In the 2nd century, there lived a prominent Roman man who suffered from severe stomach pains. The man was affluent and his brother was a Senator of Rome, so he had the means and ability to travel widely in search of a cure for his ailment. His search for a miracle cure led him to the city of Abonoteichus (also spelled Abonuteichos and known, too, as Ionopolis), in the northern Anatolian region of Paphlagonia. There, in that environment near the Black Sea, the senator’s brother put his health in the hands of a religious leader named Alexander, who led a cult that worshipped the entity, Glycon, a serpent figure with human hair.
Alexander’s cult of Glycon was founded during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161) and gained imperial recognition and favor during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180). Alexander, among other religious cult activities, ran a prophecy-for-pay operation, where submitted questions (accompanied by a payment) would be given a varyingly cryptic reply that was attributed to Glycon.
Seeking out Alexander and the cult of Glycon, the senator’s brother submitted a plea for help to the cult, asking for a prophecy, miracle, or divine recommendation to help with his stomach problems. Alexander accepted the man’s query, and agreed to present the case to the snake entity. As the story goes, Glycon’s response was odd and eyebrow-raising to many skeptics of the cult. As told by the writer, Lucian of Samosata (c. 120-180+):
“On one occasion when he did venture to give a response to a senator’s brother he made a complete fool of himself, as he could neither concoct a clever reply himself nor find someone who could do a suitable one for him. The man complained of a stomach-ache, and Alexander, intending to prescribe a meal of pig’s trotter prepared with mallow, produced the following: Sprinkle your mallow with cumin in a sacred meal-tub of porkers” (Lucian, Alexander or The False Prophet, chapter 25).
Per Lucian’s assessment that Alexander “made a complete fool of himself” because of his lack of an ability to “concoct a clever reply,” it is likely that the odd recipe of porkers with mallow and cumin did not go over well with the senator’s brother and his entourage. Nevertheless, it should also be mentioned that Lucian was a satirist who was no friend of the cult of Glycon, so the details of his story should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Incidents like these aside, Alexander and his cult of Glycon became extremely successful and influential in the Roman Empire. With imperial connections and a sizable cult following, Alexander and his organization gained great sway over the Black Sea region and the Balkans.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Cropped table from The Feast of Acheloüs, by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1577–1640), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
Sources:
- Lucian, Selected Dialogues, translated by C. D. N. Costa. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford World Classics), 2005, 2006, 2009.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, edited by Simon Price and Emily Kearns. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
