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The Sputtering Start To Christopher Columbus’ First Voyage To The New World

By
thehistorianshut
-

Momentous enterprises do not always have graceful starts. This was true of the famous explorer, Christopher Columbus, who—as the popular rhyme recounts—sailed the ocean blue in 1492. In terms of simply finding a patron for his expedition, Columbus only obtained his fateful partnership with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain after he had already unsuccessfully pitched his idea to the Portuguese and the English. And although Ferdinand and Isabella did eventually support Columbus’ endeavor, the regal couple spent a long time delaying and deliberating until they finally made a contract with the explorer in April 1492. Proudly possessing royal assurances that included an elevation to the nobility, a special rank of “High Admiral of the Ocean Sea,“ future governorship of any discovered lands, and the permission to keep a share of obtained treasure (almost all of these assurances were eventually voided), Christopher Columbus relocated to the city of Palos de Moguer to prepare for his journey. By August, he had gathered and equipped his three ships (the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria), and was ready to embark on the next minor step of his journey—sailing from Palos to the Canary Islands.

On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his trio of ships set off from the Spanish mainland and started sailing for the Canaries. Unfortunately for Columbus, it did not take long for problems to begin occurring. On August 6—with the Canary Islands still a few days away—the ship mechanisms on the Pinta began malfunctioning. In particular, the rudder was said to have somehow or other been disabled. This problem was quickly fixed, but Christopher Columbus was worried, for he suspected sabotage, and such disruptive antics could be repeated. Columbus divulged the names of his prime suspects in his log book, summarized here by Bartolomé de las Casas (Columbus’ original was lost): “The rudder of the Pinta, whose captain was Martin Alonso Pinzón, jumped out of position; this was said to be the doing of one Gomez Rascón, and Cristóbal Quintero, the owner of the ship, who disliked the voyage. The Admiral says that before they sailed these men had been grumbling and making difficulties” (Digest of Columbus’ Log-Book On His First Voyage, entry for 6 August). Whatever the case, be it sabotage or terrible luck, the Pinta would prove to be a troublesome ship.

Although the ship had just been fixed the day before, the Pinta once again experienced a rudder failure on August 7. This time, the damage was much more difficult to correct, and the ship became more unruly as the days went on. By August 8, as told by the aforementioned log-book, the Pinta was “steering badly and shipping water,” and on August 9, the state of the ship had further devolved to being completely “unable to steer” (Bartolomé de las Casas, Digest of Columbus’ Log-Book, August 7-9). Ultimately, Christopher Columbus had to momentarily leave the Pinta behind, sailing on to the Canary Islands with his other ships.

After procuring supplies and hiring help, Columbus went to work thoroughly bringing the Pinta back to ship-shape. Repairs might have taken quite some time, for it was as late as September 2 (according to the logbook) when the Pinta was able to sail on its own to the Canary Islands. Christopher Columbus would remain in the Canaries for several more days, gathering supplies and setting his affairs in order, before sailing off toward the New World on September 6, 1492.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Oil sketch of the Landing of Columbus, by John Vanderlyn (c. 1775-1852), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Smithsonian).

 

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The Companions of Rinaldo, Painted By Nicolas Poussin (c. 1594–1665)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This curious scene, painted by the French artist Nicolas Poussin (c. 1594–1665), may look like an episode out of ancient Greek or Roman myth, but it actually comes from a story set in the First Crusade (c. 1095/1096-1099). The poem in question is the Gerusalemme liberata (or The Liberation of Jerusalem), written by Torquato Tasso (c. 1544-1595). Poussin’s choice of ancient-styled gear in the painting works quite well with Torquato Tasso’s poem, for the Gerusalemme liberata more closely resembles ancient epic poems such as the Iliad and the Aeneid than an actual account of the First Crusade. In short, Tasso’s poem is a fictitious tale, featuring a cast of characters that is a mixture of purely fictional characters and some historical figures, set together in a largely unhistorical plot that takes place at the time of the First Crusade. Like the ancient epics, supernatural forces play a large role in Tasso’s tale—yet, instead of Olympian or Capitoline gods intervening in human affairs, it is now God and the Devil, with their respective armies of angels and demons, who influence the war. Some old-school deities, however, such as Fortune and the Furies, do make appearances in Tasso’s poem. And besides demons, Tasso also livened up his tale with wizards, witches, and a varied host of monsters.

Nicolas Poussin’s painting features the fantastical, supernatural and mythical side of Torquato Tasso’s poem. As a prelude to what can be seen above, a powerful witch named Armida had taken captive a crusader named Rinaldo. The anciently-outfitted warriors shown above, named Carlo and Ubaldo (or Charles and Hubald), were sent on a rescue mission to free Rinaldo from his prison. Nevertheless, their rescue mission would turn out to be more difficult and arduous than they could have imagined. Although Rinaldo had been captured between Jerusalem and Antioch, he was thereafter taken by the witch as far away as the Canary Islands (nicknamed the Fortunate Isles). The rescue party, however, would fight supernatural with supernatural. The crusader characters encountered an unnamed sage, who provided the rescue party with a golden magic wand. This sage also directed the rescuers to a mysterious woman, who turned out to be the goddess, Fortune. With her help, the rescue party was easily shipped all the way to the Fortunate Isles without any difficulties. Yet, now that the sea journey was over, the hard part of the quest began. Armida was a mighty witch, after all, and her island lair was defended by a wide variety of magical and mythical creatures. In the painting above, Nicolas Poussin depicts the first creature that the rescuers encountered—a dragon. Tasso described the scene:

“Its crest and front scaled with pale gold, it strode,
neck swollen thick with rage and eyes aflame,
breathed smoke and blight, and covered all the road
beneath its bloated belly as it came.
Now it withdraws into itself, now node
on node uncoils, dragging its monstrous frame.
Thus to its wonted place of watch it slides
but does not slow the warriors’ rapid strides.

Already Charles has drawn to strike the drake,
when the other shouts: ‘What’s this? And do you mean
by strength of hand or weaponry to make
the reptile guardian vanish from the scene?
The charmed gold wand he then begins to shake;
the monster hears it whistling, shrill and keen,
and fearful at the sound, and swift to flee,
it slithers off and leaves that passage free.”
(Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, Canto 15, stanzas 48-49)

Such is the scene that inspired Nicolas Poussin’s painting. In the background, on the left side of the canvas, Fortune can be seen in the boat she used to ferry the rescuers to the witch’s island lair. The dragon can be seen on the right side of the canvas, snarling at the intruders. Carlo (or Charles) must be the figure in orange, for he has his sword drawn and at the ready. Ubaldo (or Hubald), however, wields the golden magic wand that would scare away the dragon.

Writen by C. Keith Hansley

 

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Lucan

By
thehistorianshut
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Lucan (c. 39-65)

“Those who know, as the world nods to ruin,
their place in life are lucky folks. No battles
call to wear them down; no trumpets disrupt them
sleeping soundly. They return to wives and newborns
under humble roofs in their own lands…”

  • From Lucan’s Civil War (Book 4, between approximately lines 387-414), translated by Matthew Fox (Penguin Classics, 2012).

The Legend Of How A Plague Led To Rome’s Interest In Performance Arts

By
thehistorianshut
-

Livy (c. 59 BCE-17CE), the Roman historian who wrote the definitive narrative of Rome’s ancient monarchy and early republic, curiously claimed that the Roman people had no interest in performance arts before the mid 4th century BCE. Prior to that time, Livy proposed, the Romans cared neither for attending plays, nor did they desire to hear musicians harmonize and melodize with complex orchestrated tunes. According to the tradition that Livy wrote down, the Romans, before their mid-century artistic shift, had only occupied themselves with sports and athletics, while in regards to vocal arts, Romans kept to the most primitive and un-luxurious forms of rhyme and song. This boycott on music, literary art and non-athletic entertainment only ended, according to Livy’s origin tale, due to the direst of circumstances—an uncontainable plague.

As the legend goes, Rome was ravaged by a terrible plague around 365 and 364 BCE, and Rome’s citizens became quite distressed when their usual prayers and ceremonies did nothing to clear out the illness. Morale in Rome paricularly sank after the pestilence claimed the life of the legendary figure, Marcus Furius Camillus, who had been saving Rome in its times of need for decades. With their own religious ceremonies failing and their hero, Camillus, defeated by the unceasing plague, the Romans allegedly began scouring the cultures of their neighbors for new ways to please the gods. Presumably hoping to cultivate favor with godly patrons of the arts (such as the muses, Dionysus/Bacchus and Apollo), the Romans allegedly began frantically importing all sorts of performance arts. Once these artistic practices were imported, the Romans—youths especially, it seems—were loath to see these new forms of entertainment disappear after the plague subsided. Therefore, despite protestations from the older generations, the performance arts stayed. Livy’s account of this odd tale was as follows:

“Amongst their other ceremonies intended to placate divine wrath, they are said to have introduced scenic entertainments, something quite novel for a warlike people whose only previous public spectacle had been that of the circus. These began only in a modest way, as most things do, and were in fact imported from abroad. Players were brought from Etruria to dance to the strains of the pipe without any singing or miming of song, and made quite graceful movements in the Etruscan style. Then the young Romans began to copy them, exchanging jokes at the same time in crude improvised verse, with gestures to fit the words. Thus the entertainment was adopted and became established by frequent repetition. The native actors were called histriones, because the Etruscan word for an actor is ister; they stopped bandying ribald improvised lines, like Fescennine verses, and began to perform saturate or medleys amplified with music, the singing properly arranged to fit the pipe and movement in harmony with it” (Livy, History of Rome, 7.2).

Curiously, Livy would go on to admit that these imports of performance arts from Etruria did not ultimately save Rome from their plague. Quite the opposite, he claimed that a flood of the Tiber interrupted one of the new performances, which was an omen of godly disapproval that made the people more stressed than ever. According to the tale, it was a traditional ceremony in which a Roman Consul hammers a nail into a temple wall that lessened the impact of the plague—or perhaps the illness had just run its course by then. Nevertheless, the imported performance arts were there to stay.

Livy’s tale here is a strange one, to be true, but folklore and legend usually have a grain of fact bundled within the layers of fiction. The story admits to Rome’s ample borrowing of features that they fancied from surrounding cities and cultures. And, indeed, Rome did long lag behind the Greeks in fields such as literature and history. Greeks, such as Homer and Hesiod, were writing poetry in the 8th century BCE, and later Greek scholars, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, were producing histories in the 5th century BCE. It was not until the second half of the 3rd century BCE, however, that the Romans produced their own first wave literary trailblazers—the Roman playwright Plautus (c. 254-184 BCE) and the first known Roman historian, Quintus Fabius Pictor, who published his text around 200 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Greco-Roman Ritual Dance, created by Angelo Monticelli (1778-1837) and engraved by Paolo Fumagalli, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the New York Public Library Digital Collections).

 

Sources:

Europa, Painted Anonymously In The 16th Century

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, created by an unknown artist in the late 16th century, depicts the myth of Europa, a daughter of a mythical Phoenician king named Agenor. In the artwork, Europa is represented by the underdressed woman, loosely covered by red cloth, who is seen hanging on tight to a white bull. The strange creature to which she clings is pivotal to the tale. As the story goes, the mysterious white bull had only recently wandered into King Aginor’s royal herds. Behaving in a friendly and unthreatening way, the bull befriended Europa, allowing her to groom him and to dress up his horns with garlands. This charming friendship between beast and woman, however, was not all that it seemed. The mysterious bull was actually Zeus (or the Roman Jupiter) in disguise. As Zeus was a notoriously lusty god, the conclusion to Europa’s unfortunate tale should be no surprise. Taking advantage of Europa’s misplaced trust, Zeus soon lured the unsuspecting princess onto his back, and once she fell for his trap, the magical god raced out over the depths of the sea, so that she could do nothing else but continue to cling to her kidnapper. This scene was described by the Roman poet, Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE):

“The princess even ventured to sit with her legs astride
on the back of the bull, unaware whose sides she was resting her thighs on;
when Jupiter, gradually edging away from the land and away
from the dry shore, placed his imposter’s hooves in the shallowest waves,
then advanced out further, and soon he was veering the spoils of his victory
out in mid-ocean. His frightened prize looked back at the shore
she was leaving behind, with her right hand clutching one horn and her left
on his back for support, while her fluttering dress swelled out in the sea breeze”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.868-875).

Such is the scene that is playing out in the painting featured above. It shows Europa being dragged out to sea by her godly captor, leaving behind two startled attendants on the beach who can only reach out their hands in dismay and disbelief. After the abduction, Zeus was said to have carried Europa to the island of Crete. There, the god got what he wanted, one way or the other. According to myth, Europa had several children with Zeus, including Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon and King Minos.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

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Joan of Arc’s Holy Banner

By
thehistorianshut
-

Of all the intriguing and interesting people of medieval Europe, Jeanne d’Arc (commonly known as Joan of Arc, c. 1412-1431) lived one of the most unique lives. Jeanne was the daughter of a peasant farmer named Jacques d’Arc and his wife, Isabelle, who lived in the village of Domrémy. Jeanne was acclimated to the chaos of the age quickly, for Domrémy was situated on the frontline of the wars between the Dauphin, Charles (later King Charles VII of France, r. 1422/1429-1461) and King Henry VI of England (who was allied to the Burgundians). Despite being raised in this tense atmosphere, even sometimes being forced to flee from Domrémy because of the threat posed by Burgundians, Jeanne nevertheless persevered with the hope and confidence that she received from the Church and the scripture it preached. Yet, Jeanne’s sense of divine assurance and purpose ascended to abnormal levels when she became thirteen years of age. As she, herself, described her circumstances, teenage Jeanne suddenly began hearing heavenly voices and seeing faces of semi-obscure saints and angels. While the scientifically- and medically- inclined might attempt to write off her experiences as a condition of the mind, such as schizophrenia, Jeanne truly believed that angels and spirits were making contact with her—and they started to do so on a near-daily basis for the rest of her life. Whatever the reason for the sounds and sights that she experienced, the voices and visions served Jeanne well, successfully counseling her on how to befriend lords, win battles, and conquer towns.

Although Jeanne d’Arc claimed to have been contacted by many different angels and saints, her most frequent advisors were said to have been the spirits of St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Margaret of Antioch. Interestingly, besides advising Jeanne on her daily actions, the voices and faces encouraged the young mystic to obtain certain items. For one, a buried sword was found by Jeanne at the church of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, and she claimed she learned of its location through her heavenly advisors. The next item that Jeanne’s voices would direct her to obtain, however, needed to be procured in a different way than the sword. Whereas the blade was already in existence, the next object that the saintly spirits wanted Jeanne to possess had not yet been made. Instead of coordinates, Jeanne apparently received precise instructions that she was to convey to a cloth-worker. Jeanne d’Arc was instructed to commission a battle-worthy banner, made from schematics that, she claimed, came straight from heaven.

After Jeanne d’Arc was captured in May 1430, she was put on trial by bishops and theologians from English and Burgundian cities that she had recently attacked. While the inquisitors likely never intended to show mercy on her (after all, she was a military threat and a religious rival to the English and Burgundian bishops), they did spend months questioning Jeanne on all sorts of topics. Thankfully, transcripts of these ill-fated interrogations and trials were preserved, creating a treasure trove of biographical, historical, philosophical and theological information about Jeanne d’Arc. Among this horde of knowledge is a description from Jeanne d’Arc of the banner that she commissioned to be made, as well as statements about the role that the spirits of St. Catherine and St. Margaret had in the creation of the holy flag.

During questioning on Februrary 27, 1431, Jeanne d’Arc gave a fairly detailed description of the banner design that she received during a vision with her heavenly advisors. The banner material—the foundation on which all else was placed—consisted of white linen, fringed with silk. This white field, as it were, was covered in a pattern of symbols that resembled lilies. In the center of the banner, a depiction of the world was featured, and it was designed in such a way that the world looked as if it were supported or judged by Heaven. Reinforcing this divine theme were two angels, situated on opposite sides of the banner. Finally, somewhere on a side of the banner, Jeanne stitched the names Jesus and Mary onto the cloth. The medieval court record’s wording of her description read as follows: “She answered she had a banner, with a field sown with lilies; the world was depicted on it, and the two angels, one at each side; it was white, or white linen or boucassin, and on it were written, she thought, these names, JHESUS MARIA; and it was fringed with silk” (The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc, Fourth Public Session). Jeanne d’Arc did not elaborate on the role of the spirits, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, in the creation of the banner until March 10, 1431. On that date, interrogation transcripts recorded, “she answered that St. Catherine and St. Margaret told her to take the banner, and bear it boldly, and to have painted thereon the King of Heaven” (The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc, First Session In Prison).

Curiously, King Charles VII of France gave Jeanne’s family an entirely different banner, presumably after he declared them nobles in December, 1429. According to Jeanne, her brothers were each given banners that featured a blue shield, a sword, and two fleurs-de-lys. Although Jeanne d’Arc was apparently given leave by the French king to carry this newer banner, too, she preferred her original standard, with its world, lilies and angels.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Reproduction attributed to Neurdein Freres of Jean Jacques Scherrer’s painting of Joan of Arc’s Entry Into Orleans, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Rijksmuseum.jpg).

 

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Dido’s Sacrifice To Juno, Painted By Pieter Pietersz Lastman (c. 1583-1633)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the Dutch artist Pieter Pietersz Lastman (c. 1583-1633), displays a scene of the mythical or legendary Queen Dido presiding over a religious sacrifice. Ancient Greeks and Romans credited this Queen Dido as the founder of the city of Carthage. As a woman of Phoenician heritage, Queen Dido would have worshiped Phoenician deities, yet as the artist of this painting follows Greco-Roman sources, Queen Dido is instead seen worshiping Juno (or Hera) in the artwork. In particular, Lastman seems to have drawn inspiration from descriptions of Dido and Carthage found in The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet, Virgil (70-19 BCE). He wrote:

“And first they visit the altars, make the rounds,
praying the gods for blessings, shrine by shrine.
They slaughter the pick of yearling sheep, the old way,
to Ceres, Giver of Laws, to Apollo, Bacchus who sets us free
and Juno above all, who guards the bonds of marriage.
Dido aglow with beauty holds the bowl in her right hand,
pouring wine between the horns of a pure white cow
or gravely paces before the gods’ fragrant altars,
under their statues’ eyes refreshing her first gifts,
dawn to dusk. And when the victims’ chests are splayed,
Dido, her lips parted, pores over their entrails,
throbbing still, for signs…”
(Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, approximately lines 70-80)

Pieter Pietersz Lastman’s painting contains several elements from this quote. Dido is seen in the center of the painting, holding a wine goblet by the fire. She does not pour the wine oblation between a cow’s horns, but the white-colored creature does stand beside her. A yearling sheep, and other sacrificial offerings, can also be seen in the painting. Overseeing it all is a statue of the goddess, Juno, seen sitting atop an upper terrace in view of the worshipping masses.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Stubborn Duke Gaidulf And The Ducal Resistance To King Agilulf Of The Lombards

By
thehistorianshut
-

Agilulf, a Lombard duke of Turin, positioned himself to become the next monarch of the Lombards after the suspicious death of King Authari (r. 584-590). Victors in conflicts often shape the historical narratives of their age, and the medieval story of how King Agilulf (r. 590-616) ascended to power seemingly had a healthy dose of propaganda in order to make his succession seem more legitimate and orderly than was actually true. According to the state-sponsored tradition, later written down by Paul the Deacon (c. 720-799), Authari’s widowed queen, Theudelinda, retained power in the Kingdom of the Lombards, and she chose Agilulf (allegedly a relative of the former king) to be her new husband. As the story goes, this marriage, which also made Agilulf the next king, was “celebrated with great rejoicing…he was raised to the sovereignty by all at Mediolanum” (Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, 3.35). If you read between the lines of this tradition, however, it is apparent that the start of King Agilulf’s reign was much more contested and unrestful than the official narrative lets on.

Almost all of the traditional narrative about King Agilulf’s ascendance to the throne has been challenged. For one, his connection to the former royal family is dubious and debated. Secondly, it is likely that he was the one who first instigated his marriage to the widowed queen, Theudelinda, instead of the other way around. Agilulf’s claims of royal blood and the spousal support of the well-connected queen were great boosts for his bid to seize the throne. He apparently needed these, for in contrast to the claims that Agilulf was celebrated and ‘raised to sovereignty by all,’ there were actually quite a few rival Lombard dukes who resisted and rebelled against him. To quash these challengers and dissidents, King Agilulf had to raise armies and hire executioners.

Near the beginning of Agilulf’s reign, Duke Gaidulf of Bergamo and Duke Ulfari of Treviso were known to have rebelled against the upstart king. Yet, rebellion would be a more trying task than they might have imagined, for Agilulf proved himself to be a formidable military leader.  He reportedly brought Duke Ulfari back into the fold fairly easily by besieging and capturing Ulfari in Treviso. Duke Gaidulf, however, was a much more slippery target. When Gaidulf learned that the king was coming for him, he fled Bergamo for the island of Comacina in Lake Como, near Milan. Yet, Agilulf tracked the duke to the small island and tried to capture him there. Duke Gaidulf slipped away again, however, and fled back to his seat of power at Bergamo. King Agilulf, remaining in hot pursuit, finally was able to form some kind of truce with the fugitive duke when they both met again at Bergamo. After diplomatically subjugating these two rebellious dukes with shows of force and with treaties, King Agilulf decided to show less mercy in the future. Nevertheless, this would not be the last we heard from Duke Gaidulf.

Around the same time that King Agilulf was dealing with the rebellions of Dukes Gaidulf and Ulfari, the monarch was also considering the fate of another Lombard nobleman. This third figure, named Mimulf, was a duke with power in northwestern Italy, ruling from around the Lake Orta region. Little is known about Duke Mimulf’s opinion regarding Agilulf’s kingship, but the king undoubtedly did not like Mimulf. Agilulf ultimately accused Mimulf of treason for having at one time surrendered to an enemy force during the sporadic and largely ineffective Frankish invasions of Lombard Italy between 584-590. Citing this incident that predated his own reign, King Agilulf had Duke Mimulf arrested and executed. This would be the new norm for Lombard noblemen who ran afoul of King Agilulf.

Not all disgruntled Lombard dukes decided to stake their success on their own military power—there was a long tradition of Lombard nobles defecting to the side of the Empire of Constantinople (or the Eastern Roman Empire), which still had military and political influence in Italy at that time. In King Agilulf’s reign, the most high-profile defector was Duke Maurisio of Perugia. Agilulf, seeking to regain the lands of the dukedom and to exact revenge against the defector, mustered an army and besieged Perugia around 593 or 594. The king won the war, and during or after the battle, Duke Maurisio was killed.

In addition to his domestic enemies, King Agilulf had to also deal with foreign foes, such as the Franks, the Empire of Constantinople, and the Avars. Agilulf, however, was able to maintain a working relationship with the civil-war-plagued Franks, and he managed to battle his way to a peace agreement with the Empire of Constantinople and the Papacy within the first fifteen years of his reign. As the outside threats lessened in intensity, King Agilulf could siphon away some of his military might for the purpose of suppressing disgruntled and rebellious nobles. The second half of the 590s seemed to have been a turning point for King Agilulf’s confidence in the stability of his power and authority, for he began purging the realm of several high-profile nobles whom he disliked. Sometime after 595, King Agilulf was known to have executed a nobleman named Warnecautius, as well as Duke Zangrulf of Verona. At the same time, he also sentenced to death the aforementioned rebellious Duke Gaidulf of Bergamo, who apparently had not regained the king’s confidence. King Agilulf would continue to rule the Kingdom of the Lombards until 616, and after the turn of the century, he faced considerably less resistance from the dukes who resided within reach of his influence.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (cropped and modified section from Legend of the Danish Flag (the Dannebrog) Falling from the Heavens during the Battle of Lyndanise in Estonia in 1219, Painted by C.A. Lorentzen (c. 1749-1828), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and Europeana).

 

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The Death Of Epaminondas, Painted By Isaac Walraven (c. 1686-1765)

By
thehistorianshut
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This artwork, by the Dutch artist Isaac Walraven (c. 1686-1765), was painted as a deathbed scene for Epaminondas (c. 410-362 BCE), a statesman and general from ancient Greece. Epaminondas of Thebes was a brilliant general who defeated the Spartan army in a pitched battle at Leuctra (371 BCE), shattering Sparta’s carefully-crafted reputation of having a near-invincible land army. He pressed the advantage by launching several military campaigns into the Peloponnese, even laying siege to the city of Sparta at least two times, in 370 BCE and 362 BCE. He ended his career with another pitched battle victory against Sparta and its allies at the Second Battle of Mantinea in 362 BCE, but the victory came at a steep cost—Epaminondas was mortally wounded during the fight and died of his injuries. Isaac Walraven’s painting shows the generals final moments, with him and his comrades still dressed for battle. Epaminondas’ death caused great dismay for the ambitious Thebans, and, conversely, it inspired thanksgiving and relief to the battered and humiliated Spartans. The great biographer and essayist, Plutarch, described Epaminondas’ death and the Spartan reaction to it:

“A few days afterwards the two sides fought a battle near Mantinea. Epaminondas had already routed the Spartans’ front ranks, and was eagerly pressing forward in pursuit, when a Spartan named Anticrates faced him and struck him down. Dioscorides’ story is that he used a spear, but the Spartans to this day refer to Anticrates’ descendants as Machairiones because he struck the blow with a sword (machaira). Epaminondas had inspired such dread in the Spartans while he was alive that they felt an extraordinary admiration and affection for his killer; they voted honours and rewards for Anticrates himself, as well as exemption from taxes for his descendants…” (Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Agesilaus, chapter 35).

Although Epaminondas had won the Second Battle of Mantinea, his people were in no mood to celebrate their victory without their leader. As he died, so too died the driving force behind Thebes’ ambition and military prowess. As for Sparta, although it celebrated Epaminondas’ death, the Spartans were never able to recover from the military, reputational and political damage that they had incurred at the hands of the slain Theban leader.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Sima Qian

By
thehistorianshut
-

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

“Laws are made to guide the people and punishments carried out to prevent evil. Both must be attended to if people of good character are not to live in fear.”

  • Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji 119) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).
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