Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
“The sectarians deafen one another with their noise and clamor, keep anxiety away with their screeching.”
Charlemagne (r. 768-814), the king and emperor of the Franks, was put in a tough position when a bishop who was a friend and confidant of his wife, Hildegard (d. 783), became the subject of scrutiny for lavishly overspending on dubious religious relics. Charlemagne, hoping to chastise the bishop, concocted a scheme that would highlight the folly of the bishop’s actions and serve as a teaching moment for the realm. In furtherance of his plan, Charlemagne made a deal with a Jewish merchant who had international trade connections and had a familiarity with the relic trade. This merchant, under Charlemagne’s protection and direction, was tasked with approaching the problematic bishop with an offer to sell him a relic, which, unbeknownst to the bishop, would be counterfeit. With the permission of the king, the merchant was also allowed to charge extortionate prices for the holy hoax.
Charlemagne’s accomplice put a lot of effort into fabricating the fake relic that he would try to sell to the bishop. The merchant, as the story goes, caught a local mouse and had the unfortunate creature preserved with taxidermy. The stuffed mouse was then perfumed with spices, decorated with dyes or paints, and it may have been augmented so that it would not look like the average rodent. With the counterfeit curio in hand, and an exotic tale in mind to match it, the merchant set off to sell it to the bishop. Notker the Stammerer (c. 840-912), a monk and biographer, recorded the story, keeping the bishop’s name anonymous to spare the man from further embarrassment. Notker wrote:
“So the Jew caught an ordinary house mouse and stuffed it with various spices, and then offered it for sale to the bishop, saying that he had brought from Judea this most precious animal, never seen before. The bishop was filled with such joy at this, and offered the Jew three pounds of silver for the precious article. Then the Jew said: ‘A fine price indeed for so precious an article! I had rather throw it into the depths of the sea than let any man have it at so cheap and shameful a price.’ So the bishop, who had much wealth and never gave anything to the poor, offered him ten pounds of silver for the incomparable treasure. But the cunning man, with pretend indignation, replied: ‘The God of Abraham forbid that I should thus lose the fruit of my labour and transport.’ Then the greedy cleric, all eager for the prize offered him twenty pounds. But the Jew in high dudgeon wrapped up the mouse in the most costly silk and began to leave. Then the bishop, as thoroughly taken in as he deserved to be, offered a full measure of silver to obtain the priceless object. And so at last the merchant yielded to his entreaties with much show of reluctance” (Notker the Stammerer, The Deeds of Charlemagne, book 1, chapter 16).
With the mouse relinquished and the silver collected, the merchant returned to Charlemagne with the proceeds of the sale. After hearing the colorful debriefing, Charlemagne decided a stern reprimand of the bishop was in order. Even more, the king decided to rebuff the bishop in public. Notker the Stammerer continued the tale, writing, “After a few days the king called together all the bishops and nobles of that province to his assembly; and, after many needful matters had been considered, he ordered all that silver to be brought and placed in the middle of the palace. Then thus he spoke and said: ‘Fathers and guardians, bishops of our Church, you ought to minister to the poor…One of you has given a Jew all this silver for a painted mouse’” (The Deeds of Charlemagne, book 1, chapter 16). The guilty bishop, knowing his purchase was discovered, threw himself on the ground before the king and begged for forgiveness. Charlemagne verbally lashed the bishop with a few more phrases of wise criticism, but he ultimately let the man go without any further corrective measures. The public shaming was punishment enough.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Painting by Georg Sturm depicting Charlemagne and Einhard, on the west wall in the entrance hall, [Public Domain] via Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia and Europeana).
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This tapestry is titled Fall of Troy: Helen boarding ship to return to Sparta, and is believed by the Getty Institute to have been created between 1710 and 1720. In the long timeline of Homer’s recounting of the Trojan War saga, this scene takes place right in the middle of the chronology. It is set just after the fall of Troy, but immediately before the majority of the victorious Greek forces sailed off for their respective homes. In fact, the tapestry depicts the very moment when Helen and Menelaus boarded their flagship to begin their journey back to Mycenaean Sparta. The Spartan royals left earlier than many of their allies. In fact, Menelaus left so quickly that he skirted religious ceremony and failed to offer proper respect to the gods. It is this scene of Helen and Menelaus hurriedly departing from Troy that the 18th-century weavers re-created in the tapestry.
Unfortunately for Helen and Menelaus, they were about to depart on yet another perilous adventure, for nothing good comes from angering the gods before setting sail into the mercy of the winds and waves. Suffice it to say, the journey home did not go smoothly. Homer narrated the scene from the viewpoint of Nestor, who stated:
“’Meanwhile we were sailing together over the sea from Troy, Menelaus and I, the best of friends. But when we were abreast of the sacred cape of Sunium, where Attica juts out into the sea, Phoebus Apollo shot one of his painless arrows at Menelaus’ helmsman and killed him, with the tiller of the running ship still in his hands. This man, Phrontis son of Onetor, had been the world’s best steersman in a gale, and Menelaus, though anxious to journey on, was kept at Sunium till he could bury his comrade with the proper rites. But when he too had got away over the wine-dark sea in those great ships of his and had run as far as the steep headland of Malea, far-seeing Zeus brought disaster on their journey, and sent them a howling gale with giant waves. Then and there he split the fleet in two” (Homer, The Odyssey, Book 3, approximately between lines 270-290).
Such is the peril into which Menelaus and Helen were sailing in the scene depicted within the tapestry. Due to the godly attacks on his ships, the Spartan royal couple was subjected to a seven-year detour of sailing around the southeastern Mediterranean. In a conversation from Book 4 of The Odyssey, Menelaus reported that he visited Cyprus, Phoenicia, Sidon, Arabia, Libya and Egypt during those years of divine punishment before they were ultimately allowed to find their way back to Sparta.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)
“A democracy exists whenever those who are free and are not well-off, being in the majority, are in sovereign control of government, an oligarchy [exists] when control lies with the rich and better-off, these being few.”
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).
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This photograph was taken by the affluent British photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. Known for portraits of celebrity friends like Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sir John Herschel, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Darwin, Ellen Terry, G. F. Watts, Henry Taylor and Robert Browning, it was also not uncommon for Julia Margaret Cameron to photograph staged thematic scenes from history, folklore, and mythology. This photograph, titled “A Sibyl,” is one such themed piece pulled from the stories of ancient Greece and Rome.
A Sibyl, also spelled Sibylle and Sibyll, is a curious type of prophetess figure born from a fusion of the divine messenger, fortune teller, and revelatory writer archetypes. Sibyls were sought for their insight on the present and the future, and they could provide guidance on matters of the gods and death. They were described similarly to the Greek Pythia priestess who operated at Delphi, displaying erratic and exaggerated behavior, and known for delivering cryptic messages from the divine beyond. Not just verbal in nature, the sayings of the Sibyls were also written down and preserved. Featured heavily in the folkloric early history of Rome, the Sibyls were a group of prophetic women whose numbers varied between 1 and 12, and they made appearances in Roman origin myths, such as the story of the Trojan refugee, Aeneas (allegedly an ancestor of Rome’s founders), who traveled with the Cumaean Sibyl into the underworld.
Myth and legend aside, a living Sibyl was also said to have been active during the Roman kingdom era, and a collection of sayings and prophecies attributed to the Sibyls was reported to have been purchased by the Roman government in the time of Rome’s last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (r. 534-509 BCE). Rome’s compiled collection of cryptic and poetic riddles was called the Sibylline Books, and the text, which was treated with great respect, was placed under guard in Rome’s main temple of Jupiter.
Prophecies and riddles from the Sibylline Books were often studied by the Romans in times of great crisis. Wars, political turmoil, times of plague, and other similar devastating events, could provoke the Roman government to pull out the Books in order to search for advice and direction. Curiously, little is known about what was actually written in the Sibylline Books, as the prophecies were rarely quoted by ancient authors. Nevertheless, whatever the pages contained, they remained safe in their guarded temple until they were evidently heavily damaged by fire in 83 BCE, during the time of the dictator, Sulla. Despite the damaged state of the Sibylline Books, Romans continued to consult the remnants for centuries more, until whatever remained was completely destroyed by General Flavius Stilicho around 407 CE.
It is this ancient subject of the Sibyls and their books of prophecies that Julia Margaret Cameron captured in her Victorian-era photograph. A classically-garbed woman can be seen sitting beside an angled table, her arm draped over the pages of an open voluminous book. Just as in history, the writing in the book is obscure and hidden from the eye, giving us no clue as to what is printed on the pages.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
“Those who seek my personal views on each issue are being unnecessarily inquisitive, for when we engage in argument, we must look to the weight of reason rather than authority.”
Arichion of Phigaleia competed as a fighter in the sport of pankration—also spelled pancratium—during the Olympic Games of 564 BCE, reckoned the 54th Olympiad by the historian, Eusebius (c. 260-339 CE). Arichion was a heavy favorite, as he had won the event two times prior. But victory is never certain, especially for an aging athlete. Pankration’s brutal nature added to the uncertainty of the outcome, as it was an incredibly violent form of mixed martial arts, allowing punching, kicking, wrestling grapples, and almost every other brawling move besides biting and eye-gouging. It was a deadly sport, and competitors were known to die in the ferocious fights. Nevertheless, Arichion of Phigaleia, as a two-time Olympic champion, was well aware of the dangers and risks of competing against the best of the best in pankration.
Once the Olympic Games of the 54th Olympiad were formally set in motion and the pankration tournament brackets were set, Arichion of Phigaleia set off on his quest for his third Olympic victory. Still in dominant shape, Arichion made short work of his early competitors and ascended to the final stages of the tournament, eventually reaching the final bout. Only one more fight stood between him and his desired hopeful feat of becoming a three-time Olympic champion of pankration. The two remaining fighters were on the precipice of Olympic victory, but the brutal preceding fights left the finalists bruised, battered, and susceptible to further injury.
Shrugging off their fatigue and hurt, the finalists began their historic fight. Their battle was vicious, with great injury done on both sides. After a ferocious trading of blows, the fight eventually shifted into grappling and take-downs. In the rule-less wrestling, grievous damage was exchanged. Arichion applied enough pressure on his opponent’s leg that the bone snapped, and Arichion, too, found himself in a deadly stranglehold. The broken leg proved too painful for the champion’s opponent, prompting the man’s surrender and Arichion’s victory. Yet, sadly, that was not the end to the story.
A tragic and unfair twist of fate occurred in the time between the competitor’s signal of surrender and the official end to the pankration match. During that span of time, Arichion of Phigaleia succumbed to the stranglehold that had been applied to his neck, resulting in his death. On this, the aforementioned historian, Euseubius, wrote, “Arichion of Phigaleia was…strangled and died, while winning the pancratium contest for the third time, and though dead he was crowned as victor, because his opponent had already conceded defeat, after his leg was broken by Arichion” (Eusebius, Chronicle, Book II, The Greek Olympiads, entry for 54th Olympiad/564 BCE). As the quote conveys, Arichion of Phigaleia forced his competitor to surrender, but then perished to his opponent’s strangling before the fight could be ended by the Olympic authorities. Arichion of Phigaleia was posthumously awarded his third Olympic victory, and his death was evidently ruled as an accident, for no punitive measures or repercussions were reported for the opponent who had employed the stranglehold.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora, attributed to the Kleophrades Painterca (c. 500 BCE), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
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This painting, by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867), re-creates the story of the arrest and martyrdom of Saint Symphorien (also spelled Symphorian). According to legend, this saint clashed with local authorities in Autun, Gaul (modern France), during the time of Emperor Septimus Severus of Rome (r. 193-211). Septimus’ Severan Dynasty (r. 193-217, 218-235) was much more tolerant toward Christians than the rulers that came immediately before and after them, but some regional persecutions did occur during their dynastic rule. Notably, the father of the famous theologian, Origen, was martyred during one such persecution in 202, after Septimus Severus enacted a vague edict against the missionary activity of Christians. Symphorian was said to have fallen victim to a similar persecution around the same time, with the date of his death often being assigned to the year 200.
According to legend, Symphorien drew the deadly attention of Autun’s local Roman authorities during the time of a religious festival by refusing to honor the Roman pantheon of gods, particularly the goddesses Venus and Cybele. Symphorien’s lack of veneration and sacrifice reportedly offended the worshippers of Rome’s traditional gods, resulting in the saint being brought before a judge. During the hearing, Symphorien allegedly began preaching and reciting Biblical teachings, which, in effect, would have violated Septimus Severus’ sentiments against proselytization. Suffice it to say, the locals and the judge jumped at the opportunity to sentence Symphorien to death. A description of the saint’s sentencing and execution was recorded in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (c. 13th century), who wrote, “And then the judge, fulfilled with wrath, gave sentence, and commanded that Symphorien should be slain. And as he was led to the place of his martyrdom, his mother cried from the wall of her house…And then he was anon beheaded, and his body taken of Christian men and was honourably buried” (Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, 5.4).
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres re-creates this tale in his painting. He depicts Symphorien being led away by a rowdy crowd to the executioner’s block. Following Jacobus de Voragine’s narrative, Symphorien’s mother can be seen stretching out over the wall in the upper-left corner of the canvas, her arm reaching out for her condemned son. After the execution, Symphorien’s remains were laid to rest in a local cave, which was reportedly rediscovered by Bishop Euphronius of Autun. The bishop built a church on the site in the 5th century.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain, c. 1835-1910)
“You have seen that kind of people who will never let on that they don’t know the meaning of a new big word. The more ignorant they are, the more pitifully certain they are to pretend you haven’t shot over their heads.”
