A Cabinet Of Greek Curiosities

by J. C. McKeown

  Lochus

  Ambush

  Lonche

  Spear

  Phlegon

  Flaming

  Phonax

  Bloodthirsty

  Phylax

  Guard

  Psyche

  Soul

  Rhome

  Vigor

  Sperchon

  Rushing

  Stibon

  Tracker

  Thymus

  Bravery

  Cattle recognize their herdsman’s voice, and understand when he calls them by name, and respond to what he tells them to do (Farm Work 17.2). Cows sometimes have Egyptian names in papyrus documents written in Greek in Roman Egypt.

  No names for cats are known from either Greece or Rome.

  According to Procopius (History of the Wars 7.29.9), a whale, given the name Porphyrius, caused trouble in the waters around Constantinople for more than fifty years, sinking ships and carrying off sailors. It evaded all attempts by the emperor Justinian to catch it, but eventually beached itself while pursuing an unusually large pod of dolphins.

  Although he suppresses the names of generals in the Carthaginian army, Cato records that the elephant that fought most bravely in their battle line was called Syrus [the Syrian]. When Antiochus the Great tried to ford a river, Ajax, the elephant that normally led the troupe, refused to go across. Antiochus announced that the first elephant to cross would be made troupe leader. Patroclus dared to go first and was rewarded with a silver harness (an elephant’s greatest delight) and all the other emblems of leadership. Ajax preferred to starve himself to death rather than endure his disgrace (Pliny Natural History 8.11).

  Ajax’s name was perhaps unlucky, for it is difficult not to recall that the Homeric hero with that name, who was distinguished by his large size, committed suicide, unable to bear the shame when the arms of Achilles (made after Hector despoiled Patroclus’s corpse) were awarded to Odysseus, not to him.

  A female Indian elephant named Nicaea took care of its keeper’s infant child when his wife died, rocking its cradle with its trunk whenever it cried (Aelian On Animals 11.14). This elephant belonged to the army of Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedon, whose elephants were panicked during the siege of Megara by pigs hurled over the wall after they had been doused with oil and set on fire (Aelian On Animals 16.36).

  An elephant with an ornamental belt, on a coin of Apollodotus I of Bactria. The inscription reads BAΣIΛEΩΣ AΠOΛΛOΔOTOY ΣΩTHPOΣ (basileos Apollodotou [illegible] soteros, “King Apollodotus Savior”).

  Nicon, an elephant in the army of King Pyrrhus of Epirus (ruled 306–302 and 297–272 B.C.), rescued its wounded rider, who had fallen off in a battle in the streets of Argos. Picking him up with its trunk, it laid him across its tusks and trampled friend and foe to bring him to safety (Plutarch Life of Pyrrhus 33).

  A fighting cock called Centaur fell in love with Secundus, the wine-pourer of Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia (Athenaeus Wise Men at Dinner 606b). Centaur is also one of only two known names of fighting cocks portrayed on 5th-century B.C. Athenian vases. The other is Aeacides (“descendant of Aeacus” = Achilles).

  In the game of quail knocking, they provoked the birds by scratching and poking them. Then they drew a circle on a board like a baker’s tray and set the quails on it to fight each other. The quail that flinched and fell outside the circle was the loser (Pollux Onomasticon 9.107).

  At Patras, in honor of Artemis, the goddess of hunting, they throw edible birds onto a fire while still alive, along with all sorts of other sacrificial victims, even wild boar and various species of deer. Some people actually bring wolf and bear cubs, or even fully grown wolves and bears. I have seen animals, including a bear, forced to the outside of the pyre by the first blast of the flames, and some actually getting away thanks to their own strength. But those who threw them on bring them back at once to the fire. There is no record of anyone being hurt during this ceremony (Pausanias Guide to Greece 7.18).

  Pythagoras captured the she-bear that was ravaging the Daunian region. He stroked her for a long time and fed her by hand with barley cakes and fruit. Then he released her, after making her swear not to touch a living creature ever again. She went straight off into the mountains and the woods and was never again seen attacking even the humblest animal (Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 23).

  A hunter charged by a wild boar should fall facedown and grab hold of any plants growing beneath him. If the beast attacks him when he is lying in that position, it cannot get a hold on his body because of the way its tusks curve upward; but if he is standing up, he will definitely be gored (Xenophon On Hunting 10.13).

  It is a serious difficulty in reading ancient accounts of natural history, whether written in Greek or in Latin, that it is often impossible to determine precisely the flower, fish, animal, or bird being referred to. For example, Aristotle observes that “the most powerful species of hawk is the Three-Testicle” (History of Animals 620a), but the species is no longer identifiable.

  It is thought that no animal is more timorous than the chameleon, and that this is why it changes color. But it does have tremendous power over sparrowhawks. It is said to draw down any sparrowhawk that flies overhead, rendering it a helpless victim for the other animals to rip apart (Pliny Natural History 28.113, drawing skeptically on Democritus).

  Observers say that the hawk flies upside down, like a man swimming on his back (Aelian On Animals 10.14).

  Falconry was imported from the east in the Byzantine period. There are several admirably detailed manuals on the breeding and care of hawks and other such birds. If your hawk snores and is in pain and cannot eat, it has picked up a throat inflammation. Give it meat sprinkled with iron filings, and it will be cured (Demetrius of Constantinople Hawk Wisdom 151).

  As long as a pair of eagles stays together, every second one of their offspring is an osprey. Ospreys produce black eagles and vultures. That is not the end of the line of vultures, for black vultures produce great vultures, and these are sterile, as is indicated by the fact that no one has ever seen a great vulture’s nest (Ps.-Aristotle On Marvelous Things Heard 835a).

  When cranes rest for the night, three or four of them keep watch while the others sleep. So as not to fall asleep during their watch, they stand on one leg, holding a stone firmly and carefully in the foot that is raised up. If they ever fail to notice that they are slipping off into sleep, the stone falls and makes a noise, and this forces them to wake up (Aelian On Animals 3.13). Similar stories are told about Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

  Apsethus the Libyan trained a large number of parrots to say “Apsethus is a god.” He then released them, and they persuaded the Libyans that he was a god. But a Greek shrewdly saw through the so-called god’s trick. He caught many of the same parrots and taught them to say instead, “Apsethus put us in a cage and forced us to say ‘Apsethus is a god.’” When the Libyans heard the parrots’ change of tune, they gathered together and burned Apsethus to death (Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies 6.8).

  To teach a parrot to talk, you should speak to it from behind a mirror. The parrot is tricked into thinking that it is listening to another parrot and rapidly imitates what it hears (Photius The Library 223.215b).

  Short-necked birds with crooked talons and flat tongues tend to be mimics. The Indian bird, the parrot, is like this. And it becomes particularly obstreperous when it drinks wine (Aristotle History of Animals 597b).

  Some say that, if a fledgling swallow is blind, its mother cures its affliction with greater celandine (Dioscorides Medical Material 2.180). “Celandine” is derived from χελιδών (chelidon, “swallow”) because, as Dioscorides says, its growing season begins and ends with the arrival and departure of swallows in summer.

  They say that around the Sea of Azov wolves work as a team with the fishermen in catching fish, and if ever the fishermen do not give them a share in the catch, they destroy their nets while they are laid out on the ground to dry (Aristotle History of
Animals 620b).

  Cuttlefish escape capture by discharging the contents of their ink sacs, in imitation of Homer’s gods, who often take up stealthily in a dark cloud those whom they wish to save (Plutarch The Cleverness of Animals 977f).

  An old couple fishing.

  We do not eat lions or wolves, even though that would be a way of defending ourselves against them. We leave such beasts alone, but slaughter tame and harmless creatures, those without stings or teeth to bite us, animals that Nature seems to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace (Plutarch On Eating Meat I 994b).

  Mongooses are deadly enemies to crocodiles…. They lie in wait for them, and when the crocodiles are sunning themselves with their jaws open, they rush into their gaping mouths and emerge from their dead bodies after gnawing their way out through their entrails and stomachs (Strabo Geography 17.39). When Pliny tells this tale, he vividly describes the mongoose as “hurling itself like a spear through the crocodile’s jaws” (Natural History 8.89).

  A logical problem: If a crocodile snatches your child when it finds him wandering beside the river and promises to give him back to you if you can say correctly whether it intends to give him back or not, what will you say it intends to do? (Lucian Ways of Life for Sale 22).

  Why do beasts of burden not belch, nor cattle, nor any horned animal, nor birds? Is it because their stomachs are so dry, expending moisture quickly and filtering it through? It is when moisture is retained and becomes aerated that belching occurs. Because animals with manes have long necks, their breath rushes downward, and so they are particularly prone to passing gas. Birds and horned animals neither belch nor pass gas (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 895a).

  Elephants are said to be immune to other ailments, but they are troubled by flatulence (Aristotle History of Animals 604a).

  Why does no animal have a pleasant smell except the panther, at which other animals are said to enjoy sniffing? (Ps.-Aristotle Problems 907b). No discussion of this peculiarity of panthers is offered.

  A man-headed bull being crowned by Victory.

  Only humans have understanding. Other creatures have perception, but they do not have understanding (Alcmaeon of Croton frg. 1a).

  Only humans have a sense of rhythm (Plato Laws 653e).

  Only humans can count (Aristotle Topics 142b).

  Only humans can be tickled, because they have delicate skin and because they are the only animals that laugh (Aristotle On the Parts of Animals 673a).

  Human beings, bats, and elephants are the only animals to have breasts on their chests (Clearchus frg. 110).

  • Only humans stand upright.

  • Only humans have hands, which are responsible for most of the advantages that make us happier than creatures that move on all fours.

  • Only humans can speak.

  • Other animals have sexual urges only at particular times of the year, but human beings have them continually until old age.

  • What race of living creatures other than humans worships gods?

  (Xenophon Memoirs of Socrates 1.4)

  Lack of hairiness is what particularly sets human beings apart from animals. If man is the holiest of all animals, and the holiest of men are those who have had the good fortune to lose their hair, then a bald man would be the most divine creature on earth

  (Synesius In Praise of Baldness 5).

  VI

  ATHENS

  Athens, with its massive hinterland, Attica, is slightly larger than Luxemburg and almost as large as Rhode Island, dwarfing most other Greek poleis. Some outstanding classicists rarely venture outside 5th-and 4th-century B.C. Athens, with all the wealth of literature, history, and philosophy that it offers. Such Athenocentricity in modern scholarship would be more problematic, were it not in fact to some extent justified. The intellectual output of other great poleis, such as Sparta, Thebes, Argos, Corinth, and Syracuse, was negligible or nonexistent for centuries at a time, and the Greeks themselves acknowledged the special position held by Athens:

  • After recounting how the tyrant Pisistratus regained power in Athens by the simple ruse of dressing a tall and handsome peasant girl as Athena in her full armor and riding with her into the city in a chariot, while heralds announced that the goddess was bringing him back, Herodotus expresses surprise that the trick worked, given that the Greeks have always been more intelligent than barbarians, and that the Athenians have a reputation for being more intelligent than other Greeks (Histories 1.60).

  • Athens is described as “the Greece of Greece” (Ἑλλάδος Ἑλλάς, Hellados Hellas) in Greek Anthology 7.45, an epitaph for Euripides attributed to the historian Thucydides.

  • Heraclides Criticus, in the 3rd century B.C., says that “when it comes to the pleasures and refinements of life, Athens excels all other cities by as much as all other cities are different from farms” (Description of Greece 1.4). He then adds the warning: “You have to watch out for the prostitutes in Athens; otherwise, while you are enjoying yourself, you may be ruined without realizing it.”

  • Although he was a scholar in Alexandria, which might claim intellectual preeminence in the Greek world, Philo of Alexandria admits: “I regard the Athenians as having a sharper intellect than any other Greeks—what the pupil is to the eye or reason is to the soul, that is what Athens is to Greece” (Every Good Man Is Free 140).

  • It seems well said of Athens that it produces good men who are outstandingly excellent and bad men who are supremely wicked, just as it produces the sweetest honey and the deadliest hemlock (Plutarch Life of Dion 58).

  Athens is the only state that has flourished as a democracy. The Athenians achieved greatness with that form of government, for they outdid all other Greeks in native intelligence and showed the highest regard for established laws (Pausanias Guide to Greece 4.35).

  At the height of its prosperity the Athenian democracy was financed by the harsh exploitation of untold thousands of slaves in the silver mines at Laurium and by the subjection of the tribute-paying allies. The whole citizen population of Mytilene was condemned to death or slavery for trying to secede in 427 B.C., only to be spared at the last moment; there was no such reprieve for the people of Melos in 416.

  Our present system of government is the same as it nearly always has been in the past. Some people call it a democracy, whereas other people call it whatever they like. It is actually an aristocracy approved of by the masses (Plato Menexenus 238c). Socrates is said to be reporting a funeral speech in honor of the Athenian war dead, purportedly written by Aspasia, Pericles’s mistress.

  In theory, Athens was a democracy, but in practice it was ruled by just the one leading man (Thucydides History 2.65, referring to the dominant influence of Pericles in the heyday of the Athenian empire).

  Thucydides the historian is not to be confused with his namesake, the leader of the oligarchic opposition to Pericles. When asked by King Archidamus of Sparta whether he or Pericles was the better wrestler, Thucydides [the politician] complained, “Whenever I throw him, Pericles argues that he hasn’t fallen, and he gains the victory by convincing those who have actually seen him falling” (Plutarch Life of Pericles 8).

  To ensure attendance at the assembly, shops were closed, streets not leading to the meeting place were blocked off, a rope soaked in bright red paint was used to herd citizens to the assembly, and those who did not arrive in time to avoid the rope were fined. Sometime early in the 4th century B.C., payment for attendance at the assembly was introduced.

  Slave: Do you come from a genteel family?

  Sausage-seller: God, no! From a worthless one.

  Slave: Lucky you! That’ll give you a great advantage in politics.

  (Aristophanes Knights 185–86).

  Plutarch expresses great admiration for the openness and vigor of the Athenian democracy at Advice on Government 799d:

  The Carthaginians were surly and sullen and did not tolerate frivolity in the running of the state. They would never have agreed to an adjournment of t
he assembly if Cleon requested one because he had made a sacrifice and was expecting guests to dinner, but the Athenians granted it, laughing and clapping their hands.

  Nor, if a quail escaped from under Alcibiades’s cloak while he was addressing their assembly, would the Carthaginians have eagerly joined in the hunt for it and given it back to him, as the Athenians did.

  They would have put both Cleon and Alcibiades to death for insolent and frivolous conduct. After all, they exiled Hanno for aspiring to tyranny because he had a lion carry his baggage when he was on military campaigns.

  If the Thebans had captured Philip of Macedon’s messengers, who were carrying a letter from him to Olympias, I do not think that they would have refrained, as the Athenians did, from opening the affectionate private correspondence of an absent husband to his wife.

  I am quite sure that the Spartans would not have tolerated the insolent buffoonery of Stratocles, who persuaded the Athenians to celebrate a victory with sacrifices and, when it was reported that they had in fact been defeated and everyone was angry with him, he then asked what harm he had done the Athenian people: had they not, thanks to him, been happy for three days?

  I fully agree with the observation that no man who throws himself into politics, relying on the good faith of the people, ever has a happy death (Pausanias Guide to Greece 1.8.3). Pausanias is commenting on the suicide of Demosthenes, who took poison hidden in a reed pen when abandoned by the Athenians to the mercy of the Macedonians.