by León, Vicki
Ancient Greeks favored pet dogs; Romans fawned over giant eels; and Egyptians went mad over kitties. Their cat worship cult had countless followers humble and highborn.
Among the Romans and the Greeks, dogs large and small were bred for hunting and guarding livestock, especially Cretan hounds, Laconian sheepdogs, and the Umbrian and Etruscan breeds. Folks also cherished small lapdogs as pets. A favorite breed was the long-haired silky Maltese; Emperor Claudius had one. Canine pets got pampered, and when they died they were buried with care, often memorialized with poignant, poetry-filled headstones.
The pussycat, however, never made the Greco-Roman list of popular domestic animals. Thus when Greek and Roman writer-historians such as Herodotus and Diodorus of Sicily visited Egypt on different occasions, they were flabbergasted to discover the idolization of felines.
Pharoahs and royals weren’t the only one to worship cats. In humbler households, cat owners would shave off their eyebrows in mourning after the death of the family tabby. The cat goddess Bumastis or Pasht represented a major cult, with numerous temples and countless worshippers. Archaeologists have found whole cemeteries filled with feline mummies, nicely embalmed in cedar oil and wrapped in linen.
From time to time in our era, hard-core kitty fans and saviors of strays make the headlines, but it would be hard to top the passion the Egyptians felt for their felines. About halfway through the first century B.C., a Roman diplomat, newly stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, accidentally killed a cat. At that sensitive time, Egyptian top officials were trying to placate the Romans in order to prevent a war. Despite their best efforts to calm the public, a mob of outraged Alexandrians made mincemeat of the unfortunate man.
Cetacean Adoration:
Nearly divine dolphin rescues
The Greeks (and to a lesser extent, the Romans) were as soppily enamored with the cutest member of the cetacean family as any Flipper fan today. The literature of writers from Aulus Gellius to Oppian is crammed with “awwww” stories about dolphins scooping up drowning humans and long-term relationships between boys and greathearted cetaceans.
The Greeks were seagoing folks, and, like all ancient sailors, superstitious. Ever since early Minoan times on the big island of Crete, dolphins had pride of place in Greek mythology and art, and were often associated with the wine god Dionysus.
One of the myths relates the story of Dionysus, who boarded a pirate ship while traveling in human disguise. The crew, hard up for drinking money, decided to sell what appeared to be an ordinary fellow into slavery rather than deliver him to his destination. Getting wind of the plot, the wine god drove the sailors insane by giving them hallucinations. They jumped into the sea and were drowning when Dionysus called out, “Do you repent your evil plan?”
When they screamed, “Yes!” the deity turned them into dolphins.
This myth and many others kept Greeks from harming dolphins, believing that these social animals that tenderly care for their young were once human (even if some of them were formerly bad guys and pirates). To kill a dolphin was considered a serious crime in ancient Greece.
The ancient world adored dolphins, considering them true protectors of humans. Legends of their rescues and friendliness filled the pages of Greek and Roman writers.
Another great story involved Arion, a famous singer and lyre player from Corinth, Greece. When he was on his way home from a lucrative concert tour of Italy, his boat crew turned traitorous, demanding all his money before they put out his lights. To buy a little time, Arion asked if he might sing one last song, and the crew—being big music fans and not all bad—said yes.
The musician carefully dressed himself in his performance robes, then began to sing the lovely ode to the Pythian Apollo. The musical piece he chose was a lengthy sucker, and the crew grew restive. When Arion saw them pull their knives, he jumped into the sea.
As he sank, he was swept up and borne above the waves by a school of dolphins that had enjoyed his performance even more than the boat crew. Greeks also believed that dolphins were charmed by human singing. Swimming well into the starry night, the brainy cetaceans gently carried him to the shore, where some amazed humans witnessed the dolphins encircling Arion for a group hug. As they left, the dolphins frolicked near the promontory, leaping a joyous farewell.
Soon Arion hotfooted it back to Corinth to tattle on the mutinous crew. When the boat crew finally arrived, they got what they richly deserved from Periander, the testy tyrant of Corinth.
Dolphin legend-spinning grew in several directions. The marine mammal was believed to guide human souls to the Isles of the Blessed—or to the underworld, if that was your final destination. Folks were convinced that dolphins, also long thought to be friendly and helpful to humans, had a sense of honor. Borrowing a page from such mythologizing, the early Christian church boasted nearly half a dozen saints who claimed to have been rescued by dolphins.
Plutarch, Greek historian and author, once wrote something that reveals how deeply the Greeks felt about these animals. “To the dolphin alone, beyond all others, nature has given what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage. Though it has no need of man, yet it is a friend to all men and has given them great aid.”
Hypatia of Alexandria:
Taught the truth, loved it to death
There aren’t very many sixteen-hundred-year-old fan letters still in existence, much less ones from grateful students of esoteric philosophy to a female teacher.
The recipient in this case? The exceptional Hypatia, daughter of Theon, thinker and teacher par excellence. Although misconceptions muddle her story, and some accounts of her are romanticized, substantial evidence of her genuine life and works remains, beginning with her fan mail.
Born around A.D. 355 in Alexandria, Egypt, Hypatia was the apple of her father’s eye, and his intellectual protégé as well. As a leading professor at the Great Museum and Library of Alexandria, Theon taught his classes— and his daughter—a wide range of subjects, from the latest advances in astronomy to the deepest investigations into Greek philosophy, including Neoplatonism.
The words “museum and library” don’t fully describe the place where Theon taught and Hypatia learned, and later lectured professionally. Funded by generations of Ptolemies—the Macedonian leaders who ran Egypt from Alexander the Great’s demise through the Cleopatra VII period—the edifice and its resources comprised the first university of higher learning as well as the world’s biggest library of the time. Besides the schools of specific inquiry within the museum, this well-endowed entity also offered residential facilities for visiting scholars and scientists, enabling them to do fruitful long-term research.
In this milieu, alternatively pushed and encouraged by her parent mentor, Hypatia grew to maturity. Early on, she came to realize that the demands of a wife and mother would sorely inhibit the life of a scholar, and she chose celibacy. Later on, her status as an independent woman in an Alexandria roiling with religious and political controversy would have big implications.
But in the beginning, Hypatia saw knowledge as her personal playground. Her thirst for deeper meanings found in logic, mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences soon outstripped her father’s ability to teach her. Although numerous works are often attributed to Hypatia alone, it seems likely that she and her father collaborated on such projects as editing Ptolemy’s Almagest and writing learned commentaries on the Conics of Apollonius and the thirteen-volume Arithmetica by Diophantus. She also chalked up credits for editing her father’s commentary of Euclid’s Elements. A whiz at charting celestial bodies, she wrote an astronomical canon, the text of which may have been a new edition of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables.
She is also credited with perfecting the prototypes of the astrolabe and the hydrometer, which is used to determine specific gravity of liquids.
But these achievements pale when compared to her value as a teacher. From Theon, she’d learned the secrets of clarity as an orator and lecturer. Students loved her lectures,
and as she took a more prominent role at the museum, she gained an enthusiastic following. Hypatia herself was neither a Christian nor a practicing pagan; her students, however, came from all walks of life. They were Christians, future converts, pagan sympathizers, and still others, like their teacher, who “declined to state.”
Her fan mail illuminates those inspired by her lucid insights and mode of teaching. One longtime student, Socrates Scholasticus, counted her as a dear friend as well as teacher. In one of his seven extant letters, he writes, “Your student feels the presence of your divine spirit.” At times, his letters were simply addressed to “Hypatia, the philosopher.” Synesius, another disciple who became a bishop, corresponded with her throughout his life. His collection of 156 letters, to Hypatia and to other members of their philosophical circle survived, along with other writings that include mention of her.
A third extant source is her student Damascius, who recounted this telling story about her. Hypatia always wore the classic long robes of a male scholar. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that male students would fall in love with her, and when a certain student dared to declare his adoration, Hypatia did not respond. Later, in front of the other students, she presented him with a wrapped gift. In it—to his shocked embarrassment—were bloody towels from her menstrual period. “This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake.” Carnality had no place in her life.
That student was not one of her inner circle, Hypatia’s group of about six that began to coalesce when she was in her mid-twenties. This tightly knit group resembled that of Alexander the Great and his inner circle, who called each other hetairoi, “companions.” Hypatia’s circle, however, focused on wisdom and the philosophical life—and only to them did she impart the inner mysteries of such a discipline.
A celebrity in Alexandria, Hypatia taught philosophy and science to devoted students from pagans to Christian bishops. Her forthright love of the truth made her the target of extremists in later life.
What she had to offer was more than knowledge. With her sexual abstinence, her levelheaded courage, and her love of the unvarnished truth, Hypatia represented moral authority. She lived by the sage advice inscribed at the oracle of Delphi: Nothing in excess, everything in moderation.
As time went on, unfortunately, the religious groups in Alexandria became more strident, more extreme. When Hypatia reached her fifties, the adolescent Christian faith had splintered into various rabid factions. She neither backed nor opposed any of them. City officials, such as Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, and Cyril, the top religious official, quarreled bitterly. Periodically torn by riots, the whole city polarized, developing a “which side are you on” mentality.
Hypatia continued her normal life—teaching, driving her chariot, making her opinions known, being a friend to Orestes, and backing him politically. Meanwhile, Cyril inflamed his followers by insisting that Hypatia taught “sorcery,” claiming that she “beguiled many people through her satanic wiles.” This female philosopher made a point of being prudent and discreet—qualities that the Greeks called sophrosyne. Nevertheless, as an independent women, a non-Christian, and an intellectual, she made a tempting target.
In March of A.D. 415, this sixtyish, still vigorous woman was attacked by a mob of black-robed parabalani while driving her chariot. Often described as monks, most parabalani were male fanatics who acted as a quasi-military strike force for Cyril. They dragged her from her vehicle into the church that had once been the Serapeum, the temple of Serapis. Stripping her naked, they tore Hypatia to pieces, at length quartering and burning what remained of her ruined body in a place called Kinaron.
There was no criminal investigation, no trial, and no blame assessed, although Cyril, who would become a bishop in the aftermath, clearly had a hand in her assassination. The companions in Hypatia’s inner circle spoke out; some wrote accounts, still around today, describing the savagery that Pure Passions took the life of Hypatia, philosopher and lover of truth.
Section VIII
Demon Lovers & Gods Dark & Light
The Great God Pan:
Not dead, just poorly translated
A homely, squatty, horned god who never made the Olympic deity lineup, Pan is often confused with Greek satyrs and fauns—when not being accused of being the devil. (For the latter label, you can thank later Christians, who transformed Pan into the Satan familiar to modern eyes.)
Without a doubt, Pan was a hybrid. Besides ram’s horns and bad hair, he boasted the hindquarters and cloven hooves of a goat. He’s gotten an even more rancid reputation in today’s world. That’s what comes from being caught in mid-coitus with a large male goat—and then having your private bestiality interlude captured as an X-rated marble sculpture that tourists giggle over at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. When that sculpture went on exhibit in 2001, an Italian priest called it a temptation that could “corrupt the morals of the chastest.” It was almost as bad as being immortalized on YouTube.
Anthropologists now believe that Pan, a fertility deity, god of spring festivals, and rustic lord of the wilderness, was far more ancient than the Olympian gods. In Greece, Pan called Arcadia home, where he was worshipped in caves and grottoes by mountain people and shepherds.
Even though he invented a flute and played a mean panpipe, Pan’s brutish looks and behavior never played well with the ladies. He did manage to seduce the moon goddess Selene once by wrapping himself in a sheepskin, but had an unsavory way of turning nymphs and other chicks he fancied into trees or tearing them into little bits. Pan’s habit of uncouth yelling and making other eerie sound effects often caused fear among humans—a reaction still called “panic” in remembrance of the god.
Unlike other deities, who by definition are immortal, Pan was believed to have died. As written up by Greek historian Plutarch, Pan’s alleged death occurred in the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberius (A.D. 14-37). As the story goes, an Egyptian sailor named Thamus was en route to Italy when a voice described as “divine” hailed the sailor across the water, saying, “The Great God Pan is dead!”
When Christianity got rolling, the faith’s spokespeople were delighted to pass this tale along, since it seemed to sound the death knell of paganism and the coming of the new order. Eusebius of Caesarea was the first Christian writer to relate the anecdote, adding juicy details of his own devising.
Interestingly enough, subsequent study of Pan’s death by author and mythology expert Robert Graves and newer generations of mythologists has revealed a “lost in translation” aspect to the whole matter. Thamus Panmegas tethneke, “The all-great Tammuz is dead!” sounds a great deal like Thamous Pan ho megas techneke, “Thamus, Great Pan is dead!”
So who or what was Tammuz, as opposed to Thamus the sailor? Known as a shepherd god as early as 2500 B.C. by the ancient Sumerians, he was the consort of Inanna or Ishtar, goddess of love. The myth of Tammuz and Inanna has him going through a life-death-rebirth cycle to save his lover each year. When Tammuz goes to spend six months in the underworld, he is deeply mourned by his worshippers, especially the women. The Old Testament Ezekiel also mentions the women weeping for Tammuz.
The goat-human hybrid called Pan cavorted with his own fan club of fauns and satyrs but was a fertility deity in his own right.
A century after Plutarch wrote of Pan’s putative death, an early travel writer named Pausanias visited a great many sites around Greece where shrines to the Great God Pan were still drawing crowds. As Mark Twain would say centuries later, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Satyr Plays:
Satyrists made Athens laugh
When the Greek playwrights of the classical age—Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and others we know less about—competed in the annual drama contests in Athens, they were required to write a cycle of three tragedies, plus a shorter piece called a satyr play.
Most of us got a somewhat dreary dose of Greek tragedy in high school, but little
was ever said about satyr plays. What a pity. As it happens, this form was a playful invention dating back to the sixth century B.C. and brought to Athens by a writer named Pratinas. In his homeland of Phlius, they were very big on the dithyramb, a wild poetic hymn to the wine god Dionysus that included a chorus filled with satyrs. Pratinas felt that the cheeky jokes, obscene gestures, and slapstick provided by the irrepressible satyrs would provide a lighthearted balance to the tragic drama that had been developed by Thespis in Athens.
Athenian audiences had a lot of stamina. They needed it. At their annual dramatic competitions during the Dionysia and Lenaia festivals, playgoers sat on the stone seats for hours. And hours. And hours, thrilling (and perhaps dozing off) to the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The plays took place during the day, not at night. The broiling hot sunny days of Athens.
What probably helped keep Greek audiences awake and in their seats for the long haul was the clever introduction of satyr plays. These pieces, half the length of a tragedy and a mix of sight gags, slapstick, drunken protagonists, and coarse merriment, were also dramas of a sort. The main setting and the theme of the play came from an epic or a myth, and the actors wore serious costumes and spoke dignified lines.
