Herakles Inside and Outside the Church: From the First Apologists to the End of the Quattrocento 9004421521, 9789004421523

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Herakles Inside and Outside the Church

Metaforms studies in the reception of classical antiquity

Editors-in-Chief Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin) Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) John T. Hamilton (Harvard University) Editorial Board Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus) Constanze Guthenke (Oxford University) Miriam Leonard (University College London) Mira Seo (Yale-nus College)

volume 18

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca

Herakles Inside and Outside the Church From the First Apologists to the End of the Quattrocento

Edited by

Arlene Allan Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides Emma Stafford

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Statue of Hercules, detail of pulpit by Giovanni Pisano (c.1310) in Pisa Cathedral. © 2019. Photo Scala, Florence. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2019051122

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 2212-9405 ISBN 978-90-04-42152-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42153-0 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgements xiv Notes on Contributors xvi Introduction 1 Arlene Allan

Part 1 Making Connections: the Early Years 1

Herakles, ‘Christ-Curious’ Greeks and Revelation 5 21 Arlene Allan

2

The Tides of Virtue and Vice: Augustine’s Response to Stoic Herakles 45 Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

Part 2 Appropriation: Verbal 3

Exemplum virtutis for Christian Emperors: the Role of Herakles/ Hercules in Late Antique Imperial Representation 73 Alexandra Eppinger

4

Herculean Centos: Myth, Polemics, and the Crucified Hero in Late Antiquity 94 Brian P. Sowers

5

Herakleios or Herakles? Panegyric and Pathopoeia in George of Pisidia’s Heraklias 116 Andrew Mellas

6

Herakles in Byzantium: a (Neo)Platonic Perspective 133 Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

7

Dante’s Hercules 155 Giampiero Scafoglio

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Part 3 Appropriation: Visual 8

Hercules in the hypogeum at the Via Dino Compagni, Rome 173 Gail Tatham

9

The Constellation of Hercules and His Struggle with the Nemean Lion on Two Romanesque Reliefs from Split Cathedral 198 Ivana Čapeta Rakić

10

From Antiquity to Byzantium to Late Medieval Italy: Hercules on the Façade of San Marco 219 Lenia Kouneni

11

Transformations of Herculean Fortitude in Florence 248 Thomas J. Sienkewicz

12

Ovid’s Hercules in 1497: a Greek Hero in the Translation of the Metamorphoses by Giovanni Bonsignori and in His Woodcuts 271 Giuseppe Capriotti

part 4 Beyond the Church 13

Wearing the Hero on Your Sleeve: Piecing Together the Materials of the Heraklean Myth in Late-Roman Egypt 293 Cary MacMahon

14 Herakles Vajrapani, the Companion of Buddha 315 Karl Galinsky Conclusion 333 Arlene Allan

Index Locorum 341 Index of Terms 351

Foreword Herakles is Greek mythology’s most famous hero, appearing in dozens of episodes of a story told in every genre of ancient literature and in a bewildering variety of visual media. The subject of the volumes within the Metaforms series, however, is not the hero in antiquity, but rather his enduring popularity in later ages, from late antiquity via Byzantium and the Renaissance to the modern world. 1

Naming the Hero

The Greek Herakles was called ‘Hercle’ by the Etruscans, and adopted early on by the Romans as ‘Hercules’. Subsequent cultures have spelt his name in different ways: for example, in modern English the ‘k’ is often rendered as a ‘c’ – ‘Heracles’ – following a long tradition of the Latinisation of Greek names; in German both ‘Herakles’ and ‘Herkules’ are correct, in French both ‘Héraclès’ and ‘Hercules’, while in Italian ‘Ercole’ is the norm. In this series we have tried to be consistent in referring to our hero as ‘Herakles’, a straightforward transliteration of the ancient Greek Ἡρακλῆς, whenever Greek material is under discussion, ‘Hercules’ when dealing with Roman material. ‘Hercules’ is also the default spelling in the Renaissance, when Latin was much more widely understood than Greek, and subsequent centuries have tended to adopt this version of the hero’s name more often than not, though there are exceptions: we have tried always to remain faithful to the primary material under discussion in our choice of spelling. The hero is occasionally referred to as ‘Alcides’ (‘Alkeides’ in Greek), after his paternal grandfather Alcaeus (Alkaios), son of Perseus. 2

The Earliest Sources of the Hero’s Story

In order to appreciate the myriad ways in which Herakles has been put to use in post-classical media, some knowledge of the story conveyed by the ancient sources is necessary. It is important to recognise that there is no single authoritative account of Herakles’ life and deeds to which we can refer: we know of various Herakles epics dating to the seventh century BCE and later, but none survives in more than a few fragments; likewise fragmentary are the works of the early mythographers, who first attempted a systematic presentation of stories about Herakles in the fifth century BCE. Our earliest sources

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for the whole story are Diodorus Siculus, whose Historical Library of c. 30 BCE includes a lengthy account of Herakles as part of a grand history of the world, and Apollodorus, whose Library of the first or second century (all dates are CE, unless otherwise stated) includes a briefer synopsis, as part of a handbook of Greek mythology. Individual episodes, however, can be traced much earlier in Greek literature and visual arts, where there is plenty of experimentation with different ways of telling the story, and sometimes what seems to be a completely different version of the episode in question. The freedom which ancient writers and artists felt in adapting Herakles’ story should be born in mind when we are considering post-classical treatments of the hero: there is no such thing as the ‘right’ story from which any divergence is ‘wrong’. Contemporary scholarship recognises that any search for a definitive version is reductive, and rather seeks to understand the motivations for, and effects of, diversity in the story’s presentation. It is possible, however, to think in terms of more-or-less traditional treatments, and some elements of Herakles’ story are more widely-attested than others. Arguably the best known episodes are the twelve labours, which include the Heraklean exploits most frequently depicted in antiquity, and are returned to again and again in the literature and art of subsequent centuries. The specific number twelve may only have been established in the first half of the fifth century BCE, when the labours are depicted on the twelve metopes (six at either end) inside the porches of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. The particular set of exploits here agrees with the lists later provided by Diodorus and Apollodorus (with minor differences in their order), so can be regarded as more or less canonical, though some variation is introduced at different periods. 3

Synopsis of Herakles’ Myth

The following synopsis of Herakles’ myth is based on Apollodorus’ account (Library 2.5.7). Names are given in their Greek spelling; the Latin version is only given (in parenthesis) where it differs substantially (regular minor differences are the substitution of ‘c’ for ‘k’, ‘ae’ for ‘ai’, and an ‘-us’ ending for ‘os’). 3.1 Birth and Early Life Herakles was born of the mortal woman Alkmene, fathered by Zeus (Jupiter), who had taken on the form of her husband Amphitryon, king of Thebes; Herakles’ twin brother Iphikles was fathered by Amphitryon himself. The one

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significant event of his childhood occurred in the boys’ infancy, when Herakles strangled a pair of snakes sent by Zeus’s jealous wife Hera (Juno) to kill him. On the verge of adulthood, the young Herakles was presented with a choice between the paths of Virtue and Vice, who appeared to him in the form of beautiful women. His first marriage to Megara, daughter of Kreon (a later king of Thebes), was cut short by the fit of madness, sent by Hera, in which he killed both her and their children. 3.2 The Twelve Labours A period of enslavement to Amphitryon’s cousin Eurystheus, king of Tiryns (or Argos) is often seen as expiation for these murders. In performing the tasks he set, Herakles is often helped by his nephew, Iphikles’ son Iphitos. 1) The Nemean lion: because of its invulnerable skin, Herakles has to use his bare hands to kill the lion, showing off his prowess in wrestling; the lion-skin thereafter becomes his trademark garment. 2) The Lernaian hydra: whenever one of its heads is cut off, two more grow in its place, so that Herakles can only vanquish the monster by cauterising the stumps. 3) The Keryneian (sometimes Kerynitian) hind: usually a gentler creature, sacred to Artemis (Diana), with golden horns, which Herakles must capture alive and present to Eurystheus. 4) The Erymanthian boar: again to be captured and presented to Eurystheus, who is often depicted cowering at the sight of this ferocious beast. 5) The stables of Augeias, king of Elis: Herakles sometimes avoids the demeaning task of shovelling cow-dung by the ingenious device of diverting a local river or two to wash the stables clean. 6) The Stymphalian birds: man-eating or simply numerous, these are shot down by Herakles’ arrows. 7) The Cretan bull: presented to Eurystheus, then released for later capture by Theseus. 8) The mares of Diomedes, king of Thrace: these man-eating horses are usually fed on passers-by, until Herakles feeds their master to them. 9) The Amazons: vanquished by Herakles in battle, who sometimes takes their queen Hippolyta’s belt as a trophy. 10) The cattle of Geryon: brought back by Herakles from the far west, after defeating the triple-bodied monster, Geryon. 11) The apples of the Hesperides: fetched by Atlas from the Hesperides’ garden in the far west while Herakles holds up the heavens, or retrieved by Herakles himself after slaying the serpent Ladon.

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12) Kerberos: the three-headed hound of Hades, brought up from the Underworld for presentation to Eurystheus, then returned to the land of the dead. 3.3 Other Exploits As if twelve labours were insufficient proof of his heroism, Herakles is credited with a host of other successful encounters, sometimes known as the parerga, ‘additional deeds’. Some are associated with one or other of the labours, but many are not securely placed on any mythological timeline. – Pholos and the centaurs of Mount Pholoe: a friendly encounter en route for the Erymanthian boar becomes a brawl when a jar of wine is opened. – Alkestis: en route to tackle the mares of Diomedes, Herakles brings the recently-deceased wife of Admetos back from Hades. – Encounters en route to/from Geryon and the Hesperides’ garden: with the shape-shifting sea-god Nereus or Triton, who is reluctant to provide directions; with the giant Antaios, who can only be conquered if his contact with his mother (Earth) is broken; with the Egyptian king Bousiris, given to sacrificing foreign visitors; with the Roman brigand Cacus, who attempts to steal the cattle Herakles is driving home. – Unplaced encounters: with the giant Alkyoneus, sometimes approached while asleep; with Kyknos, who used the skulls of his victims to build a temple of Apollo; with the Moliones, conjoined twins; with wizened Geras and Thanatos (Old Age and Death personified, respectively). – Participation in the great battle of the gods against the giants, the Gigantomachy, which established Zeus’ supremacy: according to some, the gods could only win with Herakles’ help. – Following the murder of Iphitos, son of Eurytos, king of Oichalia, Herakles seeks purification at Delphi, where he impatiently steals the tripod on which the Pythia sat to deliver her oracles, until Apollo intervenes. The oracle orders a period of enslavement to the Lydian Queen Omphale, with whom Herakles swaps clothes; while in Lydia, he deals with local nuisances Syleus and the Kerkopes. – Herakles rescues Hesione, princess of Troy, from a sea-monster; in return, her father king Laomedon promises Herakles divine horses, but deceitfully sends him away with ordinary ones; Herakles returns with companions to carry out the first sack of Troy. – In the Peloponnese, Herakles founds the Olympic Games, but also sacks both Elis and Pylos in response to various slights. At Tegea he seduces princess Auge, begetting a son Telephos, who goes on to become king of Mysia in Asia Minor.

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3.4 Events Leading Up to Herakles’ Death and Apotheosis Herakles wins the hand of his second wife, Deianeira, daughter of Oineus king of Kalydon, by defeating the river-god Acheloos in a wrestling match; they have a son, Hyllos. At some point the couple encounter the centaur Nessos, who offers to carry Deianeira across a river but tries to rape her halfway across. Herakles shoots him with an arrow, but as he lies dying Nessos persuades Deianeira to take a vial of his blood, to be employed should she ever need a love potion. Some time later, Herakles returns from sacking the city of Oichalia, bringing back king Eurytos’ daughter Iole as a concubine. Deaineira sends Herakles a tunic impregnated with Nessos’ blood, thinking to win him back, only to find that she has unwittingly poisoned him. In agony, Herakles orders a pyre to be built on Mount Oita, near their home in Thebes; as a reward for lighting the pyre, he hands his bow to Philoktetes, which will subsequently be essential to the fall of Troy. Herakles dies on the pyre, but is immediately taken up to the heavens, where he marries the goddess Hebe (Youth personified), and lives amongst the gods on Olympos for all eternity. 4

Classical Sources of Herakles’ Stories and Their Genres/Media

With such a vast range of stories, it is unsurprising that Herakles should be so ubiquitous in ancient literature and art. He is mentioned in our earliest surviving Greek epic poetry c. 750–700 BCE, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod’s Theogony and, later in the archaic period, in the shorter genre of lyric; in the fifth century BCE he is the subject of both tragedy and comedy on the Athenian stage, as well as in the prose genres of history and mythography. At the same time, he is everywhere in the visual arts, especially of the archaic period, adorning temples and other public buildings in sculptural form, and decorating thousands of vases made at Athens and elsewhere; most frequently represented are Herakles’ monster-slaying exploits, though other themes can be found too. Later Greek and Latin literature follows this lead, with Herakles continuing to appear in epic, and being referenced in the less obvious genres of pastoral and elegiac poetry; he likewise has a place in new visual media developed by the Romans, in wall-painting, mosaic and in relief sculpture decorating sarcophagi. From the fourth century BCE onwards Herakles becomes an unlikely hero of philosophy, starting with Prodikos’ tale (reported by Xenophon) of the ‘Choice of Herakles’, which casts him as champion of the life of virtue (Greek aretē, Latin virtus). Both Stoics and Cynics looked to Herakles as an example of endurance, self-control and the rejection of luxury, motivated by the

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pursuit of virtue rather than personal gain. In a similar vein, Herakles’ supposed moral qualities, as well as his physical prowess, made him a role model for political leaders. This idea was particularly exploited in the visual propaganda of Alexander the Great, who is depicted on coins wearing the lion-skin, an image later adopted by Hellenistic kings anxious to associate themselves with both Alexander and Herakles, and later still taken up by a number of Roman emperors. 5 The Post-Classical Herakles All of these aspects of Herakles resurface at various points in the hero’s post-classical career. In the volumes in this series we see the treatment of different episodes of his story in a wide variety of media, be they literary, visual or performative (drama, music, film), from Renaissance poetry to the modern novel, from late Roman Egyptian textiles to twenty-first century New Zealand prints. We see these stories allegorised in philosophical, theological and political discourse. We see examples of Herakles’ image adopted to bolster the legitimacy of political leaders from late Roman and Byzantine emperors via French kings to Mussolini and Putin. The one element of the ancient Herakles which does not readily translate into the post-classical world is his active worship by individuals and city-states with prayers, sacrifices and all the trappings of ancient Greek and Roman religion. The advent of Christianity rendered such ritual practices obsolete for Herakles, as for all other ‘pagan’ gods and heroes: even in the sphere of religious significance, however, Herakles maintains some purchase, for example as a prototype of Christ and role-model for Christian fortitude. Covering such an enormous range of material with authority would be impossible for any single scholar: too many different periods, cultures and media are involved, demanding different areas of expertise and a variety of methodological approaches. The work of the Leeds Hercules Project (www.herculesproject.leeds.ac.uk) has therefore been to bring together scholars from different backgrounds, bringing different disciplinary perspectives to bear on the central question of Herakles’ versatility and significance to so many contexts. The result is more than a collection of disparate essays: it is a wide-ranging survey of a theme of tremendous ongoing relevance to the modern world, which we

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hope will inspire further study both of Herakles himself and of the reception of classical myth more broadly.1 This volume focuses on the appropriation of Herakles in Christian and other religious texts, material culture and visual arts from late antiquity to the Renaissance. All the dates within this volume are CE unless otherwise stated. Emma Stafford Leeds, December 2019 Bibliography Blanshard, A.J.L. (2005) Hercules: a heroic life, London: Granta Books. Galinsky, K. (1972) The Herakles Theme: the adaptations of the hero in literature from Homer to the twentieth century, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Stafford, E.J. (2012) Herakles, Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

1  For more detailed discussion of the ancient material, and all the issues raised here, see Stafford 2012. Galinsky 1972 covers the full spectrum of Herakles’ incarnations in classical and post-classical literature; Blanshard 2005 provides a ‘biography’ of the hero, discussing a selection of ancient and post-classical representations of each episode of the myth.

Acknowledgements The origins of this volume lie in a conference held at Leeds in 2013, Hercules: a Hero for All Ages. The 49 papers delivered there, by scholars from a variety of disciplines, covered receptions of the classical hero in a wide range of periods and media – too wide, we agreed, to form a single coherent publication. However, Arlene Allan and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides were interested in pursuing the area in which their own papers had focused, Herakles’ appropriation by the early Church. A call for papers on this topic elicited a number of contributions which we were able to add to those from the Leeds conference to form the core of the current volume. Meanwhile, an AHRC Networking grant awarded in 2016 facilitated the development of further volumes, covering later periods and themes of Herculean reception, and the editors of Brill’s Metaforms series agreed to take these on. All four volumes were given impetus by a further conference at Leeds in 2017, Celebrating Hercules in the Modern World. Details of both conferences and the volumes can be found on the Hercules Project’s website (https://herculesproject.leeeds.ac.uk). We would like to thank all those who participated in discussion at both conferences, as well as those speakers whose papers have ended up in this volume. The enthusiasm of participants and their breadth of knowledge confirmed that this was a theme worth pursuing, and have sustained us through the lengthy process of producing the book. Thanks are also due to the AHRC for the Network award, and to a number of bodies who provided support for the two conferences, especially in the form of bursaries for postgraduate students and early-career researchers: the Classical Association, the Hellenic Society, the Roman Society, and the Institute of Classical Studies. The University of Leeds sponsored some keynote speakers, and has provided the project with a base throughout. Colleagues from the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies have been generous with both practical support and help finding answers to obscure academic questions. As anyone who has ever assembled a multi-authored volume such as this knows, the practical work involved is considerable. Before one can even begin to think about higher intellectual issues, like the quality of argument of individual papers and the coherence of the volume as a whole, individual contributions have to be collected in, rendered into house style, and missing references and other information pursued; later, contributors may need help sourcing images and permissions for their reproduction, and checks are required on a host

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of minor details, like the harmonisation of differing styles of transliteration and spelling of Greek names. For work on all of these aspects of book production, and much more besides, we would like to thank Dr Eleanor OKell, who has often gone above and beyond the official remit of her role as the Hercules Project’s research assistant, and has shown exemplary tact and patience in dealing with contributors and editors alike. Arlene Allan, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Emma Stafford Dunedin, Sydney and Leeds, December 2019

Notes on Contributors Arlene Allan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics, University of Otago, New Zealand. Her research and teaching interests include ancient Greek socioreligious history, Athenian drama and the interface between Graeco-Roman religion and early Christianity. She is co-author of A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama (Wiley Blackwell, 2005; revised 2nd edition 2014) with Ian C. Storey and sole author of Hermes (Routledge, 2017) and several articles and book chapters in these subject areas. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides is Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2017–2021). Her research interests focus on the use of mythic and religious traditions in political agendas of the Hellenistic and Augustan periods; also the reception of Greek philosophy in Christianity. She is the author of Eros and Ritual (Gorgias Press, 2005; reprinted 2013) and Models of Kingship (Routledge, 2017), and numerous research articles on the aforementioned topics. She is currently writing books on The History of Inebriation from Plato to Landino (University of Pennsylvania Press) and Sexuality in Greek Epigrams and later European Literature (Brill). Ivana Čapeta Rakić is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split. Her research interests in iconography and iconology are primarily directed at painting in the late Middle Ages and early modern age, as well as at Romanesque sculpture. For the purposes of scientific research she has spent short periods in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Archivio di Stato in Venice and in the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. She has published scientific and research papers in Croatian and international journals, and presented at Croatian and international conferences. Her list of publications is available at https://bib.irb.hr/lista-radova?autor=297730 (accessed 21/05/2018). Giuseppe Capriotti is Assistant Professor in Early Modern Art History at the University of Macerata. He has published several works on the fortune of Greek mythology in art and

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on anti-Jewish and anti-Turkish painting. He recently published both the anastatic reprint of Lodovico Dolce’s vulgarization of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Le Trasformationi di Lodovico Dolce: il rinascimento ovidiano di Giovanni Antonio Rusconi, Affinità Elettive Edizioni, 2013) and L’alibi del mito: un’altra autobiografia di Benvenuto Cellini (Il melangolo, 2013). Alexandra Eppinger is a Research Associate in the Department of Ancient History at Technische Universität Darmstadt, where she teaches courses on Greek and Roman History. She is the author of Hercules in der Spätantike (Harrassowitz 2015). Her research interests include late-antique cultural history, ancient discourses on gender and sexuality, the reception of Hercules in eighteenth-century political caricatures, and atheism in antiquity. Karl Galinsky is the Floyd Cailloux Centennial Professor of Classics and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Herakles Theme (Blackwell 1972) and has published extensively, especially on Roman civilization, including Augustan Culture (Princeton 1996, 2nd ed. in preparation). In 2009 he received an International Max-Planck Research Prize and directed an international five-year project on Roman cultural memory. Lenia Kouneni is an Associate Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews. Her primary research concern is the notion of ‘influence’ and artistic contacts between different cultures. She has published articles on the influence of Byzantine art in Italian painting, and is currently working on the reception of Greek and Roman antiquity in fourteenth-century Italy, as well as the Grand Tour and the travels and collections made by the British in the eighteenth century. Cary MacMahon is an independent scholar with an enduring interest in the garments and garment imagery of the ancient world. This interest has encompassed formal study at the University of Cambridge, consultation and research for museums, experimental archaeology projects and costuming impact and outreach activities designed to bring the ancient world to accurate life. Her other research interests centre on Manichaeism.

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Andrew Mellas is a lecturer in Byzantine Studies at St Andrew’s Theological College in Australia. He was recently awarded his doctorate from the University of Sydney on the history of emotions in Byzantium and has published various articles and chapters on Byzantine literature, hymnody and patristics in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. He is currently editing and translating a collection of hymns composed by Romanos the Melodist. Giampiero Scafoglio is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Nice (Sophia Antipolis) and Research Coordinator at CNRS (CEPAM UMR 7264). He is author of numerous works on the Greek epic cycle, Roman tragedy, Virgil, poetry and poetics in late antiquity. His most recent book is Ajax: un héros qui vient de loin (Hakkert, 2017). He also works on the reception of classical culture in medieval and modern literature, particularly Dante and Erasmus. Thomas J. Sienkewicz taught a wide range of Classics courses, especially Classical Mythology, for more than thirty years as Capron Professor of Classics at Monmouth College in Illinois. He is the author of Theories of Myth: An Annotated Guide (Scarecrow Press and Salem Press, 1997), World Mythology: An Annotated Guide to Collections and Anthologies (Salem Press and Scarecrow Press, 1996), and, with Kenneth J. Kitchell, Disce: An Elementary Latin Course (Pearson, 2011). He is particularly interested in artistic representations of classical mythology. Brian P. Sowers is Assistant Professor of Classics at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. His research focuses on early Christianity, late-antique literature, and gender and reception studies. He has published on late-Latin reading communities and early-Christian female martyrs, saints, and poets, including Perpetua, Felicitas, Thecla, Justina, Aelia Eudocia, and Proba. His current monograph project (Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018) examines the poetry of Aelia Eudocia, one of antiquity’s best surviving female authors. Emma Stafford is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds. She is author of numerous works on Greek myth, religion and iconography, including the monographs Herakles (Routledge, 2012) and Worshipping Virtues: personification and

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the divine in ancient Greece (Classical Press of Wales/Duckworth, 2000). She is coordinator of the Hercules: a Hero for All Ages project (https://hercules project.leeds.ac.uk/ (accessed 20/12/19)). Gail Tatham lectured in the Department of Classics at the University of Otago in Dunedin, and has published on topics relating to mythology and religion. Now retired, she has maintained her interest in art history and theory, especially as regards her specialist area, early Christian art.

Introduction Arlene Allan 1

Herakles’ Dissemination across the Mediterranean World and Roman and Byzantine Empires

It should come as no surprise that the legendary Greek hero Herakles, whose famous labours took him to the very edges of the known world and beyond, would continue to have a presence in the cultures that came after the glory days of Greece. Moving into the Latin-speaking world relatively early in his long career, he became most familiar to the generations who encountered him in the context of the Roman Empire as Hercules – although, he may have passed through Etruria first on his way to Rome: they knew a god named Hercle, who shared with Herakles some of his activities and attributes.1 This was but the first stage in his appropriation by successive cultures in which a place was made for this hero-turned-god (-turned-hero again) in their repertoires of stories and images.2 It is generally believed that Herakles came to Rome at some point in the seventh century BCE, with clear evidence of his presence in Latin-speaking areas in the fifth century BCE (all dates in this volume are CE, unless otherwise stated). Certainly, Dionysius of Halicarnassus believes that the Greeks, including Herakles himself, were involved in the founding of Rome (Roman Antiquities 7.70, 72) and at least as early as 125 BCE, if not earlier, Herakles was being linked with the earliest stages of Rome’s history by Romans themselves. Fabius Pictor, the Pontifex Maximus at that time, took note of Herakles’ activities in the area in his Annals, suggesting that the story was already a part of the Roman ‘history’ and the hero’s status as (quasi- or preliminary) co-founder of Rome with Aeneas and then Romulus generally appreciated.3 Virgil, however, is the Latin poet whose Aeneid provides us with the greatest detail of the Roman Hercules’ activity: in the process of completing his tenth labour, Hercules quite literally prepared the ground for Rome by destroying the fire-breathing, cattle-stealing 1  On Etruscan Hercle, see e.g. Emmanuel-Rebuffat, 1985; McDonough 2002. 2  Some would even argue that Greek Herakles is himself an import from lands east of Greece. See, for example, Bayet 1926; Dussaud 1946–8; van Berchem 1967; Mierse 2004. 3  See Galinsky (1969) 52–3. Strabo (5.3) is another author who associates Hercules with the later founders; Livy (1.7.3) notes that at Romulus’ founding of Rome, he sacrificed to Hercules in the Greek way, implying that the ritual existed prior to his founding of the city.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_002

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monstrosity Cacus, who was resident on what would become one of the seven hills of Rome (Aeneid 8.219–61).4 Herakles/Hercules is certainly a multi-talented figure who is granted most, if not all of the attributes that a people-group and leader would wish to claim as innately their own. The earlier Greek poets had praised Herakles for his athletic prowess, setting him as an exemplar to be followed.5 In Hesiod’s Theogony, his strength and wit present him as the great civilizer, the child of Zeus who made the world safe for mortals by overcoming the evil men and beasts that threatened their existence. And, although Homer, speaking through Odysseus, may not accept Herakles as an ideal representative of moral excellence (Odyssey 11.601–26), that did not prevent him from becoming the quintessential model of exemplary virtue for certain philosophical schools (the Stoics and Cynics, in particular). Certainly Prodikos’ famous fifth-century BCE tale of the hero’s choice at the crossroads contributed greatly to his movement in this direction. Indeed, in the early fifth-century BCE, Pindar had already named Herakles as such (Nemean 9.32–4) because of his beneficent civilizing work through his imposed and self-chosen labours.6 Other aspects of his career lent themselves to his politicisation. Alexander the Great seems to have been the first to ‘politicise’ Herakles through his appropriation of Herakles’ epithet Kallinikos (‘Fair-Conquering’) by means of the variation Anikētos (‘Unconquered’). Perhaps not surprisingly, following his lead, several Roman generals of the second and third centuries BCE dedicated thank offerings to Hercules in gratitude for their victories.7 L. Mummius, for example, dedicated both a temple and a statue of Hercules with the epithet ‘Victor’ in his honour in 146 BCE, not at the site of his victory but on the Caelian Hill in Rome, in fulfilment of a previously made vow. Pompey, too, would later dedicate a temple to Hercules at Rome, now with an epithet which had been granted to victorious generals beginning with Scipio Africanus the 4  Except for Ovid, who locates Cacus’ cave on the Aventine, a hill lying outside of the city’s encircling wall, the pomerium (Fasti 1.542–3). Evander, the Arcadian king residing in the nearby area of Pallatium, prepared a sacrifice in Herakles’ honour in the Greek manner, thereby instituting a commemorative ritual celebrating the hero’s preliminary contribution to the founding of the city of Rome (Aeneid 8.262–79). 5  Simonides (e.g., 10.39), Bacchylides (e.g., 33.50–92; 40.45–57) and Pindar (e.g., Olympian 10.44; Nemean 7.89–97) all held him in high esteem in their epinician poems. 6   There were however, dissenting voices: both Plutarch (Moralia 341F) and Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 13.80) expressed some doubt over Herakles’ status as humanity’s willing helper. 7  Weinstock (1957, 222) lists the following generals: M. Minucius Rufus, T. Quinctus Flaminius, M. Acilius Glabrio, M. Fulvius Nobilior, and L. Aemilius Paullus. For the importance of Hercules Invictus to the Roman army, see Bayet 1926, 325–32; Crawford 1974, 714 n. 7.

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Elder – Invictus.8 Ironically, Pompey was the last successful general to be granted this title; however, the epithet itself did not disappear. Rather, it migrated (like the hero himself) from generals to emperors: for certain emperors in Rome, their title was not merely victorious (Victor) but unconquerable/ invincible (Invictus).9 Indeed, seven of Rome’s emperors, beginning with Domitian and ending with Maximian, each adopted Hercules Invictus as their patron deity and took his epithet as their own;10 thus, by the third century it was not uncommon for an emperor to have ‘Invictus’ as part of his title. Although the title disappeared from the imperial nomenclature early in the fourth century, the appeal of Hercules for rulers lived on. In addition to embracing the patronage of Hercules and taking his epithet as their own, several emperors advertised their divine supporter by depicting Hercules or his well-known attributes on their coins. Trajan seems to have been the first to do so, using a club to represent a column in commemoration of his Dacian conquests.11 As Shotter observes, Hercules, ‘the one who laboured and suffered for his fellow man, who at the end reaped the reward of translation to divinity’, was a fitting model for many a Roman emperor – and, the most efficient way to establish that connection in the minds of the people was to place it directly in their hands as imagery on coins.12 These image-bearing and attribute-bearing coins travelled almost as far afield as did Herakles/Hercules himself. His journeys not only took him to the west of Greece but also to the east, where local inhabitants either received him as a new god or recognised in him elements of one of their own indigenous deities. Such was certainly the case for several regions in the east in which a god such as Melqart was worshipped. Scholarship now tends to view Herakles himself as the Hellenes’ version of the Near Eastern god who migrated west, certainly with the Phoenicians, but possibly with even earlier trading peoples.13 When the Romans encountered Melqart on an island of Gadiz (Cádiz) where 8   For fuller discussion of the Invictus epithet, see Weinstock 1957. Cicero (Against Verres 4.82) provides the evidence for Scipio Africanus’ use of the epithet. 9   See Palagia 1990, 61; Weinstock 1957. For an unflattering discussion of the Tetrarchs’ appropriation of Hercules, see Vermeule 1977. 10  The seven are: Domitian, Trajan, Commodus, Caracalla, Diocletian, Carausius and Maximian. According to Pliny the Younger (Panegyricus 8.2) Trajan liked to be addressed as ‘Imperator Invictus.’ 11  See Mattingly, et al. 1962, sv. ‘Trajan’, 581. 12  Shotter 1979, 51. He goes on to discuss the way in which imagery on coins could be used in the battle for supporters between duelling emperors, citing the case of Galienus and Postumus in the late third century. For the continuing use of Herculean associations in the fourth century, see Frazer 1966. 13  Mierse 2004.

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the Mediterranean opens out into the Atlantic Ocean, they saw their own Hercules as described in his labour to get the apples of the Hesperides: the two columns in Melqart’s temple were deemed to be those set up by Hercules to commemorate his labour.14 So too the Greeks, as they moved further east with the conquests of Alexander the Great, introduced their Herakles to new people groups who also recognized one (or more) of their own gods in him. Such seems to have been the case when he was carried by Alexander’s Greeks into Bactria and India as they followed in the legendary footsteps of Dionysos and Herakles himself. Given his expansive exposure to the peoples to the east and west of Greece, and even to those who resided to the south, especially in the lands of modern-day Egypt, Libya and Algeria, it is not surprising to find that Herakles remained a figure of some significance even in the Christianised world of Byzantium. Indeed, in the Byzantine world, there was far less of a divorce between the pagan and the Christian worlds than was developing in the Western empire throughout late antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Images of the Olympians and other mythic figures were commonplace while the old stories continued to be used in formal education. In light of this, it would be accurate to say that, of all the gods in the Greek and Roman pantheons, Herakles/Hercules continued to loom large in the minds of the people even after the Christian Church had come to dominate the religious landscape of the West and portions of the Near East. Herakles/Hercules’ success, in part, is due to his initial status as a mortal man born to Zeus/Jupiter, the chief god of the pantheon, but with character flaws and instincts common to all mortals, which rendered him approachable. Nevertheless, his semi-divine standing also endowed him with extra-human strengths and abilities that moved him into the heroic category of being, one to whom prayers for vengeance, protection and salvation could be made. With his subsequent apotheosis, he became more than a hero; he became a god endowed with powers to intervene in a host of additional situations. The similarities between Jesus and Herakles would be obvious to anyone familiar with both figures: to use my own chapter’s description: Both were sons of the supreme god, born to a mortal mother; both were subject to persecution in their childhood; both became wanderers who performed benevolent acts to the benefit of individuals and society; both endured suffering in the process of doing so, being submissive to the will 14  For discussion of Melqart and his avatars, see Dussaud 1946–9, Bonnet 1988 and JourdainAnnequin 1989.

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of their divine fathers; both also suffered an excruciatingly painful and humiliating death; both descended into the underworld; and both ascended to heaven after dying. It is not surprising, then, especially in light of such views as expressed by Irenaeus of Lyons (‘The glory of God is the living human being’, Against Heresies 4.20.7), that some early Christians, especially those with a classical education, would find in Herakles a forerunner as prime exemplar of God’s glory as manifested in Jesus Christ.15 2

An Overview of the Contents of This Volume

In this, the first volume in a series examining the reception of Herakles/ Hercules, we restrict our focus to the new cultural setting of the Middle Ages both in the Latin West and the Greek East, with some comparative material on Herakles’ reception by Gandhara Buddhists. Within the stated timeframe of ‘from the first Apologists to the end of the Quattrocento’, our specific focus is on the interface between Herakles/Hercules and the emergent Church from its earliest phase at Rome beginning in the second century through to the end of the fourteenth century in the West. In this context we explore the dynamics of Hercules’ presence in Church rhetoric, which often draws its paradigms from classical literature and philosophy, as well as in Christian art and the new political spectrum of nations and rulers. While considering the ways in which the emerging and emergent Church engaged with this complicated hero-cum-god of the Graeco-Roman world, we also consider some aspects of Herakles’ reception outside the confines of a Christian context. Although our coverage is selective, we hope it inspires further research on Hercules’ deep and multi-faceted use beyond the classical period and even beyond late antiquity. Additionally, while we expect that our chapters will convince readers of Hercules’ mutability across time and spaces of various sorts (political, social, intellectual, artistic, etc.), it is the nuances with which Hercules is invested every time he is employed, whether that be on the tallest architectural features of a medieval temple, in the remotest of areas, or in the most unexpected places, that deserve closer investigation: sometimes they may reveal surprising cultural connections and other times they add significant new twists to well-studied theological arguments. 15  Irenaeus, however, was not a Christian who extended this recognition to Herakles. His attitude to pagan paideia differed dramatically from Origen’s: see his Philokalia 13.

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In this volume, working with the sense of verbal play in our title, the contributors offer studies of Herakles/Hercules in verbal and visual contexts, which include the use of his figure in mythic settings as decoration on the inside and outside of Christian buildings and in those settings ambiguously related or wholly unrelated to a Christian context. 2.1 Making Connections: the Early Years Our study opens with two chapters addressing issues arising in the first few centuries CE, when the newly emerging religion from the East, which took Jesus Christ as a god, began to gather believers from within the Roman Empire. In the first, Arlene Allan examines how familiarity with Herakles’ story, in several of its various forms, might have served to aid a ‘Christ-curious’ Greekspeaker in his or her apprehension and acceptance of Jesus. After rehearsing the most obvious similarities between these two salvific figures, she looks specifically at how a ‘Christ-curious’ attendee at a house-church meeting might have responded to a reading of Revelation 4–5 with its description of the ‘One upon the Throne’ and the ‘Lamb who was slain’ in relation to Herakles’ depiction on and around the throne of Phidias’ statue of Zeus at Olympia, arguing that once an association between these two has been made in the new convert’s mind, it would be most difficult to dislodge. The tenacity of belief in Herakles/Hercules was clearly a frustration for the early Apologists and Christian Fathers, even as the Christian faith continued to gain ground at Rome and throughout the Empire. Thus, despite the hostility to ‘paganism’ amongst the well-educated leaders and proponents of the early Church, it may be the case that, post-Constantine, the Church built upon a pre-existing affinity between Christ and Herakles already recognized among some of the laity, thereby (however unintentionally) mirroring Paul’s example by ‘capturing every conception of mind to the submission of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). In the second chapter, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides explores the reception of Herakles in early Christianity with the aim of showing how thoroughly early Christian thinkers were engaged ‘with all strands of pagan philosophical and literary traditions’.16 Noting that for moralists and philosophers of the fourth century, Herakles’ attributes of determination and endurance in the face of adversity had become an ideal, she identifies and discusses several aspects of Herakles’ story and character that appealed to both philosophers and leaders 16  All quotations in the summary of the volume content are taken from the chapters under discussion or from the abstracts, which are available on the Hercules Project website (Hercules Project 2017).

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of the Church: Prodikos’ famous ‘Choice of Herakles’ story served to facilitate the comparison of Herakles with Christ, a comparison rendered more feasible by ‘his investment with Roman Stoic values’. The Christian author of the Letter to the Hebrews (c. 63–4) was clearly aware of Herakles’ perceived Christ-likeness and, to judge from their refutations of such similar views, so were the second-century Apologists Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, Origen, and Tertullian and the later Church Father, St Ambrose.17 Several of the hero’s adventures became matters for debate during these early years of the Christian faith, when defining itself against the established pagan cults was crucial for its success: his battle against Cacus (= ‘Evil’); his ­underworld katabasis as an initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries; his raising of Alkestis after her death; and, especially, his own apotheosis. Recognizing the similarities of these elements to Christ’s story did not prevent Herakles, ‘the glutton of the Greek literature, the arch-enemy of Lactantius, and the ideal ruler of distinctly anti-Christian Roman emperors such as Diocletian’, from becoming a sounding board for Christian thinkers’ debate over several of the faith’s core issues, such as the resurrection of the flesh and immortality and the nature and effects of vices, baptism, and even possession and exorcism. In light of all this Anagnostou-Laoutides suggests that the Herakles of the first Christian centuries was an Orphicized one, through which the Church Fathers engaged competitively, especially with the Stoics, and in the process defined and refined various aspects of the early Church’s own dogma. 2.2 Verbal Appropriations of Herakles/Hercules: What People Hear Our opening two chapters on the early Church were very much concerned with the effects of speaking and hearing. In both chapters, Herakles seems to be used as a touchstone in the acceptance and advancement of the newly emergent faction of the Judaic faith from the East. The written and the spoken word remain the focus of the chapters which follow, as they examine the uses to which Herakles/Hercules was put as the Christian Church solidified its dominance to the east and west of Rome. This hero’s name was frequently encountered in written forms of communication, whether reading for oneself or listening to something being read or performed. However, the Herakles who grabs the attention in the Christian world is a significantly sanitized figure, one whose excesses have been ignored and whose virtues have been enhanced with respect to moral, political and even spiritual significance.

17  For Justin Martyr and Origen see Allan in this volume; Tertullian Apologeticum 14 and 30, de Pallio esp. 4; Ireneaus Adversus haereses 1.9.

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The use of Herakles/Hercules as role model for rulers is the subject of our opening chapter in this section. Focusing particularly on the oratorical form known as the panegyric (essentially a praise speech in honour of a ruler), Alexandra Eppinger reveals how Herakles could be used in a public performance piece either to glorify the Emperor’s deeds, which might be compared to those of the hero, or to serve as a model for the Emperor to follow. She opens with an overview of the earlier use of Hercules as exemplum for the Roman emperors to establish a basis for comparison in his use by/for emperors in the Christianised Byzantine world of the fourth and fifth century. During this earlier period, claiming descent from the hero was certainly one way in which an emperor or his challenger might choose to infer that he shared in the same noble characteristics of his forebear and thus was (or would be) a superior ruler. Such self-promotion, however, typically came not from the mouths of the emperors themselves, but from the mouths of others; and, as Eppinger notes, Herakles’ earlier use in the oratory of non-Christian rulers meant that a Byzantine orator and emperor could assume a familiarity, an acceptance and an appreciation of the hero’s use as exemplum even in a Christian context. Thus, Herakles continued to be used politically as exemplum virtutis for Christian rulers, beginning with ‘the princeps christianus Theodosius I being eulogized as [Herakles] Kallinikos’. The association was further strengthened by the style of column employed in the arch leading to the Forum of Theodosius in Constantinople, which drew Herakles’ epithets Alexikakos (‘Warder-off of Evil’) and pacifer (‘bringer of peace’) to Theodosius following his victory over the usurper Magnus Maximus. Claudian also availed himself of Herakles’ laudatory status to flatter and praise Honorius and Stilicho, as did Sidonius in both his comparison of Herakles’ heroic deeds to those of the young Avitus and his praise of the emperor Majorian. Eppinger argues that such evidence shows ‘beyond a doubt that, regardless of his origins in pagan myth and the vilifications of the apologists, Herakles was deemed a fitting exemplum for a Christian emperor, and that eulogists could count on their audiences’ (including the addressees’) familiarity with and favourable disposition towards him, in accordance with the traditional use of Herakles as a topos of encomiastic literature’. Thus, her argument highlights the variety of ways in which Herakles was used as a ‘model of virtue’ for several rulers, according to the type of behaviour the orator desired to applaud or encourage in a particular emperor. Dealing with a poetic form from roughly the same period as Eppinger, Brian P. Sowers considers the use of Hercules in a type of poetic composition that was popular from the third to the seventh century. As he observes, late antiquity was a period in which new literary genres developed, and this included the cento,

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a patchwork of full or half lines taken from Homer and Virgil in order to create an entirely new poem. Although the authors of the majority of these Greek and Latin centos remain unknown, the two-dozen surviving poems come from a variety of regions of the later Roman Empire. In his chapter, Sowers considers Hercules’ presence in three centos: Irenaeus’ citation of such a poem in his critique of Valentinus’ biblical interpretation (Against Heresies 1.n-9); an anonymous sixteen-line Hercules et Antaeus most probably North African in origin, and Proba’s Christian cento. With regard to the Irenaeus example, Sowers observes that ‘readers of Homer would know that he never related Hercules’ adventures in the underworld’; thus, he argues, Irenaeus’ use of the genre serves ‘as a hyperbolic parody of heretical exegesis’ by means of which he requires his readers to call upon their own literary knowledge to understand the game being played. In contrast to Irenaeus’ use of the cento, Sowers then discusses the Hercules et Antaeus, as a poem which reveals ‘how the Herculean cycle was interpreted and paraphrased’ in its more popular form, as a retelling of classical myths, including the tales of such figures as Medea, Narcissus, Europa and Hippodamia. In contrast, Proba’s cento makes use of Virgil’s verses on Hercules to create her paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible and gospel narratives dealing with Jesus’ life and crucifixion. This comparative study of three centos involving Hercules leads Sowers to the conclusion that the very versatility of both Hercules and the genre itself afforded composers leave to display their learning as well as their own creative abilities, while also promoting or disparaging compositions and beliefs of others. With Andrew Mellas, our attention is brought back to panegyric as it is used by the seventh-century writer George of Pisidia to sing the praises of the Byzantine Emperor Herakleios. His focus is on a particular sub-genre of panegyric, known as the basilikos logos, which was a highly rhetorical prose oration composed for and presented to the Emperor on celebratory occasions, such as the Feast of Epiphany, or a triumphal return from battle; George of Pisidia’s use of the genre in his oration Heraklias serves to highlight the superiority of this Byzantine emperor on the occasion of his return from battle as victor. Making use of mythological, biblical and historical imagery, George of Pisidia styles the Emperor as one who surpasses Orpheus, Noah and Alexander in his ‘godlike feats.’ But more than a simple comparative analysis, Mellas specifically considers how the panegyrist used Herakles and the Emperor to arouse and direct the emotions of his auditors in a particular way. Thus, in his analysis of this praise piece, Mellas notes the points at which the images chosen by George of Pisidia serve to invite his auditors not only to view Herakleios as Herakles, but also to encourage them to see both Herakleios and Herakles as Christ-like, and, in so doing, to become emotionally engaged in the events being narrated.

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This emotional engagement is accomplished, in part, by the physical setting of the performance space in which this panegyric was heard, a space which, in the narrative, made up the local part of the cosmic space affected by Herakleios’ victory and, in part, by verbal techniques through which George of Pisidia encouraged his auditors to view themselves as active participants in these cosmic events rather than distanced, uninvolved observers. In doing so, Mellas also reveals how pathopoeia served as the ‘cornerstone’ of George of Pisidia’s success in his presentation of Herakleios, Byzantium’s first Basileus, ‘as the earthly incarnation of the divine monarchy’. Remaining in Byzantium, the Herakles of our fourth chapter continues to serve as an important figure in the verbal communications of certain philosophers alongside some philosophically-minded Church Fathers such as Clement and Origen in the Byzantine world up to the end of the fifteenth century. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides places the focus on the relative importance of the allegorical interpretations of Herakles’ labours, descent and apotheosis, particularly as they pertained to the status and nature of the soul and body after death: the questions and debate within and among Platonists, Neoplatonists, and Christians was whether the apotheosized soul retained memory of its embodied life, based in large part on a problematic statement in Homer’s Odyssey (11.601–26). Tracing the flow of ideas and positions on matters of the soul and the importance of endurance in the overcoming of ponoi (labours) to the achievement of the highest ends from late antiquity up to the fifteenth century, AnagnostouLaoutides reveals how Byzantine authors made use of Stoic ideas to guide them in their pursuit of a very Platonic ‘union with God’ and in the process, effectively demonstrates that for philosophers of whatever bent, Christian or otherwise, from Byzantium or from elsewhere, Herakles continued to serve as a figure ‘good to think with’. Having brought us up to the fifteenth century with the words of Michael Psellos, the study of Herakles in literature turns back two centuries to the 1300s and the oft’ named (if not oft’ read) work of the Italian author, Dante: that is, his Divine Comedy. The hero’s many labours are again the focus as Giampiero Scafoglio considers the allegorical uses to which references to Hercules’ activities are put in several of Dante’s writings in and beyond the Divine Comedy. For instance, he notes that Dante calls upon Hercules’ labour against the hydra in order to bring home a particularly political piece of advice when he cautions Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg to decamp from Milan to bring Florence under his rule as soon as possible. He further discusses Hercules’ contest with Antaeus – clearly a story that captured many an imagination across the

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centuries – as a parallel to the biblical tale of David and Goliath, seeing both as evidence for the belief that God’s favour stood behind the victor. Dante’s references to the capture of Cerberus and the killing of Cacus are also considered, being seen as ‘far more important to the moral background of the poem’, because Hercules is viewed by Dante as the champion of Good defeating Evil. Thus, in Scafoglio’s assessment, for Dante the figure of Hercules serves as ‘a symbol of Good in the eternal struggle against Evil’; nevertheless he does not rise to the status of an ‘allegorical prefiguration of Christ (as he is already in some medieval texts, and will be, increasingly, in the Renaissance)’. However, as Hercules does not appear as a character in the Divine Comedy, Scafoglio acknowledges that not all readers (or auditors) need have understood his allegorical use to mean that this Graeco-Roman hero was another Christ (alter Christus), but that at the very least he would have been seen as an exemplar of ‘the Good’. 2.3 Visual Appropriations of Hercules/Herakles: What People See While the written word continued to convey both ‘pagan’ and Christian ideas, the use of Hercules’ image in an increasingly Christianised world proved to be more widespread than one might have thought, especially given Christianity’s initial hostility to the former gods and divine beings of antiquity, and those of Greece and Rome in particular. Nevertheless, as both believers and nonbelievers could make use of Herakles/Hercules, depictions of the hero were rather open to interpretation. The Carolingian Age (700–900) saw the adoption of Herakles into a repertoire of images used to decorate a variety of surfaces, from walls, ceilings and floors, to coffins and wedding chests and, as Scafoglio indicated in the preceding chapter, the context in which his images appeared could be either sacred or secular, religious or political and, occasionally, both simultaneously.18 As the subject matter of the next five chapters indicates, from the beginning of western Christianity right through the 1400s, Hercules remained the go-to figure from the non-Christian Western cultures to be used in challenging believers to be better Christ-followers and challenging philosophers to lead better lives. But just as his stories could be used in both secular and sacred contexts, the use of Hercules’ image could serve simply decorative or instructional purposes.

18  For discussion of mythological figures (including Herakles/Hercules) in Christian art, see Weitzmann 1960.

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In our selective survey of Herakles in the visual arts, we begin by going back to Rome in the 300s as Gail Tatham opens with a study of the funerary iconography in the fourth-century hypogeum under the Via Latina and Via Dino Compagni, Rome, which contains a seemingly incongruous mixture of pagan and Christian elements. In particular, Tatham focuses her attention on the part of this hypogeum known as cubiculum N, and argues that, although situated amongst burial sites that were clearly Christian, this cubiculum exhibits wholly pagan iconography, including its sequence of mythological scenes depicting Hercules with Alcestis. By tradition, Hercules, the hero who entered Pluto’s realm and returned, and who, as a result of his labours, was given the gift of immortality by his father Jupiter, had become especially popular in pagan funerary decorative schemes. While these artistic schemes were not nearly as sophisticated as those that would follow in the medieval and Renaissance periods, the cyclic art of Roman tombs was capable of encoding both the social and cultural attitudes of the patrons who directed the tomb’s embellishment. In the case of cubiculum N, Tatham argues that by taking ‘well established stock types in the Greco-Roman tradition’ into consideration, most of the Hercules scenes depicted therein ‘can be shown to carry conventional allegorical meaning’. By considering the relative location of each scene to the others, Tatham reveals, how the ‘conservative pagan values such as virtus and concordia’ are affirmed through their deliberate placement within the cubiculum. She thus suggests that even while working to maintain positive relations with those adopting the new faith, the people responsible for the tomb’s decoration sought to highlight their identity as non-Christians by choosing an inoffensive and ‘non-confrontational’ scheme. This finding, as Tatham observes, accords well ‘with current social identity theory’, particularly regarding ‘times of cultural crisis’; at times such as this, groups who feel under threat ‘may intensify distinctive communal values as they try to facilitate processes of integration’. Moving forward some ten centuries, Ivana Čapeta Rakić takes us from Rome to Split in the 1300s and finds on one of the Romanesque arches of Split Cathedral evidence to suggest that two hitherto poorly-identified figures are in keeping with other clearer representations of two of Hercules’ labours. These reliefs appear at the western entrance to the cathedral on an arch under the vault of the belfry, which also carries relief scenes depicting other human figures lacking any characteristics indicative of holiness, and a variety of animals, including some that are clearly imaginary. Taking issue with the prevailing interpretation of these two figures amongst contemporary art historians which holds that the images under study represent hunting scenes, Čapeta

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Rakić offers an alternate way of reading them: she argues that the scene on the left side of the arch is a depiction of the Constellation of Hercules struggling with a dragon from the garden of the Hesperides, and that it is linked with the scene on the right, which depicts Hercules’ first labour, his struggles against the Nemean lion. But more than this, she explains the significance of Hercules’ appearance on the outer-most arches of the Cathedral in a way that adds a deeper importance to the thinking underlying the artistic design of the Cathedral itself. Turning her eyes to Venice, Lenia Kouneni considers two further reliefs depicting Herakles on another Church building. Positioned close to both the northern and the southern corners of the thirteenth-century west façade of the church of San Marco in Venice, one finds two reliefs depicting Hercules. Although use of pagan figure to decorate a Christian building can still strike a modern viewer as odd, we have seen that from the time of the Christ-followers’ arrival in Rome, adherents to the new faith found ways of working with elements of the receiving culture and appropriating them for use by the Church. The choice of Hercules for one element in the adornment of the Venetian state church is approached and interpreted by Kouneni through the lens of the then-current medieval understanding of the hero as an exemplum virtutis. In doing so, she reveals that the decision to position these two Herculean reliefs in such a prominent place on the Church’s façade exceeds the rationale underlying the more typical Christian interpretation. Kouneni demonstrates how the reliefs are intimately connected to the city’s own image, history and values through the way in which they make reference to the city’s pre-Roman heritage, as well as to its military conquest, political authority, and cultural and religious legacy. In doing so, Kouneni maintains that they played a vitally significant role in manifesting the ideologies of the Venetian state. In the fourth chapter considering the use of Herakles/Hercules in the visual arts Thomas J. Sienkewicz opens his discussion with a masterful overview of the classical hero’s continuing association with virtue in the thought-world of the West from Homer’s Odyssey to Christoforo Landion’s Disputationes Camaldulenses of fifteenth-century Florence by way of several authors not discussed in depth elsewhere in this volume. His primary focus, however, is on ‘the transformation of Hercules into a hero of fortitude’, a transition which began in the late fourth-century writings of Macrobius and which was subsequently embraced by the likes of Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch, and carried forward even into Renaissance Florence by such Florentines as Coluccio Salutati and Christoforo Landino. Sienkewicz reveals how references to the hero’s fortitude in these literary works shifts between an intensely Christian virtue and a more

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secular, political one which become the basis for a long and prominent tradition of Hercules’ appearance in the public and state art of Florence, both religious and secular in context, from the fourteenth through to the twentieth centuries. As he goes on to show, it is especially the Herculean virtue of fortitude that underlies the popularity of the hero as a decorative figure on a variety of buildings in the city of Florence, especially those of church and state, beginning with her State Seal of 1281 and carrying through to the 1900s. Thus, as Sienkewicz observes, ‘This survey demonstrates how Hercules has played a central, symbolic role in the public image of the city of Florence, an image modulating from pagan hero to Christian model to ideal ruler’. While statuary and figurative details on architectural elements are the most obvious visual appropriations of Hercules’ image, other media made use of visual images as well. Thus, in the final chapter of this section, Giuseppe Capriotti turns from the sculptural uses of Hercules’ image on churches and cathedrals to their adaptation to the medium of print in his discussion of the hero’s appearances in a set of woodcuts that accompany Giovanni dei Bonsignori’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.19 The ninth book of the Metamorphoses, almost all of which was dedicated to Hercules, retold the main events of his heroic career, beginning with the struggle of Alcmene to bring him to birth, on through his main adventures, and concluding with his death and deification. Capriotti observes that, ‘affected by an early phenomenon of moralization, the Metamorphoses is one of the main channels of survival of mythology in Christian culture and therefore also of the myth of Hercules’. It is a survival to which Giovanni dei Bonsignori, an Italian humanist, contributed with the completion of his prose translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses between the years 1375 and 1377; however, it would be more than a hundred years later before it appeared in print as Ovid Metamorphoseos vulgare. In this 1497 edition there was a series of woodcut illustrations depicting selected Ovidian myths. In Capriotti’s view, it was with ‘this translation [that] the process of moralization of Ovid’s tales is completed and the author delivers to modern culture a text in which all myths are explained in the light of Christian doctrine’. As he goes on to show, in the allegories that accompany the story of Hercules, any of the hero’s traits that might have led to a negative interpretation of him in keeping with Christian morality were given an ennobling spin, thereby rendering his marital infidelity, arrogance and tendency to violence as evidence of ‘his continuous struggle towards good’. Thus, the four woodcuts involving Hercules 19  Giovanni’s last name can be spelt a number of ways: de’ (or di) B(u)onsignori or dei Bonsogni.

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(Hercules and Achelous and Hercules and Nessus; Hercules against the Amazons; Hercules and Lichas and death of Hercules; and The childbirth of Alcmene) when taken together, present a now-Christian Hercules as ‘the winner over the irrationality of evil and as the one taken up into heaven’. 2.4 Beyond the Roman Church Despite the Church’s appropriation of Herakles/Hercules for the advancement of the faith, he continued to serve as a Graeco-Roman hero and god to many outside the Church. In this final section, we turn our attention to the appeal of Herakles/Hercules in contemporaneous cultures to the south and east of Greece and Rome, for Hercules himself was not content to stay within these geo-political boundaries. Thus, in the final two chapters we turn to GraecoRomanised Egypt and to India where Hercules’ image and attributes may have been appropriated for other than Christian ends. That Herakles should meet with a counterpart in the East is not so surprising, given the near eastern origins of Melqart, and that a very similar sort of superhero/deity existed in the Assyrian pantheon, namely Ninurta, who, like Herakles, fought against a variety of monstrous beings.20 The Persians, too, had a god by the name of Verethragna, who fought against evils of all kinds and was associated with victory in battle; this facilitated the association of Herakles Kallinikos with him. By the Hellenistic period these two were already being seen as one and the same divine personage.21 It comes as no surprise, then, that Herakles’ counterpart was found amongst the gods of India as well.22 Beginning with the culture that lay to the south of Greece and Rome, Cary MacMahon provides a study of the use of Hercules’ image on emblems coming from Graeco-Romanised Egypt of the 100s to 500s. She argues that these textiles are best understood when positioned within a late-antique complex of ideas in which clothes really do make a statement about more than one’s sense of style: that is ‘where garments can be arguments about politics, religions, philosophies and magic’. These tapestry-woven medallions, which range from naturalistic to highly-stylised depictions of Herakles, served as elements in decorative schema on tunics. However, she considers far more than simply the image itself: her study takes in types of materials, modes of assembly and plausible models for the images in use in order to show the range of ‘socio-economic groupings’ involved which serve to reveal ‘another route by 20  Annus 2002. 21  See Burstein (1985) no. 48 for a translation of an inscription linking the two: see also Bosworth (1995) 216. 22  For a more cautious view, see Tarn (1951) 68 and 392.

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which a ubiquitous story was disseminated and re-appropriated’. In particular, MacMahon considers the likelihood that such images may have been used not only as part of a ‘religious argument with apotropaic potential’ but also, more speculatively, in the construction of personal identity, providing suggestions for further lines of approach to their interpretation. Moving east from Egypt, in a well-illustrated discussion, Karl Galinsky considers the reception of Herakles in a very different religious context, that of Buddhism and the art of Gandhara Buddhists, in particular. As Galinsky observes, ‘Herakles had a continuing and high-profile existence in the east and the crossroads of Asia from the time of Alexander onwards’ and continuing cultural contacts during the first two centuries with those eastern patrons of Buddhism facilitated the emergence of Herakles in the form of the Buddhist hero/god Vajrapani, complete with the latter’s iconographic attributes. As Galinsky observes, ‘In Gandharan art Vajrapani is the Buddha’s faithful companion and protector in scenes of the Buddha’s life from the Great Departure to his death’. Thus, by paying close attention to the Heraklean details chosen in the Gandharan images, Galinsky suggests that not only did this group know a good deal of Herakles’ mythology, but that they may have linked Herakles with their own Vajrapani for important political ends. It was the very depth and breadth of the Herakles/Hercules associations, Galinsky maintains, that made him the easiest of the West’s divine figures to accommodate, as well as to exploit in a variety of contexts. We suspect that much more could be said about Herakles’ reception by the people-groups and cultures that inhabited the lands of the Near East and beyond. However, the task of exploring that possibility must be left for others to undertake, falling as it does well outside the timeframe within which the majority of our present studies are located. Bibliography Annus, A. (2002) The God Ninurta, Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Barry, F. (2011) ‘The Mouth of Truth and the Forum Boarium: Oceanus, Hercules and Hadrian’, The Art Bulletin 93: 7–37. Bayet, J. (1926) Les Origines de l’Hercule romain, Paris: Editions de Boccard. Bonnet, C. (1988) Melqart: Cultes et mythes de l’Héraclès tyrien en Méditerranée, Leuven/ Namur: Peeters/Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et lettres de Namur. Bosworth, B. (1995) A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, Oxford University Press: Oxford.

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Burstein, S.M. (1985) The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crawford, M.H. (1974) Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dussaud, R. (1946–48) ‘Melqart’, Syria 25: 205–30. Emmanuel-Rebuffat, D. (1985) ‘Herclé agonistique en Étrurie’, Latomus 44.3: 473–87. Frazer, A. (1966) ‘The iconography of the Emperor Maxentius’ buildings in Via Appia’, The Art Bulletin 48.3/4: 385–92. Galinsky, K. (1969) Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hercules Project (2017) ‘Herakles Inside and Outside the Church’, https://hercules project.leeds.ac.uk/publications/herakles-inside-and-outside-the-church/ (accessed 05/07/2018). Jourdain-Annequin, C. (1989) Héraclès aux portes du soir: mythe et histoire, Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon, 402, Paris: Diffusion Les Belles Lettres. Mattingly, H., Sydenham, E.A. and Sutherland, C.H.V. (1962) The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. 4, 2nd edition, London: Spink and Son Ltd. McDonough, C. (2002) ‘Hercle and the Ciminian Lake legend: sources study for an Etruscan mirror’, Classical Journal 98.1: 9–19. Mierse, Wm. (2004) ‘The architecture of the lost temple of Hercules Gaditanus and its Levantine associations’, American Journal of Archaeology 108.4: 545–76. Palagia, O. (1990) ‘Two statues of Hercules in the Forum Boarium in Rome’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9.1: 51–70. Shotter, D. (1979) ‘Gods, Emperors and Coins,’ Greece & Rome 26.1: 48–57. Tarn, W. (1951) The Greeks in Bactria and India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Berchaem, D. (1967) ‘Sanctuaires d’Hercule-Melqart (suite et fin): III. Rome’, Syria 44.3/4: 307–38. Vermeule, C. (1977) ‘Commodus, Caracalla and the Tetrarchs: Roman Emperors as Hercules’, in Brommer, F., Höckmann, U. and Krug, A. (eds) Festschrift für Frank Brommer, Mainz/Rhein: Von Zabern, 289–94. Weinstock, S. (1957) ‘Victor and Invictus’, Harvard Theological Review 50.3: 211–47. Weitzmann, K. (1960) ‘The survival of mythological representation in early Christian and Byzantine art and their impact on Christian iconography’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 14: 43–68.

Part 1 Making Connections: the Early Years

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Chapter 1

Herakles, ‘Christ-Curious’ Greeks and Revelation 5 Arlene Allan More than fifteen years ago Collins took it as given: … that many Greek and Roman converts, who would have been instructed in both Jewish and early Christian traditions, were likely to attempt to integrate Greek and Roman traditions with these new traditions, and, in any case, that they were likely unconsciously to understand these new traditions in terms of the old.1 If such is the case for those who have received instruction in the Jesus movement, what of those who are curious about this new salvific figure, but are wholly new to the sect’s teachings? How might a Christ-curious,2 native Greekspeaker, for whom the books of the Septuagint (hereafter LXX)3 along with their symbolism and imagery were wholly or substantially unfamiliar, and the Greek pantheon with its attendant myths, beliefs and practices the primary frame of reference,4 have come to an understanding of the distinctiveness of this new divinity? This problem of reception would become especially 1  Collins (2000). Johnson similarly notes that, even for readers (as opposed to auditors), ‘the differing … responses are engendered not by the particular text, nor by the education of the reader, but by the sociocultural context in which the reading takes place. The meanings that readers construct differ, that is, largely in dependence on the (sub)culture in which the reading occurs’ (2000, 601). 2  The term ‘Christ-curious’ has been coined to indicate an individual from outside the Jewish faith who was intrigued by the new god named Jesus Christ, but not yet committed to become his follower. 3  The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, more commonly referred to today as the ‘Old Testament’. Hengel observes that whereas in the New Testament ‘… approximately 60 percent of all direct citations of the OT books come from three books: Psalms, Isaiah and Deuteronomy … Revelation is dominated by the prophetic books, especially Ezekiel and Daniel’ (2002, 107). He goes on to note (2002, 111) that smaller, less well-off churches would have had a more limited selection of scriptures than larger assemblies. On the availability of complete sets of the books of the LXX and other material now referred to as the ‘New Testament’ at the local ‘house church’ level, see Last 2012, 196; Markschies 2003, 187. 4  Another frame of reference, which falls outside this chapter’s remit, in addition to those in n. 30, is education; for the role of Herakles in education in the Roman Empire and its influence on the understanding of auditors, see Mellas in this volume.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_003

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acute for such an auditor of the Apocalypse or, as it is also called, the Book of Revelation. For, as Erdman has observed: ‘no book is so dependent upon the ancient Scriptures for its interpretation as is the Revelation’.5 In the early years of the movement amongst the non-Jewish populations of Asia Minor, a Christ-curious individual who was invited to a Jesus-followers’ meeting, or who appeared uninvited at a shop or ‘house’ meeting at which the letter from the Revelator, commonly identified as John, is read,6 would have been challenged by its unfamiliar imagery and symbolism:7 as Briggs well understood, ‘… it is imperative for the symbols in any word picture to have a history of application which is familiar to the readers or observers … lest the meaning(s) be obscured if not altogether lost’.8 In an earlier study I set out to demonstrate that for such un- or under-informed auditors of this letter, their understanding of Zeus from mythology and their knowledge of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, whether through direct observation or by report, would have informed their understanding of the ‘One upon the Throne’ in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse and in John’s visionary report.9 5  Erdman 1977, 15. Most authors and commentators have noted the basic Jewish character of this book: cf. e.g., Briggs 1999, 103 and 213; Davis 1992, 15; Halperin 1988, 87; Rowland 1979, 145. This extends even to the language itself, which ‘follows the style and rules of form for Hebrew and Aramaic so much that linguistic incongruities constantly arise that are difficult to translate’ (Roluff 1993, 12), rendering the understanding of Revelation even more challenging for our hypothetical native Greek speaker. Callahan (1995, 466) argues that John’s violation of Greek grammar should be seen as a deliberate expression of resistance to the language of the colonizer. 6  Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church (I Cor. 14:23–5), warns against creating a scene of disorderliness by permitting everyone to engage in glossolalia simultaneously. His concern is with the negative impression such a scene would make on a non-believer, who is envisaged entering unannounced into premises where a meeting was in progress. For the types of spaces in which the early church was likely to have held its meetings, see Billings 2011. His findings suggest that Celsus’ critique of Christ-followers as ‘ignorant folk whose teaching took place, not in schools nor in open forums, but in kitchens, shops, and tanneries’ (Gonzalez 2010, 105), is probably correct, at least as regards their gathering places. Ascough (2015) offers an excellent overview of the scholarly debate on this issue. 7  The same difficulties are likely to arise for such a reader of the text. I focus particularly on auditors as it is now generally agreed that Christ-followers would have encountered John’s Revelation first through a reading of the letter to them. As Burridge observes, ‘[r]eading aloud was one of the main ways of “publication” in the ancient world, often as entertainment after dinner’ (1998, 140), cf. Downing 1988; Starr 1991. 8  Briggs 1999, 215 n. 15. It should be noted, however, that in cities where there was a sizable Jewish population, such as Alexandria in Egypt, it is likely that some non-Jews would have been familiar with Jewish religious concepts and already applying an interpretatio Graeca to that material. I thank Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides for this observation. 9  See Allan 2011. On the wide dissemination of the image of Pheidias’ Zeus in Asia Minor, see Friesen 2001, 169. In light of this, it is certainly plausible that Revelation’s author had some

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The aim of this chapter is similar: given the background described above, we consider how such a Christ-curious auditor of Revelation 5 might have made sense of the figure who suddenly appears in the Heavenly Throne-Room and is granted authority to initiate the final stage of his Father’s redemptive plan for humanity.10 It is my contention that, in making use his or her knowledge of Olympia’s statue of Zeus to apprehend John’s visionary experience of his heavenly enthroned God, our Christ-curious Greek would have continued to call upon his knowledge of the site of Olympia to apprehend this new figure through the figure of Zeus’ son, Herakles.11 1

John’s One upon the Throne and Pausanias’ Statue of Zeus at Olympia

We begin with an abbreviated comparison of John’s description of the One upon the throne as seen in his vision in Revelation 4 and Pausanias’ description of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia.12 As John peers through the open doors in the heavens he reports what he sees: [2] Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne [3] that looked like a jasper stone and a sardius. There was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald to look at. [4] Around the throne were twenty-four thrones. On the thrones were twenty-four elders sitting, dressed in white garments, with crowns of gold on their heads. [5] Out exposure to the image, especially given that the statue of Zeus at Pergamum was reportedly modelled on Pheidias’ statue at Olympia. Nevertheless, the purpose of this chapter is not to argue that such knowledge informed the composition of the vision: the issue addressed herein is one of reception rather than influence. For a sense of just how visually inundated by ‘pagan’ imagery a city-dweller in the Greek East would have been, see Friesen 2001. 10  Throughout this argument the Christ-followers’ God and all pronominal references to Him will be capitalised so as to signal visually the superiority which those who believed in Him (and His Son) advocated. 11  This study of the apprehension of Christ through a knowledge of Herakles might well have begun in the opening chapters of Revelation, where Christ is identified as the firstborn of the dead (1:5), one who was dead but now lives (1:18, 2:8) and someone who has the ‘keys of Death and Hades’ (1.:18), as the associations made at the beginning of the audition would not be replaced but added to as more unfamiliar images were encountered. See Whittaker 2015, esp. 88–92, 100–1; Hongisto 2010, esp. Ch. 1. 12  I have italicized the comments in both Pausanias and Revelation 4 which bear similarities to one another and are likely to have invited comparison in the mind of an auditor or reader.

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of the throne proceed lightnings, sounds, and thunders. There were seven lamps of fire burning before his throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. [6] Before the throne was something like a sea of glass, like a crystal. In the midst of the throne, and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. [7] The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. [8] The four living creatures, having each one of them six wings, are full of eyes around about and within. They have no rest day and night, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!’ [9] When the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, [10] the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever, and throw their crowns before the throne, saying, [11] ‘Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!’ And here is how Pausanias describes the Zeus statue in its setting within the Temple of Zeus at Olympia: [5.11.1] The god is sitting on a throne made of gold and ivory. A garland lies on his head, in the form of olive-shoots. In his right hand he carries a Victory [Nikē], itself too of gold and ivory,13 with a ribbon and a garland on its head. In the left hand of the god there is a sceptre, richly decorated with every sort of metal; and the bird sitting on the sceptre is the eagle. The god’s sandals too are of gold and the robe likewise. On the robe there are embroidered animal figures, and flowers, lilies. [5.11.2] The throne is decorated with gold and precious stones, to say nothing of ebony and ivory. And there are depictions of animals painted on it and figures worked in it. There are four Nikai, represented as dancing women, one at each foot of the throne, and two others at the base of each foot. On each of the two front feet are set Theban children ravished by sphinxes, while under the sphinxes Apollo and Artemis are shooting down the children of Niobe.

13  ἐν μὲν δὴ τῇ δεξιᾷ φέρει Νίκην ἐξ ἐλέφαντος καὶ ταύτην καὶ χρυσοῦ.

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[5.11.3] Between the feet of the throne are four rods, each one stretching from foot to foot. The rod straight opposite the entrance has on it seven images; how the eighth of them disappeared nobody knows …14 Clearly, what Pheidias envisioned in his mind’s eye and converted into three-dimensional form and what John ‘saw’ in his heavenly vision and conveyed to his audience in an ekphrastic-like description share many features in common.15 The throne,16 the precious stones,17 the resplendent light associated with divine epiphany,18 and the rainbow,19 would all resonate with a Christ-curious Greek auditor’s image of Pheidias’ Zeus, as would the thunder resounding around the One upon the throne,20 since as early as Homer, if not earlier, Zeus, whose attribute was a thunderbolt, had been known as the god behind the peels of thunder that resounded high above.21 But the likely associations would not have ended there. Our Christ-seeker’s familiarity with the setting of the Zeus statue at Olympia may also have stimulated an association in

14  Although there is no comparable feature to the seven lights as eyes in Pausanias’ account of the setting of the Zeus statue, it is highly likely that our Christ-curious auditor would have associated the lights-as-eyes of Rev. 4:6 with the ‘watchers of Zeus’ mentioned by Hesiod (Works and Days 121–6). 15  On Pausanias’ rhetorical use of ekphrasis in Books 4 and 5 and its effects on its audiences, see now Whittaker 2015, esp. chapters 4 and 5. 16  For the ubiquitous nature of throne symbolism throughout the Graeco-Roman world and beyond, see Williamson 1993. On Revelation’s throne, see Gallusz 2014. 17  The lack of correspondence between the modern and ancient nomenclature for precious and semi-precious stones has been noted by several scholars. It is generally thought that the ancient jasper stone was probably clear and the sardius translucent red. See e.g., Jart 1970; Erdman 1977, 7; Beale 1999, 320–1. For the potential colour symbolism of the stones mentioned, see Rowe 1972; Irwin 1974. The named stones are also of significance in the LXX; cf. Ezekial 28.18–20; Psalms 104.2. For the use made of precious stones in both Greek and Latin literary texts, see Petrain 2005. 18  See, e.g., Hom. Od. 19.33–40, where a sudden flash of light causes Telemachus to recognize that he has been assisted by a god. On the epiphanic qualities of statues, see Donohue 1997; on the importance of light in Greek religion, see Parisinou 2000. 19  On Rev. 4’s rainbow, see Barr 1998, 78; Boring 1989, 105; Rissi 1968, 6. For a detailed investigation of the rainbow in Judaic thought, see Halperin 1988, 250–61. It is worth noting that Homer (Il. 17.547–49) draws an associative connection between natural phenomenon and weapon by making the Zeus-sent rainbow a portent of war; this is not at all dissimilar to one of the Hebraic interpretations of the phenomenon; the other was the rainbow as a sign of God’s graciousness. Cf. Beale 1999, 321. 20  Boring comments that ‘[t]he words “one seated on the throne” occur 12 times in Revelation; it is John’s way of saying God’ (1989, 103). 21  Boring (1989, 104) calls the details of Rev. 4:5 ‘the language of theophany’.

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his mind’s eye of John’s ‘sea of glass’22 with the large reflecting pool within the Zeus temple, which stretches out in front of the god’s statue.23 She may also have noted the similarity between the winged sphinxes on the base of Zeus’ throne and the four winged creatures beneath the throne in John’s vision,24 while the later image of men in an esteemed position casting their crowns down before the Enthroned One may have brought to mind the practice of some Olympic victors, who dedicated their hard-won crowns to the god after a successful competition.25 Even if the features of Pausanias’ and John’s thrones and their occupants are not identical, they share enough in common to stimulate the recognition of their correspondences in an auditor’s mind, so that when John begins to describe what he next sees in and around the heavenly throne, our auditor is likely to continue to draw on knowledge of the Olympia setting of Zeus’ throne.26 But before we can hear Revelation 5 as our hypothetical Christ-curious Greek may have heard it, it is only fitting that we first have in mind at least some of the information our auditor would have gleaned about Herakles from Olympia. So we turn first to Pausanias’ description, which 22  The so-called ‘Brazen Sea’ (a large, bronze, oval-shaped bowl, supported by bronze images of oxen), installed in the inner court of Solomon’s temple, is the most frequently suggested (though unconvincing) source of this image (e.g., Michaels 1997, 92–3). Enoch 14, a second-century BCE apocalyptic text, offers a closer parallel wherein God is seen sitting above the ‘firmament’, which is described as a great sea, like ice. For discussions of this symbol, see, e.g., Neiman 1969; Rowland 1979, 147–8; Halperin 1988, 93 and 194–249; Boring 1989, 105; Giblin 1998, 510; Beale 1999, 327; Boxall 2006, 84; Morton 2007, 90. 23  Petrain observes that in contemporary writings, ‘… not only does κρύσταλλος [krystallos] mean “ice” as well as “rock-crystal”, but according to many ancient sources, rock-crystal really is a kind of ice, produced by intense freezing’ (2005, 339), which fits remarkably well with what John describes. 24  John’s description implies that these ‘living creatures’ are part of the throne, rather than figures carved in high relief on its face, as was the case with the sphinxes on Zeus’ throne. For discussion of the difficulties in visualizing the spatial relationship of these creatures to the throne in John’s vision, see Hall 1990; Hannah 2003. 25  The Emperor Nero dedicated his own golden crown and purple chiton at the Argive Heraion in commemoration of his victory there (Paus. 2.17.6); likewise, Nero similarly dedicated his crown of ivy and oak leaves to Zeus at Olympia. For ancient Graeco-Roman crowning practices, see Harrison 2003 and Stevenson 1995. Stevenson also makes this comment on Rev. 4:9: ‘[b]y vacating their thrones and casting their crowns at the feet of the one on the throne, the elders testify either that they have no right to possess for themselves what those objects represent or that they recognize one with greater right’ (1995, 269). 26  Although, in refusing to anthropomorphise the One upon the throne, John’s representation of the Jesus-follower’s God also appears ‘wholly other than the only-too-human representations of Zeus, Apollo and Artemis renowned throughout proconsular Asia …’ (Boxall 2006, 84).

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clearly indicates that the area of Elis was intimately associated with Zeus and his offspring Herakles. 2

Pausanias’ Herakles

Pausanias devotes the first nine chapters of Book five to the history of Elis, the region in which the Olympic Games were established, taking particular note of all the incidents in which Herakles was involved, but dwelling especially on the site of the Games itself. As his account indicates, the mortal side of Herakles’ family line and the activities of Herakles himself are deeply embedded in the history not only of the region of Elis but of the site of Olympia in particular.27 Once Pausanias has completed his historical overview of the site, he begins to describe what remains to be seen there. Much of what he describes would have been familiar to his own audience, as this site was so famous that even a Greek native to the Hellenised cities of Asia Minor would have known something of its history and the involvement of Herakles in it.28 But even without this historical connection, Herakles’ association with Olympia is most clearly on display in and around the world-famous Temple of Olympian Zeus built in honour of his divine father. 3

Herakles at Olympia

In Pausanias’ chapters 10 and 11, the sightseer focuses on the exterior and interior of the Temple of Zeus. Taking his eye up to the top of the walls, Pausanias begins his description of the metopes which adorn the temple, depicting in low relief the twelve labours of Herakles: Above the doors of the temple is the hunting of the Arkadian boar, and the affair with Diomede the Thracian, and that with Geryon at Erythea, and Herakles about to take the burden of Atlas upon himself, and Herakles cleansing the land of the Eleans from the dung. Above the doors of the 27  According to the late-sixth-/early-fifth-century poet, Pindar (Ol. 10.23–30), the Olympic Games were founded by Herakles as a thank-offering to Zeus for the defeat of Augeias because the latter refused to honour his agreement to recompense Herakles for cleaning the dung from his stables. 28  Nasrahall discusses why ‘Olympia is a key site to publish news, from the classical period through Alexander the Great and on’ (2010, 42), having already noted that Pheidias’ ‘Zeus was still much talked about in the second century’ (2010, 34).

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back chamber is Herakles wresting from the Amazon her girdle, and the stories of the deer, and the bull on Knossos, and the birds at Stymphalus, and the hydra, and the lion in the land of Argos. (5.10.9:1–10.1) Additionally, although Pausanias identifies the main figures on the west pediment as participants at the marriage of Peirithous (the centaur Eurytion, the Lapith Caeneus, Theseus, Peirithous and his wife, 5.10.8:5–16), Westervelt (2009) has made a very convincing case for taking the ‘Theseus’ figure as Herakles at another famous wedding in the district of Elis.29 She goes on to demonstrate how such a subject thematically ties together several other representations of Herakles (including his altar) at Olympia. When a visitor moves inside the temple to view the renowned statue of Herakles’ father, he or she is again confronted with further images of this divinized son. I present these in their order of appearance. Pausanias first notes that Herakles appears carved in relief ‘on the rungs of Zeus’ throne alongside those who fought with him against the Amazons’ (5.11.4.1–2). He appears again on the screens designed ‘to keep people out [from under the throne]’ first ‘beside Atlas [who is] holding up heaven and earth, with Herakles standing by ready to take the weight from him’ (5.11.5.4–6); then in his exploit against the Nemean Lion (5.11.5.9–10); and finally with Herakles being raised up to free Prometheus from his chains (5.11.5.3–6.3). Herakles makes yet another appearance in gold relief on the pedestal supporting Zeus’ throne in the company of Zeus’ other divine sons and daughters (5.11.8.1–4, 9–10). Viewed globally, the legendary activities depicted at Olympia represent Herakles as a civilizing figure, one who saved his fellow humans from mortal dangers and who worked on behalf of his father to impose order in the terrestrial area of his cosmos. It is difficult to believe that anyone with even a passing knowledge of Olympia would not also have been mindful of Herakles when reminded of Zeus’ temple there,30 as I 29  But see Kyrieleis (2012/13, 98 n. 103), who does not find Westervelt’s argument convincing. Holloway makes the interesting suggestion that in the decoration of Zeus’ Temple ‘at Olympia, whether the visitor came from Asia Minor or Thrace, Thessaly or Boiotia (the birthplace of Herakles), Attica or the Peloponnese, Sicily, Crete or Massilia, there was something that he could call his own’ (1967, 101). For other modern scholarly discussions of the Temple of Zeus’ decorative programme see, e.g., Ritcher 1966; Stewart 1983; Tersini 1987; Lapatin 1997; Hurwitt 2005. 30  Of course, our subject’s knowledge of Herakles would have drawn upon a far greater array of sources than those on offer at Olympia, including tales of his heroic and not-so-heroic endeavours as told in myths and represented in the visual arts. Different cities and regions throughout the Roman Empire are likely to have had their own ‘local’ version of myths about Herakles. For instance, the city of Antioch built a temple to Herakles as their ancestor, because they saw themselves as the descendants of the Herakleidai, who founded

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suggest our Christ-curious Greek would have been on hearing John’s description of the Heavenly throne-room in Revelation 4.31 4

Apprehending Christ through Herakles

A significant linking image between Zeus’ statue and the One on the throne in Revelation 4 appears in the first verse of Revelation 5 when the narrator’s attention is drawn to the item which appears on the right side of God, generally taken to be held in His right hand.32 The right hand, as Barr notes, was for Greeks and Jews alike ‘a cultural code for power and favor’.33 On Pheidias’ statue, a diminutive statue of Nikē, goddess of Victory, garlanded and fashioned in gold and ivory has been placed in Zeus’ right hand, symbolizing his allconquering, victorious power in the cosmos.34 In contrast, Revelation 5.1 has the One upon the throne holding a book-scroll, ‘written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals’.35 Biblical scholars generally agree that the description of this book-scroll strongly suggests that it should be understood to represent a legal document, such as a will, which can only be opened by a specific person under specific circumstances.36 The writing on the outside an area of the city known as Daphne; see Downey 1959; Liebeschuetz 1995. See also Croon 1953; Brundage 1958; Galinsky 1972; Larson 2007. 31  Much has already been written on the likely influence (conscious or otherwise) of Roman imperial cult on several aspects of Revelation, including Rev. 4–5: see, for example, Botha 1998; Brent 1999; Friesen 2001; Aune 2006; for opposing argument, see Parker 2001. Harland 1996 provides a study of the imperial cult at Ephesus. 32  John’s Greek, like Pausanias’ own (see n. 4 above), simply uses δεξιός/α (dexios/dexia) without a term to designate the hand specifically; however, as Whittaker has noted, ‘[i]n Revelation δεξιός [dexios] appears without a specific body part when describing the divine’ but for other figures ‘a specific body part’ is named, leading to the suggestion that this is a further indication of John’s ‘continued reluctance to describe God in anthropomorphic terms’ (2015, 141 n. 7). 33  Barr 1998, 80. Cf. Aune, who adds, ‘the right hand was the culturally accepted hand for giving and taking …’ and that the scroll is ‘held in the right hand of God precisely because it is God’s intention to give the scroll to another’ (1997, 354). 34  Paus. 5.11.1.3–6: ἐν μὲν δὴ τῇ δεξιᾷ φέρει Νίκην ἐξ ἐλέφαντος καὶ ταύτην καὶ χρυσοῦ, ταινίαν τε ἔχουσαν καὶ ἐπὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ στέφανον· 35  Rev. 5:1: καὶ εἶδον ἐπὶ τὴν δεξιὰν τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου βιβλίον γεγραμμένον ἔσωθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν, κατεσφραγισμένον σφραγῖσιν ἑπτά.    NB Aune: ‘[t]aking the seer’s visionary perspective seriously means that he only sees the ὄπισθεν [opisthen] or back of the closed scroll, and therefore must have inferred or assumed that there was also writing on the inside’ (1997, 339). 36  But see now Whittaker 2015, 146–7.

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indicates the nature of the document.37 Because it is in the right hand of God, it is clearly important as a binding expression of his will and many scholars have suggested that it represents a book of destiny. If our auditor understood it to be either of these, the comparison with the Nikē in the hand of Zeus might lead to him see that the Enthroned One appeared to have control over all victories, insofar as the scroll prescribed what will be.38 Such a realization could serve to increase our auditor’s desire to know what the document contained, a desire that would only be further piqued when the ‘mighty angel’ issues a challenge for one worthy to open the scroll to come forward,39 and no one in three regions of the cosmos (heaven, earth, and underworld) is found worthy to do so.40 For our Christ-curious Greek, this would surely be as disturbing as it is for the narrator, who weeps.41 Apparently none of the gods and demigods to whom our auditor has been praying and offering sacrifices is ‘worthy’ to take this scroll from the hand of John’s God – not even Herakles, the divinized, conquering son of Zeus so prominent at Olympia.42 However, when John is told to stop weeping and behold ‘the Lion’ who has overcome/conquered,43 our auditor might well be encouraged to think that Herakles or a Herakles-like figure will indeed appear. For he would know that in taking the skin of the Nemean lion as his ‘trophy’ and wearing its ‘head’ over his own head and its skin over his own body, Herakles thereby indicated that he had appropriated the lion’s strength and power to himself.44 Indeed, as we have seen, this great labour of Herakles was twice depicted at Olympia, once on a metope on the 37  For the variety of interpretations of the scroll’s nature and contents, see Aune 1997, 341–6. 38  This could also serve as yet another point encouraging him to see that the Christ-follower’s God was superior to the head of the Olympian pantheon. 39  Rev. 5:2: καὶ εἶδον ἄγγελον ἰσχυρὸν κηρύσσοντα ἐν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, τίς ἄξιος ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον καὶ λῦσαι τὰς σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ; 40  Rev. 5:3: καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οὐδὲ ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον οὔτε βλέπειν αὐτό. 41  Rev. 5:4: καὶ ἔκλαιον πολὺ ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἄξιος εὑρέθη ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον οὔτε βλέπειν αὐτό. 42  de Silva additionally notes: ‘John’s claim on behalf of the Lamb is especially relevant to establishing Jesus’ claim to worship (as a human-become-God) above and beyond the claims of the emperors and members of their families (lauded as divi, “humans-become-gods”), who are not qualified to step into the silence of 5:3–4 to fill the void’ (2009, 198). 43  Rev. 5:5: μὴ κλαῖε· ἰδοὺ ἐνίκησεν ὁ λέων. 44  According to Neufeld, in Revelation, ‘[c]lothing and accessories take on the function of a second skin that reveals something about the wearer or transforms her/him in some way’ (2005, 86). This is certainly true of Herakles and his lion-skin, which seems to amplify his appetitive and aggressive tendencies in the tales told about him. For a consideration of this aspect of clothing’s function, see MacMahon in this volume, with bibliography on wearing clothing with biblical scenes.

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outside of Zeus’ temple and again on the screen beside the statue of his father within. In thinking of such a powerful, conquering figure, our auditor would have much in common with those who were better versed in Judaic literature: for the Lion (of the tribe) of Judah was a symbol of the victorious Warrior in the LXX, which, when combined with the ‘root of David’ descriptor, would have produced the image of the promised, politically powerful Messiah.45 Our Christ-curious Greek auditor is not likely to have had access to this latter idea; however, he is likely to have understood the ‘root’ metaphor by which this figure is further characterised as indicating that the ‘Lion’ was the ancestor of an important family line, not unlike Herakles’ own, the Herakleidai.46 Imagine his surprise when, along with John, he looks and discovers that the anticipated lion is actually a ‘Lamb standing as though (it had been) slaughtered’.47 Here Jewish and Greek imagery merge, for the lamb was a significant sacrificial animal in both cultures, and John’s choice of the perfect participle esphagmenon indicates that this particular ‘lamb’ met its death as a sacrificial victim.48 However, despite bearing the signs of its slaughter, this Lamb appears to be wholly alive, conquering death itself.49 Although the person represented by the Lamb is not specifically identified here, if our Christ-curious auditor was present to hear the opening chapters of Revelation, he may have been encouraged to recall that Jesus himself had been described in a similar way already as ‘one who was dead but now lives’ (1.18; 2.8). If not, it is likely that this statement would have generated a moment of aporia – none of his divinized heroes had ever suffered a sacrificial death. However, by making the conceptual connection between the Lion-Lamb, Jesus and divine son, our auditor is further likely to have thought of Herakles who also displayed this lamb-like character of submissiveness in acceding to the completion of his labours, costly though they 45  ὁ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς Ἰούδα, ἡ ῥίζα Δαυίδ, ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ; cf. Barr 1998, 69; Hoffman 2005, 115. Strawn (2007, 42) argues that each of the four uses of the lion symbol in the LXX, ‘the self or the righteous, the enemy, the monarchy/mighty one, and the Deity … is a trope of threat and power’. 46  Several cities in the Graeco-Roman world claimed to have a connection with Herakles either directly or through his descendants, including cities in Asia Minor, such as Antioch. On the popularity of Herakles and his image in the cities addressed in Rev. 2–3, see, e.g., Lethaby 1914 (Ephesus); Greenewalt 1978 (Philadelphia, Thyateira, Sardis); Williams 1982 (Pergamum, Sardis, Smyrna). 47  Rev. 5:6: καὶ εἶδον… ἀρνίον ἑστηκὸς ὡς ἐσφαγμένον. For sound discussion of difficulties with the use of the term ἀρνίον (arnion) in Rev. 5:6, see Roluff 1993, 78–9. 48  On the sacrificial aspects of Jesus’ death, see, e.g., Collins 1998; Versnel 2004; Boxall 2006, 100–01; Gallusz 2014, 144–5. 49  Boring claims, ‘As “Lamb” is the key Christological noun in John’s vocabulary, so “conquer” (nikao) … is the key Christological verb …’ (1989, 111).

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were. Indeed, Olympia celebrates the great deeds accomplished by virtue of this very submissiveness. But more than this, it is highly probable that our auditor would have known that in some circles Herakles’ very death was understood to have been of a sacrificial kind. Both the Stoics and the Cynics held up Herakles’ suffering and self-sacrificing death as a model of virtuousness, one worthy of emulation. We might be hard-pressed today to accept that anything about Herakles was lamb-like, but in his final submission to his father’s will (which, as portrayed by Sophocles in Trachiniai at 1159–78, he belatedly apprehended only in the midst of his final suffering), he did willingly, and, some might say, sacrificially, surrender himself to death: hastening his father’s will and behaving almost as though he were a holocaust offering, although a very self-willed one, Herakles, while still living, had his own body consumed by flames. Anderson comments: ‘[s]uperficially, his end on the pyre on Mt Oeta might be regarded as retribution for certain infelicities, but symbolically it represents the burning away of his mortal parts and his ascent to heaven’s glory’.50 However, if our auditor understood this to be the case, he would soon learn that Christ-Jesus needed no purifying fire to be allowed entrance into the heavenly throne room: as an unblemished and wholly pure ‘lamb’, He was wholly acceptable to God. Additionally, it is also possible that the idea of the ‘noble death’ at the end of a noble life, propagated primarily within philosophical circles, might serve to inform our auditor’s understanding of Herakles’ exit from mortal life. Living a noble life and then dying a noble death entailed that one ‘bears pain, insult, and death with serenity’.51 This also entailed recognizing a sign from the gods and yielding one’s will to the divine.52 Although our auditor may not yet know the backstory to the Lamb’s death, he would soon hear that these are criteria

50  Anderson 1928, 9. See Theocratis 24.86–7; Cic. pro Sest. 143; Ovid Met. 9.262ff. Cf. Hillyer 1967, 232. 51  Ford 1995, 110. According to King, in the view of Stoic philosopher, Seneca, ‘Herakles’ self-immolation is a true Stoic suicide in that he deprives death of its power over him by accepting it willingly and by dictating its manner himself’ (1971, 22). For a brief discussion of Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus in the context of Stoicism, see Anagnostou-Laoutides in this volume (chapter 2). Harrison in his discussion of pseudo-Cebes’ first-century Tabulla (2003, 523) observes that ‘the moral self-control of the philosopher, seen in his indifference to vice and suffering, is worthy of crowning’. Cf. Holmes 2009, esp. 118. 52  Cf. Cobb 2014, 236/7; Collins, in discussing Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer states that ‘acceptance of the divine will expressed at the end of the prayer suggests that the purpose of the description of Jesus’ distress and the request to let the cup pass is to magnify the choice to submit to death, to highlight Jesus’ freely chosen obedience’ (1994, 485).

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which he had fulfilled in a superior manner to Herakles.53 Thus, even as someone new and relatively uninformed, our auditor would soon understand that Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb of God, had displayed a similar kind of ‘strength through suffering’.54 And lest he think that this figure was weak and defenceless, he hears that the Lamb standing-as-though-slain has seven horns and seven eyes,55 which the narrator explains are ‘the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth’.56 Again, as would be most likely if our Christ-curious auditor were present to hear the opening chapters of Revelation, she may well recall having met these seven spirits twice before; first when the Revelator sends a blessing of peace to his original audiences in the seven churches from God, Jesus and ‘from the seven spirits who are before his throne’ at the beginning of Revelation (1:4) and then again when they were described as ‘seven lamps of fire’ before God’s throne (4:5).57 It is generally understood that these seven spirits represent the fullness of God’s spirit, his perfect wisdom: for both Jew and Greek, seven symbolically represented the number of fullness or perfection. Thus, in his possession of seven eyes the Lamb now shares in his Father’s fullness of knowledge and perfect wisdom, ‘the ability to see as God sees’.58 This would be a far cry from the Herakles of traditional myths, who is often presented as all brawn, no brain. The horns, being also seven in number and therefore ‘complete’, are indicative of perfect power, especially the power to rule and to defend; this too the Lamb now possesses in company with his Father.59 When it is the Lamb who is invited to come and take the scroll, our Christ-curious auditor is likely to think again of all the heroes who have been granted apotheosis as well as earthly, present-day rulers and even ‘heroes’ beneath the earth and those said to be enjoying an afterlife in Elysium, or on the Isle of the Blessed – and to realize for a second time that none is ‘worthy’. As a result, our auditor might well see in

53  McDonald expresses the difference well when she observes that ‘the lamb has triumphed not by action (and certainly not by violent action) but by enduring the hostile actions of others …’ (1996, 37). 54  Guthrie 1981, 65. 55  Rev. 5:6: ἔχων κέρατα ἑπτὰ καὶ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑπτά. 56  Rev. 5:6: οἵ εἰσιν τὰ [ἑπτὰ] πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ ἀπεσταλμένοι εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν. 57  Rev. 1:4: …καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτου; Rev. 4:5: …ἑπτὰ λαμπάδες πυρὸς καιόμεναι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου. 58  Boxall 2006, 99; cf. Lioy 2003, 134. 59  Ever since the fifth century BCE, the Egyptian ram-headed god Amun had been identified with Olympian Zeus. Cf. Herodotus, Hist. 2.42.

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the Christ-Lamb an inversion of the Heraklean model of the heroic: the latter’s aggressive strength proves inferior to the self-mastery of the Christ.60 But it is only in the following verses that we learn why it is that the Lamb is deemed worthy – that is, ‘qualified’ – to take and open the book-scroll:61 by allowing himself to be killed. Our auditor is told in a two-verse victory hymn62 that by suffering and dying the Lamb purchased with His blood an international multitude of people to reign on earth as God’s kings and priests (5.9–10). Several commentators have noted that the language of purchasing or redeeming is that of the market-place, especially that of the slave-market.63 Such language may also cause our Christ-curious auditor to recall that Herakles, far from being a redeemer figure, was himself once forced into slavery as punishment for killing his guest-friend.64 Here again, the results of the Lamb’s ‘noble death’ stands in stark contrast to those of Herakles’ so-called ‘self-sacrifice’. Even though Herakles may have become a god who could be petitioned for assistance, his death itself was never styled a salvific act. In fact, Herakles was more popular as a heroic daimon, one who could be called upon to assist in the defence of those who honoured him.65 Revelation 5 closes with the entire created order (now including those in the sea) responding in affirmation to the angels’ seven-fold glorification of the Lamb, followed by the four living creatures’ confirmatory ‘Amen’ (5:14), through which the Enthroned One and the Lamb are celebrated as equivalent in all things. A Christ-curious Greek who had heard Dio Chrysostom’s Oratio 12, might have recalled his claim that even the dumb beasts are awed and quieted by the statue of Zeus at Olympia (51–2);66 however, for an auditor still mindful of similarities between his Herakles and this new salvific figure, a dramatic difference between the two would once again appear: Herakles was never deemed worthy of praises equal to those accorded to his father, nor did he ever share in the power and authority of his father on Olympus as the risen Lamb

60  On similarity between Christ Jesus and ancient heroes/divine men, see Knox 1948; Smith 1971; Talbert 1975 and 1975/6; Shapiro 1983; Collins 2000, 100; Thompson 2000; Betz 2004; Hershbell 2004. 61  Aune 1997, 347. 62  See Aune (1997, 331), who translates ‘ἐπινίκεον’ (epinikeon) as ‘song of praise’, which is, in essence, what a ‘victory hymn’ accomplishes. 63  Cf. Fiorenza 1974, 228–9; Resseguie 2009, 121. 64  Versions of this story are found in a fragment of Pherekydes (3F82); Sophocles, Trachiniai 248–80; Diodorus Siculus 4.31.4–5; Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 2.6.2. 65  For an overview of Herakles’ cult in antiquity, see Stafford 2012, 171–97. 66  Cf. Harris 1962.

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is revealed as doing here (Rev. 5:12).67 And, although Herakles is worshipped in many places throughout the Roman Empire, none of Olympus’ inhabitants are known to have honoured him as the inhabitants of the entire cosmos honour the ‘slain-standing-victorious Lion-Lamb’.68 Herakles had been admitted to his father’s realm, and granted the honour of marrying the eternally beautiful Hebe (‘Youth’, cf. Hesiod, Theogony 950–5; Pindar, Nemean 1.61ff). But his personal apotheosis did nothing to grant those who prayed to him as a god access to eternal life for themselves.69 Moreover, unlike the Lamb who humbled himself while alive, Herakles was known to have crowned himself as victorious.70 This would stand in stark contrast to the earlier image of enthroned worshippers casting their crowns before the Enthroned One, which may have been brought to mind when God and the Lamb are worshipped as though one as Revelation 5 draws to its close.71 Clearly there are differences between Jesus and Herakles; whether the perceived differences would have become strong enough to displace the similarities in the mind of our Christ-curious Greek would certainly depend on many factors outside the purview of this present discussion. However, it is worth presenting in brief the number of similarities that have been recognized in modern scholarship between Herakles and Christ. Both were sons of the supreme god, born to a mortal mother; both were subject to persecution in their childhood; both became wanderers who performed benevolent acts to the benefit of individuals and society; both endured suffering in the process of doing so, being submissive to the will of their divine fathers; both also suffered an excruciatingly painful and humiliating death; both descended into the underworld; and both ascended to heaven after dying. To these parallels from Herakles’ stories, the Stoic and Cynic philosophers added another tale: his temptation and testing at the crossroads where his choice of virtue over vice allowed him to be held up as the model of virtuous self-control and self-­sacrifice. Jesus too was said to have undergone a testing of a similar nature, which he also successfully 67  As Aune (1997, 346) observes, ‘receiving the scroll in v. 9 (λαβεῖν τὸ βιβλίον [labein to biblion]) is parallel to receiving power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and praise in v. 12 (λαβεῖν τὴν δύναμιν [labein tēn dunamin] ff.)’. 68  Barr 1998, 70. 69  On Hellenistic views on apotheosis adopted by the Romans, see Bosworth 1999; for contemporary views on the difference between apotheosis and resurrection, see Endsjø 2009. 70  The image of Herakles crowning himself appears on coins minted for the emperors Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and Commodus. Cf. Vermeule 1957; Palagia 1986. For other uses of Herakles by the second-century emperors, see Hekster 2005. For Herakles in relation to Christian emperors, see Eppinger in this volume; in relation to Heraklias, see Mellas in this volume. 71  Cf. e.g. Charles 1991, 472; Hoffman 2005, 162–3; de Silva 2009, 196; Resseguie 2009, 123.

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passed, by rejecting the allure of earthy satisfactions for a ‘higher’ pleasure.72 If we can see these similarities today, imagine how many more aspects of Herakles and Christ may have been available to our first-century Christ-curious Greek to draw upon in coming to faith in Christ Jesus. The likelihood that our hypothetical auditor could use his knowledge of Herakles to make sense of Christ is borne out by two comparatively early advocates of the singularity of Jesus’ divinity and one witness hostile to His claim to be the only true Son of the only true God, demonstrating that these are not mere figments of the modern mind. First, we have the mid-secondcentury convert and apologist Justin the Martyr, who, in his effort to present the teaching of the Son of his God as a philosophy, claimed that what he had to say about Jesus was no different to what Greeks already said about the apotheosis of other sons of Zeus, including Herakles: For you know how many sons of Zeus are said by the writers you hold in honour to have gone to heaven…. Asklepios, being a healer, was struck by lightning and raised up into heaven, so too Dionysos having been rent to pieces, and Herakles, escaping his toils, gave himself to the flames, and Leda’s sons, the Dioskouri, and Perseus from Danai …73 Later, however, he explains that these divinized ‘mortals-cum-gods’ of whom the poets wrote are actually: the fables of demons, who having learned in advance of the coming of the Christ from the prophets [of the Jewish people] … propagated many ‘false’ sons of Zeus so that when similar things were said about the Christ they would be considered simply marvellous tales like those of the poets.74 Clearly Justin was sensitive to the unexpressed charge that the followers of Christ Jesus had merely borrowed elements from the real heroes and gods who preceded Him chronologically. This would make Jesus just one more among many and deny Him the exclusivity demanded for Him by His worshippers.75 72  For previous discussions of Herakles/Christ similarities, which underpin several of the chapters in this volume, see, Anderson 1928; Pfister 1937; Rose 1938; Knox 1948; Simon 1955; Aune 1990; Betz 2004; Quiroga Puertas 2012; Malherbe 2015; on the tale of Herakles’ choice, see Stafford 2012, 123–7. 73  Apol. Ι. 21.1–7. See Minns and Pavis (2009) for Justin’s Greek text. 74  Apol. I 54.1–2. 75  Further on the need to and means of differentiating Christ-Jesus from Herakles as part of an enduring argument in the Church, see Anagnostou-Laoutides and Sowers in this volume.

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When we turn to our hostile witness, it is clear that this second-century adversary to this new religion/philosophy held just such an understanding of this new figure hailed as the Son of God. Although we hear of Celsus’ argument only through its rebuttal by the Church Father, Origen, there can be no doubt that the former objected to the exclusivity claims made by Jesus’ followers: he could see no grounds on which to exalt one deified mortal and deny the divinity of the rest. In engaging Celsus on this point, Origen actually grants some merit to his opponent’s demand for equivalency if, and only if, it can be shown that the earlier immortalized mortals received deification because of the virtuousness of their souls and their properly motivated benefactions to humanity. Hence, he says: ‘What great deed has Asklepios, or Dionysos, or Herakles done? And to which persons will they point for having made ethically better, and improved by their words and way of life, in order to become gods?’ For many are the familiar stories regarding them, so let us see if they are without licentiousness or injustice, or foolishness, or cowardice. And if nothing of such a sort is found in them, Celsus’ argument may well have strength, which would set those previously named on an equal footing with Jesus. But if it is clear that, while some matters regarding them are reputable, they are otherwise recorded as having done a myriad of things against upright reason, how could you properly say that rather than Jesus, these fellows, laying down their mortal body, became gods?76 In this Origen finds all of Celsus’ gods wanting. Not even Herakles’ choice of virtue over vice is sufficient to excuse the gluttony, licentiousness, and violence of his life contained in the more popular tales recounted outside the philosophers’ circles. And this brings us back to Justin the Martyr, who in his second Apology (11.3–6) appeals to Herakles in order to make a point against one of his adversaries concerning virtue: here he rehearsed approvingly the choice made by Herakles in his trial as reported in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (2.121–34). In this he was not alone: some two-hundred years later in the fourth century, Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, in a short treatise composed for the education of his own nephews (and possibly nieces as well), set forth Herakles’ choice at the crossroads between Vice and Virtue as an appropriate piece of pagan literature for the moral edification of the young. The Herakles of the Labours is nowhere

76  Contra Celsum 3.42.19–30.

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in view; nor are the less edifying aspects of his mythology – his various bodily appetites have all been eliminated by his choice at the crossroads.77 These are but three literary traces of what was likely happening on a much larger and more frequent scale amongst those Greek speakers who sought to discover more about the latest god from the east. Encountering something new, the mind makes use of the known to make sense of the unknown; how it does so is something in which the cognitive sciences are particularly interested at present. It should come as no surprise, then, that converts to Christ continued to honour Herakles despite admonitions against doing so. As we know from the Church Fathers, converts to Christianity easily gave up neither their former gods and heroes, nor their ritual practices in relation to them; and the more rural the converts, the more likely they were to hold onto the old alongside the new. Augustine can still complain in the early fifth century, that many of his congregants hurry off to celebrate festivals in honour of ‘idols’ and continue to pray to them for personal benefit. Perhaps, then, we should see Justin Martyr’s and later St Basil’s appeal to the story of Herakles’ choice as a way simultaneously to include what converts were already apprehending on their own, and to exclude those parts of his career which were wholly unsuited to a Christ-centred worldview.78 In acknowledging the undeniable, they were in their own small way attempting to take captive ‘every conception of mind to the submission of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Bibliography Achtemeier, P.J. (1972) ‘Gospel miracle tradition and the divine man’, Interpretation 26.2: 174–97. Allan, A.L. (2011) ‘The God above all gods: the heavenly throne-room of Revelation 4 and Phidias’ Zeus’, in McWilliam, J., Puttock, S., Stevenson, T. and Taraporewalla, R. (eds) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: new approaches, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 123–36. Anderson, A.R. (1928) ‘Heracles and his successors: a study of a heroic ideal and the recurrence of a heroic type’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 39: 7–58. Ascough, R.S. (2015) ‘What are they saying now about Christ groups and associations?’ Currents in Biblical Research 13.2: 207–44.

77  See Stafford 2012, 123–7. 78  See Wilson 1975.

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Aune, D.E. (1990) ‘Heracles and Christ: Heracles imagery in the Christology of early Christianity’, in Balch, D.L., Ferguson, E. and Meeks, W.A. (eds) Greeks, Romans and Christians: essays in honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 3–19. Aune, D.E. (1997) Revelation 1–5, Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 52, Dallas, TX: Word Books. Aune, D.E. (2006) ‘The influence of imperial court ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John’, in Aune, D.E. (2006) Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic in Early Christianity: collected essays, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 99–119. Barr, D.L. (1986) ‘The Apocalypse of John as oral enactment’, Interpretation 43: 243–56. Barr, D.L. (1998) Tales of the End: a narrative commentary on the book of Revelation, Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press. Beale, G.K. (1999) The Book of Revelation: a commentary on the Greek text, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Betz, H.D. (2004a) ‘God concept and cultic image: the argument in Dio Chrysostom’s Oration 12 (Olympikos)’, Illinois Classical Studies 29: 131–42. Betz, H.D. (2004b) ‘Hero worship and Christian beliefs: observations from the history of religion on Philostratus’s Heorikos’, Hershbell, J.P. (trans.), in Aitken, E.B. and Maclean, J.K.B. (eds), Philostratus’s Heroikos: religion and cultural identity in the third century CE, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature 25–47. Billings, B.S. (2011) ‘From house church to tenement church: domestic space and the development of early urban Christianity – the example of Ephesus’, The Journal of Theological Studies 62.2: 541–69. Boring, M.E. (1989) Revelation: a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching, Louisville, KY: John Knox Press. Bosworth, B. (1999) ‘Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic theories of apotheosis’, Journal of Roman Studies 89: 1–18. Botha, P.J.J. (1988) ‘God, emperor worship and society: contemporary experiences and the Book of Revelation’, Neotestamentica 22: 87–102. Boxall, I. (2006) The Revelation of Saint John, London: Continuum. Brent, A. (1999) ‘John as Theologos: the imperial mysteries and the Apocalypse’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 75: 87–102. Briggs, R.A. (1999) Jewish Temple Imagery in the Book of Revelation, New York: Peter Lang. Brundage, B.C. (1958) ‘Herakles the Levantine: a comprehensive view’,  Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17.4: 225–36. Burridge, R.A. (1998) ‘About people, by people, for people: Gospel genre and audiences’ in Bauckham, R. (ed.) The Gospel for All Christians: rethinking the Gospel audiences, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 113–45.

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Charles, J. (1991) ‘An apocalyptic tribute to the Lamb (Rev 5:1–14)’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34: 461–73. Charles, J.D. (1993) ‘Imperial pretensions and the throne-vision of the Lamb: observations on the function of Revelation 5’, Criswell Theological Review 7: 85–97. Cobb, L.S. (2014) ‘Polycarp’s cup: imitatio in the Martyrdom of Polycarp’, Journal of Religious History 38.2: 224–40. Collins, A.Y. (1994) ‘From noble death to crucified Messiah’, New Testament Studies 40.4: 481–503. Collins, A.Y. (1998) ‘Finding meaning in the death of Jesus’, Journal of Religion 78: 175–96. Collins, A.Y. (2000) ‘Mark and his readers: the Son of God among the Greeks and Romans’, Harvard Theological Review 93: 85–100. Croon, J.H. (1953) ‘Heracles at Lindos’, Mnemosyne 6: 283–99. Davis, R.D. (1992) The Heavenly Court Judgment of Revelation 4–5, Lanham, NY and London: University Press of America. de Silva, D.A. (2009) Seeing Things John’s Way: the rhetoric of the Book of Revelation, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Donohue, A.A. (1997) ‘The Greek images of the gods: considerations on terminology and methodology’, Hephaistos 15: 31–45. Downey, G. (1959) ‘Libanius’ oration in praise of Antioch (Oration XI)’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 103: 652–86. Downing, F.G. (1988) ‘A bas les aristos: the relevance of higher literature for the understanding of the earliest Christian writings’, Novum Testamentum 30: 212–30. Endsjø, D.Ø. (2009) Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity, New York: Palgrave MacMillian. Erdman, C.E. (1977) The Revelation of John: an exposition, Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Fiorenza, E.S. (1974) ‘Redemption as liberation: Apoc. 1:5f and 5:9f’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36: 220–32. Ford, J.M. (1995) ‘Jesus as sovereign in the Passion according to John’, Bulletin of Biblical Theology 25: 110–17. Friesen, S.J. (2001) Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: reading Revelation in the ruins, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galinsky, G.K. (1972) The Herakles Theme, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gallusz, L. (2014) The Throne Motif in the Book of Revelation, London: Bloomsbury. Giblin, C.H. (1998) ‘From and before the Throne: Revelation 4:5–6a integrating the imagery of Revelation 4–16’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60: 500–12. González, J.L. (2010) The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, vol. 1 of The Story of Christianity, 2nd edition revised, New York: HarperCollins.

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Guthrie, D. (1981) ‘The Lamb in the structure of the book of Revelation’, Vox Evangelica 1: 64–71. Hall, R.G. (1990) ‘Living creatures in the midst of the Throne: another look at Revelation 4:6’, New Testament Studies 36: 609–13. Halperin, D. (1988) The Faces of the Chariot: early Jewish responses to Ezekiel’s vision, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hannah, D.D. (2003) ‘Of cherubim and the divine Throne: Rev 5.6 in context’, New Testament Studies 49: 528–42. Harland, P.A. (1996) ‘Honours and worship: emperors, Imperial cults and associations at Ephesos (first to third centuries CE)’, Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 25: 319–34. Harland, P.A. (2000) ‘Honouring the Emperor or assailing the Beast: participation in civic life among associations (Jewish, Christian, and Other) in Asia Minor and the Apocalypse of John’,  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 77: 99–121. Harris, B.F. (1962) ‘The Olympian Oration of Dio Chrysostom’, Journal of Roman History / Religious History 2: 85–97. Harrison, J.R. (2003) ‘The fading crown: divine honour and the early Christians’, Journal of Theological Studies 54: 493–529. Hekster, O. (2005) ‘Propagating power: Hercules as an example for second-century emperors’ in Rawlings, L. and Bowden, H. (eds) Herakles and Hercules: exploring a Graeco-Roman divinity, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 205–21. Hengel, M. (2002) The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: its prehistory and the problem of its canon, Biddle, M.E. (trans.), Edinburgh and New York: T & T Clark. Hershbell, J.P. (2004) ‘Philostratos’ Heroikos and early Christianity: heroes, saints and martyrs’, Hershbell, J.P. (trans.), in Aitken, E.B. and Maclean, J.K.B. (eds) Philostratus’s Heroikos: religion and cultural identity in the third century CE, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 169–79. Hillyer, N. (1967) ‘The Lamb in the Apocalypse’, Evangelical Quarterly 39: 228–36. Hoffman, M.R. (2005) The Destroyer and the Lamb: the relationship between angelomorphic and lamb Christology in the Book of Revelation, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Holloway, R.R. (1967) ‘Panhellenism in the sculpture of the Zeus temple at Olympia’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 8: 93–101. Holmes, M.W. (2009) ‘Recovering a “lost” author: Marcion of Smyrna’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 31: 111–22. Hongisto, L. (2010) Experiencing the Apocalypse at the Limits of Alterity, Leiden: Brill. Hurwitt, J.M. (2005) ‘The Parthenon and the temple of Zeus at Olympia’, in Barringer, J.M. and Hurwit, J.M. (eds) Periklean Athens and its Legacy: problems and perspectives, Austin: University of Texas Press, 135–45. Irwin, E. (1974) Colour Terms in Greek Poetry, Toronto: Hakkert.

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Jart, U. (1970) ‘The precious stones in the Revelation of St. John XXI.18–21’, Studia Theologica 24: 150–81. Johnson, W. (2000) ‘Toward a sociology of reading in classical antiquity’, American Journal of Philology 121: 593–627. King, C.M. (1971) ‘Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus: a Stoic interpretation of the Greek myth’, Greece and Rome series 2, 18: 215–22. Knox, W. (1948) ‘The “divine hero” Christology in the New Testament’, Harvard Theological Review 41: 229–49. Kyrieleis, H. (2012/13) ‘Pelops, Herakles, Theseus: Zur Interpretation der Skulpturen des Zeustempels von Olympia’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 127/8: 51–124. Lapatin, K.D.S. (1997) ‘Pheidias ἐλαφαντουργός’, American Journal of Archaeology 101: 663–82. Larson, J. (2007) ‘Heracles’, in Larson, J., Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide, New York and London: Routledge, 183–87. Last, R. (2012) ‘Communities that write: Christ-groups, associations, and Gospel communities’, New Testament Studies 58: 173–98. Lethaby, W.R. (1914) ‘Further notes on the sculpture of the later temple of Artemis at Ephesus’,   Journal of Hellenic Studies 34: 76–88. Liebeschuetz, W. (1995) ‘Pagan mythology in the Christian Empire’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 2.2: 193–208. Lioy, D. (2003) The Book of Revelation in Christological Focus, New York: Peter Lang. Malherbe, A.J. (2015) ‘Heracles’ in Holladay, C.R., Fitzgerald, J.Y., Sterling, G.E. and Thompson, J.W. (eds) Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic philosophy and early Christianity; collected essays, 1959–2012, Leiden: Brill, 651–74. Markschies, C. (2003) ‘The canon of the New Testament in antiquity: some new horizons for future research’, in Finkleberg, M. and Stroumsa, G.G. (eds) Homer, the Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill, 175–94. McDonald, P.M. (1996) ‘Lion as slain Lamb: on reading Revelation recursively’, Horizons 23: 29–47. Michaels, J.R. (1997) Revelation, Downers Grove, ILL and Leicester: InterVarsity Press. Minns, D. and Pavis, P. (eds) (2009) Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morton, R.S.C. (2007) One upon the Throne and the Lamb: a tradition historical/theological analysis of Revelation 4–5, New York: Peter Lang. Nasrallah, L.S. (2010) Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: the secondcentury church amid the spaces of Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neiman, D. (1969) ‘The Supercaelian Sea’,   Journal of Near Eastern Studies 28: 243–9. Neufeld, D. (2005) ‘Under the cover of clothing: scripted clothing performances in the Apocalypse of John’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 35: 67–76.

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Nicgorski, A.M. (2005) ‘The magic knot of Herakles, the propaganda of Alexander the Great and Tomb II at Vergina’, in Rawlings, L. and Bowden, H. (eds) Herakles and Hercules: exploring a Graeco-Roman divinity, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 97–128. Palagia, O. (1986) ‘Imitation of Hercules in ruler portraiture’, Boreas 9: 137–51. Parisinou, E. (2000) The Light of the Gods: the role of light in archaic and classical Greek cult, London: Duckworth. Parker, F.O. Jr. (2001) ‘“Our Lord and our God” in Rev 4, 11: evidence for the late date of Revelation?’, Biblica 82: 207–31. Petrain, D. (2005) ‘Gems, metapoetics, and value: Greek and Roman responses to a third-century discourse on precious stones’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 135: 329–57. Pfister, F. (1937) ‘Herakles und Christus’, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 34: 42–60. Quiroga Puertas, A.J. (2012) ‘La figura de Heracles en algunos autores del siglo IV D.C.’ in Sánchez Marín, J.A. and Muñoz Martin, M.N. (eds) Homenaje a la profesora Maria Luisa Picklesimer, Coimbra: Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos da Universidade de Coimbra, 375–88. Resseguie, J.L. (2009) The Revelation of John: a narrative commentary, Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing. Rissi, M. (1968) ‘The kerygma of the Revelation of John’, Interpretation 22: 1–17. Ritcher, G. (1966) ‘The Pheidian Zeus at Olympia’, Hesperia 35: 166–70. Roluff, J. (1993) The Revelation of John: a continental commentary, J.E. Alsup (trans.), Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Rose, H.J. (1938) ‘Herakles and the Gospels’, Harvard Theological Review 31: 113–42. Rowe, C. (1972) ‘Conceptions of colour and colour symbolism in the ancient world’, Eranos Jarhbuch 41: 327–64. Rowland, C. (1979) ‘The visions of God in apocalyptic literature’, Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Periods 10: 137–54. Shapiro, H.A. (1983) ‘“Hêrôs Theos”: the death and apotheosis of Herakles’, Classical World 77: 7–18. Simon, M. (1955) Hercule et Christinaisme, Paris: Editions Orphrys. Smith, M. (1971) ‘Prolegomena to a discussion of aretalogies, divine men, the Gospels and Jesus’,  Journal of Biblical Literature 90: 174–99. Stafford, E.J. (2005) ‘Héraklès: encore et toujours le problème du heros-theos’, Kernos 18: 391–406. Stafford, E.J. (2012) Herakles, Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Starr, R.J. (1991) ‘Reading aloud: lectores and Roman reading’, Classical Journal 86: 337–43. Stevenson, G. (1995) ‘Conceptual background to golden crown imagery in the Apocalypse of John (4:4, 10; 14:14)’,   Journal of Biblical Literature 114: 257–72.

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Stewart, A. (1983) ‘Pindaric dikē and the temple of Zeus at Olympia’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 2: 133–52. Strawn, B.A. (2007) ‘Why does the lion disappear in Revelation 5? Leonine imagery in early Jewish and Christian literature’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudoepigrapha 17: 37–74. Talbert, C.H. (1975) ‘The concept of immortals in Mediterranean antiquity’, Journal of Biblical Literature 94: 419–36. Talbert, C.H. (1975/6) ‘The myth of the descending ascending redeemer in Mediterranean antiquity’, New Testament Studies 22: 418–40. Tersini, N.D. (1987) ‘Unifying themes in the sculpture of the temple of Zeus at Olympia’, Classical Antiquity 6: 139–59. Thompson, L.L. (2000) ‘Lamentation for Christ as a hero: Revelation 1:7’, Journal of Biblical Literature 119: 683–703. Vermeule, C.C. (1957) ‘Herakles crowning himself: new Greek statuary types and their place in Hellenistic and Roman art’,   Journal of Hellenic Studies 77: 283–99. Versnel, H.S. (2004) ‘Making sense of Jesus’ death: the pagan contribution’ in Frey, J. & Schröter, J. (eds) Deutungen des Todes Jesu im Neuten Testament, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 213–94. Westervalt, H. (2009) ‘The sculptural program of the temple of Zeus at Olympia’ in Shultz, P. and van den Hoff, R. (eds) Sculpture, Image, Ornament: architectural sculpture in the Greek world, Oxford: Oxbow, 133–52. Whittaker, R.J. (2015) Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Williams, E.R. (1982) ‘A terracotta Herakles at the Johns Hopkins University’, Hesperia 51: 357–64. Williamson, R.L. (1993) Thrones in the Book of Revelation, unpublished PhD thesis: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Wilson, N.G. (ed) (1975) Saint Basil on the Virtue of Greek Literature, London: Duckworth.

chapter 2

The Tides of Virtue and Vice: Augustine’s Response to Stoic Herakles Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides This chapter discusses the reception of Herakles, the quintessential symbol of pagan masculinity, by early Christian thinkers, especially Augustine. Despite his comic profile as a boorish drunkard and gluttonous skirt-chaser, Herakles had acquired through his mythological and cultic connections profound theological knowledge, having journeyed successfully to the Underworld on at least two occasions.1 His soteriological aspects were exploited widely by Alexander and his successors,2 who now posed as paragons of virtue, striving for justice and moral perfection,3 in emulation of Herakles who had turned his suffering in the hands of Eurystheus into boundless benefaction for humanity.4 His profile as an ideal sage and suffering king who endures the insult of service to an inferior was also utilized by ancient philosophers, especially the Cynics and the Stoics.5

1  See Stafford 2012, 105–30 on Herakles’ comic profile and 49, 108, 165–6, 172 on his initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries (Xen. An. 6.3.6). Apart from fetching Kerberos (e.g. ps.-Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.12; Eur. HF 610–3; Diod. Sic. 4.26.1; Ps.-Pl. Ax. 371e), Herakles was reputed to have brought Alkestis, Admetos’ wife, back from the dead (Eur. Alk. 1118–40). For his victory against Death as represented in early art, see Stafford 2005, 81–4; on his theological profile in connection with Dionysian and Orphic cult, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016a. 2  For Alexander’s emulation of Herakles, see Edmunds 1971, 374–6 and Stafford 2012, 137–55. See Walbank (1984, 85–6) on the Antigonids and Herakles as their alleged ancestor; for Lysimachus and Herakles, see Lund 1992, 159; for Herakles and the Attalids, see Hansen 1971, 157–8, 255, 340–1 and Savalli-Lestrade 2001, 77–91. On Herakles and the Seleucids, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016c. 3  The benefaction of Hellenistic kings was promoted as a sign of their divine substance; see, for example, Chaniotis 2005, 432–3. 4  Galinsky 1972, 16, 61–70; Stafford 2012, 23–4, 64, 74, 85, 128. Cf. Eur. HF 798–814. Dio Chrys. Disc. 1.83–4. Herakles was deemed worthy of apotheosis because of his efforts to establish divine justice; cf. Isoc. Or. 5.132; Diod. Sic. 4.15.1; Dion. Hal. Rom. Ant. 1.40.2; cf. Bacch. Od. 12.13; Pind. fr. 169.151; Nem. 1.62–6; Ol. 10.13–59. 5  Murray 1915, 45–8. Sedley 1998, 75 n. 62 argues that Herakles’ association with the Stoics did not eventuate until the first century; cf. Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 3.22 and 26; also, Billows 1994, 67 with n. 26.

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In their venture to master the Greek East, the Romans also promoted Herakles/Hercules as a founding figure. By fighting Cacus (Prop. El. 4.9; cf. Fulg. Mit. 2.3 explaining Cacus as Evil), Hercules, invested with Stoic gravity,6 posed as a symbol of Roman righteousness and a token of their right to rule the world. In his Eclogues Vergil further elevated the hero to a spiritual guide whose deification – already celebrated by Hesiod (Hes. Theog. 950–55; cf. Callim. Hymn 3.149) and Sophocles (Trach. 1208–10; 1270)7 – paved the way for Daphnis’ and Caesar’s ascents to heaven,8 both regarded as unequivocal celestial marks of the impending Augustan restoration. The later imperial period, after Nero’s reign, was characterised by the nostalgic drift of the Second Sophistic for classical values. At that time increasing anxiety over manhood9 coincided with the Christian need to demarcate their culture (including their sense of masculinity) and was inescapably entangled with the pagan notion of heroic ethos. The Christian heroic paradigm was predictably modelled on the figure of Jesus, but still had to be ‘translated’ through pagan models which the newly converted Christians would recognize. Given the undiminished popularity of Stoicism among the Romans,10 Stoic Herakles/Hercules offered an ideal paradigm for the transition from the pagan to the Christian sense of masculinity, with Servius, the influential commentator on the Vergilian corpus, stressing the Stoic emphasis on manliness which Vergil employs when rendering the speech of the gods (ad Aen. 10.467).11 In this intellectual milieu, Herakles, the son of Zeus, who defeated death (Sen. HF 882–92) and was rewarded by his father with an apotheosis for toiling in the name of humanity, was immediately comparable to Christ (e.g. Jesus in Hebrews 12 and Hercules in Aeneid 5–7)12 with Justin Martyr asserting (Dialogue with Trypho 69.3): When people say that Herakles was strong, that he travelled the whole world, that he was born of Zeus and Alkmene, and that after his death he was taken up to heaven, do I not understand that this is an imitation 6   Fedeli 2015, 1105, 1109–1111. 7   See Segal 1995, 53 on Herakles’ apotheosis in Hom. Od. 11.602–4 and early vases; cf. Stafford 2005, 84–8. On Herakles in Sophocles’ Trachiniae, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016a, 65–7. 8   For Daphnis’ apotheosis as an allusion to the recently deified Caesar, see Rose 1942, 124–35. 9   Whitmarsh 2013, 9; Anderson 2005, 133; cf. Van Nijf 2003 and Conolly 2003 on the negotiation of manliness under the Second Sophistic and Herakles as an example of it. Also, see Malherbe 2013, 653 with n. 12. 10  Sandbach 1975, 16; Sellars 2006, ix. 11   Anagnostou-Laoutides 2015, 339. 12  Aune 1990, 14–9; Reasoner 2007, 167–70; Whitlark 2014, 150–1; cf. Peláez 2001, 139–57.

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of the Scripture which says about Christ that he runs his path as strong as a giant?13 The Stoics further encouraged Herakles’ identification with Christ (Epict. Diatr. 2.16.42–6; cf. 3.24.14–16) by emphasizing his obedience to his father.14 In fact, for the Stoics Herakles symbolised ‘the divine reason that permeates the universe and will finally return to the primal fire’ (Sen. Ben. 4.7.1 and 4.8.1; cf. Cornutus Graecus, Nat. Deor. I.31).15 Still, despite the popularity of Stoic ideas during early Christendom,16 not all Christian writers were prepared to turn a blind eye to Herakles’ weaknesses.17 Origen reminds us of the hero’s shameful affair with Omphale (Contra Celsum 7.54), while Lactantius presses the point of his unforgiving anger (Div. Inst. 1.9; 1.18.3–10, 13–17).18 After all, Hercules had been idealized by Roman emperors such as Nero, Commodus and Maximian (e.g. Suet. Ner. 53; Pan. Lat. X (2)1.3–4),19 whom the Christians associated with pure evil and in Nero’s case with the Anti-Christ himself.20 Even Justin Martyr, quoted above, is disappointed by the Stoic theses on God (Dialogue with Trypho 2.3) and only accepts Musonius Rufus as a ‘real Stoic’ because of his exceptionally strict moral code.21 Herakles’ inconsistent reception among Christian writers renders him an inviting example for exploring the Christian reception of Stoic ideas about virtue (undeniably identified with manly virtue, vir-tus),22 especially since Augustine drew heavily on the ancient debate on vices and virtues to which the Stoics had contributed significantly.23 Although familiar with the pagan 13  Ἐπὰν δὲ τὸν Ἡρακλέα ἰσχυρόν, καὶ περινοστήσαντα πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, καὶ αὐτὸν τῷ Διῒ ἐξ Ἀλκμήνης γενόμενον, καὶ ἀποθανόντα εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀνεληλυθέναι λέγωσιν, οὐχὶ τήν, Ἰσχυρὸς ὡς γίγας δραμεῖν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ, περὶ Χριστοῦ λελεγμένην γραφὴν ὁμοίως μεμιμῆσθαι νοῶ;   See Stafford 2012, 202–3, whose translation I follow with minor modifications. 14  Malherbe 2013, 653; also, see Litwa 2014, 98–100. 15  Malherbe 2013, 654; also, see Litwa 2014, 98. Ramelli 2007, 57 n. 67 citing among others Torre 2003, 182–3. 16   Anagnostou-Laoutides 2014 and 2016b with bibliography; cf. Kennedy 2011, 51, noting that association of Christ with logos was borrowed from the Stoics. 17  Malherbe 2013, 668–72. 18  Colish 1985, 47–8; cf. Litwa 2014, 100–5 on Origen’s ethical euergetism which only Jesus fulfils. 19  Hekster 2005, passim; cf. Whitlark 2014, 152–9. 20  Sulpicius Severus, Chron. 2.28–9; Lactant. De mort. pers. 2.7–9 and August. civ. 20.19.3. 21  Thorsteinsson 2012, 542; on Musonius among the Christians, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2014 and 2016b. 22  Dodaro 2004, 55; Byers 2012, 123. 23  Byer 2013, 7–22, 55–68; Gaca 2003, 60–93; Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016b. On Augustine’s use of Stoic ethics, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2014; Colish 1985, 207–20; Rist 1994, esp.

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notion of heroism which he applied to Hercules and Romulus on account of their posthumous apotheosis (civ. 2.14) and despite being a fervent supporter of reading pagan sources in search of moral messages,24 Augustine remains puzzlingly hesitant toward the Stoic Herakles, a problem that begs closer attention. My main argument is that Herakles’ philosophical and literary associations rendered him dangerously akin to Pelagianism; thus, Herakles – like Samson,25 whom Augustine recognised as the Jewish version of Herakles (civ. 18.19) – ought to maintain his marginal role as a pioneer of Christian morality, never able to fully represent it. 1

Herakles among the Philosophers: the Stoics

Herakles holds a special place among the Stoic moral exempla, standing very close to Socrates as the Stoic sage par excellence (cf. Epict. Ench. 51.3).26 Starting with Zeno of Cition who became fascinated by the figure of Socrates (Diog. Laer. Zen. 7.2–4), the Stoics formed their ideas in the intellectual cauldron of late-fifth-century BCE Athens where the philosophers’ fascination with Herakles began. Herakles’ association with virtue was articulated by the sophist Prodikos in his ‘Choice of Herakles’, an epideictic work, designed to lure young wealthy Athenians to his costly classes. Prodikos presented Herakles’ choice between good and bad as between civic virtue and bodily pleasure.27 In doing so, he adapted to his moral typology Hesiod’s Works and Days 287–92. Hesiod, understood by Cleanthes and Chrysippus as a proto-Stoic,28 wrote: Hardship can be acquired easily and in large quantities. The road to it is smooth and she resides very close to us. But between us and affluence the immortal gods have placed the sweat of our brows. Long and steep is

148–202; Byers 2013, esp. 55–99; Wetzel 1992, 56–7; cf. Sorabji 2004, 105; Sellars 2006, 138– 44 and Sellars 2016, 5. 24  For Augustine’s use of the Aeneid as the framework of his Confessions, see indicatively, O’Meara 1988; Bennett 1988; Oberst 1990; for Vergil in the civ., see MacCormack 1998, esp. 118 and 137. 25  For Herakles’ comparison with Samson in Eusebius (PE 10.9.7), see Malherbe 2013, 666–7. 26  Brouwer 2002, 181–224, 198–9 and Brouwer 2014, 111–12. 27  Wolfsdorf 2008, 7. 28  Heath 2013, 122 and Ferguson 1987, 355; cf. Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 4.10.36.

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the path that leads to it, and it is rough at first. But when one has reached the summit, then it is easy, although it was hard.29 Socrates was aware of Hesiod’s lines and of Prodikos’ allegorical use of them and makes mention of both in Plato’s Protagoras (340d).30 Xenophon also had Socrates relate Prodikos’ tale in his Memorabilia, the very text that inspired Zeno to become a philosopher (Diog. Laert. Zen. 7.2).31 Augustine, who understood the purpose of all philosophy as that of ‘improving and regulating morality’ as per Socrates’ example (civ. 8.3), was clearly familiar with Prodikos’ tale, to which Augustine alludes in his Confessions. In Confessions 8.11.26–28, Augustine relates to his friend Alypius the threats with which his former mistresses tried to lure him back to the life of carnal sin he previously led and from which he was rescued thanks to the intervention of Chastity who urged him to shut his ears to ‘his unclean members on the earth’ (immunda illa membra tua super terram).32 However, as Racket pointed out,33 the competition between chastity and wantonness, modelled on Prodikos’ tale, was also utilized by the anonymous author of the Pelagian text De castitate (par. 17) which exemplifies the dangers of getting married in connection with wealth and its social implications, thereby in a way reverting to Hesiod’s use of the motif. However, Pelagius and his followers believed in our ability to make choices without divine aid since in their opinion original sin was a matter of choice and should not be understood as forming a tradux peccati, as spilling over to all of Adam’s descendants.34 Given that Augustine vehemently opposed this thesis, the reasons for which Prodikos’ ‘Choice of Herakles’ became problematic for Augustine begin to emerge. But before unravelling the 29  τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι   ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει: τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν ἀθάνατοι: μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται, ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα. All unacknowledged translations are my own. Here, I translate κακότης (kakotēs) as hardship (cf. Wolfsdorf 2008, 7) and ἀρετὴ (aretē) as affluence. I agree with West (1978, 229; cf. Wolfsdorf’s 2008 n. 11) that Hesiod focuses on material prosperity. 30  For knowledge of Hesiod’s lines by the Cyrenaic Aristippus, see Wolfsdorf 2008, 10; cf. Annas 1993, 228. 31  Wolfsdorf 2008, 8. 32  Courcelle 1968, 190–2; also, see O’Meara 2001, 178–84 for Augustine alluding to Hercules’ Choice in his De fide et operibus, a work promoting his penitential doctrine. 33  Rackett 1997, 229–230. 34  Rees 1988, 12–15; Karfíková 2012, 167; St Clair 2004, 7–16.

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problem further, let us explore Epictetus’ adaptation of Herakles as a major model of virtue. Epictetus, who studied under Musonius Rufus, was seminal in popularizing Stoicism among the Roman elite of the first and early second century.35 As Stephens argued, for Epictetus, Herakles offered ‘an outstanding example of the man being made by his deeds’.36 Thus, in his labours Stoic Herakles recognized opportunities to excel and improve himself,37 an idea that also accords with the Second Sophistic tendency to present philosophers as athletes of virtue (e.g. Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 1.24.1–2).38 Crucially, it seems that through Epictetus Herakles’ moral profile was widely disseminated among the Christians. Hence, Saint Basil refers to Prodikos’ use of Herakles (On the Value of Greek Literature 5.55–77),39 while Fulgentius, in his discussion of Herakles’ struggle against the giant Antaeus (whom he identifies with lust), presents us with a view of virtue which seems to combine Epictetus’ reference to sweating in order to achieve virtue with Hesiod’s comment on the difficulties attendant on the path to virtue (Fulgentius, Mit. 2.4): For when virtue holds the whole mind high and denies it the sight of flesh, it immediately emerges as victor. Thus, too he is said to have sweated long in the contest, because hard is the battle which fights with desire and vices.40 According to Stephens, Epictetus attributed to the Stoic Herakles four qualifications.41 The first one is being proactive when the circumstances call for it (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 1.6.32–6): 35  Boter 1999, xiii–xiv and Chadwick 2006, xxii in Anagnostou-Laoutides 2015, n. 4; cf. 2016a, n. 33. 36  Stephens 2002. 37  Note Herakles’ profile as the founder of the Olympic Games (Pind. Ol. 6.67–9 and 10.24–5, 57–9; Paus. 5.7.6–10); Herakles was addressed as the ideal victor in the kallinikos hymn (Arch. fr. 119; cf. Pind. Ol. 10.5.26–85; 2.3–4; 6.67–70; Lys. Olymp. 33.1–2). Thus, in Pl. Symp. 212c–213e Socrates poses as a victor of virtue and in Pl. Apol. 22 his action is directly compared to Herakles’ twelve labours. 38  Newby 2005, 8–10. 39  Fortin 1996, 162–5; Stafford 2005, 74. 40  O  mnem enim mentem dum uirtus in altum sustulerit et carnalibus eam denegarit aspectibus, uictrix statim exurgit. Ideo etiam et diu in certamine dicitur desudasse, quia rara est pugna quae cum concupiscentia uitiisque congreditur …   Also see, Boethius Cons. Phil. 4. metr. 7.13–35, esp. 29–31 for Herakles’ apotheosis as the reward of his labours. 41  See Stephens 2002; all translations of Epictetus follow Oldfather 1925 and 1928 with minor changes.

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Or what do you think Herakles would have amounted to if there had not been such a lion, and a hydra, and a stag, and a boar and unjust and savage people, whom he drove off and cleared away? And what would he have done if no such thing had existed? Is it not clear that he would have wrapped himself up and slept? In the first place, then, he would never have become Herakles by slumbering his whole life away in such luxury and ease; or if he had, what good would he have been? What would have been the use of those arms of his, and his might overall, and his steadfastness and nobility, if such circumstances and opportunities had not roused and exercised him? What then? Should he have provided these for himself and sought from which place to bring a lion into his country, as well as a hydra? That would have been folly and madness. But since they did exist and could be found, they were of service for revealing and exercising Herakles.42 Second, Herakles undertook his labours without complaint (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 3.22.57): Now, Herakles, when he was being trained by Eurystheus, did not think himself to be miserable, but fulfilled without hesitation all his appointed tasks; and is he, who is about to cry out and get angry while being exercised and trained by Zeus, worthy of carrying the sceptre of Diogenes?43

42  ἢ τί οἴει ὅτι ὁ Ἡρακλῆς ἂν ἀπέβη, εἰ μὴ λέων τοιοῦτος ἐγένετο καὶ ὕδρα καὶ ἔλαφρος καὶ σῦς καὶ ἄδικοί τινες ἄνθρωποι καὶ θηριώδεις, οὓς ἐκεῖνος ἐξήλαυνεν καὶ ἐκάθαιρεν; καὶ τί ἂν ἐποίει μηδενὸς τοιούτου γεγονότος; ἢ δῆλον ὅτι ἐντετυλιγμένος ἂν ἐκάθευδεν; οὐκοῦν πρῶτον μὲν οὐκ ἂν ἐγένετο Ἡρακλῆς ἐν τρυφῇ τοιαύτῃ καὶ ἡσυχίᾳ νυστάζων ὅλον τὸν βίον: εἰ δ᾽ ἄρα καὶ ἐγένετο, τί ὄφελος αὐτοῦ; τίς δὲ χρῆσις τῶν βραχιόνων τῶν ἐκείνου καὶ τῆς ἄλλης ἀλκῆς καὶ καρτερίας καὶ γενναιότητος, εἰ μὴ τοιαῦταί τινες αὐτὸν περιστάσεις καὶ ὗλαι διέσεισαν καὶ ἐγύμνασαν; τί οὖν; αὑτῷ ταύτας ἔδει κατασκευάζειν καὶ ζητεῖν ποθεν λέοντα εἰσαγαγεῖν εἰς τὴν χώραν τὴν αὑτοῦ καὶ σῦν καὶ ὕδραν; μωρία τοῦτο καὶ μανία. γενόμενα δὲ καὶ εὑρεθέντα εὔχρηστα ἦν πρὸς τὸ δεῖξαι καὶ γυμνάσαι τὸν Ἡρακλέα. 43  ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν Ἡρακλῆς ὑπὸ Εὐρυσθέως γυμναζόμενος οὐκ ἐνόμιζεν ἄθλιος εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ ἀόκνως ἐπετέλει πάντα τὰ προσταττόμενα: οὗτος δ᾽ ὑπὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἀθλούμενος καὶ γυμναζόμενος μέλλει κεκραγέναι καὶ ἀγανακτεῖν, ἄξιος φορεῖν τὸ σκῆπτρον τὸ Διογένους;   For the emphasis on undertaking the Labours without complaint, see also Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 4.10.10 and ps.-Sen. HO 1265ff.

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The third quality of the Stoic Herakles is self-sufficiency (also esteemed by the Cynics).44 Although Zeus let his son suffer the loss of his kingship to Eurystheus (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 3.26.31), yet Arrian (Disc. of Ep. 3.26.32) reminds us that: Herakles was ruler and leader of all the land and sea, purging them of injustice and lawlessness, and introducing justice and righteousness; and all this he did naked and by himself.45 And fourth, Stoic Herakles achieved emotional detachment from friends and family, arising from his belief in divine, paternal providence. Epictetus explains that Herakles travelled all over the world, expelling wickedness and introducing lawfulness (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 3.24.14–16): Yet how many friends do you suppose he had in Thebes, how many in Argos, how many in Athens, and how many did he acquire on his travels, considering that he married too when he thought fit, and sired children, and then deserted his children, without lamenting and longing for them, or considering that he was leaving them to be orphans. For he knew that no human being is an orphan, but that there is a father who always and constantly cares for them all. For to him it was not a mere tale that Zeus is the father of human beings, but he always thought of him as his own father, and called him so, and looked to him for doing all that he did. Accordingly, it was possible for him to live happily everywhere.46

44  See, for example, Reydams-Schils 2005, 53–82 (for the Stoics); Desmond 2008, 177–8 (for the Cynics). 45  ὁ δ᾽ Ἡρακλῆς ἁπάσης γῆς καὶ θαλάττης ἄρχων καὶ ἡγεμὼν ἦν, καθαρτὴς ἀδικίας καὶ ἀνομίας, εἰσαγωγεὺς δὲ δικαιοσύνης καὶ ὁσιότητος: καὶ ταῦτα ἐποίει καὶ γυμνὸς καὶ μόνος. 46  καίτοι πόσους οἴει φίλους ἔσχεν ἐν Θήβαις, πόσους ἐν Ἄργει, πόσους ἐν Ἀθήναις, πόσους δὲ περιερχόμενος ἐκτήσατο, ὅς γε καὶ ἐγάμει, ὅπου καιρὸς ἐφάνη αὐτῷ, καὶ ἐπαιδοποιεῖτο καὶ τοὺς παῖδας ἀπέλειπεν οὐ στένων οὐδὲ ποθῶν οὐδ᾽ ὡς ὀρφανοὺς ἀφιείς; ᾔδει γάρ, ὅτι οὐδείς ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὀρφανός, ἀλλὰ πάντων ἀιεὶ καὶ διηνεκῶς ὁ πατήρ ἐστιν ὁ κηδόμενος. οὐ γὰρ μέχρι λόγου ἠκηκόει, ὅτι πατήρ ἐστιν ὁ Ζεὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅς γε καὶ αὑτοῦ πατέρα ᾤετο αὐτὸν καὶ ἐκάλει καὶ πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ἀφορῶν ἔπραττεν ἃ ἔπραττεν. τοιγάρτοι πανταχοῦ ἐξῆν αὐτῷ διάγειν εὐδαιμόνως.    For Herakles wandering, expelling wickedness and introducing lawfulness, cf. ps. Sen. HO 1273ff. Further on Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 3.24.14–16, see Oldfather 1928, 2.188–9, n. 3. See Stephens 2002 for Epictetus’ comparison of Herakles with Socrates in Crito (45c5–d6 and 54a1–b1) where the Laws of Athens reassure the latter that his friends will look after his children after his death; cf. Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 4.1.166.

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Furthermore, according to Epictetus, Herakles’ example is especially suitable for those who lack the extraordinary physical abilities of the hero (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 4.5.14): A human being is unfortunate not when he is unable to choke lions, or throw his arms about statues (for he has received no faculties for this purpose from nature), but when he has lost his kindness, his faithfulness.47 Thus, while Herakles’ achievements are spectacular, his Stoic heroism is found in his kindness and faithfulness, virtues that are nascent within everyone. This is also evident in the following passage which nicely summarizes Epictetus’ praise of Herakles (Arrian, Disc. of Ep. 2.16.44–5): If Herakles had sat around at home, who would he have been? Eurystheus and not Herakles. Come, how many acquaintances and friends did he have as he travelled throughout the civilized world? But none dearer than god; that is why he was believed to be the son of Zeus, and he was. In obedience to him he went around extirpating injustice and lawlessness. But you are not Herakles, nor able to extirpate the evils of others; nor even Theseus to extirpate the evils of Attica; extirpate your own, then. Expel, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, grief, fear, desire, envy, joy at others’ ills, greed, effeminacy, and intemperance from your mind.48 The Stoic representation of man as a viator (‘traveller’),49 who ought to make the right choices to attain virtue and withstand temptation, was hugely influential among Christian writers who invested Christian saints with Heraklean qualities. Among these, self-sufficiency and emotional detachment – alongside the notion that human nature is inherently good, as in the previous quotation,

47  μή ποτ᾽ οὖν οὕτως καὶ ἄνθρωπος δυστυχής ἐστιν οὐχ ὁ μὴ δυνάμενος λέοντας πνίγειν ἢ ἀνδριάντας περιλαμβάνειν (οὐ γὰρ πρὸς τοῦτο δυνάμεις τινὰς ἔχων ἐλήλυθεν παρὰ τῆς φύσεως), ἀλλ᾽ ὁ ἀπολωλεκὼς τὸ εὔγνωμον, ὁ τὸ πιστόν. 48  ὁ Ἡρακλῆς εἰ τοῖς ἐν οἴκῳ παρεκάθητο, τίς ἂν ἦν; Εὐρυσθεὺς καὶ οὐχὶ Ἡρακλῆς. ἄγε, πόσους δὲ περιερχόμενος τὴν οἰκουμένην συνήθεις ἔσχεν, φίλους; ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν φίλτερον τοῦ θεοῦ: διὰ τοῦτο ἐπιστεύθη Διὸς υἱὸς εἶναι καὶ ἦν. ἐκείνῳ τοίνυν πειθόμενος περιῄει καθαίρων ἀδικίαν καὶ ἀνομίαν. ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ εἶ Ἡρακλῆς καὶ οὐ δύνασαι καθαίρειν τὰ ἀλλότρια κακά, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ Θησεύς, ἵνα τὰ τῆς Ἀττικῆς καθάρῃς: τὰ σαυτοῦ κάθαρον. ἐντεῦθεν ἐκ τῆς διανοίας ἔκβαλε ἀντὶ Προκρούστου καὶ Σκίρωνος λύπην, φόβον, ἐπιθυμίαν, φθόνον, ἐπιχαιρεκακίαν, φιλαργυρίαν, μαλακίαν, ἀκρασίαν. 49  Montiglio 2005, 42.

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which sounds precariously close to Pelagius’ teachings (e.g. Dem. 2.1; 3.2)50 – proved challenging for Augustine, who sought to infuse his Platonic vision of the divine with St Paul’s notion of grace (Conf. 7.21.27). For Augustine, only God can purify our minds and free us from emotion.51 Although Augustine had not read Epictetus’ Discourses, he had some familiarity with his Enchiridion52 and was a keen reader of Cicero (Conf. 1.14.23; 3.4.7–8; 3.7.17), who had quoted Prodikos’ tale about Herakles’ choice (as related in Xenophon) in his De Officiis,53 a work full of references to Stoic theses. Cicero also discusses Stoic precepts in his Tusculan Disputations,54 including the notion that heroic virtus is rewarded with apotheosis (Tusc. Disp. 1.12.28–9; 1.14.32–5). The idea found popular expression in Vergil, who was familiar enough with Stoicism and hugely popular among the Christians.55 Vergil alluded to Herakles’ choice between Vice and Virtue in his Aeneid (6.540–3), where he described Aeneas at an Underworld crossroads between Elysium and Tartarus. The notion of the divergent paths of Vergil’s bivium is picked up by Servius (ad Aen. 6.136) who is interested in its Pythagorean symbolism because the bivium echoes the form of the letter Y.56 Augustine was particularly receptive to Vergil’s poetry57 and had understood the Messianic figure of Eclogue 4 (62–3), which has been often been interpreted as an allusion to Hercules, as referring to Christ (civ. 10.27).58 But Vergil also appealed to the British bishop Pelagius,59 with the medieval commentary tradition of Vergil often detecting a sense of Pelagianism in his poetry.60 50  Colish 1985, 79; Rees 1988, 32–51; Wiley 2002, 68–70. At the Diospolis Synod Jerome accused Pelagius of teaching Stoicism rather than Christian doctrine; on Stoicism and Pelagius, see Valero 1982 and Solignac 1993; cf. Colish (loc. cit.) and Rees 1988, 24. 51  Kamimura 2014, 48 with n. 25 for further bibliography. 52  Locut. Hept. I, 30 in Ramsay 2012, 283 n. 14. 53  For Ambrose’s extensive use of Cicero’s De Officiis and his role in Pelagianism, see Rees 1988, 24. 54  Colish 1985, 143. 55  For Vergil’s familiarity with Stoicism, see Ael. Don. VSD 46; on Vergil’s philosophical profile in the Middle Ages, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2015. For discussions of Vergil’s popularity among Christians, see Comparetti 1997; Gao 2002, 20–38; Shea 2005; cf. Markos 2013, 61–4. 56  For Petrarch’s interest in the symbol, see Gill 2005, 36–7; Falkeid 2013, 77; cf. Mommsen 1953. 57  Cf. n. 24 above; Kallendorf 2015, 54 with n. 27; also, Wills 2010, 128–31 on Augustine’s renouncement of Vergil. 58  The understanding of Vergil’s divine baby as a prophetic reference to Christ originates with Constantine the Great, followed by Lactantius and Augustine; see Bourne 1916, 390–3; also, Weeda 2015, 62 with n. 77. 59  Bolton 1967, 16–7. 60  Watkins 1995, 95 (discussing Spencer’s appreciation of it).

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Heroic Virtue in Augustine: In Search of Anti-Herakles

Herakles’ self-sufficiency, praised by Antisthenes, who had presented the hero as swayed by Reason to choose the way of virtue, troubled Augustine,61 especially in the way it echoed Pelagius’ belief in our ability to use reason for choosing the right path (Dem. 2.1–2; cf. 3.1–2; 4.2; 10.2). Pelagius, who expounded his views on human will in his letter to Demetrias, believed that God urges man to make his own choices by ‘setting before him life and death, good and evil’ (posuitque ante eum vitam et mortem, bonum et malum, Dem. 2.2), an image that readily alludes both to the crossroads of Herakles’ decision and Vergil’s underworld bivium.62 Pelagius’ description of human reason as being obscured by excessive vice (Dem. 8.2; cf. 18.2) is akin to the Stoic definition of passion as ‘excessive impulse, disobedient to the choosing reason’ (Ar. Did. Ep. 10.1–5; cf. Diog. Laert. Zen. 7.110). In the Stoic tradition, of course, Reason (of which Herakles is a prominent example)63 is identified with Nature and virtue,64 a notion that accords with Pelagius’ belief in the good of human nature which has guided many pagan philosophers to abide by the law of God (Pel. Dem. 3.2; cf. 4.2). Furthermore, in his City of God, Augustine refers extensively to the hardship humans often face in this life as an opportunity to stimulate their virtue and prepare themselves for the gift of divine grace. His arguments (e.g. civ. 1.13; 20.2)65 are reminiscent of Herakles’ Stoic endurance of suffering as a means of perfecting his virtue. Augustine makes no mention of Hercules and is quick to identify the purpose of this suffering as a chance to ‘exercise our humility or to undermine our pride’ (civ. 2.22; aut humilitatis exercitation est aut elationis adtritio),66 hardly a Herculean quality. Hercules’ arrogance was illustrated by numerous Roman poets (e.g. Ov. Met. 9.183–99) including Seneca; in his Hercules Furens the hero proudly states that: 61  Montiglio 2005, 188; Litwa 2014, 98–9; cf. Reydams-Schils 2011, 320 on Stoic self-sufficiency. 62  Schaff 1974, 475 argued that Pelagius presented human will as ‘the eternal Hercules at the crossroads’. On Chrysippus’ understanding of passions as judgements and his disagreement with Zeno, see Wolfsdorf 2012, 192–3; cf. Striker 1991, 64–65. Also, see Pel. Dem. 7 differentiating between nature and our freedom of will to do evil. 63  On the Stoic conception of reason, see Frede 1994, passim; Vogt 2008, 164–190. On Pelagius’ Stoicism, see n. 50 above. 64  Sen. Vit. Beat. 7.3.3; cf. Diog. Laert. Zen. 7.87; also, see Sen. EM. 44.5, 50.8, 66.39, 76.15, 82.17, 108.8, 110.10, 118.12, 122.5–6; cf. also, according to nature is wisdom (Vit. Beat. 3.3), happiness (Sen. EM. 45.9, 94.8, 124.7, Vit. Beat. 8.2), reason (Ep. 66.39, 76,10, 92.11, Vit. Beat. 8.1) and friendship (Ep. 109.15; Cic. Off. 3.5.21–6.28). 65  Kamimura 2014, 54. 66  Kamimura 2014, 56.

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I brought forth to light the secrets of the world (596–7), I saw things inaccessible to all … (606) … the void of eternal night, more oppressive than darkness, and the sad gods and fates I conquered. I defied death and returned…. I saw and revealed the underworld (610–15).67 This egotism was also exemplified in Hercules Oetaeus, a text once attributed to Seneca, but now understood to have been written by a Stoic emulator of Seneca.68 At HO 1942–3 (cf. Verg. Ec. 5.43 and 5.51–2) Hercules exclaims: iam uirtus mihi in astra et ipsos fecit ad superos iter My virtue has already reached the stars and paved a path to the gods themselves. Although the Christian echoes of the text have long been observed in scholarship,69 Augustine would have found in Seneca’s Hercules a sound proof of his moral imperfection. The reliance of Senecan Hercules on his powers, physical and intellectual, fails to offer him true emotional detachment. Although Augustine rarely used Seneca (except in civ. 6.10–11), he was clearly familiar with his work.70 Pelagius, however, who urged his followers to embrace their emotions so as to appreciate their achievement in choosing good over evil, appreciated our freedom of choice as the source from which good men derive the praise of others and their heavenly reward (Dem. 3.1), owed to them on the final day when God will dissolve everything with fire, an image with striking Stoic overtones (Dem. 29.1). 67  …  . in lucem extuli   a rcana mundi … (596–7)   …  …….uidi inaccessa omnibus … (606)   ……….noctis aeternae chaos   e t nocte quiddam gravius et tristes deos   e t fata vici; morte contempta redi.   ……. v idi et ostendi inferos. (610–15)   On Hercules’ arrogance, see Wilson 2004, 106; Shelton 1978, 21. Cf. Plut. Ant. 4 (modelled on Cicero) comparing Antony with Hercules in terms of his virile appearance; yet, Antony was also known for his boasting and lack of emotional control. 68  Cf. HO 1–98 discussed in Konstan 2015, 105–6; Ker 2009, 138–9. 69  Pfister 1937, 58–60; Deschner 1986, 70–2, also cited in Ramelli 2007, 57 n. 67. 70  O’Daly 1999, 250; cf. Colish 1985, 16 on Augustine and Jerome referring to Seneca’s correspondence with Paul. Cf. Reydams-Schils 2011, 316–7 on Musonius’ and Epictetus’ rejection of the cult culture surrounding teachers of philosophy (Aul. Gell. NA 5.1).

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That the danger of fusing pagan and Christian ideologies was real enough during early Christianity is stressed by Origen (184/5–253/4) who claims that perfection of virtue is offered both by pagan philosophical schools citing Hercules, Ulysses, Socrates and Musonius as their exempla and by the Christian scriptures (Contra Celsum 3.66.10). Equally, writing in the earliest years of the fifth century, Prudentius presents Christian martyrs in an heroic light,71 implying that their Herculean victory over sin is accomplished at the time of baptism.72 Prudentius (348–413) described his conversion in such terms (Peristeph. Praef. 25–45).73 To warn Christians against expecting apotheosis on the basis of their Herculean effort to emulate Christ, Augustine attacked the agonistic spirit of ancient philosophers (the followers of Socrates, as he calls them, with reference to the Stoics, the Epicureans and Antisthenes, civ. 8.3; 18.41),74 whose disagreements he found confusing (cf. civ. 4.27) and unable to secure the mental purification necessary for witnessing the divine truth.75 Much like Seneca, whom Augustine accuses of hypocrisy,76 Hercules (who existed in at least two forms; civ. 18.8) indulged his passions too often to be the steadfast model that the Christian masses needed.77 Furthermore, in the context of the Pelagian dispute Augustine counter-suggested an anti-Herculean model of Christian heroism.78 He fears that Pelagius encourages Christians who aspire to a virtuous life in imitation of Christ and the saints (cf. Dem. 19.1; cf. 2.2; 5.2) to embrace pride and arrogance, attitudes which he views as the foundation of sin and the prime threat to virtue.79 After noting (civ. 8.26) that pagan literature scarcely offers an example of any god who was not first a human being,80 Augustine argues that Christ sets himself 71  Palmer 1989, 209; now martyrs posed as athletes of virtue, like pagan philosophers; König 2005, 133–4. 72  For Herakles’ association with victory, see Stafford 2005, 84–5 and n. 37 above. 73  Cf. Augustine complaining that the Donatists who insist on giving bishops a special place in the Church as mediators between the people and God, almost replace Christ with Donatus; Dodaro 2004, 98–99 and Dodaro 1998, 377–98. 74  Clark 2012, 267–8. 75  Kamimura 2014, 46–8 discusses intellectual purification in Augustine and his critique of Platonism. 76  Ker 2009, 181; Mitchell 2010, 28–9. 77  Cf. Mommsen 1953, 182. 78  Dodaro 2004, 37 n. 42. Augustine (civ. 22.4) cites Cicero Rep. 3.40 where the Roman thinker expresses doubt as to whether Heracles’ human body was received in heaven; cf. Litwa 2014, 160. 79  Dodaro 2004, 189–90. 80  Dodaro 2004, 49, 100; also, see August. civ. 10.4 and Sen. Ep. 64.

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apart from the models of the pagan philosophers because he uniquely combines the divine and human natures. By using Cicero as his guide, Augustine attempts to differentiate the pagan from the Christian notion of virtue, consciously denying the aforementioned Pelagian thesis that virtuous men were able to follow the law of God before being introduced to the teachings of Christ (a sound proof of our essentially good nature) and is critical of the pagan belief in Herakles’ divinity (civ. 18.8, 22.6; 22.10). As Dodaro argued:81 [by insisting] that the apostles and martyrs were pardoned sinners,82 Augustine reacts against a contemporary tendency to associate them with traditional ‘heroes,’ such as Hercules, who are widely regarded as endowed by the gods with supernatural spiritual gifts and who are, consequently, worshipped as deities following their deaths. Augustine’s alternative concept of the heroic emphasises the quality of humility which derives from the realization that humans always remain pardoned sinners, their virtue is imperfect and always a direct consequence of Christ’s mediation of grace in their soul. Augustine’s concern to defend Christ’s unique status as mediator is articulated already in Sermo Dolbeau 26 (c. 404), preoccupied with individuals who are keen to acknowledge other humans as conduits of virtue, thus running the risk of nurturing similar hopes for themselves. Augustine sees a link between the desire to imitate outstanding exemplars of virtue and the will to outshine them (s. Dolbeau 26.44 (D 400)),83 again clearly targeting Pelagian doctrines. Augustine holds that believers should humbly recognize that God has no peers, whether spiritual or human, and that they should refrain from aspiring to claim as their own that degree of goodness which can only be God’s (s. Dolbeau 26.32 (D 390)). He insists that believers should stop looking to heroic men and women, renowned during their lives for holiness, as proof that anyone can achieve enduring peace, freedom, or virtue in this life (s. Dolbeau 26.63 (D 417)). Instead, Augustine suggests, Paul’s example shows to us that the confession of moral weakness, the antithesis of the Stoic and Roman ideals, is the right precondition for the just life.84 In order to convey this aspect of his alternative heroic ideal, Augustine inserts his discussion of Paul into those chapters of book 14 of his City of God which are concerned with apatheia, the courageous 81  Dodaro 2004, 101 with n. 116 citing s. Dolbeau 26.28 (D 388). 82  See en. Ps. 36.2.20; s. Dolbeau 26.57 (D 412). 83  Dodaro 2004, 102 n. 123; cf. Pasquier 2014. 84  Fredriksen 1988, 108–113.

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resignation which the Stoics exalt as the ideal guide for virtuous action (and which reflects Herakles’ determination to undertake his labours without complaint). Augustine begins his assault on the Stoic ideal by stating that when citizens of the city of God possess a correct love (amor rectus) they desire what it is right for them to desire and they feel emotions which reinforce their just desires (civ. 14.9). He then contrasts this paradigmatic form of love with Stoic apatheia (civ. 14.8) arguing that those attached to the earthly city are able to perfect only the appearance of being in control of their emotions. Christian life, Augustine says, is characterised by what Paul described as an ‘inward groaning’ for the resurrection of the body (Rom. 8:23) and sorrow for our sins (cf. Matt. 26:75 where Paul weeps for his sins). Thus, Augustine equates Stoic apatheia with the Pelagian claim that man can be without sin.85 In his view, if others wish to call human emotions, such as fear for punishment and desire for eternal life ‘faults’ or ‘disordered passions’, then Christians should regard them as ‘virtues’ (civ. 14.9), as permanent reminiscences of our imperfect nature. Augustine’s objections to the Pelagians’ ideas on virtue are further exemplified in a letter which he and his friend, Alypius, wrote to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in 417, when the Pelagian debate was at its height. According to Augustine and Alypius, Pelagius commits a fundamental error when assuming that ‘grace is identical to human nature, and thus the same for pagans and Christians alike’.86 In their opinion, Pelagius doubts that grace is bestowed through Christ and encourages worshippers to believe that they, rather than God, are responsible for their virtue.87 Accordingly, Pelagius teaches that Christians could expect to be rewarded by God for the merit of their actions, rather than their faith.88 Here, in his maturity, Augustine rejects even the proactivity prescribed by Epictetus and exemplified by Herakles’ enthusiastic acceptance of his labours as opportunities for moral ascesis. Augustine admits that humans have a degree of choice based on their free will (voluntas),89 but their will cannot be mobilised without the intervention of divine grace. 85  c iv. 14.9.4: tunc itaque apatheia ista erit, quando peccatum in homine nullum erit (and so that apatheia will exist, when there will be no sin in man). See Dodaro 2004, 195. 86  August. ep. 186.1: quae paganis atque christianis … communis est. See also his gr. et lib. arb. 25 (written in 418). Dodaro 2004, 187. 87  August. ep. 186.1. 88  August. ep. 186.8. 89  Byers 2013, 88–98, 182, 217–231 (focusing on Augustine’s Confessions 8.26–7); on Augustine’s association of voluntas with the Stoic impulse (ὁρμὴν, hormēn), see Byers 2006, 171 and Inwood 1985, esp. 20 and 53. Cf. O’Daly 1987, 26 and 90 for Augustine’s association of appetitus and amor with voluntas; also, Rist 1993, 183 and Rust 1994, 187, who argues that Augustine’s use of voluntas was influenced by Seneca; Horn 1996, 130–31. The relationship

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Thus, in revising Epictetus’ ideal of Herakles, particularly his self-sufficiency and emotional detachment, here understood as signs of arrogance and folly, Augustine clarifies that Christians can never achieve the Stoic ideal of living according to nature because the nature of Christ is unique. Of course, the Stoics had also discussed pride and arrogance as shameful forms of injustice from which the divine man is immune (Stob. Anth. 2.5–12; cf. Pel. Dem. 20.1 on false humility), yet at this point Augustine is intent on defending the Christian dogma by discouraging comparisons with pagan doctrines which risked rendering Christianity merely another path for debating self-improvement.90 3

Augustine, Vergil and an Unlikely Christian Hero

The crux of Augustine’s doctrinal struggle seems to be the relationship of free will (voluntas) with voluptas (the yearning or irresistible drawing one feels as the result of divine grace).91 As Rist argued, Augustine could not but revert to drawing on classical sources when trying to express the effect that divine grace has on humans; hence, we are immediately reminded not only of the Stoic motto fata volentem ducunt sed nolentem trahunt,92 but also of Vergil’s voluptas alacris,93 the intense yearning that filled the countryside due to the divine presence of the humble shepherd Daphnis. Augustine did use the word voluptas in his early writings, such as the De Genesi contra manichaeos 2.9.12, 132 (written in 388/390), to describe the blissful existence of man in Paradise (cf. 2.10.13, 133–4). However, the Stoic investment of the terms deliciae and voluptas94 means that later he avoids using voluptas to refer to divine grace. Indeed, in Confessions book 10, Augustine refers to voluptas as carnal desire – which in the case of food and drink supplants health in trying to persuade him of his needs – almost in terms that recall Herakles’ choice at the crossroads (Conf. 10.31.44; 10.34.51; 10.35.54–60). Yet, in my view, Augustine’s idea of humility, on which he bases his attack against Pelagius, is closely modelled on Vergil’s replacement of the of voluntas to the intellect remained problematic for later thinkers, such as Petrarch; Witt 1983, 318. 90  Cf. Fredriksen 1988, 107. 91  See Horn 1996, 116–29 on Augustine and free will; on Augustine and divine grace, see Drecoll 1999, 187–250, esp. 275–280 on the influence that the Stoics and Manichaeans exercised on him. 92  ‘The Fates lead the willing but drag the unwilling.’ On which see Marcovich 1959, passim. 93  Cf. Rist 1993, 183. 94   Anagnostou-Laoutides 2014 on the Christian notion of sexual desire as luxury based on Stoic texts; cf. d’Alessandro Behr 2007, 125.

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mighty Herakles with the weak cowherd Daphnis. In book 18 of his City of God, Augustine consistently discusses world history in Vergilian terms. After noting, in chapter 14, that theological poets such as Orpheus, Musaeus and Linus did not receive any worship themselves (which reminds us of the Pelagian dispute), he recounts the foundation of Latium by citing verses from Vergil. In civ. 18.21 Augustine relates Aeneas’ apotheosis, again with reference to Vergil, and in civ. 18.23 he discusses the Erythraean Sibyl, believed to have revealed many things about Christ. Augustine is almost rivalling Vergil here by citing an oracle similar to Vergil’s Eclogue 4; that he has Vergil in mind is confirmed by his addition that some believe this Erythraean Sibyl to be in fact the Cumaean Sibyl,95 thus alluding to the opening lines of Eclogue 4. Finally, Augustine adds, with reference to Jesus as unique mediator (civ. 18.47), that repentance in Jesus’ name was instituted in Jerusalem (civ. 18.54). It was there that faith ‘blazed up’ (incanduit) and thousands of men converted to the name of Christ with wonderful alacrity (mirabili alacritate). The lines (urging Christians to enter into voluntary poverty) recall Daphnis’ apotheosis in Eclogue 5 (l. 56: candidus, l. 58: alacris). As I have discussed elsewhere,96 Vergil renders Daphnis’ apotheosis in terms similar to Hesiod’s description of Herakles’ arrival at the gods’ abode on Olympos (Th. 950–55). However, Vergil seems to identify the civilizing effect that Hercules achieved through sheer labour with nature’s alacris voluptas (Ec. 5.58), the zesty yearning with which the woods and the countryside nod to their new master. Crucially, there is a change – actually an inversion – of perspective here: rather than simply describing the glory of the deified hero as Hesiod does, Vergil is far more preoccupied with emphasizing the benevolent influence of Daphnis through the recognition of those who benefited from it. From this point of view, Augustine could certainly appreciate Vergil’s insistence on humility, especially since he is known to have juxtaposed Vergil’s Aen. 6.853 where Rome’s duty is described as ‘taming the proud through war’ (debellare superbos) with James 4:6 where God is presented as resisting the proud and giving grace to the humble (Aug. civ. I praef.).97 Hence, it seems, that in response to the Stoic Herakles, Augustine subtly chose an anti-Hercules type,98 one that featured in Vergil’s Eclogues. Although his use of the Aeneid (6.853 in civ. I. praef.), in his attempt to depict the antithesis of humility and pride as that between Christianity and 95  Garnsey 2002, 160–1; Holdenried 2006, 157–8; cf. Lim 2004 on Augustine’s use of Vergil versus Manichaeism. 96   Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016a. 97  Kamimura 2014, 57. 98  McCormack 1988, 150–1 insists that Augustine was critical of Vergil and his depiction of Daphnis as observing the stars in order to verify Caesar’s apotheosis. Cf. August. Cons. ev. I.23.32 citing Verg. Ec. 9.47.

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paganism, has been noted in scholarship,99 Augustine’s use of Daphnis as an anti-Herakles and a new model of Christian masculinity has not received much attention. Daphnis, a humble, naïve shepherd, whose suffering was considerably less bombastic than that of Herakles, was far more prepared to entrust himself to the hands of divine will. Of course, given that the Vergilian Daphnis is modelled on the Hesiodic Herakles,100 Augustine still envisages a Herculean apotheosis – albeit one based on humility.101 Only by accepting our human limitations and embracing our passion for wisdom can our weakness harbour a powerful spiritual transformation based on divine grace. Bibliography Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. (2014) ‘Sexual ethics and unnatural vice: from Zeno and Musonius Rufus to Augustine and Aquinas’, in Mayer, W. and Elmer, I. (eds) Men and Women in the Early Christian Centuries (Early Christian Studies 18), Strathfield: St Pauls Publications, 271–92. Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. (2015) ‘Vitae Vergilii and Florentine intellectual life to the fifteenth century’, Viator 46.2: 335–356. Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. (2016a) ‘Daphnis, deus pastoralis: the trail of his advent’, Giornale Italiano di Filologia 68: 43–88. Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. (2016b) ‘Luxuria and homosexuality in Suetonius, Augustine, and Aquinas’, The Medieval Journal 5.2: 1–32. Anagnostou-Laoutides, E. (2016c) In the Garden of the Gods: models of kingship from the Sumerians to the Seleucids, London: Routledge. Anderson, G. (2005) The Second Sophistic: a cultural phenomenon in the Roman Empire, London: Routledge. Annas, J. (1993) The Morality of Happiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aune, D.E. (1990) ‘Heracles and Christ: Heracles imagery in the Christology of early Christianity’, in Balch, D.L., Ferguson, E. and Meeks, W.A. (eds) Greeks, Romans and Christians: essays in honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 3–19. Bennett, C. (1988) ‘The conversion of Vergil: the Aeneid in Augustine’s Confessions’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 34: 47–69. 99  O’Daly 1999, 74–5; McInerney 2016, 49; Wetzel 2012, 102. 100  Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1.12.28–9; 1.14.32–5; on the similarities of Daphnis and Herakles, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2016a. 101  Conybeare 2006, 141–165 discussing Augustine’s treatment of Reason in his works; in many ways, Augustine urges Christians to be aware of their inability to be fully rational, stressing God’s agency for achieving wisdom.

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Rees, B.R. (1988) Pelagius: life and letters, Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press. Reydams-Schils, G. (2005) The Roman Stoics: self, responsibility, and affection, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Reydams-Schils, G. (2011) ‘Authority and agency in Stoicism’, Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 51: 296–322. Rist, J.M. (1993) ‘Augustine on free will and predestination’, in Ferguson, E., Scholer, D. and Finney, P.C. (eds) Doctrine of Human Nature, Sin, and Salvation in the Early Church, London: Routledge, 180–207; first published as Rist, J.M. (1969) ‘Augustine on Free Will and Predestination’, Journal of Theological Studies 20: 420–47. Rist, J. (1994) Augustine: ancient thought baptized, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, H.J. (1942) The Eclogues of Vergil, Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press. Sandbach, F.H. (1975) The Stoics, New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Savalli-Lestrade, I. (2001) ‘Les Attalides et les cités grecques d’Asie au IIe s. av. J.-C’, in Bresson, A. and Descat, R. (eds) Les cités d’Asie Mineure occidentale au IIe Siècle A.C.: actes du séminaire thématique de Bordeaux, 12–13 décembre 1997, Bordeaux: Ausonius, 77–91. Schaff, P. (1974) History of the Christian Church, Vol. III, Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity A.D. 311–600, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans (from the revised 5th edition of 1910). Sedley, D.N. (1998) Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Segal, C. (1995) Sophocles’ Tragic World: divinity, nature, society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sellars, J. (2006) Stoicism, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sellars, J. (2016) ‘Introduction’, in Sellars, J. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Stoic Tradition, London: Routledge, 1–15. Shea, C. (2005) ‘Imitating imitation: Vergil, Homer and Acts 10:1–11:8’, in Brant, J.A., Hedrick, C.W. and Shea, C. (eds) Ancient Fiction: the matrix of early Christianity and Jewish narrative, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 37–60. Shelton, J.A. (1987) Seneca’s Hercules Furens: theme, structure and style, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Solignac, A. (1993) ‘Autour du De Natura de Pélage’, in Soëtard, M. (ed.) Valeurs dans le Stoïcisme: du portique à nos jours, textes rassemblés en hommage à Michel Spanneut, Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 181–92. Sorabji, R. (2004) ‘Stoic first movements in Christianity’, in Strange, S.K. and Zupko, J. (eds) Stoicism: traditions and transformations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 95–107.

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St Clair, C. (2004) ‘A heretic reconsidered Pelagius, Augustine, and “Original Sin”’, School of Theology, Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses, St. Joseph and Collegeville, MN: College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, Paper 4, available at http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=sot _papers (accessed 01/05/2018). Stafford, E.J. (2005) ‘Vice and Virtue: Heracles and the art of allegory’, in Rawlings, L. and Bowden, H. (eds) Heracles and Hercules: exploring a Graeco-Roman divinity, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 71–96. Stafford, E.J. (2012) Herakles, Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Stephens, W.O. (2002) ‘Socrates: Epictetus’ Stoic hero’, paper delivered at the Australasian Society for Ancient Philosophy Conference, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, August 31, 1996, online (2002) at http://puffin .creighton.edu/phil/Stephens/Socrates-Epictetus’-Stoic-Hero.htm (accessed 17/6/ 2016; no longer available). Striker, G. (1991) ‘Following nature: a study in Stoic ethics’, in Striker, G. (ed.) Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–73. Thorsteinsson, R.M. (2012) ‘Justin and Stoic cosmo-theology’, Journal of Theological Studies 63.2: 533–71. Torre, C. (2003) ‘Cornuto, Seneca, i poeti e gli dei’, in Gualandri, I. and Mazzoli, G. (eds) Gli Annei: una famiglia nella storia e nella cultura di Roman imperial: Proceedings of the International Congress, Milano-Pavia, 2–6 May 2000, Como: New Press, 167–84. Valero, J.B. (1982) ‘El estoicismo de Pelagio’, Estudios eclesiásticos 57: 39–63. Van Nijf, O. (2003) ‘Athletics, andreia and the askesis-culture in the Roman East’, in Rosen, R.M. and Sluiter, I. (eds) Andreia: studies in manliness and courage in classical antiquity, Leiden: Brill, 263–86. Vogt, K.M. (2008), Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City: political philosophy in the early Stoa, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walbank, F.W. (1992) The Hellenistic World, 3rd edition, revised, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Watkins, J. (1995) The specter of Dido: Spenser and Virgilian epic, Yale: Yale University Press. Weeda, L. (2015) Vergil’s Political Commentary in the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid, Warsaw and Berlin: de Gruyter Open. West, M.L. (ed. and comm.) (1978) Hesiod: Works and Days, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wetzel, J. (1992) Augustine and the Limits of Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitlark, J.A. (2014) Resisting Empire: rethinking the purpose of the letter to ‘the Hebrews’, Library of New Testament Studies, 484, London and New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.

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Whitmarsh, T. (2013) Beyond the Second Sophistic: adventures in Greek postclassicism, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wiley, T. (2002) Original Sin: origins, developments, and contemporary meanings, New York: Paulist Press. Wills, G. (2010) ‘Vergil and St. Augustine’, in Farrell, J. and Putnam, M.C.J. (eds) A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, Chichester, Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 123–32. Wilson, E.R. (2004) Mocked with Death: tragic over-living from Sophocles to Milton, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Witt, R. (1983) Hercules at the crossroads: the life, works, and thought of Coluccio Salutati, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wolfsdorf, D. (2008) ‘Hesiod, Prodicus, and the Socratics on Work and Pleasure’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 35: 1–18. Wolfsdorf, D. (2012) Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part 2 Appropriation: Verbal

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chapter 3

Exemplum virtutis for Christian Emperors: the Role of Herakles/Hercules in Late Antique Imperial Representation Alexandra Eppinger In Huttner’s definition of Herakles’ political role in ancient Greece (1997a) there are two aspects that can be subsumed under the term exemplum.1 On the one hand, the reason for casting Herakles in the role of an exemplum could be to make a comparison: a ruler and his deeds are measured against the hero, in order to glorify him; a ruler endowed with Heraklean honour could be readily perceived as sharing the hero’s divine qualities. On the other hand, by holding up the example of Herakles, a ruler could be encouraged to emulate him and use him as a model for his own conduct. Both of these aspects, which often overlap,2 can be observed when examining the function of Herakles in late-antique encomiastic literature, a category which encompasses texts from the Panegyrici Latini collection as well as works by Themistios, Claudian and Sidonius Apollinaris. Following a short overview of the earlier use of Herakles as exemplum virtutis for rulers,3 I will concentrate on fourth- and fifth-century emperors in order to demonstrate that the achievements of a pagan hero could serve as an acceptable point of comparison, a tertium comparationis, for Christian rulers.4

1  I am grateful to Arlene Allan, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides and Emma Stafford for inviting me to contribute to this volume, and for their many helpful suggestions regarding the content. The issue of the hero’s name is acute in this chapter: as flagged in the volume’s Foreword, ‘Herakles’ is used in the context of Greek texts, ‘Hercules’ in the context of Latin writers and Roman coins. 2  Huttner 1997a, 273–5. 3  The Latin term virtus (‘virtue’) has various meanings, depending on the context, but is the Roman Hercules’ most prominent trait. 4  ‘Pagan’ is used in its conventional meaning of ‘not Christian/Jewish’. Keeping in mind that the word was only ever employed in a derogatory manner by Christians and for want of a more precise term that could encompass such a vast field it is used to refer to the traditional Graeco-Roman cults and myths. For the problems inherent in the term see Eppinger 2015, 7–18.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_005

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Herakles as exemplum virtutis before Late Antiquity

As indicated in the Introduction to this volume, the role of exemplum virtutis is an ancient one for Herakles. His versatility made Herakles the ideal example for rulers; depending on the occasion, various incarnations could come to the fore, among them Herakles Alexikakos (‘averter of evil’, i.e. defender of mankind against evil) and Herakles Kallinikos (‘gloriously triumphant’).5 Kings and emperors aspired to emulate his deeds or were encouraged to do so by having his exemplum held up to them by panegyrists. Following precedents established by Alexander the Great, in the Hellenistic world giving rulers the attributes of Herakles had been fairly commonplace,6 while comparison with Herakles was a common topos of Graeco-Roman literature, typically employed in order to emphasise a person’s extraordinary virtues and deeds.7 1.1 Rome In Rome, Republican generals like Lucullus, Pompey and Caesar were affiliated with Hercules, who, as the killer of the monstrous Cacus and founder of the Ara Maxima, was associated with the foundation of Rome (Propertius 4.9; Vergil, Aeneid 8. 201–305).8 Augustus did not utilise Hercules in his official representation – there are, for example, no Hercules motifs on his coinage, even though Hercules had appeared on Republican coins – nor does Hercules seem to have been a significant figure for other first-century emperors.9 The first emperor to use Hercules in his official representation to any significant degree was Trajan, who minted coins with scenes from the dodekathlos (‘twelve labours’), perhaps owing to the connection of his hometown, Italica, with nearby Gades where the hero/god was worshipped in his incarnation

5  Huttner 1997a, 259–60. 6  Huttner 1997a, 302–05. A brief account of Alexander’s use of Herakles, together with some bibliography, appears in Galinsky in this volume. 7  Huttner 1997a, 277–83. Comparisons with mythical figures or events in general are commonplace in Greek literature, and they continue – in Greek as well as Latin texts – until the end of antiquity (ibid. 274). 8  Anderson 1928, 37–9; Ritter 1995, 56–68. On the relationship of Republican politicians with Herakles in general, see, also, Derichs 1950, 26–38; Kloft 1994, 34–6. 9  For Hercules on Republican coins, see Huttner 1997b, 388. There are scattered references to public appearances in the guise of Hercules by Caligula and Nero, the significance of which is unclear (Cass. Dio 59. 26. 6–7; Phil. leg. ad. Gai. 78–9; Suet. Nero 53). Cf. Kloft 1994, 36; Schulze 2003, 361 speaks of Caesarenwahn. Domitian is compared to Hercules by Martial (9. 64; 9. 65; 9. 101).

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as Hercules Gaditanus.10 Both the younger Pliny and Dio Chrysostom used Hercules as a role model for Trajan’s exemplary rule (Plin. Panegyricus 14.5; Dio Chrys. 2.66–84 offering a variation on the Prodikean parable of ‘Herakles at the crossroads’). It fell to Hadrian to be the first emperor to be depicted with the attributes of Hercules, including the lion skin, which he wears – albeit rarely – on provincial coins and on medallions.11 Hercules appeared on the coinage of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, though he did not play an important part in their official representation.12 That was to change significantly in the reign of Commodus, who was the first emperor to appear as Hercules on imperial coinage, and whose most famous portrait depicts him wearing the lion skin and holding the club of Hercules in one hand and the apples of the Hesperides in the other.13 Commodus was also the first emperor to claim Hercules as his comes (‘companion’) and, in messages to the senate, called himself Hercules Romanus (Cassius Dio 73.15.5), becoming the only ancient ruler to bear the name of Hercules.14 He not only emulated the hero but wished to be identified with him.15 Apart from Commodus, the most extensive use of Herakles in imperial representation can be observed in the later third century and the tetrarchic period. The Gallic emperor Postumus presented Hercules as his personal protector, naming him his comes and claiming an especially close personal relationship with the god in the guises of Hercules Deusoniensis and Magusanus, two local Herculean incarnations of Batavian origin.16 One of the aspects emphasised on Postumus’ Hercules-coinage is virtus, a characteristic not only of Hercules but also of Postumus himself, as confirmed by the legends of virtus (Postumi) Augusti in combination with Hercules motifs.17 The local connection might have served as a way of ensuring and rewarding the loyalty of the 10  Vollkommer 1987, 16; cf. Seelentag 2004, 284–7. 405–8. 423–35. 486–7. On Hercules Gaditanus and Hercules in Spain more generally, see Camacho 2020. 11  Huttner 1997a, 321. Cf. Vollkommer 1987, 16. 12  Schulze 2003, 362; Vollkommer 1987, 16. 13  Kloft 1994, 35 fig. 4; Vollkommer 1987, 16. 14  Nock 1947, 102; Huttner 1997a, 297. A new month Herakleios was introduced by Commodus, named after himself as Hercules Romanus (Cass. Dio 73. 15. 2–3). See generally Vermeule 1977, 290–2. 15  Cf. Cassius Dio’s description of the grotesque stage production with Commodus as Hercules killing disabled people dressed up as giants (Cass. Dio 73.20.3). 16  Eppinger 2015, 159–178. 17  E.g. RIC 5.2 356 n. 241; 344 n. 92. Virtus had become particularly important in the imperial representation during the third century. Gordian III was the first ruler to fabricate a direct connection between imperial virtus and the virtus of Hercules (Manders 2012, 111–112).

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soldiers, a large proportion of whom will have hailed from the province of Germania Inferior where Hercules Deusoniensis and Magusanus were widely known. Furthermore, as Postumus himself seems to have been of Batavian extraction, he could emphasise his connection to the civilian population of Lower Germany and Northern Gaul by presenting a well-known local deity on his coins.18 1.2 The Tetrarchic Period In the artificial dynasty established by Diocletian, Hercules played the part of divine ancestor to the Augustus Maximianus Herculius, with Hercules’ own father Jupiter serving as ancestor of the Iovius Diocletian.19 The adoption of the theophoric names Iovius and Herculius was an innovation of the tetrarchy and remained unique in Roman history.20 While the assumption of those names (signa) was, predictably, harshly criticised by the contemporary Christian apologist Lactantius (De mortibus persecutorum 52.3), the emperors’ familial relationship with the two gods was celebrated in panegyric as well as, in rare cases, inscriptions (e.g. Paneg. 9 (3) 2.4; 3.2–3; CIL 3.710). In a form of Gottesgnadentum (‘divine right’) which was expressed through the signa and which was also an innovation of the tetrarchy, Diocletian and Maximian partook of the divine characteristics of the two gods, whose virtutes and numina (‘divine majesty’) they shared.21 By linking the tetrarchs’ worldly dominion with the divine sphere in this manner, Diocletian had established a perfect theocratic system, which, furthermore, due to the divine endorsement of the tetrarchic rule, made it nearly impossible for a usurper to gain acceptance.22 Transcending his traditional role as exemplum virtutis, Hercules (together with Jupiter) was seen as the real ruler of the empire, which his son Maximian (together with his three colleagues) governed in his stead.23 The ideological importance of virtus as Hercules’ most outstanding quality, which was transferred to the rulers, especially Maximian and, to a lesser degree, his Caesar Constantius, can be deduced from the fact that on the coinage of Maximian, legends propagating this characteristic (virtus Augg/virtuti Augg) are the most common of all in combination with Hercules motifs.24 18  Eppinger 2015, 164–6. 19  Eppinger 2015, 179–185. Cf. Rees 2005. 20  Rees 2005, 224–5; 235. 21  The virtutes and numina manifested on the dies imperii, the day of the emperor’s accession, in the form of an epiphany: Kolb 2004, 31. 22  Kolb 2001, 36–7. 23  Kolb 2004, 31. 24  Eppinger 2015, 202.

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The other rulers of the dynasty incorporated Hercules into their coinage to varying degrees; he appears on the coin emissions of all members of the first tetrarchy as well as Severus and Maximinus Daia from the second tetrarchy. Maxentius and Constantine used him as well. The emphasis, in addition to virtus, was on Hercules’ roles as comes and conservator (‘preserver’) of the rulers.25 As mentioned, the close connection of Herakles with the ruling dynasty was, unsurprisingly, censured by Lactantius. Having attacked Maximian and his co-rulers in De mortibus persecutorum, he turned against Hercules in the Divinae institutiones. From his Christian apologetic point of view, Hercules was not a personification of virtus but rather as depraved as his human scion Maximian. Both in the Institutes and the Epitome, Lactantius denounces Hercules’ indiscriminate sexual exploits (Inst. 1.9.1, 1.9.7; Epit. 7.3–4); Maximian is attacked for his debauching (corrumpere, violare) of males and females alike (De Mort. Pers. 8.5).26 In Christian polemic, the positive role of exemplum virtutis could therefore be turned on its head and become exemplum vitii (‘vice’), an example, moreover, that the pagans in their ignorance of the ‘true’ god, nevertheless emulated, as other apologists maintained (e.g. Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 12. 5). In his relationship with the emperors, then – as shown in official media like milestone inscriptions (CIL 3. 710), as well as semi-official media like panegyrics – Hercules was primarily seen as a deity conferring their right to rule, rather than as a hero who was mainly famous for his feats of martial prowess in battles against various monsters. This was about to change with the end of the tetrarchy. 2

The Media of Late-Antique Hercules Ideology

The media used to propagate the Herculean ancestry of emperors and to compare them to the hero’s deeds were coins and medallions on the one hand and panegyrics on the other. The important distinction is that, while imperial 25  Eppinger 2015, 212–213. The importance of the Hercules ideology for the tetrarchic rulers is further emphasised by the fact that, in his Britannic empire, the usurper Carausius also minted coins with Hercules motifs, which show him with the Augusti Diocletian and Maximian and with a legend naming Hercules conservator Auggg (e.g. RIC 5.2 463 n. 2; 551 n. 3). This suggests Carausius was trying to legitimise his own rule by referring to Hercules as divine ancestor of the tetrarchs (Eppinger 2015, 217–222). 26  On the similarities between Lactantius’ portrayals of Maximian and Hercules, see Nicholson 1984, 137–40.

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coinage was issued by the state (and any use of Hercules in this context would, ultimately, have gone back to the ruler’s initiative or at least his approval), panegyrics are the products of orators, reflecting the image the emperors sought to project without being a part of the official state propaganda, while also giving voice to the subjects’ expectations of their rulers.27 The orators would have made sure to tailor their speeches to the audience’s demands, while also ascertaining that the content met with the addressee’s approval. It is, therefore, unlikely that their continued use of Hercules as the archetypal exemplum virtutis would have been perceived as a slight against the Christian rulers to whom the relevant speeches were addressed. On the contrary, comparisons with Hercules were probably expected, since they had long been a staple of encomiastic literature, and the educated members of the ruling elite who comprised the audience of such speeches would have understood them in their traditional sense, without searching for some hidden (pagan) religious agenda.28 It is doubtful that a panegyrist would have risked angering his Christian addressee by using a figure from pagan mythology in a religious rather than a metaphorical sense. Since in panegyric a certain ‘neutral monotheism’ long prevailed,29 and a specifically Christian encomiastic literature did not develop until the sixth century,30 the inclusion of mythological imagery when praising the emperor was not only permissible but required.31 The religious affiliation of the author was, in this context, irrelevant, as is demonstrated by the pagans Themistios and Claudian, who celebrated Christian rulers and officials, and the Christian Sidonius, who used mythological imagery to flatter Avitus and Majorian.32 In the (Greek) handbook of panegyric passed down under the name of Menander Rhetor,33 the Herakles comparison is mentioned as an important element of encomiastic oratory. For example, the orator is urged to use Herakles’ semi-divine ancestry for comparative purposes when highlighting an emperor’s own divine origin (Men. Rh. 2.370). In the chapters on different kinds of encomiastic speeches Herakles is also mentioned in the context of 27  Brosch 2006, 85–6; Rees 2002, 7. 28  Similarly, on oratorical usage and audience understanding, see Mellas in this volume. 29  Liebeschuetz 1981, 397. 30  Liebeschuetz 2001, 240. 31  Liebeschuetz 1979, 301. 32  Claudian’s religious affiliation is disputed, even though Augustine (Civ. 5.26) and Orosius (Hist. 7.35.21) clearly label him a pagan. Cameron makes a compelling case for identifying him as a pagan (2011, 206–8). 33  The two treatises constituting this work were probably written in the time of Diocletian, see Russell and Wilson 1981, xl.

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outstanding education (2.372), of obedience to Zeus, care for cities and labours for the good of mankind (2.389), and marriage (2.405). The most important point with regards to the present topic is made in connection with funeral speeches: ‘for one must show him [i.e. the deceased person being praised] to be nobler than noble or fit to rival any man of distinction – for example by comparing his life with that of Herakles or Theseus’ (2.421 trans. Russell and Wilson). In light of the tradition of utilising Herakles/Hercules in encomiastic literature, it is hardly surprising that he remained a topos of panegyric well into the fifth century. However, it is important to stress that Hercules disappeared from imperial coinage during the reign of Constantine (see below), never to return to this important medium of the emperors’ communication with their subjects. Not even Julian, last scion of the Constantinian dynasty and last pagan ruler of the empire, incorporated Hercules into his coinage. In fact, with one exception (see below), in the post-Constantinian period the role of Hercules in relation to the emperors was relegated to panegyric. In contrast with earlier times, therefore, the originators of the propagation of Hercules as role model were no longer the rulers or the court but individual orators referring to a traditional topos. 3

Herakles/Hercules as exemplum for Fourth and Fifth Century Emperors34

Comparisons between an emperor and Hercules could appear in a range of different contexts, and with the aim of emphasising a variety of similarities between the hero and the ruler. In this section, the use of various aspects of the Hercules myth will be analysed, arranged according to the aims of the comparison and the heroic characteristics used as tertium comparationis respectively. 3.1 Dynastic Legitimisation While Hercules had played an important part in the dynastic legitimisation of the tetrarchy, the hero lost this function when Constantine, whose father was a member of the Herculius branch of the ruling dynasty, and whose father-inlaw was Maximianus Herculius himself, chose not to continue using Hercules imagery on his coinage after the first few years of his reign. During the struggle for power following the end of the first tetrarchy, both Constantine and Galerius had utilised Hercules on their coinage in his functions as victor and, 34  This section is based on research I conducted for my PhD dissertation (Eppinger 2015).

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although much more rarely, as their comes.35 Galerius could thus emphasise the legitimacy of his rule. As Diocletian’s Caesar Galerius had already been incorporated into the Iovius-Herculius-ideology from 293; his Hercules coins showcase the continuity with the original tetrarchic system. Compared to Maximian and Constantius, Constantine only infrequently made use of the Hercules motif on his coins, with the aim of legitimising his claim to power by emphasising his descent from Constantius as a member of the Herculean dynasty.36 Relatively rare though these coin-emissions are, they emphasised a continuity between Diocletian’s divinely legitimised dynasty and Constantine’s as-yet-disputed rule – in the east, Licinius was still emperor.37 However, in contrast to Maximian, Constantine did not have a close personal relationship with Hercules, and he used him only as a connection to the past, while on the coinage, Sol Invictus took pride of place until at least 325; Hercules disappeared forever from Roman coins after 313.38 In the context of the speech celebrating his marriage to Maximian’s daughter Fausta in 307, Constantine and his new father-in-law were addressed as imperatores semper Herculii (‘emperors forever Herculean’; Paneg. 7 (6) 2.5), which alludes to Constantine’s adoption into the dynasty of the Herculii. The theme is not expanded upon, however, with the exception of mentioning that Maximian passed on the Herculius-name to Constantine (Paneg. 7 (6) 8.2), although Constantine never used that designation in real life. In the wake of the suicide of Maximian and his damnatio memoriae, the continued use of Hercules imagery for the legitimisation of Constantine’s rule will have been regarded as impolitic, particularly taking into account the fact that Maximian’s son Maxentius claimed Hercules as his comes and conservator on coins.39 As his central role in dynastic legitimisation was unique to the tetrarchic Iovius-Herculius-ideology, this function of Hercules disappeared for good when Constantine finally secured sole rule independent from Diocletian’s institution. 3.2 The Foreshadowing of Great Deeds A literary allusion to the early deeds of Hercules was a convenient means of foreshadowing the great accomplishments that were expected of a ruler.

35  E.g. RIC 6 280 n. 3; 294 n. 90. 36  Eppinger 2015, 215. 37  Cf. Carlà 2010, 86. 38  Eppinger 2015, 216. 39  Eppinger 2015, 198.

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In his (Latin) panegyric of 321, the orator Nazarius used a Hercules comparison for Constantine for the last time, equating his victory over the Frankish kings Ascaricus and Merogaisus with the baby Hercules’ first deed of strangling the two serpents sent by a jealous Juno to kill him in his cradle (Paneg. 6 (10) 16.6). Constantine, who, in contrast to the new-born Hercules of the mythological story, was already in his thirties when gaining that victory, is nevertheless portrayed as still standing at the beginning of his rule. The Frankish victory anticipated the further exploits expected of Constantine, probably including the hoped-for final defeat of his last remaining rival Licinius. At the time of this speech, Maximian had been rehabilitated and consecrated, so comparing Constantine to the old emperor’s ancestor and protector would no longer have been politically inadvisable. The fact that, by this time, Constantine had manifested distinct Christian sympathies was of no consequence for the use of mythological imagery in panegyric, in accordance with the demands of the genre.40 Over a century later, on the occasion of the emperor Avitus’ consulate of 456, his son-in-law Sidonius Apollinaris, the classically-educated Gallic aristocrat and future bishop, delivered an encomiastic speech. In this panegyric the pagan gods are omnipresent; a council of the gods, to which Hercules belongs as well, is the framework, and Avitus is presented as Jupiter’s choice for the office of emperor.41 Sidonius (in the context of the poem, the narrator is Jupiter) tells of an event from Avitus’ youth, when he allegedly killed a hunting shewolf with a stone. The mythological comparison for this episode is Hercules’ killing of the Nemean lion, whom he, likewise, had to face unarmed (Sidon. Carmina 7.177–186). Just as fighting the lion was the first of the great deeds of Hercules, pre-figuring those still to come, Avitus’ killing of the wolf heralds the emperor’s future achievements.42 A less obvious way of using the early origins of Hercules to allude to the successful future endeavours of a ruler can be detected in a passage of the panegyric on the fourth consulate of Honorius (398), if it is read in the context of the emperor’s youth and the political situation at the time of writing. In this (Latin) text, Claudian, the pagan poet laureate of the Christian generalissimo Flavius Stilicho,43 asserts that Constantinople, Honorius’ place 40  For his political acts in favour of Christianity up to 321, cf. Brandt 2006, 68–96. 41  Watson 1998, 179–80. 42  In Anderson (ed.) (1956). In the context of Avitus’ elevation to emperor, Sidonius later compares his mien to that of Hercules when contemplating taking the burden of the world from Atlas (Carm. 7.581–584). Hercules is the exemplum for willingly taking on responsibilities that only a hero of this calibre would even contemplate. 43  Cameron 1970, 42–5.

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of origin, surpasses Crete, Delos, and Thebes, here listed as the birthplace of Hercules (Claud. 8.132–137). In a metaphorical sense, the young emperor thus surpasses Jupiter, as well as his sons Apollo and Hercules. Later on, Honorius’ noble aspect and martial prowess are emphasised (8.521–531); since there had not yet been any military successes in the reign of Honorius and the threat of Gildo’s uprising in North Africa had reached its zenith, this probably gives voice to the expectation of great deeds yet to come, which would rival those of Hercules. In the same way that the brilliant future of the young Hercules was foreseeable – having given proof of his strength on the wrestling-ground at Thebes and hunting in the Boeotian forest, he was able to defend the realm of the gods against the giants (8.532–535) – the depiction of Honorius in his father’s armour foreshadows future military achievements (8.518–525). Hercules’ mother, Alcmene, was exultant about his early accomplishments (8.536); here we are probably expected to surmise that Honorius’ late mother Aelia Flaccilla would have rejoiced just as much at her son’s future exploits. 3.3 The Archetypical virtus of Herakles-Hercules The pagan orator and philosopher Themistios (writing in Greek) repeatedly applied Herakles imagery in speeches when flattering the emperor, starting with Julian, who himself never made use of Herakles in his official representation. In a letter that, in contrast to Julian’s answer, has not survived, Themistios had made a comparison between Julian (still officially a Christian at the time) and Herakles and Dionysos, the latter two having been philosopher-kings who had rid the world of evil (Julian, ad Them. 253). In the traditional use of an exemplum virtutis this is to be understood as an exhortation to Julian to follow in the footsteps of Herakles.44 Julian’s reaction to this flattering comparison, however, seems hesitant: he confesses to feeling daunted by such illustrious role models (253–254), though this might be only an ostensible demonstration of modestia (‘modesty’). The philosophically-inclined Julian is encouraged to emulate the philosophical incarnation of Herakles who, facing the choice between Virtue and Vice at the crossroads, chose the difficult path of Virtue.45

44  The lost letter to which Julian is responding was probably written as a protreptikos (‘exhortation’) on the occasion of Julian’s designation as Caesar in 355 (Barnes and Vanderspoel 1981, 187–8). The date of Julian’s reply is uncertain; it may have been started in 356, but only finished and sent in 360 (ibid. 189). 45  In his twenty-second oration, ‘On Friendship’, the date of which is unknown, Themistios writes a narrative version of the parable of Herakles at the crossroads (Them. Or. 22.280a–282a), which goes back to the version of Prodikos, as transmitted by Xenophon (Mem. 2.1.21–34). See Eppinger 2015, 147–50.

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As an aside, it is worth mentioning that, after Julian’s death, Gregory of Nazianzus, in his invective against the late emperor, attacks Herakles, precisely because the pagan writers Ammianus and Libanios had favourably compared their hero Julian to him (Amm. 22.12.4; Lib. Orations 15.36; 18.32; 18.186). Gregory tries to show that, contrary to the philosophers’ view of Herakles as upheld by Themistios, the hero was never able to master his passions, as showcased by his prodigious appetite and his sexual misconduct (Greg. Naz. Orations 4.77; 4.122). By scorning the hero whom his contemporaries had employed as a model for the late emperor, Gregory reinforces his vitriolic attacks on Julian. He therefore deliberately focuses on negative aspects of the myth, just as Christian apologists had done before him, in order to disqualify his real target Julian. Clerics like Gregory would most probably also have reacted negatively to the use of Herakles in encomiastic literature, regardless of the requirements of the genre. Several years later, Themistios interprets Herakles allegorically in his thirteenth oration, held in 376 before the senate in Rome, with the addressee Gratian probably absent; the occasion for the delivery of the speech is unknown.46 The orator’s aim is to show that Gratian’s deeds were owed to divine ancestry, as a proof of which he makes a series of comparisons to, among others, Herakles, Hektor, and Alexander the Great (Them. Orations 13.169a). The focus is not on defeating monstrous enemies, but on overcoming passions and base urges like thymos (‘desire’), thrasos (‘insolence’), enedra (‘treachery’) (Or. 13.169d), for which Herakles had traditionally been praised, and which Christian apologists had refused to acknowledge (e.g. Lact. Inst. 1.9.4). Again, we meet the philosophical incarnation of Herakles whose existence the apologists had ignored or tried to downplay.47 Themistios allows for an allegorical interpretation of some of the hero’s deeds, for example the killing of the snakes by the baby Herakles. He sees the snakes as incarnations of youth and autarkeia (‘self-sufficiency’) respectively, and therefore maintains that Herakles had already learnt to master himself, instead of acting in a childlike and impulsive way, even when he was just a babe in arms (Or. 13.169d).48 In this overcoming of his passions, which Themistios also ascribes to Gratian, the youthful emperor is likened to the hero. Gratian’s impulses are described in the guise of Herakles’ monstrous adversaries, so that Gratian himself could be said to have defeated the Nemean

46  Vanderspoel 1995, 179–80. 47  On the views of Herakles put forth by apologists like Tertullian, Arnobius and Lactantius, see Eppinger 2015, 112–129. 48  Further on self-sufficiency and Herakles, see Anagnostou-Laoutides in this volume (chapter 2).

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lion and the Erymanthian boar, as well as ‘many and many-headed monsters’ (Or. 13.169c).49 In the mid-fifth century, Sidonius Apollinaris resorted to using Hercules as an exemplum virtutis when praising emperors, as we have already seen in connection with the panegyric on Avitus. Sidonius’ Carmen 13 is a short letter in verse, addressed to Majorian and probably dating to 458, like the panegyric on the same emperor. In the letter, Sidonius asks Majorian to lift the taxes he had imposed on the city of Lyon after a rebellion.50 He starts by remarking that Hercules had been received into heaven as a reward for his earthly deeds, implying that Majorian could expect the same immortality, at least in a metaphorical sense (Carm. 13.1–2). The poet continues by listing deeds from the canonical dodekathlos, minus the cleaning of the stables of Augeas and the Stymphalian birds, and supplemented by Hercules’ fights with Cacus, Antaioaes and an unnamed giant, perhaps Cycnus (Carm. 13.3–14). The fact that overcoming the triple-bodied Geryon is named as the most extraordinary deed of all (Carm. 13.13–14) is due to the fact that Sidonius compares Geryon with the new taxes, perhaps indicating that the emperor had tripled the original sum.51 Majorian is asked to imagine himself in the role of Hercules killing the monster (i.e. lifting the taxes) and the population of Lyon in the role of Eurystheus (Carm. 13.15–20).52 This use of Hercules in relation to the troubles of a city is somewhat reminiscent of a passage in Menander Rhetor, which recommends showing Herakles ‘extirpating the unjust and setting up the good to care for cities’ (Men. Rh. 2.389 trans. Russell and Wilson). It is especially noteworthy that in this poem, Majorian is explicitly addressed as Tirynthius alter (‘second Tirynthian’, i.e. a second Hercules: Sidon. Carm. 13.15, trans. Anderson). As in the case of Theodosius being called kallinikos by Themistios (see below), an epithet of Hercules is transferred to a Christian ruler, who, in the following verse, is called magni maxima cura dei (‘our great 49  My translation. Allegorical interpretations of Herakles’ deeds can be observed as late as the sixth century, when the mythographer Fulgentius uses the allegorical method to interpret Herakles’ submission to Omphale (Myth. 2.2) and the fight with Antaios (Myth. 2.4.). He equates Herakles with virtus itself. See Eppinger 2015, 150–2. For later allegorical/euhemeristic interpretation of Herakles’ deeds, see Capriotti in this volume. 50  Mathisen 1979, 610. 51  Anderson 1956, 214 n. 1. 52  Equating the citizens of Lyon with Eurystheus, whose role in the myth is not exactly praiseworthy, while portraying the emperor as subordinate to his own subjects is a rather curious choice for a piece of encomiastic literature. Possibly we are meant to understand this as a plea to the emperor to show leniency to the people of Lyon, even though they are unworthy of his clemency, just as Eurystheus was unworthy of having a hero like Herakles at his command.

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God’s greatest care’: 13.16). This is followed by a list of enemies overcome by Majorian, the same as those defeated by Hercules: ‘thou, whose arrows made snake, stag, and boar alike to feel thy prowess, when tooth, poison, and flight availed them not’ (Carm. 13.17–18). Thus Majorian, while described as the particular charge of the Christian god, is simultaneously depicted as a hero whose virtue is only comparable to that of Hercules. 3.4 Martial Prowess and the Defence of the Empire In works of panegyric, Hercules’ extraordinary fortitude is repeatedly used as a tertium comparationis (point of comparison) in order to emphasise the accomplishments of the person being praised. In the case of Theodosius I’s reign, and uniquely in post-Constantinian times, this is additionally show-cased, if obliquely, on the Arch of Theodosius, a public monument built on the initiative of the emperor and thus outside encomiastic literature. The historical backdrop for comparing Theodosius’ martial prowess with that of Hercules is the political situation of the early to mid-380s, especially the usurpation of Magnus Maximus in the west in 382/3, during which Gratian was killed, together with the latent threat of the Goths at the Danube frontier and the Parthians in the east.53 In a speech, delivered in 384/5 and conceived, at least partially, as a panegyric on Theodosius, Themistios favourably compares the emperor to the hero, in accordance with the standard repertoire of encomiastic literature as set down by Menander Rhetor, who advises the comparison to Herakles when commenting on a ruler’s courage (andreia; Men. Rh. 2.422). Themistios reached the office of praefectus urbis Constantinopolitanae (‘prefect of the city of Constantinople’) in the mid-380s, and was made tutor to the young Arcadius.54 In his thirty-fourth speech – a defence of his assumption of the urban prefecture against the accusation that, as a philosopher, he should have declined the position and, in any case, had done a poor job – it is Herakles’ martial prowess that is of importance. For Themistios, the emperor is kallinikos, which was a traditional epithet of Herakles, while he names himself as his Iolaos who, as praefectus urbi, looked after Constantinople, their common home (Or. 34.28). The epithet kallinikos, which, apart from one attribution to Dionysos (Euripides, Bacchae 1147), is only documented for Herakles, refers to his role as invincible victor over monstrous enemies, but it has an apotropaic aspect as well, similar to another of

53  On this, see Leppin 2003, 89–115. 54  Eppinger 2015, 149.

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Herakles’ epithets, alexikakos.55 The emperor so addressed is, therefore, to be understood as the victor over his adversaries and, in consequence, the protector of the whole empire from evil (i.e. usurpations and barbarians). This is made obvious by Themistios explaining the greatness of Herakles as the result of saving people from lawlessness, which then allowed their better, i.e. virtuous, nature to manifest itself (Or. 34.28). Given that the functions of kallinikos and alexikakos are bound together with Herakles overcoming various enemies, these terms could be used with or without religious connotations.56 There was a tradition of conferring the epithet kallinikos on rulers: Seleukos II had been called Kallinikos, at least in the context of his posthumous cult.57 However, the precedent of Constantine, whom Eusebius of Caesarea had called kallinikos (Eus. Life of Constantine 1.41.2), might have been of greater importance to Theodosius. Furthermore, kallinikos is also already documented as an epithet applied to martyrs in pre-Constantinian times.58 Therefore, Theodosius might have associated this appellation first and foremost with the emperor credited with making possible the ascendancy of his religion and with some of the heroes of early Christianity, and only secondarily with Herakles, while for Themistios, the Herakles association would have been the most obvious. Nevertheless, we should not automatically discount the possibility that Themistios was aware of the Christian connotation and thus deliberately allowed for a certain ambiguity, enabling different interpretations of his use of the word. The Heraklean connection would have been evident in any case, since he combined the address of the emperor as kallinikos with his description of himself as Herakles’ loyal aide Iolaos. Herakles as exemplum virtutis in this case is probably not only to be understood as a flattering comparison, but also as an exhortation to emulate him. It is conceivable that Themistios was disappointed with Theodosius’ hesitant Parthian policy;59 therefore, the appellation as kallinikos can be taken as a challenge to follow in the footsteps of the ever-victorious Herakles. By applying a flattering epithet, Themistios would have avoided criticising the emperor unduly. In his role as panegyrist, he might even have meant to foreshadow coming events: doubtless, Theodosius Kallinikos was going to triumph over the usurper Magnus Maximus and restore peace to the empire, which would 55  Adler 1919, 1650–2. 56  In earlier centuries, Herakles Kallinikos had been the object of worship; the cult does not seem to have survived into late antiquity, see Eppinger 2015, 235 n. 21. 57  Huttner 1997a, 309. 58  Lampe 1961, 697 s.v. kallinikos; Weinreich 1915, 49–50. 59  See Leppin 2003, 95.

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put him on equal footing with Herakles as pacifer (‘bringer of peace’), a role the hero had repeatedly played (e.g. in the coinage of Postumus).60 The twofold nature of Herakles as kallinikos and alexikakos manifested itself in a monumental way in the centre of Constantinople. In the early 380s, the Arch of Theodosius was built as the (probably western) entrance to the Forum of Theodosius, the exact location and architectural layout of which are still unclear due to the paucity of remains.61 The remains of several columns and column-bases allow for a reconstruction of an arch whose three archways were flanked by eight ten-metre-high monolithic columns, which were fashioned in the shape of giant clubs. The stylised nodes of these clubs are suggestive of Greek juniper, often used for artistic representations of the club of Herakles. The columns were grasped by a large hand below the Corinthian capitals.62 Undoubtedly, most people, pagan and Christian alike, would have understood the allusion to Herakles, who remained very popular in the fourth century, as attested by the many Herakles motifs in contemporary art – as well as in older, still-existing monuments.63 There is little ambiguity about this deliberate design choice: on a monument of imperial representation, commissioned by the Christian emperor Theodosius, the highly recognisable weapon of pagan antiquity’s most popular hero was practically the first thing a visitor coming towards the forum would have noticed. Consequently, the incarnation of Herakles used here must have been the religiously neutral exemplum virtutis, since it is hardly conceivable that Theodosius would have tolerated pagan religious connotations on a monument celebrating his family.64 We cannot, of course, rule out that visitors might have perceived Herakles as a god, but it would not have been the intended message. It is an obvious choice to interpret the depiction of the club grasped by a hand as reference to Herakles as kallinikos, the victorious hero, as well as his other common roles of alexikakos and pacifer. The connection to the emperor and the political events of the 380s is epitomised in the reliefs of the Column of Theodosius, which stood in the centre of the forum area and was modelled on 60  Eppinger 2015, 172–3. 61  Bauer 1996, 187; Mayer 2002, 131. 62  Mayer 2002, 131; 137. For a reconstruction, see ibid. 134 fig. 49. Columns in the shape of clubs or modelled on juniper are known from other places, just as the motif of a club grasped by a hand can occasionally be found in the art of earlier centuries. See Eppinger 2015, 237. 63  See generally Eppinger 2015, 23–103. 64  My interpretation builds on Mayer’s observation (2002, 137) that the entire forum complex should be interpreted as a celebration of the rule and succession of the Theodosian dynasty.

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the columns of Trajan and Marcus in Rome. The few relief panels still extant today allow us to conclude that the subject of the column’s decorative scheme was the emperor’s fortitude and success in war, namely the defeat of Magnus Maximus in 388 and battles against the Goths.65 Virtus as a prerequisite of those triumphs connects the emperor to Herakles: they are both kallinikoi, having defeated the evil threatening the empire (i.e. civil war and the Goths) and paciferi, having restored the rule of law and thence peace. Moreover, since Herakles is alluded to on the arch leading into the forum, he can be understood – in his apotropaic incarnation of alexikakos66 – as guarding the site and by extension guarding the imperial family celebrated in the monumental complex. In a metaphorical sense, this illustrates the fortitude of the dynasty itself: the emperor and his sons will defend the empire – and their right to rule? – with Heraklean strength. Herakles also has a traditional function as guardian of a gate (propylaios), which goes back to archaic Greece.67 In this guardian role he is used as late as the mid-fifth century in Ephesos, where the Heraclidae Gate on the Curetes Street was decorated with two re-used Herakles reliefs.68 Hence, the decorative scheme of the Arch of Theodosius is one element in a long line stretching back to archaic times. On a final note, Lauter has proposed that the club-shaped columns could be read as representations of the Pillars of Herakles, which delineated the western border of the known world; the columns would thus symbolise the rule of Theodosius over the whole oikoumene (‘universe’),69 which, because it was constantly under threat, as the reliefs of the Column of Theodosius show, could only be defended with Heraklean virtus. Having had Herakles held up to him as an exemplum to be emulated, Theodosius has, according to Pacatus, who lauded the emperor in a speech delivered in his presence in Rome in 389, surpassed the hero by defeating Maximus. The orator advises poets and artists to forego the well-known deeds of Hercules, the gigantomachy, and the Indian triumph of Dionysos, in order to concentrate on Theodosius instead (Paneg. 2 (12) 44.5). Hercules’ deeds are still acknowledged as noteworthy, since Theodosius’ achievements can only be interpreted as extraordinary if compared with and surpassing other great deeds.

65  Mayer 2002, 137; 139. 66  The apotropaic role of Herakles Alexikakos was still known in the fourth century as illustrated by literary sources and amulets in the shape of his club, as well as, possibly, contorniates with Herakles imagery used as good-luck charms: see Eppinger 2015, 301–2 and, briefly, MacMahon in this volume. 67  Maier 1961, 94–5. 68  Eppinger 2015, 83. 69  Lauter 1980–81, 51.

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The princeps Christianus (‘[most] Christian emperor’: Ambr. Obit. Theod. 51) Theodosius would most likely have accepted comparisons with the exemplum virtutis Hercules with equanimity, not only because they were a traditional part of laudatory speeches and imperial art, but because the hero had been held up as an example to many of Theodosius’ predecessors, among them the optimus princeps (‘best of emperors’) Trajan. Thus, Theodosius could be seen as the last in a long line of illustrious rulers who had been favourably compared to the greatest hero of antiquity. However, it should be noted that Hercules only appears in connection with Theodosius in a few speeches delivered before members of the aristocracy, and in one monument in Constantinople, which only a very small portion of the empire’s population would have seen or even heard of. This is in stark contrast to earlier periods, when Hercules belonged to the standard repertoire of imagery on coinage, which had a much wider reach. Therefore, the significance of the utilisation of Hercules as exemplum virtutis for Theodosius should not be overrated in terms of its impact. Nevertheless, it would seem that not even Theodosius, under whose rule all pagan cults were finally forbidden (Cod. Theod. 16.10.10–12), objected to Hercules being upheld as a role model to be emulated and surpassed by the rulers of his age. 4 Conclusion It has been shown that Herakles/Hercules’ traditional role as exemplum virtutis for emperors was still deemed suitable for use in encomiastic literature in late antiquity, even though the rulers praised were, or became, Christians. Neither orators nor addressees saw it as problematic to use pagan antiquity’s most popular hero as an example to be emulated. This can be explained by the fact that favourable comparison with Hercules was an essential topos of ancient panegyric. Furthermore, at least in the eyes of the emperors, Hercules must have lost all religious connotations (which might possibly have been intended by the pagan writers Themistios and Claudian, at least in some cases, although they refrained from using his divine incarnation); he was not depicted as a god to be worshipped but as the hero who had accomplished extraordinary deeds and consequently brought security to mankind. In light of the preceding discussion, it seems that Hercules must have been deemed the ideal figure to be held up to emperors faced with threats from powerful external enemies (like the Goths or the Parthians) and/or from usurpers and/or of civil war, since from the earliest times Hercules had been credited with restoring order and bringing civilisation. However, in all late antique

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works of panegyric utilising him as exemplum virtutis, Hercules plays only a minor role, especially compared to the tetrarchic panegyrics and his earlier appearance on coins and, with the exception of the Arch of Theodosius, he disappears from imperial art. Instead, Hercules is used in a conventional way in encomiastic literature, having become, in the words of Cameron, ‘no more than a panegyrical commonplace’.70 None of the late-antique emperors compared with Hercules had a personal relationship with him, in contrast to earlier rulers like Commodus, Postumus, or the tetrarchs. However, due to his popularity, the orators could count on their audiences understanding even rather oblique allusions, and since Hercules had been associated with victorious generals and emperors for centuries, referencing Hercules even made it possible to evoke Rome’s glorious past. As a personification of virtue Hercules survived the Christianisation of society and remained an example worth emulating long after the end of antiquity; no other aspect of his character proved as enduring. The exhortation of Boethius was to resonate down the ages: ‘go then, you brave, where leads the lofty path of this (i.e. Hercules’) example’ (Boeth. Consolation of Philosophy 4, Carmen 7.32–33, trans. Tester in Stewart et al. 1973). Bibliography Adler, A. (1919) ‘Kallinikos 6’, in Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, X.2, Stuttgart: Metzler, 1650–2. Anderson, A.R. (1928) ‘Heracles and his successors: a study of a heroic ideal and the recurrence of a heroic type’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 39: 7–58. Anderson, W. (ed.) (1956) Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems and Letters, vol. 1, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Barnes, T. and Vanderspoel, J. (1981) ‘Julian and Themistius’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 22: 187–9. Bauer, F.A. (1996) Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Spätantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums in den spätantiken Städten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Brandt, H. (2006), Konstantin der Grosse: der erste christliche Kaiser. Eine Biographie, Munich: C.H. Beck.

70  Cameron 2011, 455.

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Brosch, P. (2006) ‘Zur Präsentation der Tetrarchie in den Panegyrici Latini’, in Boschung, D. and Eck, W. (eds) Die Tetrarchie: ein neues Regierungssystem und seine mediale Präsentation, ZAKMIRA 3, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 83–101. Camacho, P. Fernández (2020) ‘What identity for Hercules Gaditanus? The role of the Gaditanian Hercules in the invention of national history in late medieval and early modern Spain’, in Mainz, V. and Stafford, E.J. (eds) The Exemplary Hercules from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and Beyond, Leiden: Brill. Cameron, A. (1970) Claudian: poetry and propaganda at the court of Honorius, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cameron, A. (2011) The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carlà, F. (2010), ‘Le monete costantiniane: propaganda politica e rassicurazione economica’, in Carlà, F. and Castello, M.G., Questioni Tardoantiche: storia e mito della ‘svolta Costantiniana’, Rome: Aracne, 31–131. CIL: Mommsen, Th. (1873) Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. 3.1, Berlin: Georg Reimer. Derichs, W. (1950), Herakles: Vorbild des Herrschers in der Antike, Köln: author’s edition. Eppinger, A. (2015) Hercules in der Spätantike. Die Rolle des Heros im Spannungsfeld von Heidentum und Christentum, Philippika 89, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Huttner, U. (1997a) Die politische Rolle der Heraklesgestalt im griechischen Herrschertum, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Huttner, U. (1997b) ‘Hercules und Augustus’, Chiron 27: 369–90. Kloft, H. (1994) ‘Herakles als Vorbild: Zur politischen Funktion eines griechischen Mythos in Rom’, in Kray, R. and Oettermann, S. (eds) Herakles/Herkules vol. 1: Metamorphosen des Heros in ihrer medialen Vielfalt, Basel/Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 25–46. Kolb, F. (2001) Herrscherideologie in der Spätantike, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Kolb, F. (2004) ‘Praesens Deus: Kaiser und Gott unter der Tetrarchie’, in Demandt, A., Goltz, A. and Schlange-Schöningen, H. (eds) Diocletian und die Tetrarchie: Aspekte einer Zeitenwende, Millennium-Studien 1, Berlin: De Gruyter, 27–37. Lampe, G.W.H. (1961) A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lauter, H. (1980–81) ‘Ein frühaugusteisches Emblem in den Porticus Octaviae’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 87: 47–55. Leppin, H. (2003) Theodosius der Große, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. (1979) Continuity and Change in Roman Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. (1981) ‘Religion in the Panegyrici Latini’, in Paschke, F. (ed.) Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 389–398. Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. (2001) Decline and Fall of the Roman City, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Maier, F.G. (1961) ‘Torgötter’, in Kroymann, J. and Zinn, E. (eds) Eranion: Festschrift Hildebrecht Hommel, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 93–104. Manders, E. (2012) Coining Images of Power: patterns in the representation of Roman emperors in imperial coinage, AD 193–284, Impact of Empire 15, Leiden: Brill. Mathisen, R. (1979) ‘Resistance and reconciliation: Majorian and the Gallic aristocracy after the fall of Avitus’, Francia 7: 597–627. Mayer, E. (2002) Rom ist dort, wo der Kaiser ist: Untersuchungen zu den Staatsdenkmälern des dezentralisierten Reiches von Diocletian bis zu Theodosius II, Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums. Nicholson, O. (1984) ‘Hercules at the Milvian Bridge: Lactantius, Divine Institutes, I.21.6–9’, Latomus 43: 133–42. Nock, A.D. (1947) ‘The Emperor’s divine comes’, Journal of Roman Studies 37: 102–116. Paneg.: Nixon, C.E.V. and Saylor Rodgers, B. (1994) In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: the Panegyrici Latini, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Rees, R. (2002) Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric AD 289–307, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rees, R. (2005) ‘The emperors’ new names: Diocletian Jovius and Maximian Herculius’, in Rawlings, L. and Bowden, H. (eds) Herakles and Hercules: exploring a GraecoRoman divinity, Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 223–39. RIC: Webb, P. (1933) The Roman Imperial Coinage, vol. 5.2, London: Spink & Son, Ltd. RIC: Sutherland, C.H.V. (1967) The Roman Imperial Coinage, vol. 6, London: Spink & Son, Ltd. Ritter, S. (1995) Hercules in der römischen Kunst von den Anfängen bis Augustus, Archäologie und Geschichte 5, Heidelberg: Verlag Archäologie und Geschichte. Russell, D.A. and Wilson, N.G. (eds) (1981) Menander Rhetor: edited with translation and commentary, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schulze, H. (2003) ‘Vorbild der Herrschenden. Herakles und die Politik’, in Wünsche, R. (ed) Herakles – Herkules, München: Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, 344–65. Seelentag, G. (2004) Taten und Tugenden Traians: Herrschaftsdarstellung im Principat, Hermes Einzelschriften 91, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Stewart, H.F., Rand, E.K. and Tester, S.J. (trans.) Boethius: Theological Tractates, The Consolation of Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vanderspoel, J. (1995) Themistius and the Imperial Court: oratory, civic duty, and paideia from Constantine to Theodosius, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Vermeule, C.C. (1977) ‘Caracalla and the Tetrarchs: Roman Emperors as Hercules’, in Höckmann U. and Krug, A. (eds) Festschrift für Frank Brommer, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 289–94.

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Vollkommer, R. (1987) ‘Herakles: die Geburt eines Vorbildes und sein Fortbestehen bis in die Neuzeit’, Idea 6: 7–29. Watson, L. (1998) ‘Representing the past, redefining the future: Sidonius Apollinaris’ panegyrics on Avitus and Anthemius’, in Whitby, M. (ed) The Propaganda of Power: the role of panegyric in late antiquity, Leiden: Brill, 177–98. Weinreich, O. (1915), ‘De dis ignotis quaestiones selectae’, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 18: 1–52.

chapter 4

Herculean Centos: Myth, Polemics, and the Crucified Hero in Late Antiquity Brian P. Sowers Of the many literary depictions of Hercules in late antiquity, one of the most intertextually rich yet least studied is of Hercules as a character in Greek and Latin cento poems. Simply, a cento is a patchwork poem composed of reconstituted whole or half lines from a pre-existing poet, typically Homer in Greek and Vergil in Latin. The earliest ‘proto’ centos come from the late classical period, although most fully-developed centos date to late antiquity, a period marked by its literariness and textuality, its ‘relationship with the written word’.1 As a result of its dynamism and change, late-antique literature crosses traditional generic boundaries, both in form and function. Metrically epic, centos frequently blur genre lines – epic epithalamia, gospel epics, epic tragedies, tragic gospels, and mythological epyllia all survive, composed out of repurposed Vergilian and Homeric lines. A generation ago, scholars treated centos as relatively obscure – unknown, unread, and unappreciated. Over the past twenty years, however, some twodozen critical editions and monographs on cento poetry have been published, representing Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Anglophone interest.2 Most of this attention has focused on critical editions, translations, and analyses about cento compositional techniques, along with a few studies on individual centos or cento ‘traditions’, such as secular or Christian centos.3 As a result, some cento poets, Ausonius and Proba in particular, are studied outside circles concerned with late-antique literature. In this chapter I will build on that recent scholarship (summarised in 1) to examine three distinct examples of ‘Herculean centos’, i.e. centos about Hercules or centos that use Vergilian or Homeric passages about Hercules to tell a new story. First (2), the Christian heresiologist Irenaeus cites a Homeric 1  Formisano 2007, 284. 2  More complete bibliographies can be found in Schottenius Cullhed 2015, Hinds 2014, Rondholz 2012, Malamud 2012, Sandnes 2011, Domínguez 2010, Formisano and Sogno 2010, Bažil 2009, Harich-Schwarzbauer 2009, Schembra 2006, Schembra 2007a, Schembra 2007b, and McGill 2005. 3  See Schottenius Cullhed 2015, Rondholz 2012, McGill 2005, and Usher 1998.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_006

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cento about Hercules’ descent into the underworld within his analysis of Valentinian theology. Despite the cento’s intertextual complexity, Irenaeus interprets it rather superficially and uses it as a rhetorical tool to discredit Valentinus’ exegesis. The second example (3) is a Vergilian mythological cento about Hercules’ wrestling match with Antaeus. Typically read as an intertextually banal poem, Hercules et Antaeus exemplifies, in my view, the ways cento poetics can subtly and unexpectedly elicit pathos. Finally (4), allusions to Hercules in scenes about Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension in Betitia Faltonia Proba’s Christian cento intertextually fuse Jesus and Hercules into a single heroic saviour. These allusions, teeming with cultural and theological significance, underscore how Proba’s Herculean Christ contributes to fourth-century Christological diversity. 1

Methodology for Cento Poetics

It is useful to contextualize my chapter in a brief history of modernity’s engagement with centos. Briefly, most scholars prior to the 1960s viewed centos as inferior, second-rate poetry, devoid of originality. Accordingly, late-antique centos were treated as little more than parlour tricks, examples of cultural decline or decadence. As post-modern literary theory increasingly entered academic discussions, however, interest in aesthetics yielded to other concerns, which, in the field of late antiquity, complemented cento poetics and opened up new and fruitful ways to appreciate them.4 This shift in the study of centos is most notable in McGill’s Virgil Recomposed (2005), which marks a watershed moment in cento scholarship, in that McGill treats centos as poems worthy of study. McGill’s approach highlights cento poetry’s intrinsic allusiveness, situated within the tradition of ludic literature. At the same time, Pollmann identifies two overarching and divergent types of centos: serious (exegetical) ones, such as the Christian biblical paraphrases by Proba and Eudocia, and parodic ones, such as Ausonius’ Cento Nuptialis.5 Seeing an ambiguity in Pollmann’s use of the term ‘parodic’ as indistinguishable from comedy, Formisano and Sogno suggest that, by recontextualizing ‘its object so as to make it serve tasks contrary to its original tasks’, every cento is inherently parodic.6 Hence, Formisano and Sogno’s use of parody to describe

4  Bažil 2009, 17–9. 5  Pollmann 2004, 79–80. 6  Formisano and Sogno 2010, 380–2.

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a cento’s composition unifies seemingly disparate poems (serious and ludic, as well as Christian and pagan) and frees readers to appreciate each cento within the context of its author’s literary aims. One unanswered, perhaps unanswerable, question about cento poetics is how readers should resolve a cento’s ‘intertextual overload’, inevitable with any poem composed, quite literally, out of another author’s words.7 Working within this unlimited allusive potential, modern interpreters invariably select lines or hemistichs they deem most ‘interesting’. Selection is akin to interpretation, and modern cento scholars, ready to admit that their analysis cannot be exhaustive, are restricted by their own selectivity. As a result, many interpretations highlight fruitful and obvious allusions at the expense of less obvious or relevant ones. Exploring every possible allusion, while possible, risks obscuring more than it clarifies. Perhaps the cento’s intrinsic ambiguity is an essential feature of its poetics, one which modern readers must recognize and appreciate. 2

Irenaeus’ Heretical Cento

Within his critique of Valentinus’ exegesis (Adversus Haereses 1.9.4), the secondcentury Christian heresiologist, Irenaeus of Lyons, compares Valentinus’ practice of conflating disjointed biblical passages without concern for their original contexts to a mosaic of a king, the stones of which had been reorganized to form the image of a dog.8 This disregard for an artist’s intention, according to Irenaeus, ignores proper order, creates disorder, and, applying the mosaic to Valentinus, is inconsistent with ‘orthodox’ biblical interpretation. As a literary parallel, Irenaeus provides the example of cento poets, who, he says, create rhetorical speeches (ὑποθέσεις, hypotheseis) by repurposing Homeric lines to form a new whole.9 These ‘Homeric’ episodes convince ignorant readers into believing that Homer had originally composed them, which in turn leads to confusion and error. To demonstrate his point, Irenaeus cites the following cento about Hercules’ journey into the underworld to capture Cerberus: ὡς εἰπὼν, ἀπέπεμπε δόμων βαρέα στενάχοντα φῶθ᾽ Ἡρακλῆα, μεγάλων ἐπιίστορα ἔργων,

(Od. 10.76) (Od. 21.26)

7  Hinds 2014, 182. 8  For the date of Adversus Haereses, see Unger 1992, 3–4, and Grant 1997, 6. 9  I here follow Usher 1998, 29 and situate Irenaeus’ language within the tradition of declamation. See also Russell 1983, 136–41.

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Εὐρυσθεὺς, Σθενέλοιο πάϊς Περσηϊάδαο ἐξ Ἐρέβευς ἄξοντα κύνα στυγεροῦ Ἀΐδαο.

(Il. 19.123) (Il. 8.368)10

βῆ δ᾽ ἴμεν, ὥστε λέων ὀρεσιτροφος ἀλκὶ πεποιθὼς, 5 Καρπαλίμως ἀνὰ ἄστυ· φίλοι δ᾽ἀνὰ πάντες ἕποντο, Νύμφαι τ᾽ ἠΐθεοί τε, πολύτλητοί τε γέροντες, οἶκτρ᾽ὀλοφυρόμενοι, ὡς εἰ θάνατόν δε κίοντα. Ἑρμείας, δ᾽ἀπέπεμπεν ἰδὲ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη· ᾔδεε γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀδελφεὸν, ὡς ἐπονεῖτο. 10

(Od. 6.130) (Il. 24.327) (Od. 11.38) (Il. 24.328) (Od. 11.626)11 (Il. 2.409)

Speaking in this way, he sent forth from the house, deeply groaning The man Herakles, conversant with mighty deeds, Eurystheus, son of Sthenelos, of the seed of Perseus, To bring from Erebus the dog of hateful Hades. And going he went like a mountain lion, haughty in his strength 5 Rapidly going through the city, while all his friends followed Both maidens and youth, and patient old men Lamenting him with pity as destined for death. But Hermes and owl-eyed Athena escorted him, For she knew well in her own mind the cares of her brother.12 10 In his authoritative treatment of early Christianity’s engagement with Hellenic culture, Daniélou argues that Valentinus composed this cento as a theological allegory.13 According to this view, Irenaeus was aware of Valentinus’ ‘gnostic’ cento and used it to refute his theology. One glaring problem with this assumption – and one which Daniélou readily admits – is that the cento’s allegorical meaning is difficult to pin down, although Daniélou tentatively suggests it is about God sending the saviour with a supporting cohort of angels, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.14 A second difficulty with Daniélou’s theory emerges: Irenaeus never suggests a Valentinian authorship.15 In fact, his language implies exactly the opposite, namely that the cento is a readily available example of literary (mis)appropriation which Irenaeus’ readership could easily apply 10  Wilken 1967, 26, misidentifies this line. While the critical edition says this comes from Il. 9.368, Wilken says it comes from Il. 7.368. 11  Wilken 1967, 26, misidentifies this as Il. 11.626, when, in fact, it comes from Od. 11.626. 12  Translation by Wilken 1967 (slightly adapted). 13  Daniélou 1961, 80ff. 14  Hercules was a useful figure among the early apologists. See Justin, Apology 1.54, and Daniélou 1961, 77. 15  This problem is first recognized by Wilken 1967.

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to Gnostic exegesis. Had Irenaeus wanted his audience to read the Hercules cento as an example of Valentinus’ Christology, he likely would have indicated as much or, more likely, he would have taken the time to refute the text’s (errant) theology. Wilken provides a reading that avoids the unanswerable question of the cento’s authorship, including the view, in contrast to that advanced by Daniélou, that Irenaeus wrote it.16 Wilken’s approach situates the cento within its second-century context and highlights how the Homeric epics were used as interpretative and exegetical models during the imperial period, predicated on Greco-Roman educational exercises.17 Because classroom exercises, collectively known as progymnasmata, survive, one can reconstruct the ways students engaged with literary and mythological content through very precise methods of reading, imitating, and manipulating ancient poetry and prose.18 At the end of their formal studies, therefore, Greco-Roman students would have memorized substantial portions of the ‘best authors’, whom they used as mimetic templates in their own writing.19 In other words, memorizing, quoting, and reworking Homer and Vergil became one of the easiest ways for individuals to demonstrate that they were members of the Greco-Roman ‘cultured classes’. Imperial and late-antique progymnasmata use the Hercules mythological cycle for their exempla so much that Hercules can be viewed as a central literary/mythological figure in ancient education.20 For example, in his discussion on ‘narration’, Aelius Theon, the first-century author of rhetorical exercises, cites Hercules fighting ‘oukentaurois’ (i.e. Herakles ‘does not at all (oukhi) fight with centaurs’ or that Herakles ‘fights not among (ouk en) bulls’) as a case of amphiboly or ambiguity, and Theon later cites Hercules’ battle with Busiris within his treatment of refutation and proof.21 These examples suggest an intimate familiarity with the Herculean tradition, which has clear parallels in the late-antique progymnasmata compiled by Aphthonius, Libanius and 16  Wilken 1967. For the view that Irenaeus composed the cento, see Ziegler 1871, 17. 17  The now standards, Cribiore 2001, Cribiore 1996, and Morgan 1998, have replaced Marrou 1956. 18  Further, see Kennedy 2003, Hock and O’Neil 2002, and Joyal, McDougall, and Yardley 2009. 19  The value given to the best authors came with an implicit recommendation to read (only) these authors (Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.20). 20  Not all examples in the progymnasmata come from mythological or literary sources; but, when mythological or literary exempla are used, Hercules is a common choice. For the balance between literary and historical exempla in more advanced rhetorical exercises, see Hock 2001. 21  Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata 82 and 93 (Kennedy 2003, 31 and 40).

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Ps. Nicolaus.22 A student’s engagement with Herculean material began quite early, as evinced in a stylistically simple school text version of Hercules’ labour of the Nemean lion.23 This third-century papyrus – written in large, clear letters, with space between the words to facilitate reading and copying – includes accompanying marginal illustrations of Hercules’ encounter with the lion. Despite Cribiore’s insistence that illustrated classroom papyri such as this one are quite rare, this example underscores the centrality of Hercules within the ancient educational and rhetorical system. Even if each Greco-Roman student did not own a Hercules picture book, their school exercises abounded with Herculean exempla. As beneficiaries of Greco-Roman culture, broadly defined, educated Christians employed the rhetorical techniques they learned as children within their own writings and speeches, including citing Homer and Virgil. This use of classical paideia to promote Christian ideology can already be detected in certain second-century authors, including Irenaeus, but, by the fourth century, when Christianity had grown into the largest urban religion, where schools of rhetoric were located, the educational background of elite Christians was nearly indistinguishable from their non-Christian counterparts. This naturally led to the emergence of a Christian poetic tradition, epic poetry in particular, which modelled itself on or against classical poets, especially Virgil and Homer, and depended on standardized rhetorical techniques. According to Roberts, rhetorical exercises – paraphrasis in particular – had a profound and lasting effect on late-antique biblical epic poetry.24 Robert’s model for reading late-antique poetry alongside the progymnasmata has seen widespread acceptance and has even been applied to the Christian centos.25 In my view, Irenaeus’ Herculean cento, written during the earliest stages of early Christianity’s engagement with Greco-Roman poetry, should be read and interpreted on its own before being placed within the context of Irenaeus’ polemical agenda. When the cento is read with an eye toward each line’s original, Homeric context, some recurring and crucial patterns emerge. First, four of its ten lines (lines 2, 3, 4 and 9) come from Homeric contexts originally related to 22  Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 44 (Kennedy 2003, 115), Libanius, Progymnasmata 3.18 (Hock and O’Neil 2002, text 20), and Ps. Nicolaus, Progymnasmata 3.1 (Hock and O’Neil 2002, text 26). 23  P . Oxy. 32.2331; on which see Nisbet 2002, followed by MacMahon in this volume. Cribiore 2001, 138–139, counts this example among her texts that would have been used within the classroom itself, likely for beginning readers or writers. 24  Roberts 1985, and Roberts 1989. 25  Most notably Sandnes 2011.

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Hercules himself, the majority (lines 2, 3, and 4) from third-person Herculean episodes (Od. 21.26, Il. 19.123, and Il. 8.368, respectively). The sequential organization of these lines reinforces their original Herculean contexts, in contrast to lines 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10, which have non-Herculean original contexts and add allusive complexity to the cento. Structurally, line 9, originally from Hercules’ speech to Odysseus in the underworld (Od. 11.626), bookends the cento with recognizably Herculean material and gives the poem a thematic unity. Second, the non-Herculean allusions, hardly chosen causally, reinforce two inter-related themes that underscore the ostensible topic of the cento: the hero’s journey and the hero’s need for divine assistance. The cento opens with an allusion to Odysseus’ second departure from the house of Aeolus (Od. 10.76), which anticipates his odyssey, especially his underworld journey, echoed in lines 5, 7, 9 (Od. 6.130, 11.38, and 11.626, respectively). Priam’s expedition from the Trojan citadel to the Achaean ships to retrieve Hector’s corpse is invoked in lines 6 and 8 (Il. 24.327 and 24.328, respectively), the cento’s only contiguous Homeric lines, albeit interspersed with a line from Odysseus’ journey into the underworld. Centos generally avoid using two or more sequential lines,26 but the insertion of Od. 11.38 between Il. 24.327 and 24.328 also complicates the Priam allusion by intertextually situating Hector in the underworld. As a result, Priam’s recovery of Hector’s corpse parallels Hercules’ abduction of Cerberus. Moreover, the various ‘journeys’ alluded to in the cento either directly relate to death (lines 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) or they come from episodes, such as Odysseus’ odyssey (lines 1, 5, 7, 9) that were interpreted as metaphorical journeys from death to life. The cento’s various intertexts also underscore the hero’s need for divine assistance and guidance, originally provided by Aeolus (line 1), Circe (line 7), Athena (lines 2, 4, 5, 9), and Hermes (lines 6, 8, 9). Six of its ten lines come from Homeric episodes where Athena and/or Hermes directly or indirectly advance the narrative and provide assistance, but their role in the Hercules cento is fully manifested only by reading each line with an eye toward its wider Homeric context. For example, Athena’s active hand throughout Odyssey 6 can be inferred from cento line 5, despite the fact that Od. 6.130 is about Odysseus, not Athena. These recursive allusions, admittedly quite subtle, reinforce the assistance Athena and Hermes provide Hercules, made explicit in cento line 9, and give the cento a thematic unity. Irenaeus recognizes the cento’s contextual variety but fails to appreciate its unifying themes. As a result, he identifies the Homeric character from each line (Hercules, Odysseus, Priam, and Menelaus) without allowing for the possibility 26  On the use of sequential lines, see Ausonius’ preface to the Cento Nuptialis as well as Aelia Eudocia’s preface to her Homeric cento.

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of a symbolic or contextual harmony.27 In his view, the learned reader (empeiros) will easily perceive the cento’s intertextual problems, whereas neophytes (apanourgōn) will be duped into believing that Homer wrote the cento. His use of the singular empeiros and the plural apanourgōn subtly suggests that the ability to read or interpret texts correctly rests in the hands of a select few, whereas the majority are easily tricked. Here Irenaeus echoes a sentiment he exhibits earlier when discussing how the inexperienced (apeiroterous) and the many (pollous) are persuaded by the cento’s persuasive composition style. By shifting his language from apeiroterous to apanourgōn, Irenaeus sets up his ultimate conclusion that his rival exegetes are tricksters who intentionally mislead inexperienced and gullible Christians. Irenaeus implies that his main concern with such heretical teachings is their violation of the original (we might say authorial) intention of sacred texts (scriptures).28 By invoking authorial intention, (proto-)orthodox heresiologists gloss over the fact that their religious competitors frequently use the same texts in ways nearly indistinguishable from themselves. This creates an unassailable argument about the only ‘true’ way to read and interpret texts, which further situates the heretic as the exegetical ‘other.’ In this, Irenaeus is not unique; in fact, his use of the cento as an example of violating authorial intention recurs in the polemical writings of Tertullian and Jerome.29 At the same time, Irenaeus is also concerned with how readers (or audience members) make sense of texts.30 To strengthen his argument, he creates a false dichotomy between the guileless, uneducated masses and the select few who can read the Hercules cento (i.e. heretical exegesis) and perceive its intrinsic sleight of hand. Accordingly, those who compose such heretical works (centos) are swindlers, set to deceive the uneducated masses were it not for the ‘fullknowing’ (proto-)orthodox reader, a stand-in for Irenaeus himself. In conclusion, Irenaeus’ overt concern about heretical exegesis, specifically its intrinsic violation of a text’s natural order (physis), is what makes cento poetry such a profoundly rich literary mode.31 This ‘violated natural order’ is best demonstrated in lines 6–9 where Il. 24.327 and 328 (Priam’s journey to recover Hector’s corpse) is ‘dismembered’ and interspersed with Od. 11.38 and 626 (Odysseus’ journey to the underworld where he hears about Hercules’ 27  Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.9.4. 28  Adversus Haeseses 1.8.1. See Wilken 1967, 29–31. 29  Tertullian, Praescr. 39; Jerome, Ep. 53. Sandnes 2011, 124–39, discusses these sources. 30  For more on the active role of readers and reading in late antiquity, see Pucci 1998, and Pelttari 2014. For two examples of exploring how listening audiences make sense of texts in this volume, see Allan (from a listener-centred perspective) and Mellas (from an author-centred perspective). 31  Wilken 1967, 30.

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journey to capture Cerberus). In my reading, these lines are woven around two recurring themes central to the cento: the hero’s journey and the hero’s reliance on divine assistance. This use of disparate Homeric passages to form a new thematic whole is a defining feature of cento poetics and a skill lateRoman youth would have learned in the classroom. By drawing attention to the scholastic gap separating Christian clergy from their uneducated congregations, Irenaeus monopolizes the exegetical conversation within the hands of a select few. Although his ostensible aim is to protect guileless Christians from predatory gnostics, Irenaeus ultimately weaponizes the cento’s parodic design to silence his ideological competitors. 3

Hercules et Antaeus

Mythological centos, in addition to being used as rhetorical examples by early Christian polemicists, also circulated as stand-alone poems. The anonymous editor of the sixth-century codex Salmasianus chose to include seven mythological centos, one of which recounts Hercules’ battle with Antaeus. McGill provisionally suggests that the north-African provenance of the codex lends weight to a north-African composition, although little else is known about most of the centos or their authors.32 As part of his emphasis on the ludic quality of centos, McGill points out that the codex also contains a number of mythological ludi and explains that, as a type of cultural koine, mythology was the ideal form for poetic games.33 If that is the case for the codex as a whole, it most certainly is not the case for Hercules et Antaeus which is a decidedly serious or non-ludic cento: Litus harenosum ad Libyae || caelestis imago Aen. 4.257 || Aen. 6.730 Alcides aderat, || terrae omnipotentis alumnum Aen. 8.203 || Aen. 6.595 caede nova quaerens || et ineluctabile fatum. Aen. 10.515 || Aen. 8.334 protinus Antaeum || vasta se mole moventum Aen. 10.561 || Aen. 3.656 occupant, ille suae contra non inmemor artis 5 Georgics 4.440 concidit || atque novae rediere in praelia vires. Aen. 12.424–5 varia || 32  According to McGill 2005, 71–3, the authorship of most of these centos, with the exception of those written by Luxorius and Mavortius, was already unknown or lost when they were compiled in 534 CE. See also McGill 2003. For a discussion of the encounter between Hercules and Antaeus that acknowledges its attribution to a North-African locale by ancient sources and explores its influence on and beyond Vergil, see Scafoglio in this volume. 33  McGill 2005, 74.

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adrepta tellure semel || vim crescere victis Aen. 10.298 || Aen. 12.799 non tulit Alcides || et terra sublevat ipsum. Aen. 8.256 || Aen. 10.831 namque manus inter || conantem et plurima Aen. 2.681 || Aen. 9.398 frustra corripit in nodum || nisuque inmotus eodem 10 Aen. 8.260 || Aen. 5.437 auxilium solitum eripuit, || corpusque per Aen. 9.129 || Aen. 10.446 ingens non iam mater alit Tellus viresque ministrat. Aen. 11.71 verum ubi nulla datur dextra adtrectare potestas, illum exspirantem || magnum Iovis incrementum excutit effunditque solo. || ruit ille || volutus ad terram, non sponte fluens, || vitaque recessit.

Aen. 3.670 Aen. 1.44 || Eclogues 4.49 15 Aen. 12.532 || Aen. 12.291 || Aen. 12.672/906 Aen. 11. 828 || Aen. 4.705

Along the sandy shore of Libya, heavenly image Hercules went, seeking the child of omnipotent Earth For a fresh slaughter – an inevitable destiny. Suddenly, as Antaeus was moving over a mountain peak Hercules seized him. That one, not forgetting his own skill, fell down, and new strength returned to his fight.

5

When once the land was touched, power increased for the vanquished one. Hercules did not endure it and he lifted Antaeus off the ground. For his hands, between the one making many vain attempts, Kept him in a hold. By maintaining this posture, 10 Hercules robbed him of his accustomed aid, and his huge body Mother earth no longer nourished, nor did she furnish it with strength. When no power or effort remained in him, Lifeless, the great progeny of Jove, Threw him and cast him to the ground. Antaeus, tumbled To the earth, involuntarily lax, and his life receded.34 34  The translation is my own.

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This cento, an example of a late-antique epyllion, has received surprisingly little scholarly attention.35 In his treatment, McGill describes it as ‘unadorned’ and compares it to late-antique progymnasmata written by Libanius and Ennodius.36 In both regards, McGill is more generous than previous critics had been, although his analysis is remarkably brief.37 While Hercules et Antaeus should likely not be considered an intertextually rich poem, in my view, its engagement with Vergil’s text is hardly superficial. Only three hemistichs of this cento (2a, 8a, 10a) come from Vergilian passages originally about Hercules, all from his battle with Cacus in Aeneid book 8. They also follow Vergil’s order (Aen. 8.203, Aen. 8.256, Aen. 8.260, respectively), which suggests a close dependence on this episode and invites us to read Hercules’ encounter with Antaeus alongside his conflict with Cacus.38 Additionally, Antaeus is intertextually paired with his mythological relatives, Tityos (line 2b) and Polyphemos (4b and 13).39 Because the Aeneid 3 hemistitchs (Aen. 3.656, Aen. 3.670) follow Vergil’s order, Antaeus and Polyphemos are closely linked. These mythological ‘monsters’ also share certain features, especially their chthonic attributes: Tityos, Polyphemos, and Antaeus are all born from the earth, while Cacus is the son of Vulcan; Polyphemos and Cacus reside in caves, Tityos is imprisoned in the underworld, and Antaeus derives his power from his physical connection to the earth. Hercules, in contrast, is associated with Olympus and his eventual apotheosis is anticipated in the cento’s opening line through his description as caelestis imago (‘heavenly image’). Aeneid 6.730 originally reads caelestis origo (‘celestial origin’); this change from origo to imago, which is fairly significant compared to the changes in pronoun gender or number which occur quite frequently in centos, suggests that this detail was carefully inserted into the cento. Taken this way, the caelestis imago communicates something noteworthy about Hercules within the cento and sets him in contrast to the various chthonic beasts evoked throughout. Hercules’ celestial domain is reinforced when he discovers Antaeus roaming at the very borders of his purview: the mountain tops (vasta mole). If Antaeus is intertextually identified with various chthonic monsters, Hercules is constructed out of allusions relating to Aeneas, specifically his anger over the death of Pallas (3a, 4a), as well as his killing of Lausus (8b), Murranus (15a), and Turnus (7b). While this pairing of Hercules and Aeneas works quite nicely, 35  Okáčová 2010 treats Hercules et Antaeus, among others, as cento epyllia. 36  McGill 2005, 80–1. 37  Especially Salanitro 1997, 2341, and Ermini 1909, 45. 38  Okáčová 2010, 147, and Whitby 2007, 211. 39  Okáčová 2010, 147.

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a few complications emerge as a result. The divine assistance Aeneas receives from Venus in the Aeneid is intertextually conflated with Antaeus’ assistance from Tellus. Cento line 6, which describes Antaeus’ use of the ground to regain his strength, comes from the scene in Aeneid 12 where Venus helps Aeneas recover from an injury. This conflation of Aeneas and Antaeus here runs the risk of intertextually fusing Hercules and Antaeus, half heroic and, by implication, half beast. Moreover, Hercules’ strategy of lifting Antaeus into the air to kill him (8b) comes from Aeneas’ battle with Lausus, where Aeneas pities the dead youth and sees in him an image of his own son, Ascanius (Iulus). This intertext further runs the risk of conflating the hero (Hercules/Antaeus) and the beast (Antaeus/Hercules). The allusion to Lausus, a character marked by pathos, also gives Hercules’ encounter with Antaeus an emotional quality. Beyond the allusion to Aeneas’ regret over Lausus’ death, Hercules et Antaeus can be read through the allusive lens of poignancy, remorse, and sorrow, themes which bookend the cento and give it a thematic unity. Its final hemistich comes from the close of the Dido episode, a scene with acute tragic undertones. The use of these words at the end of the cento conflates Aeneas’ most pathetic victim with Hercules’ killing of Antaeus, who can be seen as a plaything of the gods, ultimately disposable and discarded. In fact, the cento is constructed around the Dido episode – the opening hemistich also comes from Aeneid 4, specifically from Hermes’ arrival in Carthage to send Aeneas on his way to Italy (4.275). The scenes – Vergil’s and, by association, the cento’s – forebode a tragic outcome and the loss of an innocent life. By reading the first and final hemistichs as focalisers for the poem, the pathos elicited through the Dido episode permeates the cento as a whole and becomes one of its defining features. 4

Proba’s Cento

Active during the middle of the fourth century, Faltonia Betitia Proba composed ‘secular’ epics before paraphrasing the Bible with Vergilian verse.40 What little is known about her previous poetry comes from her cento’s prefatory proem, where she confesses to writing stories about men violating treaties, murders, wars, battles, patricide, triumphs and trophies. She interrupts 40  There is some debate about the authorship of Proba’s cento, unessential to the argument presented here. For the various sides, see Stevenson 2005, 64–71 and 532–5, Cameron 2011, 327–37, Shanzer 1986, Shanzer 1994, and Barnes 2006. On the history of the confusion about the two Probae, see Schottenius Cullhed 2014, 206.

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her own list with confiteor, scripsi: satis est meminisse malorum (‘I admit it. I wrote them. Remembering these evils is too much’). With this language, Proba rhetorically distances herself from civil-war epic and Lucan, whom she echoes in her preface, and from heroic epic and Vergil, whose words are the hypertext of her cento.41 Situating her sacrum carmen (‘sacred song/poem’) within the incipient Latin Christian epic tradition begun by Juvencus a generation earlier, Proba sings a song of peace, inspired by the Holy Spirit, a Christianised substitute for the Aonian Muse.42 Her Christian cento, a 694-line paraphrase of Hebrew bible (creation and fall) and Christian gospel (the birth, ministry, execution, and resurrection of Jesus), remains one of the best surviving texts written by a female poet from all of antiquity. Biblical paraphrastic centos, unlike the centos previously discussed, contain more complex, polyvalent intertextual vectors. As paraphrases, they engage in religious interpretation by retelling the biblical account. Such exegetical moments appear as changes to the model text, typically narrative expansions or omissions, which welcome reading the new paraphrase alongside its biblical original, and vice versa. As centos, they (inter)textually draw on Vergil or Homer, against whom the biblical narrative is set.43 This conflation of biblical episode with epic content also gives biblical characters and events decidedly Vergilian or Homeric appearances. From the perspective of post-modern literary criticism, the resulting ‘mash-ups’ provide interesting case studies, which explains the recent interest in Christian centos over the past few decades. Proba’s Jesus, intertextually rich and polyvalent, is a multi-literary hybrid, a composite of Vergilian lines that never lose sight of her gospel sources (not to mention three hundred years of Christology). I focus on three passages from Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension that present him in a Herculean light. 4.1

Jesus’ Arrest, Cento 600–606 Oceanum interea surgens Aurora reliquit iamque sacerdotes || late loca questibus implent cum populo patribus || ferturque per agmina murmur

600 Aen. 4.129 etc. Aen. 8.281 || Georg. 4.515 Aen. 8.679 || Aen. 12.239

41  Green 1997, 550, Hinds 2014, 186–7, and Bažil 2009, 121–2. 42  Sandnes 2011, 149–50. 43  This point is examined more fully in Usher 1998, Bažil 2009, Sandnes 2011, and Schottenius Cullhed 2014.

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quod genus hoc hominum? quaeve hunc tam barbara morem permittit patria? || poenas cum sanguine poscunt undique collecti || et magno clamore secuntur insontem, || saevitque animis ignobile vulgus.

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Aen. 1.539 Aen. 1.540 || Aen. 2.72 605 Aen. 2.414 etc. || Aen. 5.207 Aen. 2.84 || 1.149

Meanwhile, rising Dawn left the Ocean. 600 The priests already filled the wide place with their sermons when a murmur ran through the ranks of the people and the fathers. What race of men was this, what barbaric land allowed this behaviour? They demanded punishment with blood, gathering from all over and followed the innocent man 605 with loud shouting, the ignoble mob raged in their spirits.44 Following her biblical sources, Proba’s arrest scene focuses on the Jewish religious leaders who conspire against Jesus but who, in keeping with later antiJewish polemics, play an increasing role in the actual crucifixion, while the Roman authorities, hardly mentioned, recede into the background.45 This scene’s longest consecutive Vergilian source (603–604a) is from Ilioneus’ speech to Dido (Aen. 1.539–540), in which Ilioneus criticises the Carthaginians for their hostility and contempt, shown by not welcoming the shipwrecked Trojans. Proba, in contrast, transforms these words into a rumour spread by the Jewish leaders, an ethnic self-criticism for their tolerance of Jesus. Their words incite a mob (Cento 606, Aen. 1.149) that, urged to violence, crucifies Jesus (Cento 614–624). The intertextual play surrounding this threatening crowd demonstrates the interpretative potentiality of cento poetics. In Aeneid 1.148–150 Aeolus’ winds, which had destroyed the Trojan fleet and disturbed Neptune in the process, are compared to a hostile and violent rabble, soothed into listening peacefully to an exceptional leader, described simply as ‘a man’ (Aen. 1.151). Contextually, Neptune parallels the model leader by calming Aeolus’ unruly winds. Proba uses this episode on a few occasions, most notably in her account of Jesus’ calming of the storm (Cento 531–561, especially Matt. 8:23–7, Mark 4:35–41, and 44  Translation by Schottenius Cullhed 2014. 45  A generation after Proba, this anti-Judaism culminates in legislation outlawing Jews, Heretics, and Pagans, frequently listing all three ‘groups’ as a single illegal whole.

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Luke 8:22–5), which makes six allusions to it.46 While Jesus and Neptune are able to calm literal storms, the crucifixion mob, in contrast, remains implacable, incited to further violence after seeing Jesus (Cento 609–611), who structurally parallels the ideal leader in Aeneid 1. Proba’s intellectual engagement with the Neptune simile has a few theological implications. Through this simile, the Vergilian episode blurs the line between divine and human characters (Aen. 1.151), an ambiguity which Proba adopts in her account (Cento 611). Lateantique depictions of Jesus always walk a fine line between his humanity and divinity; Proba cleverly, non-committally, and intertextually alludes to both. Proba further emphasizes the divinity of Jesus by inter- and intra-textually pointing back to her account of Jesus calming the storm. But unlike that very divine Jesus (who follows in Neptune’s footsteps), the Jesus of the crucifixion scene cannot (or does not) placate the mob. Such a contrast in original and new context heightens the narrative drama; where one anticipates a pacified crowd, one finds only intensified rage and violence. The crucifixion scene marks the beginning of a series of allusions to Hercules, especially Hercules’ battle with Cacus in Aeneid 8, that develop over the course of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to the end of the poem. In line 601, the Jewish priests – iamque sacerdotes – echo the priests of Hercules in Aeneid 8.281.47 The following section explores the cento’s conflation of Hercules and Jesus in some detail, but it is important to note here that Proba’s Jewish priests, depicted in an overtly hostile and anti-Jewish light, have literary and theological significance. The intertextual conflation of Jesus and Hercules over the course of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension scenes complicates the role of the Jewish/Herculean priests in line 601. Their hostility to Jesus – they attack the very deity whom they ostensibly serve – can be read as ironic, even tragic. 4.2

Jesus’ Resurrection, Cento 657–660 Ecce autem primi || volucrum sub culmine cantus: ingreditur linquens antrum, || spoliisque superbus ibat ovans, || pulsusque pedum tremit excita tellus,

Aen. 6.255 || Aen. 8.456 Aen. 6.157 || Aen. 8.202 Aen. 6.589 || Aen. 12.445

46  These include Cento 537, 538, 542, 543, 545, 546, and 555. Seven hemistichs over the course of eighteen lines is more than enough to bring these two passages into direct dialogue. 47  Schottenius Cullhed 2014, 181.

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vulneraque illa gerens || foribus sese intulit altis.

660

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Aen. 2.278 || Aen. 11.36

Behold! At the first singing of the birds under the sky, he left the cave, stepped out and walked outwards, proud of his victories, rejoicing, and the earth shook at his steps. Wearing those wounds he appeared at the high doors.48 Quite expectedly, the Vergilian lines used to construct Jesus’ resurrection scene reinforce the themes of the underworld and afterlife. The Ecce autem primi (Cento 657) comes from Aeneas’ entry into the underworld (Aen. 6.255) and is followed (Cento 658a) by an allusion to Aeneas’ exit from the Sibyl’s cave (Aen. 6.157). Read alongside the biblical episode, Aeneas’ journey into and out of these chthonic spaces parallels Jesus’ burial and resurrection. The ibat ovans of Cento 659a also alludes to Aeneas’ netherworld journey, specifically his encounter with Salmoneus, condemned to eternal punishment for attempting to imitate the sound of Zeus’ thunder. Salmoneus shares two narrative features with Jesus: his association with the underworld and his divine aspirations. Of course, Jesus succeeds exactly where Salmoneus fails: he escapes the underworld and emerges divine. Finally, Cento 660a refers to Hector’s phantasmic appearance to Aeneas in Aeneid 2.278, a Vergilian analogue to the appearance of Jesus to his followers.49 The allusion to Hector also underscores the sacrificial quality of Jesus’ death. Recognized by his (Hector’s) wounds, Proba’s resurrected Jesus, in keeping with the gospel tradition, is decidedly corporeal, which is slightly odd considering that Proba’s Jesus is never nailed to the cross nor is his side pierced with a spear. Rather, he is merely bound to the cross with cords and even these seem to have been temporary (Cento 617–618, 624). Jesus emerges from the underworld ‘proud of his victories’ (spoliisque superbus, Cento 658b) which links him with Hercules exultant over Geryon in Aeneid 8, shortly before he battles Cacus.50 This allusion to Hercules, when read in its wider context, reveals how subtly yet profoundly centos engage their Vergilian source. First, as chthonic beast, Cacus is a Satan type, even depicted as serpentine in later accounts.51 Hercules’ killing of Cacus symbolically corre48  Translation by Schottenius Cullhed 2014. 49  Schottenius Cullhed 2014, 161. 50  Schottenius Cullhed 2014, 161. 51  Dante, Inferno, Canto 25, Circle 8, Bolgia 7. On this episode and on Hercules in Dante more generally, see Scafoglio in this volume.

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lates with Jesus’ defeat of Satan. Second, Cacus defends himself from Hercules by barricading himself in his cave with a boulder. These details parallel the burial of Jesus, only in reverse. The force of alluding to a figure in a cave blocked by a rock in the context of Jesus’ resurrection subtly reinforces both scenes. Third, Hercules circles Cacus’ cave thrice (Aen. 8.231–232), similar to the three days between Jesus’ death and resurrection. Finally, the cave, a double for the underworld (a point Proba makes elsewhere: Cento 635, namely Aen. 8.242), is here cast open, thereby robbing the underworld of its liminality and otherness, of its power over mortals. Proba’s direct engagement with the Hercules and Cacus episode is brief, only a single Vergilian hemistich, but it abounds in intertextual significance when both episodes (Jesus’ death/resurrection and Hercules’ battle with Cacus) are read side by side. 4.3

Jesus’ Ascension, Cento 687–692 ex illo celebratus honos, laetique minores servavere diem || tot iam labentibus annis.

Aen. 8.268 Aen. 8.269 || Aen. 2.14 I decus, i, nostrum, || tantarum gloria rerum, Aen. 6.546 || Aen. 4.232 [semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt] 689b Aen. 1.609 et nos et tua dexter adi pede sacra secundo 690 Aen. 8.302 annua, quae differre nefas. celebrate faventes Aen. 8.173 hunc, socii, morem sacrorum, hunc ipse teneto, Aen. 3.408 o dulcis coniunx, || et si pietate meremur, Aen. 2.777 || Aen. 2.690 hac casti maneant in religione nepotes Aen. 3.409 From that time his honour has been celebrated and younger generations have delighted in maintaining the day already for so many years now. Go forward, our pride! Go forward, day of great deeds, [– your honour, name, and praise will always remain –] 689b come to us and to your sacred annual rites with auspicious steps, 690 which must not be postponed. Comrades, celebrate, honouring this sacred custom! You, my sweet husband, maintain it! And, if we deserve it through our devotion, our descendants will always remain chaste in this sacred worship.52 52  Translation by Schottenius Cullhed 2014.

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The ending of Proba’s cento transitions from the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the establishment of his divinity and worship from early Christians. The lines that make up this section come either from prayers and invocations (688b, 690, 693a, 693b) or from explanations of religious rituals (687, 688a, 690, 691, 692, and 694). Here, the form of Proba’s cento complements her content. Once the enthroned Jesus is established as God, he is asked to join the poem’s imagined audience while they remember his death and resurrection, the central features of the early Christian liturgy. On this note, the cento comes to a close. Most of the cento’s closing section is comprised of whole Vergilian lines rather than hemistichs, which closely bind their original contexts, especially Aeneid 8, to Proba’s conclusion. This clustering of lines from Aeneid 8 highlights Jesus’ divinity, explicitly connected to the deification of Hercules (the deum of Cento 688) and the rituals celebrated in his honour (Cento 687 and 690).53 Cento 690 (Aen. 8.302), in context, comes from a prayer about the rites due to Hercules and is preceded, in the Aeneid, by Salve, vera Iovis proles, decus addite divis (‘Hail, true son of Jove, an honour added to the gods’), a sentiment that, mutatis mutandis, aptly applies to the ascended Jesus. In fact, the decus of Aeneid 8.301 has echoes in the decus from Cento 689 (i decus, i, nostrum) and could have been the memory trigger to get to Aeneid 8.302 (Cento 690). Said differently, the divinity of Hercules explicitly stated in Aeneid 8.301 might have informed the selection of Aeneid 8.302. This section has examined echoes of Hercules in scenes of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. The crucifixion scene sets the stage for Jesus as a deified-Hercules type, but adds an underlying tragic tone in that the priests responsible for Jesus’ death are built from lines about priests of Hercules. Their hostility is ironic as they kill the very god they ostensibly serve. Jesus’ resurrection scene, in contrast, abounds in chthonic imagery culminating in an allusion to Hercules’ battle with Cacus. When read parallel to each other, the Cacus episode corresponds in many essential ways to Jesus’ resurrection, in particular Cacus’ use of a stone to block his cave and Hercules’ threefold circumambulation before removing the rock. Finally, Jesus is most explicitly compared to Hercules in the ascension scene, where Hercules’ deification in Aeneid 8 is used to describe the deification of Jesus.

53  Schottenius Cullhed 2014, 186.

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5 Conclusion Cento poetry, texts composed out of reconstituted lines or hemistichs of Homer or Vergil, has received increased scholarly attention over the past few decades. This recent interest in late-antique centos has facilitated various approaches to the poems, although most focus on specific authors (e.g. Proba, Hosidius Geta, Eudocia) or particular traditions (e.g. Greek or Latin, Christian or secular). This chapter has examined three Herculean centos, centos about Hercules or centos that tell a new story with lines originally about Hercules: Irenaeus’ Homeric cento on Hercules’ underworld journey to bring back Cerberus, the anonymous Vergilian cento Hercules et Antaeus, and Proba’s Vergilian paraphrase of the Bible, which uses Hercules as a literary model for Jesus. Irenaeus cites his Homeric cento as a literary example of irresponsible biblical exegesis, specifically irresponsible gnostic interpretation. Building on Wilken’s approach, I situated this cento within the context of imperial and late-antique education, which was founded on a strong Homeric (and/ or Vergilian) and mythological foundation. The use and reuse of epic/mythology were, in other words, markers of one’s education and involvement in elite culture. Irenaeus’ argument against rival biblical authorities depends on elite reading-culture, especially its assumption about the gullibility of those without paideia. A reading of Irenaeus’ cento, however, suggests a complex intertextual engagement with its Homeric original. Built around the parallel themes of the heroic journey and the hero’s dependence on divine assistance, Irenaeus’ Herculean cento has thematic coherence despite his insistence otherwise. Hercules et Antaeus has been viewed as an intertextually simplistic cento and, as a result, has not received much detailed analysis. Hercules, built from passages about Aeneas slaughtering his enemies, is juxtaposed with Antaeus, a bricolage of chthonic beasts: Cacus, Tityus, and Polyphemos. In my reading, Hercules’ killing of Antaeus is made more complex and tragic when Antaeus’ assistance from Tellus is intertextually connected to Aeneas’ assistance from Venus, which blurs the line between Hercules and Antaeus. This ambiguity is further reinforced with an echo of Aeneas’ killing of Lausus, whom Aeneas pities and in whom he sees his son, Ascanius. Tragically pathetic, Hercules et Antaeus is structured around poignancy and regret, especially in its opening and closing lines, which bookend the cento with evocations of the Aeneas and Dido episode. Proba creatively uses Herculean allusions to construct an intertextually complex depiction of Jesus, especially at the end of her cento. As a mythological figure who conquered the underworld and underwent an apotheosis, Hercules is a suitable analogue for Jesus. Proba opens her crucifixion scene by

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building Jesus’ opponents from priest of Hercules, an intertextual foreshadowing of his resurrection and eventual apotheosis. Jesus’ resurrection, in my view, engages Hercules’ battle with Cacus, a chthonic parallel to Satan, in complex and subtle ways, which require reading both scenes side by side, rather than simply looking at the specific Vergilian lines Proba uses. Proba’s establishment of a divine and worshipped Christ comes in large part from Hercules’ veneration in Aeneid 8, a direct result of his defeat of Cacus. This reading of three Herculean centos engages a unified poetic form, situated inside, outside, and on the very threshold of the church. Despite all three centos emerging from remarkably different socio-cultural contexts and advancing radically divergent literary agendas, in my view, their engagement with Vergil and Homer suggests a few over-arching patterns, most notably the ways late-antique intertextuality transcends specific lines and engages entire passages. Cento poetry’s ongoing negotiation between source text and new poem is simultaneously allusive and elusive, requiring active readers. The final product of this reading reveals a more intertextually and tragically complex Hercules, but a quintessentially late-antique one. Bibliography Barnes, T.D. (2006) ‘An urban prefect and his wife’, Classical Quarterly 56: 249–56. Bažil, M. (2009) Centones Christiani: métamorphoses d’une forme intertextuelle dans la poesie latine chrétienne de l’antiquité tardive, Paris: IEA. Cameron, A. (2011) The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cribiore, R. (1996) Writing, Teachers, and Students in Greco-Roman Egypt, Atlanta: Scholars Press. Cribiore, R. (2001) Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Daniélou, J. (1961) Message Évangélique et Culture Hellénistique aux IIe et IIIe Siècles, Paris: Desclée. Domínguez, Ó.P. (2010) De Alieno Nostrum: el centón profane en el mundo griego, Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. Ermini, F. (1909) Il Centone di Proba e la Poesia Centonaria Latina, Rome: Ermanno Loescher. Formisano, M. (2007) ‘Towards an aesthetic paradigm of late antiquity’, Antiquité Tardive 15: 277–84. Formisano, M. and Sogno, C. (2010) ‘Petite poésie portable: the Latin cento in its lateantique context’, in Horster, M. and Reitz, C. (eds) Condensed Texts-Condensing Texts, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 375–92.

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Grant, R.M. (1997) Irenaeus of Lyons, London and New York: Routledge. Green, R.P.H. (1997) ‘Proba’s introduction to her cento’, Classical Quarterly 47: 548–59. Harich-Schwarzbauer, H. (2009) ‘Von Aeneas zu Camilla: Intertextualität im Vergilcento der Faltonia Betitia Proba’, in van Mal-Maeder, D. (ed) Jeux de Voix: enonciation, intertextualité et intentionnalité dans le littérature antique, Bern: Peter Lang, 331–46. Hinds, S. (2014) ‘The self-conscious cento’, in Formisano, M., Fuhrer, T. and Stock, A.-L. (eds) Décadence: ‘Decline and Fall’ or ‘Other Antiquity’?, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 171–97. Hock, R.F. (2001) ‘Homer in Greco-Roman education’, in MacDonald, D.R. (ed) Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 56–77. Hock, R.F. and O’Neil, E.N. (2002) The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: classroom exercises, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Joyal, M., McDougall, I., and Yardley, J.C. (2009) Greek and Roman Education: a sourcebook, New York: Routledge. Kennedy, G.A. (2003) Progymnasmata: Greek textbooks of prose composition and rhetoric, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Malamud, M.A. (2012) The Origin of Sin: an English translation of the Hamartigenia, Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press. Marrou, H.I. (1956) A History of Education in Antiquity, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. McGill, S. (2003) ‘Other Aeneids: rewriting three passages of the Aeneid in the Codex Salmasianus’, Vergilius 49: 84–113. McGill, S. (2005) Virgil Recomposed: the mythological and secular centos in antiquity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgan, T. (1998) Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nisbet, G. (2002) ‘Barbarous verses: a mixed-media narrative from Greco-Roman Egypt’, Apollo: the International Magazine of the Arts CLVI.485: 15–19. Okáčová, M. (2010) ‘Mythological epyllia written in the form of Virgilian centos: a model case of intertextuality’, Greco-Latina Brunensia 15: 139–54. Pelttari, A. (2014) The Space that Remains: reading Latin poetry in late antiquity, Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press. Pollman, K. (2004) ‘Sex and salvation in the Vergilian cento of the fourth century’, in Rees, R. (ed) Romane Memento: Vergil in the fourth century, London: Duckworth, 79–96. Pucci, J. (1998) The Full-Knowing Reader: allusion and the power of the reader in the Western literary tradition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Roberts, M. (1985) Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity, Liverpool: F. Cairns.

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Roberts, M. (1989) The Jewelled Style: poetry and poetics in late antiquity, Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press. Rondholz, A. (2012) The Versatile Needle: Hosidius Geta’s cento ‘Medea’ and its tradition, Berlin: de Gruyter. Russell, D.A. (1983) Greek Declamation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salanitro, G. (1997) ‘Osidio Geta e la poesia centonaria’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.34.3, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2314–360. Sandnes, K.O. (2011) The Gospel ‘According to Homer and Virgil’: cento and canon, Leiden: Brill. Schembra, R. (2006) La Prima Redazione dei Centoni Omerici: traduzione e commento, Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Schembra, R. (2007a) La Seconda Redazione dei Centoni Omerici: traduzione e commento, Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Schembra, R. (2007b) Homerocentones, Turnhout: Brepols. Schottenius Cullhed, S. (2015) Proba the Prophet: the Christian Virgilian cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba, Leiden: Brill. Shanzer, D. (1986) ‘The anonymous Carmen Contra Paganos and the date and identity of the centonist Proba’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 32: 232–48. Shanzer, D. (1994) ‘The date and identity of the centonist Proba’, Recherches Augustiniennes 27: 75–96. Stevenson, J. (2005) Women Latin Poets: language, gender, and authority from antiquity to the eighteenth century, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Unger, D.J. (ed.) (1992) Against the Heresies I: book 1 / St. Irenaeus of Lyons, New York: Newman. Usher, M. (1998) Homeric Stitchings: the Homeric centos of the Empress Eudocia, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Whitby, M. (2007) ‘“Eudocia’s” Homeric centos and Nonnus’ St John paraphrase’, in Scourfield, D. (ed.) Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity: inheritance, authority, and change, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 195–232. Wilken, R.L. (1967) ‘The Homeric cento in Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses I.9.4’, Vigiliae Christianae 21: 25–33. Ziegler, H. (1871) Irenaeus, der Bischof von Lyon: ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der antkatholischen Kirche, Berlin: Reimer.

chapter 5

Herakleios or Herakles? Panegyric and Pathopoeia in George of Pisidia’s Heraklias Andrew Mellas Arousing and allaying the emotions of the people of Constantinople was the hallmark of the imperial panegyrist in Byzantium.1 In the seventh century, George of Pisidia’s poetical image of Emperor Herakleios (often ‘Heraclius’) as the earthly incarnation of the divine monarchy, as the first Basileus of Byzantium, was built upon rhetoric that sought to shape the thoughts and feelings of his audience. Indeed, the poet laureate was not only an accomplished rhetorician, adept in the art of panegyric, but also a master of pathopoeia (‘emotion-making’). George of Pisidia’s Heraklias did not simply extol Herakleios’ wondrous deeds, likening them to those of Herakles; it entwined the incredible, the historical and the theological to engender and mediate emotion.2 Emperor Herakleios is compared with Herakles, the quintessential Greek hero who journeyed to Hades and accomplished wondrous deeds. But Herakleios has done far more than defeat Kerberos, slay the dragon and overcome the hydra. Instead of simply reviving Alkestis, he has restored the entire oecumene (‘universe’). In a blend of mythological, scriptural and historical imagery, the emperor rivals Herakles, Noah and Alexander in his godlike feats. Frendo (1984, 1986) and Whitby (1994, 2003) have examined George’s portrait of Herakleios, his panegyrical style and rhetorical devices. The political significance of the image of the emperor and the role of heroic poetry in a time of crisis has also been explored (Whitby 1998). This chapter seeks to build on this scholarship by examining the performativity3 of the Heraklias 1  In the Byzantine lexicon, the Greek word for emotion, pathos, is often translated as ‘passion’ but it does not suggest extreme emotions in the modern sense of the word (Kazhdan and Cutler 1991). Although I follow scholars such as Sorabji (2002) and Konstan (2007) in translating the Greek word pathos as emotion, I acknowledge that the shift from passions to emotions in the nineteenth century psychologized and secularized the philosophical and theological dimensions of the former (Dixon 2011). 2  For the Greek text of the Heraklias, see George of Pisidia 1960, 240–61. 3  Austin (1975) is often cited as elaborating the notion of performative speech as words that engender a new reality by performing an action. Searle (1969), Derrida (Derrida and Wolfreys 1998) and Butler (1990) have since invoked, appropriated and developed Austin’s ideas with varying effect.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_007

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and its affective stylistics. Its official recitation to mark the triumph of the emperor was not a mere retelling of Herakleios’ exploits but a showing forth of his accomplishments, which through a feeling of presence engendered by enargeia (‘vividness’), and devices such as synkrisis (‘comparison’), penetrated and shaped the emotions of the audience.4 In particular, the comparison between Herakleios and Herakles evoked the Christian refashioning of the mythical hero as a Christ-like figure – a god who became mortal, suffered and overcame death.5 George of Pisidia invited his audience to visualise classical, scriptural and contemporary events as he mythologized and apotheosized the emperor, persuading his listeners to respond in a particular fashion. His rhetoric sought to immortalize the deeds of Herakleios in memory and imagination. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of rhetoricians before him who ‘demanded an active engagement from the listener’ and invited audiences to change from passive listeners into potential actors in the drama unfolding before them.6 Whilst it is only possible to partially and imperfectly reimagine the performance of this text in its original setting, I will investigate how George of Pisidia sought to affect the emotions of his audience by examining the textualisation of passion in the Heraklias and how it became a script for his audience, teaching them how to feel about the emperor’s military adventures.7 Indeed, it was through the performance of the poetry that emotions textualised in literature entered history.8 Emotions are an intersubjective phenomenon embodied within an action, a practice and an ‘affective field’ where the audience experienced the text.9 We will consider the genre of panegyric and its potential setting, as well as the text’s appeal to visual imagination, through its illustrations of Herakleios as analogous to Herakles and other personages. A few preliminary remarks about rhetoric and emotions in Byzantium will pave the way for this exploration.

4  I am relying here on Webb’s discussion of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (Webb 2009, 72–4). For definitions of synkrisis and enargeia, see Kennedy 2003, 83–6. 5  ‘The ubiquity of Herakles/Hercules in the Roman empire made it inevitable that early Christians would encounter him wherever they went, and the popularity of his cult made him at first a rival to Christ’ (Stafford 2012, 201). 6  Webb 2009, 193. 7  See Wierzbicka 1999, 240. 8  To be sure ‘the words [of the text] are the feelings’ but it is essential to combine textual analysis with ‘considerations of what is likely to have been seen, heard, touched, even tasted at the moment of a text’s performance’ (McNamer 2007, 247–8). 9  Harris and Sørensen 2010, 150–1.

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Rhetoric and Emotions in Byzantium

Many of Byzantium’s greatest poets were also great rhetoricians. Unlike the rhetoric of modern spin doctors and marketers, Byzantine rhetoric was not about chicanery and embellishment; its essence was performance and presentation: Far from being a ‘tyrannical mastery’ or a ‘canker in the cultural blood of the Byzantines’, it was a ‘key element of Byzantine Weltanschauung’, ‘the vital lubricant for the entire machinery of government’, even Byzantium’s ‘cultural bloodstream’.10 As Mullett has observed, Byzantium was a profoundly performative society that demanded theatrical liturgies and powerful sermons for its churches, panegyric poetry and dramatic acclamations for its royal courts, and even speeches to mark urban rituals and milestones in the cycle of life for its homes.11 After all, there were ‘a great many more listeners in Byzantium than readers’.12 The Byzantine classroom was as much a place for learning rhetoric as it was a school of grammar. Students were exposed to the study of rhetoric and dialectic before they progressed to the study of ‘specialized branches of knowledge, such as arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy’.13 And this pedagogy was reflected in the performative nature of Byzantine literature. It was often the case that works of literature were composed with the intention of being performed. Literary gatherings and recitals that were occasions for rhetorical performances were also a popular pastime of reading circles.14 In the case of George of Pisidia and other imperial panegyrists, their orations were destined for the ceremony and splendour of the royal court, the imperial palace or another significant public space.15 They were intended for Byzantines who were erudite and esteemed – scholars, dignitaries and, of course, the emperor.16

10  Whitby 2010, 241. 11  Mullett 2003: 152–3. 12  Bourbouhakis 2010, 175. 13  Valiavitcharska 2013, 92. 14  See Marciniak 2007, Mullett 1984. 15  Toth 2007, 436. 16  Toth 2007, 444.

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However, rhetoric was also an appeal to the emotions. Ancient Greek treatises on oratory, such as Aristotle’s Rhetoric, were also commentaries on feeling.17 According to classical thought, emotions had a cognitive element and they were connected with action, belief and judgment (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.1.8): Let the emotions be all those things on account of which people change and differ in regard to their judgments, and upon which attend pain and pleasure, for example anger, pity, fear, and all other such things and their opposites.18 This was also the case in Byzantium. Indeed, the history of emotions has the potential to shed new light on the emotive role that Byzantine rhetoric played in the performance of literature.19 Sacred and secular poetry in Byzantium created an emotional community through holy and courtly ritual.20 Literature wove together a Christian commonwealth through a shared reality and familiar stories that were played out on the stage of the liturgy, in the halls of the royal court and in the public and domestic spaces of the community. Questions about the performance of George of Pisidia’s texts are difficult to answer. However, as one researcher has pointed out, if we are to avoid the pitfalls of going in search of what George of Pisidia’s audience may have been feeling, we must employ literature – the script of poetry – and the feelings embedded therein as our source material: Though it requires some conjecture and imagination on our part, we must try to locate the meaning of various Byzantine texts within their performative setting; in effect, to correlate not just sense and sound, but ceremony, scenery and social surroundings, all the elements of spectacle which lent purpose to rhetoric in Byzantium.21

17  See Konstan 2007, 411. 18  As quoted in Konstan 2007, 414. See also Nussbaum 2001, 19–48. 19  It is impossible to traverse the sheer magnitude of this anfractuous field of study – the history of emotions – in this chapter. Theories of emotion go as far back as Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, and their ideas influenced Byzantium’s culture and theology. See Gross 2006, Plamper 2015, Sorabji 2002, and the work of such recent projects as the international research network Emotions Through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium (http://emotions. shca.ed.ac.uk/, accessed 10/05/2018). 20  For the notion of emotional communities, see Rosenwein 2006. 21  Bourbouhakis 2010, 185–6.

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After all, it is problematic to approach emotions in Byzantium as ideational constructs when they ultimately were embodied phenomena.22 That is why reimagining, albeit imperfectly, the performance of the Heraklias will be the end game of this chapter. These brief remarks on rhetoric and emotions in Byzantium do not simply contextualise what is to follow; they set out important methodological considerations for the use of literature as an archive for the study of feeling in a bygone era. The significance of the words of the text for engendering emotion is unquestionable. However, the cultural and material spaces where the audience experienced the performance of the Heraklias is where affective rhetoric came to life, seeking and arousing feeling, and inviting the audience to enter its emotive universe. 2

Reimagining the Performance of George of Pisidia’s Heraklias

Although scholars believe that the Heraklias was recited to mark the triumphal return of the emperor to the capital from his third expedition against the Persians, possibly in the presence of Herakleios himself, details of the occasion and setting are few. Fulsome details of court ritual and royal ceremony emerge in the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies compiled by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, but they do not envisage a standard protocol or procedure for receiving a victorious emperor returning from war into Constantinople. Nevertheless, the text does describe what has to take place when a triumph is celebrated, with victory hymns in the Forum of Constantine or in the Hippodrome (2.19, 20; 2012b, 607–15). It even recounts how, with candles and incense-burners, ‘the whole city came to meet [Nikephoros II Phokas]’ who had defeated the empire’s enemies (1.96; 2012a, 43: 8–40). However, the chapters devoted to Herakleios do not narrate any details of his triumphant return from war (2.27–30; 2012b, 627–31). Nonetheless, based on etiquette and descriptions of similar occasions, it would be fair to assume that the event was characterised by ceremonial grandeur, splendid costumes, victory hymns and public acclamations praising the emperor. George of Pisidia’s poem provides some insights into what the occasion may have entailed, alluding to the garlanding of Constantinople and the singing of hymns to celebrate the return of Herakleios (Heraklias 1.210–14): 22  According to Moore (2013, 197), this bespeaks ‘the primacy of the Cartesian dichotomy’ and ‘relies on strict definitions of specifically Byzantine emotions’ for understanding the textual expression of feeling.

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And all the people of the earth from its four corners hymned your presence in the theatre of life; at your appearance everyone decorated the City, having gathered garlands endowed with life crowning your prayers as pomegranates …23 The poem suggests that at the sight of Herakleios, ‘the deliverer of the world’ (κοσμορύστης, kosmorustēs) approaching Constantinople (Heraklias 1.70), not just the gates of a city but ‘the cosmic gates’ (τὰς κοσμικὰς θύρας, tas kosmikas thuras) open to welcome the victorious emperor holding aloft the icon of the Theotokos that served him well in battle and protected the capital (Heraklias 1.215–19). Sacred themes enmesh Herakleios’ defeat of Chosroes and Byzantium’s military triumph. Indeed, the opening lines of the Heraklias echo a liturgical atmosphere of worship insofar as they are reminiscent of Psalm 95 which, according to the Paschal Chronicle, was the same psalm that Herakleios quoted to announce the demise of Chosroes in a letter dispatched to the capital and proclaimed from the ambo of Hagia Sophia on the day of Pentecost in the year 628.24 However, the stars, the moon and the sun rejoice not in the righteousness of the Lord but in the defeat of the enemy (Heraklias 1.1–12). Although it would have been a fitting climax for Herakleios’ return and the triumphal procession of emperor and icon through Constantinople to culminate in a ceremony in Hagia Sophia where George of Pisidia’s poem was also recited as part of the formalities, it is more likely that the imperial panegyric was performed in the Great Palace.25 Nevertheless, the opening lines of the Heraklias are not without rhyme or reason. As well as being an allusion to Herakleios’ words and a mnemonic cue for the audience of their proclamation on the day of Pentecost, they also evoked the literature that was a cornerstone of Christian worship. Psalms and hymns were the scripts that taught people ‘how to feel, how to express their feelings, how to think about their own and other people’s feelings’.26 23  καὶ πᾶς ὁ τῆς γῆς δῆμος ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων ὕμνησε πλευρῶν ἐν θεάτρῳ τοῦ βίου˙ κοσμοῦσι πάντες σοῦ φανέντος τὴν Πόλιν, ἄνθη δὲ συλλέξαντες ἐψυχωμένα στέφουσιν ὑμᾶς ταῖς προσευχαῖς ὡς ῥόδοις˙ 24  Patrologia Graeca 92.1017–20, translated in Whitby and Whitby 1989, 182–3; I owe this reference to Frendo 1984, 181. 25  Hagia Sophia was the scene of many imperial processions but there is no evidence I am aware of that suggests imperial panegyric such as the Heraklias was performed in an ecclesiastical setting. 26  Wierzbicka 1999, 240.

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Their performance during liturgical rituals did not simply expound dogma but dramatised the human encounter with the divine.27 Indeed, for the person ‘singing’ the Psalms, ‘the words become like a mirror … to the emotions of the soul’ (τὰ ἑκάστης ψυχῆς κινήματα) and a source of ‘therapy and correction suited for each emotion’ (ἀλλὰ καὶ πῶς δεῖ λέγοντα καὶ ποιοῦντα θεραπεύειν τὸ πάθος).28 The Psalms also presented the Byzantine faithful with emotions for internalisation through a text and melody that becomes their own words and their own song through meditation and participation in devotional practices. In hearing the song, they may feel compunction and receive the words of others in the Psalm as being about their very selves.29 Indeed, as the Book of Ceremonies suggests (2.19, 20; 2012b: 607–15), Christian hymns formed an intrinsic part of the ritual celebrating the triumph of an emperor, even in secular spaces. Although the opening lines of the Heraklias drew together various emotional threads – war, worship and empire – they also sought to shape the emotions of the audience through enargeia.30 Listening to the performance of the poem, with its vivid description of creation rejoicing in the fall of the star-­ worshipping Chosroes, the audience was invited to enter into the narrative unfolding before them and feel as if they were more than mere spectators. The power of rhetoric to engender pathopoeia went beyond invoking memory – it activated imagination. Although the audience would have witnessed the emperor’s departure and return to Constantinople, the events that took place outside the city walls could only be imagined. As Longinus’ On the Sublime posited, the rhetorical and poetical deployment of phantasia had emotive power that could excite, enthral and astonish the listener.31 For Longinus, powerful rhetoric does not merely persuade the audience, but lures them into a kind of ecstasy, where emotion can blur the boundaries between past and present, between self and other. However, for the rhetoric to have been effective in engaging with the listener’s imagination, the mythological and scriptural allusions it invoked would have to have been familiar to the audience. As Webb has shown, the imagination at play in classical rhetoric that arouses the emotions is not the imagination modern audiences associate with Romantic literature:

27  See the recent groundbreaking monograph by Krueger, 2014. 28  Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus (1980, 111). 29  Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus (1980, 108). 30  According to Longinus (On the Sublime 15.1–2), phantasia describes the situation in which the rhetorician sees what he is performing and presents it with ‘vividness’ (ἐνάργεια, enargeia) bringing it ‘before the eyes of [the] audience’. 31  For the relationship between enargeia and phantasia in Longinus, see n. 29. However, Longinus here makes a distinction between the effects of poetry and prose.

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Rather, the ancient rhetoricians envisage a ‘mimetic’ imagination, based on a pre-existing reality and bounded by accepted truths and values which ensure that the orator could to some extent predict the reactions of his audience.32 By drawing on familiar realities and shared cultural points of reference, George of Pisidia’s rhetoric sought to take his audience on a journey through events that seemed to take place in the moment of performance despite belonging to the past. It did not simply recount events but vividly brought them forth. Being a deacon of Hagia Sophia, George was familiar with how the past and the future became a present reality in the mystagogy of the liturgy.33 His panegyric tempted the audience to feel as if they were protagonists in the dramatisation of Herakleios’ accomplishments on the battlefront – accomplishments that George of Pisidia endowed with a mythological and divine aura. Whether the Heraklias was performed from the ambo of Hagia Sophia or the Chrysotriklinos, its textual strategy of enmeshing the secular and the sacred sought to activate the religious emotions of the audience and imbue the emperor with divine characteristics: it reflected the Christianisation of imperial ritual that was evident in the religious nature of an emperor’s crowning; it echoed the juxtaposition of liturgical hymns with public acclamation and adulation; and it underscored the sacred images that adorned the walls of the domed octagonal throne-room of the Great Palace.34 It also sought to add to the sense of wonder that ceremonial splendour – music, costume and setting – engendered.35 Could the emperor have been seated on the throne below the icon of Christ and amidst other classical imagery during the performance of the Heraklias? As Trilling (1989) has argued, an extensive figural mosaic pavement (now kept in the Museum of Great Palace Mosaics) depicting scenes of animal violence and protection – representing the destructive power of human passions – would have been a highlight of the imperial palace and should be 32  Webb 1997, 124. 33   Sixth-century hymns by Romanos the Melodist such as On the Nativity and On the Holy Theophany, as well as the communion hymn on the mystical supper by Patriarch Eutychios, are examples of how biblical events were not simply remembered but celebrated as occurring ‘today’ in liturgical performance. See Krueger 2005, 292–97; Romanos the Melodist 1998, 3–22. On the notion of liturgical time, see Krueger 2015 and Olkinuora 2015, 139–42. On the eschatological dimension of the liturgy see Louth, 2004 and Meyendorff 1983, 218–20. 34  On the image of Christ in the Chrysotriklinos, see Mango 1986, 184 and Walker 2012, 159–61. 35  See Cameron 1987, 129–35.

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dated to the reign of Herakleios.36 Although it is unclear whether this would have been visible during the performance of the Heraklias, a mosaic of such significance and magnificence could not have been far from the minds of the audience. Indeed, the imagerial import of this mosaic, which fused notions of internal and external struggles, is animated by George of Pisidia’s rhetoric. The profound role of the emperor in protecting the empire and preserving the world by being himself a symbol of that sanctuary is the political subtext of both the poem and the mosaic. By protecting the empire, Herakleios has defended not only Constantinople but also the oecumene against the evil forces that threaten to overwhelm it. However, the human nature of the emperor cannot be so easily dispelled. By safeguarding his soul from the passions that would seek to destroy it – ‘the soul of the emperor is the soul of the empire’ (Trilling 1989, 31) – Herakleios has saved Byzantium (Heraklias 1.84–8): And now Noah of the new oecumene has found his own heart to be the ark, and having placed all of nature inside, he kept her protected by the armed orders against the flood of Chosroes.37 As George of Pisidia suggests here, and as Trilling notes, being a righteous emperor entails governing one’s own interiority: ‘the inner struggle for the empire’ takes place ‘in the soul of the emperor’ and the implications of victory in battle extend well beyond physical triumph.38 The interweaving of the sacred and secular in the rhetoric of imperial panegyric, which was reflected in the imagery decorating the Great Palace and the Chrysotriklinos, sought to construct a mosaic of religious and imperial emotions. Reimagining the performance of the Heraklias is not a simple endeavour. The text itself, the genre of panegyric and other sources such as the Book of Ceremonies have provided us with some important clues. Despite the fact that uncertainty remains about the precise location of the performance, the 36  However, archaeological evidence from the Austrian team who worked most recently on the restoration of the mosaic suggests it should be dated to the sixth century. I thank Mary Whitby for bringing this information to my attention. 37  καὶ νῦν Νῶε τῆς νέας οἰκουμένης κιβωτὸν εὗρε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ καρδίαν, καὶ πᾶσαν ἔνδον ἐντεθεικὼς τὴν φύσιν ἀφῆκεν αὐτὴν εἰς ἔνοπλα τάγματα ἐπὶ τῷ κατακλυσμῷ Χοσρόου φρουρουμένην. 38  Trilling 1989, 66.

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visuality of the text could have evoked sacred spaces or the majesty of the imperial palace in the absence of the one or the other. Enargeia could turn listeners into spectators. Together with phantasia, enargeia was also instrumental in shaping the emotions of George of Pisidia’s audience. Poetical imagery would have also shared the stage with sacred and imperial images. Perhaps most strikingly – if the Chrysotriklinos was the scene of the performance – the visual parallel of Herakleios and Christ in the throne-room would have been juxtaposed with the synkrisis of Herakleios and Herakles evoked by the rhetoric of the text. 3

Herakleios or Herakles?

The rhetorical art of comparison (synkrisis) was a traditional element of panegyric that George of Pisidia harnessed in the Heraklias and his other poems.39 Synkrisis imbued its subject with paradigmatic significance by invoking historical or mythological figures that were embedded in the audience’s memory and imagination. Perhaps the most celebrated comparison in the royal court of Herakleios, which was all but unavoidable given the similarity of names, was to the famous mythological hero who was ubiquitous in classical literature: Herakles. Although the dawn of Christianity ended the Greek and Roman worship of Herakles as an invincible god, it did not dispel his presence in the Christian imagination. Scorned by some Church Fathers as a demon plagued with vices, Herakles was nevertheless presented as prefiguration of Christ: as a god who became human, suffered and overcame death.40 The statues of Herakles in Constantinople and the images of Herakles found in the Via Latina catacombs, which juxtapose the mythical hero with biblical imagery, vividly illustrate this typology.41 Images of the son of Zeus also appeared on ‘ivory reliefs, silverware, gold glass, contorniates, terra sigillata vessels, bronze plates and casket mounts’ in the new Rome, suggesting that a religious polyvalence characterised the Christian imagination, which ‘comfortably assorted mythical and biblical images that seem so incompatible to later scholars’.42 The synkrisis of Herakles and Herakleios is a recurring image in George of Pisidia’s panegyrical poetry but it takes a sophisticated turn in the Heraklias 39  For further background on synkrisis see Maguire 1988, Whitby 1994. 40  See Stafford 2012, 202. For a discussion of St Augustine’s views of Herakles in context, see Anagnostou-Laoutides in this volume (chapter 2). 41  On the Christian catacombs in Rome, see Tatham in this volume; also Ferrua 1990. For the statues see Bassett 2004, esp. 152–4, 218–19 and 247–8. 42  Nagy 2016, 377, 393.

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(1.65–79). Ostensibly, the poem compares the labours of Herakles and his status as a god with Herakleios’ achievements. The emperor has journeyed to the gates of Hades, vanquished the guardian of the infernal regions, saved the universe, and reclaimed the golden apples (i.e. the cities) that were taken by the Persians. Although not explicit in the text – indeed George follows the initial comparison with a synkrisis of Herakleios and Noah (Heraklias 1.84–9) – the palpable subtext is the Christ-like character of the emperor. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus had gradually embedded the tale of Christ’s descent into Hades and the character of Satan in the Christian imagination of late antiquity. By the seventh century, these were ‘part of the resurrection celebrations throughout the empire’.43 Indeed, as Agapitos and Cutler note, ‘Herakles dragging Kerberos from Hades provided a model for Christ’s raising of Adam’.44 Although the political motivations for the image of Herakleios that George of Pisidia constructed with his rhetoric to mediate ‘the tension between Heraclius’ military success and the problems in Constantinople’ (Whitby 1998, 263) have been previously canvassed, the role of pathopoeia in perpetuating the myth of imperial divinity and sustaining public morale in a time of crisis is significant. Panegyric sought to forge a community of feeling, fusing a community of believers and an imperial community through Christian narrative, familiar stories and courtly ritual. Against the backdrop of war, amidst an ‘economic crisis’ and ‘continuing dissension among subjects’, George of Pisidia’s Heraklias sought to counter emotions of fear, anger and despair with the joy of triumph and the awe of marvels. The emotions poetry sought to evoke became meaningful within an affective space and intersubjective context where the audience experienced the performance of the Heraklias. This performance was not a monologue but a dialogue. It animated past events, summoned mythological and biblical characters, and dramatised the spectacle of Chosroes’ fall, all the while inviting the audience to enter the panegyrical drama and feel the emotions of the protagonists. George of Pisidia’s rhetoric sought to allay fear, anger and despair by arousing positive emotions his audience could internalize. Although it does not feature prominently in the Heraklias, George of Pisidia’s audience would have been familiar with the poet superimposing the classical image of Orpheus onto the emperor from the performance of an earlier panegyric composition.45 George of Pisidia builds on the familiar theme of taming wild beasts with the power of music with Herculean imagery of Herakleios defeating the dragon, the hydra and the universe-destroying lion 43  See Frank 2005, 171 and also the helpful bibliography on 178, n. 42. 44  Agapitos and Cutler 1991, 917. 45  See Expeditio Persica 2.163–9 and Bellum Avaricum 101–7 (George of Pisidia 1960, 104–5; 180–1). I owe these references to Whitby 1994, 211.

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(Heraklias 1.74–7). While these mythical beasts are images of tyranny, underlying notions of overthrowing heresy and defeating evil is the idea of overcoming disorderly emotions. The hydra in particular becomes an allegory for unmasterable desire and unquenchable rage. George of Pisidia had already elsewhere explicitly linked the defeat of enemy forces with overcoming rampant emotions.46 In the Heraklias, the emperor’s strength and wisdom become signifiers for the emotions George of Pisida wishes to arouse in his audience. The peace and salvation that flow from the ‘other world’ (κόσμος ἄλλος, kosmos allos) and the ‘new creation’ (νεωτέρα κτίσις, neōtera ktisis) which Herakleios has wrought through his deeds, sanctifies and protects the oecumene in the ark of the emperor’s heart (Heraklias 1.83–5). Just as the emperor safeguards the empire from external foes, through the performance of panegyric, George of Pisidia entreated his listeners to safeguard their souls from the emotions that would seek to destroy an empire from within. Although the playful fusion of names – Herakles and Herakleios – evolves into a sophisticated synkrisis of the two figures in the Heraklias, it climaxes in the Christic vision of the emperor that George of Pisidia celebrates. While this is not an overt analogy, the salvific dimension of the emperor’s triumph in war as ‘the deliverer of the world’ (κοσμορύστης, kosmorustēs, Heraklias 1.70) and ‘Noah of the new oecumene’ (Heraklias 1.84) is evident (Heraklias 1.80–2): The source of the unshining evening has passed, light has subdued and filled the darkness and now the world is being endowed with a second life.47 This passage echoes not only the opening lines of Genesis but also John 1:548 where the Incarnation of the Logos shines light into the darkness and inaugurates the ‘new creation’ (καινὴ κτίσις, kainē ktisis)49 that is fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ. By infusing the military exploits of the emperor with sacred meaning, George of Pisidia’s panegyric sought to evoke religious emotions and reinforce the Byzantine image of a puissant emperor as God’s viceroy on earth. 46  See Expeditio Persica 3.341–6, 409–10. Once again, I owe these references to Mary Whitby, see n. 41. 47  παρῆλθε πηγὴ τῆς ἀφεγγοῦς ἑσπέρας, τὸ φῶς ὑπέστη καὶ διέστη τὸ σκότος και δεύτερος νῦν κοσμοποιείται βίος. 48  The opening chapter of the Gospel of John would have been familiar to the audience as it was the scriptural passage read during the feast of Pascha. See Mateos 1963, 94. 49  2 Corinthians 5:17.

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4 Conclusion This chapter has sought to reimagine elements of the performance of the Heraklias in seventh-century Constantinople. While such an endeavour may appear somewhat foolhardy, the significance of panegyric for the history of emotions in Byzantium cannot be explored through a textual analysis alone. Performativity is the key to unlocking the affective stylistics and emotive power of a text, as well as overcoming the Cartesian dualism that inflicts a dichotomy between mind and body in some modern approaches to the study of emotions. After all, emotions are embodied phenomena. In the case of the Heraklias, they formed part of a genre (panegyric) that mobilised, named, communicated and regulated emotions in the courtly rituals of Byzantium.50 The poetry of George of Pisidia mediated a period of crisis within the Byzantine empire – the external threat of the Persian invasion as well as domestic strife – by presenting Herakleios as a supernatural saviour. However, George also mediates this crisis by mediating, allaying and arousing the emotions of the Byzantines through devices such as enargeia and synkrisis. His poetry refracted and dramatised the story of Herakleios’ accomplishments through the prism of mythology and theology, engendering a story that did not merely retell historical events. It vividly presented the emperor as a figure clothed in myth and divinity, provoking the listener to actively and intimately engage with the characters of the tale and enter into its narrative milieu. George of Pisidia’s synkrisis of the emperor and Herakles, the legendary hero of Greek mythology, evidently followed a practice that was de rigueur in the court of Herakleios and a hallmark of the imperial cult more generally, but it also evoked the Christian refashioning of Herakles as a Christic conqueror. The popular imagination of Byzantium had not abandoned the enduring allure of the son of Zeus. Images of Herakles continued to pervade Constantinople for many centuries after the rise of Christianity. However, the Byzantines did not see their classical heritage of mythology and philosophy as inimical to their liturgical worship and Christian theology. As Basil the Great had argued a few centuries earlier, in the fourth chapter of his Address to Youth, Christian interaction with the richness of antiquity was possible through the parable of the bee: For just as in the case of other beings, the enjoyment of flowers is limited to their fragrance and colour (whereas bees possess the power to extract honey from them as well), so it is possible here also for those who are 50  For further insights on emotions as a practice, see Scheer 2012.

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looking for something more than pleasure and enjoyment in such writers to derive profit for their souls.51 Indeed, in the next chapter of the text, Basil presented Herakles at the crossroads of virtue and vice as an illustration of moral discernment. Thus, it was not so much a question of whether Herakles was inside or outside the church; Christianity embraced the Christic precursors scattered throughout his adventures as easily as the public arena celebrated his heroic exploits.52 For panegyric to arouse and allay the audience’s emotions, it had to grasp feelings that were socially, culturally and even theologically constructed in the Byzantine milieu. And it was this intricate mosaic of the mythological, the divine and the imperial that was the cornerstone of George of Pisidia’s pathopoeia. Bibliography Agapitos, P. and A. Cutler (1991) ‘Herakles’, in Kazhdan, A.P. (ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, New York: Oxford University Press, 917–18. Athanasius of Alexandria (1980) The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, Gregg, R.C. (trans.), New York: Paulist Press. Austin, J.L. (1975) How to Do Things with Words, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Basil the Great (2011) Address to Youth: on how they might benefit from classical Greek literature, Sydney: St Andrew’s Orthodox Press. Bassett, S. (2004) The Urban Image of Late-Antique Constantinople, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourbouhakis, E. (2010) ‘Rhetoric and performance’, in Stephenson, P. (ed.) The Byzantine World, New York: Routledge, 175–87. Butler, J. (1990) ‘Performative act and gender constitution: an essay in phenomenology and feminist theory’, in Case, S.E. (ed.) Performing Feminisms: feminist critical theory and theatre, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 270–82. Cameron, A. (1987) ‘The construction of court ritual: the Byzantine Book of Ceremonies’, in Cannadine, D. and Price, S. (eds) Rituals of Royalty: power and ceremonial in traditional societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 106–36. Constantine Porphyrogennetos (2012a) The Book of Ceremonies: book I, Moffatt, A. and Tall, M. (trans.), Canberra: Australian Association of Byzantine Studies. Constantine Porphyrogennetos (2012b) The Book of Ceremonies: book II, Moffatt, A. and Tall, M. (trans.), Canberra: Australian Association of Byzantine Studies. 51  Basil the Great 2011, 29. 52  For an exploration of Herakles as a way into the Church, see Allan in this volume.

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Derrida, J. and Wolfreys, J. (1998) The Derrida Reader: writing performances, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Dixon, T. (2011) ‘Revolting passions’, Modern Theology 27(2): 298–312. Ferrua, A. (1990) Catacombe Sconosciute: una pinacoteca del IV secolo sotto la Via Latina, Florence: Nardini. Frank, G. (2005) ‘Dialogue and deliberation: the sensory self in the hymns of Romanos the Melodist’, in Brakke, D., Satlow, M.L. and Wetzman, S. (eds) Religion and the Self in Antiquity, Indianapolis: Bloomington, 163–79. Frendo, J.D.C. (1984) ‘The poetic achievement of George of Pisidia’, in Moffatt, A. (ed.) Maistor: Classical, Byzantine and Renaissance studies for Robert Browning, Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 159–87. Frendo, J.D.C. (1986) ‘Classical and Christian influences in the Heracliad of George of Pisidia’, The Classical Bulletin 62(4): 53–61. George of Pisidia (1960) Giorgio di Pisidia Poemi: panegirici epici, vol. 1, Ettal: BuchKunstverlag. Gross, D.M. (2006) The Secret History of Emotion: from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to modern brain science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harris, O.J.T. and Sørensen, T.F. (2010) ‘Rethinking emotion and material culture’, Archaeological Dialogues 17(2): 145–63. Kazhdan, A.P. and Cutler, A. (1991) ‘Emotions’, in Kazhdan A.P. (ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. 1, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 691–2. Kennedy, G.A. (2003) Progymnasmata: Greek textbooks of prose composition and rhetoric, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Konstan, D. (2007) ‘Rhetoric and emotion’, in Worthington, I. (ed.) A Companion to Greek Rhetoric, Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 411–23. Krueger, D. (2005) ‘Christian piety and practice in the sixth century’, in Maas, M. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 291–315. Krueger, D. (2014) Liturgical Subjects: Christian ritual, Biblical narrative and the formation of self in Byzantium, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Krueger, D. (2015) ‘Liturgical time and Holy Land reliquaries in early Byzantium’, in Hahn, C. and Klein, H.A. (eds) Saints and Sacred Matter: the cult of relics in Byzantium and beyond, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 111–32. Longinus (1995) On the Sublime, Fyfe, W.H. and Russell, D. (trans), in Halliwell, S., Russell, D. and Innes, D.C. (eds) Aristotle, Poetics: Longinus, On the Sublime: Demetrius, On Style. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 159–307. Louth, A. (2004) ‘The Ecclesiology of Saint Maximos the Confessor’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 4(2): 109–20. Maguire, H. (1988) ‘The art of comparing in Byzantium’, The Art Bulletin, 70(1), 88–103.

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Mango, C.A. (1986) The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: sources and documents, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Marciniak, P. (2007) ‘Byzantine theatron – a place of performance?’, in Grünbart, M. (ed.), Theatron: Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter / rhetorical culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Berlin: De Gruyter, 277–85. Mateos, J. (1963) Le Typicon de la Grande Église: Tome II, Le Cycle des Fêtes Mobiles, Rome: Pontificum Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. McNamer, S. (2007) ‘Feeling’, in Strohm, P. (ed.) Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature: Middle English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 241–57. Meyendorff, J. (1983) Byzantine Theology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, New York: Fordham University Press. Moore, S.V. (2013) ‘Experiencing mid-Byzantine mortuary practice: shrouding the dead’, in Nesbitt, C. and Jackson, M. (eds) Experiencing Byzantium: papers from the forty-fourth Spring symposium of Byzantine Studies, Newcastle and Durham, April 2011, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 195–212. Mullett, M. (1984) ‘Aristocracy and patronage in the literary circles of Comnenian Constantinople’, in Angold, M. (ed.) The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX to XIII Centuries, Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 173–201. Mullett, M. (2003) ‘Rhetoric, theory and the imperative of performance: Byzantium and now’, in Jeffreys, E. (ed.) Rhetoric in Byzantium: papers from the thirty-fifth Spring symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, University of Oxford, March 2001, Aldershot, Hants.: Routledge, 151–70. Nagy, L. (2016) ‘Myth and salvation in the fourth century: representations of Hercules in Christian contexts’, in Salzman, M., Sághy, M. and Testa, R.L. (eds) Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: conflict, competition, and coexistence in the fourth century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 377–98. Nussbaum, M.C. (2001) Upheavals of Thought: the intelligence of emotions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olkinuora, J. (2015) Byzantine Hymnography for the Feast of the Entrance of the Theo­ tokos: an intermedial approach, Helsinki: Suomen patristinen seura ry. Plamper, J. (2015) The History of Emotions: an introduction, Tribe, K. (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Romanos the Melodist (1998) On the Life of Christ: chanted sermons by the great sixthcentury poet and singer St. Romanos, Lash, E. (trans.), Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Rosenwein, B.H. (2006) Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Ithaca, NJ and London: Cornell University Press. Scheer, M. (2012) ‘Are emotions a kind of practice (and is that what makes them have a history)? A Bourdieuian approach to understanding emotion’, History and Theory 51(2): 193–220.

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Searle, J.R. (1969) Speech Acts: an essay in the philosophy of language, London: Cambridge University Press. Sorabji, R. (2002) Emotion and Peace of Mind: from Stoic agitation to Christian temptation, New York: Oxford University Press. Stafford, E.J. (2012) Herakles, Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Toth, I. (2007) ‘Rhetorical theatron in Byzantium: the example of Palaiologan imperial orations’, in Grünbart, M. (ed.) Theatron: Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter / rhetorical culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Berlin: De Gruyter, 429–48. Trilling, J. (1989) ‘The soul of the Empire: style and meaning in the mosaic pavement of the Byzantine Imperial palace in Constantinople’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43: 27–72. Valiavitcharska, V. (2013) Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: the sound of persuasion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, A. (2012) The Emperor and the World: exotic elements and the imaging of middle Byzantine imperial power, ninth to thirteenth centuries C.E., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Webb, R. (1997) ‘Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric’, in Braund, S.M. and Gill, C. (eds) The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112–27. Webb, R. (2009) Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice, Aldershot, Hants.: Ashgate. Whitby, M. (1994) ‘A new image for a new age: George of Pisidia on the Emperor Heraclius’, in Dabrowa, E. (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, Krakow: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 197–225. Whitby, M. (1998) ‘Defender of the Cross: George of Pisidia on the Emperor Heraclius and his deputies’, in Whitby, M. (ed.) The Propaganda of Power: the role of panegyric in late antiquity, Leiden: Brill, 247–73. Whitby, M. (2003) ‘George of Pisidia and the persuasive word: words, words, words …’, in Jefferys, E. (ed.), Rhetoric in Byzantium: papers from the thirty-fifth spring symposium of Byzantine studies, Exeter College, University of Oxford, March 2001, Aldershot, Hants.: Ashgate, 173–86. Whitby, M. (2010) ‘Rhetorical questions’, in James, L. (ed.), A Companion to Byzantium, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 239–50. Whitby, M. and Whitby, M. (1989) Chronicon Paschale 284–628 AD, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Wierzbicka, A. (1999) Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: diversity and universals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

chapter 6

Herakles in Byzantium: a (Neo)Platonic Perspective Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides When considering the survival of Herakles and his tradition in Byzantine literature, the figure of Digenis Akritas, the hero of numerous folksongs and a twelfth-century epic extolling the centuries-long struggle of Byzantine border lords against the Arabs, springs effortlessly to mind.1 The episode of Digenis’ battle against Thanatos (Death) has been regarded as the most obvious remodelling of one of Herakles’ parerga, his alleged fight against Death in order to recover Alkestis, the wife of his obliging host Admetos, from the Underworld.2 Herakles, however, also appears in Byzantine philosophical treatises, often in connection with Prodikos’ tale about the hero’s choice at the crossroads as well as in works that debate or utilize Platonic and Neoplatonic concepts, an area that has received minute scholarly attention so far,3 despite Harris’ observation that ‘Greek Christianity has always been more Neoplatonic than Latin Christianity, likely due to the initial impact made upon it by Origen of Alexandria’.4 This statement ought, in my view, also to acknowledge the influence of Clement, Origen’s teacher, whose thesis regarding our assimilation to God (homoiosis) bears clear evidence of his indebtedness to Plato.5 Accordingly, this chapter will trace the importance of Herakles in Platonic and Neoplatonic thought and its reception by Byzantine philosophers to the fifteenth century, shedding light on a totally-overlooked aspect of Herakles’ reception. Although Herakles is never truly transformed into a Christian hero or a consummate thinker, his toils, his apotheosis and his post-mortem experience remain powerful exegetical tools in the hands of late-antique and later Byzantine philosophers who eagerly model their methodologies on Plato and his commentators. 1  See, for example, Lord 1980, passim and more recently, Jouanno 2016, 261–71 summarising previous bibliography. 2  Eur. Alk. 840–54; cf. Hom. Il. 5.395–7, for another adventure of Herakles during which he was reputed to have wounded Hades. Loeb Classical Library editions are used for all classical texts (details in the bibliography). 3  Siniossoglou 2011, 371 has a single reference to Herakles in his discussion of Plethon Gemistos’ view of sovereignty, while Herakles is not mentioned at all in Mariev 2017. 4  Harris 1976, 13, also pointing out the fact that both Damascius and Simplicius had returned to Byzantium by 533, less than five years after Justinian closed the Athenian School of Neoplatonism in 529. Yet, cf. Hankinson 2004, 3–4 who expresses doubts about Simplicius’ return. 5  Anagnostou-Laoutides 2018, 70–71. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421530_008

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Herakles in Plato and the Neoplatonic Tradition of the East

In Apology 22A Plato describes Socrates as boldly comparing his philosophical labours to those of Herakles;6 having undertaken an investigation at the god’s request, he tells us, he has found that those who enjoy a great reputation tend to be morally deficient, while those who have less of a reputation (an obvious reference to himself), are often proven to be far more sensible. To elaborate his point, he adds: ‘I must relate to you my wandering as I performed certain labours, in order that the oracle might be proven to be unquestionable’ (Ap. 22A6–8; my trans. based on Fowler 1914. LCL 36.). Here Socrates almost certainly refers to Herakles’ labours through his use of the word πόνοι (ponoi), typically employed in poetry to describe the hero’s twelve athloi (contests);7 besides both characters had allegedly received their missions from the Delphic oracle and, carrying their weapons (Herakles his military attire, Socrates his method of cross-examination), they confronted monsters (the wild beasts Herakles had to face during his labours, the ignorance of the Athenians in Socrates’ case) and both received an apotheosis (a literal one in the case of Herakles, a metaphorical one in the case of Socrates through the writings of Plato).8 Hence, it could be argued that in persevering with his divine mission despite the doubts expressed by his fellow-citizens Socrates poses as a new Herakles, perhaps even a better Herakles.9 Clement, who had evidently read the Apology10 and quotes Plato extensively in the Stromata, uses ponoi systematically to refer to the challenges one needs to overcome in order to acquire wisdom.11 Furthermore, he interprets the twelve labours of Herakles allegorically, as the prerequisite for releasing the soul from this entire world.12 His interpretation is inspired by Plato’s use of 6  Cf. Jackson 1990, 378–81. 7  See, for example, Segal 1999, 322, 346 on the use of the word ponoi in Sophocles’ Philoctetes; cf. Euripides’ HF 388, 427; also, see Loraux 1982, esp. 172–78 with Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 430–9. 8  Colaiaco 2013, 62. 9  Rappe 2000, 288; also, Bussanich 2009, 205–6; cf. Montiglio 2005, 153. 10  For example, see Str. 4.11.80.4. 11  For example, in the fourth book of the Stromata he cites Simonides, Pindar, and Aeschylus on virtue as the prize of enduring hardship (4.7.48.4–49.3). 12  Str. 5.14.103.4–6:   “This Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre, rose again to life in twelve days. He alludes perhaps to the resurrection, or perhaps to the fact that the path for souls to ascension lies through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he himself says, that the descending pathway to birth is the same. In the same way we are to understand the twelve labours of Herakles, after which the soul obtains release from this entire world.” (Trans. Coxe 1956, ANF 2.469.)

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the myth of Zoroaster in Republic (614b–621b) and the association of Zoroaster’s resurrection after twelve days with the twelve signs of the zodiac through which souls pass during their descent and ascent from their bodies. Clement applies the same symbolism to the twelve labours of Herakles which are now cast as prerequisites for his final return to Heaven (his apotheosis). Still, however, urging the Greeks to abandon their pagan superstitions in his Exhortation, Clement (as much as Origen) felt unable to accommodate Herakles further into his theological scheme. In the next century, Eusebius of Caesarea closely paraphrases Clement’s interpretation of the twelve labours in his Praeparatio Evangelica (13.13.30).13 Later in the Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius, citing Atticus,14 refers to virtue as a Heraklean doctrine that should not be challenged by misfortune since virtue per se is not a precondition for eudaimonia.15 Instead, people must trust divine providence and appreciate that evil fits god’s plan for achieving virtue:16 in other words, misfortune can be the very occasion through which individuals acquire and/or exercise virtue, a notion that echoes Herakles’ Stoic avatar. Nevertheless, as Merlan has pointed out,17 Eusebius 13  “The same author, in the tenth Book of the Republic, mentions Er, the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth, who is Zoroaster. So Zoroaster himself writes the following: ‘Zoroaster the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth, having been slain in war, writes down here all things which when in Hades I learned from the gods’. Now Plato says that this Zoroaster when laid upon the funeral pile on the twelfth day after death came to life again. Perhaps he alludes not to the resurrection, but to the circumstance that the way for souls to their reception above is through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and Plato himself says that their way of return to birth is the same. In this way we must understand also that the labours of Hercules were said to be twelve, after which the soul obtains its release from this world entirely.” (Trans. Gifford 1903, 730.)   For Eusebius’ role in establishing a comparison between Herakles and Samson, see Bonnefoy 1992, 166. 14  Atticus fr. 2, esp. 113–18. For the influence of Atticus on Plotinus and Christian thinkers such as Origen, Gregory Nazianzus and Michael Psellos, see Dufour 2008, 135, who, nevertheless, doubts that Atticus influenced Plotinus’ thought on the autarky of virtue, given that the theme was dear to the Stoics and not unfamiliar to certain Platonists. 15  “In what way then can anyone who has been reared in these doctrines and delighted with them either himself assent to the teaching of Plato or ever confirm others in it? For it is not possible that anyone starting from these principles should accept these other Herculean and divine dogmas, that virtue is a strong and noble thing, and never fails to give happiness, nor is ever deprived of it: but though poverty and disease and infamy and torture and pitch and the cross, yea, through all the disasters of tragedy come in together like a flood, still the righteous man is happy and blessed.” (PE 15.4.16; trans. Gifford 1903, 858.)    Also, see Clark 2016, 140–3. 16  P E 15.5.1. 17  Merlan 1976, 75.

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appreciated the ideological similarities between Atticus and Plotinus, certainly Plotinus’ belief in the ‘autarky of inner perfection for happiness’ (cf. Enn. 1.4.[46]4.23–24) and thus, he expanded his discussion precisely by excerpting Plotinus.18 The latter was especially interested in the question of the soul’s memory and debated it by referring to Herakles’ image which, according to Homer (Od. 11.601–626), resided in Hades while his actual soul had been transported in Heaven.19 By drawing on Plato’s Phaedo (especially 80e2–81a1)20 and through the example of Herakles’ divinized soul, Plotinus argued that the soul retains its memory after death, when it maintains even the slightest connection with its corporeal substance; of course, this could never be an appropriate model for the sage who, like Socrates, ought to have no memory of himself.21 One could argue that Plotinus is offering here a careful criticism of Plato’s and Heraclitus’ earlier and enthusiastic evaluation of Herakles ‘as a sensible man and an initiate of heavenly wisdom who brought to light philosophy previously plunged into the depths of fog’.22 Heraclitus, whom Plotinus cites often, had also allegorised Herakles’ labours with special emphasis on his cleaning of the stables of Augeias: ‘There was another labour too, not properly so called, in which he cleared out the mass of dung – in other words, the foulness that disfigures humanity …’,23 an episode Porphyry was also familiar with.24 Later thinkers pick up Plotinus’ notion of practical virtue as a way of ascending to the gods but apply a more positive spin to it, rather than focusing on the division between Herakles’ immaterial soul and his material eidolon. Hence, Porphyry, who believes in the double nature of the soul,25 refers to Herakles as ‘a man 18  Enn. 4.7.[2]85.1–50 = Eus. PE 15.10. 19  Enn. 1.1.[53]12.32–40. Gertz 2011, 56. 20  “[I]f it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, because it never willingly associated with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered itself into itself alone, since this has been its constant study – but this means nothing else than that it pursued philosophy rightly and really practised being in a state of death: or is not this the practice of death?” (Pl. Ph. 80e2-81a1, trans. Fowler 1914, LCL 36, 281.) 21  Clark 2016, 122 and 139–41; also, see Pépin 1969, passim; Sheppard 1980, 135; Allen 2002, 169–71. 22  Hom. Prob. 33.1; cf. Litwa 2014, 99. 23  Hom. Prob. 33.6; trans. Konstan and Russell 2005, 61. 24  See 391F. 25  M  yth. et Myst. 345F18–24: ὅττι μὲν ἀθανάτη ψυχὴ μετὰ σῶμα προβαίνει, / γιγνώσκεις, σοφίης