legendary queen of Assyria, is said Legend to have burnt herself on a pyre out of grief at the death of a semiramis favourite horse.* Since there are strong grounds for regard- t^^mt ing her as a form of Ishtar or Astarte,'' the legend that on a pyre. ' Bacchylides, iii. 24-62. Assyrian et Phenicien," JVUmoires de 2 F. G. Welcker, Alte Denkmaler, I'Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles- iii. pi. xxxiii. ; A. Baumeisler, Denk- Lettres, xvii. Deuxi^me Partie (Paris, mdkr des klassischen AUertums, ii. 1848), pp. 277 sq. ; M. Duncker, 796, fig. 860; A. H. Smith, " Illus- Geschiehte des Alterthums, iv.^ 330- trations to Bacchylides," Journal of 332 ; E. Meyer, Geschiehte des Alter- Hellenic Studies, xviii. (1898) pp. thums, i. 604; G. Maspero, Histoire 267-269; G. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, in. 618. Ancienne, iii. 618 sq. It is true that * Herodotus, i. 7. Cambyses caused the dead body of the ^ See above, pp. 89 sq., 140 sq. Egyptian king Amasis to be dragged * Hyginus, Fab. 243 ; Pliny, viii. from the tomb, mangled, and burned; 155. but the deed is expressly branded by ^ See W. Robertson Smith, "Ctesias the ancient historian as an outrage on and the Semiramis Legend," English Persian religion (Herodotus, iii. 16). Historical Review, ii. (1887) pp. 303- 3 Raoul-Rochette, " Sur I'Hercule 317. 144 THE BURNING OF CROESUS book i Semiramis died for love in the flames furnishes a remarkable parallel to the traditionary death of the love-lorn Dido, who herself appears to be simply an Avatar of the same great Asiatic goddess.-' When we compare these stories of the burning of Semiramis and Dido with each other and with the historical cases of the burning of Oriental monarchs, we may perhaps conclude that there was a time when queens as well as kings were expected under certain circumstances, perhaps on the death of their consort, to perish in the fire. The con- clusion can hardly be deemed extravagant when we remember that the practice of burning widows to death survived in India under English rule down to a time within living memory.^ The At Jerusalem itself a reminiscence of the practice of burnings " burning kings, alive or dead, appears to have lingered as for Jewish j^te as the time of Isaiah, who says : " For Tophet is pre- pared of old ; yea, for the king it is made ready ; he hath made it deep and large : the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." ^ We know that " great burnings " were regularly made for dead kings of Judah,^ and it can hardly be accidental that the place assigned by Isaiah to the king's 1 See above, p. 87 sq. (p. 372, note 3) : "Saul's body was ^ In ancient Greece we seem to have burned (i Sam. xxxi. 12), possibly to a reminiscence of widow-burning in the save it from the risk of exhumation legendthat when the corpse of Capaneus by the Philistines, but perhaps rather was being consumed on the pyre, his with a religious intention, and almost wife Evadne threw herself into the as an act of worship, since his bones flames and perished. See Euripides, were buried under the sacred tamarisk Supflices, 980 sqq. ; Appollodorus, iii. at Jabesh." In I Chronicles x. 12 7. I ; Zenobius, Cent. i. 30 ; Ovid, the tree under which the bones of Tristia, v. 14. 38. Saul were buried is not a tamarisk 3 Isaiah xxx. 33. The Revised but a terebinth or an oak. Version has "a Topheth" instead of « 2 Chronicles xvi. 14, xxi. 19; "Tophet." But Hebrew does not Jeremiah xxxiv. 5. There is no possess an indefinite article (the few ground for assuming, as the Author- passages of the Bible in which the ised Version does in Jeremiah xxxiv. Aramaic nn is so used are no ex- 5, that only spices were burned on ception to the rule), and there is no these occasions ; indeed the burning evidence that Tophet (Topheth) was of spices is not mentioned at all in ever employed in a general sense. any of the three passages. The The passage of Isaiah has been rightly "sweet odours and divers kinds of interpreted by W. Robertson Smith spices prepared by the apothecaries' in the sense indicated in the text, art," which were laid in the dead though he denies that it contains any king's bed (2 Chronicles xvi. 14) reference to the sacrifice of the children. were probably used to embalm him See his Lectures on the Religion of the not to be burned at his funeral. For Semites,''' f,^. 372 sq. He observes though "great burnings" were regularly CHAP. VII THE BURNING OF CROESUS 145 pyre is the very spot in the Valley of Hinnom where the first-born children were actually burned \iy their parents in honour of Moloch " the King." The exact site of the Valley of Hinnom is disputed, but all are agreed in identifying it with one of the ravines which encircle or intersect Jerusalem ; and according to some eminent authorities it was the one called by Josephus the Tyropoeon,^ If this last identifica- tion is correct, the valley where the children were burned on a pyre lay immediately beneath the royal palace and the temple. Perhaps they died for God and the king.^ With the " great burnings " for dead Jewish kings it seems The great worth while to compare the great burnings still annually made fo^fg"^^gij for dead Jewish Rabbis at the lofty village of Meiron in Rabbis at Galilee, the most famous and venerated place of pilgrimage Qaiue" '" for Jews in modern Palestine. Here the tombs of the Rabbis are hewn out of the rock, and here on the thirtieth of April, the eve of May Day, multitudes of pilgrims, both men and women, assemble and burn their offerings, which consist of shawls, scarfs, handkerchiefs, books, and the like. These are placed in two stone basins on the top of two low pillars, and being drenched with oil and ignited they are consumed to ashes amid the loud applause, shouts, and cries of the spectators. A man has been known to pay as much as two thousand piastres for the privilege of being allowed to open the ceremony by burning a costly shawl. On such occasions the solemn unmoved serenity of the Turkish officials, who keep order, presents a striking contrast to the intense excitement of the Jews.^ This curious ceremony may be explained by the widespread practice of burning made for the dead kings of Judah, See Entyclopaedia Biblica, s.v. "Jeru- there is no evidence (apart from the salem," vol. ii. 2423 sq. doubtful case of Saul) that their ^ As to the Moloch viforship, see bodies were cremated. They are Appendix I. at the end of the volume, regularly said to have been buried, I have to thank the Rev. Professor not burnt. The passage of Isaiah R. H. Kennett for indicating to me the seems to show that what was burned inference which may be drawn from the at a royal funeral was a great, but identification of the Valley of Hinnom empty, pyre. That the burnings for with the Tyropoeon. the kings formed part of a heathen ' W. M. Thomson, The Land and custom was rightly perceived by Renan the Book, Central Palestine and Phoe- (Histoire du feitple dlsrael, iii. 121, nicia, pp. 575-579; Ed. Robinson, note). 1 Josephus, Bell. Jud. Biblical Researches in Palestine,^ ii. 430 sq. ; Baedeker, Palestine and 146 THE BURNING OF CROESUS property for the use and benefit of the dead. So, to take a single instance, the tyrant Periander collected the finest raiment of all the women in Corinth and burned it in a pit for his dead wife, who had sent him word by necromancy that she was cold, and naked in the other world, because the clothes he buried with her had not been burnt.^ In like manner, perhaps, garments and other valuables may have been consumed on the pyre for the use of the dead kings of Judah. In Siam, the corpse of a king or queen is burned in a huge structure resembling a permanent palace, which with its many -gabled and high-pitched roofs and multi- tudinous tinselled spires, soaring to a height of over two hundred feet, sometimes occupies an area of about an acre.^ The blaze of such an enormous catafalque may resemble, even if it far surpasses, the " great burnings " for the Jewish kings. § 3. Purification by Fire Death These events and these traditions seem to prove that regarded Under Certain circumstances Oriental monarchs deliberately by the chose to burn themselves to death. What were these a kind of circumstances ? and what were the consequences of the apotheosis. ^.cX. ? If the intention had merely been to escape from the hands of a conqueror, an easier mode of death would naturally have been chosen. There must have been a special reason for electing to die by fire. The legendary death of Hercules, the historical death of Hamil- car, and the picture of Croesus enthroned in state on the pyre and pouring a libation, all combine to indicate that to be burnt alive was regarded as a solemn sacrifice, nay, more than that, as an apotheosis which raised the victim to the rank of a god.^ For it is to be remembered that ' Herodotus, v. 92. 7. ^ C. Bock, Temples and Elephants, (London, 1884), pp. 73-76. ^ This view was maintained long ago by Raoul-Rochette in regard to the deaths both of Sardanapalus and of Croesus. He supposed that "the Assyrian monarch, reduced to the last extremity, wished, by the mode of death which he chose, to give to his sacrifice the form of an apotheosis and to identify himself with the national god of his country by allowing himself to be consumed, like him, on a pyre. . . . Thus mythology and history would be combined in a legend in which the god and the monarch would finally be confused. There is nothing in this which is not conformable to the ideas and habits of Asiatic civilisation." CHAP. VII PURIFICA TION B Y FIRE 147 Hamilcar as well as Hercules was worshipped after death. Fire was Fire, moreover, was regarded by the ancients as a purgative j" py'^g^e'^ so powerful that properly applied it could burn away all that away the was mortal of a man, leaving only the divine and immortal ™™j^ spirit behind. Hence we read of goddesses who essayed to of men, confer immortality on the infant sons of kings by burning immortal.^ them in the fire by night ; but their beneficent purpose was always frustrated by the ignorant interposition of the mother or father, who peeping into the room saw the child in the flames and raised a cry of horror, thus disconcerting the goddess at her magic rites. This story is told of I sis in the house of the king of Byblus, of Demeter in the house of the king of Eleusis, and of Thetis in the house of her mortal husband Peleus.^ In a slightly different way the witch Medea professed to give back to the old their lost youth by boiling them with a hell -broth in her magic cauldron ; ^ and when Pelops had been butchered and served up at a banquet of the gods by his cruel father Tantalus, the divine beings, touched with pity, plunged his mangled remains in a kettle, from which after decoction he emerged alive and young.^ " Fire," says Jamblichus, "' destroys the See his memoir, " Sur I'Hercule aihiJ.Koyp.(p irvpds. Croesus burned on a huge pyre the ^^^ q^-^ j^^^^ great and costly offeangs which he j„„ue foco pueri corpus vivenie favilla dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. He Qbruit humanum purget ut ignis onus. thought, says Herodotus (1. 50), that ^ gj^^ j^ ^^j^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ restored in this way the god would get posses- ^^^ ^^^^^ ^f ^^^^ husband Jason, her sion of the offerings. father-in-law Aeson, the nurses of 1 As to Isis see Plutarch, Isis et Dionysus, and all their husbands Osiris, 16. As to Demeter see (Euripides, Medea, Argum. ; Scholiast 'Rom&x, Hytnn to Demeter, 2T,l-2(>2; on Aristophanes, Knights, 1321 ; ApoUodorus, i. 5. \ ; OviA, Fasti, \v. compare Plautus, A«((/o&J, 879 j-??.) ; 547 - 560. As to Thetis see Apol- and she applied the same process with lonius Rhodius, Argon, iv. 865-879 ; success to an old ram (ApoUodorus, i. ApoUodorus, iii. 13. 6. Most of these 9- 27 ; Pausanias, viii. 11.2; Hyginus, writers express clearly the thought Fab. 24). that the fire consumed the mortal ^ Pindar, Olymp. 1. 40 sqq., with element, leaving the immortal. Thus the Scholiast ; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Plutarch says, irepiKaUiv to. BvriTh toO Lycophron, 152. 148 PURIFICATION BY FIRE BOOK I material part of sacrifices, it purifies all things that are brought near it, releasing them from the bonds of matter and, in virtue of the purity of its nature, making them meet for communion with the gods. So, too, it releases us from the bondage of corruption, it likens us to the gods, it makes us meet for their friendship, and it converts our material nature into an immaterial." ^ Thus we can understand why- kings and commoners who claimed or aspired to divinity should choose death by fire. It opened to them the gates of heaven. The quack Peregrinus, who ended his dis- reputable career in the flames at Olympia, gave out that after death he would be turned into a spirit who would guard men from the perils of the night ; and, as Lucian remarked, no doubt there were plenty of fools to believe him.^ According to one account, the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles, who set up for being a god in his lifetime, leaped into the crater of Etna in order to establish his claim to godhead.^ There is nothing incredible in the tradition. The crack-brained philosopher, with his itch for notoriety, may well have done what Indian fakirs * and the brazen-faced mountebank Peregrinus did in antiquity, and what Russian peasants and Chinese Buddhists have done in modern times.^ There is no extremity to which fanaticism or vanity, or a mixture of the two, will not impel its victims. The Lydian kings seem to have claimed divinity on the ground of their descent from Hercules, § 4. The Divinity of Lydian Kings But apart from any general notions of the purificatory virtues of fire, the kings of Lydia seem to have had a special reason for regarding death in the flames as their appropriate end. For the ancient dynasty of the Heraclids which preceded the house of Croesus on the throne traced their descent from a god or hero whom the Greeks called Hercules ; " and this Lydian Hercules appears to have been identical in name and in substance with the Cilician ^ Jamblichus, De viysteriis, v. 12. 2 Lucian, De morte Peregi'ini^ ^7 sq. ^ Diogenes Laertiiis, viii. z. 69 sg. ■* Lucian, De morte Peregrini, 25 ; Strabo, xv. i. 64 and 68, pp. 715, 717 ; Arrian, Anabasis, vii. 3. ^ The evidence will be given in the third edition of The Golden Bough. ^ Herodotus, i. 7. CHAP. VII THE DIVINITY OF LYDIAN KINGS 149 Hercules, whose effigy was regularly burned on a great the god of pyre at Tarsus. The Lydian Hercules bore the name o{ ^^^°^^^l Sandon ; ^ the Cilician Hercules bore the name of Sandan, or 'he lion ; perhaps rather of Sandon, since Sandon is known from Lydian inscriptions and other evidence to have been a Cilician Hercules name.^ The characteristic emblems of the Cilician Hercules appears to were the lion and the double-headed axe : and both these 'f ™ ^'^^" ' the same emblems meet us at Sardes in connection with the dynasty with the of the Heraclids. For the double-headed axe was carried Cii'cian Sandan. as part of the sacred regalia by Lydian kings from the time of the legendary queen Omphale down to the reign of Candaules, the last of the Heraclid kings. It is said to have been given to Omphale by Hercules himself, and it was apparently regarded as a palladium of the Heraclid sovereignty ; for after the dotard Candaules ceased to carry the axe himself, and had handed it over to the keeping of a courtier, a rebellion broke out, and the ancient dynasty of the Heraclids came to an end. The new king Gyges did not attempt to carry the old emblem of sovereignty ; he dedicated it with other spoils to Zeus in Caria. Hence the image of the Carian Zeus bore an axe in his hand and received the epithet of Labrandeus, from labrys, the Lydian word for " axe." ^ Such is Plutarch's account ; but we may suspect that Zeus, or rather the native god whom the Greeks identified with Zeus, carried the axe long before the time of Candaules. If, as is commonly supposed, the axe ^ Joannes Lydus, De magistratibus, Strabo, xiv. 2. 23, pp. 658 sq. The iii. 64. double-headed axe figures on the ruins and coins of Mylasa (Ch. Fellows, 2 See above, p. Ill, n. 4. Discoveries in Lycia, p. 75 ; B. V. iHes^A, Historia Numoruin, pp. 528 sq.). ^ Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 45. A horseman carrying a double-headed Zeus Labrandeus was worshipped at axe is a type which occurs on the coins the village of Labraunda, situated in a of many towns in Lydia and Phrygia. pass over the mountains, near iSIylasa At Thyatira this axe-bearing hero was in Caria. The temple was ancient. called Tyrimnus, and games were held A road called the Sacred Way led in his honour. He was identified with downhill for ten miles to Mylasa, a Apollo and the sun. See B. V. Head, city of white marble temples and colon- Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lydia nades which stood in a fertile plain at (London, 1901), p. cxxviii. On a the foot of a precipitous mountain, coin of Mostene in Lydia the double- where the marble was quarried. Pro- headed axe is represented between a cessions bearing the sacred emblems launch of grapes and ears of corn, as if went to and fro along the Sacred Way it were an emblem of fertility (B. V. from Mylasa to Labraunda. See Head, op. cit. p. 162, pi. xvii. II). 150 THE DIVINITY OF LYDIAN KINGS book i was the symbol of the Asiatic thunder-god/ it would be an appropriate emblem in the hand of kings, who are so often expected to make rain, thunder, and lightning for the good Lydian of their people. Whether the kings of Lydia were bound reslon^sfbt to make thunder and rain we do not know ; but at ail for the events, like many early monarchs, they seem to have been and the held responsible for the weather and the crops. In the crops. reign of Meles the country suffered severely from dearth, so the people consulted an oracle, and the deity laid the blame on the kings, one of whom had in former years incurred the guilt of murder. The soothsayers accordingly declared that King Meles, though his own hands were clean, must be banished for three years in order that the taint of bloodshed should be purged away. The king obeyed and retired to Babylon, where he lived three years. In his absence the kingdom was administered by a deputy, a certain Sadyattes, son of Cadys, who traced his descent from Tylon.^ As to this Tylon we shall hear more presently. Again, we read that the Lydians rejoiced greatly at the assassination of Spermus, another of their kings, " for he was very wicked, and the land suffered from drought in his reign." ' Apparently, like the ancient Irish and many modern Africans, they laid the drought at the king's door, and thought that he only got what he deserved under the knife of the assassin. The With regard to the lion, the other emblem of the of Lydia. Cilician Hercules, we are told that the same king Meles, who was banished because of a dearth, sought to make the acropolis of Sardes impregnable by carrying round it a lion which a concubine had borne to him. Unfortunately at a single point, where the precipices were such that it seemed as if no human foot could scale them, he omitted to carry the beast, and sure enough at that very point the Persians afterwards clambered up into the citadel.* Now Meles was one of the old Heraclid dynasty ^ who boasted their descent from the lion-hero Hercules ; hence the carrying of a lion ' L. Preller, Griechische Mytkologie, C. Miiller, iii. 382 sq. i.* 141 sq. As to the Hittite thunder- 3 /^,^_ ;);_ ^^^ god and his axe see above, p. 115. * Herodotus, i. 84. 2 Nicolaus Damascenus, in Frag- ^ Eusebius, Chronic, i. 69, ed. A. menta Historicorum Graeconim, ed. Schoene. CHAP. VII THE DIVINITY OF LYDIAN KINGS 151 round the acropolis was probably a form of consecration in- tended to place the stronghold under the guardianship of the lion-god, the hereditary deity of the royal family. And the story that the king's concubine gave birth to a lion's whelp suggests that the Lydian kings not only claimed kinship with the beast, but posed as lions in their own persons and passed off their sons as lion -cubs. Croesus dedicated at Delphi a lion of pure gold, perhaps as a badge of Lydia,^ and Hercules with his lion's skin is a common type on coins of Sardes.^ Thus the death, or the attempted death, of Croesus on identity the pyre completes the analogy between the Cilician and Lydian and the Lydian Hercules. At Tarsus and at Sardes we find Ciiidan the worship of a god whose symbols were the lion and the double-headed axe, and who was burned on a great pyre, either in effigy or in the person of a human representative. The Greeks called him Hercules, but his native name was Sandan or Sandon. At Sardes he seems to have been personated by the kings, who carried the double-axe and perhaps wore, like their ancestor Hercules, the lion's skin. We may conjecture that at Tarsus also the royal family aped the lion-god. At all events we know that Sandan, the name of the god, entered into the names of Cilician kings, and that in later times the priests of Sandan at Tarsus wore the royal purple.' § 5. Hittite Gods at Tarsus and Sardes Now we have traced the religion of Tarsus back by The a double thread to the Hittite religion of Cappadocia. andTydian One thread joins the Baal of Tarsus, with his grapes and Hercules his corn, to the god of Ibreez. The other thread unites or^Sandon) the Sandan of Tarsus, with his lion and his double axe, seems to to the similar figure at Boghaz-Keui. Without being a Hittite unduly fanciful, therefore, we may surmise that the v HT X u- I ,. Ti,„ cf.,„, thus s history 01 JLydia {Pragmenta V\iny, Nat. Hist. -x-^v. 14. 1 he story, rr- ^ ■ r- j r- 1 r „ -or „„ f„ij K„ Histoncorum hraecoruni, ed. C as we learn from Pliny, was told by . r^ ■ i, 1,1 .t, V .i_ 1 I,- t • r I ,.A\„ Muller, iv. 629). It is probably the Xanthus, an early historian of Lydia. ' ,, ... c ' same with Manes, the name of a son 3 Thus Glaucus, son of Minos, was „£ ^eus and Earth, who is said to have restored to life by the seer Polyidus, j^g^n ti,e first king of Lydia (Dionysius who learned the trick from a serpent. Halicarnasensis, Ant. Rom. i. 27. i). See Apollodorus, iii. 3. i. For re- Manes was the father of King Atys ferences to other tales of the same (Herodotus, i. 94). Thus Tylon was sort see my note on Pausanias, ii. 10. connected with the royal family of 3 (vol. iii. pp. 65 sq.]. The serpent's Lydia through his champion as well acquaintance with the tree of life in ^j ;„ j^e ways mentioned in the text, the garden of Eden probably belongs , Dionysius Halicarnasensis, I.e. to the same cycle of stories. 4 B. V. Head, Catalogue of the See above, p. 150. Greek Coins of Lydia, pp. cxi-cxiii, ' V,.V.\le&A, Catalogue of the Greek with pi. xxvii. 12. On the coins the Coins of Lydia, p. cxiii. 154 THE RESURRECTION OF TYLON book i Feast of Flower was celebrated in honour of Proserpine at Sardes/ FioN^r'ar probably in one of the vernal months, and the revival of Sardes. the hero and of the goddess may well have been represented together. The Golden Flower of the festival would then be the " flower of Zeus " of the legend, perhaps the yellow crocus of .nature or rather her more gorgeous sister, the Oriental saffron. For saffron grew in great abundance at the Corycian cave of Zeus ; ^ and it is an elegant conjecture, if it is nothing more, that the very name of the place meant " the Crocus Cave." * However, on the coins of Sardes the magical plant seems to be a branch rather than a blossom, a Golden Bough rather than a Golden Flower. 1 Vi.V.Yi.e.aA, Catalogue of the Greek blossoms and a great variety of a- C««Jo/"Zj'(/;a, pp. ex, cxiii. The festival nemones, like "a rich Turkey carpet, seems to be mentioned only on coins. in which the green grass did not form 2 See above, p. 121. a prominent colour amidst the crimson, 3 V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen tmd lilac, blue, scarlet, white, and yellow Haustkiere,'' -p. 261. He would derive flowers" (Ch. YeWowis, Discoveries in the name from the Semitic, or at all Lya'a, pp. 65, 66). In February the events the Cilician, language. The yellow stars of Gagea arT.iensis cover Hebrew word for saffron is karkdm. the rocky and grassy grounds of Lycia, As to the spring flowers of North- and the field-marigold often meets the western Asia Minor, Leake remarks eye. At the same season in Lycia the (April I, 1800) that "primroses, shrub Colutea arborescens opens its violets, and crocuses, are the only yellow flowers. See T. A. B. Spratt flowers to be seen " (yo!/r?«a/ o/' o 7o«r and E. Forbes, Travels in Lycia in Asia Minor, p. 143). Near Mylasa (London, 1847), ii. 133. I must in Caria, Fellows saw (March 20, leave it to others to identify the Golden 1840) the broom covered with yellow Flower of Sardes. CHAPTER VIII VOLCANIC RELIGION § I . The Burning of a God Thus it appears that a custom of burning a god in effigy The or in the person of a human representative was practised by f"s'°"^ °f . burning a at least two peoples of Western Asia, the Phoenicians and god may the Hittites. Whether they both developed the custom !'''7^ ^^^™ ■' '^ intended to independently, or whether one of them adopted it from the recruit his other, we cannot say. And their reasons for celebrating a g™"les rite which to us seems strange and monstrous are also obscure. In the preceding inquiry some grounds have been adduced for thinking that the practice was based on a conception of the purifying virtue of fire, which, by destroying the corruptible and perishable elements of man, was supposed to fit him for union with the imperishable and the divine. Now to people who created their gods in their own likeness, and imagined them subject to the same law of decadence and death, the idea would naturally occur that fire might do for the gods what it was believed to do for men, that it could purge them of the taint of corruption and decay, could sift the mortal from the immortal in their composition, and so endow them with eternal youth. Hence a custom might arise of sub- jecting the deities themselves, or the more important of them, to an ordeal of fire for the purpose of refreshing and renovating those creative energies on the maintenance of which so much depended. To the coarse apprehension of the uninstructed and unsympathetic observer the solemn rite might easily wear a very different aspect. According as he was of a pious or of a sceptical turn of mind, he might IS5 156 THE BURNING OF A GOD book i denounce it as a sacrilege or deride it as an absurdity. " To burn the god whom you worship," he might say, " is the height of impiety and of folly. If you succeed in the attempt, you kill him and deprive yourselves of his valuable services. If you fail, you have mortally offended him, and sooner or later he will visit you with his severe displeasure." To this the worshipper, if he was patient and polite, might listen with a smile of indulgent pity for the ignorance and obtuseness of the critic. " You are much mistaken," he might observe, " in imagining that we expect or attempt to kill the god whom we adore. The idea of such a thing is as repugnant to us as to you. Our intention is precisely the opposite of that which you attribute to us. Far from wishing to destroy the deity, we desire to make him live for ever, to place him beyond the reach of that process of degeneration and final dissolution to which all things here below appear by their nature to be subject. He does not die in the fire. Oh no ! Only the corruptible and mortal part of him perishes in the flames : all that is incorruptible and immortal of him will survive the purer and stronger for being freed from the contagion of baser elements. That little heap of ashes which you see there is not our god. It is only the skin which he has sloughed, the husk which he has cast. He himself is far away, in the clouds of heaven, in the depths of earth, in the running waters, in the tree and the flower, in the corn and the vine. We do not see him face to face, but every year he manifests his divine life afresh in the blossoms of spring and the fruits of autumn. We eat of his broken body in bread. We drink of his shed blood in the juice of the grape." § 2. The Volcanic Region of Cappadocia The Some such train of reasoning may suffice to explain, burn°iI5' °i *^hough naturally not to justify, the custom which we bluntly god may Call the burning of a god. Yet it is worth while to ask hTIome"'^ whether in the development of the practice these general relation to considerations may not have been reinforced or modified by pheno-"^ special circumstances ; for example, by the natural features mena. of the country where the custom grew up. For the history CHAP.viii THE VOLCANIC REGION OF CAPPADOCIA 157 of religion, like that of all other human institutions, has been profoundly affected by local conditions, and cannot be fully understood apart from them. Now Asia Minor, the region where the practice in question appears to have been widely diffused, has from time immemorial been subjected to the action of volcanic forces on a great scale. It is true that, so far as the memory of man goes back, the craters of its volcanoes have been extinct, but the vestiges of their dead or slumbering iires are to be seen in many places, and the country has been shaken and rent at intervals by tremendous earthquakes. These phenomena cannot fail to have impressed the imagination of the inhabitants, and thereby to have left some mark on their religion. Among the extinct volcanoes of Anatolia the greatest The great is Mount Argaeus, in the centre of Cappadocia, the heart ^qIJ.^'J'o of the old Hittite country. It is indeed the highest point Mount of Asia Minor, and one of the loftiest mountains known to c^pm"^ '" the ancients ; for in height it falls not very far short of doda. Mount Blanc. Towering abruptly in a huge pyramid from the plain, it is a conspicuous object for miles on miles. Its top is white with eternal snow, and in antiquity its lower slopes were clothed with dense forests, from which the inhabitants of the treeless Cappadocian plains drew their supply of timber. In these woods, and in the low grounds at the foot of the mountain, the languishing fires of the volcano manifested themselves as late as the beginning of our era. The ground was treacherous. Under a grassy surface there lurked pits of fire, into which stray cattle and unwary travellers often fell. Experienced woodmen used great caution when they went to fell trees in the forest. Elsewhere the soil was marshy, and flames were seen to play over it at night.^ Superstitious fancies no doubt gathered thick around these perilous spots, but what shape they took we cannot say. Nor do we know whether 1 Strabo, xii. 2. 7, p. 538. Mount H. F. Tozer. See W. J. Hamilton, Argaeus still retains its ancient name Researches in Asia Minor, Pontiis, and in slightly altered forms (Ardjeh, Armenia, ii. 269-281 ; H. F. Tozer, Erdjich, Erjdus). Its height is about Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia 13,000 feet. In the nineteenth cen- Minor, pp. 94, 113-131; E. Reclus, tur'y it was ascended by at least two Nouvelle Giographie Universelle, ix. English travellers, W. J. Hamilton and 476-478. 158 THE VOLCANIC REGION OF CAPPADOCIA book i Persian fire- worship in Cappa- docia. Worship of natural fires which burn per- petually. sacrifices were offered on the top of the mountain, though a curious discovery piay perhaps be thought to indicate that they were. Sharp and lofty pinnacles of red porphyry, inaccessible to the climber, rise in imposing grandeur from the eternal snow of the summit, and here Mr. Tozer found that the rock liad been perforated in various places with human habitations. One such rock-hewn dwelling winds inward for a considerable distance ; rude niches are hollowed in its sides, and on its roof and walls may be seen the marks of tools.^ The ancients certainly did not climb mountains for pleasure or health, and it is difficult to imagine that any motive but superstition should have led them to provide dwellings in such a place. These rock- cut chambers may have been shelters for priests charged with the performance of religious or magical rites on the summit. § 3. Fire- Worship in Cappadocia Under the Persian rule Cappadocia became, and long continued to be, a great seat of the Zoroastrian fire-worship. In the time of Strabo, about the beginning of our era, the votaries of that faith and their temples were still numerous in the country. The perpetual fire burned on an altar, surrounded by a heap of ashes, in the middle of the temple ; and the priests daily chanted their liturgy before it, holding in their hands a bundle of myrtle rods and wearing on their heads tall felt caps with cheek-pieces which covered their lips, lest they should defile the sacred ilame with their breath.^ It is reasonable to suppose that the natural fires which burned perpetually on the outskirts of Mount Argaeus attracted the devotion of the disciples of Zoroaster, for elsewhere similar fires have been the object of religious reverence down to modern times. Thus at Jualamukhi, on the lower slopes of the Himalayas, jets of combustible gas issue from the earth ; and a great Hindoo temple, the resort of many pilgrims, is built over them. The perpetual 1 H. F. Tozer, op. cii. pp. 125-127. by the Parsee priests in chanting their liturgy. See M. Haug, Essays on 2 Strabo, xv. 3. 14 sq., pp. 732 sq. the Sacred Language, Writings, and A bundle of twigs, called the Barsom Religion of the Parsis^ (London, 1884), (Beresma in the Avesta), is still used pp. 4, n. i, 283. CHAP. VIII FIRE-WORSHIP IN CAPPADOCIA 159 flame, which is of a reddish hue and emits an aromatic perfume, rises from a pit in the fore-court of the sanctuary. The worshippers dehver their gifts, consisting usually of flowers, to the attendant fakirs, who first hold them over the flame and then cast them into the body of the temple.^ Again, Hindoo pilgrims make their way with great difficulty to Baku on the Caspian, in order to worship the everlasting fires which there issue from the beds of petroleum. The sacred spot is about ten miles to the north-east of the city. An English traveller, who visited Baku in the middle of the eighteenth century, has thus described the place and the worship. " There are several antient temples built with stone, supposed to have been all dedicated to fire ; most of them are arched vaults, not above ten to fifteen feet high. Amongst others there is a little temple, in which the Indians now worship ; near the altar, about three feet high, is a large hollow cane, from the end of which issues a blue flame, in colour and gentleness not unlike a lamp that burns with spirits, but seemingly more pure. These Indians affirm that this flame has continued ever since the flood, and they believe it will last to the end of the world ; that if it was resisted or suppressed in that place, it would rise in some other. Here are generally forty or fifty of these poor devotees, who come on a pilgrimage from their own country, and subsist upon wild sallary, and a kind of Jerusalem artichokes, which are very good food, with other herbs and roots, found a little to the northward. Their business is to make expiation, not for their own sins only, but for those of others ; and they continue the longer time, in proportion to the number of persons for whom they have engaged to pray. They mark their foreheads with saffi'on, and have a great veneration for a red cow." ^ Thus it would seem that a purifying virtue is attributed to the sacred flame, since pilgrims come to it from far to expiate sin. ' Baron Charles Hiigel, Travels in 17S4), i- 263. For later descriptions Kashmir and the Panjab (London, of the fires and fire -worshippers of 1845), pp. 42-46; W. Crooke, Things Baku, see J- Reinegg, Beschreibung Indian (London, 1906), p. 219. des Kaukasus (Gotha and St. Peters- 2 Jonas Hanway, An Historical burg, 1796), i. 151 -iS9; A. von Account of the British Trade over the Haxthausen. Transkaukasia (Leipsic, Caspian Sea: with the Author's Journal 1856), ii. 80-85. Compare W. Crooke, of Travels, Second Edition (London, Things Indian, -p. 21^. l6o THE BURNT LAND OF LYDIA § 4. The Burnt Land of Lydia The Buint Another volcanic region of Asia Minor is the district of Lydfa°^ Lydia, to which, on account of its remarkable appearance, the Greeks gave the name of the Burnt Land. It lies to the east of Sardes in the upper valley of the Hermus, and covers an area of about fifty miles by forty. As described by Strabo, the country was wholly treeless except for the vines, which produced a wine inferior to none of the most famous vintages of antiquity. The surface of the plains was like ashes ; the hills were composed of black stone, as if they had been scorched by fire. Some people laid the scene of Typhon's battle with the gods in this Black Country, and supposed that it had been burnt by the thunderbolts hurled from heaven at the impious monster. The philosophic Strabo, however, held that the fires which had wrought this havoc were subterranean, not celestial, and he pointed to three craters, at intervals of about four miles, each in a hill of scoriae which he supposed to have been once molten matter ejected by the volcanoes.^ His observa- tion and his theory have both been confirmed by modern science. The three extinct volcanoes to which he referred are still conspicuous features of the landscape. Each is a black cone of loose cinders, scoriae, and ashes, with steep sides and a deep crater. From each a flood of rugged black lava has flowed forth, bursting out at the foot of the cone, and then rushing down the dale to the bed of the Hermus. The dark streams follow all the sinuosities of the valleys, their sombre hue contrasting with the rich verdure of the surrounding landscape. Their surface, broken into a thousand fantastic forms, resembles a sea lashed into fury by a gale, and then suddenly hardened into stone. Regarded from the geological point of view, these black cones of cinders and these black rivers of lava are of comparatively recent formation. Exposure to the weather for thousands of years has not yet softened their asperities and decomposed them into vegetable mould ; they are as 1 Strabo, xii. 8. 18 sq., p. 579; district is mentioned by Vitruvius (viii. xiii. 4. II, p. 628. The wine of the 3. 12) and Pliny [Nat. Hist. xiv. 75). CHAP. VIII THE BURNT LAND OF LYDIA ■ i6i hard and ungenial as if the volcanic stream had ceased to flow but yesterday. But in the same district there are upwards of thirty other volcanic cones, whose greater age is proved by their softened forms, their smoother sides, and their mantle of vegetation. Some of them are planted with vineyards to their summits.^ Thus the volcanic soil is still as favourable to the cultivation of the vine as it was in antiquity. The relation between the two was noted by the ancients. Strabo compares the vines of the Burnt Land with the vineyards of Catania fertilised by the ashes of Mount Etna ; and he tells us that some ingenious persons explained the fire-born Dionysus as a myth of the grapes fostered by volcanic agency.^ 8 5. T/ie Earthquake God But the inhabitants of these regions were reminded ofEarth- the slumbering fires by other and less agreeable tokens than [{,"^5^^ the generous juice of their grapes. For not the Burnt Land Minor, only but the country to the south, including the whole valley of the Maeander, was subject to frequent and violent shocks of earthquake. The soil was loose, friable, and full of salts, the ground hollow, undermined by fire and water. In particular the city of Philadelphia was a great centre of disturbance. The shocks there, we are told, were continuous. The houses rocked, the walls cracked and gaped ; the few inhabitants were kept busy repairing the breaches or buttres- sing and propping the edifices which threatened to tumble about their ears. Most of the citizens, indeed, had the prudence to dwell dispersed on their farms. It was a marvel, says Strabo, that such a city should have any inhabitants at all, and a still greater marvel that it should ever have been built.^ However, by a wise dispensation of Providence, the 1 W. J. Hamilton, Researches in sombre and dismal look. Another of Asia Miiwr, Fonttis, and Armenia, the cones, almost equally high, has a i. 136-140, ii. 131-138. One of the crater of about half a mile in circum- three recent cones described by Strabo ference and three or four hundred feet is now called the ICara Devlit, or deep. Black Inkstand. Its top is about ^ strabo, xiii. 4. Ii, p. 628. Com- 2500 feet above the sea, but only 500 pare his account of the Catanian feet above the surrounding plain. The vineyards (vi. 2. 3, p. 269). adjoining town of Koula, built of the ' Ibid. xii. 8. 16-18, pp. 578 j?.; black lava on which it stands, has a xiii. 4. 10 sq., p. 628. M l62 THE EARTHQUAKE GOD BOOK I earthquakes which shook the foundations of their houses only Worship of strengthened those of their faith. The people of Apameia, the earth- whose town was repeatedly devastated, paid their devotions quake god. with great fervour to Poseidon, the earthquake god.^ Again, the island of Santorin, in the Greek Archipelago, has been for thousands of years a great theatre of volcanic activity. On one occasion the waters of the bay boiled and flamed for four days, and an island composed of red-hot matter rose gradually, as if hoisted by machinery, above the waves. It happened that the sovereignty of the seas was then with the Rhodians, those merchant-princes whose prudent policy, strict but benevolent oligarchy, and beautiful island-city, rich with accumulated treasures of native art, rendered them in a sense the Venetians of the ancient world. So when the ebullition and heat of the eruption had subsided, their sea-captains landed in the new island, and founded a sanctuary of Poseidon the Establisher or Securer,^ a compli- mentary epithet often bestowed on him as a hint not to shake the earth more than he could conveniently help.^ In many places people sacrificed to Poseidon the Establisher, in the hope that he would be as good as his name and not bring down their houses on their heads.* Another instance of a Greek attempt to quiet the per- turbed spirit .underground is instructive, because similar efforts are still made by savages in similar circumstances. ii. 65 sqq. ; C. Neumann und J. Partsch, Pkysikalische Geographie vo7i Griechen- land, pp. 272 sgq. There is a mono- graph on Santorin and its eruptions (F. Fouque, Santorin et ses e}~uptions, Paris, 1879). Strabo has given a brief but striking account of Rhodes, its architecture, its art-treasures, and its constitution (xiv. 2. 5, pp. 652 sq.). As to the Rhodian schools of art see H. Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen Kiinstler, i. 459 sqq., ii. 233 sqq., z%(isq. ^ Aristophanes, Acharn. 682 ; Pau- sanias, iii. 11. 9, vii. 21. 7; Plutarch, Theseus, 36 ; Aristides, Isthmic. vol. i. p. 29, ed. G. Dindorf; Appian, Bell. Civ. V. 98; Macrobius, Saturn, i. 17. 22 ; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,^ No. 543. * Cornutus, De natura deorum, 22. Spartan propitia- tion of Poseidon during an earth- quake. ' Strabo, xii. 8. i8, p. 579. Com- pare Tacitus, Annals, xii. 58. ^ Strabo, i. 3. 16, p. 57. Compare Phitarch, De Pythiae oraculis, 1 1 ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 202 ; Justin, XXX. 4. The event seems to have happened in 197 B.C. Several other islands are known to have appeared in the same bay both in ancient and modem times. So far as antiquity is concerned, the dates of their appearance are given by Pliny, but some confusion on the subject has crept into his mind, or rather, perhaps, into his text. See the discussion of the subject in W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ii. 1158-1160. As to the eruptions in the bay of Santorin, the last of which occurred in 1866 and produced a new island, see Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, '^^ i. Ji, CHAP. VIII THE EARTHQUAKE GOD 163 Once when a Spartan army under King Agesipolis had taken the field, it chanced that the ground under their feet was shaken by an earthquake. It was evening, and the king was at mess with the officers of his staff. No sooner did they feel the shock than, with great presence of mind, they rose from their dinner and struck up a popular hymn in honour of Poseidon. The soldiers outside the tent took up the strain, and soon the whole army joined in the sacred melody.^ It is not said whether the flute band, which always played the Spartan redcoats into action,^ accompanied the deep voices of the men with its shrill music. At all events, the intention of this service of praise, addressed to the earth-shaking god, can only have been to prevail on him to stop. I have spoken of the Spartan redcoats because the uniform of Spartan soldiers was red.^ As they fought in an extended, not a deep, formation, a Spartan line of battle must always have been, what the British used to be, a thin red line. It was in this order, and no doubt with the music playing and the sun flashing on their arms, that they advanced to meet the Persians at Thermopylae. Like Cromwell's Ironsides, these men could fight as well as sing psalms.* 1 Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. 7. 4. xi. 3 ; Aristophanes, ZyKV/ra/a, 11 40; As to the Spartan headquarters staff Aristotle, cited by a scholiast on {ol irepl Safioiriav), see t'd. iv. 5. 8, vi. Aristophanes, Acharii. 320 ; Plutarch, 4. 14; Xenophon, Respublica Lace- Instituta Laconica, 2i,. When a great daem. xiii. I, xv. 4. Usually the earthquake had destroyed the city of Spartans desisted from any enterprise Sparta and the Messenians were in they had in hand when an earthquake revolt, the Spartans sent a messenger to happened (Thucydides, iii. 59. i, v. Athens asking for help. Aristophanes 50. 5, vi. 95. I). (Lysistrata, \\t,?i sqq.) describes the 2 Thucydides, v. 70. i. The use of man as if he had seen him, sitting as a the music, Thucydides tells us, was not suppliant on the altar with his pale face to inspire the men, but to enable them and his red coat. to keep step, and so to march in close * I have assumed that the sun shone order. Without music a long line of on the Spartans at Thermopylae. For battle was apt to straggle in advancing the battle was fought in the height of to the charge. As missiles were little summer, when the Greek sky is gener- used in Greek warfare, there was no ally cloudless, and on that particular need to hurry the advance over the morning the weather was very still, intervening ground ; accordingly it The evening before, the Persians had was made deliberately and with the sent round a body of troops by a diffi- bands playing. The air to which the cult pass to take the Spartans in the Spartans charged was called Castor's rear ; day was breaking when they tune. It was the king in person who neared the summit, and the first intima- gave the word for the flutes to strike up. tion of their approach which reached See Plutarch, Lyciirgus, 22. the ears of the Phocian guards posted 3 Xenophon, Respublica Lacedaem. on the mountain was the loud crackling 164 THE EARTHQUAKE GOD BOOK I East Indian modes of stopping an earth- quake by informing the god or giant that there are still men on the earth. If the Spartans imagined that they could stop an earth- quake by a soldiers' chorus, their theory and practice resembled those of many other barbarians. Thus the people of Timor, in the East Indies, think that the earth rests on the shoulder of a mighty giant, and that when he is weary of bearing it on one shoulder he shifts it to the other, and so causes the ground to quake. At such times, accordingly, they all shout at the top of their voices to let him know that there are still people on the earth ; for otherwise they fear lest, impatient of his burden, he might tip it into the sea.^ The Manichaeans held a precisely similar theory of earthquakes, except that according to them the weary giant transferred his burden from one shoulder to the other at the end of every thirty years,^ a view which, at all events, points to the observation of a cycle in the recurrence of earthquake shocks. But we are not told that these heretics reduced an absurd theory to an absurd practice by raising a shout in order to remind the earth-shaker of the inconvenience he was putting them to. However, both the theory and the practice are to be found in full force in various parts of the East Indies. When the Balinese and the Sundanese feel an earthquake they cry out, " Still alive," or " We still live," to acquaint the earth-shaking god or giant with their existence.^ The Bataks of Sumatra in the like circum- of leaves under their feet in the oak forest. Moreover, the famous Spartan saying about fighting in the shade of the Persian arrows, which obscured the sun, points to bright, hot weather. It was at high noon, and therefore prob- ably in the full blaze of the mid-day sun, that the last march-out took place. See Herodotus, vii. 215-226 ; and as to the date of the battle (about the time of the Olympic games) see Herodotus, vii. 206, viii. 12 and 26; G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, ii.^ 673, n. 9. ^ S. Muller, Reizen en Onderzoe- kingen in den Indischen Archipe! (Amsterdam, 1857), ii. 264 .yy. Com- pare A. Bastian, Indonesien^ ii. 3. The beliefs and customs of the East Indian peoples in regard to earth- quakes have been described by G. A. Wilken, Het animisme bij de volken van de7i Indischeii Archipe], Tweede Stuk (Leiden, 1885), pp. 247-254. Professor E. B. Tyler was so good as to lend me his copy of this second part of Wilken's valuable dissertation on animism. See also G. A. Wilken, Handleiding voor de vergelijkende Vol- Itenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, pp. 604 sq. ; and on primitive conceptions of earthquakes in general, E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,'^ i. 364-366; R. Lasch, " Die Ursache und Bedeutung der Erdbeben im Volksglauben und Volksbrauch," Archiv fiir Religions- wissenschaft, v. (1902) pp. 236-257, 369-383- ^ Epiphanius, Adversiis Haereses, ii. 2. 23 (iMigne's Pairologia Graeca, xlii. 68). 2 H. N. van der Tuuk, "Notes on the Kawi Language and Literature," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. xiii. (1 88 1) p. 50. CHAP. VIII THE EARTHQUAKE GOD 165 Stances shout " The handle ! The handle ! " The meaning of the cry is variously explained. Some say that it contains a delicate allusion to the sword which is thrust up to the hilt into the body of the demon or serpent who shakes the earth. Thus explained the words are a jeer or taunt levelled at that mischievous being.^ Others say that when Batara-guru, the creator, was about to fashion the earth he began by building a raft, which he commanded a certain Naga-padoha to support. While he was hard at work his chisel broke, and at the same moment Naga- padoha budged under his burden. Therefore Batara-guru said, " Hold hard a moment ! The handle of the chisel is broken off." And that is why the Bataks call out "The handle of the chisel " during an earthquake. They believe that the deluded Naga-padoha will take the words for the voice of the creator, and that he will hold hard accordingly.^ When the earth quakes in some parts of Celebes, it is Various said that all the inhabitants of a village will rush out of their ™°'^«? °f ^ prevailing houses and grub up grass by handfuls in order to attract upon the the attention of the earth-spirit, who, feeling his hair thus g^j'to"^^ torn out by the roots, will be painfully conscious that there stop. are still people above ground.^ So in Samoa, during shocks of earthquake, the natives sometimes ran and threw themselves on the ground, gnawed the earth, and shouted frantically to the earthquake god Mafuie to desist lest he should shake the earth to pieces.* They consoled themselves with the thought that Mafuie has only one arm, saying, "If he had two, what a shake he would give ! " ° The Bagobos of the Philippine Islands believe that the earth rests on a great post, which a large serpent is trying to remove. When the serpent shakes the post, the earth 1 W. Kodding, "Die bataksclien tunuasu of oorspronkelijke Volk- Gdtter und ihr Verhiiltniss zum Brah- stammen van Central Selebes,'' Bij- manismus," Allgemeine Missions -Zeit- dragcn tot de Taal- Land- en Volken- schrift, xii. (1885) p. 405. kunde van Nederlandsch-IndiS, xxxv. 2 G. A. Wilken, op. cit. p. 252; (1886) p. 95. H. N^van der Tuuk, op. cit pp. 49 4 J. Williams, Narrative of Mission- sq. For more evidence of similar ' Enterprises in the South Sea practices m the East Indies see t,,„„j^ „ ^,,n J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik en kroeshaiige ^"''^^"'' P- ^T^- rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, pp. ^ G. Turner, Samoa, p. 211 ; Ch. 33O1 398, 428. Wilkes, Narrative of the United Stales 3 J. G. F. Riedel, "De Topan- Exploring Expedition, \\. it,\. i66 THE EARTHQUAKE GOD book i quakes. At such times the Bagobos beat their dogs to make them howl, for the howling of the animals frightens the serpent, and he stops shaking the post. Hence so long as an earthquake lasts the howls of dogs may be heard to proceed from every house in a Bagobo village.^ The Tongans think that the earth is supported on the prostrate form of the god M6ooi. When he is tired of lying in one posture, he tries to turn himself about, and that causes an earthquake. Then the people shout and beat the ground with sticks to make him lie still.^ During an earthquake the Burmese make a great uproar, beating the walls of their houses and shouting, to frighten away the evil genius who is shaking the earth.^ On a like occasion and for a like purpose some natives of New Britain beat drums and blow on shells.* The Dorasques, an Indian tribe of Panama, believed that the volcano of Chiriqui was inhabited by a powerful spirit, who, in his anger, caused an earthquake. At such times the Indians shot volleys of arrows in the direction of the volcano to terrify him and make him desist.^ Earthquakes are common in the Pampa del Sacra- mento of Eastern Peru. The Conibos, a tribe of Indians on the left bank of the great Ucayali River, attribute these disturbances to the Creator, who usually resides in heaven, but comes down from time to time to see whether the work of his hands still exists. The result of his descent is an earthquake. So when one happens, these Indians rush out of their huts with extravagant gestures shouting, as if in answer to a question, " A moment, a moment, here I am, father, here I am." Their intention is, no doubt, to assure their heavenly father that they are still alive, and that he may return to his mansion on high with an easy mind. They never remember the Creator nor pay him any heed except at an earthquake.® Some of the Peruvian Indians ' A. Schadenburg, "Die Bewohner Burmese Empire (Rangoon, 1885), p. von Slid - Mindanao und der Insel 130. Samal," Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologic, * Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft, xvii. (1885) p. 32. X. (1907) pp. 308 sq. 2 W Mariner Account of the ^ ^' P'"^'''' " ^^^ Indiens de I'etat Natives of the Tonga Islands,^ ii. ^? ^ITT'" ^"""^ '^^^^'"Sr^phie, „2„. •' ^ VI. (1887) p. 119. * De St. Cricq, "Voyage du Perou 3 Sangermano, Descriptio7i of the au Bresil par les fleuves Ucayali et CHAP. VIII THE EARTHQUAKE GOD 167 regarded an earthquajce as a sign that the gods were thirsty, so they poured water on the ground.^ In Africa the A tonga tribe of Lake Nyasa used to believe that an earthquake was the voice of God calling to enquire whether his people were all there. So when the rumble was heard underground they all shouted in answer, "Ye, ye," and some of them went to the mortars used for pounding corn and beat on them with the pestles. They thought that if any one did not thus answer he would soon die.^ An English resident in Fiji attributed a sudden access Religious of piety in Kantavu, one of the islands, to a tremendous earth- g^g^ts oT^ quake which destroyed many of the natives. The Fijians earth- think that their islands rest on a god, who causes earthquakes ''"^ "' by turning over in his sleep. So they sacrifice to him things of great value in order that he may turn as gently as possible.^ In Nias a violent earthquake has a salutary effect on the morals of the natives. They suppose that it is brought about by a certain Batoo Bedano, who intends to destroy the earth because of the iniquity of mankind. So they assemble and fashion a great image out of the trunk of a tree. They make offerings, they confess their sins, they correct the fraudulent weights and measures, they vow to do better in the future, they implore mercy, and if the earth has gaped, they throw a little gold into the fissure. But when the danger is over, all their fine vows and promises are soon forgotten.* Amazone, Indiens Conibos," Bulletin * J. T. Nieuwenhuisen en H. C. B. de la Sociiti de Geographic (Paris), von Rosenberg, " Verslag omtrent het IVeme Serie, vi. (1853) p. 292. eiland Nias," Verhandelingen van het ,^__ „■ ^ rji i\T Bataviaasch Genoolschap van Kunsten J f; J;;^T'' -^f "' Wetenschappen, xxx. (Batavia, World called America, ^.^t<). ^g^^^ ^_ ^^f j^ Soerakarta, a 2 A. Werner, The Natives of British district of Java, when an earthquake Central Africa (London, 1906), p. 56. ^^^^ p]^(,g tj,g people lie flat on their 3 J. Jackson, in J. E. Erskine's stomachs on the ground, and lick it Journal of a Cruise among the Islands with their tongues so long as the of the Western Pacific, p. 473. My earthquake lasts. This they do in friend, Mr. Lorimer Fison writes to order that they may not lose their me (December 15, 1906) that the teeth prematurely. See J. W. Winter, name of the Fijian earthquake god is " Beknopte Beschrijving van het hof Maui, not A Dage, as Jackson says. Soerokarta in 1824," Bijdragen tot de Mr. Fison adds, "I have seen Fijians Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van stamping and smiting the ground and Nederlandsch- Indie, liv. (1902) p. 85. yelling at the top of their voices in The connection of ideas in this custom order to rouse him." is not clear. 1 68 THE EARTHQUAKE GOD book i The god of We may surmise that in those Greek lands which have oMhr ^^ suffered severely from earthquakes, such as Achaia and the earthquake western coasts of Asia Minor, Poseidon was worshipped not concetred less as an earthquake god than as a sea-god.^ It is to be ^ ™e- remembered that an earthquake is often accompanied by a tremendous wave which comes rolling in like a mountain from the sea, swamping the country far and wide ; indeed on the coasts of Chili and Peru, which have often been devastated by both, the wave is said to be even more dreaded than the earthquake.^ The Greeks often ex- perienced this combination of catastrophes, this conspiracy, as it were, of earth and sea against the life and works of man.^ It was thus that Helice, on the coast of Achaia, perished with all its inhabitants on a winter night, over- whelmed by the billows ; and its destruction was set down to the wrath of Poseidon.* Nothing could be more natural than that to people familiar with the twofold calamity the dreadful god of the earthquake and of the sea should appear to be one and the same. The historian Diodorus Siculus observes that Peloponnese was deemed to have been in ancient days the abode of Poseidon, that the whole country was in a manner sacred to him, and that every city in it worshipped him above all the gods. This devotion to Poseidon he explains partly by the earthquakes and floods by which the land has been visited, partly by the remarkable chasms and subterranean rivers which are a conspicuous feature of its limestone mountains.^ ^ On this question see C. Neumann Diodorus Siculus, xv. 49 ; Aelian, und J. Partsch, Physikalische Geo- Nat. Anim. xi. 19 ; Pausanias, vii. graphic 1)071 Griechenland, pp. 332-336. 24. ^sq. and 12, vii. 25. I and 4. As to the frequency of earthquakes in ^ Diodorus Siculus, xv. 49, 4 sq. Achaia and Asia Minor see Seneca, Among the most famous seats of the Epist. xiv. 3. 9 ; and as to Achaia in worship of Poseidon in Peloponnese particular see C. Neumann und J. v^ere Taenarum in Laconia, Helice in Partsch, op. cit. pp. 324-326. On Achaia, Mantinea in Arcadia, and the the coast of Achaia there was a chain island of Calauria, off tlie coast of of sanctuaries of Poseidon (L. Preller, Troezen. See Pausanias, ii. 33. 2, Griechische Mythologie, i.^ 575)- "i- 25. 4-8, vii. 24. 5jy.,viii. 10. 2-4. ^ See Sir Ch. Lyell, Principles of Laconia as well as Achaia has suffered Geology,^^ ii. 147 sqq. ; J. Milne, much from earthquakes, and it con- Earthquakes (London, 1886), pp. tained many sanctuaries of Poseidon. 165 sqq. We may suppose that the deity was ^ See, for example, Thucydides, worshipped here chiefly as the earth - iii. 89. quake god, since the rugged coasts of ^ Strabo, viii. 7. I sq., pp. 384 sq. ; Laconia are ill adapted to maritime CHAP. VIII WORSHIP OF MEPHITIC VAPOURS 169 § 6. Worship of Mepliitic Vapours But eruptions and earthquakes, though the most Poisonous tremendous, are not the only phenomena of volcanic regions "I'^P'"'": which have affected the religion of the inhabitants. Poisonous mephitic vapours and hot springs, which abound especially in volcanic regions,^ have also had their devotees, and both are, or were formerly, to be found in those western districts of Asia Minor with which we are here concerned. To begin with vapours, we may take as an illustration of their deadly effect the Guevo Upas, or Valley of Poison, near Batur in Java. It is the crater of an extinct volcano, about half a mile in circumference, and from thirty to thirty- five feet deep. Neither man nor beast can descend to the bottom and live. The ground is covered with the carcases of tigers, deer, birds, and even the bones of men, all killed by the abundant emanations of carbonic acid gas which exhale from the soil. Animals let down into it die in a few minutes. The whole range of hills is volcanic. Two neighbouring craters constantly emit smoke.^ In another crater of Java, near the volcano Talaga Bodas, the sul- phureous exhalations have proved fatal to tigers, birds, and countless insects ; and the soft parts of these creatures, such as fibres, muscles, hair, and skin, are well preserved, while the bones are corroded or destroyed.^ The ancients were acquainted with such noxious vapours places of in their own country, and they regarded the vents from ^^^°°l which they were discharged as entrances to the infernal regions.* The Greeks called them places of Pluto {Plutonid) or places of Charon {Charonid)!' In Italy the vapours were enterprise, and the Lacedaemonians Alexander Loudon," Journal of the were never a seafaring folk. See C. Royal Geographical Society, ii. (1832) Neumann und J. Partsch, Physikalische pp. 60-62 ; Sir Ch. Lyell, Principles Geographic von Griechenlatid, pp. of Geology,^^ i. 590. 330 J-?., 335^7- For Laconian sane- ^ Sir Cli. Lyell, I.e. tuaries of Poseidon see Pausanias, * Lucretius, vi. 738 sqi]. iii. II. 9, iii. 12. 5, iii. 14. 2 and 7, ' Strabo, v. 4. 5, p. 244, xii. 8. 17, iii. 15. 10, iii. 20. 2, iii. 21. 5, p. 579. xiil. 4. 14, P- 629, xiv. i. ii iii. 25. 4. ^n'' 44' PP- ^3^' ^49 ' Cicero, De 1 Sir Ch. Lyell, Principles of divinatione, i. 36. 79 ; Pliny, Nat. Geology,^^ i. 391 sqq., 590. ffist. ii. 208. Compare [Aristotle,] 2 " Extract from a Letter of Mr. P>e miindo, 4, p. 395 B, ed. Bekker. 170 WORSHIP OF MEPHITIC VAPOURS book i personified as a goddess, who bore the name of Mefitis and was worshipped in various parts of the peninsula.^ She had a The temple in the famous valley of Amsanctus in the land of the valley of Hirpini, where the exhalations, supposed to be the breath Amsanctus. r > > i i of Pluto himself, were of so deadly a character that all who set foot on the spot died.^ The place is a glen, partly wooded with chestnut trees, among limestone hills, distant about four miles from the town of Frigento. Here, under a steep shelving bank of decomposed limestone, there is a pool of dark ash - coloured water, which continually bubbles up with an explosion like distant thunder. A rapid stream of the same blackish water rushes into the pool from under the barren rocky hill, but the fall is not more than a few feet. A little higher up are apertures in the ground, through which warm blasts of sulphuretted hydrogen are constantly issuing with more or less noise, according to the size of the holes. These blasts are no doubt what the ancients deemed the breath of Pluto. The pool is now called Mefite and the holes Mefitinelle. On the other side of the pool is a smaller pond called the Coccaio, or Cauldron, because it appears to be perpetually boiling. Thick masses of mephitic vapour, visible a hundred yards off, float in rapid undulations on its surface. The exhalations given off by these waters are sometimes fatal, especially when they are borne on a high wind. But as the carbonic acid gas does not naturally rise more than two or three feet from the ground, it is possible in calm weather to walk round the pools, though to stoop is difficult and to fall would be dangerous. The ancient temple of Mefitis has been re- placed by a shrine of the martyred Santa Felicita.' Sanctuaries Similar discharges of poisonous vapours took place at or Pluto various points in the volcanic district of Caria, and were the in Cana. i Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 84, the commentary of Servius ; Cicero, who says that some people looked on De divinatione, i. 36. 79 ; Pliny, Mefitis as a god, the male partner of Nat. Hist. ii. 208. Leucothoe, to whom he stood as Adonis to Venus or as Virbius to ^ Letter of Mr. Haniihon (British Diana. As to Mefitis see L. Preller, Envoy at the Court of Naples), in Romische Mylhologie,^ ii. 144 sq. ; Journal of the Roya! Geographical R. Peter, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikort Society, ii. (1832) pp. 62-65 ; W. d. griech. und rom. Mythologie, ii. 9im\Vn's Dictionary of Greek and Roman 2519 sgq. Geography, \. 127; H. "t^issen, Italische 2 Virgil, Aen. vii. 563-571, with Landeskunde, i. 242, 271, ii. 819 jy. CHAP. VIII WORSHIP OF MEPHITIC VAPOURS lyi object of superstitious veneration in antiquity. Thus at the village of Thymbria there was a sacred cave which gave out deadly emanations, and the place was deemed a sanctuary of Charon.^ A similar cave might be seen at the village of Acharaca near Nysa, in the valley of the Maeander. Here, below the cave, there was a fine grove with a temple dedi- cated to Pluto and Proserpine. The place was sacred to Pluto, yet sick people resorted to it for the restoration of their health. They lived in the neighbouring village, and the priests prescribed for them according to the revelations which they received from the two deities in dreams. Often the priests would take the patients to the cave and leave them there for days without food. Sometimes the sufferers themselves were favoured with revelations in dreams, but they always acted under the spiritual direction of the priests] To all but the sick the place was unapproachable and fatal. Once a year a festival was held in the village, and then afflicted folk came in crowds to be rid of their ailments. About the hour of noon on that day a number of athletic young men, their naked bodies greased with oil, used to carry a bull up to the cave and there let it go. But the beast had not taken a few steps into the cavern before it fell to the ground and expired : so deadly was the vapour.^ Another Plutonian sanctuary of the same sort existed at Sanctuary Hierapolis, in the upper valley of the Maeander, on the "^/l^'j;^^ borders of Lydia and Phrygia.^ Here under a brow of the or Phrj'gian hill there was a deep cave with a narrow mouth just large "'^'■^p°''=- enough to admit the body of a man. A square space in front of the cave was railed off, and within the railing there hung so thick a cloudy vapour that it was hardly possible to see the ground. In calm weather people could step up to the railing with safety, but to pass within it was instant death. Bulls driven into the enclosure fell to the earth and were dragged out lifeless ; and sparrows, which spectators by 1 Strabo, xiv. i. II, p. 636. bourhood, for he tells us (xiv. i. 48, p. 2 Ibid. xiv. I. 44, pp. 649 s^. 650) that in his youth he studied at Nysa A coin of Nysa shows the bull carried under the philosopher Aristodemus. to the sacrifice by six naked youths and preceded by a naked flute-player. See ■'' Some of the ancients assigned B. V. Head, Calalogiie of the Greek Hierapolis to Lydia, nnd others to Coins of Lydia, '^■^.\xyiyi\x\. 181, pi. xx. Phrygia (W. M. Ramsay, Cities and 10. Strabowas familiar with this neigh- Bishoprics of Phrygia, \. %i, sq.). 172 WORSHIP OF MEPniTIC VAPOURS book: way of experiment allowed to fly into the mist, dropped dead at once. Yet the eunuch priests of the Great Mother Goddess could enter the railed-off area with impunity ; nay more, they used to go up to the very mouth of the cave, stoop, and creep into it for a certain distance, holding their breath ; but there was a look on their faces as if they were being choked. Some people ascribed the immunity of the priests to the divine. protection, others to the use of antidotes.^ § 7. Worship of Hot Springs The hot The mysterious chasm of Hierapolis, with its deadly f«trife(r° mist, has not been discovered in modern times ; indeed it cascades of would Seem to have vanished even in antiquity.^ It may ■ have been destroyed by an earthquake. But another marvel of the Sacred City remains to this day. The hot springs with their calcareous deposit, which, like a wizard's wand, turns all that it touches to stone, excited the wonder of the ancients, and the course of ages has only enhanced the fantastic splendour of the great transformation scene. The stately ruins of Hierapolis occupy a broad shelf or terrace on the mountain-side commanding distant views of extra- ordinary beauty and grandeur, from the dark precipices and dazzling snows of Mount Cadmus away to the burnt summits of Phrygia, fading in rosy tints into the blue of the sky. Hills, broken by wooded ravines, rise behind the city. In front the terrace falls away in cliffs three hundred feet high into the desolate treeless valley of the Lycus. Over the face of these cliffs the hot streams have poured or trickled for thousands of years, encrusting them with a pearly white substance like salt or driven snow. The appearance of the whole is as if a mighty river, some two miles broad, had been suddenly arrested in the act of falling over a great cliff and transformed into white marble. It is a petrified Niagara. The illusion is strongest in winter or in cool summer mornings when the mist from the 1 Strabo, xiii. 4. 14, pp. 629 sg. ; 2 Ammianus Marcellinus (/.<:.) speaks Dio Cassius, Ixviii. 27. 3 ; Pliny, Nat. as if the cave no longer existed in his Hist. ii. 208 ; Amnnianus Marcellinus, time, xxiii. 6. 18. CHAP, vin WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS 173 hot springs hangs in the air, like a veil of spray resting on the foam of the waterfall. A closer inspection of the white cliff, which attracts the traveller's attention at a distance of twenty miles, only adds to its beauty and changes one illusion for another. For now it seems to be a glacier, its long pendent stalactites looking like icicles, and the snowy whiteness of its smooth expanse being tinged here and there with delicate hues of blue, rose and green, all the colours of the rainbow. These petrified cascades of Hierapolis are among the wonders of the world. Indeed they have probably been without a rival in their kind ever since the famous white and pink terraces or staircases of Rotomahana in New Zealand were destroyed by a volcanic eruption some twenty years ago. The hot springs which have wrought these miracles at The hot Hierapolis rise in a large deep pool among the vast and Hieiapoiis imposing ruins of the ancient city. The water is of a "i'h its greenish - blue tint, but clear and transparent. At the exhaia- bottom may be seen the white marble columns of a beauti- "°"5- ful Corinthian colonnade, which must formerly have en- circled the sacred pool. Shimmering through the green-blue water they look like the ruins of a Naiad's palace. Clumps of oleanders and pomegranate-trees overhang the little lake and add to its charm. Yet the enchanted spot has its dangers. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas rise incessantly from the bottom and mount like ihckering particles of silver to the surface. Birds and beasts which come to drink of the water are sometimes found dead on the bank, stifled by the noxious vapour ; and the villagers tell of bathers who have been overpowered by it and drowned, or dragged down, as they say, to death by the water-spirit. The streams of hot water, no longer regulated by the Deposits care of a religious population, have for centuries been ^^^^^^J^ ^'^ allowed to overflow their channels and to spread unchecked Hierapolis. over the tableland. By the deposit which they leave behind they have raised the surface of the ground many feet, their white ridges concealing the ruins and impeding the footstep, except where the old channels, filled up solidly to the brim, now form hard level footpaths, from which the traveller may survey the strange scene without quitting the saddle. In 174 WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS book i antiquity the husbandmen used purposely to lead the water in rills round their lands, and thus in a few years their fields and vineyards were enclosed with walls of solid stone. The water was also peculiarly adapted for the dyeing of woollen stuffs. Tinged with dyes extracted from certain roots, it imparted to cloths dipped in it the finest shades of purple and scarlet.'' Hercules We canfiot doubt that Hierapolis owed its reputation as of hm"™ ^ holy city in great part to its hot springs and mephitic springs. vapours. The curative virtue of mineral and thermal springs was well known to the ancients, and it would be interesting, if it were possible, to trace the causes which have gradually eliminated the superstitious element from the use of such waters, and so converted many old seats of volcanic religion into the medicinal baths of modern times. It was ah article of Greek faith that all hot springs were sacred to Hercules.^ " Who ever heard of cold baths that were sacred to Hercules .' " asks Injustice in Aristophanes ; and Justice admits that the brawny hero's patronage of hot baths was the excuse alleged by young men for sprawling all day in the steaming water when they ought to have been sweating in the gymnasium.^ Hot springs were said to have been first produced for the refreshment of Hercules after his labours ; some ascribed the kindly thought and deed to Athena, others to Hephaestus, and others to the nymphs.* The warm water of these ' Strabo, xiii. 4. 14, pp. 629, 630; springswhichhaveproduced phenomena Vitruvius, viii. 3. 10. For modern like those of Hierapolis. Indeed the descriptions of Hierapolis see R. whole ground is in some places coated Chandler, Travels in Asia Minor ^ over with tufa and travertine, which (London, 1776), pp. 228-235; Ch. have been deposited by the water, and. Fellows, Journal written dtiring an like the ground at Hierapolis, it sounds Excursion in Asia Minor (London, hollow under the foot. See Sir Ch. J 839), pp. 283-285; W. J. Hamilton, Lyell, Principles of Geolog}',^'^ i. 397 Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, sqq. As to the terraces of Rotoma- and Armenia, i. 517-521; E. Renan, hana in New Zealand, which were Saint Paul, ■i^'g. 357 J-?. ; E.J.Davis, destroyed by an eruption of Mount Anatolica CLondon, 1874), pp. 97-1 12 ; Taravera in 1886, see R. Taylor, Te E. Reclus, Nouvelle Giographie Utii- Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its verselle, ix. 510-512; W. Cochran, Inhabitants,^ -p^. nd/^-^e^ Pen and Pencil Sketches in Asia Minor ^ Athenaeus, xii. 6. p. 512. (London, 1887), pp. 387-390 ; W. 3 Aristophanes, Clouds, 1044-1054. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of * Scholiast on Aristophanes, Clouds, Phrygia, \. 84 sqq. The temperature 1050 ; Scholiast on Pindar, Olynip. of the hot pool varies from 85 to xii. 25 ; Suidas and Hesychius, s.v. 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The volcanic 'Hpd/cXeia \ovTpd ; Apostolius, viii. 66 ; district of Tuscany which skirts the Zenobius, vi. 49 ; Diogenianus, v. 7 ; Apennines abounds in hot calcareous Plutarch, Proverbia Alexajidrinorum, CHAP, viii WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS 175 sources appears to have been used especially to heal diseases of the skin ; for a Greek proverb, " the itch of Hercules," wras applied to persons in need of hot baths for the scab.^ On the strength of his connection writh medicinal springs Hercules set up as a patron of the healing art. In heaven, if we can trust Lucian, he even refused to give place to Aesculapius himself, and the difference between them led to a very unseemly brawl. " Do you mean to say," demanded Hercules of his father Zeus, in a burst of indignation, " that this apothecary is to sit down to table before me ? " To this the apothecary replies with much acrimony, recalling certain painful episodes in the private life of the burly hero. Finally the dispute is settled by Zeus, who decides in favour of Aesculapius on the ground that he died before Hercules, and is therefore entitled to rank as senior god.^ Among the hot springs sacred to Hercules the most Hot famous were those which rose in the pass of Thermopylae, ^eixuLs'^ and gave to the defile its name of the Hot Gates.^ The at Thermo- warm baths, called by the natives " the Pots," were enlarged ^^ ^^' and improved for the use of invalids by the wealthy sophist Herodes Atticus in the second century of our era. An altar of Hercules stood beside them.* According to one story, the hot springs were here produced for his refreshment by the goddess Athena.' They exist to this day apparently unchanged, although the recession of the sea has converted what used to be a narrow pass into a wide, swampy flat, through which the broad but shallow, turbid stream of the Sperchius creeps sluggishly seaward. On the other side the rugged mountains descend in crags and precipices to the pass, their grey, rocky sides tufted with low wood or bushes wherever vegetation can find a foothold, and their summits fringed along the sky-Hne with pines. They remind a Scotchman of the "crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly 21 ; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 23. i, v. 3, ^ L„cian, Dialogi Deorum, 13. 4. Another story was that Hercules, 3 Strabo, ix. 4. 13, p. 428. like Moses, produced the water by 4 „ , . ■• »^ n smiting the rock with his club (Anto- . Herodotus v.i. 176; Pausanias ninus Liberalis, Transform. 4). ??'• 35- 9; rh.lostratus, Vzt. Sophtst. 1 Apostolius, viii. 68; Zenobius, "• '• 9- vi. 49 ; Diogenianus, v. 7 ; Plutarch, ^ Scholiast on Aristophanes, Clouds, Proverbia Alexandrinorum, 21. 1050. 176 WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS book i hurled " in which Ben Venue comes down to the Silver Strand of Loch Katrine. The principal spring bursts from the rocks just at the foot of the steepest and loftiest part of the range. After forming a small pool it flows in a rapid stream eastward, skirting the foot of the mountains. The water is so hot that it is almost painful to hold the hands in it, at least near the source, and steam rises thickly from its surface along the course of the brook. Indeed the clouds of white steam and the strong sulphurous smell acquaint the traveller with his approach to the famous spot before he comes in sight of the springs. The water is clear, but has the appearance of being of a deep sea-blue or sea- green colour. This appearance it takes from the thick, slimy deposits of blue-green sulphur which line the bed of the stream. From its source the blue, steaming, sulphur- reeking brook rushes eastward for a few hundred yards at the foot of the mountain, and is then joined by the water of another spring, which rises much more tranquilly in a sort of natural bath among the rocks. The sides of this bath are not so thickly coated with sulphur as the banks of the stream ; hence its water, about two feet deep, is not so blue. Just beyond it there is a second and larger bath, which, from its square shape and smooth sides, would seem to be in part artificial. These two baths are probably the Pots mentioned by ancient writers. They are still used by bathers, and a few wooden dressing-rooms are provided for the accommoda- tion of visitors. Some of the water is conducted in an artificial channel to turn a mill about half a mile off at the eastern end of the pass. The rest crosses the flat to find its way to the sea. In its passage it has coated the swampy ground with a white crust, which sounds hollow under the tread.'^ Hot We may conjecture that these remarkable springs Hercules at famished the principal reason for associating Hercules with Aedepsus. this district, and for laying the scene of his fiery death on the top of the neighbouring Mount Oeta. The district is 1 I have described Thermopylae as Fiedler, Reise durch alle Theih des I saw it in November 1895. Compare Konigreichs Griechetiland, i. 207 sqq. ; W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern L. Ross, lieisen des Konigs Otto in Greece, ii. 33 sqq. ; E. Dodwell, Griechenland, i. 90 sqq. ; C. Bursian, Classical and Topographical Tmir Geographie von Griechenland, i. 92 'Ji Greece, ii. 66 sqq. ; K. G. sqq. CHAP. VIII WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS 177 volcanic, and has often been shaken by earthquakes.^ Across the strait the island of Euboea has suffered from the same cause and at the same time ; and on its southern shore sulphureous springs, like those of Thermopylae, but much hotter and more powerful, were in like manner dedicated to Hercules.^ The strong medicinal qualities of the waters, which are especially adapted for the cure of skin diseases and gout, have attracted patients in ancient and modern times. Sulla took the waters here for his gout ; ^ and in the days of Plutarch the neighbouring town of Aedepsus, situated in a green valley about two miles from the springs, was one of the most fashionable resorts of Greece. Elegant and commodious buildings, an agreeable country, and abundance of fish and game united with the health-giving properties of the baths to draw crowds of idlers to the, place, especially in the prime of the glorious Greek spring, the height of the season at Aedepsus. While some watched the dancers dancing or listened to the strains of the harp, others passed the time in discourse, lounging in the shade of cloisters or pacing the shore of the beautiful strait with its prospect of mountains beyond mountains immortalised in story across the water.* Of all this Greek elegance and luxury hardly a vestige remains. Yet the healing springs flow now as freely as of old. In the course of time the white and yellow calcareous deposit which the water leaves behind it, has formed a hillock at the foot of the mountains, and the stream now falls in a steam- ing cascade from the face of the rock into the sea.^ Once, after an earthquake, the springs ceased to flow for three days, and at the same time the hot springs of Thermopylae dried 1 Thucydides, iii. 87 and 89; Strabo, ' piutarch, Stdla, 26. i. 3. 20, pp. 60 sq. ; C. Neumann und * Plutarch, Quaest. Conviviales, iv. T ipart'sch, Physikalische Geographie ^. 1 ; id., De fraterno Ainore, iT. von Griechenland, pp. 321-323- ^ ^s to the hot springs of Aedepsus 2 Aristotle, Meteora, ii. 8, p. 366 A, (the nnodern Lipso) see K. G. Fiedler, ed. Bekker ; Strabo, ix. 4. 2, p. 425. Reise durch alle Theile des Konigreichi Aristotle expressly recognised the con- Griechenland, i. 487 - 492 ; H. N. nection of the springs with earthquakes, Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in which he tells us were very common in Griechenland, ii. 233-235 ; C. Bursian, this district. As to the earthquakes of Geographie von Griechenland, ii. 409 ; Euboea see also Thucydides, iii. 87, C. Neumann und J. Tartsch, Phy- 8q • Strabo i. 3. 16, and 20, pp. 58, sikalische Geographie von Griechenland, 60 'sq. ' ■ ■ ' pp. 342-344. N 178 WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS book i up.^ The incident proves the relation of these Baths of Hercules on both sides of the strait to each other and to volcanic agency. On another occasion a cold spring suddenly- burst out beside the hot springs of Aedepsus, and as its water was supposed to be peculiarly beneficial to health, patients hastened from far and near to drink of it. But the generals of King Antigonus, anxious to raise a revenue, imposed a tax on the use of the water ; and the spring, as if in disgust at being turned to so base a use, disappeared as suddenly as it had come.^ Reasons The association of Hercules with hot springs was not association Confined to Greece itself Greek influence extended it to of Hercules Sicily,^ Italy,* and even to Dacia.^ Why the hero should springs. have been chosen as the patron of thermal waters, it is hard to say. Yet it is worth while, perhaps, to remember that such springs combine in a manner the twofold and seemingly discordant principles of water and fire,^ of fertility and destruction, and that the death of Hercules in the flames seems to connect him with the fiery element. Further, the apparent conflict of the two principles is by no means as absolute as at first sight we might be tempted to suppose ; for heat is as necessary as moisture to the support of animal and vegetable life. Even volcanic fires have their beneficent aspect, since their products lend a more generous flavour to the juice of the grape. The ancients themselves, ^ Strabo, i. 3. 20, p. 60. siderable remains, were sacred to 2 Athenaeus, iii. 4, p. 73, E, D. Hercules. See G. Wilmanns, Exempla 5 The hot springs of Himera (the Inscriptionum Latinarum, No. 735 c ; modern Termini) v/eie said to have H. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, ii. been produced for the refreshment of 798. It is characteristic of the volcanic the weary Hercules. See Diodorus nature of the springs that the same Siculus, iv. 23. I, V. 3. 4 ; Scholiast on inscription which mentions these baths Pindar, Olymp. xii. 25. The hero is of Hercules records their destruction by- said to have taught the Syracusans to an earthquake, sacrifice a bull annually to Proserpine k tt i-s , . . at the Blue Spring {Cyane) near „ , ^. Dessai., Inscnpttones Lahnae Syracuse ; the beasts were drowned in ^"^"a^, ^o- 3»9I- the water of the pool. See Diodorus " Speaking of thermal springs Lyell Siculus, iv. 23. 4, V. 4. I sg. As to observes that the description of them the spring, which is now thickly sur- "might almost with equal propriety rounded by tall papyrus-plants intro- have been given under the head of duced by the Arabs, see K. Baedeker, ' igneous causes,' as they are agents of Southern Italy,'' pp. 356, 357. a mixed nature, being at once igneous ' The splendid baths of AUifae in and aqueous " {^Priticiples of Geology}"^ Samnium, of which there are con- i. 392). CHAP, VIII WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS 179 as we have seen, perceived the connection between good wine and volcanic soil, and proposed more or less seriously to interpret the vine-god Dionysus as a child of the fire.^ As a patron of hot springs Hercules combined the genial elements of heat and moisture, and may therefore have stood, in one of his many aspects, for the principle of fertility. In Syria childless women still resort to hot springs in order to procure offspring from the saint or the jinnee of the waters.^ A like train of thought perhaps led to the associa- tion of Hercules with hot springs. As the ideal of manly strength he may have been deemed the father of many of his worshippers, and Greek wives may have gone on pilgrim- age to his steaming waters in order to obtain the wish of their hearts. How far these considerations may serve to explain the custom of burning him, or gods identified with him, in effigy or in the person of a human being, is a question which deserves to be considered. The Indians of Nicaragua used to sacrifice men, women, Sacrifices and children to the active volcano Massaya, flinging them volcanoes into the craters : we are told that the victims went willingly to their fate.^ In the island of Siao, to the north of Celebes, a child was formerly sacrificed every year in order to keep the volcano Goowoong Awoo quiet. The poor wretch was tortured to death at a festival which lasted nine days. In later times the place of the child has been taken by a wooden puppet, which is hacked to pieces in the same way. The Galelareese of Halmahera say that the Sultan of Ternate used annually to require some human victims, who were cast into the crater of the volcano to save the island from its ravages.^ The Sandwich Islanders were formerly in the habit of throwing vast numbers of hogs into the craters of the great volcano Kirauea during an eruption or when an eruption was threatening. Further, they cast hogs into the rolling tide of lava to appease the gods and stay 1 See above, p. 161. 3 Qviedo, Historia General y 2 S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Natural de las Indias {Msidiid, 1851- Religion To-day, pp. 116 sq. ; Mrs. H. 1855), iv. 74. H. Spoer, "The Powers of Evil in * A. C. Kruijt, ffet Animisme in Jerusalem," Folk-lore, xviii. (1907) dm Indischen Archipel (The Hague, p. 55. See above, p. 69. 1906), pp. 497 sq. I So WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS BOOK I Sacrifices to volcanoes. its progress.^ In Java the volcano Bromok is annually- worshipped by people who throw offerings of cocoa-nuts, plantains, rice, chickens, cloth, money, and so forth into the crater.^ On the slope of Mount Smeroe, another active volcano in Java, there are two small idols, which the natives worship and pray to when they ascend the mountain. They lay food before the images to obtain the favour of the god of the volcano.^ In antiquity people cast into the craters of Etna vessels of gold and silver and all kinds of victims. If the fire swallowed up the offerings, the omen was good ; but if it rejected them, some evil was sure to befall the offerer.* These examples suggest that a custom of burning men or images may possibly be derived from a practice of throwing them into the craters of active volcanoes in order to appease the dreaded spirits or gods who dwell there. But unless we reckon the fires of Mount Argaeus in Cappa- docia* and of Mount Chimaera in Lycia,® there is apparently no record of any mountain in Western Asia which has been in eruption within historical times. On the whole, then, we conclude that the Asiatic custom of burning kings or gods ' W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches^ iv. 250. Compare ibid. pp. 236, 350. 2 W. B. d'Almeida, Life in Java, i. 166-173. ' I. A. Stigand, in The Geographical Journal, xxviii. (1906) pp. 621, 624. * Pausanias, iii. 23. 9. Some have thought that Pausanias confused the crater of Etna with the Lago di Naftia, a pool near Palagonia in the interior of Sicily, of which the water, impregnated with naphtha and sulphur, is thrown into violent ebullition by jets of volcanic gas. See [Aristotle,] Mirab. Auscult. 57 ; Macrobius, Saturn, v. 19. 26 sqq. ; Diodorus Siculus, xi. 89 ; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. IlaXi/cT; ; E. H. Bun- bury, in W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ii. 533 sq. The author of the ancient Latin poem Aetna says (vv. 340 sq.) that people offered incense to the celestial deities on the top of Etna. 'See above, pp. 157 sq. 8 On Mount Chimaera in Lycia a flame burned perpetually which neither earth nor water could extinguish. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 236, v. 100 ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. vi. 288 ; Seneca, Epist. x. 3. 3 ; Diodorus, quoted by Photius, Bibliotheca, p. 212 B, 10 sqq., ed. Bekker. This perpetual flame was rediscovered by Captain Beaufort near Porto Genovese on the coast of Lycia. It issues from the side of a hill of crumbly serpentine rock, giving out an intense heat, but no smoke. " Trees, brushwood, and weeds grow close round this little crater, a small stream trickles down the hill hard bye, and the ground does not appear to feel the effect of its heat at more than a few feet distance." The fire is not accompanied by earthquakes or noises ; it ejects no stones and emits no noxious vapours. There is nothing but a brilliant and perpetual flame, at which the shepherds often cook their food. See Fr. Beaufort, Karmania (London, 1817), p. 46; compare T. A. B. Spratt and E. Forbes, Travels in Lycia (London,. 1847), ii. 181 sq. CHAP. VIII WORSHIP OF HOT SPRINGS i8i was probably in no way connected with volcanic phenomena. Yet it was perhaps worth while to raise the question of their con- nection, even though it has received only a negative answer. The whole subject of the influence which physical environ- ment has exercised on the history of religion deserves to be studied with more attention than it has yet received.^ ' In the foregoing discussion I have confined myself, so far as concerns Asia, to the volcanic regions of Cappadocia, Lydia, and Caria. But Syria and Palestine, the home of Adonis and Melcarth, "abound in volcanic appearances, and very ex- tensive areas have been shaken, at different periods, with great destruction of cities and loss of lives. Continual mention is made in history of the ravages committed by earthquakes in Sidon, Tyre, Berytus, Laodicea, and Antioch, and in the island of Cyprus. The country around the Dead Sea exhibits in some spots layers of sulphur and bitumen, forming a superficial deposit, supposed by Mr. Tristram to be of volcanic origin " (Sir Ch. Lyell, Principles of Geology,^^ i. 592 j^.). As to the earthcjuakes of Syria and Phoenicia see Strabo, i. 3. 16, p. 58; Lucretius, vi. 585; Josephus, ^«/;^kz^ Jiid. XV. 5. 2 ; id., Bell. Jud. i. 19. 3 ; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, Central Palestine and Phoenicia, pp. 568-574 ; Ed. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine,^ ii. 422-424. It is said that in the reign of the Emperor Justin the city of Antioch was totally destroyed by a dreadful earthquake, in which three hundred thousand people perished (Procopius, De Bella Persico, ii. 14). The destruc- tion of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis xix. 24-28) has been plausibly ex- plained as the effect of an earthquake liberating large quantities of petroleum and inflammable gases. See S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis,'^ pp. 202 sq. CHAPTER IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS Results of the preceding inquiry. Our knowledge of the rites of Adonis derived chiefly from Greek writers. Thus far we have dealt with the myth of Adonis and the legends which associated him with Byblus and Paphos. A discussion of these legends led us to the conclusion that among Semitic peoples in early times, Adonis, the divine lord of the city, was often personated by priestly kings or other members of the royal family, and that these his human representatives were of old put to death, whether periodically or occasionally, in their divine character. Further, we found that certain traditions and monuments of Asia Minor seem to preserve traces of a similar practice. As time went on, the cruel custom was apparently mitigated in various ways, for example, by substituting an efifigy or an animal for the man, or by allowing the destined victim to escape with a merely make-believe sacrifice. The evidence of all this is drawn from a variety of scattered and often ambiguous indications : it is fragmentary, it is uncertain, and the conclusions built upon it inevitably partake of the weakness of the foundation. Where the records are so im- perfect, as they happen to be in this branch of our subject, the element of hypothesis must enter largely into any attempt to piece together and interpret the disjointed facts. How far the interpretations here proposed are sound, I leave to future inquiries to determine. From dim regions of the past, where we have had to grope our way with small help from the lamp of history, it is a relief to pass to those later periods of classical antiquity on which contemporary Greek writers have shed the light of their clear intelligence. To them we owe 182 BK. I CH. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 183 almost all that we know for certain about the rites of Adonis. The Semites who practised the worship have said little about it ; at all events little that they said has come down to us. Accordingly, the following account of the ritual is derived mainly from Greek authors who saw what they describe ; and it applies to ages in which the growth of humane feeling had softened some of the harsher features of the worship. At the festivals of Adonis, which were held in Western Festivals Asia and in Greek lands, the death of the god was annually ^^^l^^^j^^j mourned, with a bitter wailing, chiefly by women ; images resurrec- of him, dressed to resemble corpses, were carried out as to Adonis. burial and then thrown into the sea or into springs ; ^ and in some places his revival was celebrated on the following day.^ But at different places the ceremonies varied some- what in the manner and apparently also in the season of their celebration. At Alexandria images of Aphrodite and The Adonis were displayed on two couches ; beside them were fff"™i ^^ ^ ■' ' Alexandria. set ripe fruits of all kinds, cakes, plants growing in flower- pots, and green bowers twined with anise. The marriage of the lovers was celebrated one day, and on the morrow women attired as mourners, with streaming hair and bared breasts, bore the image of the dead Adonis to the sea-shore and committed it to the waves. Yet they sorrowed not without hope, for they sang that the lost one would come back again.^ The date at which this Alexandrian ceremony was observed is not expressly stated ; but from the mention of the ripe fruits it has been inferred that it took place in late summer.* In the great Phoenician The sanctuary of Astarte at Byblus the death of Adonis was gy^J'^g ^' annually mourned, to the shrill wailing notes of the flute, with weeping, lamentation, and beating of the breast ; but ' Plutarch, Alcibiades, 18; id., " Selecta in Ezechielem " (Migne's Nicias, 13; Zenobius, Centur. i. 49; Patrologia Graeca, xiii, 800), SoKovin Theocritus, xv. 132 s^j.; Eustathius yap Kar' iviavrbv reXerds nvas voieiv on Homer, Od. xi. 590. irpSrov ixh Sti BpTivomiv avTbv [sell. 2 Besides Lucian (cited below) see 'kSwvi.v'] us TeevriKdra, Seirepov Sk Jerome, Comment, in Ezechiel. viii. *" x°-W°^<"-v ^t' avrf us diri yeKpiiv 14, " in qua (solemniiate) plangitur avaarivTi. quasi mortuus, et postea reviviscens, 3 Theocritus xv. canitur atque laudatur . . . inter- fectionem et resurrectionem Adonidis * W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- planctu et gaiidio prosequens" ; Origen, und Feldkulte, p. 277. 1 84 THE RITUAL OF ADONIS festival at Byblus. next day he was believed to come to life again and ascend up to heaven in the presence of his worshippers. The disconsolate believers, left behind on earth, shaved their heads as the Egyptians did on the death of the divine bull Apis ; women who could not bring themselves to sacrifice their beautiful tresses had to give themselves up to strangers on a certain day of the festival, and to dedicate to Astarte the wages of their shame.^ Date of the This Phoenician festival appears to have been a vernal one, for its date ,«?as determined by the discoloration of the river Adonis, and this has been observed by modern travellers to occur in spring. At that season the red earth washed down from the mountains by the rain tinges the water of the river, and even the sea, for a great way with a blood -red hue, and the crimson stain was believed to be the blood of Adonis, annually wounded to death by the boar on Mount Lebanon.^ Again, the scarlet anemone is said to have sprung from the blood of Adonis, or to have been stained by it ; ' and as the anemone of Adonis, blooms in Syria about Easter, this may be thought to show that the festival of Adonis, or at least one of his festivals, was held in spring. The name of the flower is probably derived from Naaman (" darling "), which seems to have been an epithet of Adonis. The Arabs still call the anemone The anemone and the red rose ^ Lucian, De dea Syria, 6. See above, p. 33. The flutes used by ■ the Phoenicians in the lament for Adonis are mentioned by Athenaeus (iv. 76, p. 174 F), and by Pollux (iv. 76), ■vi\vo say that the same name gingras was applied by the Phoenicians both to the flute and to Adonis himself. Compare F. C. Movers, Die Phoe- 7iizier, i. 243 sg. We have seen that flutes were also played in the Baby- lonian rites of Tammuz (above, p. "]). Lucian's words, is rhv Tjipa iri^wovaL, imply that the ascension of the god was supposed to take place in the presence, if not before the eyes, of the worshipping crowds. The devotion of Byblus to Adonis is noticed also by Strabo (xvi. 2. 18, p. 755). 2 Lucian, i>J>. cit. 8. The discolora- tion of the river and the sea was observed by H. Maundrell on — March , . 27 1697 See his "Journey from Aleppo to Jeru- salem,'' in Bohn's Early Travels in Palestitie, edited by Thomas Wright (London, 1848), pp. 4.1 1 sq. Renan remarked the discoloration at the begin- ning of February (Mission de Phinicie, p. 283). In his well-known lines on the subject Milton has laid the mourn- ing in summer : — Thammiiz came next behind, IVhose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a sutnmer's day. 3 Ovid, Metam. 1^. 735 ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. v. 72 ; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 831. Bion, on the other hand, represents the anemone as sprung from the tears of Aphrodite (Idyl. i. 66). CHAP. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 185 " wounds of the Naaman." ^ The red rose also was said to owe its hue to the same sad occasion ; for Aphrodite, hastening to her wounded lover, trod on a bush of white roses ; the cruel thorns tore her tender flesh, and her sacred blood dyed the white roses for ever red.^ It would be idle, perhaps, to lay much weight on evidence drawn from the calendar of flowers, and in particular to press an argument so fragile as the bloom of the rose. Yet so far as it counts at all, the tale which links the damask rose with the death of Adonis points to a summer rather than to a Festivals of spring celebration of his passion. In Attica, certainly, the ^[j^g^^ ^^^ festival fell at the height of summer. For the fleet Antioch. which Athens fitted out against Syracuse, and by the destruction of which her power was permanently crippled, sailed at midsummer, and by an ominous coincidence the sombre rites of Adonis were being celebrated at the very time. As the troops marched down to the harbour to embark, the streets through which they passed were lined with coffins and corpse-like effigies, and the air was rent with the noise of women wailing for the dead Adonis. The circumstance cast a gloom over the sailing of the most splendid armament that Athens ever sent to sea.' Many ages afterwards, when the Emperor Julian made his first entry into Antioch, he found in like manner the gay, the luxurious capital of the East plunged in mimic grief for the annual death of Adonis ; and if he had any presentiment of coming evil, the voices of lamentation which struck upon his ear must have seemed to sound his knell* The resemblance of these ceremonies to the Indian and ' W. Robertson Smith, " Ctesias his habitual contempt for the supersti- and the Semiramis Legend,"' English tion of his countrymen, disdains to Historical Revieiu, ii. {1887) p. 307, notice the coincidence. Adonis was following Lagarde. also bewailed by the Argive women 2 J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, (Pausanias, ii. 20. 6), but we do not .831 ; Geopoiiica, xi. 17 ; Mythographi know at what season of the year the Graeci, ed. A. Westermann, p. 359. lamentation took place. Inscriptions Compare Bion, Idyl. i. 66 ; Pausanias, prove that processions in honour of vi. 24. 7 ; Philostratus, Epist. i. Adonis were held in the Piraeus, and and iii. that a society of his worshippers 3 Plutarch, Alcibiades, 18; id., existed at Solyma in Carin. See Nicias, 13. The date of the sailing Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum ■of the fleet is given by Thucydides Graecariim,'^ Nos. 726, 741. i(vi. 30, Bipovi fjietroOvTos ijSri), who, with * Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 9. 15. 1 86 THE RITUAL OF ADONIS Resem- blance of these rites to Indian and European cere- monies. The death and resur- rection of Adonis a mythical expression for the annual decay and revival of plant life. European ceremonies which I have described elsewhere is obvious. In particular, apart from the somewhat doubtful date of its celebration, the Alexandrian ceremony is almost identical with the Indian.^ In both of them the marriage of two divine beings, whose affinity with vegetation seems indicated by the fresh plants with which they are surrounded, is celebrated in effigy, and the effigies are afterwards mourned over and thrown into the water.^ From the similarity of these customs to each other and to the spring and midsummer customs of modern Europe we should naturally expect that they all admit of a common explanation. Hence, if the explanation which I have adopted of the latter is correct, the ceremony of the death and resurrection of Adonis must also have been a dramatic representation of the decay and revival of plant life. The inference thus based on the resemblance of the customs is confirmed by the following features in the legend and ritual of Adonis. His affinity with vegetation comes out at once in the common story of his birth. He was said to have been born from a myrrh-tree, the bark of which bursting, after a ten months' gestation, allowed the lovely infant to come forth. According to some, a boar rent the bark with his tusk and so opened a passage for the babe. A faint rationalistic colour was given to the legend by saying that his mother was a woman named Myrrh, who had been turned into a myrrh-tree soon after she had conceived the child.* The use of myrrh as incense at the festival of Adonis may have given rise to the fable.'* We have seen that incense was burnt at the corresponding Babylonian rites,^ just as it was burnt by the idolatrous Hebrews in honour of the Queen of Heaven,^ who was no other than Astarte. Again, the story that Adonis spent half, or 1 See The Golden Bough,'^ ii. 105 sqq. 2 In the Alexandrian ceremony, however, it appears to have been the image of Adonis only which was thrown into the sea. ' ApoUodorus, Biblioth. iii. 14. 4 ; Schol. on Theocritus, i. 109 ; Antoninus Liberalis, Transform. 34 ; J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron. 829 ; Ovid, Metam. x. 489 sqq. ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. v. 72, and on Biuol. a. 18 ; Hyginus, Fab. 58, 164 ; Ful- gentius, iii. 8. The word Myrrha or Smyrna is borrowed from the Phoenician (Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon^ s.v. ajiifva). Hence the mother's name, as well as the son's, was taken directly from the Semites. * W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald. und Feldkulte, p. 283, n. 2. ■■ Above, p. 7. ^ Jeremiah xliv. 17-19. CHAP. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 187 according to others a third, of the year in the lower world and the rest of it in the upper world/ is explained most simply and naturally by supposing that he represented vegetation, especially the corn, which lies buried in the earth half the year and reappears above ground the other half Certainly of the annual phenomena of nature there is none which suggests so obviously the idea of death and resurrection as the disappearance and reappearance of vegetation in autumn and spring. Adonis has been taken for the sun ; but there is nothing in the sun's annual course within the temperate and tropical zones to suggest that he is dead for half or a third of the year and alive for the other half or two-thirds. He might, indeed, be conceived as weakened in winter, but dead he could not be thought to be ; his daily reappearance contradicts the supposition. Within the Arctic Circle, where the sun annually disappears for a continuous period which varies from twenty-four hours to six months according to the latitude, his yearly death and resurrection would certainly be an obvious idea ; but no one except the unfortunate astronomer Bailly ^ has maintained that the Adonis worship came from the Arctic regions. On the other hand, the annual death and revival of vegetation is a conception which readily presents itself to men in every stage of savagery and civilisation ; and the vastness of the scale on which this ever- recurring decay and regeneration takes place, together with man's intimate dependence on it for subsistence, combine to render it the most impressive annual occurrence in nature, at least within the temperate zones. It is no wonder that a phenomenon so important, so striking, and so universal should, by suggesting similar 1 Schol. on Theocritus, iii. 48 ; dreary November day poor innocent Hyginus, Astronom. ii. 7 ; Lucian, Bailly was dragged to the scaffold Dialog, dear. xi. i ; Cornutus, De amid the howls and curses of the natura deorum, 28, p. 163 sq. ed. Parisian mob {French Revolution, bk. Osannus ; Apollodorus, iii. 14. 4. v. ch. 2). My friend the late Professor C. Bendall showed me a book by a 2 Bailly, Leitres sur VOrigine des Hindoo gentleman in which it is seri- Sciences (London and Paris, 1777), ously maintained that the primitive ^Tp, 2^$ sq. ; id., Lettres sur FAtlantide home of the Aryans was within the de Platon (London and Paris, 1779), Arctic regions. See Bal Gangadhar pp. 1 14-125. Carlyle has described Tilak, The Arctic Home in lite Vedas how through the sleety drizzle of a (Poona and Bombay, 1903). THE RITUAL OF ADONIS BOOK I Tarn muz or Adonis as a corn- spirit bruised and ground in a mill. qC ideas, have given rise to similar rites in many lands. We may, therefore, accept as probable an explanation of the Adonis worship which accords so well with the facts of nature and with the analogy of similar rites in other lands. More- over, the explanation is countenanced by a considerable body of opinion amongst the ancients themselves, who again and again interpreted the dying and reviving god as the reaped and sprouting grain.^ The character of Tammuz or Adonis as a corn-spirit ' comes out plainly in an account of his festival given by an Arabic writer of the tenth century. In describing the rites and sacrifices observed at the different seasons the year by the heathen Syrians of Harran, he ' Schol. on Theocritus, iii. 48, 6 "Afiwj'ts, ijyovv 6 iriros 6 (nr€ip6fj.evoSj ff fifji/as iv T% y-Q iroiei airb Tijs criropas Kal ^1 iJ.Tjvas ?x" aiWiy rj ' A.tj>poSlT-q , TovTidTiv T) evKpaffla ToO a^pos. Kal ^Krdre Xa/x^dvova-tp airbv ol dvOpujirot. Jerome on Ezekiel, viii. 14, " Eadem gentilitas h ujuscemodifabtUaspoetamm, quae habent turpitudinem, interpretatur stibtiliter interfectionem et resurrec- tionem Adonidis planctu et gaudio pro- sequens : quorum allerum in seminibus, quae moriuntur in terra, alieruin in segetibus, quibus mortua semina rena- scuntur, ostendi putat." Origen, " Selecta in Ezechielem " (Migne's Patrologia Graeca, xiii. 800), oi 5^ irepl Tr\v 6.va.ya-i^v tGiv 'EX\7]ViKwi> fiiiSap detvol Kal fj-vdiKTJs vo/UL^o^ivrjs deoXoyias, (paal rbv ASbjvtv ffij^^oKov etpat ru>v r^s yrjs KapirCjv, Bp'qvovfxhuiv p.kv 6re airel- pofTaL, dvtffTafjJi'ioi' 5^, Kal Sid tovto Xalpciv iroioivTOjv roll's yeiopyoi/s fire tj>vovTaL. Ammianus Marcellinus, xix. I. II., "in solleinnibus Adonidis sacris, quod simulacrum aliquod esse frtigum adultarum religiones mysticae docent." Id. xxii. 9. 15, " ainato Veneris, tit fabulae fingunt, apri dente ferali deleto, quod in adulto Jiore sectarum est indicium frugum." Clement of Alexandria, IIo?n. 6. II (quoted by W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 2S1), \afi.fSdvovcn S^ Kal 'ASuiviv eh wpaiovs Kapwois. Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. "ASujvt^ K}!iptov' StjfaTat Kal 6 Kap-jrds dfai &5ul'l.s^ olov ddiipeios Kapwbs, dp^iXKiov. Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. II. 9, "ASwj'is ttJs tGjv reXeiuv KapiTwv iKToiXTjs aii/x^oXov. Sallustius philosophus, "De diis et mundo," iv. Fragmenta Philosophortim Grae- corum, ed. F. G. A. Mullach, iii. 32, o\ hlyinmoL . . . axird rd (r(i/Aara deous vofd(ravT€s . . . '^latv fj.^!/ tt)v yriv . . . "Abtjoviv bk Kapiro}js. Joannes Lydus, Z>e juensibus, iv. 4, rip 'KSibviSi, tovt- 4im T<} liatip ...■?) dis dXXois SoKei, "Adwvis lih icTTtv 6 Kapirbs, ktX. The view that Tammuz or Adonis is a personification of the dying and re- viving vegetation is now accepted by many scholars. See P. Jensen, Kosmo- logic der Babylonier (.Strasburg, 1890), p. 480 ; id., Assyrisch - babylonische Mythen und Epen, pp. 411, 560 ; H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's Keilin- schriften und das Alte Testament,^ p. 397 ; A. Jeremias, in W. H. Rosclier's Lexikon der griech. u. rom. Mythologie, iii. 265 ; R. Wunsch, Das Frilhlingsfest der Insel Malta (Lejpsic, 1902), p. 21 ; M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les PeligioJis S^mitiques,- pp. 306 sqq. ; W. v. Baudissin, "Tammuz," liealencyclopddie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirchengeschichte. Prof. Jastrow regards Tammuz as a god both of the sun and of vegetation (Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 547, 564, 574, 588). But such a combina- tion of disparate qualities seems artificial and unlikely. CHAP. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 189 says : — " Tammuz (July). In the middle of this month is the festival of el-Bilg^t, that is, of the weeping women, and this is the Ta-uz festival, which is celebrated in honour of the god Ta-uz. The women bewail him, because his lord slew him so cruelly, ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered them to the wind. The women (during this festival) eat nothing which has been ground in a mill, but limit their diet to steeped wheat, sweet vetches, dates, raisins, and the like." ^ Ta-uz, who is no other than Tammuz, is here like Burns's John Barleycorn- — They wasted o'er a scorching flame The marrow of his bones j But a ?niller tes'd him worst of all — For he crush' d him between two stones.'^ This concentration, so to say, of the nature of Adonis upon the cereal crops is characteristic of the stage of culture reached by his worshippers in historical times. They had left the nomadic life of the wandering hunter and herdsman far behind them ; for ages they had been settled on the land, and had depended for their subsistence mainly on the products of tillage. The berries and roots of the wilderness, the grass of the pastures, which had been matters of vital importance to their ruder forefathers, were now of little moment to them : more and more their thoughts and energies were engrossed by the staple of their life, the corn ; more and more accordingly the propitiation of the deities of fertility in general and of the corn-spirit in particular tended to become the central feature of their religion. The aim they set before themselves in celebrating the rites was thoroughly practical. It was no vague poetical sentiment which prompted them to hail with joy the rebirth of vegeta- tion and to mourn its decline. Hunger, felt or feared, was the mainspring of the worship of Adonis. It has been suggested by Father Lagrange that the The mourning for Adonis was essentially a harvest rite designed J^° ^donl to propitiate the corn-god, who was then either perishing interpreted under the sickles of the reapers, or being trodden to death ''^^''^"^^' 1 D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier ttnd bei den alien Babyloniern, p. 38. der Ssabisiims, ii. 27; id., Ueber 2 xiie comparison is due to Felix TammAs und die Menschenverehnmg Liebrecht {Zur Volkskunde, p. 259). rite. 190 THE RITUAL OF ADONIS under the hoofs of the oxen on the threshing-floor. While the men slew him, the women wept crocodile tears at home to appease his natural indignation by a show of grief for his death.^ The theory fits in well with the dates of the festivals, which fell in spring or summer ; for spring and summer, not autumn, are the seasons of the barley and wheat harvests in the lands which worshipped Adonis.^ Further, the hypothesis is confirmed by the practice of the Egyptian reapers, who lamented, calling upon Isis, when they cut the first corn ; ' and it is recommended by the analogous customs of many hunting tribes, who testify great respect for the animals which they kill and eat.^ Thus interpreted the death of Adonis is not the ^ M. J. Lagrange, Etudes sur les Religions Simitiques'^ (Paris, 1905), pp. 307 sq. 2 Hence Philo of Alexandria dates the corn - reaping in the middle of spring (MeffoOi/ros 5^ ^apos dfiTjTos evla-Tarai, De special legibus, i. 183, vol. V. p. 44, ed. L. Cohn). On this subject Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie writes to me : " The Coptic calendar puts on April 2 begin- ning of wheat harvest in Upper Egypt, May 2 wheat harvest, Lower Egypt. Barley is two or tliree weeks earlier than wheat in Palestine, but probably less in Egypt. The Palestine harvest is about the time of that in North Egypt." With regard to Palestine we are told that "the har- vest begins with the barley in April ; in the valley of the Jordan it begins at the end of March. Between the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest an interval of two or three weeks elapses. Thus as a rule the business of harvest lasts about seven weeks " (J. Benzinger, Hebrdische Archdologie, p. 209). "The principal grain crops of Palestine are barley, wheat, lentils, maize, and millet. Of the latter there is very little, and it is all gathered in by the end of May. The maize is then only just beginning to shoot. In the hotter parts of the Jordan valley the barley harvest is over by the end of March, and throughout the country the wheat harvest is at its height at the end of May, excepting in the highlands of Galilee, where it is about a fortnight later" (H. B. Tristram, The Land of Israel? p. 583 sq.). As to Greece, Professor E. A. Gardner tells me that harvest is from April to May in the plains and about a month later in the mountains. He adds that " barley may, then, be assigned to the latter part of April, wheat to May in the lower ground, but you know the great difference of climate between different parts ; there is the same difference of a month in the vintage. " Mrs. Hawes (Miss Boyd), who excavated at Gournia, tells me that in Crete the barley is cut in April and the beginning of May, and that the wheat is cut and threshed from about the twentieth of June, though the dates naturally vary somewhat with the height of the place above the sea. June is also the season when the wheat is threshed in Euboea (R. A. Arnold, From the Levatit (London, 1868), i. 250). Thus it seems possible that the spring festival of Adonis coincided with the cutting of the first barley in March, and his summer festival with the threshing of the last wheat in June. Father Lagrange {op. cit. pp. 305 sq.) argues that the rites of Adonis were always celebrated in summer at the solstice of June or soon afterwards. ^ Diodorus Siculus, i. 14. 2. See below, pp. 296, 347 sq. ^ The Golden Bough? ii. 396 sqq. CHAP. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 191 natural decay of vegetation in general under the summer But heat or the winter cold ; it is the violent destruction Adonis ^ of the corn by man, who cuts it down on the field, was a spirit stamps it to pieces on the threshing-floor, and grinds it "dibk to powder in the mill. That this was indeed the principal roo's. a°d aspect in which Adonis presented himself in later times to before he the agricultural peoples of the Levant, may be admitted ; becanie but whether from the beginning he had been the corn and of the nothing but the corn, may be doubted. At an earlier cultivated ° ^ corn. period he may have been to the herdsman, above all, the tender herbage which sprouts after rain, offering rich pasture to the lean and hungry cattle. Earlier still he may have embodied the spirit of the nuts and berries which the autumn woods yield to the savage hunter and his squaw. And just as the husbandman must propitiate the spirit of the corn which he consumes, so the herdsman must appease the spirit of the grass and leaves which his cattle munch, and the hunter must soothe the spirit of the roots which he digs, and of the fruits which he gathers from the bough. In all cases the propitiation of the injured and angry sprite would naturally comprise elaborate excuses and apologies, accompanied by loud lamentations at his decease whenever, through some deplorable accident or necessity, he happened to be murdered as well as robbed. Only we must bear in mind that the savage hunter and herdsman of those early days had probably not yet attained to the abstract idea of vegetation in general ; and that accordingly, so far as Adonis existed for them at all, he must have been the Adon or lord of each individual tree and plant rather than a personifica- tion of vegetable life as a whole. Thus there would be as many Adonises as there were trees and shrubs, and each of them might expect to receive satisfaction for any damage done to his person or property. And year by year, when the trees were deciduous, every Adonis would seem to bleed to death with the red leaves of autumn and to come to life again with the fresh green of spring. We have seen reason to think that in early times Adonis was sometimes personated by a living man who died a violent death in the character of the god. Further, there is evidence which goes to show that among the 192 THE RITUAL OF ADONIS book i The pro- agricultural peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean, the corn- fhe^com-° Spirit, by whatever name he was known, was often repre- spirit may sentcd, year by year, by human victims slain on the harvest- wtththr field.-' If that was so, it seems likely that the propitiation worship of of the corn-spirit would tend to fuse to some extent with the worship of the dead. For the spirits of these victims might be thought to return to life in the ears which they had fattened with their blood, and to die a second death at the reaping of the corn. Now the ghosts of those who have perished by violence are surly and apt to wreak their vengeance on their slayers whenever an opportunity offers. Hence the attempt to appease the souls of the slaughtered victims would naturally blend, at least in the popular concep- tion, with the attempt to pacify the slain corn-spirit. And as the dead came back in the sprouting corn, so they might be thought to return in the spring flowers, waked from their long sleep by the soft vernal airs. They had been laid to their rest under the sod. What more natural than to imagine that the violets and the hyacinths, the roses and the anemones, sprang from their dust, were empurpled or incarnadined by their blood, and contained some portion of their spirit? / sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where sotne buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. And this revivijig Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean — Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs tmseen f The festival At Athens the great Commemoration of the Dead fell ffestirar'^ in spring about the middle of March, when the early flowers of flowers, are in bloom. Then the dead were believed to rise from their graves and go about the streets, vainly endeavouring to enter the temples and the dwellings, which were barred against these perturbed spirits with ropes, buckthorn, and pitch. The name of the festival, according to the most 1 W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, pp. i sqq. ; The Golden Bough,'^ ii. 224 sqq. CHAP. IX THE RITUAL OF ADONIS 193 obvious and natural interpretation, means the Festival of Flowers, and the title would fit well with the substance of the ceremonies if at that season the poor ghosts were indeed thought to creep from the narrow house with the opening flowers.^ There may therefore be a measure of truth in the theory of Renan, who saw in the Adonis worship a dreamy voluptuous cult of death, conceived not as the King of Terrors, but as an insidious enchanter who lures his victims to himself and lulls them into an eternal sleep. The infinite charm of nature in the Lebanon, he thought, lends itself to religious emotions of this sensuous, visionary sort, hovering vaguely between pain and pleasure, between slumber and tears.^ It would doubtless be a mistake to attribute to Syrian peasants the worship of a conception so purely abstract as that of death in general. Yet it may be true that in their simple minds the thought of the reviving spirit of vegetation was blent with the very concrete notion of the ghosts of the dead, who come to life again in spring days with the early flowers, with the tender green of the corn and the many-tinted blossoms of the trees. Thus their views of the death and resurrection of nature would be coloured by their views of the death and resurrection of man, by their personal sorrows and hopes and fears. In like manner we cannot doubt that Renan's theory of Adonis was itself deeply tinged by passionate memories, memories of the slumber akin to death which sealed his own eyes on the slopes of the Lebanon, memories of the sister who sleeps in the land of Adonis never again to wake with the anemones and the roses. 1 This explanation of the name " to conjure up " (Journal of Hellenic Anthesteria, as applied to a festival of Studies, xx. (1900) pp. 115-117). As the dead, is due to Mr. R. Wiinsch to the festival see E. Rohde, Psyche,^ {Das Friihlingsfest der Insel Malta, i. 236 sqq. ; Miss J. E. Harrison, Leipsic, 1902, pp. 43 sqq.^ I cannot Prolegomena to the Study of Greek accept my friend Dr. A. W. Verrali's Religion, pp. 32 sqq. ingenious derivation of the word from ^ E. Renan, Mission de Phinicie a verb i.va.di Macarius, i. 63 ; Apostolius, i. 34; Diogenianus, i. 14; Plutarch, De sera num. vind. 17. Women only are mentioned as planting the gardens of Adonis by Plutarch, I.e.; Julian, Convivium, p. 329 ed. Span- heim (p. 423 ed. Hertlein) ; Eustathius on Homer, Od. xi. 590. On the other hand, Apostolius and Diogenianus (II. cc. ) say \rre6ovT€^ ^ (jiVTeiovaat.. The pro- cession at the festival of Adonis is mentioned in an Attic inscription of 302 or 301 B.C. (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptiontim Grnecariivi,'^ No. 726). Gardens of Adonis are perhaps alluded to by Isaiah (xvii. 10, with the com- mentators). 194 BK. I CH. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 195 was a ram- were supposed to produce this effect was homoeopathic or imitative magic. For ignorant people suppose that by mimicking the effect which they desire to produce they actually help to produce it ; thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a fire they make sunshine, and so on. Similarly, by mimicking the growth of crops they hope to ensure a good harvest. The rapid growth of the wheat and barley in the gardens of Adonis was intended to make the corn shoot up ; and the throwing of the gardens and of the The images into the water was a charm to secure a due supply of ^'th^I'"^ fertilising rain.^ The same, I take it, was the object of "gardens'^ throwing the effigies of Death and the Carnival into water in '°'! !'^'"" the corresponding ceremonies of modern Europe.^ Certainly charm, the custom of drenching with water a leaf-clad person, who undoubtedly personifies vegetation, is still resorted to in Europe for the express purpose of producing rain.^ Similarly the custom of throwing water on the last corn cut at Parallel harvest, or on the person who brings it home (a custom fu"3?of observed in Germany and France, and till quite lately in drenching England and Scotland), is in some places practised with the *th™Tter avowed intent to procure rain for the next year's crops, a' harvest Thus in Wallachia and amongst the Roumanians of Tran- ""^ ^°™"8- sylvania, when a girl is bringing home a crown made of the last ears of corn cut at harvest, all who meet her hasten to throw water on her, and two farm-servants are placed at the door for the purpose ; for they believe that if this were not done, the crops next year would perish fi'om drought.* So ' In hot southern countries lilce waggon-load of corn returning from the Egypt and the Semitic regions of harvest-field has been practised within Western Asia, where vegetation de- living memory in Wigtownshire, and at pends chiefly or entirely upon irriga- Orwell in Cambridgeshire. See Folk- tion, the purpose of the charm is lore Journal, vii. (1889) pp. 50, 51. doubtless to secure a plentiful flow (In the first of these passages the Orwell of water in the streams. But as the at which the custom used to be observed ultimate object and the charms for is said to be in Kent ; this was a mistake securing it are the same in both cases, of mine, which my informant, the Rev. I have not thought it necessary always E. B. Birks, formerly Fellow of to point out the distinction. Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards 2 The Golden Bough,''' ii. 78 sqq. corrected.) Mr. R. F. Davis writes 5 Ibid. i. 94 sqq. to me (March 4, 1906) from Camp- ' W. Mannhardt, Bmwiiultus, p. bell College, Belfast : " Between 30 214 J W. Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine and 40 years ago I was staying, as a Tage in Meinung und Branch der very small boy, at a Nottinghamshire Romdnen SiebenbUrgens , pp. 1 8 sq. The farmhouse at harvest - time, and was custom of throwing water on the last allowed — as a great privilege — to ride 196 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i Use of amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, the person who wears water as a ^j^g wreath made of the last corn cut is drenched with water rain-charm at harvest to the skin ; for the wetter he is, the better will be next sowine year's harvest, and the more grain there will be threshed out. Sometimes the wearer of the wreath is the reaper who cut the last corn.^ In Northern Euboea, when the corn-sheaves have been piled in a stack, the farmer's wife brings a pitcher of water and offers it to each of the labourers that he may wash his hands. Every man, after he has washed his hands, sprinkles water on the corn and on the threshing-floor, expressing at the same time a wish that the corn may last long. Lastly, the farmer's wife holds the pitcher slantingly and runs at full speed round the stack without spilling a drop, while she utters a wish that the stack may endure as long as the circle she has just described.^ At the spring ploughing in Prussia, when the ploughmen and sowers returned in the evening from their work in the fields, the farmer's wife and the servants used to splash water over them. The ploughmen and sowers retorted by seizing every one, throwing them into the pond, and ducking them under the water. The farmer's wife might claim exemption on payment of a forfeit, but every one else had to be ducked. By observing this custom they hoped to ensure a due supply of rain for the seed.^ Also after harvest in Prussia, the person who wore a wreath made of the last corn cut was drenched with water, while a prayer was uttered that " as the corn had sprung up and multiplied through the water, so it might spring up and multiply in the barn and granary." * At Schlanow, in Brandenburg, when the sowers return home from the first sowing they are drenched with water " in order that the corn may grow." ^ In home on the top of the last load. All Branch der Siebenbiirger SachsenCR&m- the harvesters followed the waggon, burg, 1888), p. 32. and on reaching the farmyard we found 2 q. Drosinis, Land nnd Leute in the maids of the farm gathered near Nord-Euboa (Leipsic, 1884), p. 53. the gate, with bowls and buckets of , ,^ ,,,.. ' . J,,. . „ water, which they proceeded to throw . ^atthaus Praetorius, Deltnae Prus- on the men, who got thoroughly ""^' P" 55 5 W. Mannhardt, Baum- drenched." kultus, ^^. 2i\ sq., noie.. ' G. A. Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten * M- Praetorius, op. cii. p. 60 ; W. und Gebrduche unter den Sachsen Mannhardt, ^nj^OT/^K/tej-, p. 215, note. Siebenbiirgens (^e:im3.-asi2i&\., 1880), p. « H. Prahn, " Glaube und Brauch 24 ; H. von Wlislocki, Sitten mid in der Mark Brandenburg," Zeitschrift CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 197 Anhalt on the same occasion the farmer is still often sprinkled with water by his family ; and his men and horses, and even the plough, receive the same treatment. The object of the custom, as people at Arensdorf explained it, is " to wish fertility to the fields for the whole year." ^ So in Hesse, when the ploughmen return with the plough from the field for the first time, the women and girls lie in wait for them and slyly drench them with water.^ Near Naaburg, in Bavaria, the man who first comes back from sowing or ploughing has a vessel of water thrown over him by some one in hiding.' At Hettingen in Baden the farmer who is about to begin the sowing of oats is sprinkled with water, in order that the oats may not shrivel up.* Before the Tusayan Indians of North America go out to plant their fields, the women sometimes pour water on them ; the reason for doing so is that " as the water is poured on the men, so may water fall on the planted fields." ^ The Indians of Santiago Tepehuacan steep the seed of the maize in water before they sow it, in order that the god of the waters may bestow on the fields the needed moisture.'" The opinion that the gardens of Adonis are essentially Gardens of charms to promote the growth of vegetation, especially oi^^^ ^^^ the crops, and that they belong to the same class of customs Oraonsand as those spring and midsummer folk-customs of modern gj^gg^^^ ° Europe which I have described elsewhere,^ does not rest for its evidence merely on the intrinsic probability of the case. Fortunately we are able to show that gardens of Adonis (if we may use the expression in a general sense) are still planted, first, by a primitive race at their sowing season, and, second, by European peasants at midsummer. Amongst the Oraons and Mundas of Bengal, when the time comes for planting out the rice which has been grown in seed-beds, a des Vereins fiir Volhskunde, i. (1891) ^ J. Walter Fewkes, " The Tusayan p. 186. New Fire Ceremony," Proceedings of ^ O. Hartung, " Zur Volkskunde the Boston Society of Natural History, aus Anhalt," Zeitschrift des Vereins xxvi. (1895) p. 446. fiir Volkskunde, ^^. (i%9l) V- l^o-, ° '■ Lettve du cure de Santiago 2 W. Kolbe, Hesstsche Volks-Sttten Xepehuacan k son ev^que," Btdletin und Gebratcche, \i. jl. de la SociM de Giographie (Paris), 3 Bavm-ia Landes. und Volkskunde d^^,^;^^, gerie, ii. (1834) pp. 181 sq. des Komgi-eichs Bayern, 11. 297. 4 E. H. Meyer, Badisches Volks- '' The Golden Bough,^ i. 190, 193 leben (Strasburg, 1900), p. 420. sqq. 198 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i Gardens of party of young people of both sexes go to the forest and cut Adonis ^ young Karma-tree, or the branch of one. Bearing it in among the J b ' o Oraons and triumph tliey retum dancing, singing, and beating drums, Benglr °^ ^"^ P^^"*^ i*^ '" *'^^ middle of the village dancing-ground. A sacrifice is offered to the tree ; and next morning the youth of both sexes, linked arm-in-arm, dance in a great circle round the Karma - tree, which is decked with strips of coloured cloth and sham bracelets and necklets of plaited straw. As a preparation for the festival, the daughters of the headman of the village cultivate blades of barley in a peculiar way. The seed is sown in moist, sandy soil, mixed with turmeric, and the blades sprout and unfold of a pale yellow or primrose colour. On the day of the festival the girls take up these blades and carry them in baskets to the dancing-ground, where, prostrating themselves reverentially, they place some of the plants before the Karma - tree. Finally, the Karma-tree is taken away and thrown into a stream or tank.^ The meaning of planting these barley blades and then presenting them to the Karma - tree is hardly open to question. Trees are supposed to exercise a quickening influence upon the growth of crops, and amongst the very people in question — the Mundas or Mundaris — " the grove deities are held responsible for the crops." ^ Therefore, when at the season for planting out the rice the Mundas bring in a tree and treat it with so much respect, their object can only be to foster thereby the growth of the rice which is about to be planted out ; and the custom of causing barley blades to sprout rapidly and then present- ing them to the tree must be intended to subserve the same purpose, perhaps by reminding the tree -spirit of his duty towards the crops, and stimulating his activity by this visible example of rapid vegetable growth. The throwing of the Karma-tree into the water is to be interpreted as a rain-charm. Whether the barley blades are also thrown into the water is not said ; but if my interpretation of the custom is right, probably they are so. A distinction between this Bengal custom and the Greek rites of Adonis is that in the former the tree-spirit appears in his original form as a tree; 1 E. T. Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 259. [. ^ The Golden Bought'' i. 189 sqq. CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS i99 whereas in the Adonis worship he appears in human form, represented as a dead man, though his vegetable nature is indicated by the gardens of Adonis, which are, so to say, a secondary manifestation of his original power as a tree-spirit. Gardens of Adonis are cultivated also by the Hindoos, Gardens of with the intention apparently of ensuring the fertility both Rai°putana of the earth and of mankind. Thus at Oodeypoor in Rajputana a festival is held " in honour of Gouri, or Isani, the goddess of abundance, the Isis of Egypt, the Ceres of Greece. Like the Rajpoot Saturnalia, which it follows, it belongs to the vernal equinox, when nature in these regions proximate to the tropic is in the full expanse of her charms, and the matronly Gouri casts her golden mantle over the verdant Vassanti, personification of spring. Then the fruits exhibit their promise to the eye ; the kohil fills the ear with melody ; the air is impregnated with aroma, and the crimson poppy contrasts with the spikes of golden grain to form a wreath for the beneficent Gouri. Gouri is one of the names of Isa or Parvati, wife of the greatest of the gods, Mahadeva or Iswara, who is conjoined with her in these rites, which almost exclusively appertain to the women. The meaning oi gouri is 'yellow,' emblematic of the ripened harvest, when the votaries of the goddess adore her effigies, which are those of a matron painted the colour of ripe corn." The rites begin when the sun enters the sign of the Ram, the opening of the Hindoo year. An image of the goddess Gouri is made of earth, and a smaller one of her husband Iswara, and the two are placed together. A small trench is next dug, barley is sown in it, and the ground watered and heated artificially till the grain sprouts, when the women dance round it hand in hand, invoking the blessing of Gouri on their husbands. After 'that the young corn is taken up and distributed by the women to the men, who wear it in their turbans. Every wealthy family, or at least every sub- division of the city, has its own image. These and other rites, known only to the initiated, occupy several days, and are performed within doors. Then the images of the goddess and her husband are decorated and borne in pro- cession to a beautiful lake, whose deep blue waters mirror the cloudless Indian sky, marble palaces, and orange groves. 200 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i Here the women, their hair decked with roses and jessamine, carry the image of Gouri down a marble staircase to the water's edge, and dance round it singing hymns and love- songs. Meantime the goddess is supposed to bathe in the water. No men take part in the ceremony ; even the image of Iswara, the husband-god, attracts little attention.^ In these rites the distribution of the barley shoots to the men, and the invocation of a blessing on their husbands by the wives, point clearly to the desire of offspring as one motive for observing the custom. The same motive prob- ably explains the use of gardens of Adonis at the marriage of Brahmans in the Madras Presidency. Seeds of five or nine sorts are mixed and sown in earthen pots, which are made specially for the purpose and are filled with earth. Bride and bridegroom water the seeds both morning and evening for four days ; and on the fifth day the seedlings are thrown, like the real gardens of Adonis, into a tank or river.^ Gardens of In the Himalayan districts of North-western India the ■i^ax\h- cultivators sow barley, maize, pulse, or mustard in a basket westernand of earth ou the twenty - fourth day of the fourth month Central India. {Asdrh), which falls about the middle of July. Then on the last day of the month they place amidst the new sprouts small clay images of Mahadeo and Parvati and worship them in remembrance of the marriage of those deities. Next day they cut down the green stalks and wear them in their head-dress.^ Similar is the barley feast known as Jayi or Jawira in Upper India and as Bhujariya in the Central Provinces. On the seventh day of the light half of the month S^wan grains of barley are sown in a pot of manure, and spring up so quickly that by the end of the month the vessel is full of long, yellowish-green stalks. On the first day of the next month, Bh^don, the women and girls take the stalks out, throw the earth and manure into water, and distribute the plants among their male friends, who bind them in their turbans and about their dress.* At ^ Lieut. -Col. James Tod, Annals 1906), p. 2. and Antiquities of Rajasehan,\. (Lon- 3 E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan don, 1829) pp. 570-572. Districts of the North- Western Provinces 2 Indian Antiquary, xxv. (1896) of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) p. 870. p. 144 ; E. Thurston, Ethnographic « W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Notes in Southern India (Madras, Folk-lore of Northern India (West- CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 201 Sargal in the Central Provinces of India this ceremony is observed about the middle of September. None but women may take part in it, though crowds of men come to look on. Some little time before the festival wheat or other grain has been sown in pots ingeniously constructed of large leaves, which are held together by the thorns of a species of acacia. Having grown up in the dark, the stalks are of a pale colour. On the day appointed these gardens of Adonis, as we may call them, are carried towards a lake which abuts on the native city. The women of every family or circle of friends bring their own pots, and having laid them on the ground they dance round them. Then taking the pots of sprouting corn they descend to the edge of the water, wash the soil away from the pots, and distribute the young plants among their friends.^ At the temple of the goddess Padma- vati, near Pandharpur in the Bombay Presidency, a Nine Nights' festival is held in the bright half of the month Ashvin (September— October). At this time a bamboo frame is hung in front of the image, and from it depend garlands of flowers and strings of wheaten cakes. Under the frame the floor in front of the pedestal is strewn with a layer of earth in which wheat is sown and allowed to sprout.^ A similar rite is observed in the same month before the images of two other goddesses, Ambabai and Lakhubai, who also have temples at Pandharpur.' In some parts of Bavaria it is customary to sow flax Gardens of' in a pot on the last three days of the Carnival ; from the gararia.'" seed which grows best an omen is drawn as to whether the early, the middle, or the late sowing will produce the best crop.* In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still planted minster, 1S06), ii. 293 sq. Compare " Secular and Religious Dances," j%tt- 'B.ahoolshMxee'Dass, Dotnestic Manners lore Journal, v. (1887) pp. 253 sq. and Customs of the Hindoos of Northern The writer thinks that the ceremony India (Benares, i860), pp. ill sq. " probably fixes the season for sowing According to the latter writer, the some particular crop." festival of Salono [not Salonan] takes 2 Gazetteerof the Bombay Presidency,- place in August, and the barley is xx. (Bombay, 1884) p. 454. This planted by women and girls in baskets passage was pointed out to me by my a few days before the festival, to be friend Mr. W. Crooke. thrown by them into a river or tank ^ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidenry, when the grain has sprouted to the xx. 443, 460. height of a few inches. * Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde > Mrs. J. C. Murray - Aynsley, des Kmigreichs Bayern, ii. 298. Sardinia. 202 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i Gardens of in connection with the great Midsummer festival which bears suTohn°s the name of St. John. At the end of March or on the first Day in of April a young man of the village presents himself to a girl and asks her to be his comare (gossip or sweetheart), offering to be her compare. The invitation is considered as an honour by the girl's family, and is gladly accepted. At the end of May the girl makes a pot of the bark of the cork-tree, fills it with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and barley in it. The pot being placed in the sun and often watered, the corn sprouts rapidly and has a good head by Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve, the twenty-third of June). The pot is then called Erme or Nenneri. On St. John's Day the young man and the girl, dressed in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and preceded by children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a church outside the village. Here they break the pot by throwing it against the door of the church. Then they sit down in a ring on the grass and eat eggs and herbs to the music of flutes. Wine is mixed in a cup and passed round, each one drinking as it passes. Then they join hands and sing " Sweethearts of St. John " {Compare e comare di San Giovanni) over and over again, the flutes playing the while. When they tire of singing they stand up and dance gaily in a ring till evening. This is the general Sardinian custom. As practised at Ozieri it has some special features. In May the pots are made of cork - bark and planted with corn, as already described. Then on the Eve of St. John the window-sills are draped with rich cloths, on which the pots are placed, adorned with crimson and blue silk and ribbons of various colours. On each of the pots they used formerly to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman, or a Priapus-like figure made of paste ; but this custom, rigorously forbidden by the Church, has fallen into disuse. The village swains go about in a troop to look at the pots and their decorations and to wait for the girls, who assemble on the public square to celebrate the festival. Here a great bonfire is kindled, round which they dance and make merry. Those who wish to be " Sweethearts of St. John " act as follows. The young man stands on one side of the bonfire and the girl on the other, and they, in a manner, join hands by each grasping CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 203 one end of a long stick, which they pass three times back- wards and forwards across the fire, thus thrusting their hands thrice rapidly into the flames. This seals their relationship to each other. Dancing and music go on till late at night.^ The correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of Adonis seems complete, and the images formerly placed in them answer to the images of Adonis which accompanied his gardens. Customs of the same sort are observed at the same Gardens of season in Sicily. Pairs of boys and girls become gossips of gj'^°"'j^jj°" St. John on St. John's Day by drawing each a hair from his Day in or her head and performing various ceremonies over them. '"^' Thus they tie the hairs together and throw them up in the air, or exchange them over a potsherd, which they afterwards break in two, preserving each a fragment with pious care. The tie formed in the latter way is supposed to last for life. In some parts of Sicily the gossips of St. John present each other with plates of sprouting corn, lentils, and canary seed, which have been planted forty days before the festival. The one who receives the plate pulls a stalk of the young plants, binds it with a ribbon, and preserves it among his or her greatest treasures, restoring the platter to the giver. At Catania the gossips exchange pots of basil and great cucumbers ; the girls tend the basil, and the thicker it grows the more it is prized.^ In these midsummer customs of Sardinia and Sicily it in these is possible that, as Mr. R. Wunsch supposes,^ St. John j^nds"Ji^"n has replaced Adonis. We have seen that the rites of ceremonies Tammuz or Adonis were commonly celebrated about mid- ^.^y have summer ; according to Jerome, their date was June.* And t^k™ the ' & .< ' ' place of .Adonis. 1 Antonio Bresciani, Dei costumi e Pregiudizi del popolo siciliano, ii. deW isola di Sardegna comparati cogli 271-278. Compare id., Speitacoli e antichissiini popoli orientali (Rome feste popolari siciliane, pp. 297 sq. and Turin, 1866), pp. 427 sq. ; R. In the Abruzzi also young men and Tennant, Sardinia and its Resources young women become gossips by ex- (Romeand London, 1885), p. 1S7 ; S. changing nosegays on St. John's Day, Gabriele, " Usi dei contadini della • and the tie thus formed is regarded as Sardegna," Archivio per lo studio delle sacred. See G. Finamore, Credettze, tradizioni popolari, vir. (1888) pp. 469 Usi e Costumi Abrtizzesi, pp. 165 sq. sq. Tennant says that the pots are ^ R. Wunsch, Das Fruhlingsfesf kept in a dark warm place, and that der Insel Malta, pp. 47-57- the children leap across the fire. * See above, pp. 7, 1S3, 185, 190, - G. Pitr^, Usi e Costumi, Credejize note 2. 204 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i besides their date and their similarity in respect of the pots of herbs and corn, there is another point of affinity between the two festivals, the heathen and the Christian. In both of them water plays a prominent part. At his midsummer festival in Babylon the image of Tammuz, whose name is said to mean "true son of the deep water," was bathed with pure water : at his summer festival in Alexandria the image of Adonis, with that of his divine mistress Aphrodite, was committed to the waves ; and at the midsummer celebration in Greece the gardens of Adonis were thrown into the sea Custom of or into springs. Now a great feature of the midsummer water"or'" festival associated with the name of St. John is, or used to washing in be, the custom of bathing in the sea, springs, rivers, or the the Eve or dew on Midsummer Eve or the morning of Midsummer Day. Day of St. xhus, for example, at Naples there is a church dedicated to "summer St. John the Baptist under the name of St. John of the Sea EveorMid-/^ Qiq-jju^i ^ mare) \ and it was an old practice for men summer ^ ' ' ^ Day), and women to bathe in the sea on St. John's Eve, that is, on Midsummer Eve, believing that thus all their sins were washed away.'' In the Abruzzi water is still supposed to acquire certain marvellous and beneficent properties on St. John's Night. They say that on that night the sun and inoon bathe in the water. Hence many people take a bath in the sea or in a river at that season, especially at the moment of sunrise. At Castiglione a Casauria they go before sunrise to the Pescara River or to springs, wash their faces and hands, then gird themselves with twigs of bryony ivitalbd) and twine the plant round their brows, in order that they may be free from pains. At Pescina boys and girls wash each other's faces in a river or a spring, then exchange kisses, and become gossips. The dew, also, that falls on St. John's Night is supposed in the Abruzzi to benefit whatever it touches, whether it be water, ilowers, or the human body. For that reason people put out vessels of water on the window-sills or the terraces, and wash them- selves with the water in the morning in order to purify themselves and escape headaches and coldg. A still more efficacious mode of accomplishing the same end is to rise at the peep of dawn, to wet the hands in the dewy grass, and ' J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,* i. 490. CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 205 then to rub the moisture on the eyelids, the brow, and the temples, because the dew is believed to cure maladies of the head and eyes. It is also a remedy for diseases of the skin. Persons who are thus afflicted should roll on the dewy grass. When patients are prevented by their infirmity or any other cause from quitting the house, their friends will gather the dew in sheets or tablecloths and so apply it to the suffering part.^ At Marsala in Sicily there is a spring of water in a subterranean grotto called the Grotto of the Sibyl. Beside it stands a church of St. John, which has been supposed to occupy the site of a temple of Apollo. On St. John's Eve, the twenty-third of June, women and girls visit the grotto, and by drinking of the prophetic water learn whether their husbands have been faithful to them in the year that is past, or whether they themselves will wed in the year that is to come. Sick people, too, imagine that by bathing in the water, drinking of it, or ducking thrice in it in the name of the Trinity, they will be made whole.^ At Chiaramonte in Sicily the following custom is observed on St. John's Eve. The men repair to one fountain and the women to another, and dip their heads thrice in the water, repeating at each ablution certain verses in honour of St. John. They believe that this is a cure or preventive of the scald.^ When Petrarch visited Cologne, he chanced to arrive in the town on St. John's Eve. The sun was nearly setting, and his host at once led him to the Rhine. A strange sight there met his eyes, for the banks of the river were covered with pretty women. The crowd was great but good-humoured. From a rising ground on which he stood the poet saw many of the women, girt with fragrant herbs, kneel down on the water's edge, roll their sleeves up above their elbows, and wash their white arms and hands 1 G. Finamore, Credenze, Usi e " dew of lights," which some modern Costumi Abruzzesi, pp. 156-160. A commentators (Dillmann, Skinner, passage in Isaiah (xxvi. 19) seems to Whitehouse), following Jerome, have imply that dew possessed the magical adopted. virtue of restoring the dead to life. 2 ^ p;j^>_ Feste patronali in Sicilia In this passage of Isaiah the cus oms ^.p^^;^ ^^^ Palermo, 1900), pp. 488, which I have cited in the text perhaps 4Q1..Q3. . 7 /> i-i- t . favour the ordinary interpretation of ni'lN ^"0 as " dew of herbs " (compare 2 3 q_ Pitr^, Spettacoli e fesie popolari Kings iv. 39) against the interpretation siciliane, p. 307. 2o6 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i in the river, murmuring softly some words which the Italian did not understand. ,^,He was told that the custom was a very old one, much honoured in the observance ; for the common folk, especially the women, believed that to wash in the river on St. John's Eve would avert every misfortune in the coming year.-* On St. John's Eve the people of Copenhagen used to go on pilgrimage to a neighbouring spring, there to heal and strengthen themselves in the water.^ In Spain people still bathe in the sea or roll naked in the dew of the meadows on St. John's Eve, believing that this is a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin.^ To roll in the dew on the morning of St. John's Day is also esteemed a cure for diseases of the skin in Normandy and Perigord. In Perigord a field of hemp is especially recom- mended for the purpose, and the patient should rub himself with the plants on which he has rolled.* At Ciotat in Provence, while the midsummer bonfire blazed, young people used to plunge into the sea and splash each other vigorously. At VitroUes they bathed in a pond in order that they might not suffer from fever during the year, and at Saint-Maries they watered the horses to protect them from the itch.° A custom of drenching people on this occasion with water formerly prevailed in Toulon, Marseilles, and other towns of the south of France. The water was squirted from syringes, poured on the heads of passers-by from windows, and so forth.'^ From Europe the practice of bathing in rivers and springs on St. John's Day appears to have passed with the Spaniards to the New World. '^ The It may perhaps be suggested that this wide -spread custom of custom of bathing in water or dew on Midsummer Eve or bathing ° !it mid- Midsummer Day is purely Christian in origin, having been pagan^'^not adopted as an appropriate mode of celebrating the day Christian, i 'Pf^^i^xcti, Epistolae de rebus famili- France, ^i- l$o. initsorigin. ^,.,-3„^_ j^ ^ (y^i^ ;_ pp_ 44.46 ed. J. 6 A. de Nore, oji. cit. p. 20; Fracassetti). The passage is quoted Berenger-Feraud, Rejniniscences poptt- by J. Gnmm, DetUsche My/hologie,^ laires de la Provence, -^^. 1 35-141. i. 489 sg. " Breuil, in Mimoires de la SocUti 2 J. Grimm, op. cit. i. 489. des A7itiqiiaires de Picardie, viii. (1845) ^ Letter of Dr. Otero Acevado, of pp. 237 sq. Madrid, Le Temps, September 1898. ^ Diego Duran, Historia de las * J. Lecoeur, Esquisses du Socage Indias de Nueva Espana, edited by J\^ormaiid,ii. 8 ; A.deNoTe, Coii/ntnes, ]. F. Ramirez (Mexico, 1S67-18S0), Mythes et Traditions des provinces de ii. 293. CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 207 dedicated to the Baptist. But in point of fact the custom is older than Christianity, for it was denounced and forbidden as a heathen practice by Augustine.^ We may conjecture that the Church, unable to put down this relic of paganism, followed its usual policy of accommodation by bestowing on the rite a Christian name and acquiescing, with a sigh, in its observance. And casting about for a saint to supplant a heathen patron of bathing, the Christian doctors could hardly have hit upon a more appropriate successor than St. John the Baptist. But into whose shoes did the Baptist step ? Was the oid displaced deity really Adonis, as the foregoing evidence j-Jj^J^™ seems to suggest? In Sardinia and Sicily it may have of mid- been so, for in these islands Semitic influence was certainly Europe deep and probably lasting. The midsummer pastimes of and the Sardinian and Sicilian children may thei'efore be a direct continuation of the Carthaginian rites of Tammuz. Yet the midsummer festival seems too widely spread and too deeply rooted in Central and Northern Europe to allow us to trace it everywhere to an Oriental origin in general and to the cult of Adonis in particular. It has the air of a native of the soil rather than of an exotic imported from the East. We shall do better, therefore, to suppose that at a remote period similar modes of thought, based on similar needs, led men independently in many distant lands, from the North Sea to the Euphrates, to celebrate the summer solstice with rites which, while they differed in some things, yet agreed closely in others ; that in historical times a wave of Oriental influence, starting perhaps from Babylonia, carried the Tammuz or Adonis form of the festival westward till it met with native forms of a similar festival ; and that under pressure of the Roman civilisation these different yet kindred festivals fused with each other and crystallised into a variety of shapes, which subsisted more or less separately side by side, till the Church, unable to suppress them altogether, stripped them so far as it could of their grosser features, and dexterously changing the names allowed them to pass 1 Augvistine, Opera, v. (Paris, 1683) occurs in a. sermon of doubtful authen- col. 903; id., Pars Secunda, coll. 461 ticity. Both have been quoted by J. sq. The second of these passages Grimm, Deutsche Myihologie,* i. 490. 2o8 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i muster as Christian. And what has just been said of the midsummer festivals probably applies, mutatis mutandis, to the spring festivals also. They, too, seem to have originated independently in Europe and the East, and after ages of separation to have amalgamated under the sway of the Roman Empire and the Christian Church. In Syria, as we have seen, there appears to have been a vernal celebration of Adonis ; and we shall presently meet with an un- doubted instance of an Oriental festival of spring in the rites of Attis. Meantime we must return for a little to the midsummer festival which goes by the name of St. John. Mid- The Sardinian practice of making merry round a great summer bonfire on St. John's Eve is an instance of a custom which fires and ■' mid- has been practised at the midsummer festival from time coupieTin imrnemorial in many parts of Europe. That custom has relation to been more fully dealt with by me elsewhere.^ The instances vegetation, ^j^j^,}^ j ^^ve there cited suffice to prove the connection of the midsummer bonfire with vegetation. For example, both in Sweden and Bohemia an essential part of the festival is the raising of a May-pole or Midsummer-tree, which in Bohemia is burned in the bonfire.^ Again, in a Russian midsummer ceremony a straw figure of Kupalo, the representative of vegetation, is placed beside a May-pole or Midsummer-tree and then carried to and fro across a bonfire.^ Kupalo is here represented in duplicate, in tree-form by the Midsummer-tree, and in human form by the straw effigy, just as Adonis was represented both by an image and a garden of Adonis ; and the duplicate representatives of Kupalo, like those of Adonis, are finally cast into water. In the Sardinian and Sicilian customs the Gossips or Sweethearts of St. John probably answer, on the one hand to Adonis and Astarte, on the other to the King and Queen of May. In the Swedish province of Blekinge part of the midsummer festival is the election of a Midsummer Bride, who chooses her bridegroom ; a collection is made for the pair, who for the time being are looked upon as man and wife.* Such Midsummer pairs may be supposed, like the May pairs, to stand for the powers of 1 The Golden Bough,"^ iii. 266 sgq. * L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden, 2 Ibid, i. 202 sq. p. 257. 2 Ibid. ii. 105. CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 209 vegetation or of fertility in general : they represent in flesh and blood what the images of Siva or Mahaded and P^rvati in the Indian ceremonies, and the images of Adonis and Aphrodite in the Alexandrian ceremony, set forth in effigy. The reason why ceremonies whose aim is to foster the Gardens growth of vegetation should thus be associated with bonfires ; °[tfjjd°ed to why in particular the representative of vegetation should be foster the burned in the likeness of a tree, or passed across the fire in ^gget'^lion &^^Y or in the form of a living couple, must be reserved and for discussion in another work.^ Here it is enough to omT"^ have proved the fact of such association, and therefore c™ps. to have obviated the objection which might have been raised to my theory of the Sardinian custom, on the ground that the bonfires have nothing to do with vegeta- tion. One more piece of evidence may here be given to prove the contrary. In some parts of Germany young men and girls leap over midsummer bonfires for the ex- press purpose of making the hemp or flax grow tall.^ We may, therefore, assume that in the Sardinian custom the blades of wheat and barley which are forced on in pots for the midsummer festival, and which correspond so closely to the gardens of Adonis, form one of those widely-spread midsummer ceremonies, the original object of which was to promote the growth of vegetation, and especially of the crops. But as, by an easy extension of ideas, the spirit of vegetation was believed to exercise a beneficent and fertilis- ing influence on human as well as animal life, the gardens of Adonis would be supposed, like the May-trees or May-boughs, 1 In the meanwhile I may refer to in agreement with him that I believe The Golden Boagh,^ iii. 300 sgq., and I overestimated the strength of the the criticisms of Dr. E. Westermarclc, evidence for the solar virtue of the T/ie Origin and Development of Moral fires, and underestimated the strength Ideas, i. (London, igo6) p. 56, note 3. of the evidence for their purificatory In the passage referred to I followed virtue. Meantime I suspend my W. Mannhardt in interpreting these judgment on the question until I have bonfires as mainly sun-charms, but I carefully reconsidered the evidence, recognised their supposed purgative as I shall do in the third edition of The virtue also, pointing out that "to the Golden Bough. primitive mind fire is the most power- ful of all purificatory agents" (p. 312). 2 -vv. Mannhardt, Baumkulttis, p. Dr. Westermarck would explain the 464 ; K. von Leoprechting, Atts dent fires as purificatory only. I am so far Lechrain, p. 183. P 2IO THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i to bring good luck, and more particularly perhaps offspring,^ to the family or to the person who planted them ; and even after the idea had been abandoned that they operated actively to confer prosperity, they might still be used to Modes of furnish omens of good or evil. It is thus that magic ar^d'-°° dwindles into divination. Accordingly we find modes of summer divination practised at midsummer which resemble more or gard'ens of '^^^ closely the gardens of Adonis. Thus an anonymous Adonis. Italian writer of the sixteenth century has recorded that it was customary to sow barley and wheat a few days before the festival of St. John (Midsummer Day) and also before that of St. Vitus ; and it was believed that the person for whom they were sown would be fortunate, and get a good husband or a good wife, if the grain sprouted well ; but if it sprouted ill, he or she would be unlucky.^ In various parts of Italy and all over Sicily it is still customary to put plants in water or in earth on the Eve of St. John, and from the manner in which they are found to be blooming or fading on St. John's Day omens are drawn, especially as to fortune in love. Amongst the plants used for this purpose are Ciuri di S. Giuvanni (St. John's wort ?) and nettles.^ In Prussia two hundred years ago the farmers used to send out their servants, especially their maids, to gather St. John's wort on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day (St. John's Day). When they had fetched it, the farmer took as many plants as there were persons and stuck them in the wall or between the beams ; and it was thought that he or she whose plant did not bloom would soon fall sick or die. The rest of the plants were tied in a bundle, fastened to the end of a pole, and set up at the gate or wherever the corn would be brought in at the next harvest. The bundle was called Kupole : the ceremony was known as Kupole's festival ; and at it the farmer prayed for a good crop of hay, and ' The use of gardens of Adonis to pp. 39 sg. Compare Archivio per h fertilise the human sexes appears plainly s/udio delle tradizioiii popolari, i. 135. in the corresponding Indian practices. At Smyrna a blossom of the J^mis See above, pp. 199-201. castus is used on St. John's Day for a 2 G. Pitrfe, Spettacoli e feste popolari similar purpose, but the mode in which siciliane, pp. 296 sq. the omens are drawn is somewhat ^ G. Pitr^, op. cii. pp. 302 sq. ; different [Archivio per lo studio delle Antonio de Nino, Usi Abriizzesi, i. 55 tradizioni popolari, vii. (1888) pp. sq. ; A. de Gubernatis, Usi Nuziali, 128 sq.). CHAP. X . THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 211 so forth.^ This Prussian custom is particularly notable, inasmuch as it strongly confirms the opinion that Kupalo (doubtless identical with Kupole) was originally a deity of vegetation.^ For here Kupalo is represented by a bundle of plants specially associated with midsummer in folk-custom ; and her influence over vegetation is plainly signified by placing her vegetable emblem over the place where the -harvest is brought in, as well as by the prayers for a good crop which are uttered on the occasion. This furnishes a fresh argument in support of the view that the Death, whose analogy to Kupalo, Yarilo, and the rest I have shown elsewhere, originally personified vegetation, more especially the dying or dead vegetation of winter.' Further, my interpretation of the gardens of Adonis is confirmed by finding that in this Prussian custom the very same kind of plants is used to form the gardens of Adonis (as we may call them) and the image of the deity. Nothing could set in a stronger light the truth of the theory that the gardens of Adonis are merely another manifestation of the god himself In Sicily gardens of Adonis are still sown in spring Sicilian as well as in summer, from which we may perhaps infer idonh^n that Sicily as well as Syria celebrated of old a vernal festival spring. of the dead and risen god. At the approach of Easter, Sicilian women sow wheat, lentils, and canary-seed in plates, which they keep in the dark and water every two days. The plants soon shoot up ; the stalks are tied together with red ribbons, and the plates containing them .are placed on the sepulchres which, with the effigies of the dead Christ, are made up in Catholic and Greek churches on Good Friday,* just as the gardens of Adonis were placed on the grave of the dead Adonis.^ The practice is not confined to Sicily, for it is observed also at Cosenza in Calabria,^ and perhaps in other places. The whole custom — sepulchres as well as plates of sprouting grain — may be nothing but a con- tinuation, under a different name, of the worship of Adonis. ' Matthaus Praetorius, Deliciae ^ Kijirous uiirlovv eiviTtujilovs 'AdiinSi, Prussicae (Berlin, 1871), p. 56. Eustathius on Homer, Od. xi. 590. 2 The Golden Bough,''' ii. 105 sqq. " Vincenso Dorsa, La tradizione 3 The Golden Botigh,^ I.e. Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle credenze * G. Pitre, Spettacoli e feste fopolari popolari della Calabria Citeriore (Co- siciliane, p. 211. senza, 1884), p. 50. 212 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS BOOK I Resem- blance of the Easter ceremonies in the Greek Church to the rites of Adonis. Resem- blance of the Easter ceremonies in the Catholic Church to the rites of Adonis. Nor are these Sicilian and Calabrian customs the only Easter ceremonies which resemble the rites of Adonis. " During the whole of Good Friday a waxen effigy of the dead Christ is exposed to view in the middle of the Greek churches and is covered with fervent kisses by the thronging crowd, while the whole church rings with melancholy, monotonous dirges. Late in the evening, when it has grown quite dark, this waxen image is carried by the priests into the street on a bier adorned with lemons, roses, and jessamine, and there begins a grand procession of the multitude, who move in serried ranks, with slow and solemn step, through the whole town. Every man carries his taper and breaks out into doleful lamentation. At all the houses which the procession passes there are seated women with censers to fumigate the marching host. Thus the community solemnly buries its Christ as if he had just died. At last the waxen image is again deposited in the church, and the same lugubrious chants echo anew. These lamentations, accompanied by a strict fast, continue till midnight on Saturday. As the clock strikes twelve, the bishop appears and announces the glad tidings that ' Christ is risen,' to which the crowd replies, ' He is risen indeed,' and at once the whole city bursts into an uproar of joy, which finds vent in shrieks and shouts, in the endless dis- charge of carronades and muskets, and the explosion of fire-works of every sort. In the very same hour people plunge from the extremity of the fast into the enjoyment of the Easter lamb and neat wine."^ In like manner the Catholic Church has been accustomed to bring before its followers in a visible form the death and resurrection of the Redeemer. Such sacred dramas are well fitted to impress the lively imagination and to stir the warm description seems to apply to Athens. In the country districts the ritual is apparently similar. See R. A. Arnold, From the Levant (London, 1868), pp. 251 sq., 259 sq. So in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem the death and burial of Christ are acted over a life-lilie effigy. See H. Maundrell, in Th. Wright's Early Travels in Palestine (London, 1848), pp. 443- 445- 1 C. Wachsmuth, Das alie Griechm- land im neiiem, pp. 26 sq. The writer compares these ceremonies with the Eleusinian rites. But I agree with Mr. R. Wunsch (Das Friihlingsfest der Insel Malta, pp. 49 sq.] that the re- semblance to the Adonis festival is still closer. Compare V. Dorsa, La tra- dizione Greco-Latina negli nsi c 7ielle credenze popolari delta Calabria Cite- riore, pp. 49 sq. Prof. Wachsmuth's CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 213 feelings of a susceptible southern race, to whom the pomp and pageantry of Catholicism are more congenial than to the colder temperament of the Teutonic peoples. The solemnities observed in Sicily on Good Friday, the official anniversary of the Crucifixion, are thus described by a native Sicilian writer. " A truly moving ceremony is the procession which always takes place in the evening in every commune of Sicily, and further the Deposition from the Cross. The brotherhoods took part in the procession, and the rear was brought up by a great many boys and girls representing saints, both male and female, and carrying the emblems of Christ's Passion. The Deposition from the Cross was managed by the priests. The coffin with the dead Christ in it was flanked by Jews armed with swords, an object of horror and aversion in the midst of the profound pity excited by the sight not only of Christ but of the Mater Dolorosa, who followed behind him. Now and then the ' mysteries ' or symbols of the Crucifixion went in front. Sometimes the procession followed the ' three hours of agony ' and the ' Deposition from the Cross.' The ' three hours ' commemorated those which Jesus Christ passed upon the Cross. Beginning at the eighteenth and ending at the twenty - first hour of Italian time two priests preached alternately on the Passion. Anciently the sermons were delivered in the open air on the place called the Calvary : at last, when the third hour was about to strike, at the words emisit spiritmn Christ died, bowing his head amid the sobs and tears of the bystanders. Immediately afterwards in some places, three hours afterwards in others, the sacred body was unnailed and deposited in the coffin. In Castro- nuovo, at the Ave Maria, two priests clad as Jews, repre- senting Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with their servants in costume, repaired to the Calvary, preceded by the Company of the Whites. There, with doleful verses and chants appropriate to the occasion, they performed the various operations of the Deposition, after which the pro- cession took its way to the larger church. ... In Salaparuta the Calvary is erected in the church. At the preaching of the death, the Crucified is made to bow his head by means of machinery, while guns are fired, trumpets sound, and 214 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS BOOK I The Christian festival of Easter perhaps grafted on a festival of Adonis. The worship of Adonis at Bethlehem. amid the silence of the people, impressed by the death of the Redeemer, the strains of a melancholy funeral march are heard. Christ is removed from the Cross and deposited in the coffin by three priests. After the procession of the dead Christ the burial is performed, that is, two priests lay Christ in a fictitious sepulchre, from which at the mass of Easter Saturday the image of the risen Christ issues and is elevated upon the altar by means of machinery." ^ Scenic representations of the same sort, with variations of detail, are exhibited at Easter in the Abruzzi,^ and probably in many other parts of the Catholic world.^ When we reflect how often the Church has skilfully con- trived to plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which, as we have seen reason to believe, was celebrated in Syria at the same season. The type, created by Greek artists, of the sorrowful goddess with her dying lover in her arms, resembles and may have been the model of the Pieta of Christian art, the Virgin with the dead body of her divine Son in her lap, of which the most celebrated example is the one by Michael Angelo in St. Peter's. That noble group, in which the living sorrow of the mother con- trasts so wonderfully with the languor of death in the son, is one of the finest compositions in marble. Ancient Greek art has bequeathed to us few works so beautiful, and none so pathetic* In this connection a well-known statement of Jerome may not be without significance. He tells us that Bethlehem, the traditionary birth - place of the Lord, was shaded by a grove of that still older Syrian Lord, Adonis, and that where the infant Jesus' had wept, the 1 G. Pitr^, Spettacoli e feste popo- lari siciliane, pp. 216-218. 2 G. Finamore, Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi, pp. 11 8- 120; A. de Nino, Usi Abruzzesi^ i. 64 sq.^ ii. 210-212. At Roccacaramanico part of the Easter spectacle is the death of Judas, who, personated by a living man, pretends to hang himself upon a tree or a great branch, which has been brought into the church and planted near the high altar for the purpose (A. de Nino, op. cit. ii. 211). ^ The drama of the death and resur- rection of Christ was formerly cele- brated at Easter in England. See Abbot Gasquet, Parish Life in Medi- atval England, pp. 177 sqq., 182 sq. * The comparison has already been made by A. Maury, who also com- pares the Easter ceremonies of the Catholic Church with the rites of Adonis {Histoire des Religions de la Grke Antique, iii. 221). CHAP. X THE GARDENS OF ADONIS 215 lover of Venus was bewailed.^ Though he does not expressly say so, Jerome seems to have thought that the grove of Adonis had been planted by the heathen after the birth of Christ for the purpose of defiling the sacred spot. In this he may have been mistaken. If Adonis was indeed, as I have argued, the spirit of the corn, a more suitable name for his dwelling-place could hardly be found than Bethlehem, " the House of Bread," ^ and he may well have been worshipped there at his House of Bread long ages before the birth of Him who said, " I am the bread of life." ^ Even on the hypothesis that Adonis followed rather than preceded Christ at Bethlehem, the choice of his sad figure to divert the allegiance of Christians from their Lord cannot but strike us as eminently appropriate when we remember the similarity of the rites which commemorated the death and resurrection of the two. One of the earliest seats of the worship of the new god was Antioch, and at Antioch, as we have seen,* the death of the old god was annually celebrated with great solemnity. A circumstance which The attended the entrance of Julian into the city at the time ofg(°™"'^ the Adonis festival may perhaps throw some light on the date identified of its celebration. When the emperor drew near to the city venus, he was received with public prayers as if he had been a god, may have 11,. .,- 1-11 'is^" 'he and he marvelled at the voices of a great multitude who signal for cried that the Star of Salvation had dawned upon them in the festival '^01 Adonis. the East. This may doubtless have been no more than a fulsome compliment paid by an obsequious Oriental crowd to the Roman emperor. But it is also possible that the rising of a bright star regularly gave the signal for the festival, and that as chance would have it the star ' Jerome, Epist. Iviii. 3 (Migne's i. 560). It was in the h.irvest-fields Patrologia Latina, x.iii. 5S1). of Bethlehem that Ruth, at least in the 2 Bethlehem is DnS-n'3, literally poet's fancy, listened to the nightingale "House of Bread." "The name is " amid the alien corn." appropriate, for " the immediate neigh- 3 John vi. 35. bourhoodis very fertile, bearing, besides ^ „ wheat and barley, groves of olive and ' ^' -"' almond, and vineyards. The vpine of ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 9. Bethlehem ('TalhamT') is among the 14, " Urbique propinquans in speciem best of Palestine. So great fertility alicujus numinis votis excipitur pub- must mean that the site was occupied, lids, miratus voces inultitudinis mag- in spite of the want of springs, from the nae, salutare sidas inluxisse eois parti- earliest times" (Encyclopaedia Biblica, bus adclamantis." 2i6 THE GARDENS OF ADONIS book i emerged above the rim of the eastern horizon at the very- moment of the emperor's approach. The coincidence, if it happened, could hardly fail to strike the imagination of a superstitious and excited multitude, who might thereupon hail the great man as the deity whose coming was announced by the sign in the heavens. Or the emperor may have mistaken for a greeting to himself the shouts which were addressed to the star. Now Astarte, the divine mistress of Adonis, was identified with the planet Venus, and her changes from a morning to an evening star were carefully noted by the Babylonian astronomers, who drew omens from her alternate appearance and disappearance.^ Hence we may conjecture that the festival of Adonis was regularly timed to coincide with the appearance of Venus as the Morning or Evening Star. But the star which the people of Antioch saluted at the festival was seen in the East ; therefore, if it was indeed Venus, it can only have been the Morning Star. At Aphaca in Syria, where there was a famous temple of Astarte, the signal for the celebra- tion of the rites was apparently given by the flashing of a meteor, which on a certain day fell like a star from the top of Mount Lebanon into the river Adonis. The meteor was thought to be Astarte herself,^ and its flight through the air might naturally be interpreted as the descent of the amorous goddess to the arms of her lover. At Antioch and elsewhere the appearance of the Morning Star on the day of the festival may in like manner have been hailed as the coming of the goddess of love to wake her dead leman from his earthy bed. The Star of If that were so, we may surmise that it was the Morning Bethlehem, g^^^. ^^j^j^j^ guided the wise men of the East to Bethlehem,^ the hallowed spot which heard, in the language of Jerome, the weeping of the infant Christ and the lament for Adonis. ' M. Jastrow, The Religion of firmed by Zosimus, who says [Hist. i. Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 370 sqq.; 58) that a Ught like a torch or a globe H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader's Die of fire was seen on the sanctuaiy at the Keilinschriftemind das Alte Testament,^ seasons when the people assembled to p. 424. worship the goddess and to cast their 2 Sozomenus, Historia Ecclesiastica, offerings of gold, silver, and fine ii. 5 (Migne's Patrologia Graeca, Ixvii. raiment into a lake beside the temple. 948). The connection of the meteor As to Aphaca and the grave of Adonis with the festival of Adonis is not see above, pp. 23 s sqq. Latinae Selectae, Nos. 411615'., 4171- * Bussel, in Sir G. Q>xtf% Journal 4174, 4176; H. Hepding, Attis, pp. of Two Expeditions of Discovery in 86, 92, 93, 96, \'^2sqq. North-West and Western Australia, ii. 1 Julian, I.e. and 169 c, p. 219 ed. 330; F. Bonney, "On Some Cus- F. C. Hertlein. The ceremony may toms of the Aborigines of the River have been combined vfith the old tubi- Darling, New South Via\ts," Journal lustrium or purification of trumpets, of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. vMsh fell on this day. See Joannes (1884) pp. 134 sq. ; A. W. Howitt, Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 42 ; Varro, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, De lingua Latina, vi. 14; Festus, pp. pp. 451, 465; Spencer and Gillen, 352, 353 ed. C. O. MUUer ; W. Warde Native Tribes of Central Australia, Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period pp. 507, 509 sq. The reason assigned of the Republic, p. 62. for the custom in the text is conjectural. 2 Trebellius PoUio, Claudius, 4; Compare my article "The Origin of TertuUian, Apologeticus, 25. Circumcision," The Independent Review, 3 Lucian, Deorum dialogi, xii. i ; November 1904, pp. 208 sqq. goddesses. 224 THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF A TTIS book ii the severed portions of themselves against the image of the cruel goddess. These broken instruments of fertility were afterwards reverently wrapt up and buried in the earth or in subterranean chambers sacred to Cybele/ where, like the offering of blood, they may have been deemed instrumental in recalling Attis to life and hastening the general resurrection of nature, which was then bursting into leaf and blossom in the vernal sunshine. Some confirmation of this conjecture is furnished by the savage story that the mother of Attis conceived by putting in her bosom a pomegranate sprung from the severed genitals of a man-monster named Agdestis, a sort of double of Attis.^ Eunuch If there is any truth in this conjectural explanation of thTservice ^^^ custom, we Can readily understand why other Asiatic of Asiatic goddesses of fertility were served in like manner by eunuch priests. These feminine deities required to receive from their male ministers, who personated the divine lovers, the means of discharging their beneficent functions : they had themselves to be impregnated by the life-giving energy before they could transmit it to the world. Goddesses thus ministered to by eunuch priests were the great Artemis of Ephesus ^ and the great Syrian Astarte of Hierapolis,* whose sanctuary, frequented by swarms of pilgrims and enriched by the offerings of Assyria and Babylonia, of Arabia and Phoenicia, was perhaps in the days of its glory the most popular in 1 Minucius Felix, Octavius, 22 and that the testicles of the bulls were used 24; Lactantius, Divin. Instit. i. 21. for a special purpose, probably as a 16; id., Epitoma, 8; Schol. on Lucian, fertility charm. May not the testicles Jupiter Tragoedus, 8 (p. 60 ed. of the rams have been employed for the H. Rabe) ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. same purpose ? and may not those of ix. 115; Prudentius, Peristephan. x. both animals have been substitutes for lo56 ■SJ'?. ; " Passio Sancti Sym- the corresponding organs in men ? As phoriani," chs. 2 and 6 (Migne's to the sacrifices of rams and bulls see Patrologia Graeca, v. 1463, 1466); G. Zippel, "Das Taurobolium," Pest- Arhobius, Adversiis Nationes, v. 14 ; schrift zum fiinfzigjdhrigen Doctor Scholiast on Nicander, Alexipharmaca, jubildtim L. Friedlaender (Leipsic, 8; H. Hepding, Attis, pp. 163 sq. 1895), pp. 498 sqq. ; H. Dessau A story told by Clement of Alexandria Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, Nos, (Protrept. ii. 15, p. 13 ed. Potter) sug- 41 18 sqq. and below, pp. 229 sq. gests that weaker brethren may have 2 Arnobius, Adverstis Nationes, v. been allowed to sacrifice the virility ot , a ram instead of their own. We know , V^ , • from inscriptions that rams and bulls Strabo, xiv. I. 23, p. 641. were regularly sacrificed at the mysteries * Lucian, De dea Syria, 15, 27, 50- of Attis and the Great Mother, and 53. CHAP. I THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF ATTIS 225 the East.^ Now the unsexed priests of this Syrian goddess resembled those of Cybele so closely that some people took them to be the same.^ And the mode in which they dedicated themselves to the religious life was similar. The greatest festival of the year at Hierapolis fell at the beginning of spring, when multitudes thronged to the sanctuary from Syria and the regions round about. While the flutes played, the drums beat, and the eunuch priests slashed themselves with knives, the religious excitement gradually spread like a wave among the crowd of onlookers, and many a one did that which he little thought to do when he came as a holiday spectator to the festival. For man after man, his veins throbbing with the music, his eyes fascinated by the sight of the streaming blood, flung his garments from him, leaped forth with a shout, and seizing one of the swords which stood ready for the purpose, castrated himself on the spot. Then he ran through the city, holding the bloody pieces in his hand, till he threw them into one of the houses which he passed in his mad career. The household thus honoured had to furnish him with a suit of female attire and female ornaments, which he wore for the rest of his life.^ When the tumult of emotion had subsided, and the man had come to himself again, the irrevocable sacrifice must often have been followed by passionate sorrow and lifelong regret. This revulsion of natural human feeling after the frenzies of a fanatical religion is powerfully depicted by Catullus in a celebrated poem.* ' Lucian, De dea Syria, 10. nection with the worship of Zeus 2 Lucian, op. cit. 15. and Hecate {Corpus Inscriptionum 3 Lucian, op. cit. 49-51. Graecartim, No. 2715). Amongst * Catullus, Carm. Ixiii. I agree the Ba-sundi and Ba-bwende of the with Mr. H. Hepding (Attis, p. 140) Congo many youths are castrated in thinking that the subject of the " in order to more fittingly offer them- poem is not the mythical Attis, but selves to the phallic worship, which one of his ordinary priests, who bore increasingly prevails as we advance the name and imitated the sufferings of from the coast to the interior. At his god. Thus interpreted the poem certain villages between Manyanga and gains greatly in force and pathos. The Isangila there are curious eunuch dances real sorrows of our fellow-men touch to celebrate the new moon, in which us more nearly than the imaginary a white cock is thrown up into the pangs of the gods. air alive, with clipped wings, and as it As the institution of eunuch priests falls towards the ground it is caught appears to be rare, I will add a few ex- and plucked by the eunuchs. I was amples. At Stratonicea in Caria a told that originally this used to be a eunuch held a sacred office in con- human sacrifice, and that a young boy Q 226 THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF A TTIS book n The mourning for Attis. The parallel of these Syrian devotees confirms the view that in the similar worship of Cybele the sacrifice of virility took place on the Day of Blood at the vernal rites of the goddess, when the violets, supposed to spring from the red drops of her wounded lover, were in bloom among the pines. Indeed the story that Attis unmanned himself under a pine- tree^ was clearly devised to explain why his priests did the same beside the sacred violet- wreathed tree at his festival. At all events, we can hardly doubt that the Day of Blood witnessed the mourning for Attis over an effigy of him which was afterwards buried.^ The image thus laid in the sepulchre was probably the same which had hung upon the tree.^ Throughout the period of mourning the worshippers fasted from bread, nominally because Cybele had done so in her grief for the death of Attis,* but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz.^ To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised or girl was thrown up into the air and torn to pieces by the eunuchs as he or she fell, but that of late years slaves had got scarce or manners milder, and a white cock was now substituted " (H. H. Johnston, " On the Races of the Congo," Journal of the Anthropo- logical Institute, xiii. (1884) p. 473 ; compare id. , The River Congo ( London, 1884), p. 409). In India, men who are born eunuchs or in* some way deformed are sometimes dedicated to a goddess named Huligamma. They wear female attire and might be mis- taken for women. Also men who are or believe themselves impotent will vow to dress as women and serve the goddess in the hope of recovering their virility. See F. Fawcett, "On 'Basivis," Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, ii. 343 sq. In Pegu the English traveller, Alexander Hamilton, witnessed a dance in honour of the gods of the earth. " Herma- phrodites, who are numerous in this country, are generally chosen, if there are enough present to make a set for the dance. I saw nine dance like mad folks for above half - an - hour ; and then some of them fell in fits, foaming at the mouth for the space of half-an- hour ; and, when their senses are re- stored, they pretend to foretell plenty or scarcity of corn for that year, if the year will prove sickly or salutary to the people, and several other things of moment" (A. Hamilton, "A New Account of the East Indies," in Pinker- ton's Voyages and Travels, viii. 427). ' Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, v. 7 and 16 ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. ix. 2 Diodorus Siculus, iii. 59 ; Arrian, Tactica, 33 ; Scholiast on Nicander, Alexipharmaca, 8 ; Firmicus Maternus, De errors profanarum religionum, 3 and 22 ; Arnobius, Adverstts Nationes, v. 16; Servius on Virgil, Aen. ix. 115. ' See above, p. 222. * Arnobius, I.e. ; Salkistius philoso- phus, "De diis et mundo," iv., Frag- nienta Philosophoruni Graecorum, ed. F. G. A. Mullach, iii. 33. 5 Above, p. 189. CHAP. I THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF A TTIS 227 and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a sacramental meal.^ But when night had fallen, the sorrow of the worshippers The was turned to joy. For suddenly a light shone in the ^^^fjf' darlcness : the tomb was opened : the god had risen from (miaria) the dead ; and as the priest touched the lips of the weeping resurrec- mourners with balm, he softly whispered in their ears the tio" of glad tidings of salvation. The resurrection of the god was March hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would 25th. issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave.^ On the morrow, the twenty-fifth day of March, which was reckoned the vernal equinox, the divine resurrection was celebrated with a wild outburst of glee. At Rome, and probably elsewhere, the celebration took the form of a carnival. It was the Festival of Joy {Hilaria). A universal licence prevailed. Every man might say and do wliat he pleased. People went about the streets in disguise. No dignity was too high or too sacred for the humblest citizen to assume with impunity. In the reign of Commodus a band of conspirators thought to take advantage of the masquerade by dressing in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, and so, mingling with the crowd of merrymakers, to get within stabbing distance of the emperor. But the plot miscarried.' Even the stern Alexander Severus used to 1 See below, pp. 228 sq. that the reference is to his rites is ^ Firmicus M.2iXe:\Ti.\x%, De errore pro- made probable by a comparison with Janamm reUgiomtm, 22 J " NocU quad- chapter 3 of the same writer's work. am simulacrum in lectica supinuin Compare also Damascius, in Photius's poniiur et per nuineros digestis fletibus Bihlioetheca, p. 345 A, 5 sqq., ed. I. flatigitur : deinde cwn se ficta lament- Bekker, rire rg 'Iepa7r6\ei ^KaffeuS^iras atione satiaverint^ lumtn inferttir: tunc idSKoup 6vap 6 "Attt/s 7^»'C(r^ai, Kal fj.oi a sacerdote omnium qui flebant fatues iTrire'Xeijdai. napa ttjs firjrpds tuv dewv unguentur, quibus perunctis hoc lento rijp Tap l^apluv KaUvfiii^uv iopT-fji'- Sirep murmure susu>-rat : ^*^^'"' '"^'' ^^ ?^™ yeyoyviav iifiCip (rurr,- plav. See further Fr. Cumont, Les eappdre fi-iaTai toO Biov lyeuaaiiivov religions orientates dans le paganisme iaTa.1 yhp V'" i^ ^t""^" Tu>r7,p^a. Komain (Paris, 1906), p. 73. Quid miseros hortaris gaudeant? quid ' Macrobius, Saturn, i. 21. 10 ; deceptos homines laetari compellis 1 Flavius Vopiscus, Atirelianus, i. i ; quamillis spem, quavi salutem funesta Julian, Or. v. pp. 168 D, 169 D ; persuasione promittis ? Dei tui mors Damascius, Lc. ; Herodian, i. 10. nota est, vita nmz paret. . . . Idoliim 5-7; Sallustius philosophus, " De diis plangis, idolum de sepidtura proferis, et mundo," Fragmenta Philosophorum et miser cum haec feceris, gaudes. Tu Graecorum, ed. F. G. A. MuUach, iii. deum tuum liberas, tti jacentia lapidis 33. In like manner Easter Sunday, membra componis,tu insensibile corrigis the Resurrection-day of Christ, was saxtim." In this passage Firmicus called by some ancient writers the does not expressly mention Attis, but Sunday of Joy (Dominica Gaudii). 228 THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF ATTIS book ii relax so far on the joyous day as to admit a pheasant to his frugal board.^ The next day, the twent3'-sixth of March, was given to repose, which must have been much needed after the varied excitements and fatigues of the preceding days.^ Finally, the Roman festival closed on the twenty- seventh of March with a procession to the brook Almo. The silver image of the goddess, with its face of jagged black stone, sat in a waggon drawn by oxen. Preceded by the nobles walking barefoot, it moved slowly, to the loud music of pipes and tambourines, out by the Porta Capena, and so down to the banks of the Almo, which flows into the Tiber just below the walls of Rome. There the high-priest, robed in purple, washed the waggon, the image, and the other sacred objects in the water of the stream. On returning from their bath, the wain and the oxen were strewn with fresh spring flowers. All was mirth and gaiety. No one thought of the blood that had flowed so lately. Even the eunuch priests forgot their wounds.^ The Such, then, appears to have been the annual solemnisa- of^AttC!^ tion of the death and resurrection of Attis in spring. But besides these public rites, his worship is known to have comprised certain secret or mystic ceremonies, which prob- ably aimed at bringing the worshipper, and especially the novice, into closer communion with his god. Our informa- tion as to the nature of these mysteries and the date of their celebration is unfortunately very scanty, but they seem The emperors used to celebrate the tius, Peristephan. x. 154 sqq. For the happy day by releasing from prison description of the image of the goddess all but the worst offenders. See see Arnobius, Adversus Natiotus, vii. J. Bingham, The Antiquities of the 49. At Carthage the goddess was Christian Church, bk. xx. ch. vi. §§ carried to her bath in a litter, not in 5 j-^. (Bingham's Works [O-kiaiA, 1855), a waggon (Augustine, De civitate Dei, vii. 317 sqq.). ii. 4). The bath formed part of the 1 Aelius Lampridius, Alexander festival in Phrygia, whence the custom Sevenis, 37. '"'^^ borrowed by the Romans (Arrian, „ ^ r ■j.i- r i- Tactica, 33). At Cyzicus the Placi- _ 2 Corpus InscrtpttonumLahnartcm, ^^j^^ j^^^j^ ^ ^^^^^ ^C ^^^^ h2 pp. 260, 313 sq.; H. Hepdmg, ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^„ ^^1,^^ "marine" Attis, pp. 51, 172. (SaXdcrcnai), whose duty it probably 3 Ovid, Fasti, iv. 337-346 ; Silius was to wash her image in the sea Italicus, Punic, viii. 365 ; Valerius (Ch. Michel, Recueil d Inscriptions Flaccus, Argonaut, viii. 239 sqq. ; Grecqnes, No. 537). See further T. Martial, iii. 47. I sq. ; Ammianus Marquardt, Por/iische Staatsverwal Marcellinus, xxiii. 3. 7 ; Arnobius, ttmg, iii.2 373 ; H. Hepding, Attis, Adversus Nationes, vii. 32 ; Pruden- pp. 133 sq. - sacrament. CHAP. I THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF ATTIS 229 to have included a sacramental meal and a baptism of blood. In the sacrament the novice became a partaker of The the mysteries by eating out of a drum and drinking out of" a cymbal, two instruments of music which figured pro- minently in the thrilling orchestra of Attis.-^ The fast which accompanied the mourning for the dead god ^ may perhaps have been designed to prepare the body of the communicant for the reception of the blessed sacrament by purging it of all that could defile by contact the sacred elements.^ In the baptism the devotee, crowned with gold The and wreathed with fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of bio^. of which was covered with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering with gold leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed to death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures, and was received with devout eagerness by the worshipper on every part of his person and garments, till he emerged from the pit, drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to receive the homage, nay the adoration, of his fellows as one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull.* For some time afterwards the fiction of a new birth was kept up by dieting him on milk like a new-born babe.^ The regenera- tion of the worshipper took place at the same time as the 1 Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. Hones Latinae Sekdae, No. 4152). ii. 15, p. 13 ed. Potter; Firmicus The phrase arcanis perfusiotiibus in Maternus, De errore profananim re- aeternum renatus occurs in a dedica- litrionum, 18. tion to Mithra (Corpics Inscriptiomim 2 Abole, pp. 226 so. Latinarum, vi. No. 736), which, how- ever, is suspected of being spurious. 3 H. Hepding, Atiis, p. 185. ^^ j^ ^^^ inscriptions which refer to * Prudentius, Peristephan. x. ioo6- the taurobolium see G. Zippel, "Das 1050; compare Firmicus Maternus, Taurobolium," in Festschrift zum De errore prof anamm religionum, 28. 8. fUnfzi^dhrigen Doctorjubildum L. That the bath of bull's blood [tauro- Friedlaender dargebracht von seinen bolium) was believed to regenerate the SchUlern (Leipsic, 1895), pp. 498-520. devotee for eternity is proved by an As to the origin of the taurobolium and inscription found at Rome, which re- the meaning of the word, see Fr. cords that a certain Sextilius Agesilaus Cumont, Les religions orientales dans Aedesius, who dedicated an altar to le paganisme Roinain, pp. 81 sqq. Attis and the Mother of the Gods, was ^ Sallustius philosophus, "De diis taurobolio criobolioque in aeternum et mundo," iv.. Fragment a Philoso- renatus {Corptis Inscriptiomim Latin- phorum Graecorum, ed. F. G. A. arum, vi. 510; H. Dessau, Inscrip- MuUach, iii. 33. 230 THE MYTH AND RITUAL OF ATTIS book ii regeneration of his god, namely at the vernal equinox/ At The Rome the new birth and the remission of sins by the Vatican shedding of bull's blood appear to have been carried out a centre of => ^^ the worship above all at the sanctuary of the Phrygian goddess on the of Attis. Vatican Hill, at or near the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter's now stands ; for many inscriptions relating to the rites were found when the church was being enlarged in 1608 or 1 609.^ From the Vatican as a centre this barbarous system of superstition seems to have spread to other parts of the Roman empire. Inscriptions found in Gaul and Germany prove that provincial sanctuaries modelled their ritual on that of the Vatican.' From the same source we learn that the testicles as well as the blood of the bull played an important part in the ceremonies.* Probably they were regarded as a powerful charm to promote fertility and hasten the new birth. ' Sallustius philosophvis, l.c- Hones Latinae Select ae. No. 4 1 3 1 ; G. ^ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinaruni, Wilmanns, Exetnpla Inscriptiomim vi. Nos. 497-504 ; H. Dessau, Inscrip- Latinarum, No. 2278 ; G. Wissowa, tiones Latinae Seledae, Nos. 4145, Religion und Kultus der Romer, p. 4147-4151, 4153; Inscriptiones 267; H. Hepding, Attis, pp. 169- Graecae Siciliae et Italiae, ed. G. 171, 176. Kaibel, No. 1020 ; G. Zippel, op. * Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, cit. pp. 509 sq., 519; H. Hepding, xiii. No. 175 1 ; G. Wilmanns, .£'j;«»j/i/ir .^rtzj, pp. 83, 86-88, 176; Ch. Huelsen, Inscriptionum Latinarum, Nos. 119, Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alter- 123, 124 ; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones thum, von H. Jordan, i. 3 (Berlin, Latinae Selectae, No. 4127 ; G. I9°7)i PP- 658 sq. Wissowa, Religion tmd Ktdtus der ^ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Romer, p. 269 ; H. Hepding, Attis, xiii. No. 1751 ; H. Dessau, Inscrip- p. 191. CHAPTER II ATTIS AS A GOD OF VEGETATION The original character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought The out plainly by the part which the pine-tree plays in his of"he'^ legend, his ritual, and his monuments/ The story that he pine-tree was a human being transformed into a pine-tree is only one worship of those transparent attempts at rationalising old beliefs °f ■'^"'s- which meet us so frequently in mythology. The bringing in of the pine-tree from the woods, decked with violets and woollen bands, is like bringing in the May-tree or Summer- tree in modern folk -custom ; and the effigy which was attached to the pine-tree was only a duplicate representative of the tree-spirit Attis. After being fastened to the tree, the effigy was kept for a year and then burned.^ The same thing appears to have been sometimes done with the May- pole ; and in like manner the efdgy of the corn-spirit, made at harvest, is often preserved till it is replaced by a new effigy at next year's harvest.^ The original intention of such customs was no doubt to maintain the spirit of vegetation in life throughout the year. Why the Phrygians should have worshipped the pine above other trees we can only guess. Perhaps the sight of its change- less, though sombre, green cresting the ridges of the high hills above the fading splendour of the autumn woods in the valleys may have seemed to their eyes to mark it out as the seat of a diviner life, of something exempt from the sad vicissi- tudes of the seasons, constant and eternal as the sky which 1 As to the monuments see H. ^ Firmicus Maternus, De errore Dessau, Inscriptioms Latinae Sekdae, profananim religionum, 27. Nos. 4143, 4152, 4153 ; H. Hepding, ^ The Golden Bough,'^ i. 205 sq., ii. Attis, pp. 82, 83, 88, 89. 179. "84, 185, I93-I95' 231 232 ATTIS AS A GOD OF VEGETATION book ii stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps, ivy was sacred to Attis ; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests were tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves.^ Another reason for the sanctity of the pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the stone-pine contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food since antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer classes in Rome.^ Moreover, a wine was brewed from these seeds,^ and this may partly account for the orgiastic nature of the rites of Cybele, which the ancients compared to those of Dionysus.* Further, pine- cones were regarded as symbols or rather instruments of fertility. Hence at the festival of the Thesmophoria they were thrown, along with pigs and other agents or emblems of fecundity, into the sacred vaults of Demeter for the purpose of quickening the ground and the wombs of women.' Attis as a Like tree-spirits in general, Attis was apparently thought corn-go . J.Q ^jgjjj power over the fruits of the earth or even to be identical with the corn. One of his epithets was " very fruitful " : he was addressed as the " reaped green (or yellow) ear of corn " ; and the story of his sufferings, death, and resurrection was interpreted as the ripe grain wounded by the reaper, buried in the granary, and coming to life again when it is sown in the ground." A statue of him in the ' Etymologicum Magnum, p. 2.Z0, sorts of pines and eat the nutlets which line 20, rdXXos, 6 tpiXoTrdrup IlToXeiiaios- they extract from them. See G. M. 5m tA (piXKa Kianov KaT^ffTix^ai, (is Dawson, "Notes on the Shiiswap oJ 7iiXXoi. 'Aei yap raTs Atovva-iaKois People of British Columbia," Fro- TeXerafs Kiirai? i