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March 21, 2009
On the Role of the Head in an Argument
I've been reading Lucian of Samosata's De Dea Syria from Strong's 1913 introduction and translation with notes. It is now available from ABZU. Many of the notes and a good deal of the introduction are well out of date but much is still quite pertinent. More recent translations are availably but all of them cost more than $0.00.
For some reason I enjoyed this passage and the style of the argument it illustrates.
Some of the inhabitants of Byblos maintain that the Egyptian Osiris is buried in their town, and that the public mourning and secret rites are performed in memory not of Adonis, but of Osiris. I will tell you why the story seems worthy of credence. A human head comes every year from Egypt to Byblos, floating on its seven days' journey thence: the winds, by some divine instinct, waft in on its way: it never varies from its course but foes straight to Byblos. The whole occurrence is miraculous. It occurs every year, and it came to pass while I way myself in Byblos, and I saw the head in that city.
I wouldn't have been more convinced if Lucian had seen two heads in Byblos: this year's and last year's to boot.
And even in the face of a perfectly natural explanation of an annual event, Lucian seems to prefer some kind of supernatural explanation.
There is, too, another marvellous portent in the region of the Byblians. A river, flowing from Mount Libanus, discharges itself into the sea: this river bears the name Adonis. Every year regularly it is tinged with blood, and loses its proper colour before it falls into the sea: it dyes the sea, to a large space, red: and thus announces their time of mourning to the Byblians. Their story is that during these days Adonis is wounded, and that the river's nature is changed by the blood which flows into its waters; and that it takes its name from this blood. Such is the legend vulgarly accepted: but a man of Byblos, who seemed to me to be telling the truth, told me another reason for this marvellous change. He spoke as follows: "This river, my friend and guest, passes thought the Libanus: now this Lebanus abounds in red earth. The violent winds which blow regularly on those days bring down into the river a quantity of earth resembling vermilion. It is this earth that turns the river to red. And thus the change in the river's colour is due, not to blood as they affirm, but to the nature of the soil." This was the story of the Byblian. But even assuming that he spoke the truth, yet there certainly seems to me something supernatural in the regular coincidence of the wind and the colouring of the river.
What? A perfectly natural explanation still isn't quite good enough for our Lucian. One might be tempted to put this up to Zeitgeist of late antiquity. But then, one need not go far today to still see arguments from miracles as in the first quotation or the worry that a natural explanation isn't enough and that some undefined, often indefinable, mystery must remain. Note: my own guess is that rain erosion rather than wind erosion causes the phenomenon. But that doesn't change my point.
I understand that some scholars do not regard this work as being from the hand of Lucian of Samosata. I'll wait until I see some miraculous head before I make up my mind.
Postscript: I found this little ditty interesting, "They [the people of Hierapolis] deem fishes holy objects and never touch them, while of birds they use all but pigeons for food; the pigeon is in their eyes sacred." What would Ogden Nash, who (in)famously said, "There is nothing in any religion which compels us to love the pigeon," think of this?
Posted by Duane Smith at March 21, 2009 7:30 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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Comments
Actually, he says he sees the head; he doesn't say that he saw the head arrive on its annual voyage. More to the point, Dirven is surely right that this is not by Lucian. It's inconceivable that the author of 'The Lover of Lies' also wrote DS. But, as an archaeologist, I'm glad that someone did: it gives us a rare glimpse into a living 2nd C Syrian cult.
Posted by: judith weingarten at March 22, 2009 2:47 AM
Judith,
Yes, he did see a head and he didn't question its origin. I agree that there are good reasons, linguistic, stylistic and other, to think that this is by a pseudo-Lucian and not from the author of 'The Lover of Lies'. I was just goofing around with my comment.
Posted by: Duane at March 22, 2009 9:34 AM
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
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