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15

PYTHAGORAS AS COCK

Micyllus, the poor cobbler of Lucian's Gallus, has had the overwhelm­ ing desire of becoming rich since his boyhood (28). To acquire gold has become an obsession for him (6-7, with reference to Midas), and that is why he is told that he was an Indian ant in one of his previous lives (fLUP­ fL1j~ 'I\lOLxo~, 'tW\I 'to xpucr(O\l &\lopu't'tonw\I, 16: compare 3.102). But , the master of transmigrations, and &\lafL\lTjcreL~ of his previous lives, appears to Micyllus in a in the shape of a cock, and succeeds in curing him of his obsession (lyw cre lacrofLaL, wM(xune, 28)-first, by telling Micyllus of his own former unhappy existence as a rich and powerful king, poisoned by his own son (21-25), then by showing him (by means of magic) the wretched way of life of his rich neighbors Simon, Gnipho, and Eucrates (who in reality proves to be an &xpa'tTj~) (28-33). The question is now: Why did Lucian's Pythagoras choose the shape of a cock for his apparition and revelation? Why did he not appear as Pythagoras himself, or as the Cynic Crates (20), or else as a prophesying horse (for Pythagoras was that too: 20; 26; 27, with reference to Achilles' Xanthus in 2)? Rudolf Helm (Lucian und Menipp [Leipzig, 1906] 334), after referring to Tereus of ' Birds and to the dialogue Jackdaw of the Cynic (Diog. Laert. 6.80) as examples of speaking birds, left the ques­ tion unanswered. Pythagoras himself had been a jackdaw in one of his former lives (Gallus 20 and 27); nevertheless, he did not choose to appear as such to Micyllus. Otto Skutsch ("Notes on ," Class. Philol. 54 [1959] 115b) first pointed out the link between Pythagoras and the peacock (cf. Annals 15; Persius 6.11 pavone ex Pythagoreo and Schol. ad loc.), and Lucian's allusion to a Samian peacock (i.e., Pythagoras) converted into a Boeotian rooster (&A.ex'tpUW\I qnA6cro'Po~ ... &nt fL~\I &\l9pcil1toU Op\lL~, &nt U ~afL(ou Ta\layparo~ &\la1ti'P1j\la~, 4); then he dismissed this possi­ bility while stating: "This interpretation, however, seems entirely forced." With good reason, for Lucian certainly did not introduce the cock into his dialogue just for the sake of a pun. Jacques Bompaire, in his inspiring book Lucien tcrivain: imitation et crea­ tion (Paris, 1958) 697 n. 3, thought of the proverbial cock as prophet of evil (oiseau de malheur), while referring to ' Satyrikon 74.1-4. This PYTHAGORAS AS COCK 175

is not likely either, for Micyllus respectfully calls his enlightening cock­ teacher waOtpw'tcx'tE OtAEX'tpUWV (7). The Socratic cock as a customary offering to in gratitude for a cure ( Phaedo 118 a 7, 't 'AaXA1j1tL OtpdAOflEV OtAEX'tpuovcx; compare Herodas 4.11 ff.; Artemidorus 5.1.9; Aelian Fr. 186 Didot = 98 Teubner) is out of place here. For neither is Micyllus a patient, nor is the sage cock, a leading character in the dialogue, a simple sacrificial animal.1 Furthermore, the link between the cock and cannot explain the leading role of the cock in the dialogue either. For this link is used by Lucian to explain only two secondary achievements of the cock: (1) the ability to speak ("I am a friend of Hermes, the most talkative and elo­ quent of all the gods," 2); and (2), the magic power of the cock's feather, given to him by Hermes ("Hermes, to whom I am consecrated, gave me this privilege," 28). As for (1), Lucian himself dismisses this explanation while stating that the real reason (~ OtA1j9EO"'t€pCX CXL't(CX, 2) for the cock's ability to speak con­ sists in the fact that he was a man not long ago (01J..OO"L r~p 0 viiv O"OL OtAEX'tPUWV tpCXLVOflEVO<; ou 1tPO 1toAAoii

1 Compare, e.g., Isidor Scheftelowitz, Das stellvertretende Huhnopfer (RGVV XIV.3, Giessen, 1914), 19. 2 Compare H. Biichtold-Staubli, Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, II, 1282; III, 1327.; Stith Thompson, D1400. 1. 19 'Magic feather defeats enemy. '-The examples ad­ duced by Tadeusz Zielinski, "Die Miirchenkomiidie in Athen," Jahresbericht der St. Annen­ Schule (St. Petersburg, 1885), 22 and 58 n. 18, are irrelevant, since they deal with the motifs of the woodpecker's mandrake (Springwurzd) opening every door (Bachtold-Stiiubli VIII, 140 f.), and of the siskin's stone rendering a man invisible (B.-St. IX, 888).