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Apollo and St. Michael: Some Analogies Author(S): G Apollo and St. Michael: Some Analogies Author(s): G. F. Hill Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 36 (1916), pp. 134-162 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/625772 . Accessed: 22/10/2013 19:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 144.32.128.51 on Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:00:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES. 1.-THE FOUNDATION LEGEND OF THE SHRINE OF APOLLO SMINTHEUS. ON the coins of Alexandria Troas of Roman date we find certain types, which are evidently related to the story of the foundation of the Smintheion; as well as another which may refer to the foundation of the city itself. They have been discussed at length by Wroth.1 The most remarkable (Fig. 1, a) shows on the left a grotto, surmounted by a cultus-statue of a -.1 (1 Z f FIcw. 1.--COINS OF ALEXANDRIA TROAS. Apollo Smintheus; within the grotto is another statue, precisely similar, but lying on the ground. Before the grotto stands a herdsman, holding a pedum in his left hand, and raising his right in a gesture which, as Wroth says, may be interpreted as expressing either adoration or surprise. 'On the right, a bull is seen running away, as if terror-stricken, with its head turned back 1 B. M.C. Troas, etc., pp. xvii. ff. ; ep. grown up round an earlier cultus-figure. The Imhoof-Blumer, Griechische Miinzen, p. 624. coin-engraver of Roman date, however, in To avoid possible misconception, it may be illustrating the legend, has naturally repre- observed that, though the statue of Apollo sented, not the primitive figure, long dis- Smnintheus represented on the coins was the appeared, but the one which he knew. work of Scopas, the legends must first have 134 This content downloaded from 144.32.128.51 on Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:00:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions APOLLO AND ST. MICHAEL: SOME ANALOGIES 135 towards the cavern. It would seem that some local legend connected with the discovery of the statue of the god is here portrayed. The engraver appears to have naively blended two incidents of the legend-first, the chance finding in a cavern of the statue of Apollo Smintheus by a herdsman-next, the setting up of a statue for worship in a place of honour over the cavern. On other coins of Alexandria Troas a herdsman-who is evidently the same herdsman-is represented in the presence of a divinity who appears to be Apollo . and he often appears standing beside the feeding horse that occurs frequently as a coin-type of Alexandria Troas' (Fig. 1, d). Wroth continues: 'The type of an eagle holding a bull's head in its talons' (Fig. 1, b) 'has been explained by Leake ... as referring to some foundation-legend of the same character as the legends told of the Syrian Antioch and Nicomedia, according to which, when a founder' (i.e. Seleucus I. or Nicomedes I.), 'undetermined as to the site of his intended city, was sacrificing to some deity, an eagle carried away the head of the victim and deposited it on the future site. From the appearance of this type as a symbol in the "field" of certain coins' (Fig. 1, c) 'representing the Emperor sacrificing to Apollo Smintheus, it may be inferred that the foundation-legend of Alexandria Troas was in some way connected with that divinity.' The 'some way' presumably means that the eagle was said to have carried off the bull's head from a sacrifice which Antigonus was offering to Apollo Smintheus, and deposited it on the site of the future city of Alexandria. The inference is plausible enough. But this by way of digression, for we are concerned with the foundation not of Alexandria but of the Smintheion, at Chrysa near Hamaxitos. Most of the literary references are concerned with explaining the appearance of the mouse or rat as the attribute of Apollo. As they have all been conveniently collected by Dr. Farnell,2 I need not recite them here. Nor do I intend to make more than a passing reference to the explanation of the rodent as the plague-rat.3 Whether the attribute of 2 Cults of the Greek States, vol. iv. p. 448. *ApymAosconnected with apyds? The mice or I may mention here J. V. Grohmann's mono- rats kept below the altar in the Smintheion graph Apollo Smintheus u. die Bedeutung der were white. --I take this opportunity of grate- Mduse in der M1yth.der Indogermanen (Prag, fully acknowledging the many helpful sug- 1862), which proceeds on the theory that mice gestions which have been made to me by Mr. are 'Gewitterwesen,' and Apollo a storm- Cook in the course of this investigation. god like Rudra and Wotan. Mr. A. B. The whole question will, I hope, be Cook calls my attention to a curious in- threshed out by Mr. P. N. Ure, who very stance of the mouse (or rat) as a 'founda- kindly placed his notes at my disposal. I tion-animnal.' Heraclides Ponticus frag. 42 may refer also to Dr. Louis Sambon's articles ii. (F. H.G. 224) "ApytAov rvb p0v KaAhoiQo in the Times for Jan. 30 and Feb. 4, 1911 (he oi• bp04vros, Kahrh Xp77oFabvVCr- explains the serpent of Asklepios as an agent Opies"' •d•Aw irioav al 'ApytAov c&vd4aaoav cp. Steph. Byz. for the destruction of rats); and, for a very s.v. "ApylAos... vnudavodr07~8 &ret8; mbrbOpa- full treatment of the archaeolof of ' y plague, KiW 6 Os 5 EIS to Dr. Crawfurd's and Pesti- 'ApylAos KaAETraL.aKcarrdrVrv Raymond Plague -?b OGeeA'ous ScaraS6aAE'ra&m7ipros7 &S6p07. Is lence in Literature and Art (Oxford, 1914). This content downloaded from 144.32.128.51 on Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:00:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 136 G. F. HILL Apollo was a rat, or a field vole, I have no hesitation in saying that it is as the instrument of plague that the animal is associated with Smintheus. As Dr. Crawfurd points out, even mice that destroy crops cause famine, and the association of typhus (which the ancients would class as plague) with famine is historically notorious. There is a striking passage in Strabo which illustrates this oV8T -J r'-X^jol?&OV d4' ocaloi5 4: 'Tb vv,oVUVy (T&~v'I,~pcOv), 8'V o 7rok1XXKtL ovv'Q'q 9U T~ KavTappa TO'-TO70 Xo/a~' votter 7qoXOvOro'av. 7 T70io PwpaOotv, c1a1r0ical ,to-Oobv lipvvOat pvoOyTpov?rav, 7rpo? piTpov a7ros~eXOV, [calt] 86 Ical s•e•e('ouro /~hXte. 7rpoa-eXd'p3ve i~XXtovordwivt Icat iTrov. In the same way, pestilence might follow on the fatnine caused by a visitation of locusts, and it was probably owing to his intervention as plague- god on the occasion of such visitations that Apollo earned his title of Ilopvowrlov. (At Tauste near Saragossa in 1421 it was St. Michael who delivered the people from a plague of locusts).5 The special connexion of Smintheus with the plague is further indicated, as Mr. Ure reminds me, by the coincidence that in Rhodes we find a cult of Apollo Aoi~utoCand a festival Sminthia and a month Sminthios. On the evidence of the fragment of Aeschylus' Sisyphus (238) 'AX"' Ti~ ivOo, 0; repvqp4, tapovpao •Et o'Lr it has been maintained that the was a Apovpa^o4, although the obi'vOo9 /pji~ . very use of the epithet suggests that by itself does not mean field ao/lv00o mouse. Finally, there is, I believe, considerable dispute amongst naturalists as to the period when the rat first made its appearance in the West.6 But there has not, I believe, been any serious discussion by them of the Egyptian evidence, from which it would appear that rats were well known and distinguished from mice in antiquity.7 If so, it is incredible that they should not have found their way on shipboard to Greek lands. For my present purpose the important passage among the authorities on the Smintheion is the Scholium on Iliad I. 39: ev Xp6o'y, r -Xet i Mvala4, Kpitvis7tr lepe; 77V Toie70^EOtL 'AT7rXXwvoo . opPeLt(YO0 0et ( r04?~epEr••8/ aVTOV TOt( ,j~ oa4, oVL 7TOVS icapro;E70To7T, zXvalvovr8o. ovX'e064 E0 o •ypo C O7rE e av7oT 7IrpOp"8lv oVy aiVTOVi aTaXXa/y?^a,at, e o a'PXtIoVoXovo 7 7rap' ?evtaOEt d8eb b4r E'Xr7' TCoWv drraXXdgetv, ica )7 7rapeTyEVETo, aacv T7oevo-ar TobVSTO i3 &0 OEtpeve.v vo ovy Eve7eXaTo7 ,7rapaXp •/a 7T araX.Xaoaoe T7V E7rrtadvetav aVTroi at Kptlv t. oi5 yevoY/Jevovo Kp'ivti iepOv v8rqTX p7rpooayope;vcas, er7ret8 77v E'YXCOp-oP 8pvrTa70 0(6,, •qulvO'a avrvov KaTa o,6 4 iii. 4, 18 (C. 165). Eastern Roman Empire, including the Ex- 5 AA.
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