The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance 9004173579, 9789004173576

Citation preview

The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance

Technology and Change in History Edited by

Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott

VOLUME 11

The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance Edited by

Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

Cover illustration: Mausoleum Galla Placidia in Ravenna (425–450), a mosaic with doves. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The nature and function of water, baths, bathing, and hygiene from antiquity through the Renaissance / edited by Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott. p. cm. — (Technology and change in history, ISSN 1385-920X ; v. 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17357-6 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Water and civilization. 2. Europe—Civilization. 3. Europe—Social life and customs. 4. Water—Social aspects—Europe—History. 5. Water-use—Social aspects—Europe—History. 6. Baths—Europe—History. 7. Bathing customs— Europe—History. 8. Hygiene—Europe—History. 9. Europe—Intellectual life. I. Kosso, Cynthia. II. Scott, Anne, 1958– III. Title. IV. Series. CB482.N38 2009 940—dc22

2008053613

ISSN 1385-920x ISBN 978 90 04 17357 6 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. 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. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters 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. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................ Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott

1

PART ONE

GENDER ROLES, ATTITUDES, PRACTICES, AND INNOVATIONS IN BATHS AND BATHING River Raptures: Containment and Control of Water in Greek and Roman Constructions of Identity ................................... Rabun Taylor

21

Archimedes, the North Baths at Morgantina, and Early Developments in Vaulted Construction ................................. Sandra K. Lucore

43

Female Bathers and the Emergence of the Female Nude in Greek Art ................................................................................ Robert F. Sutton, Jr.

61

Women at the Fountain and the Well: Imagining Experience ... Cynthia K. Kosso and Kevin Lawton “Take, Skamandros, My Virginity”: Ideas of Water in Connection with Rites of Passage in Greece, Modern and Ancient ............................................................................. Evy Johanne Håland Baths, Scrubs, and Cuddles: How to Bathe Young Infants According to Simon De Vallambert (1564) ........................... Hélène Cazes

87

109

149

vi

contents

Polemicizing Women’s Bathing Among Medieval and Early Modern Muslims and Christians ........................................... Alexandra Cuffel

171

PART TWO

WATER AND THE FORMATION OF IDENTITY AND POLICY Earth and Water: The Foundations of Sovereignty in Ancient Thought .................................................................................. Mark Munn

191

The Legacy of Hadrian: Roman Monumental Civic Fountains in Greece ................................................................ Brenda Longfellow

211

The Divine River: Ancient Roman Identity and the Image of Tiberinus ............................................................................ Gretchen E. Meyers

233

Cisterns in the Astynomoi Law from Pergamon .......................... Sara Saba “We and Those Waters of the Sea Are One”: Baptism, Bathing, and the Construction of Identity in Late Ancient Babylonia .......................................................... Scott John McDonough

249

263

PART THREE

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WATER SOURCES AND RESOURCES Natural Water Resources and the Sacred in Attica .................. Etienne Dunant “Beautiful and Useful”: The Water Supply of Pisidian Antioch and the Development of the Roman Colony .......... E.J. Owens and Dr. Mehmet Ta lıalan

277

301

contents Running Water: Advances in Urban Water Supply during the Roman Empire ....................................................................... Deborah Chatr Aryamontri

vii 319

Villas and Aquatic Culture in Late Roman Spain .................... John W. Stephenson

337

The Hydrologic Cycle in Bede’s De Natura Rerum ...................... Lin Ferrand

361

The Challenge for a Medieval Center of Industrial Growth: Ypres and the Drinking-Water Problem ................................ Paul Trio

381

PART FOUR

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY IMAGERY: WATER IN MEDIEVAL THROUGH EARLY MODERN CULTURES Come Hell or High Water: Aqueous Moments in Medieval Epic, Romance, Allegory, and Fabliau ................................... Anne Scott

407

Magical Fountains in Middle English Romance ....................... Misty Rae Urban

427

Sea Change in Shakespeare’s Othello .......................................... Ruth Stevenson

453

From Spiritual Necessity to Instrument of Torture: Water in the Middle Ages ...................................................................... Charles W. Connell

463

The “Water of Thomas Becket”: Water as Medium, Metaphor, and Relic ............................................................... Alyce A. Jordan

479

“Almost Miraculous”: Lord North and the Healing Waters of Tunbridge Wells ...................................................................... Ronald W. Cooley

501

viii

contents

Waters of Paradise: A Brief Hydroloquy on the Gardens of Spain and New Spain ............................................................. Irene Matthews

511

Index ...........................................................................................

533

INTRODUCTION Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott Agrippa, during his aedileship, united the Marcian and the Virgin Aqueducts and repaired and strengthened the channels of others. He also formed 700 wells, in addition to 500 fountains, and 130 reservoirs, many of them magnificently adorned. [. . .] If we take into account the abundant supply of water to the public, for baths, ponds, canals, household purposes, gardens, places in the suburbs and country houses, and then reflect upon the distances that are traversed from the sources on the hills, the arches that have been constructed, the mountains pierced, the valleys leveled, we must perforce admit that there is nothing more worthy of our admiration throughout the whole universe. Pliny, Natural History, 36.24.121–1231

The Roman scholar Pliny extols the beauty and utility of water and its technologies in this passage from the Natural History. He puts into words the awe and wonder that are revealed through the discoveries and ideas in this book, which incorporates the results of our conference on the Nature and Function of Water, held in Flagstaff, Arizona in October 2006. The papers given at the conference disseminated an impressive amount of historical, literary, and archaeological research, generated theoretical debate, ranged across many disciplines, and covered hundreds of years of literature, physical evidence, and other cultural artifacts. These essays, now revised and greatly expanded, offer scholars, teachers, and students a new basis for discussing attitudes toward, and technological expertise concerning, water in antiquity through the Early Modern period. Through these various studies, some of them interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, we consider a chronologically lengthy period and a variety of regions in the world in order to 1 The English translation and the following Latin come from Bill Thayer’s LacusCurtius website, which uses for Books 23–37 the Teubner Latin edition from 1897, (http:// penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/home.html: Agrippa vero in aedilitate adiecta Virgine aqua ceterisque conrivatis atque emendatis lacus DCC fecit, praeterea salientes D, castella CXXX, complura et cultu magnifica . . . quod si quis diligentius aestumaverit abundantiam aquarum in publico, balineis, piscinis, euripis, domibus, hortis, suburbanis villis, spatia aquae venientis, exstructos arcus, montes perfossos, convalles aequatas, fatebitur nil magis mirandum fuisse in toto orbe terrarum.

2

cynthia kosso and anne scott

make visible the ancient, medieval, and Early Modern technologies and ways of thinking underlying many significant topics, including the historical development of water management as well as the thematic and ideological ramifications of water use and imagery gleaned from documents, art, archaeological evidence, and works of literature. This volume covers topics including Gender Roles, Attitudes, Practices, and Innovations in Baths and Bathing; Water and the Formation of Identity and Policy; Ancient and Medieval Water Sources and Resources; and Religious and Literary Imagery: Uses and Abuses of Water in Medieval through Early Modern Cultures. An examination of these rewarding and nuanced essays emphasizes that just as it is clear to us now, it was also clear to cultures in the past that water is responsible for life on earth. Ancient and medieval societies knew that water moves through the body, the land, and the spirit. It is (and was) a means of transport, has nutrient value, has social value, and provides a way to cleanse, heal, and purify both literally and figuratively. Water’s symbolic nature is rich with tradition throughout the eras covered in this volume. The ancient Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans employed water and its imagery as symbols of power, prestige, purity, and piety. Their gods controlled and inhabited the rivers, springs, and seas of the Mediterranean basin. Their cities depended upon good sources of water, many sanctuaries were built near springs and rivers, and women and men gathered at fountains and wells. Ancient medicine was tightly bound to ideas about water and the balance it provided to any system, religious or physical. Ideas about water as a tool for therapy, religious conversion, punishment, and pleasure all continued into the medieval and Early Modern periods as well. Baths, healing spas, and hot springs were available, in one form or other, to infants, women, peasants, nobles, Christians, and Muslims. Holy water and mineral baths lured both sinners and saints into cities clambering for prestige and notoriety. Technologies continued to be developed in order to harness the powers of water and to maintain control over this essential substance. And in the revered literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, water became indispensable to the authors’ constructs of identity, loss, growth, and redemption. Much of our literature, art, archeological remains, and technology bears witness to the importance of water, this “essential element for all human life,”2 and its nature and function throughout history. Indeed, the

2

http://www.culture.gr/6/69/696/e69602.html.

introduction

3

last few decades have seen an increase in studies that reveal how societies think about, write about, understand, and control water, especially from the perspectives of classical antiquity and modern water use (particularly modern, because “conflicts over the control and use of water have ranged historically, and continue to range across local, institutional and international boundaries,” according to the International Water History Association). Issues of water use and rights resonate today as they have in the past. In modern Turkey, for example, water rights have recently been disputed with neighboring countries over the building of Ataturk Dam, which sits on the Euphrates river that supplies neighbors Syria and Iraq with a large part of their water supplies. This example crosses from the political to the historical, because archaeologists have argued that the dam will (and indeed, did) destroy ancient cities. In addition, water conferences abound—so many, in fact, that there are several websites devoted to documenting them (e.g., http://www.conferencealerts.com/water.htm, http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/meetings .shtml and http://www.conferencealerts.com/water.htm). Websites also indicate the importance of the subject per se as well, but we mention only two: “Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome,” which is a lovely source that provides a cartographic history of water infrastructure and urbanism in Rome; and the “Hellenic Ministry of Culture’s Water of Life” site.3 Recent conferences point to an international interest in historical water issues and topics. The Institute for Medieval History hosted “The Culture of Water: History and Historical Preservation of Hydraulic Landscapes in Spain, New Mexico, Holland, and the Southwestern United States” in April 2000. The International Water History Association (IWHA) has hosted several conferences including the “Conference on the Role of Water in History and Development” in August 2001; “Ideas of Water, History of Water: Science and Technology, History of Water: Law, Economics and Politics” and June 2007, “Pasts and Futures of Water.” In March 2003 the “1st International Conference on Hydrology and Water Resources in Asia Pacific Region,” which also contributed to the Third World Water Forum, was held in Kyoto. The International Medieval Congress in 2006 included a session titled “Water and Town in the Late Middle Ages.” There was also the 11th International Conference on Water in Antiquity, Tel-Aviv University

3

http://www.culture.gr/6/69/696/e69602.html.

4

cynthia kosso and anne scott

(2001). In addition, graduate students at the University of Michigan hosted “Water: Plumbing the Depths of Purity and Pollution: A Graduate Conference” on January 31–February 1, 2003. Finally, and in addition to our own conference, “The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance,” we add one more example (though there are many more): The Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum (M. Andronikos Gallery) held a one-day conference on “Water as a Source of Life in Antiquity” supported by the 16th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, in 1999. Thus, our volume contributes to the burgeoning field of water studies,4 but also does so uniquely, in that it examines the topic of historical water use and ideology both diachronically and cross regionally, from antiquity to the Early Modern era and from historical study of water use and ideology because we examine the topic both diachronically and cross regionally, and from an interdisciplinary perspective: specifically, this volume explores the ways in which our ideas about the nature and function of water were shaped by a multitude of societies to create and strengthen social relationships, and how religion, politics, and science transformed, and were themselves transformed by, the manipulation of, uses of, and disputes over water in daily life, ceremonies, and literature. We believe that the essays in this volume both confirm and challenge our attitudes toward water, water use, and representation; in the process, they also have the capacity to alter our fundamental relationship to water, in ways crucial to our human nature and condition. Water in the Ancient World Rabun Taylor, our keynote speaker, has contributed an essay titled “Cultures of Water in Mediterranean Antiquity.” In this study, Taylor

4 See also Roberta J. Magnusson, Water Technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire, Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology (Baltimore, Maryland, 2001); Steven A. Walton, Wind & Water in the Middle Ages: Fluid Technologies from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies / Penn State Medieval Studies (Tempe, Arizona, 2007); Kleijn, G. de, The Water Supply of Ancient Rome, Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology, 22 (The Netherlands, 2001); Lucas, Adam, Wind, Water, Work Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, Technology and Change in History, 8 (The Netherlands, 2006); Paolo Squatriti, ed., Working with Water in Medieval Europe Technology and Resource-Use, Technology and Change in History, 3 (The Netherlands, 2000).

introduction

5

considers both the magic and religious properties of water in ancient Mediterranean folk belief, specifically as it applies to Greco-Roman belief systems. Of particular importance in his inquiry is the varied role of gender in the personification of waters. He asks, “Is there any meaningful segregation between Venus and the nymphs, on the one hand, and a host of masculine hybrid sea and river gods on the other?” In answer to his question, he argues that each gendered category has a specific symbolic function. The feminine, Nymphs, ultimately represent untamed water and nature. The masculine, namely gods “such as Acheloös, Nereus, Proteus, and Glaucus,” represent the governed, or tamed, sea and landscape. Finding the symbolic meaning of water relevant to his approach as well, Mark Munn, in “Earth and Water: The Foundations of Sovereignty in Ancient Thought,” considers how “early Ionian science and Lydian inscriptions and cult monuments indicate that earth and water were conceived as the foundations of life and legitimate sovereignty in Anatolia before the arrival of the Persians.” His paper carefully examines the history of the use of “tokens of earth and water” and relates these to Anatolian ideas of mountains as sources of pure water. Numerous classical sources link these Anatolian mountain water sources to the Mother of the Gods. In addition, the divine birth and cultivation of kings was clearly associated with water at numerous sanctuaries and other sacred places. Scott John McDonough, in “ ‘We and Those Waters of the Sea Are One’: Baptism, Bathing, and the Construction of Identity in Late Ancient Babylonia,” also finds rivers, in particular the Tigris and Euphrates, to be an important cultural locus for the writers of ancient Babylonia. Such writers perceived the waters of these rivers as “fundamental to the establishment and preservation of their rich agricultural and urban civilization as well as crucial to Babylonia’s diverse religious cultures.” However, in the 220’s A.D., the Magian priests debated with their subjects over how the purity and therefore sanctity of these waters were to be maintained. McDonough’s essay particularly explores Babylonian practices of bathing and baptism, arguing that “the ritual use of water served a primary role in the construction or imposition of communal, confessional identities among the peoples of the region.” However, in the end, water was ultimately too important and too contested both symbolically and in fact of ownership for it to work as a way to create unity in late ancient Babylonia. Notions of personal identity, especially as exemplified through bathing practices, created insurmountable “boundaries [. . .] in a world where Magians,

6

cynthia kosso and anne scott

Jews, Christians and Gnostics lived alongside each other, but were never truly together.” The idea of water usage as an identity marker, especially for gender, finds relevance in Evy Johanne Håland’s “Take, Skamandros, My Virginity: “Ideas of Water in Connection with Rituals Linked to LifeCycle Passages in Greece, Modern and Ancient,” in which Håland compares the importance of water in religious rituals linked to life-cycle passages, specifically of women, in modern and ancient Greece. She makes two main claims: the first is that the rites of passage and rituals that depend on water have a nearly unbroken continuity of both place and fundamental meaning from ancient to modern times (e.g., one can find caves with good evidence of ancient use of life-giving waters in most of the churches dedicated to Panagia). Håland’s second claim is that through a careful consideration of these rituals, from a gendered perspective, our own understanding of the power and public faces of women will come into clearer focus. Other studies, such as Etienne Dunant’s “Attic Sanctuaries and Natural Water Resources,” examine sanctuaries where water held an important place in the ancient decisions about locations for sanctuaries, their architecture, and specific cult practices. Attica is an excellent case study, because of the rich data available. Dunant has two main goals. First, he aims to provide a general survey of the Attic sanctuaries associated with water. Second, he classifies these as means by which we can compare, contrast, and deepen our understanding of the roles of water in Attic religious architecture and belief. In addition, he examines the questions of whether or not similar problems led to similar solutions throughout the Attic region and across time. Dunant notes that it was particularly enlightening to study natural water resources in Attic sanctuaries because these reflect the relative nature “human behavior towards the environment.” Sanctuaries with water resources became the focal points of their neighborhoods, whether small, such as that of the Nymphs on the coast, or large, such as the complex of the Amphiaraion. While water may be the focus of activity, it is necessary, he reminds us, to recognize that “the sanctuary and its cult are to be understood as the result of a dialogue between a series of dynamics and the site.” In addition to water per se, the historian must realize that factors such as community size, ethnic identity, political needs, as well as natural and historical events must all be considered in an evaluation developments at any given sanctuary. Finally, Dunant

introduction

7

urges us to consider sanctuaries in other regions with well established sanctuary traditions, such as Boeotia, with the same attention to detail and complexity that he used in the study of Attic sites, in order to make more sweeping conclusions about the relationship between water and ancient Greek societies and their religion. The relationship of water to Greek art becomes central to two more papers. Robert Sutton in “The Female Bather in Greek Art” argues that female nude form—particularly the bather—emerges as early as the Archaic period, but primarily in the context of an erotic theme. By the Classical period, however, the nude bather, as a theme, is transformed into “a serious public subject.” There was a transformation of symbolic meaning as well. What began as an erotic form and theme later is “ennobled [. . .] through the depiction of brides, nymphs, other goddesses, and the personification Eros.” Greek literature supports Sutton’s interpretation, since from Homer onward, bathing is a regular part of respectable daily life: goddesses, brides, and other respectable women all bathe. Nevertheless, the erotic version of the theme never disappears entirely. Bathing images that also depict tools and motifs of sexual gratification clearly speak to the erotic. Interestingly, Sutton also notes that the ennobling phase of the nude female as a subject of art corresponds to the emergence of love themes on vases meant particularly for women; Eros, for example, appears as a subject on nuptial vases used by women. Furthering the discussion of water and its relationship to art, Cynthia Kosso and Kevin Lawton in “Women at the Fountain and the Well: Imagining Experience” respond to Gloria Ferrari’s contention that the images depicted on Greek vases merely give us access to how the artistic subjects were imagined to be rather than to the way they really were. These authors argue, instead, that real experience informs even the most symbolic imagery on these vases and that contrary to Ferrari’s claim that Athenian women were excluded from public activity, such women did indeed go to the wells and fountains for ritual purposes such as weddings, funerals, and city and deme religious holidays, which allowed significant and numerous opportunities for real Athenian women to be seen there. These opportunities provided the experiential inspiration for vases made for both the export and domestic audiences and consumers. From archaeological evidence for fountains, wells, black and red figure vases, as well as textual sources, Kosso and Lawton argue that elite women collected water in public

8

cynthia kosso and anne scott

and that although the pictures on certain vases may indeed be in part “cultural constructs,” their content also contain the specificity of real women’s experiences. Other evidence, in particular, the archaeological and architectural artifacts and contexts for ancient water use, inform several other essays. Sandra Lucore’s “The North Baths as Morgantina and early Developments in Vaulted Construction” reminds us that Roman baths “are a hallmark architectural feature of cities throughout the empire,” as well as “well-known locations of some of the most innovative experiments undertaken in Roman construction technology.” Lucore argues that similar innovations can be found at Morgantina in the third century B.C. as well, “which inevitably [form] part of the background to Roman developments.” Thus, she considers the evidence from Morgantina, which is probably the earliest example of above-ground, vaulted construction in the Greco-Roman world. The North Baths there reveal one domed and two barrel-vaulted spaces that also use an early hypocaust type space used to heat water for public and communal bathing. Like Lucore, Brenda Longfellow analyzes archaeological evidence to better understand water applications and projects in the ancient world. “Contested Flow: Roman Monumental Civic Fountains in Greece” discusses several cultural markers relevant to water use that developed after Greece came under Roman control in 196 B.C. In particular, Longfellow notes that Greek elites appear to have “appropriated the Roman monumental fountain form for their own purposes.” Romans generally chose not to intervene in the development of public spaces in Greece until Hadrian’s rule, which began in A.D. 117. As a philhellene, Hadrian showed interest in the history of Greece but also had intentions of making his mark on the Greek urban and rural landscapes as well. As emperor, he visited the region three times during which visits he initiated many building projects, the most dramatic of which were probably his hydraulic initiatives. Significantly, however, the “placement and appearance of the Hadrianic nymphaea drew upon Greek architectural and cultural traditions in order both to connect the imperial gift with the local populace and to emphasize the power and dominance of Rome over Greek heritage.” In “The Divine River: Ancient Roman Identity and the Image of Tiberinus” Gretchen Meyers links ideas of Roman national identity to the Tiber river and the images that represent it. Until end of the nineteenth century, when two protective walls were built to protect Rome form the flooding of the Tiber, the city was inextricably connected to

introduction

9

the life and moods of the river. In ancient (and presumably medieval) times, however, the lack of separation between the river and the town and a study of the city’s architectural geography allow the historian to assert that the Tiber River was “intimately connected with ancient Roman notions of national identity.” A wide variety of Roman images of Tiberinus and related gods found in architectural contexts unite the city and the river, as well as the various populations that have inhabited the city from most ancient times. National identity and power in the form of imperialism, and its material impact on subject states, is discussed in the essay by E.J. Owens and Dr. Mehmet Ta‘lıalan, titled “The Water Supply of Pisidian Antioch and the Development of the Roman Colony.” In this essay, the authors claim that the construction of the aqueduct was central to the development of the colony established in 25 B.C. Furthermore, they note that such an approach was common to other Augustan colonies. Indeed, like other colonies, the creation of the aqueduct “transformed the water supply of the city and it became the main source of supply to the inhabitants.” Thus, the water supply, upon which the citizens depended, mirrored the imperial rule, which likewise determined the stability and well being of the population. Having carefully examined the archaeological details of the aqueduct’s construction, the authors assert that it supplied a large nymphaeum, public fountains, and other buildings. In addition, there was a second pipeline, bringing water from springs eighteen kilometers away. Nevertheless, the Augustan aqueduct delivered sufficient water to supply the essential and recreational needs of the city. Documentary and archaeological evidence merge in Sara Saba’s “Water Sources in Pergamon: Cisterns in the Astynomoi Law.” The law in question dates to Hadrian but is based on a law originally passed in the second century B.C. during the reign of Eumenes II. Recent archaeological discoveries at Pergamon have revealed numerous structures that shed light on available technologies and “management of water resources in a major polis of Asia Minor.” In this essay, Saba focuses on the evidence for Pergamene cisterns and their use, in part, as an explanation for the re-engraving of the Astynomoi Law. Over the relevant centuries, the population in Pergamon grew fivefold by the second century A.D. Despite the development of new aqueducts, evidence suggests that cisterns were still an important source of clean water for the growing population. The second century B.C. law, re-inscribed in the second century A.D., illustrates the continued significance of cisterns

10

cynthia kosso and anne scott

and illuminates urban strategies for water emergencies that continued to be faced even in the “technologically advanced Roman Empire.” Deborah Chatr Aryamontri’s “Running Water: Roman Advances in Urban Water Supply Under the Empire” also confronts the technological advances of, and importance of bathing to, the Romans. Quoting Tiberius Claudius Secundus—Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus. (Baths, wine, and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine, and sex make up life.)—as only one piece of her evidence, Chatr Aryamontri argues that the very idea of Roman civilization is intimately tied to the development and perfection of sophisticated systems for the delivery of water to urban centers and its consumption at the public baths. Bathing became central to Romans of all social levels and both sexes. Moreover, baths eventually became the locus for both public and private shows of wealth and influence. The author clearly demonstrates how an understanding of the role of baths and bathing, furthers our knowledge of Roman daily life—“a life deeply intertwined with water.” Finally, among those essays considering the ancient world is John Stephenson’s “Villas and Aquatic Culture in Late Roman Spain.” Stephenson makes connections among ideological and religious uses of water and the physical manifestations of water systems during late antiquity, particularly during the period that bridged the pagan and Christian worlds in the Mediterranean. Taking villas as his examples, Stephenson concentrates especially on a discussion of Spanish peristyle gardens and their features such as “pools, fountains and canals, and even temples to water.” He notes that these homages to water occur in “unusually large numbers and degrees of elaboration as compared to other provinces.” Indeed, the developing culture of water (‘cultura del agua’) and the ancient image of the paradisiacal garden merged easily into Christian ideas of the Garden of Eden and its Fountain of Life. “In this milieu,” argues Stephenson, “villa design contributed to emerging forms of Christian architecture, including the atrium and baptismal font in early Christian basilicas.” Importantly, Stephenson finds that the innovations revealed in his study influenced the remarkable “achievements of later historical cultures in Spain.” In non-Roman Spain, as in Roman Spain, political and social life centered on water in both tangible, physical ways as it linked east and west., and in the realm of the symbolic. Of equal interest to readers will be the conclusion that the evidence surveyed reveals that there was no “precipitous decline and decadency of material culture in the late Roman Empire,” which

introduction

11

fits into a growing body of work significantly revising older theories about the fall of Rome and the poverty that contributed to and resulted from Rome’s collapse. Water in the Medieval and Early Modern Period Similar to these studies of the ancient world, which relate water to concerns about and depictions of use, containment, ownership, and symbolism, and which explore the affect of these issues upon on the cultural constructs of identity, politics, religion, and gender, the essays in this volume that focus on the medieval and Early Modern periods also attempt to locate the significance of water, both literally and figuratively, in the lives and mentalities of medieval and Early Modern peoples. Hélène Cazes, in “Baths, Scrubs, and Cuddles: How to Bathe Young Infants According to Simon de Vallambert (1564),” for example, examines the very concrete, practical advice promoted through several medieval and Renaissance French treatises. These works on infant bathing help us understand not only how these authors conceptualized the bathing of young infants but also how our assumptions about this universally accepted, ‘natural’ practice for young children might be anachronistic in light of the practices and ideals endorsed by these authors. Comparing Vallambert’s treatise to both “sources and sequels” (namely, works by Gabriel Miron, Jacques des Pars, Soranus, and others), Cazes fleshes out the systematized treatment of infants during bath time in a way that allows us to grasp the differences between our own practices and those discussed by these medieval and Renaissance authors. In addition, she leads us to understand how these authors’ perceptions of children, i.e., beings who are affected by “mixtures” or “transitory balance[s]” of temperaments (e.g., hotness, wetness) “defined by age,” influenced the manner in which infants and children were treated during bath time. Vallambert and Miron, moreover, illustrate a notion of caretaking that demands that adults recognize the need for the child to be protected and kept from harm, Vallembert’s going so far as to condemn the barbaric practice of the early Germans of immersing children in cold water during the rite of baptism. Unlike our own desire to see the “innocence, the promise, and the perfection” in babies, however, these authors clearly saw the need, during bath time, to “correct and discipline” the bodies of babies, whose limbs were “humid” and “tender” and therefore malleable.

12

cynthia kosso and anne scott

Looking at attitudes towards the bathing practices of adults, Alexandra Cuffel’s essay on “Polemicizing Women’s Bathing among Medieval and Early Modern Muslims and Christians” questions Muslim and Christian beliefs about a woman’s place in public baths houses, or hammāmāt, from a gendered perspective. Because Muslim women could socialize among themselves in the baths and because both Muslim and non-Muslim women frequented these baths, the hammāmāt attracted the suspicion of Muslim men who feared the development of same-sex relationships among the bathing women, the loss of boundaries separating Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and a Muslim woman’s potential to become contaminated by the religious beliefs of other non-Muslim bathers. Even though they saw the bathhouse as a ‘foreign’ element in their culture that promoted immodesty, Muslim writers were actually appropriating well-established Christian rhetoric against public bathing. However, because earlier Pagan belief, and then Christian holy people, also advocated for the use of baths as part of a healing process, Muslims were aware that the intermingling of people at the baths with differing belief systems was almost unavoidable—a situation made more complex by the fact that bathers removed the very clothing that marked “an individual’s religious affiliation.” Early Modern Christian writers also betrayed their disapproval of the ritualized bathing practices of Muslims at the hammāmāt, claiming that the bathing took place because Muslims were inherently unclean, “stank” more than Christians, and were more prone to libidinous behavior, due to the hot climate of the region. These and other observations leads Cuffel to conclude that both Muslims and Christians criticized the bathing practices of one another, especially using women’s presence in the bath houses as a way of “polemicizing against the men of other religions.” Like Cuffel, Charles Connell and Alyce Jordan contextualize the use of water within a religious framework. In these two essays, both authors attempt to understand how the religious uses and symbolism of water converged with practical exigencies and considerations. Connell’s “From Spiritual Necessity to Instrument of Torture: Water in the Middle Ages” first references the natural, positive, life-giving qualities of water as seen through the eyes of early Christian art and writers, including Augustine, who, Connell argues, “set the standard for the subsequent medieval use of water symbolism around the rite of baptism.” Despite the pressures of rationalism that led Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Abelard, and other Christians to question the necessity of baptism, the “sacrament of water still bore strong symbolic meaning for most of the faithful in the

introduction

13

later Middle Ages.” Mystics like Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg also contributed water imagery rich with life-giving associations. We might find it ironic, therefore, Connell asserts, to find the Church supporting water employed for torture, which it did as a means of proving the guilt or innocence of an accused person. Connell subsequently outlines a number of these methods, including water boarding, “ducking,” and other means of provoking a drowning or near-drowning experience aimed at ferreting out a person’s culpability. In this way, Connell underscores the symbolic and practical functions of water inherent in both baptism and torture. In “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’: Water as Medium, Metaphor, and Relic,” Jordan, too, looks at the intersection of practicality and spirituality as it played out in the cult of Thomas Becket. By enriching the political context of Becket’s martyrdom in 1170, which forced Becket’s body to be buried hastily, Jordan argues that expediency drove monks and others to save, hoard, protect, and later, distill Becket’s spilled blood as a means of sanctifying this one relic of his body that remained for the faithful to touch and ingest. Coveted by the “poor and indigent,” Becket’s “wonder-working blood” became the driving force for pilgrims who traveled to his tomb in search of healing. To contain this holy water, vessels originally made out of wood or clay gave way to ampullae made from tin and more easily mass produced so that the Canterbury monks could deal with the practical considerations of distributing the water to all who needed it. “Part container, souvenir, and secondary relic,” many of these ampullae were subsequently discarded in rivers and other bodies of water. As Becket’s cult gained from its association with this healing water, so did the art and literature of this period expand upon particular miracles that Becket performed on behalf of unfortunate souls who had suffered near-drownings. Concerns with how to harness, justify, and market applications of water for leisure as well as healing and agriculture inform the essays of Irene Matthews and Ron Cooley, both of whose studies provide a window into medieval and/or Early Modern cultures of these particular kinds of water use. Matthews examines the politics of conquest, environmental degradation, and restitution in her “Waters of Paradise: A Brief Hydroloquy on the Gardens of Spain and New Spain” by looking carefully at gardens and agricultural sites in these locations that gradually, across a span of hundreds of years, served military functions or fell into the hands of the conquerors. Despite Christopher Columbus’s unscientific and perhaps disinterested verbal pictures of the Iberian peninsula, two gardens of the “late Islamic style in Granada”

14

cynthia kosso and anne scott

remain in southern Spain for modern study and viewing. Alhambra and Generalife, from the early Middle Ages, captured both abundant shade and soothing water in keeping with descriptions of Paradise in the Qur’an. Both, however, harnessed their water sources differently, the former using water for “contemplative” use and the latter allowing for play and extravagance, due to its more abundant water supply. As Matthews points out, however, these gardens, placed on hilltops, became part of the fortress structure that the Nasrids needed in order to defend Granada in the thirteenth century. Matthews also studies the chinanpas, or man-made islands, created by the pre-conquest inhabitants in Mexico, whose “system of wetlands agriculture” served the peoples’ needs for perhaps thousands of years. These too, argues Matthews, fell prey to the ignorance and violence of the conquistadores who neglected or destroyed the chinanpas and who, themselves, could not comprehend how their new architecture was incompatible with the “watery foundation” upon which it was built. Showing how one such network of chinanpas has now been resurrected and transformed into a leisure park in Mexico City, Matthews demonstrates how technological advances, in this case, have actually improved the area’s aesthetic appeal and its environmental accountability (especially with reference to birds and aquatic fauna). Whereas Matthews’ essay traces the rise and fall of medieval and Early Modern leisure gardens or delicately balanced agricultural waterways in Iberia, Cooley’s addresses the purported success and heyday of the Early Modern healing wells of Tunbridge, near Sussex and Kent. In his essay titled “ ‘Almost Miraculous’: Lord North and the Healing Waters of Tunbridge Wells,” Cooley seeks to understand the rhetorical strategies that a certain Dudley, Lord North in the seventeenth century, and Thomas Benge Burr, an author of the eighteenth century writing about North, employed in order to put Tunbridge on the map of spa towns, allowing it to compete with the better-known spa locations, such as Bath, for patronage. An opportunistic mixture of romanticism and rationalism, argues Cooley, defines Burr’s rhetoric such that persons wanting to visit the wells could both identify with the “dissolute aristocrat” who “wanders” upon the wells only to be healed by them, as well as satisfy their skepticism through Burr’s pseudo-empiricist account of how North later “confirmed” rumors by providing “incontestable evidence” of the water’s healing properties through water samples that he had tested. Burr thus creates for Tunbridge a “romantic myth of origins,” an account that is also infused with enough so-called scientific

introduction

15

verification of its special waters that this spa town could be differentiated from its more commercially successful competitor. Modern scientific truths help clarify early medieval observations of the water cycle as discussed in Lin Ferrand’s essay, “The Hydrologic Cycle in Bede’s De natura rerum.” By showing the Venerable Bede’s indebtedness to certain sources about water processes in nature on the one hand, and his seemingly original thinking on the other, Ferrand analyzes Bede’s secular treatise in a way that allows us to see Bede’s conclusions about rain, snow, water evaporation, rivers, and the ocean in harmony with his careful observations of the locale in which he lived: the monastery in Jarrow, Northumbria. Ferrand’s comparisons of Bede’s text with others by Isidore of Seville, Pliny the Elder, and Pseudo-Isidore suggest that Bede simplified information from his sources by removing religious references, and otherwise compiled, adumbrated, mixed, and adapted his source materials so that his own treatise ‘on the nature of things’ dovetailed with his observations about how the hydrologic cycle near Jarrow worked. For example, whereas Isidore assigned the properties of thinness and thickness to the four elements, Bede assigned them these properties in addition to the property of heaviness, which allowed Bede to assign relative positions to these four elements, where earth, for example, would take the lowest position, being the heaviest, and water would take the next lowest position, being lighter than earth, and so on. Assigning importance to the four elements based on their heaviness, Bede could then explain how tiny water droplets in air could remain suspended, becoming the foundation for clouds and rain. Although Bede’s observations, chronicled in his Anglo-Saxon era treatise, simply could not take into account modern scientific truths that we now use to evaluate and describe the hydrologic cycle, thereby leading many of his observations to sound strange to our ears (e.g., rain is ‘slow’ but rain clouds are ‘fast’), his comments accurately recorded beliefs and conclusions about the “observable characteristics of the physical environment of a tidal estuary on the northeast coast of England” that even a modern-day visitor can glean from observing this area. An equal amount of careful observation also played into the decisions, planning, and organization of water maintenance in the medieval town of Ypres, in the Southern Low Countries (present-day Belgium and Northern France), as illustrated in Paul Trio’s essay, “The Challenge for a Medieval Center of Industrial Growth: Ypres and the Drinking Water Problem.” Trio, who first frames the problem by examining the “demographic, industrial, and topographic development

16

cynthia kosso and anne scott

of Ypres,” argues that this city’s growth depended upon its connection to the sea, fostered through its location on the Ieperlee, a river that was so vital to the city’s trade that much money was spent on ways to keep it navigable. Docks, moats, reservoirs, and later, subterranean pipes were features of the town’s water supply system deriving from this river. The power of the river’s current, moreover, facilitated the activities of certain industries, in particular the ‘fulling’ required by the cloth trade. Given the city’s growing population and its need for clean water, however, it became necessary for town officials to create ordinances and appoint ‘pipe masters’ and ‘freshwater counts’ who supervised the city’s extensive water supply system, including wells on private lands and the city’s open sewers, the latter of which attracted those businesses, such as fish markets, bath houses, leather workers, and the textile industry, most likely needing these sewers for waste-water discharge. That this elaborate water supply system required no major alterations during the entire “Ancien Régime,” says Trio, is a testament to its excellent maintenance, the significant “urban budget” needed to keep the system in good repair, and the detailed planning that went into its construction and evolution. The basic principles of water—imagined and bodied forth not in documents or historical records but in works of sacred and secular literature, principles tied to the real world but realized in symbol and metaphor—become the focus of the last three essays discussed in this introduction. In each, water imagery helps us to better understand the interior landscapes of the medieval or Renaissance mind, as it comes to terms with human power, limitations, loss, and transcendence. Anne Scott’s “Come Hell or High Water: Aqueous Moments in Medieval Epic, Romance, Allegory, and Fabliau” surveys the popular and religious works of the medieval world to determine the ways in which water imagery underscores the most important characterizational, thematic, and ideological moments of these works. Often taking cues from the natural water features dominating the provenance of these works, and imbuing water references with the accepted religious connotations of the day, the authors of Beowulf, Yvain, the Pearl, and The Miller’s Tale shape their narratives around water references that invariably clarify the defining moments in a character’s growth or a plot’s thematic connection to larger theological, moral, or epistemological issues. Beowulf ’s descent into the watery mere, for example, not only tests his heroic mettle; it lets us understand more fully how such over-sized acts of bravery fueled a heroic ethos that was eventually doomed to failure. Yvain’s repeated encounters at a magical fountain underscore

introduction

17

his chivalric naiveté and the things that masculine heroes must learn to tame their passionate rages, symbolized, in this romance, as violent thunderstorms. The father-dreamer’s encounter with a vast river that separates him from his dead daughter, in the Pearl, plunges him into denial over her sad death, forcing him to wake up to his inadequacies as a Christian that keep him from fully appreciating her new home, as Bride of Christ, in heaven. And finally, Nicholas’s scream for “Water!” in Chaucer’s fabliau masterpiece not only allows plot and subplot to be joined but gives us to understand the leveling influences of the human condition—lust, appetite, derision—that recognize no class privileges and that fuel Chaucer’s satire against all who want more, or know more, or pretend to know more than they should. Misty Urban’s and Ruth Stevenson’s essays narrow the focus of water to its structural and figurative uses within a specific genre (medieval romance) or as a means of character elucidation that delves deeply into the psyche of a famous Shakespearian general (Othello), respectively. As Urban argues in her “Magical Fountains in Middle English Romance,” references to water become the locus amoenis of plot, theme, and especially character development, lending this sub-genre a complexity not often granted to it. After providing a survey of the “liquid topography”—dangerous seas, reflective pools, lakes, streams, and wells—present in several romances, Urban elaborates upon the structural and symbolic aspects of magic fountains, as they mark “an intersection of narrative place and plot movement” and also become metaphorical “thresholds” between the “broken world of the romance story” and the “hyper-refined, idealized world that the hero achieves.” Thus, the well in Floris and Blancheflour enhances the Emir’s renown as he harnesses the well’s water through ingenious plumbing in order to satisfy his “erotic objectives.” The magical fountain in the Middle English version of Yvain—Ywain and Gawain—unlike its French counterpart, functions to push the hero ever onward toward a realization of psychological maturity and chivalric aptitude. And finally, one of the three fountains in Melusine becomes the visual counterpart to prosperity that the romance’s titular hero “gifts to her husband, offspring, attendants, and dependents.” In these ways, the fountains in these three romances signal important shifts in the heroes’ perception and social status, as well as satisfying the more prosaic, practical demands of the narrator and plot. We conclude with a glimpse into the watery world of Othello, where imagery, metaphor, and especially synechdoche (a locution wherein a ‘part’ represents ‘a whole’) involving water reveal the transformations

18

cynthia kosso and anne scott

of mind that occur when one’s mental constructs and epistemic orientation break under stress of betrayal and loss. In “Sea Change in Shakespeare’s Othello,” Stevenson reveals and explains the densely woven “mental waterways” that course through all five acts of this tragedy and that lay bare the “working of Othello’s mind, his verbal revisions, and his final complex identity.” As the play’s synechdotic references to sea and fluids build throughout the play, primarily through the words of others besides Othello (e.g., Iago, Roderigo), the play gradually unmasks the “sea change” in Othello’s character. Whereas once Othello envisions himself through the rigid, inflexible language of “chiseled perfection,” i.e., as solder, not sailor, Iago’s betrayal and Othello’s killing of Desdemona transforms the general’s understanding of himself and his place in his world, now bereft of the woman who was more valuable to him than the sea itself. Othello’s remaining linguistic utterances, argue Stevenson, now take on the fluidity of the sea itself, as he describes his “subdewed eyes [. . . and] melting mood.” Although Shakespeare’s revelation of Othello’s “complex identity” is painfully brief, the play’s steady, persistent saturation in watery images and figures of speech, like water on a hard surface, gradually wears away our assumptions about Othello’s lapidary character, allowing us to see changes in his self-perceptions where none might have been acknowledged, or appreciated, otherwise. We invite you to ponder and enjoy this essay and all the rest in this volume, trusting that they will engage you, as they have engaged us, in appreciating, rethinking, and reaffirming our life-connections to water.5

5 We direct our heart-felt thanks to all of our dedicated contributors who took on the detailed and time-consuming tasks of revising their essays for us and who, we hope, patiently suffered our innumerable communications, updates, and requests. We also thank the College of Arts and Letters at Northern Arizona University for the original grant that funded our 2006 conference, which led to our inspiration to publish the proceedings from this conference. We thank, also, the editors at Brill who answered our formatting questions and who accepted our initial proposal. Finally, we express our gratitude and delight at having been able, as co-editors, to work with one another to bring a worthwhile and interdisciplinary project such as this to fruition for the benefit of our respective academic communities. Thank you all.

PART ONE

GENDER ROLES, ATTITUDES, PRACTICES, AND INNOVATIONS IN BATHS AND BATHING

RIVER RAPTURES: CONTAINMENT AND CONTROL OF WATER IN GREEK AND ROMAN CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY1 Rabun Taylor Like all important natural phenomena, local waters in the GrecoRoman world were given individualized identities as nymphs or gods. This practice merged traditions of anthropomorphism with specific, localized properties. My study investigates two common types of water personalities in myth. First, there is the tendency of a water god—especially that of a river or spring—to be a reincarnation of a person who drowned in the water or died nearby. Second, there is a folkloric pattern in Greek culture of a hybrid water god who, when wrestled into submission, yields secret knowledge to his opponent. In the first case, a river takes over the body, soul, and very identity of a hero engulfed by its waters. The process is, in effect, a rapture and transfiguration by means of which the hero is resolved into the body that seized him, the watercourse itself. In the second case, a hero seizes the water (actually its personification) in pursuit of some benefit. Both types, this essay contends, give form to a single powerful premise in the culture of ancient Greece and the Hellenized West—a presumption that collective sacrifice and redemption, communal loss and gain, are simultaneous and interdependent. Dying Heroes and Bull-Men Water—particularly in its earthbound, chthonic manifestations—carries powerful intimations of fertility and increase. The same element can be a force of death and destruction. Its symbolism is interesting precisely because it is binary. Water is life and death. It nurtures and it A number of colleagues offered valuable suggestions after hearing earlier versions of this paper. I am particularly grateful to Gretchen Meyers, Laura Nasrallah, Betsey Robinson, Melissa Haynes, and Adam Rabinowitz. Daniel Berman informed me of the story of Dirke and the spring at Thebes. 1

22

rabun taylor

kills; it strengthens and it enfeebles. Beneficial in measured amounts, it is lethal in excess. Apportioned and contained, it is malleable, obedient, compliant. Unleashed in volumes, it is arbitrary, aggressive, minatory, lethal. Water connotes radical alterity—and so it mediates, on the one hand, poetic inspiration, and on the other, knowledge of dark and hidden things. The symbolism of water, for all its delights, has always been laden with intimations of danger and mortality; its mythology gravitates toward death, transformation, and rebirth. One hardly needs to mention the most famous Mediterranean water myth of them all, the story of Osiris. The Nile—the site of his murder and apotheosis—became an essential point of reference in his cult, because of the associations of the river’s annual flooding with ideas of passion and resurrection. The Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) seems to have capitalized on this ancient belief by instituting the cult of his young lover Antinoös, who drowned in the Nile in A.D. 130. Antinoös was deified in a number of forms, but the Nilotic associations themselves were ever present. The new god was frequently assimilated to Osiris, or to the Egyptian god’s Hellenized hybrid, Dionysos-Osiris.2 The symbolic association of the Nile with its most famous apotheosis—a story known to nearly everyone in the Roman world—must have seemed a natural choice for this most international of emperors. Hadrian was also borrowing from a longstanding tradition in both Greece and Italy. Much earlier, the cult of Aeneas had developed an apotheosis myth for the hero, according to which he mysteriously disappeared in or near the Numicus River and was reborn as Aeneas (or Iuppiter) Indiges. This incident, Julia Dyson has recently argued, was central to the meaning of the Aeneid. According to her, the epic is a chain of human sacrifices, each in expiation of its predecessor, in the fashion of the succession of kings in the cult of Diana Nemorensis.3 Ovid characterizes the apotheosis as a cleansing, by which the old river god washed away all that was mortal in the hero, preparing his way to live among the gods. But tradition seems to have suggested that Aeneas achieved apotheosis by drowning. Anna, the sister of Dido, was also said

Royston Lambert, Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous (London, 1984), pp. 128–42, 144–45, 155–57, and 179–81. 3 Julia Dyson, King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil’s Aeneid (Norman, Ok., 2001). 2

river raptures

23

to have become a nymph of the Numicus, worshiped as Anna Perenna.4 Death by drowning often lurks behind myths of this kind. As a physical process by which the body and the element of water could be mingled, at least approximately, it must have seemed the most appropriate mode of death to accompany an apotheosis into a river god. The more common pattern is for a hero or heroine who died in or near a watercourse to be resurrected as a new personification of the water itself. According to tradition, the Tiber itself began its existence as the Albula, but took the name of a direct descendant of Aeneas, Tiberinus, who drowned trying to cross its waters.5 In a fragment of Euripides’ lost play Antiope we are told that the bones of Dirke, dragged to her death by a bull, were thrown into a spring at Thebes—whereupon the spring was given her name.6 The proximity of the bull, the animal of sacrifice par excellence, may connote the essentially sacrificial symbolism of this event. And indeed the bull is everywhere to be seen in river imagery. If we step back to the Archaic and Classical periods of Greece and its diaspora in Sicily and southern Italy, we encounter a figure who appears repeatedly in both local and Panhellenic usage: a theriomorphic or therianthropic god representing a river deity. Its prototype was the personification of the Acheloös, the longest and most famous of Greek rivers, running from central Epirus down to the Gulf of Corinth. This greatest of Greek river gods was worshiped widely, both alone and with local nymphs. Sometimes presented as a young man who had drowned in the river before his apotheosis, Acheloös appears in Greek myth as a shape-shifter who alternates among the forms of a man, a bull, and a serpent. On vases in particular, he is shown unsuccessfully wrestling Herakles for the hand of Deianeira.7 In Sophocles’ Trachiniae, where this contest is given its fullest literary treatment, he appears “at some times manifest as a bull, at others as a darting, coiling serpent,

4 Aeneas: Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.593–608; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.64.4–5; See also Servius, commentary on Aeneid 4.620. See Dyson, King of the Wood, pp. 50–73. For Anna see Ovid, Fasti 3.559–656. 5 Vergil, Aeneid 8.330–32; Livy 1.3. See Dyson, King of the Wood, p. 67. 6 Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. 5: Euripides, ed. Richard Kannicht (Göttingen, 1971), F 223, esp. pp. 109–14. 7 Maximilian Lehnerdt, “Herakles und Acheloös,” Archäologische Zeitung 43 (1885), 105–20; Hans Peter Isler, Acheloös: Eine Monographie (Bern, 1970), pp. 11–28; idem, “Acheloös,” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 1 (Zürich, 1981), pp. 25–28, 32–35.

24

rabun taylor

and again at others with a man’s trunk and a bull’s head; and from his shaggy beard there poured streams of water from his springs.”8 By the mid-Classical period, Acheloös was most commonly represented simply as a bull with the head of a bearded man; and it is usually as such that he was worshiped in conjunction with local water nymphs.9 In the fifth century B.C., two popular hybrids emerged on the coinage of Sicily and Magna Graecia: the bearded, man-headed bull, and the head or bust of a beardless youth with bull’s horns.10 It has been argued that the two types were mutually exclusive: the first uniformly represented Acheloös, whose cult is known to have traveled to various parts of the region, while the horned youth represented the local river gods.11 However, local tauriform river gods—whatever their precise bodily morphology—were proliferating in literature by this time, and their model was obviously Acheloos.12 Why wouldn’t the influence of his form be felt in the localized iconography of coinage too? Carina Weiss has countered, convincingly, that an absolute dichotomy cannot be sustained. Appropriation of the androcephalous bull type to represent local river gods seems to have been widely accepted, beginning with the coinage of Gela in the first half of the fifth century.13 Indeed, 8 Sophocles, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, trans. Lloyd-Jones Sophocles, (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, 1994), vol. 2, Trachiniae 11–14. 9 Isler, Acheloös: Eine Monographie; Isler, “Acheloös,” pp. 13–24, 25–27, 30–33 and 35–36. 10 Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer, “Fluß- und Meergötter auf griechischen und römischen Münzen: Personifikationen der Gewässer.” Revue Suisse de numismatique 23 (1923); Carina Weiss, Griechische Flußgottheiten in vorhellenistischer Zeit: Ikonographie und Bedeutung, Beiträge zur Archäologie 17 (Würzburg, 1986); Janusz A. Ostrowski, Personifications of Rivers in Greek and Roman Art Zeszyty naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Prace archeologiczne 47 (Warsaw, 1991), pp. 17–21. 11 Friedrich Matz, Die Naturpersonifikationen in der griechischen Kunst (Göttingen, 1913), pp. 100–103; Imhoof-Blumer “Fluß- und Meergötter,” p. 176; Isler, Acheloös: Eine Monographie, pp. 84–85; Isler, “Acheloös,” p. 35. 12 E.g., the Kephisos (Euripides, Ion 1261); the Alpheios (Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 275–76); and even Okeanos (Euripides, Orestes 1377–79); see N.K. Rutter, Campanian Coinages, 475–380 B.C. (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 42. Aelian (Varia Historia 2.33) records that the Stymphalians attributed bovine features both to the river Erasinos and the nymph Metope. 13 Weiss, Griechische Flußgottheiten, pp. 50–69; Herbert Adolph Cahn, “Gelas,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 4 (Zürich 1988); Ostrowski, Personifications, p. 17; Rainer Vollkommer, “Selinous I,” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 7 (Zürich 1994). See also Rutter, Campanian Coinages, pp. 42–43. The rivers represented by bulls or bull-men would appear to include, among others, the Tauricinius of Rhegion, the Amenanos of Katane, the Hipparis of Kamarina, and the Selinous. On Gela see Timaeus, Scholia in Pindari Pythionicas 1.185; Imhoof-Blumer, “Fluß- und Meergötter,” pp. 190–91 and 199–201; G. Kenneth Jenkins, The Coinage of Gela Antike Münzen und

river raptures

25

Figure 1. Silver stater of Neapolis. Courtesy of the American Numismatic Society.

Gela and Selinous produced both types, in each case referencing the local river god in youth and maturity.14 On the coinage of Neapolis, the man-headed bull, often crowned by a winged victory, became the city’s veritable mascot, appearing on scores of coin issues through the fifth and fourth centuries15 (figure 1). Is he Acheloös, or a local river god? The accompanying legend never identifies him. But he is frequently paired with a female bust on the obverse, which probably represents the most distinctive cult figure of ancient Neapolis, the Siren Parthenope.16 In its earliest manifestation, the settlement itself was called Parthenope in her memory; for according to legend, she had washed ashore on this spot after she and her two sisters had been foiled by Odysseus. Her tomb was established here and became the center of a popular cult.17 The father of the Sirens, it is geschnittene Steine 2 (Berlin, 1970), p. 36; Rutter, Campanian Coinages, p. 42; Weiss, Griechische Flußgottheiten, pp. 46–47; Cahn, “Gelas”; Ostrowski, Personifications, p. 21. 14 Weiss, Griechische Flußgottheiten, pp. 52–56. Cf. Imhoof-Blumer, “Fluß- und Meergötter,” pp. 190–91, 199–201, and 208–11; Léon Lacroix, “Fleuves et nymphes eponymes sur les monnaies grecques,” Revue belge de numismatique 99 (1953), 8–9; Jenkins, The Coinage of Gela; Cahn, “Gelas”; Vollkommer, “Selinous I.” 15 Imhoof-Blumer, “Fluß- und Meergötter,” pp. 175–78; Rutter, Campanian Coinages, pp. 42–59. 16 Ettore Gabrici, “Il toro a volto umano e la Sirena Partenope,” in Problemi di numismatica greca della Sicilia e della Magna Grecia (Naples, 1959), pp. 75–97. Gabrici’s hypothesis that the Neapolitan coinage indicates a local cult of Acheloös is dubious. 17 Roy M. Peterson, The Cults of Campania, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 1 (Rome, 1919), pp. 174–81; Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, “Sul culto della sirena nel golfo di Napoli,” La Parola del passato 7 (1952), 420–26; Francesco Sbordone, “La cultura 1: uno sguardo alle origini,” in Storia di Napoli, 1: Età classica, alto medioevo (Naples, 1967), pp. 511–20; Luisa Breglia Pulci Doria, “Le Sirene: il canto, la morte, la polis,” Annali di archeologia e storia antica 9 (1987), 86–93; Flavio Raviola, “La tradizione letteraria su Parthenope,” Hesperìa: Studi sulla grecità di occidente 1 (1990), 19–60.

26

rabun taylor

Figure 2. Bronze obol of Neapolis. Sambon, Monnaies antiques de l’Italie.

often noted, was none other than Acheloös. At first blush, this genealogy would seem to establish an irresistible correspondence between the bull-man and the female figure on Neapolitan coins.18 But there are good reasons for doubt. Acheloös’ parentage of the Sirens was more fully developed in the Roman period than in the Greek, when the emphasis was on his paternity of nymphs.19 The manheaded bull is much too widespread on Greek coins to have any special relationship with all their obverse types, and the Sirens were worshiped nowhere else except the Tyrrhenian coast. Apart from the abstraction of genealogy, Acheloös had no special connection to Neapolis that would have justified his continuous appearance on the city’s coinage. Indeed, there is no evidence that he was worshiped there at all, or anywhere nearby.20 As it happens, the Neapolitan coinage also includes an obol featuring the bust of a beardless youth with the horns of a bull, and bearing the legend SEPEITHOS in retrograde (figure 2). That refers unmistakably to the Sebethos, the principal river of Neapolis.21 FollowRutter, Campanian Coinages, pp. 44–45. For Acheloös as father of the Sirens see, Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.552–53, 14.87–88; Silius Italicus 12.33–36; Lucian, The Dance 50; Libanius, Progymnasmata: Narrationes 31, Libanii opera 8, ed. Richard Foerster, pp. 53, 5–11. For Acheloös as father of nymphs see, Plato, Phaedrus 263d; Euripides, Bacchae 519–20; Vergil, Copa 15; Columella 10.263. 20 Peterson, The Cults of Campania, pp. 203–04. 21 M. Lehnerdt, “Herakles und Acheloös,” Archäologische Zeitung 43 (1885), 105–20, 18 19

river raptures

27

ing the pattern of Gela and Selinous, it seems, Neapolis celebrated its local river in two forms. We now return to the principle of a hero who was submerged in a river and transformed into a water deity. No such myth is recorded about the Sebethos itself, but an analogous case is attached to a river nearby. According to Suetonius, the Roman rhetorician Epidius, a teacher of Antony and Augustus, claimed descent from a certain C. Epidius, a native of Nuceria. The descendant boasted that his ancestor, having fallen into the source of the Sarnus River, shortly thereafter sprouted golden horns, disappeared from sight, and took his place among the gods (Rhet. 28). This unusual genealogy is obviously cribbed from the Greek mythological tradition that prevailed in the region. Indeed the bull-man seems to have been a veritable topos in the myth and imagery of rivers along the coasts of south Italy. The Hellenistic poet Lycophron, in his treatment of the mythic origins of Neapolis, envisions a strikingly similar topography at the site where Ligeia, another of the three slain Sirens, washed ashore. Now we have moved south on the Tyrrhenian shore, to the region of Bruttium. He says: “To Terina shall Ligeia drift, spitting out the surge. Sailors shall bury her in the pebbles of the shore, by the eddies of the Ocinarus. And an ox-horned Ares shall bathe her tomb with his waters, cleansing the bird-child’s home with his quenching stream” (Alex. 724–31). Evidently the Ocinarus river, which flowed past the city of Terina, had its own ox-man for a river god.22 The most interesting and best understood of this breed is a watergod of the Greek city of Lokroi Epizephyroi in the far south of Italy.23 Rich votive deposits were found at the Locrian spring known in modern times as Grotta Caruso. The spring emerged from a cave in a hillside, and over time the site was adorned with a vast array of votive objects, many of them fashioned from the local clay. The site is famous for the

at p. 111; Arthur Sambon, Les Monnaies antiques de l’Italie (Paris, 1903), pp. 181 and 218 note 422; Imhoof-Blumer, “Fluß- und Meergötter,” pp. 175–76; Rutter, Campanian Coinages, pp. 43–44. 22 The reference to Ares, however, is obscure, and may be corrupt. 23 Most of the ensuing information about Lokroi and Medma is drawn from Paolo Enrico Arias, “Euthymos,” in Cinquanta anni di recherche archeologiche sulla Calabria (1937–1987) (Rome, 1988), pp. 121–30 and Felice Costabile, “Culti e miti delle divinità fluviali: Euthymos, il Kaikinos ed Acheloös,” in I Ninfei di Locri Epizefiri: Architettura, culti erotici, sacralità delle acque, ed. Felice Costabile (Soveria Mannelli, Catanzaro, 1991), pp. 195–226. Cf. Weiss, Griechische Flußgottheiten, pp. 67–69.

28

rabun taylor

terracotta models of grotto-style nymphaea found there, and also for the distinctive three-headed herms that seem to have represented the local water nymphs, along with thousands of other votive objects. This was a place that constructed its identity around its therapeutic waters. A number of the herms depict a man-headed bull; but unlike the Acheloös-inspired type (which also appears on a handful of herms), he is beardless and is represented as a votive statue set in front of a fountain basin (figure 3). His statue base identifies him as Euthymos, a historical figure associated with Lokroi. In the years 484, 476, and 472 B.C., he won boxing contests at the Olympic games in Greece and was honored with statues in both Olympia and his hometown in Italy. Within a few years of his achievements, a hero cult had grown up around him. Pliny the Elder remarks that both statues—the one at Olympia, and the one in Lokroi—were struck by lightning on the very same day. The Delphic Oracle interpreted this prodigy as a sign that Euthymos, who was still living, should himself receive sacrifice as a god. This practice continued after his death (HN 7.152). Some of the Euthymos votives are dated to the late fifth century, only a few decades after the Olympian victories of their namesake; there can be little doubt that the hero’s apotheosis into a hybrid river god happened quickly and deliberately. Over time, a now-familiar kind of myth developed around Euthymos. According to Aelian, writing in the early third century A.D., the hero went down to the Kaikinos River near his hometown and disappeared (VH 8.18). Though Aelian does not specify that Euthymos was reborn as a god, he surely means to imply it, for the cult of the hero was still robust in his own day. In effect, Euthymos was made to conform retroactively to a familiar and powerful model: the hero who drowned in a river, only to be resurrected as the river itself, or at least its tutelary spirit.24

24 Shortly after its invention, the bull-god of the Locrians may have migrated to their colony at Medma to the northwest. A fragmentary terracotta relief bust in Geneva, representing a beardless young man with the ears and horns of a bull, comes from the vicinity of this colony and bespeaks a similar cult of the local waters; see Salvatore Settis, Archeologia in Calabria: figure e temi (Rome, 1987), pp. 263–83; Costabile, “Culti e miti,” p. 211. A gorgon-like terracotta mask with ox horns has also been found at Medma, but its identification is disputed. It has been identified tentatively as the personification of the Medma spring, or simply Medusa herself with horns instead of the customary wings on her forehead; see M. Teresa Iannelli and Felice Costabile, “Il problema iconografico della ninfa Medma,” in I Ninfei di Locri Epizefiri, p. 113.

river raptures

Figure 3. Classical terracotta relief from Lokroi. Museo Nazionale, Reggio Calabria inv. 110.

29

30

rabun taylor The Water-Oracles

Acheloös is hardly the only shape-shifter among water gods, and probably not the oldest. The watery and prophetic figures of Proteus, Nereus, and Glaucus—the Old Men of the Sea—all fit the type of the outcast god who jealously guards his superior knowledge.25 They can assume the form of almost anything, and thus they present a challenge to the artists who depict them. Proteus is represented in Greco-Roman art hardly at all,26 though he figures in famous episodes of the Odyssey and the Georgics.27 From the early sixth century B.C., Nereus is shown as a fish-tailed man on vases, often wrestling with Herakles;28 in narrative myth he is as mutable as Proteus, able to assume any form, or to become even water itself, which is utterly formless. These figures attract the urgent interest of gods and humans alike because they are oracles, their watery natures storing an imprint of all events past, present, and future. In classical antiquity, as in world folklore at large, water often is constructed as the province of special knowledge.29 It forms a vast nether world and thereby shares the secrets of the dead. It cycles through the earth and air, and is witness to all things. As oracles, as the inhabitants of the Other Side—a topsy-turvy underwater world, with its subterranean conduits to the domains of the dead—water gods are in a position to know things we cannot. And if we include the sacrificial river gods among this group, we may surmise that the very experience of death augments their knowledge. Water is infinitely mutable and thereby unpredictable. These characteristics render it suitable for the kind of complex pattern recognition that characterizes divination. Many springs and rivers worshiped in antiquity gave the gift of clairvoyance, probably by way of some medium or oracle.30 In myth, this knowledge is never divulged without 25 P.M.C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford and New York, 1990), pp. 171–94. 26 Noëlle Icard-Gianolio, “Proteus,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 7 (Zürich, 1994), pp. 560–61. 27 Homer, Odyssey 4.332–592; Vergil, Georgics 315–558. 28 Maria Pipili, “Nereus,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 6 (Zürich, 1992), pp. 826–27 and 835. A fully human form of Nereus appears around 560 B.C. 29 Martin Hermann Ninck, Die Bedeutung des Wassers in Kult und Leben der alten: Eine symbolgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Leipzig, 1921), pp. 47–99; W. Robert Connor, “Seized by Nymphs: Nympholepsy and Symbolic Expression in Classical Greece,” Classical Antiquity 7 (1988), 155–89. 30 Jennifer Larson, Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (Oxford and New York, 2001), pp. 11–20.

river raptures

31

a good fight. Only the grip of a determined adversary could subdue a water deity. The hero’s struggle with him can be regarded as a kind of hydromancy, or divination by water; but in this case, the deity is both the prophet and the medium of knowledge, the water itself. Only by seizing and confining the element would the seeker be rewarded with an oracular pronouncement. In the Georgics, when instructing her son Aristaeus on the correct method to extract information from Proteus, the nymph Cyrene says, nam sine vi non ulla dabit paecepta (“only by constraint will he give answer,” 4.398). The truth-seeker’s struggle with a mutable monster is a beautifully apt metaphor. The acquisition of truth, after all, is a kind of containment of an unruly foe—the realm of a thousand possibilities, each taking a different form. The seeker wrestles equally with all possible outcomes, of which only one outcome, the authentic one, must be singled out. It remains to mention one other type of sacrificial water spirit, the shape-shifting nymph. The most prominent of these is Thetis, the nereid who was compelled against her will to marry the first man who could subdue her in a wrestling contest.31 Like those who wrestled the male hybrids, her suitor Peleus needed only to hang on for dear life while his adversary took a variety of terrifying shapes. The price of her defeat was, in this case, not the extortion of information but the nymph’s capitulation in marriage to a mere mortal. The story has been interpreted as an instance of a widespread folkloric model in IndoEuropean culture: the temporary ‘taming’ or cultivation of the wild virgin, who serves as a dutiful wife and mother, but who later reverts to her natural state.32 Pollution and Consecration Two paradigms of rapture have been advanced here—the sacrifice in water of a hero-victim, who often emerges reanimated as the spirit of the water; and the wrestling match between a human and a water deity. In one case, water seizes and transforms a human; in the other, a human seizes and benefits from water. How might these models have

31 Pipili, “Nereus,” pp. 830–31; Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis, p. xx; Rainer Vollkommer, “Peleus,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 7 (Zürich, 1994). 32 Louis Séchan, Sept légendes grecques, suivies de l’étude des sources (Paris, 1967), pp. 91–109; Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 71–73.

32

rabun taylor

been applied ideologically? Being seized and seizing, it can be argued, are two sides of the same coin, representing the cycle of hybris, expiation, and redemption that is so central to Greek thinking. At its center is the polar continuum of pollution and purification, a principle elucidated in the 1960s by Mary Douglas33 and more recently—in a specifically Greek context—by Carol Dougherty: The Greeks conceptualize defilement as the inversion of a positive religious value; it still carries religious force. Blood and dust can bring pollution, but they can also consecrate. That which is a source of pollution in one context becomes a source of religious power in another. Teiresias, for example, sees what is forbidden, Pallas Athena bathing; he has crossed the barrier between the human and the divine, and he must be punished. The punishment of blinding, however, contains aspects of the sacred, and he gains the power of prophecy. Oedipus, murderer and committer of incest, the source of plague and disaster at Thebes, once exiled, carries a positive religious power to the land that accepts him, Athens.34

Dougherty’s observations, which are centered upon foundation myths, could be applied with equal authority to our myths of seeking. In the various instances of water rapture enumerated above, both those who seize water and those who are seized by it can be interpreted as heroic figures tainted by blood pollution. On the seizing side, Herakles (who wrestled Acheloös and Nereus) was a tortured man in search of expiation for his violent sins. Menelaus, returning from Troy, was beset by god-sent delays until Proteus yielded the formula by which he could propitiate his tormentors. Aristaeus was a star-crossed beekeeper who wrested from Proteus the knowledge that he had inadvertently caused the death of Eurydice. Peleus had killed and dismembered Astydameia, and perhaps was still shadowed by his earlier homicides, when he wrestled Thetis. Only by extorting knowledge or benefit from their opponents—taking the bull by the horns, as it were—do these damned souls achieve redemption. The oracular event itself is a logical precursor to their purification, for in Greek myth troubled and exiled heroes often seek an oracle’s guidance to identify and annul their offenses against

33 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York, 1966). 34 Carol Dougherty, “It’s Murder to Found a Colony,” in Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics, ed. Carol Dougherty and Leslie Kurke, pp. 178–98, at p. 186. Cf. eadem, The Poetics of Colonization (New York and Oxford, 1993), pp. 35–38.

river raptures

33

the gods. Phoibos Apollo, the greatest of oracular gods, the doctor of lost souls, is most elementally a purifier, as even his name attests.35 On the side of the seized dwell equally polluted souls. Dirke was a cruel mistress, harshly punished for her crimes against Antiope and expiated (perhaps) only after her death by the infusion of her remains in a spring. Aeneas was an archetypal founder-exile of the sort propounded by Dougherty;36 he strove to redeem his lost Troy on Italian soil with the blood of countless victims. Anna, who also was deified in the Numicus, was an exile from her brother Pygmalion’s kingdom of Tyre.37 Euthymos, the boxing champion from Lokroi, can be counted among the tainted, too. An Olympian boxer, for all his superstar status, is himself entangled in blood pollution by virtue of his violent profession; in one case, Pindar compares a famous boxer to the polluted founder of his home colony.38 According to Dio Cassius, even Hadrian’s beloved Antinoös was a sacrificial victim, offered in expiation for the founding of his eponymous city, Antinoopolis (Roman History 69.2.2–3). Though the story may have been spurious, its symbolism required no explanation to Dio’s audience.39 These antipodal models of binder and bound serve in tandem as geopolitical metaphors. With every conquest comes expiation; pollution must precede purification. Water, with its natural multivalence—in this case, both killer and cleanser—meets the symbolic needs of this binary unity. And the fact that water often forms natural boundaries in the landscape—boundaries that may be breached only by careful ritual scruple40—enhances its semantic power. Thus, the imagery of death and apotheosis by water may have presented a way for an ethnos to anchor itself to the landscape of a new home. In pursuing a grand new initiative, a whole people cannot necessarily know what sins among them must be atoned for, or what gods demand appeasement. Indeed, it may be the very land itself, and its waters, that they will injure by 35 Dougherty, Poetics, 32–35; eadem, “It’s Murder,” note 3 and bibliography. Lycophron subtly reminds us of this fact when his ox-horned river god, Ocinarus, is made to phoibazein (purify) the grave of Ligeia with his waters. 36 Dougherty, Poetics, pp. 31–44; eadem, “It’s Murder,” pp. 178–85. 37 See note 4. 38 Dougherty, Poetics, pp. 120–35; eadem, “It’s Murder,” pp. 189–94. It was not unusual for boxers to kill or be killed in competition. 39 Royston Lambert, Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous (London, 1984), pp. 130–31. 40 Louise Adams Holland, Janus and the Bridge, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 21 (Rome, 1961), pp. 8–28.

34

rabun taylor

conquest. So they create a scapegoat, a catch-all mythical magnet for the wrath of the gods, to stand in their place. For example, Orontes and Palinurus, two drowned and unburied companions of Aeneas, have often been thus identified in the story of the Trojans’ advancement to Italy; each is a candidate for Neptune’s famous reassurance to Venus in the Aeneid: “unum pro multis dabitur caput” (“one head shall serve for many”).41 Conversely, the mythical conquest of water for purposes of expiation and exploitation can be seen as a trope for group behavior. The ‘Old Men of the Sea’ are liminal figures, and all of them lose status in their struggles with a human. At first, it seems passing strange that a limited god should be celebrated on the very grounds of his limitation. But let us review Cyrene’s words: “only by constraint will he give answer.” The issue of constraint, I think, lies at the very center of the question of meaning in the personification of water. These myths of struggle and revelation have profound implications for human attitudes toward water in the ancient Mediterranean, for they set forth a paradigm of control and management. They are a means of codifying the human dominion of the landscape that began in prehistory and reached its height in the Roman period, when the manipulation of water exceeded the merely pragmatic—e.g., land reclamation, irrigation, the husbanding of water resources—and became a goal unto itself, often sought by the most extravagant means. Water, like the gods that represent it, must be seized and held in all its fury; it must be dominated, pacified, even emasculated. It must be probed and interrogated for the good of humanity, and the outcome of this probe will be prosperity and increase. The crux of a deification by water is not, perhaps, that the sacrificial victim, or the river, achieves divinity. The crux is that the body of water becomes assimilated to some kind of a sacrificial victim, which it seizes, purifies, and dissolves into itself. A sacred river or spring, particularly one that is instrumental in the life of a city, is alternately both victim and god, having a willful and fearsome nature of its own, but also open to human containment, control, and exploitation.42 In equal measure, it demands appeasement and yet bends to the will of a human master. Vergil, Aeneid 5.814–15; see Dyson, King of the Wood (see above, note 5), 67–94. This phenomenon is not as errant as it may seem. Jan Bremmer enumerates several instances in which a protagonist is both sacrificed to a god, and simultaneously shares some of the god’s identity; Iphigenia/Artemis and Pentheus/Dionysos are particularly 41 42

river raptures

35

The bull, of course, has always been a symbol of strength and masculinity: a figure of great procreative and destructive force. But its potential violence is constrained by the governing hand of man. In Greco-Roman antiquity, as today, oxen did not usually roam free and unattended—much less the males of the species, which were sequestered from the rest of the herd.43 In this respect, they resemble rivers themselves, which normally remain within their banks, feeding fertile floodplains; but occasionally they break loose of their bonds and wreak violent havoc on the countryside. The bull is also the quintessential sacrificial victim.44 It is principally as such that it should be seen as an iconic component of a river deity. The hybrid bull-men, however worthy, had initially to be sacrificed by drowning before they could emerge as gods themselves. Purified by death, transformed by their symbolic rite of passage, they were reborn as the very water that killed them, a gift to humanity and to the world at large.45 At times, the sacrificial status of the tauriform water god is implicit in the very mode of his presentation; and so, for example, Suetonius presents the telling detail that C. Epidius Nucerinus was resurrected as a river god with golden horns. The gilding of the victim’s horns was a traditional sacrificial ritual in both Greek and Roman practice. When Acheloös lost his match with Herakles, one of his horns was broken off in the fight. Significantly, this severed member became the Cornucopia—the horn of plenty, forever pouring out the earth’s bounty.46 It could even serve as an attribute of the anthropomorphic version of the god. Recently Mireille Lee has drawn attention to a lost

prominent examples. See Jan Bremmer, “Transvestite Dionysos,” in Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society, ed. M.W. Padilla (Lewisburg, Pa., London, and Toronto, 1999), pp. 183–200, at 194. 43 Wild cattle continued to be known sporadically in Greece throughout antiquity, but in most regions the domestication of cattle was universal long before the historical period. See Michael Rice, The Power of the Bull (London and New York, 1998), p. 64. 44 Rice, The Power of the Bull, pp. 41–61. 45 There may be an Orphic component to all this. According to a tradition popular in Magna Graecia, it was in the form of a bull that the young shape-shifter Zagreus was slaughtered before he was resurrected as Dionysos. The Orphic hymns sometimes invoke the god as ‘two-horned,’ ‘bull-horned,’ or ‘bull-faced,’ see Euripides, Bacchae 100; Orphei Hymni nos. 30, 45 and 52, ed. Wilhelm Quandt (Dublin, 1973); Nonnus 5.563–65, 6.169–205. 46 Edmond Pottier, “Cornucopia,” Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romains, ed. Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio 1.2 (Paris, 1887), p. 1514, with primary sources.

36

rabun taylor

statuette of the early Classical period, found at a sanctuary of Acheloös on Euboea, and once in the Athens National Museum (figure 4).47 It shows the god in his fully human form, with his familiar beard—but, strangely, wearing a woman’s peplos, and carrying his broken horn in the form of a traditional cornucopia.48 Lee has suggested that this gender-bending iconography served as a helpful corrective to Acheloös’ otherwise self-destructive hyper-masculinity. I see it in starker terms, as an adjunct to his emasculation in the loss to Herakles. The cornucopia, a material reminder of his personal injury commuted to an abundant sacrifice, is equally suggestive. But it also calls to mind Dougherty’s notion of colonial discourse embodied in sacred marriage: the feminization of the landscape as a means of establishing a metaphorical union of colonizer and colonized.49 Whatever this image denotes in particular, we should not forget that Herakles too would land in a similar predicament later. Most famously, as the slave of Omphale, he was forced to dress and act the part of a woman.50 The hero’s humiliation was part of his program of expiation for murder; and so it may well be that Acheloös Peplophoros is meant to offer a similar kind of penance, though precisely for what, we don’t know. His ignominy is coupled with a binary symbol of both sacrifice and its reward, the cornucopia. Inventing Water Gods Did all these mythical figures play a role in the self-definition of the cities and ethne that promoted them? More specifically, might they have belonged to a culture that required an initial expiatory sacrifice 47 Mireille Le, “Acheloös Peplophoros: A Lost Statuette of a River God in Feminine Dress,” Hesperia 75 (2006), 317–25; cf. Ruth Michael Gais, “Some Problems of RiverGod Iconography,” American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978), 355–70, at 359; Ostrowski, Personifications (see above, note 12), p. 19. 48 The standard etiology of Greek cross-dressing episodes—adolescent rites of passage—cannot be applied here, for Acheloös is clearly a mature male. See Bremmer, “Transvestite Dionysos.” 49 Dougherty, Poetics (see above, note 32), pp. 61–80. 50 On the complexities of Herakles’ feminine side, see Nicole Loraux, The Experiences of Tiresias: The Feminine and the Greek Man, trans. P. Wissing (Princeton, 1995), 116–39; Monica S. Cyrino, “Heroes in D[u]ress: Transvestism and Power in the Myths of Herakles and Achilles,” Arethusa 31 (1998), 207–41; Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, “Herakles Re-dressed: Gender, Clothing, and the Construction of a Greek Hero,” in Herakles and Hercules: Exploring a Graeco-Roman Divinity, ed. Louis Rawlings and Hugh Bowden, (Swansea, 2005), pp. 51–69.

river raptures

37

Figure 4. Early Classical bronze statuette of Acheloös from Oichalia, Euboea. Drawing by G. Fawkes. Courtesy of Mireille Lee.

to accompany the acquisition of a new territory? This question could open a fruitful avenue for future research. The principle of voluntary self-sacrifice for the benefit or salvation of another was widespread in both Greek and Roman culture.51 Even Aeneas’ death in the Numicus may have had an important symbolic role in his Italian cult, in the sense that it marked the passing of an old and flawed ethnic identity (the Trojan) into a new Italian identity. Troy itself—once immolated in fire—was sacrificed anew in water, and Italy emerged ascendant from its depths. The bull-man, a wild thing half-tamed, must often have served as a multivalent symbol and a tool of colonial hegemony. Colonizing Greeks may have laid claim to the landscape by transmitting the cult ideas of their home city to local springs or rivers. This model could be taken as a kind of collective sacrifice, or dissolution, of the colonists’ old landed 51

Lambert, Beloved and God, pp. 134–42.

38

rabun taylor

identities, purified and reborn into a new identity defined by their new circumstances. Just as later Italian colonists would toss a handful of the soil of their homelands into a ritual pit in their new city, so Greek colonists could mingle their own blood in the local waters, figuratively, by way of a fictive sacrificial ancestor. Neapolis can serve as a potential test case for this hypothesis. Why was the Sebethos River so dominant on this city’s coinage? The river was a minor feature in the landscape; in fact, it had entirely disappeared by the Middle Ages, a victim of the geological upheavals that have beset the northern Bay of Naples. Although its location has been a matter of contention, archaeological evidence continues to strengthen Mario Napoli’s longstanding contention that the river ran directly between the old town, Parthenope or Palaepolis, and the new town founded by the Cumaeans around 470 B.C., Neapolis (figure 5).52 Ettore Lepore has argued that these two settlements developed distinctive socioeconomic and ethnic identities during the fifth century.53 The old town, abandoned by most Greeks, became an indigenous enclave, and eventually—with the Samnite invasions in the 420’s—was thoroughly dominated by a ‘Campanian’ ethnicity. Neapolis, on the other hand, was the district of the wealthy Greek elite, who ceded power to the Samnites only with great reluctance. The early coinage could be seen to represent an accord between the classes and their respective settlements—a pact that overcame the river dividing them, thereby signaling a rebirth of the colony’s vitality. An accord would have subdued the river’s power as a natural and metaphorical boundary. It may even have provided for physically yoking the beast—the river itself—by means of a bridge. The bull-man could be understood simultaneously as a sacrifice made to appease the breached boundary, and as the personification of the boundary itself. The inclusion of the siren Parthenope on the coin type is likewise significant: it may represent a renewed commitment of the new city to its most venerable cult, situated across the river. Parthenope also helps to make sense of the hovering Nike who proffers a crown above the

52 Mario Napoli, Napoli Greco-romana, 2nd ed. (Naples, 1979), pp. 130–34. His hypothesis on the location of the river gains support from the recent discovery of three boats under the Piazza del Municipio, which appear to have been embedded in alluvium. 53 Ettore Lepore, “Napoli greco-romana: la vita politica e sociale 1. Neapolis nel quinto secolo a.C.,” in Storia di Napoli, vol. 1: Età classica, alto medioevo (Naples, 1967), pp. 139–92.

river raptures

39

Figure 5. Conjectural course of the Sebethos River in antiquity.

head of the striding Sebethos. It was in her memory that games were introduced to Neapolis from Athens, perhaps as early as the 450’s, when Neapolitan coinage began to show this type.54 If Neapolis is any measure, we might take the bull-man paradigm at large as evidence of a ‘reconciliation’ mytheme, wherein the dominant

Rutter, Campanian Coinages (see above, note 11), p. 45. Cf. Isler, Acheloös: Eine Monographie (see above, note 6), pp. 87–88, who previously attributed the introduction of the Nike to the early fourth century. Some have wanted to see Acheloös as the dedicatee of games in Neapolis, on the example of Akarnania or Metapontion; see Sambon, Monnaies (see above, note 19), p. 181; Peterson, The Cults of Campania (see above, note 15), p. 204; Rutter, Campanian Coinages, p. 44. The founding of the games is attributed to a visit from the Athenian general Diotimos, usually believed to have visited Neapolis sometime around 430. But Lepore (see above, note 51, pp. 172–75) suggests that Diotimos may have visited Neapolis in the 450s, during an early Athenian intervention in Sicily. The pre-Augustan games took the form of torch races, which may be signified on at least one die series by the small female figure in a knee-length tunic, running right with a torch, appearing behind the bust of Parthenope; see figure 1. 54

40

rabun taylor

outsiders establish a symbolism that seeks to comprehend, and thus control, the dangerous and hostile indigenous forces—both human and divine—of a territory. Indeed, a number of scholars have given attention recently to a similar phenomenon: the construction of local myths, often involving the miscegenation of a local deity and an interloping hero, that frame a practical relationship between a colonizing ethnos and the indigenous population.55 Future investigations, it is hoped, will reveal the extent to which this very Greek mentality survived into the Roman period. On the grander scale of Roman hegemony, human control of water as a symbol of its dominance of the landscape became nothing less than an obsession, and in important ways it expressed continuity with centuries-old traditions. Old Greek notions of what it means to subjugate a source or a river did not disappear; they simply changed into something else. River raptures were engulfed in the imagery of empire. Was it a nod to the ancient folklore of Greece that in the Antonine period Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla chose to put a sacrificial bull at the very focal center of their great nymphaeum at Olympia, fed by the Alpheios River (figure 6)?56 This was a bull, moreover, that yielded information, by way of an inscription on its flank, telling of the nature of Regilla’s donation. Every literate visitor could be a little Herakles, wrestling out its cryptic meaning, rendered in an intentionally archaic style. The old hybrid bull-men were gone, but their memory remained. They had given way to reclining river gods.57 On coinage and in sculpture, these figures often carried the cornucopia, which by the Hellenistic period had become as much a signifier of earthly abundance as of watery wealth (figure 7). But embedded in the conventional chthonic imagery are old memories of seizure, mastery, and expiation attached almost exclusively to water. These humanoid figures still bear the mark of the bull. They lie prostrate, not just to emphasize their chthonic connections, but to signal their willing submission to human domination. 55 E.g., Dougherty, Poetics, pp. 9, 61–80 and 145–46; Josine H. Blok, “A Tale of Many Cities: Amazons in the Mythical Past of Greek Cities in Asia Minor,” in Proof and Persuasion: Essays on Authority, Objectivity, and Evidence, ed. Suzanne Marchand and Elizabeth Lunbeck (Turnhout, 1996), pp. 81–99; Sourvinou-Inwood 2004, 2005: 103–16. 56 Renate Bol, Das Statuenprogramm des Herodes-Atticus-Nyphäums, Olympische Forschungen 15 (Berlin, 1984), p. 109. 57 Gais, “River-God Iconography” (see above, note 46).

river raptures

41

Figure 6. Inscribed stone bull from the nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla at Olympia. Photo: Rabun Taylor.

Figure 7. Statue of a reclining personification of the Nile River, Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome. Second or early third century A.D. Photo: Rabun Taylor.

42

rabun taylor

And of course there is the cornucopia itself: a perfect embodiment of the binary nature of sacrifice, with its connotations of simultaneous loss and gain. Repeatedly, it is to this duality that we have returned—the strand of meaning that inheres most powerfully in water rapture at every bend in the river.

ARCHIMEDES, THE NORTH BATHS AT MORGANTINA, AND EARLY DEVELOPMENTS IN VAULTED CONSTRUCTION Sandra K. Lucore This essay is a brief preliminary survey of early forms of vaulted construction, all found in contexts of bath architecture, first at the Greek city of Morgantina in the third century B.C., and then at other sites in the western Mediterranean in the second and first centuries B.C. The North Baths complex at Morgantina is presented briefly, before the vaulting from three rooms in these baths is discussed. Then follows consideration of the other early examples. Excavation and study of the thermal complex at Morgantina are still in progress, and most of the other sites have not yet been fully published; therefore, certain observations remain provisional.1 Discussion of the vaulting system found at Morgantina is based on firsthand knowledge. For the remaining instances, however, observations are limited by the information available in the relevant preliminary reports. Yet in spite of the restrictions, these earliest known above ground domes and vaults present an interesting picture of innovative and experimental regional developments before the widespread use of opus caementicium revolutionized Roman architectural design and construction. 1 In 1970 and 1971, excavations at the ancient Greek settlement of Morgantina, directed by Hubert L. Allen of the University of Illinois, revealed the remains of two adjacent bathing complexes in the area of the ancient city known as Contrada Agnese. The preliminary report was published in Hubert L. Allen, “Excavations at Morgantina (Serra Orlando), 1970–1972: Preliminary Report XI,” American Journal of Archaeology 78 (1974), 370–382. Although the two structures were dated by the excavators to the late fourth to early third centuries B.C., current ceramics and numismatics evidence indicates the probability of a mid-third century date for their construction. As a result of various circumstances, excavation of both buildings was never completed, and the site remained published in preliminary form only. In 2003, excavations of the North Baths were resumed by U.S. excavations, directed by the author, with the intention of fully uncovering the complex and producing the final publication on the building. The North Baths are described and discussed in detail in a recent study of western Greek baths; see Sandra K. Lucore, “The Balaneion in Magna Graecia: Tradition and Innovation in Western Greek Baths,” Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 2007).

44

sandra k. lucore

The Hellenistic period was one of great originality and creativity, in science, literature, the arts, as well as architectural design and urban planning. Sicily in the third century B.C. was no exception, and it is not surprising that the early vaulted construction at Morgantina was ultimately a result of the city’s position within the prosperous kingdom of Syracuse under Hieron II. That all of these early experiments in a new form of roofing took place in bathing establishments, in Greek and Roman contexts, is clear indication of the increasing importance given to the development and enhancement of this particular civic amenity in urban environments. The North Baths at Morgantina (figure 1) are located at the western edge of the urbanized zone within the walls, at the intersection of plateia B, one of the two major east-west thoroughfares of the ancient city, and Stenopos W 14. Currently available evidence suggests that this part of the city lay at the edge of the residential zone and was given over to public structures.2 The innovative and experimental nature of the design and construction of particular features of the North Baths is one of the building’s hallmark characteristics. The larger context for the dome and vaults is elucidated by a brief overview of the eleven rooms in this building and the function of the various spaces (see figure 1). Benches are a prominent feature of half of the rooms of the complex. They provide necessary furniture for waiting or storing personal belongings in rooms 1 and 2 before entering the tholos, room 5, where bathing took place in individual portable terracotta bathtubs. Room 7, with a bench installed along the west wall, functioned as an anteroom (apodyterion) to room 8, whose function remains not entirely clear because of the presence of

2 Allen, “Excavations at Morgantina,” 370–382, believed that the North Baths and the south bath building were parts of one large complex; however, it is now clear that the two formed separate structures. In addition, adjacent to the south baths was located a sanctuary to Demeter and Persephone, deities well represented elsewhere at Morgantina. In 2004 and 2005, excavations revealed the presence of a structure directly opposite the North Baths, on the south side of plateia B. Very little has been excavated, but a plausible argument can be made for the identification of this building as a gymnasium, quite possibly associated with a track facility located further to the south. What the evidence thus far suggests is that especially during the second half of the third century B.C., civic life at Morgantina was significantly enhanced, including the provision of new and innovative facilities for luxury bathing. The larger context of this embellishment of the public sector of the city is Morgantina’s position within the Syracusan kingdom of Hieron II, discussion of which appears below concerning the appearance of the dome and vaults at Morgantina.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

45

Figure 1. Morgantina North Baths plan.

the collapsed vault on the floor. From room 8, one entered room 9, not yet completely excavated but already the most elaborate room in terms of furniture and decoration: it was provided with a bench along the east wall, a large standing basin on the west, and a hot water communal immersion pool at the north end. Alternatively, from room 8, bathers could have moved to the sweat bath of room 4, heated by a hypocaust from below. Water for bathing was provided by the 5.50 meters deep well in room 3, at least during an initial phase of the building. At some later time, room 10 was added, a large unroofed basin for water storage, or perhaps a piscina for swimming, although there is no evidence of steps or any other means of access into the pool. A gutter running along the exterior east wall of room 9 collected rainwater to be directed to the basin. The furnace of room 4 provided hot water as well as ambient heat to adjacent spaces, with access to this service area from the corridor of room 11. Room 6, entered from plateia B, may have been a reception area where patrons paid their entrance fee before going on to use the facilities. Across the alley to the north is a series of rooms

46

sandra k. lucore

(A and B on figure 1), which might have included spaces for storage or other utilitarian functions in relation to the baths.3 The North Baths at Morgantina provide some of the earliest existing evidence for aboveground vaults (figure 2), with one domed space 5.75 meters in diameter, and two barrel-vaulted rooms, one with a span of 5.00 meters and the second 5.50 meters, and the experimental nature of the construction is seen in the simple and rather unwieldy system used to put up the vaults. Once the idea to create vaulted spaces was conceived, a point returned to below, it would appear that the builders, having no clear precedents, used the technology at hand. The long history of laying terracotta conduits to bring in clean water and to discharge waste seems to have provided the source for the key element in these early tubular vaults. There are, in fact, two types of hollow terracotta tube found in the construction of the North Baths. Type 1 is larger and heavier than Type 2 (figure 3) and features a more pronounced shoulder and wider opening at the front end, thus creating an appearance very much like that of water conduits. Several examples exist of Type 1 tubes with their prominent shoulders chipped away, clearly an attempt to make the front end more pointed and therefore more flexible for use in the vault. This is evidence of the adaptation of a preexisting technology to a different context, and is reflective of the generally innovative nature of the building. Type 1 was refined to create Type 2, a lighter, more streamlined and flexible tube, and one more suitable for use in the vaults. Both types of tube were manufactured by hand, using a large sheet of clay that was rolled, perhaps around a central core, and folded edge to edge to create the tubular shape. The edges were trimmed on the exterior in order to maintain a fairly uniform thickness at the joint. The tube maker also ran fingers along the interior seam to secure the connection. These marks are clearly visible on many of the tubes and are a vivid reminder of the craft-like aspect of this early technology.

3 Among the eleven rooms of the North Baths, there is no provision for storing wood or other fuel for the fires of the hypocaust or for maintenance areas of the baths in general. Room B, with the door onto the alley located directly across from the entrance to room 11 of the baths, the access corridor to the hypocaust, is likely to have functioned as a service area for the complex.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

Figure 2. Morgantina North Baths. Reconstructed dome and vaults.

47

48

sandra k. lucore

Figure 3. Morgantina North Baths. Type 2 vaulting tube.

The tubes were then fired before being used in the construction of the vaults.4 Type 2 tubes were used exclusively in the construction of the dome over room 5 and the barrel vault over room 8. The vault over room 9 was constructed using primarily Type 2 tubes, although current evidence suggests that the vault that covered the room at the time of the destruction of the building seems to have incorporated some examples of the Type 1 tube as well. Possibly the room 9 vault was first built using these larger tubes exclusively. The vault might have collapsed because of the greater weight of the Type 1 tubes, and then was rebuilt, perhaps utilizing salvageable tubes of the first type in addition to the new design of lighter and more flexible tubes of the second.5 Any reconstruction is hypothetical at this point, and future excavation no doubt will help to explain the presence of these two different types of tube in room 9. 4 Excavations in 2007 in the area to the north of the bath complex produced significant evidence of ash and vitrified material. The source of this is unknown; however, it might indicate the nearby presence of a kiln. Because of the size and number of tubes that were manufactured for the dome and vaults, it seems likely that production would have taken place in the vicinity of the building. 5 Throughout the area of the North Baths there are many examples of Type 1 tubes reused in secondary contexts unrelated to vaulting. It would appear that after the first vault collapsed, reusable tubes (and perhaps other material—bricks, for example) were put in storage for future construction in and around the building.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

49

Figure 4. Morgantina North Baths. Room 8 vault and wall construction.

The construction of the dome and vaults is uniform throughout the building. The tubes, on average approximately 0.60–0.70 meters long and with an interior diameter of 0.12–0.15 meters, were placed front to end vertically to create arched segments side by side, much like the segments of a sliced egg. Each tube is open at one end and tapers to a point at the other, thus providing an easy join of the tubes as well as a certain flexibility in manipulating the angle of each tube according to its location in the arch (figure 4). At least three examples exist of iron pins used to join some of the tubes horizontally. A similar, but more systematic, use of reinforcing iron pins is seen in the later Roman vaults at Cabrera del Mar in Spain, which are discussed below. If it is assumed that iron pins were used in the same way at Morgantina, to give overall support to the vaults, it is

50

sandra k. lucore

surprising that more examples are not found. It may be then that here they were used to deal with more particular problems: for example, to give additional support to the last tube in a line of tubes that was interrupted by the opening of an oculus or window. The first tubes in the arch segments were set on top of the walls on a leveling course of bricks of standard dimensions, about 0.45 square meters. These segments ran up from each side and were joined at the center by a tube open at both ends designed to accommodate the pointed ends of the tubes on either side. Once set into place, the tube segments were covered with a rough mortar compound, thus making them visible on neither the interior nor the exterior of the vault. The matrix of this mortar includes small pieces of lava rock and fragments of terracotta, perhaps as an attempt to decrease the weight of the roof. Sources of gypsum have been located not far from the ancient city, and it is possible that this fast-drying medium was used here to facilitate the setting of the vaults.6 As a last step in the process, the interior surface was finished with a fine coat of plaster and painted blue or black. The exterior of the vault was given added support by a buttress-like construction consisting of the upper elevation of the wall on the exterior with an inner core of small stone and mortar rubble, capped by a heavy mortar finishing course (figure 4). These tubular vaults at Morgantina provide the earliest such examples thus far known. Specific techniques employed are therefore without known precedents, although the relatively uniform appearance of the construction suggests at least a minimal period of experimentation and development. Indeed, inspiration for this innovative design was most likely a result of influences from Syracuse. A convincing case can be made for adding Morgantina to Diodoros’ list of cities within the boundary of the kingdom of Hieron II, which helps to explain how a distant provincial town would have had the resources necessary to produce such architectural novelties.7 City planning and material culture

6 On the nearby sources of gypsum and its use at Morgantina, see Sheldon Judson, Geology and Geography of Morgantina, Sicily (unpublished manuscript in Department of Geosciences at Princeton University, 1999), p. 16. 7 Diod. 23.4. After a long period of careful consideration of Morgantina and its place in the history of third century B.C. Sicily in general and its relationship to Syracuse in particular, Malcolm Bell has formulated a plausible argument for understanding the flourishing conditions of third century B.C. Morgantina as largely the result of direct political and cultural contact with Syracuse. The most detailed discussion is in Malcolm Bell III, “Centro e periferia nel regno siracusano di Ierone II,” in La colonisation

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

51

are closely linked at both cities, and it is a logical step to consider the likely influence of the metropolis on the appearance of the innovative features of the baths at Morgantina, keeping in mind also that Syracuse had its own baths of the same period.8 In addition Syracuse had Archimedes, whose mathematical investigations may lie behind this experimental technology. The Hellenistic period is commonly portrayed as the great age of Greek scientific discovery, above all in mathematics and astronomy.9 Archimedes, in the mathematical field, is chiefly remembered for his elegant attempt to square the circle, that is to ascertain its area by using infinitesimal approximations, sometimes known as the method of exhaustion; yet he also employed traditional methods in his studies of segments of spheres and parabolas.10 An argument in favor of grècque en Méditerranée occidentale. Actes de la rencontre scientifique en hommage à Georges Vallet. Atti Convegno Roma-Napoli 1995 (Rome, 1999), pp. 257–277. See also, idem, “Observations on Western Greek Stoas,” in Eius Virtutis Studiosi. Classical and Postclassical Studies in Honor of Frank Edward Brown, ed. Russell T. Scott and Ann R. Scott (Washington, D.C., 1993), pp. 326–341; and “An Archaeologist’s Perspective on the Lex Hieronica,” in La Sicile de Cicéron, Regards croisés sur les Verrines, ed. Sylvie Pittia (Paris, 2007), pp. 187–203. For the Syracusan character of material culture at Morgantina, see Malcolm Bell III, Morgantina Studies I, The Terracottas (Princeton, 1981). 8 Results of the excavation of the Hellenistic thermal complex at Syracuse were published in a preliminary report by Giuseppe Cultrera, “Siracusa. Rovine di un antico stabilimento idraulico in Contrada Zappalà,” Notizie degli Scavi (1938), 261–301. At that time, very few examples of Greek baths were known from any region, and thus Cultrera had little to compare with the evidence from Syracuse. The excavator’s description of what he uncovered is somewhat difficult to follow, largely because of the poor state of preservation of the building and because of later disturbance of the site. Among the interesting architectural fragments associated with the building is his description of material that was probably unrecognized evidence for a dome over one or both of the tholoi of the building (see the article cited above, p. 286). The essential details fit precisely the construction used for the dome and vaults at Morgantina. 9 Some key general discussions of Hellenistic science include K.D. White, Greek and Roman Technology (London, 1984) and “‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” in Hellenistic History and Culture, ed. Peter Green (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 211–237; Peter Green, Alexander to Actium (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 467–479; Jonathan Barnes, “Hellenistic Philosophy and Science,” in The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, ed. John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray (Oxford, 1991, reprint 2001), 421–446; Rebecca Flemming, “Empires of Knowledge: Medicine and Health in the Hellenistic World,” in A Companion to the Hellenistic World, ed. Andrew Erskine (Malden, Mass., 2003, first paper edition 2005), pp. 449–463; and Reviel Netz, The Works of Archimedes. Translation and Commentary. Vol. 1: The Two Books ‘On the Sphere and the Cylinder’ (Cambridge, 2004) and The Transformation of Mathematics in the Early Mediterranean World (Cambridge, 2004). 10 On the theorems of Archimedes, see Thomas Little Heath, The Works of Archimedes (Cambridge, 1897); Netz, Works of Archimedes, and idem, Transformation of Mathematics;

52

sandra k. lucore

the practical application of these calculations of Archimedes on the construction of domes and vaults is difficult to assert. The process of constructing domes and vaults is practical, requiring an understanding of the statics of objects rather than theoretical calculations. Yet Archimedes did concern himself with studies in centers of gravity, the underlying mathematical issues of which are directly related to an understanding of conditions of statics during the construction process. Although there is nothing in Archimedes’ extant works that speaks to this concern, the practical applications of his results may not have been lost on builders of the time who were experimenting with a new form of architecture. At the time that the dome and vaults at Morgantina (and probably Syracuse) were being considered and constructed, Archimedes was thinking about the geometrical properties of parabolas, spheres, and cylinders and their interrelationships. The construction of the dome at Morgantina in a series of tubular arches side by side seems closely related to Archimedes’s analysis of the sphere as a series of parallel segments of truncated cones, varying in radius to approximate the curved surface.11 This is not an obvious way to visualize a sphere, which is more intuitively thought of as a three-dimensional surface, all points of which are equidistant from a fixed central point. Increasing doubt is being cast on the traditional scholarly view of a strict division in antiquity between theoretical and applied mathematics, between high-level and low-level practices.12 Working in the first century A.D., Hero of Alexandria adapted the Archimedean legacy and applied it to a range of problems of a more mechanical and numerical kind. In his treatises, he employs specific strategies to eliminate distinctions between high-level geometrical proof and the methods of practical mathematics, thereby demonstrating that it is not possible to maintain the notion that Archimedean geometry was sealed off from traditions of professional problems and calculation techniques. and Lucio Russo, “Archimede e la rivoluzione scientifica,” in Eureka! Il genio degli antichi, ed. Eugenio Lo Sardo (Naples, 2005), pp. 217–222. I thank Reviel Netz for his generosity and interesting personal communication, which has helped me to consider the influence of the ideas of Archimedes on early vaulting in Sicily. 11 See Proposition 35 in Heath, Works of Archimedes, p. 44. 12 See Karin Tybjerg, “Hero of Alexandria’s Mechanical Geometry,” in Re Inventions: Essays on Hellenistic and Early Roman Science, ed. Philippa Lang, (Kelowna, BC, 2004), 29–56, including her references to other scholars, including Netz and Hoyrup, whose work takes a similar position on the necessity of a more balanced view. Serafina Cuomo, Pappus of Alexandria and the Mathematics of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 91–94 briefly surveys the traditional divide between theoretical and applied mathematics.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

53

Our knowledge of Archimedes derives from two radically different lines of tradition. The first tradition derives from his own works, the other derives from the ancient biographical and historical tradition, that latter of which usually combines the factual with the legendary.13 It is difficult to take as fact, for example, Plutarch’s assertion that Archimedes was ashamed of his ingenious practical inventions that brought him great fame, i.e., machines and the like which we are told he considered merely the by-products of his pure geometry. But what else besides enthusiasm for the sudden realization of the practical application of the theory of water displacement could have inspired him to jump up from his (public) bath, shouting “Eureka!” as he ran home naked—if we are to believe Vitruvius?14 To take a broader view, Syracuse in the mid-third century B.C. was a center of innovations in the arts as well as the sciences, calling to mind fifteenth-century Italy and its own pursuit of geometry. In Syracuse, Archimedes’ own geometrical constructs, his planetarium and orrery, for example, no doubt contributed to a similar cultural fascination. The scale of activity in the service of this kind of elite consumption is witnessed ultimately by Hieron’s great ship the Syrakosia, unprecedented in size and splendor and replete with planetarium and domed library, not to mention bathing rooms with bronze tubs and elaborate marble fixtures. The construction of the ship was overseen by Archimedes, who also designed the windlass to launch the vessel.15 Until recently, the early vaulting evidence from Morgantina existed as something of an anomaly within the history of vaulted construction before the appearance in the late second to early third centuries A.D.

13 Ancient sources on Archimedes are Vitr. De arch. 9. Preface; Plut. Marcell. 19; Livy, 25.31. Cicero’s description of the tomb of Archimedes is in Tusc. Disp. 5.23; Val.Max. 8.7.7. Modern accounts include Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis, Archimedes (Copenhagen, 1956), pp. 30–32, on the death of Archimedes. See also Heath, Works of Archimedes, pp. xv–xxii, and Netz, Works of Archimedes. 14 One could imagine that for Archimedes bathing was never an idle activity, and it is perhaps no coincidence that the earliest known above ground vaults appear in baths. Possibly the mathematician himself had something to do with this application of his own theoretical concepts, although there is no confirmation of this in the historical sources. 15 On the Syrakosia: Athenaeus. Deip. V. 206–207. See Plut. Marcell. 14 on Archimedes as supervisor of construction. For a reconstruction of the ship, see Caroline Lehmler, Syrakus unter Agathokles und Hieron II. Die Verbindung von Kultur und Macht in einer hellenistischen Metropole (Frankfurt am Main, 2005), pp. 210–232. Patrice Pomey and André Tchernia, “Archimede e la Syrakosia,” in Eureka! Il genio degli antichi, ed. Eugenio Lo Sardo (Naples, 2005) reconstruct the technical conditions of the Syrakosia.

54

sandra k. lucore

of a related type of vaulting found in Roman North Africa, especially Proconsularis, at Sbeitla, Bulla Regia, and elsewhere.16 Now, however, tubular vaults from a bathing complex at the mid-second century B.C. Roman site at Cabrera del Mar in Spain are helping to fill this gap, with the appearance of a domed tepidarium and a barrel vault over the caldarium.17 These vaults are nearly identical to those found at Morgantina, with a few significant changes.18 The Spanish tubes are smaller: at about 0.22 meters in length, they are roughly a third the size of the Morgantina tubes and conform to the standard size of the later North African tubes. They are wheel-made and therefore more consistent in their particular dimensions. Their reduced size and weight would have made these tubes easier to manipulate during the process of construction, and they feature the same light corrugation on the exterior as later Roman tubes, which would have improved the adherence of the tubes to the mortar in which they were encased. These Spanish vaults also use iron pins to reinforce the structure. Here, however, the tubes that are meant to carry these pins are fashioned with a transverse tube on the interior that would have helped support the pins in place. Each cylinder that joined the two sections of each arch segment at the critical center point of the barrel vault was similarly provided, indicating that iron pins ran the length of the vault for extra support. In addition, pins were placed vertically in various locations between rows of tubes. As at Morgantina, the entire structure was encased in mortar and was therefore visible on neither the interior nor the exterior. Some scholars have speculated on the origin of tubular vaults, with inconclusive results. As a result of his work at Kerkouane, Cintas19

16 For the later history of tubular vaulting, see R.J.A. Wilson, “Terracotta vaulting tubes (tubi fittili): on their origin and distribution,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 5 (1992), 97–129; Sebastian Storz, Tonröhren im antiken Gewölbebau (Mainz am Rhein, 1994); and Francesco Tommasello, “Volte ‘Leggere’ a Tubuli Fittili: Tra Sicilia e Africa,” Sicilia Antiqua II (2005), 145–155. 17 Albert Martín, “Las Termas Republicanas de Cabrera del Mar (Maresme, Barcelona),” in Termas romanas en el Occidente del Imperio, Coloquio Internacional, Gijón, 1999, ed. C. Fernández Ochoa and V. García Entero (Gijón, 2000), pp. 157–162. 18 It might not be coincidental that the earliest known use of tubular vaults after their appearance at Morgantina is found in Spain, homeland to the mercenary soldiers who occupied Morgantina after the fall of the city to Rome in 211 B.C. 19 Pierre Cintas, “Une ville punique au Cap Bon, en Tunisie,” Comptes rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1953), 256–260, especially 257–258.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

55

argued that tubular vaults have a Punic origin arising out of mud brick and reed construction. Lézine,20 who worked at Bulla Regia, followed Cintas and added the specific observation that the use of terracotta tubes was simply a matter of replacing reeds with more durable material. However, Fantar21 later reviewed the evidence from Kerkouane and determined that Punic roofs at that site and elsewhere were for the most part flat. In his preliminary report on the North Baths tubular dome at Morgantina, Allen,22 following Lézine, speculated that early experiments in translating reed vaulting into something more durable might have taken place in Hellenistic Alexandria. More recently, in his study of terracotta vaulting tubes, Wilson23 locates the source of inspiration for the architectural use of these tubes in the pottery industry, referring to a nineteenth-century discovery in Pompeii of a pottery kiln in which the roof of the firing chamber (1.15 meters in diameter) was made of interlocking vessels. This time-honored tradition of kiln-roof construction, using broken pots and wasters to create a dome, had no doubt been used for centuries. Wilson points out that the transference of this method to vault construction is just one of scale, for the same principle is at work.24 One problem with this simple development is the size and manufacture of the Morgantina tubes, which more closely resemble water conduits than pots. If the source of these early vaults really is the roofs of kilns, it is difficult to explain why builders at Morgantina chose a more difficult form to work with and ignored the specific materials (pots) with which they were presumably already familiar in a pre-existing type of dome construction. Furthermore, the experimental appearance of tubular vaults in early bath construction would seem to have more to do with perceived need rather than the result of progression from one form to another.25

20 Alexandre Lézine, “Les voûte romaines à tubes emboîtés et les croisées d’ogives de Bulla Regia,” Karthago 5 (1954), 168–181, and Architecture romaine d’Afrique (Tunis, 1961). 21 M’hamed Hassine Fantar, Kerkouane, cité punique du Cap Bon (Tunisie), vol. I (Tunis, 1984). 22 Allen, “Excavations at Morgantina,” (see above, note 1). 23 Wilson, “Terracotta vaulting tubes,” pp. 107–108. 24 Wilson, “Terracotta vaulting tubes,” p. 108. 25 In a recent article that adds to the literature on tubular vaulting, Tommasello, “Volte ‘Leggere,’ ” proposes the existence of a Sicilian tradition of tubular vaulting that begins with the earliest known examples from Morgantina. He attempts to connect the appearance of the mid-second century A.D. vaults of the nymphaeum at Leptis Magna to this Sicilian phenomenon, suggesting that these North African vaults represent

56

sandra k. lucore

The earliest known vaults after those at Morgantina are found, however, not at Cabrera del Mar, but at the baths at Fregellae in Lazio, where instead of tubes we are confronted with a vaulting system similar to that described by Vitruvius.26 He describes a system using tiles that are placed to rest on evenly spaced ribs or arches of iron. At Fregellae the ribs are made of terracotta segments joined by lead clamps, but the basic principle remains the same. The second phase of these vaults covering the caldarium at Fregellae is dated to around 175 B.C., and, according to the excavator, there is an earlier phase that indicates at least one room in the building was similarly vaulted already in the third century. How early in the third century remains to be seen, yet it would seem that this evidence from Morgantina and Fregellae indicates that early solutions to the problems of vaulted construction were based on regional conditions and preferences. In a recent study of the spread of the so-called Italic bath design through the Western Empire, the caldarium plan of the type found at Fregellae has been located in comparable structures, with minor variations, elsewhere in Italy, in Spain, including Cabrera del Mar, and in the area of Gaul in France, all dating from the late second century to the first part of the first century B.C.27 This distribution would seem to support the hypothesis of the use of models and plans or itinerant the rediscovery of this old tradition and an initial period of re-experimentation. Not understanding the statics involved, the builders of the vaults of the nymphaeum placed the tubes longitudinally, thereby weakening the vault and causing it to collapse prematurely. Tommasello suggests that this misunderstanding may relate to an alternative reconstruction of the dome of the tholos at Morgantina. He believes that Allen left open the possibility of a beehive construction of the tholos dome, which would be similar to the longitudinal use of the tubes in the nymphaeum half domes. The evidence from Morgantina is clear, however, and the tubes there were set in parallel vertical rows to form the dome. The mid-second century B.C. vaults from Cabrera del Mar, a development of the same Morgantina system, help confirm the tradition at the head of which stands the Morgantina building. See also Francesco Tommasello, Fontane e Ninfei Minori di Leptis Magna (Rome, 2005), pp. 142–145 for a detailed discussion of the evidence from Leptis Magna. 26 Vitr. De Arch. 5.10.3. On the vaults at Fregellae see Vasilis Tsiolis, “Las Termas de Fregellae. Arquitectura, tecnologia y cultura balnear en el Lacio durante los siglos III y II a.C.,” Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 27 (2001), 85–114 and “Fregellae: il complesso termale e le origini degli edifici balneari urbani nel mondo romano,” in Sicilia Ellenistica, Consuetudo Italico, ed. Massimo Ossana and Mario Torelli (Rome, 2006), pp. 243–255. I thank Vasilis Tsiolis for generously sharing with me in personal communication information concerning this material from Fregellae. 27 Alain Bouet, “Les Modèles Thermaux et Leur Diffusion en Gaule,” in Termas romanas en el Occidente del Imperio, Coloquio Internacional, Gijón 1999, ed. C. Fernández Ochoa and V. García Entero (Gijón, 2000), pp. 35–46.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

57

teams of builders, yet within this distribution of plan we find the continued use of the two different systems of vaulting used to cover those spaces: the tubular construction first seen at Morgantina is found in a more developed form at Cabrera del Mar, and the later Vitruvian-type vault from Fregellae is seen in the baths at Baetulo (Badulo), in Spain, where it was used to roof the caldarium in the second quarter of the first century B.C.28 The ribs of the vaults at Baetulo, in contrast to the vaults at Fregellae, are made of smaller terracotta pieces mortared together. A groove is cut in the center of each side, exactly the width of the tiles that are then slotted into the ribs. The vaults from these two sites have not yet been fully published so for the moment a more detailed comparison is not possible, yet their morphological similarity is clear.29 Morgantina can be added to the list of sites referred to earlier where the ‘Italic’ caldarium plan is found, which would in that case make it the earliest known plan of that type, although clarification of the date of the first phase of construction of the baths at Fregellae could change the situation. The evidence from Morgantina comes from a later phase of the building, when room 9 of the North Baths underwent remodeling. This room is not yet completely excavated, so at the moment we lack complete understanding of all of its features, yet it is already clear that the room had a heated immersion pool, a standing wash basin,

28 On the baths at Baetulo see J. Guitart Duran, Baetulo, Topografia, Arqueología, Urbanismo e Historia (Badalona, 1976), pp. 61–80; and Monserrat Comas Solà et al., “Las Termas Romanas de Baetulo (Badalona): Ejemplo de Aplicación de las Últimas Tecnologías en Imagen Virtual,” in Termas romanas en el Occidente del Imperio, Coloquio Internacional, Gijón 1999, ed. C. Fernández Ochoa and V. García (Gijón, 2000), pp. 429–435. 29 Remains exist of a rock-cut tholos at Akrai, a dependent outpost of Syracuse under Hieron II. The date is probably Hellenistic, although nothing has been published concerning this building, which was excavated in the mid-1980s. It is said to have been covered by a domed roof, and my sources for this minimal information are two, somewhat contradictory, personal communications. Both refer to a system of ‘girders’ in either terracotta or stone, which were supported by the niches preserved high on the interior wall. The interstices of these arches were filled in, presumably with specially fabricated pieces made from the same material. Terracotta seems more likely than stone, because of the weight of a stone roof. Furthermore, the terracotta systems used for the vaults at Fregellae and Baetulo would seem to provide confirmation of a similar typology. What does seem clear is that the roof at Akrai was not a tubular dome. If the dome of the tholos really does compare with the vaults at Fregellae and Baetulo, any relationship of influence would be important to determine. Critical to all of this is confirmation of the date of the Akrai dome; thus, it is hoped that publication of this very interesting material is forthcoming.

58

sandra k. lucore

and a bench, all features found in the ‘Italic’ plan and arranged in a similar layout. It is conceivable, then, that the Morgantina ‘caldarium’, currently dated to no later than the second half of the third century B.C., could have influenced developments in bath design in central Italy, yet if so, it is interesting that current evidence indicates that the tubular vaulting in use at Morgantina seems to have had no such effect in the same area. To this discussion of early vaulting forms can be added the interesting evidence from the Etruscan site of Musarna.30 On the basis of material from the level of the fallen roof, characteristic of the collapse of a vault, tufa rubble bonded with mortar, as well as the absence of evidence for any other kind of roof, three rooms of a bath complex built during the last quarter of the second century B.C. have been reconstructed by the excavators with masonry barrel vaults. This would make these vaults at Musarna some of the earliest existing masonry vaults, roughly contemporary with the early vaults at Pompeii, and leading to major developments at Baiae. The development of Pozzolana mortar probably in the late third century B.C. led to increasingly bold experiments in vaulted construction in masonry in the late second and first centuries B.C. as a result of its superior strength.31 Given the widespread appearance of concrete vaults by the time Vitruvius wrote De Architectura, his reference to this technique is surprisingly understated, in contrast to the care he takes to describe the earlier vaulting system similar to what we find at Fregellae.32 This chronology of the early vaults at Fregellae and Musarna foreshadows larger trends in Roman vaulted construction in which earlier forms of vaulting were eclipsed by the increasingly prevalent use of the more flexible opus caementicium. The obvious advantages of this superior form of construction are clearly evidenced in the late first century B.C.

30 Henri Broise and Vincent Jolivet, Musarna 2. Les Bains Hellénistiques, Collection de l’École française de Rome 344 (Rome, 2004). 31 On the history of concrete vaults and the early use of Pozzolana at, for example, Praeneste and Terracina, see Lynne C. Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context (Cambridge, 2005). 32 On the conservatism of Vitruvius, see Mark Wilson Jones, Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven, 2000), pp. 36–38 and P.H. Schrijvers, “Vitruve et la vie intellectuelle de son temps,” in Munus Non Ingratum. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Vitruvius’ De Architectura and the Hellenistic and Republican Architecture, Bulletin antieke beschaving Suppl. (1989), pp. 13–21.

archimedes, the north baths at morgantina

59

in the so-called ‘Temple of Mercury’ at Baiae, with the earliest preserved concrete dome and the largest spanned dome before the Pantheon. To return to Syracuse and Archimedes, one possible path of influence may have been direct. Cicero tells us that when Syracuse was facing defeat by the Roman military, Marcellus commanded his troops to spare the life of Archimedes, out of apparent respect for the remarkable achievements of the pre-eminent scientist. Archimedes was killed nonetheless, and by Cicero’s account Marcellus carried off to Rome two globes that had been built by Archimedes: a solid celestial sphere with engraved and painted stars; and the more original orrery, a mechanical model showing the movements of the sun, moon and planets from earth.33 Whatever Marcellus’s motives, along with these illgotten souvenirs, he may have taken up the peninsula a more particular knowledge of and enthusiasm for vaults and domes, added inspiration for architectural forms to match the ambitions of Rome itself. Clearly there is a great deal that is not yet understood about the transmission of these various techniques of vaulting. Predictably, though, the picture is becoming more complex as the gaps in our knowledge continue to be filled.

33

Cic. De re publica, 1. 21–22.

FEMALE BATHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE FEMALE NUDE IN GREEK ART Robert F. Sutton, Jr. My interest here is in the rise of the female nude in Greek art, a topic that leads directly to the bath. This essay examines the iconography of naked women shown bathing and dressing in Greek art from their appearance in the later sixth century B.C. into the Hellenistic period, relying primarily on the evidence of vase painting. My thesis is that a major change occurs in the treatment of the theme around 430 B.C. associated with the Classical type of the kneeling bather (plate 1). I suggest that this well-known type was inspired by one of the most famous paintings of the ancient world, the lost Helen by Zeuxis of Herakleia, and that it was this painting that established the female nude as an acceptable and noble convention in Greek art well before the end of the fifth century B.C., long before Praxiteles’ celebrated Knidian Aphrodite. What I present here is the first part of this argument, the evolution of the bathing theme on Attic vases from naked girls in the sixth century and the emergence of the female nude in the guise of the kneeling bather during the last third of the fifth century B.C., leaving Zeuxis’ Helen for detailed treatment elsewhere.1 While naked females occur in many contexts on Archaic and Early Classical vases, including lovemaking, the komos (revel), the symposium, and violent mythological rapes like that of Cassandra, in these context female nakedness is secondary to other concerns. Only in the theme of bathing does the female body become the major focus. There the bath serves as a transparent pretext for showing naked women, as in French

1 “The Invention of the Female Nude: Zeuxis, Vase Painting, and the Kneeling Bather,” in Athenian Potters and Painters II, ed. John Oakley and Olga Palagia (Oxford, forthcoming); my earlier views on the topic appear in “Pornography and Persuasion on Attic Pottery,” pp. 3–35, in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, ed. Amy Richlin, (New York, 1992), pp. 22–24, and the abstracts American Journal of Archaeology 95 (1991), 318 and 101 (1997), p. 360; I have presented versions orally in Dallas, Paris, Atlanta, and elsewhere. For the useful distinction English that makes between the ‘naked’ and the ‘nude,’ see Kenneth Clark, The Nude. A Study in Ideal Form (Washington, 1956), p. 1.

62

robert f. sutton, jr.

Plate 1. Eros and Pothos assist at the bath of Helen. Tallboy lekythos by the Shuvalov Painter, detail. Private collection. Photo Adrienne Lezz-Hafter.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

63

painting of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century, where the theme of bathing allowed Dégas, Renoir, Cézanne, and others to redefine the old theme of the female nude her in a distinctly modern guise and contemporary setting. In these French paintings it is impossible to separate naked women shown as bathers from others shown at their toilette, and the same is true on ancient vases (figures 4, 6, 7 below), so here I treat them together, examining over one hundred and fifty-one Attic vases painted from the later sixth to the mid fourth century B.C. Recently Susanne Pfisterer-Haas has conveniently published illustrations and lists of much material to which I make reference. However, she presents an incomplete view of the full corpus, since her study omits, in addition to the toilette scenes, the many naked female bathers who are not shown at the fountain house or using the louterion.2 These omissions undermine some of her conclusions, particularly about the Archaic and earlier Classical scenes. Susanne Moraw’s evolutionary treatment of the female nude in Greek art, on the other hand, has much wider scope, and I am in close agreement with her approach and conclusions.3 With other scholars I believe that the subject of the female bather is essentially erotic in nature.4 The question is what this means: How are we to understand the social content and wider cultural meaning of these scenes, once we recognize them as ‘erotic’? The erotic had a respectable place in the ancient world, more so than with us, and recognizing the erotic nature of these images does not automatically define their wider social significance.5 To some recent scholars these naked women are all hetairai, an ancient euphemism for prostitutes. Yet long before them earlier researchers found respectable women on these vases, and a number of contemporary scholars are now inclined to agree. Thus Giovanni Passeri, writing in 1767, identifies the scene on a neck amphora attributed to the Pig painter now in Palermo as a nuptial bath (figure 1).6 Although uncertain whether the clothed woman is a 2 “Mädchen und Frauen am Wasser,” Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 117 (2002), 1–79; hereafter cited as Pfisterer-Haas. 3 “Schönheit und Sophrosyne. Zum Verhältnis von weiblicher Nacktheit und bürgerlichem Status in der attischen Vasenmalerei,” Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 118 (2003), 1–47. 4 Jean-Louis Durand and François Lissarrague, “Un Lieu de l’image? L’espace du loutetion,” Hephaistos 2 (1980) 87–106. 5 Contra Sian Lewis, The Athenian Woman. An iconographic handbook, (London, 2002), p. 149. 6 Picturae Etruscorum in Vasculis, vol. 1 (Rome, 1767), plates 30–31; John D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1963), p. 565, no. 39, 1659 (hereafter cited

64

robert f. sutton, jr.

Figure 1. Woman bathing at louterion. Amphora attributed to the Pig Painter. Palermo, Mormino; after G. Passeri, Picturae Etruscorum in vasculis (Rome, 1767), pl. 30; courtesy The Getty Research Institute.

pronuba (bride’s matron), he believes that because she wears shoes she is not an ornatrix or bath attendant. Not much later, Italinski, in his commentary to the second volume illustrating Sir William Hamilton’s collection, interprets the scene on the interior of a lost fourth century

as Beazley, Red-figure); Beazley Archive Database, http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk, vase no. 206469 (hereafter cited as: Beazley Archive no.).

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

65

Figure 2. Bather kneeling by the sea, with Eros. Lost cup possibly in the YZ Group. Once owned by Sir William Hamilton, after Wm. Hamilton, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases, vol. 2 (Naples 1795), pl. 38. Photo courtesy The Getty Research Institute.

B.C. cup, possibly in Beazley’s YZ Group, as the bathing in the sea that attended the Eleusinian Mysteries (figure 2).7 For him the winged figure is a genius of Ceres mixing something that the woman divides with her fingers. Modern viewers are more inclined to follow Charles Lenormant and Jean de Witte in recognizing Venus and Amor,8 although our eyes have been blinded by Praxiteles and Hellenistic Aphrodites, and other candidates are equally credible at this period, as we shall see. A century ago Friedrich Hauser, discussing two cups by the Boot Painter, one in the private Torlonia Museum in Rome (figure 4 below) and the

7 W. Hamilton, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases, vol. 2 (Naples 1795), p. 72; Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1525, no. 1. 8 Elite des monuments céramographiques, vol. 4 (Paris, 1861), p. 171.

66

robert f. sutton, jr.

other in Warsaw, assumes that the women are respectable matrons. He writes: “It struck [the painter] how respectable women, who are not accustomed to exposing themselves to strange eyes, move completely differently when they are undressed than when they feel themselves in the protection of clothing: they curl up in themselves as if they wished to hide [. . .]. [These two cups] strongly show the modesty emphasized in that situation.”9 While the earlier commentators might have prudishly shied away from discovering the Greek demimonde in these scenes, by that time hetairai had certainly been identified in other contexts, and Hauser finds no reason to identify them here. Some recent opinion, in contrast, and with little evidence, finds only hetairai in the bathing scenes. Concerning the scene on one of the Washing Painter’s minor hydriai showing two naked women confronting a duck paddling in a louterion, Dyfri Williams writes, “We find two hetairai preparing to wash.” He continues: “We look in vain for scenes of respectable women washing: respectable women [. . .] should not be seen naked, nor shown naked.”10 Eva Keuls in Reign of the Phallus observes that “Hetairai at their toilette is another favorite motif of vase painters, sometimes drawn with humor and sometimes seriously.”11 Finally, Larissa Bonfante, in a perceptive article on nudity declares, “In Classical Greek art, particularly Attic vase painting, naked women are usually prostitutes.” Later on she writes, “Wives [. . .] were not shown publicly in art, not so much because they did not count, as from a respect for the privacy of marriage.”12 There has since been a reaction on the part of several scholars. Gloria Ferrari believes that the bathers on vases are parthenoi, and on the basis of literary evidence declares that “the primary connotation of the bath is partheneia, maidenhood.”13 Sian Lewis argues against

9 Beazley, Red-figure, p. 821, nos. 3 and 4; A. Furtwängler and K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, (Munich,1904–32), vol. 2, p. 237: “Ihm fällt auf, wie anständige Frauen, die nicht gewohnt sind, sich nackt fremden Blicken auszusetzen, sich entkleidet ganz anders bewegen, als wenn sie sich im Schutze des Gewandes fühlen: sie krümmen sich in sich zusammen, als wollten sie sich verstecken [. . .] [These 2 cups] zeigen, wie stark die Schamhaftigkeit in diesem Fall betont wird.” 10 “Women on Athenian Vases: Problems of Interpretation,” pp. 92–106 in Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (London, 1983), pp. 98–100, figure 7.7 (Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1131, no. 155). 11 Reign of the Phallus, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1993), p. 170. 12 “Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art,” American Journal of Archaeology 93 (1989), 543–70, quoting 559, 561. 13 Gloria Ferrari, Figures of Speech. Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece (Chicago, 2002), pp. 47–52, quoting p. 51.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

67

viewing the bathers as hetairai and even against finding a pornographic intent to their representation.14 Susanne Pfisterer-Haas also finds parthenoi and prenuptial bathing in many of these same bathers.15 One question arising from all of this is whether we can distinguish with any confidence the social status of the females portrayed in these scenes: can we tell a bathing hetaira from a bathing bride? And the answer is affirmative—at least in a few cases. We must be careful not to confuse the social standing of the subject with the function of its image, including the purpose of the artist in painting it and his understanding of the motivations of his intended viewers and of the places and social occasions on which the image would be viewed. Thus, to return to the assertion that these images as a group are essentially erotic: this does not mean that as a group they are all pornographic, designed to elicit sexual arousal in the viewer—for we shall see that many are aimed at a female audience. Nor, even if they are erotic, and even if some are pornographic, is there any reason to regard all the women represented as hetairai, for some in the later scenes are demonstrably brides—respectably eroticized brides bathing with the assistance of Eros and his brothers—and in the rest the bathers’ social position is clearly of secondary interest to their nudity. The identity of an individual bather is often left to viewer’s choice, and it is wrong to identify many of these figures more precisely than simply as ‘bathing women,’ unless the painter has provided clear evidence to define one more precisely.16 In attempting to understand these representations and their role in ancient society primacy must be given to the internal evidence of the scenes, and second place to the vase shapes on which they appear, for the shapes define, or at least limit, the social settings in which scenes were intended to be viewed; the find-spot and context may also be informative, although graves preserve pottery much better than other contexts. Only after these have been considered should general literary evidence be brought forward. Nevertheless, it is useful to survey how female bathing and the toilette are presented in Archaic literature and

14 Athenian Woman, pp. 145–49; her critique of my abstract is not helped by her mistaken belief that Praxiteles’ Knidian Aphrodite was shown crouching. See Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture (New Haven, 1990), pp. 177–178, ill. 503–05. 15 Pfisterer-Haas. 16 On the ambiguity of Attic genre scenes and the role of the viewer in creating meaning, see Robert Sutton, “Family Portraits: Recognizing the Oikos on Attic Redfigure Pottery” in ΧΑΡΙΣ: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr, ed. Anne P. Chapin, Hesperia Supplement 33 (Princeton, 2004), pp. 329–330.

68

robert f. sutton, jr.

consider how it applies to the vase painting.17 For the poets, bathing is usually treated as a characteristic activity associated with respectable women, both mortal and divine, and takes place both indoors and out. Thus in the Odyssey (6.96) Nausikaa and her companions bathe in the river after washing their laundry and before taking lunch, while in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (l. 50) the distraught goddess refrains from bathing after the abduction of her daughter, with the implication that bathing was part of her regular routine. At the outset of the Theogony (ll. 5–6) Hesiod’s Muses “bathe their soft skin” in several springs and rivers, that is to say outdoors.18 In a striking passage of the Works and Days (ll. 519–24) the poet moves indoors, where Boreas, the cold north wind, “does not pierce the soft-skinned girl (parthenike) who stays indoors at home with mother, innocent of golden Aphrodite’s works. She bathes her tender skin, anoints herself with oil, and going to an inner room at home, she takes a nap upon a winter day” (tr. Wender). This respectable feminine bathing is often charged not only with a degree of eroticism, but even becomes an agent of seduction. In The Iliad, for example, Hera bathes before donning Aphrodite’s magical kestos to seduce her husband Zeus, and Aphrodite bathes as part of her toilette before seducing Anchises in her Homeric Hymn (ll. 52–60). All of these examples recall in rather different ways the pre-nuptial bathing practiced by both bride and groom on the wedding day, a ritualized act of purification to which we shall return later.19 Yet not all respectable bathing must be pre-nuptial, for Semonides’ description of the aristocratic mare woman is clearly a wife who disdains work to bathe herself “twice, sometimes three times a day; she rubs herself with scents, and always has her thick hair combed and garlanded with flowers.” (Fragment 7, ll. 63–66, trans. Lloyd-Jones). She is a luxury suitable for tyrant or king, though a plague for the average husband. Thus, in Archaic literature, bathing, whether practiced indoors or out by goddesses and mortal women alike, appears as a normal and luxurious aspect of feminine charis (grace or charm) intimately connected to a respectable eros, and these associations carry over into vase painting when the viewing context and iconography allow. It would therefore be unwise to assume that, as

See also Ferrari, Figures of Speech, pp. 48–52. See M.L. West, Hesiod’s Theogony (Oxford, 1966), pp. 153–154. ad loc. 19 René Ginouvès, Balaneutikè: Recherches sur le bain dans l’antiquité grecque, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 200 (Paris, 1962), pp. 265–82. 17 18

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

69

a group, the naked women on vases are hetairai or that a male viewer was expected to lust only after prostitutes. Although the female bath appears in Greek literature from the start, it does not appear in art until the last three decades of the sixth century B.C. The earliest example is on a damaged Laconian cup, recently redated around 530 B.C., that was found in a cemetery on Samos and lost during the Second World War.20 The published drawing shows three women bathing in a river, with fruit-laden trees behind; they could easily be accepted as the nymphs that Johannes Boehlau suggested. Three nymphs are depicted on the Chalcidian Phineus cup, dated c. 520 B.C., kneeling to wash themselves like Hesiod’s Muses, beneath a rustic spring framed between two palms and wreathed in ivy as a pair of randy silens sneak up.21 This is a recurring comic theme that we shall encounter later on Attic pottery, a humorous mythic encounter that finds tragic counterparts in the tales of the Tiresias, who discovered Athena bathing, and Actaeon, who found Artemis. The theme of naked women bathing and at their toilette also appears about this time on Attic pottery in the age of early red figure. Although presented in all the major Attic pottery techniques, including black figure, white ground, and Six’s technique, the clear majority of these scenes is painted in red figure. The early scenes show a variety of setting and theme before the subject settles down in the late Archaic period to fairly straightforward depiction of contemporary life at home and the bathhouse that endures until the later fifth century.22 Three early scenes are set in nature, like the two non-Attic examples, though this setting almost disappears until the late fifth century B.C. (for an exception see figure 4), when an idyllic setting becomes usual. First we have an unusual early white-ground amphora by the Andokides Painter where women swim and anoint themselves outdoors beside a

20 Formerly Kassel S49b; J. Boehlau, Aus ionischen und italischen Nekropolen (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 128–30, pl. 11; M. Pipili, “Lakonische Vasen aus der Westnekrapole von Samos: Ein erneuter Blick auf alte Funde,” Athenische Mitteilungen 119 (2004), 90–105 at 97–100, figure 1. 21 Würzburg 354, Furtwängler and Reichhold, vol. 1, pp. 209–12, pl. 41; Andreas Rumpf, Chalkidische Vasen (Berlin, 1927), pl. 40–44. On the terminology of silens and satyrs and their original function as lovers and companion of the nymphs see Guy Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-painting (Ann Arbor, 1992), pp. 1–5, 9, 71–72. Jennifer Larson develops their close relation to nymphs in Greek Nymphs. Myth, Cult, Lore (Oxford, 2001), pp. 91–96; on the theme of bathing nymphs and silens, see p. 111. 22 So also Moraw, “Schönheit.”

70

robert f. sutton, jr.

columned structure.23 The bathers could be Amazons, as Dietrich von Bothmer has suggested, since fully armed Amazons appear as riders on the vessel’s other side;24 but nothing here requires this identification, and they could be nymphs or ordinary girls to present a contrast to the Amazons. The Priam Painter presents a similar theme in black-figure on a remarkable amphora in the found at Etruscan Caere where seven nude women bathe under trees on which they have hung their garments and aryballoi as they dive from a platform, swim, shower, and comb their hair.25 They may well be nymphs, as many have assumed, for Dionysos in his vineyard appears on the other side, though again there is no compelling reason to exclude ordinary girls. These two amphoras are joined by a girl swimming above dolphins on a small lekythos painted in Six’s technique in the Louvre.26 More common are scenes set in the polis. Restricted to the late sixth century B.C. is a group of six or seven vases showing naked women bathing or showering at the public fountain house.27 These include two fragments of a black-figure epinetron found on the Athenian acropolis.28 More puzzling are two Pioneer hydriai that show a bather whose hands are occupied at her crotch: On a vessel once in Berlin the bather sits with legs spread in the center of the scene exposing herself to the viewer between two naked women who fill hydriai on either side, but on a hydria in the Hermitage the bather is off to the side as a clothed man fills his hydria and a clothed woman approaches to fill hers.29 The

Paris, Louvre F 203, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 4, no. 13, p. 1767, Beazley Archive, no. 200013, Edmond Pottier, Vases antiques du Louvre (Paris, 1897–1902), pl. 78; PfistererHaas, pp. 38, 70, cat. RB 1; Kilmer, Erotica, pl. R8 (B). 24 Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford, 1957), pp. 149 (no. 34), 153–154. 25 Rome, Villa Giulia 106463; John D. Beazley, Paralipomena. Additions to Attic Blackfigure Vase-painters and Attic Red-figure Vase-painters (Oxford, 1970), p. 146; Thomas H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1989), p. 90; Pfisterer-Haas, pp. 36–37, 39 figure 45, 70 cat. SBB 4. 26 Paris, Louvre. F197 (Cp 3481), E. Haspels, Attic Black-figure Lekythoi (Paris, 1936), p. 129; Pottier, Louvre, pl. 77; J.B. Grossman, “Six’s Technique at the Getty,” Greek Vases Getty 5 (1991), pp. 12–26 at p. 12, no. XXXII bis. 27 Pfisterer-Haas, pp. 23–24, figs 23–25, pp. 37–39, figs. 39, 42–3, 46, pp. 67, 70, cat. SBB 1–3, RBB 3–4, RB 4. A worn white ground alabastron may also have portrayed a fountain house: New York, Metropolitan Museum 41.162.8, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 101, no. 29; Beazley Archive, no. 200887; Corpus Vasorun Antiquorum (USA fasc. 1), pl. 27.6, 8. 28 Athens, National Museum Acr. 2599 a & b; John D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-painters (Oxford, 1956), p. 48; Pfisterer-Haas, cat. SBB 1, figure 39; Sutton, “Invention,” pl. 1. 29 A lost hydria in the manner of Euthymides, see Beazley, Red-figure, p. 29, no. 1; 23

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

71

Figure 3. Woman laces her sandal over a podaniter; olisbos in the field. Lost cup from Vulci, Berlin F 2272. Photo courtesy Berlin Antikensammlung PKB.

position of their fingers suggests that these women are depilating themselves, a prurient theme discussed below. Since none of the bystanders in either scene pays these bathers any mind, one might conclude that such bathers were an unremarkable feature of Archaic fountains. A domestic setting for the bath seems intended when a podaniter (footbath), or other portable basin is shown.30 On the interior of a lost cup from Etruscan Vulci a naked woman laces her sandals beside a simple podaniter (figure 3).31 Such scenes are most popular in the late sixth century B.C. and especially on the interior of cups,32 where the

idem, Paralipomena, p. 323; Pfisterer-Haas, p. 24, figure 25, cat. RB 4. St. Petersburg, Hermitage 625 (St. 1612), Beazley, Red-figure, p. 34, no. 16; Carpenter, Addenda, p. 157; Pfisterer-Haas, p. 24, figure 24, cat. RB 4. 30 René Ginouvès, Balaneutikè. Rechercehs sur le bain dans l’antiquité grecque, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 200 (Paris, 1962), pp. 51–75. 31 Berlin F2272 (lost), Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1593, no. 39, p. 1594. 32 E.g., Copenhagen, National Museum 3877, by Oltos, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 63, no. 87, 1573; Corpus Vasorum (Denmark 3), pls. 137.2, 138. London, British Museum E 34, from Marion by the Hermogenes Painter, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 110, no. 8; John Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases. The Archaic Period (London, 1975), figure 109. Thebes, Archaeological Museum 23425, Corpus Vasorum (Greece 6), pl. 73; Sutton, “Invention,” figure 5. With vessels other than podaniter: see Indianapolis Museum of Art 47.37,

72

robert f. sutton, jr.

Figure 4. Women bathing indoors and out. Cup attributed to the Boot Painter. Rome, Torlonia Museum, after A. Furtwängler and K Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei vol. 2, p. 238; photo courtesy The Getty Research Institute.

interior space of the closed, circular frame provides an intimate glimpse into life at its most private, similar in effect to Hesiod’s bathing girl and Dégas’ bathers (cf. the Early Classical tondo in figure 4). Podaniter scenes are largely displaced by scenes with the louterion, a large permanent basin set on stand, used at home, public bath, or

Beazley, Red-figure, p. 144.5; Sutton, “Pornography,” p. 22, figure 1.7. Athens, Agora P 23,165, fragment by the Painter of the Agora Chairias Cups, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 176, no. 2; Hesperia 32 (1963), pl.15e.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

73

gymnasium (figures 1, 4).33 In contrast to the intimate cup tondoes, the louterion generally appears on the exterior of cups or on vessels whose larger fields require larger, multi-figure composition, and they are often imbued with a lively social outlook. While the portable basins fade away, the Archaic louterion scenes continue without serious change of content until about 430 B.C.34 On an Archaic amphora attributed by the Pig Painter (figure 1) the naked bather, whose cloak rests on a stool, holds up a strigil and turns back to her clothed attendant who offers a sponge. The sense of lively interaction comes out more strongly in the Early Classical cups of the Boot Painter (figure 4). There a clear contrast is drawn between bathing indoors and out, emphasized by similarities in the three-figure compositions on each side. In both, a hydria is used or ready to fill a vessel as a woman moves in from the right to set down folded garment. The louterion is set in an interior indicated by cloak, sponge and strigil hanging on the wall as the woman in the center pulls on her boot. On the other side, beneath a spreading tree two women prepare to fill a portable lekane. The tondo showing a woman donning boots with a flute case hanging on the wall probably indicates, in the context of a drinking cup, that all of the women here are professional entertainers and not parthenoi or wives. Whether they are set at bathhouse, gymnasium, brothel, or home, the louterion scenes, like those with portable basins, present reasonably realistic visions of contemporary life. Toilette scenes showing naked women begin with the bathers in the last quarter of the sixth century B.C. Like the Boot Painter’s tondo (figure 4), they are clearly excerpts from the larger theme of bathing. Early examples include a few women lacing footwear by Oltos, a plate that cannot be too far from him, and later a well-known cup by Douris and a lekythos from Gela.35

Ginouvès, Balaneutikè, pp. 77–90. Pfisterer-Haas, pp. 70–77, cat. L1–11, L16, L18, L20, L22, L30–35, L38–40, L44–51, L62–78. 35 British Museum E18, cup by Oltos, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 62, no. 86, 1700; Murray, no. 12. Louvre, G2, Nicosthenic amphora by Oltos, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 53, no. 2, 1622; Pottier, Louvre, pl. 88; Keuls, Phallus, p. 376, figure 318. Berkeley, Phoebe Hearst Museum plate, Corpus Vasorum (USA 5), pl 31.1; Sutton, “Invention,” figure 6. New York, Metropolitan Museum 21.160.54, by Douris, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 441, no. 186, p. 1653; Gisela M.A. Richter, Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, 1936), no. 59, pls. 61, 63–64, 189. Syracuse, inv. 21972, lekythos, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 535, no. 2; Pietro Griffo, Gela. The Ancient Greeks in Sicily (Greenwich, Conn., 1968), p. 114, figure 2. 33

34

74

robert f. sutton, jr.

Figure 5. Vase shapes decorated with naked women bathing and at their toilet, Archaic period.

Although, as noted, some of the earliest Archaic scenes may be interpreted as nymphs, parthenoi, or matrons, nothing in the iconography of any requires such an interpretation, in stark contrast to what will be seen later, when several are undeniably identified as brides or noble figures of myth. Consideration of the vase shapes reveals that slightly over half of the vases are cups, with a few kraters and jugs, an indication that most of the Archaic scenes were intended to be viewed in the erotic atmosphere of the symposium (figure 5). Possibly the stamnoi and amphorae were intended for use there as well. Yet a strictly feminine audience seems required by the fragments of the epinetron (an object used in the preparation of wool). Although prostitutes did work wool and might even have purchased or received epinetra as gifts from admirers, this example was found on the Athenian acropolis, where it was presumably dedicated either to Athena or Brauronian Artemis, and its scene was surely meant to show respectable women.36 A number of the scenes occur on lekythoi and alabastra, which could be used in the female toilette and bath. The same might also be said of the hydriai and pelikai, 36 Citation in note 28. On spinning prostitutes see recently Sutton, “Oikos,” pp. 333–37.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

75

both water jars that could have been used by female bathers—though the scenes on the hydriai include two depicting immodest women depilating in public and another molestation by a silen37—dubious content for an audience of matrons and parthenoi. While considering these scenes’ varied audience, it is also worth noting that, while most of the Archaic scenes with known provenance come from Etruscan sites, three were found in Athens, while another four were found elsewhere in Greece, including examples from Aigina, Eretria, and Rhitsona (near Athens in Boeotia). It cannot be maintained that their outlook is designed for an overseas market and irrelevant to Athenian and Greek life. Given the high proportion of symposium ware, it is no surprise to discover that several Archaic and later scenes are erotic in a coarse and prurient manner far from pre-nuptial bathing. An erotic and male oriented pornographic intent is unmistakable in a cup tondo (figure 3), where an olisbos, an artificial phallic device, floats beside the girl lacing her sandals.38 Earlier we suggested that pubic depilation by plucking or singeing, was probably portrayed at the fountain house on two hydriai and appears beyond doubt in five other scenes.39 Dipilation is a topic that Aristophanes finds amusing and titillating, and depictions of thus act are probably aimed at a male audience. On the interior of a cup by Onesimos a woman straddles a podaniter holding a lamp to singe the hair.40 On the exterior of an Early Classical cup a naked woman kneels to pluck the hair of a companion as a third approaches (plate 2), echoing a similar scheme on the tondo of a cup from Tarquinia by Apollodoros, and a lekythos in Basel where a silen does the plucking.41 On the other side of the Getty cup two other naked women are engaged in their toilette with the help of a clothed companion (figure 6). Towards the end of the fifth century B.C. a krater by the Dinos Painter shows Eros

See note 31. According to Adolf Furtwängler, Beschreibung der Vasensammlung im Antiquarium vol. 2 (Berlin, 1885), p. 547 the olisbos was painted in relief line and then covered by black glaze. 39 See note 29. Martin Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases (London, 1993), pp. 134–41; J.-P. Descoeudres, “Η∆ΙΣΤΟΣ ∆ΑΙΜΩΝ,” Antichthon 15 (1981), 8–14. 40 Oxford, Mississippi, University Museum 1977.3.112, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 331, no. 20; Descoeudres, “∆ΑΙΜΩΝ,” p. 13, figure 2. 41 Malibu, Getty Museum 83.AE.251, attributed by Robert Guy to the Euaichme Painter; Beazley Archive, no. 13351; J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 12 (1984), p. 245, no. 71. Tarquinia 87778, cup by Apollodoros, Beazley, Paralipomena, p. 333; Beazley Archive, no. 352439; Desoceudres, “∆ΑΙΜΩΝ” p. 14, figure 3. Basel, Antikenmuseum 423, lekythos in Six’s Technique by the Diosphos Painter, ibid., p. 12, figure 1. 37 38

Plate 2. Depilation. Red-figure cup attributed to the Euaichme Paianter by Robert Guy, side A. (See figure 6.) Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 83.AE.254. Photo courtesy museum.

76 robert f. sutton, jr.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

77

Figure 6. Naked women at their toilette. Cup attributed to the Euaichme Paianter by Robert Guy, side B. (See plate 2) Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 83.AE.254. Photo courtesy museum.

holding a lamp to singe the hair of a woman standing in the company of other women with lamps.42 A few libidinous male figures intrude into what is normally a separate feminine world: Silens sometimes ambush nymphs in the wild, a theme we will encounter again, and one even creeps into a civic fountain house to paw a woman bathing there as a clothed woman fills her jar.43 There are very few human males. The most remarkable example is on a stamnos attributed to the Siren Painter, where a clothed youth fondles the breast of a naked woman bathing at a louterion as her naked companion moves away; the vessel’s

42 Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Sackler Museum L9.1988, bell krater; Beazley Archive, no. 44027; Aaron J. Paul, “A New Vase by the Dinos Painter: Eros and an Erotic Image of Women in Greek Vase Painting, Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin 3, no. 2 (Winter 1994–95), 60–67, figs. 1–4, 11; Sutton, “Invention,” figure 7. 43 See the Phineus cup, note 21. Gravisca Museum 73/10683 + 73/11895, cup by the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy, Beazley Archive, no. 204561; Kalinka Huber, Le ceramiche attiche a figure rosse. Gravisca. Scavi nel santuario Greco 6 (Bari, 1999), pp. 65–6, no. 236. Pfisterer-Haas, p. 67, cat. RB7, not at fountain house, but in the wild, with spout emerging from rocky cliffs. On the lost hydria by Euthymides, once Frankfort Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte a woman fills her jug in a fountain house as a silen creeps along and reaches up to paw the genitals of a naked woman bathing at louterion with a companion, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 28.13; Pfisterer-Haas, p. 67 no. L1 (= RB3), p. 23, figure 23 a–c; the women are presumably mortal.

78

robert f. sutton, jr.

other side shows a very different conjunction of touch and flight, as Odysseus escapes from Polyphemos’ cave after blinding him.44 Thus, in the Archaic period one finds more bathing and toilette scenes with explicit sexual content than ones that might portray respectable matrons, parthenoi, or nymphs. The late Archaic traditions continue without break into the Classical period, though with a gradual fall in the proportion of cups to other shapes. After the mid fifth century the physical proportions of the bathing figures, which had often been slender, rather like boys with breasts, begin to look more like women and achieve a classical monumentality and grandeur that is seen best in works of the Polygnotan Group.45 The many small, conventional pelikai and hydriai that gave the Washing Painter his name present the end of this tradition and make the transition to the next phase.46 Moraw argues that, while respectable women are sometimes shown in the Archaic scenes, they disappear during the Early and High Classical periods, when artists hide respectable women’s bodies by clothing and other conventions until the trend is reversed in the Rich Style of the later fifth century B.C.47 Around 430 B.C., the theme of bathing is transformed in accord with the general revolution of imagery that takes place during the last third of the fifth century. The most important changes are, first, the introduction of the personification Eros, who makes clear in elevated and polite imagery the erotic nature of the theme, and, second, the appearance of the kneeling bather. Connected with both is a marked tendency to show bathing outdoors in idyllic setting,48 abandoning the more realistic civic settings that predominate during the theme’s first hundred years, and the significant increase in the proportion of scenes on vases designed for feminine use. The absolute number of bathing

New York market, formerly Hunt collection (not in the Shelby White collection, as Pfisterer-Haas, cat. L32, according to Michael Padgett), Beazley Archive no. 5343; Antike Kunst 24 (1981), pl. 10.3. 45 Pfisterer-Haas, p. 75, cat. L63–65, figure 51, especially the two stamnoi; Munich 2411, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1051, no. 18, 1680; Corpus Vasorum (Germany 20), pls. 247.1,248.4–5, 249.1–2, 253.3. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.21; Sutton, “Pornography,” figure 1.8. 46 Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1126 referring specifically to the pelikai; for examples see pp. 1128–9, no. 108bis and with Eros nos. 106–8. The small hydriai are similar, p. 1131, nos. 155–156, 160, and with Eros nos. 157–9. 47 “Schönheit,” pp. 18–29. 48 See also Moraw, “Schönheit,” pp. 30–31. 44

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

79

scenes decreases, reflecting a decline in overall production of Attic red-figure during and after the Peloponnesian War. Eros is introduced as a servant into what seem to be ordinary genre scenes of bathing, particularly on small hydriai and pelikai by the Washing Painter that are otherwise similar to the ones already mentioned.49 This appearance is in accord with the god’s common inclusion with women in domestic scenes after the middle of the fifth century.50 While finding parallel with the introduction of Eros into wedding scenes at about the same time,51 his presence here does not always guarantee a significant reinterpretation of the bathing scenes on vases he also appears with bathers on symposium ware, most strikingly in the depilation scene on the Dinos Painter’s bell krater noted above.52 Henceforth Eros becomes a regular, almost essential element in bathing scenes of all sorts and continues into the fourth century, as seen on the cup in figure 2, where he flies up holding a wreath or the like painted in added color that had worn away or eluded the artist. The god appears by the louterion, and often stands on or in it, almost as an emanation of the bath water, as on a lost bell krater by the Nikias Painter.53 The introduction of Eros makes explicit the fundamentally erotic nature of the naked female bather, but the appearance of the kneeling bather (plate 1, figures 2, 7), long recognized as one of the most important figural inventions of the classical period, is associated with a clear elevation of the naked bather’s social status. This new figural type is clearly marked as respectable, a noble figure, for it is used initially and primarily to represent brides, nymphs, select goddesses, and Helen. Appearing just after 430 B.C., the kneeling bather quickly becomes the dominant bathing type of the High and Late Classical period, appearing on twenty-one Attic vases, several Italiote vases, and other media including gems, a mirror, terracottas and plastic vases, and is eventually rendered in monumental sculpture.54 Although there See note 46. Antoine Hermary, H. Cassimatis, and R. Vollkommer, “Eros,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae vol. 3 (Zurich, 1986), pp. 906–907, 935–936. 51 Ibid., pp. 905–906, pls. 645–646; Robert Sutton, “Nuptial Eros. The Visual Discourse of Marriage in Classical Athens,” Journal of the Walters Gallery of Art 55–56 (1997/98), pp. 27–48. 52 See note 42. 53 Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1334.20; E.M.W. Tillyard, The Hope Vases (Cambridge, U.K., 1923), pl. 75.50; Pfisterer-Haas, cat. L86. 54 Reinhart Lullies, Die kauernde Aphrodite (Munich-Pasing, 1954). Earlier bathers are sometime shown kneeling, e.g. on the non-Attic cups in notes 20, and 21, and the 49 50

80

robert f. sutton, jr.

Figure 7. Bridal bath and toilette. Lekanis lid from Kerch attributed to the Marsyas Painter. St. Petersburg, Hermitage State Museum St. 1858; line drawing after Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae vol. 2 (Zurich, 1984), p. 102.

is variation in the pose of the kneeling figures, the classical group is unified by the action of washing the hair, which is performed by over half of them, including the earliest. These kneeling figures form two distinct clusters: bathing brides, and bathing nymphs. Four of the kneeling bathers are identified explicitly as brides, and others may be intended as brides. On an unattributed pyxis dated around 425 B.C., a nuptial meaning is assured by the presence in the scene of a loutrophoros, a vessel produced for wedding rituals.55 Later, in the fourth century the Marsyas Painter includes the kneeling bather in a more elaborate treatment of the same subject on the lid of a lekanis, another nuptial shape (figure 7).56 As Eros looks on, the Attic cup in Gravisca cited in note 43, but they are sporadic and unrelated to the Classical type. 55 New York, Metropolitan Museum 1972.118.148; Sutton, “Pornography,” figure 1.9 and “Invention,” figure 8; Moraw, “Schönheit,” p. 33, figure 8, a–d. 56 St. Petersburg, Hermitage St. 1858, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1475, no. 7; Beazley, Paralipomena, p. 495; Angelos Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. 2 (Zurich, 1984), p. 102, no. 993 (which misidentifies this and other kneeling bathers cited below as Aphrodite).

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

81

kneeling bride is assisted by a woman who pours water over her hair; this female assistant normally appears in the later series, taking the place of Eros in earlier scenes (plate 1). Also on the lekanis with the kneeling bather are two other fully nude women depicted at different moments of the toilette, including one shown standing in full frontal nudity, and three half or partially nude figures. The presence of this number and variety of nudes shows how female nudity had gained acceptance during the seventy years since the first appearance of the modest kneeling bather. In two other scenes kneeling brides are identified as figures of myth, Helen and Thetis, both prominent in nuptial iconography.57 A tallboy lekythos, painted by the Shuvalov Painter during the decade 420–10, provides the most direct link to Zeuxis’ Helen through inscriptions that identify the participants (plate 1).58 This is a very unusual and elaborate vase for the painter and shows every mark of the late fifth-century ‘Meidian’ style, including an idyllic setting with irregular landscape, use of relief with added gilt, and inscriptions, all rare in the painter’s oeuvre; the Meidian style is often thought to derive from contemporary monumental painting, and it is easy to envision that Zeuxis’ painting looked something like this scene. Beneath an irregular rocky landscape accented with blooming flowers painted in added color Helen modestly kneels behind a bush to wash her hair under the direction of Aphrodite, who stands on the right side with scepter. Eros and Pothos (Longing) assist, the former pouring from a gilt hydria as his companion stands ready with a gilt mirror and a toilette chest on which rests Helen’s neatly folded garment. Two seated women look on from the left. The name of only one is preserved; significantly she is Eukleia, Good Repute, who makes clear beyond all doubt how the bather is to be regarded. The other securely identified mythical kneeling bather is late, Thetis on the Marsyas Painter’s lovely pelike that shows her capture by her mortal bridegroom Peleus; this is the first appearance of the myth in

57 Helen: Sutton, “Nuptial Eros”; Thetis from Sophilos’ dinos in the British Museum, BM 1971.11–1.1, Beazley, Paralipomena, p. 19, no. 16bis; Beazley Archive, no. 350099; G. Bakir, Sophilos (Mainz, 1981), pls. 1–2, figs. 1–4. 58 Private collection, Beazley, Red-figure, pp. 1690, 1705; Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter, Der Schuwalow-Maler (Mainz, 1976), pl. 140 1–d, cat. S 101 (she now believes this to be a late work of the Shuvalov Painter himself, pers. com.); color, Sutton, “Invention,” pl. 3. On the inscriptions, see, Der Eretria-Maler (Mainz, 1988), p. 314, note 314; on the painter’s infrequent use of landscape and inscriptions, see Schuwalow-Maler, pp. 91, 87.

82

robert f. sutton, jr.

its later form in which the sea nymph is captured bathing.59 Here the flat, demure profile of the earlier type is made three-dimensional and more alluring by the introduction of torsion, as the kneeling Thetis turns back to reveal both breasts and her sister Nereids cover up and scatter. The scene is copied in mirror image by a lesser hand on a pelike in Toledo.60 Other scenes related to those discussed above are probably nuptial as well. The Marsyas Painter shows the kneeler in three other compositions, including, in addition to figure 7, one on an unpublished lid fragment of a miniature lekanis or pyxis recently displayed with finds from the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron; from the shape and discovery at a cult site dedicated to women’s rites of passage this image can be considered pre-nuptial bathing. The scene on the reverse of the painter’s name piece appears to be excerpted from a nuptial scene. A lovely epinetron from a grave on Chalki, near Rhodes, presents another likely nuptial scene in idyllic setting; here the kneeling bather with Eros may again be Helen, with Aphrodite seated on the right.61 Other kneeling bathers in idyllic setting seem to be identified as nymphs bathing in the wild, a theme recognized in the earliest bathers on vases. The strongest reason to identify these figures bathing outdoors as nymphs is a striking bell krater by the Dinos Painter that illustrates the familiar old subject of silens discovering a bathing nymph.62 This was probably also the subject of the Eretria Painter’s chous fragment in St. Petersburg, one of the loveliest treatments of the figure, where restoration of a silen or two would fill out the composition and find parallel with another chous by the painter that shows a silen and nymph.63 Early examples without silens include a lost lekythos where a 59 British Museum, E 424, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1475,4, 1695; Beazley Archive, no. 230422; Schefold, in Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, vol. 3, pp. 332–335, pl. 172; Paolo Arias, A History of One Thousand Years of Greek Vase Painting (New York, [1962]), pl. 111. 60 Toledo [Ohio] Museum of Art, pelike no. 1993.49; Sutton, “Invention,” figure 9. I am grateful to Sue Hoyt for bring this vase to my attention. 61 St. Petersburg, Hermitage St. 1795, pelike, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1475, no. 3; Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, vol. 1, pl. 8 and vol. 2, p. 136. Rhodes 13886, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1503, no. 6; Clara Rhodos 2 (1932), 133, pl. 4, figure 16; Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” p. 101, no. 990, pl. 96. 62 Cracow, University 103 (1053), Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1154, no. 32; Verena PaulZinserling, Der Jena-Maler und sein Kreis (Mainz 1994), pl. 56.4; Sutton, “Invention,” figure 10. 63 St. Petersburg, Hermitage P1872.15, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1249, no. 16; LezziHafter, Eretria-Maler, pp. 39 205–6, 341, no. 227, pl. 140 a; Sutton, “Invention,” figure

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

83

Figure 8. Attic vase shapes decorated with the Classical kneeling bather.

single bather kneels beneath a flowing spout and a heavy-handed, if ambitious, Meidian acorn lekythos, where at this early date there is no reason to identify the bather as Aphrodite.64 Although this randy world of silens and nymphs seems far removed from our notion of Greek weddings as they appear on vases, for the Greeks these two realms were united under the Greek word νυμφη, a term which we translate as either bride or nymph.65 We can now recognize, manifest in visual form, the clear link between these two concepts in the ancient mind. Finally, there are adaptations in which the kneeling figure does not wash her hair, as on a squat lekythos in Warsaw and a krater in Paris where it is employed in idyllic toilette scenes.66 A number of later examples show figures kneeling by a shore, including the lost cup probably belonging to the YZ Group (figure 2), and an unattributed 1. Silen and maenad on chous no. 212 (Basel BS 407), pl. 134, with similar ivy-strewn rock; similar and from the same workshop, with nude nymph or maenad, ibid. no. 211 (Oxford V 534), pl. 195a (painted by the Kodros Painter). 64 Theodor Panofka, Antiques du cabinet du Compte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (Paris, 1834), p. 97, pl. 29 bottom; Pfisterer-Haas, p. 70, cat. RBB 2. Berlin F 2707, Beazley, Red-figure, p. 1326, no. 70; Corpus Vasorum (Germany 62), pl. 47, 48, 1–3, Beil. 22, 4; Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” p. 101, no. 988, pl. 96. 65 Larson, Nymphs, pp. 3, 112. 66 Warsaw 33, Corpus Vasorum (Poland 1), pl. 41, 2. Paris, Louvre CA 1262, Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” pp. 101–102, no. 991, pl. 96.

84

robert f. sutton, jr.

chous.67 Since Peleus is not in sight, one or both kneeling figures might be identified as Aphrodite, though this is far from certain. The new conception of the female bather is reflected in a new audience for the bathing scenes, to judge from the vase shapes on which the kneeling bather appears (figure 8). They include relatively few cups and a good number of vessels intended for women, and more significantly, a few for nuptial use. The figures are six pelikai, five lekythoi, two choes, several kraters and cups, one or two pyxides and lekanides, and one epinetron. The lekanis is a nuptial shape, and here the shape confirms the nuptial orientation of the iconography, the pyxis and epinetron are female shapes, and the lekythos was used for scented oils; the most common shape is the pelike, a generalized shape for liquids, a more stable kind of amphora that was used for oil among other things; pelikai are often decorated with bathers in the High and Late Classical periods. All can credibly be counted as feminine in focus, many have a direct connection to bathing or the toilette, and some are specifically nuptial in shape or decoration. A fragment of a miniature lid of lekanis or pyxis was a dedication to Artemis at Brauron, a cult specifically connected to women’s coming of age, marriage, and childbirth. The relatively few kraters and cups represent a different audience continuing the tradition of applying bathers on symposium ware, and there is nothing in their decoration to suggest that any of these was intended for use in wedding feasts. The chous is a wine jug, but one with strong ties to the Anthesteria festival that had household connections. In short, bathing scenes with the kneeling bather, unlike earlier bathers, were not produced primarily to enhance the erotic atmosphere of the symposium of citizen men, though some were, but largely for the wives and daughters of the city and the respectable erotic atmosphere of the wedding and boudoir. The kneeling bather is widely disseminated beyond Attic pottery, though these scenes show considerably more change in the original pose than vases. Quite close are the versions on an early Apulian pelike close to the Sisyphus Painter and a fourth century engraved mirror in Berlin.68 Gems present at least eight variants, of which the closest to 67 St. Petersburg, Hermitage PN 28, Karl Schefold, Untersuchung Kertscher Vasen (Berlin, 1934), no. 323, pl. 49.2. 68 E.g. Apulian pelike very close to the Sisyphus Painter, Ruvo 654, A.D. Trendall and Alexander Cambitoglou, The Red-figured Vases of Apulia, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1978), p. 20, no. 89, pl. 7, 1–2 and London pelike BF 311, Painter of Ruvo 1364, ibid., p. 171.44, Hermary et al., “Eros” no. 621, pl. 646, dated 380–70 B.C. Berlin, folding bronze mirror no. 8148, Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” p. 102, pl. 96, no. 994.

the emergence of the female nude in greek art

85

the vases is in the Cabinet des Médailles.69 On terracottas the kneeling stance is employed for the birth of Aphrodite in plastic vases and the bathing goddess from the Heraion at Foce de Sele.70 Finally, in the Hellenistic period the later three-dimensional type is translated into a monumental sculpture that is widely copied in the Roman period.71 Seeking the origins of this important type, Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter has suggested it was an invention of the Eretria Painter.72 Earlier, however, Reinhard Lullies had suggested that its prototype was a lost monumental painting, which seems more likely for such an important and widespread image.73 If he is correct, the prototype was probably Zeuxis’ Helen, one of the most famous paintings of the classical world by one of its greatest artists. With it Zeuxis sought to achieve the very thing we have recognized on Athenian vases: the creation of a respectable, virginal image that is no longer naked, but nude in our sense, anticipating Praxiteles’ Knidian Aphodite by over half a century.74 If Zeuxis was not the creator of the kneeling bather type, his Helen achieved exactly the same thing at the same time, and the most economical explanation is that they are one and the same. The kneeling bather is especially appropriate as the breakthrough female nude in Greek art: The image is discrete and modest, avoiding a full frontal view, and its nudity is fully motivated by the purifying prenuptial bath. This striking image is best understood as the invention one of the leading artists of the age that was picked up immediately and disseminated widely in the popular media of the day, vases, and gems, so that people, including women for whom it might serve as a role-model, could enjoy it in their own homes and lives. One might argue that the nudity of this figure frees the female image in Greek art from its confining veils allowing the nude female form to join its male counterpoint in the canon of Greek art. Yet, while ancient Greek matrons and parthenoi may have enjoyed the opportunity to be conceived as beautiful and sensuous, Moraw persuasively argues that there remains a considerable gap between this erotic image and the 69 For a range of types, see Adolf Furtwängler, Die antike Gemmen (1900, Leipzig), pl. 12, nos. 30–36; closest to the vase bathers is no. 31, Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, Chabouillet no. 1103, on which a kneeler washes her hair at a low louterion. 70 Boston 00.629, Delivorrias, “Aphrodite,” p. 103, no. 1011, pl. 98; no. 997, pl. 97. 71 Lullies, kauernde Aphrodite. 72 Eretria-Maler, p. 294. 73 Lullies, kauernde Aphrodite, p. 58. 74 Sutton, “Invention.”

86

robert f. sutton, jr.

heroic male nudity that had ethical dimensions from which women were excluded. This new image in no way represented equality for ancient women, even in art.75

Moraw, “Schönheit,” pp. 45–6. I am grateful for support provided by an Indiana University President’s Grant in the Arts and Humanities; to the relevant museums, Getty Research Institute, and Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter for photographs; and to Cynthia Kosso for her invitation and editorial support. 75

WOMEN AT THE FOUNTAIN AND THE WELL: IMAGINING EXPERIENCE Cynthia K. Kosso and Kevin Lawton First Semi-Chorus of Women (singing): Fly, fly, Nicodice, ere Calyce and Critylle perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws. But, great gods, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble to fill this vessel at the fountain. Oh! what a crowd there was, and what a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and thronged me! However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to carry the water to my fellow-townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to burn alive. Aristophanes, Lysistrata, The Chorus of Old Men (ll. 325–335)1

In the passage above, Athenian citizen women are jostled and disturbed while trying to gather water to quench a potential fire (literally and figuratively speaking). This sort of evidence in both text and image has led us, in this essay, to respond to Gloria Ferrari’s contention that the images depicted on Greek vases give us access to how the artistic subjects were imagined to be rather than to the way they really were (i.e., that they were entirely metaphors).2 Explicit in her claim, and pertinent to this essay, is her argument that citizen women did not in fact collect water from wells and fountains but rather that this was done only by slaves, servants, and hetairai (courtesans). We argue that there is evidence to suggest that these Athenian women did go to the wells and fountains, at least for ritual purposes such as weddings, funerals, city, and deme religious holidays, which allowed significant numbers of opportunities for real Athenian women to be seen at real wells and fountain houses. We see Athenian women as active participants in the life of their polis, through their families as tradition claims, yes, but

1 The translation is by Jack Lindsay and for the full English text and the the Greek text of this passage see the Perseus website at http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgibin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0035. 2 G. Ferrari, “Myth and genre on Athenian Vases,” Classical Antiquity, 22, no. 1 (2003), 37–54, esp. 46. For Ferrari these images are neither “myth” nor “genre” and by “genre” she means an expression of contemporary experience). Metaphor subsumes both these categories in our analysis.

88

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

also through the significantly important roles of religion and household maintenance. It is from these roles and experiences that we claim that the inspiration for the vases in question comes. While at the end of her paper, Ferrari allows (for other sorts of images than the ones we mainly discuss) that “the fact that the pictures on the vases are cultural constructs does not mean that their content lacks specificity,” she maintains in the body of her work that the fountain house images “contradict what little we know of the way Athenians lived and thought [. . .].” Specifically, she says that “The scenes of women at the fountain, I submit, are representations of daily life not in sixth century Athens but in the Athens of autochthonous ancestors. The fountain house is so protean because it did not exist in actuality,3 and the painters conjured up the beautiful prehistoric Callirhoe, each in his own way.”4 Citing a short passage in Herodotos (6.137),5 Ferrari makes the additional claim that citizen women simply did not go out to the fountain house and thus, it follows, that there must be some other explanation for the images. Several authors before us have explicitly or implicitly begun to respond to the implications of Ferrari’s approach. As Robert Sutton6 argues in his review of her book Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece, Ferrari’s challenge to the notion of genre scene [. . .] on Attic vases is problematic. [. . .] By declining to consider vase shape and find-spot among the contexts in which her figures must be understood, Ferrari has deprived her analysis of subtlety, for a naked female bather on the interior of a drinking cup found in an Etruscan tomb is surely to be interpreted differently from one on a miniature pyxis or nuptial lekanis dedicated at Brauron. [. . .]

3 Upon reflection, we have decided that Ferrari is using rhetorical license here and does not seriously mean to claim that there were no fountain houses, nor that the Callirhoe was a figment of Greek imagination. The archaeological and documentary evidence in general for these structures is overwhelming and undoubted. 4 See in particular p. 49 of her article, cited above. 5 Herodotus, Books V–VII: The Persian Wars, trans. A.D. Godley, (Loeb Classical Library Harvard, 1922). 6 Robert Sutton, “Review of Gloria Ferrari. Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002,” American Journal of Philology 125 (2004), 453–455.

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

89

In addition, there are, he notes, toilet scenes, symposia, and weddings in which mythical figures are identified by attribute or inscription[. . . yet] there are others in which the figures are identified with the names of contemporary Athenians. Unless figures are anchored to a specific identification by iconographic or textual means, it is probably safer to regard them as anonymous contemporaries.

Sutton suggests that the black-figure fountain house vases to which she refers should be considered in light of not just other documentary sources but also the location where they were found, the characteristics of the intended audience, and what inspiration was available to the creators of these vases. (According to Sian Lewis, one particular genre, the black-figured fountain house theme, was particularly revered by Etruscans and many examples that we now have from the Antimenes Painter, the Priam Painter, and the Leagros Group, while made in Athens, were found in Etrurua in the tombs of elite Etruscans in Cervetri and Vulci).7 In Sian Lewis’ book, she argues that the act of complicating ones interpretations of figured pottery is key to understanding the intentions of the potters, patrons and audience of these important artifacts.8 Despite the fact that she argues that most Attic vases were made for an export market, and therefore are of little use for reconstructing the Athenian ideology of gender, she nevertheless offers the reader avenues into understanding Athenian experience through the lenses of decorated pottery. She states, for example, that adult Athenian women are pictured more frequently on vases made for export as a way of putting a “public face” on the polis—for the consumption of the export audience.9 Lewis’ work is important for its attention to the details worthy of note, but as we will discuss below, in point of fact there is no discernable difference between the images on the export fountain house vases and those few found in Attica. In addition, Sutton’s article in this volume provides numerous examples of adult Athenian women depicted on Attic vases.

7 S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London and New York, 2002), pp. 73–75. 8 Ibid. 9 Lewis, The Athenian Woman, p. 35.

90

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

We also argue that Ferrari’s sweeping abandonment of vase painting as a way to access a level of real experience of women in antiquity cripples rather than complicates our understanding of the past. As Lauren Hackworth Petersen argues “fountain houses continue on later red-figure vases and may reflect a general increasing interest in depicting scenes from everyday life on pottery. [. . .]”10 She also writes that Sutton and Bérard have argued that images of women on vessels designed for women’s daily use speak to a feminine sensibility and female realities, respectively. [. . .] Their arguments in turn suggest that women chose, purchased, and utilized vessels with the aforementioned images, which would have reminded them of their own experience as they completed their various tasks.11

Intrinsic to her argument, theirs, and ours is the assumption that a level of real experience is necessary for the development of painted vase images. Greek Weddings and Images The illustrations of weddings on Greek vases offer to scholars a perfect data set to support the argument that real life informs vase painting. On an Attic red figured pyxis, MS 5462, religious motifs and human experience merge in the depiction of the wedding of Heracles and Hebe on Mt. Olympus: “The lid of the pyxis shows Heracles leading Hebe to his house, while an Eros or Cupid figure carries a marriage torch in front of the wedded couple. Hebe is dressed in a white and gold chiton and himation and wears a wedding veil which another Eros adjusts. [. . .] Two women carry a jewel box for the bride and a vessel containing water for her bridal bath.”12 The subject matter is religious, mythical, indeed symbolic. But human experience is the foundation for the display: the wedding procession, the torch, the richly decorated chiton 10 “Divided Consciousness and Female Companionship: Reconstructing Female Subjectivity on Greek Vases” Arethusa 30 (1997), 35–74. 11 She references Sutton, Robert F., Jr. “Pornography and Persuasion on Attic Pottery,” in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, ed. Amy Richlin, (New York, 1992), pp. 3–35, esp. p. 28 and Claude Bérard, “The Order of Women,” A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, ed. Claude Bérard, trans. Deborah Lyons. (Princeton, 1989), pp. 89–108, esp. p. 89; See also Sutton, this volume. 12 At the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Attic Red Figure Pyxis, ca. 400–390 B.C., the Meleager Painter.

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

91

and himation, and water for a bath.13 Weddings illustrate particularly well how a combination of visual imagery and textual evidence are used to elucidate human experience. Ann Steiner notes that the “[t]he Athenian wedding, for which we have both textual and visual evidence, provides one example for understanding various moments [. . .] in which water and hydrias play a part.”14 The preface to John Oakly and Rebecca Sinos’ book on Athenian Weddings begins with this comment: “This book presents on overview of the wedding ceremony in ancient Athens, from the preparations for the wedding to the rituals performed on the day after the wedding night. It differs from previous works on this subject in its attention to vase paintings of all stages of the ceremony.”15 In other words, vase painting is the key primary source evidence for an understanding of the practical elements in the wedding ceremony. In this essay, therefore, we address the importance of images as a way into ancient experience, the role that women played in obtaining and transporting water for household and religious uses, and, briefly, the differences and similarities between export and local versions of vases with water themes. Religion and Public Display A challenge to the idea of the restricted female described by Ferrari comes from the abundant evidence, both archaeological and documentary, for the religious festivals celebrated throughout Attica. We have done a careful preliminary investigation of the major state and

13 For analyses and evidence regarding ancient Greek weddings see, e.g., Brown, P.G. “Love and Marriage in Greek New Comedy,” Classical Quarterly 43 (1993), 189–205; A.E. Laiou, ed., Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies (Cambridge, 1993); Dillon, M.P.J. “Post-nuptial Sacrifices on Kos (Segre, ED 178), and Ancient Greek Marriage Rites,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 124 (1999),63–80; J. Evans-Grubbs, “Abduction Marriage in Antiquity,” Journal of Roman Studies 79 (1989), 59–83; Ferrari, G. “What Kind of Rite of Passage Was the Ancient Greek Wedding?” D.B. Dodd and C.A. Faraone, ed., Initiation in Ancient Rituals and Narratives. New Critical Perspectives (London and New York, 2003), pp. 27–42; M. Lefkowitz, “Wives and Husbands,” Greece & Rome 30 (1983), 31–47; J.H. Oakley, and R.H. Sinos. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison, 1993; E. Parisinou, “ ‘Lighting’ the World of Women: Lamps and Torches in the Hands of Women in the Late Archaic and Classical Periods,” Greece & Rome 47 (2000), 19–43. 14 Ann Steiner, “The Alkmene Hydrias and Vase Painting in Late-Sixth-Century Athens,” Hesperia 73 (2004), 456. 15 Oakley and Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, p. xiii.

92

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

deme festivals in Attica: when and where they were held, how long they lasted, and who attended. We have found good evidence to suggest that festival goers can be divided into three general categories: men and women, women only, and men only. We find that there are more festival opportunities open to ‘women only’ than there are ‘male only’ examples. Indeed, if we total the number of days for festivals that could be attended by women and compare this with the number of festival days open to men, women’s festival days significantly out-number those open to men. Combine this with the number of festivals attended by both sexes and there are significantly more festivals that women can attend than those for men. There is no evidence to suggest that women in general were kept from attending festivals (except those open to men only) and indeed evidence suggests that female attendance at, and certain ritual acts including the collection of water for religious festivals was expected. Appendix One provides a preliminary look at the main Athenian and Eleusian festivals and their gender associations.16 A Reconsideration of the Evidence from Images Ferrari states that women and girls would not have gone to the fountain in late Archaic and Classical Athens because “[. . .] in late sixth and fifth century Athens such creatures did not go out to a public fountain to fetch water for their families; their servants did’ [emphasis ours].17 The images that she considers appear on seventy-nine vases dated between 520 and 480 B.C. depicting women gathering water, but she neglects to discuss carefully vase imagery of women and water themes created after 480 B.C. Through the Beazely archive and other sources, we have been able to check sixty-one of the vases that Ferrari used. The majority (thirty-six) are dated between 550 B.C. and 500 B.C. The earliest

16 More analysis for this data will be forthcoming in “The Role of Women in Athenian Religious Festivals.” However, in this claim, we are also supported by, among others, Lauren Hackworth Petersen, “Divided Consciousness and Female Companionship: Reconstructing Female Subjectivity on Greek Vases” Arethusa 30.1 (1997), 35–74, as well as Claude Bérard “The Order of Women,” A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, ed. Claude Bérard, trans. Deborah Lyons. (Princeton, 1989), pp. 89–108. esp. p. 95; and Elaine Fantham, Helene Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, and H. Alan Shapiro, Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. (New York, 1994), pp. 108–109; See also Evy Håland, this volume. 17 Ferrari, G., “Myth and genre on Athenian Vases,” p. 46.

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

93

is dated 600–550 B.C.18 and only three vases share the latest date of 475–425 B.C. Moreover, following the data that Lewis records, we see that water scenes in general increase in number and become more popular with the development of the red-figure technique.19 Thus, we include an evaluation of some of these vessels as well, since the task of “complicating” the issues of interpretation of imagery includes also connecting women to water in a variety of forms, as Lewis does.20 The numerous scenes discussed throughout Lewis’ text, include women washing clothes, women at the laver, women bathing (also see Sutton in this volume), and women holding water jars. We look at both exported vases and those found in Athens. Some vessels whose provenance is unknown are also included in our analysis.21 The status of the women depicted figures importantly in our response to Ferrari and this characteristic is most difficult to determine. But this determination is also most crucial to Ferrari’s argument, since at the core of her case is the relative status of elite and non-elite Athenian women. Lewis’ work has been helpful to us in this regard, as she pays particular attention to the means by which potters represented the social status and roles of women. Like Lewis, we are interested in the ways in which status and social roles are indicated through the depiction of, for example, jewelry, clothing, and hairstyles. We closely examined each image to try to determine the status of the women on the vase before including them in the analysis. Whenever possible we considered the chronological and geographical distribution. And indeed, there appear to be four main criteria that the Athenian pot painters used to distinguish between a citizen woman and a maid or servant (as noted above—stature, clothing, hairstyle, and jewelry). Alan Shapiro claims

Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco, 4209. Lewis, The Athenian Woman, p. 75. 20 Of the sixty-one vase records examined, forty clear images discussed by Ferrari were accessible to us. Lewis’ text provided women and water images from several dozen more examples. 21 See in particular, London D48 found at Athens; Metropolitan Museum of Art 31.11.10 found at Vari, Attica; Philadelphia MS5463 “Possibly Athens” according to Perseus; Philadelphia MS2463 exact provenance unknown, somewhere in Italy; and Toledo 1961.23 provenance unknown, done by the Priam painter, also see K.S. Gorbunova, “Attic Black-figure Hydria ‘Women at the Well’,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Rostock 17 (1968), 642; London D 48; Florence 3792 (figure 2.16 in Lewis); M. von Wagner Museum L 304 (figure 2.15 in Lewis); Florence 76103 (figure 2.17 in Lewis). 18 19

94

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

another characteristic: the term KALE, which he argues is an indication of hetairai status.22 What are the Characteristics of an Elite Athenian Woman on a Vase Painting? As an example, consider Philadelphia MS5463, an Attic Red Figure White Ground Lethykos dated to ca. 460–430 B.C.,23 on which two women appear (figure 1). The seated woman on the left is identified as the “mistress” and the standing woman on the right is identified as her “servant.”24 In the figure above, the mistress wears an ankle length chiton, her hair appears to be tied back with a headband, and she may be wearing jewelry.25 The servant wears a simpler chiton that falls to mid-thigh; underneath the chiton is another very simple ankle length tunic. The hair style of the servant differs from that of the mistress in that it is short, curly, and not tied back. The same characteristics can also be seen on London D 48 (see footnote 21) another Red Figure White Ground Lethykos (ca. 440 B.C.) where, in this instance, the mistress stands to the left and the maid, also standing, is on the right.26 Here the mistress wears a long, sleeved chiton with her hair tied back using a purple band. Her attendant wears a similar dress but once again her hair is short, curly, and is tied back. In both cases, we see a woman attended by her servant, suggesting that she is of elite status. Elite characteristics then include elegant or fancy dress, carefully styled hair, and overt displays of wealth and prestige.

22 Alan Shapiro, Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies (Leiden, 2004), especially chapter one. 23 According to the Perseus catalog, viewed at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0043&query=Philadelphia%20MS5463, “The lekythos was part of the Borelli Bey Collection, which was dispersed in Paris in 1913. It was number 223 in the Borelli Bey sale catalogue. It was later purchased from Canessa in 1916 by the University Museum, Philadelphia.” Borelli Bey was from Alexandria. The provenance is not confirmed, but Perseus catalog says “possibly Athens.” 24 J.D. Beazley, Attic Black Figure: A Sketch, (London, 1928), p. 49. 25 Ibid. 26 J.D. Beazley; Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition: accessed through the Perseus website: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999 .04.0043&query=London%20D%2048

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

95

We will now identify a small selection of vases that clearly show elite women collecting water. London B 329 (ca. 510 B.C., figure 2) found in Etruria shows four women at the fountain-house filling hydria from five equestrian and lion headed waterspouts. All four women wear long chitons. One of the women (far right) stands behind a Doric column while the woman on the far left appears to stand in front of the a column. In the case of two of the women, the hairstyle is hidden from view but, the two central figures clearly have their hair tied up using a headband, similar to the white-ground examples noted above. It also appears that three of the women (one on the far left and the two on the right) wear necklaces. If we consider the clothing, hairstyle, and the possibility of jewelry on three of the women, it is apparent that these women are not servants. Ferrari would not dispute the claim of elite status for these women. Another fountain-house hydria is Toledo 1961.23 (figure 3) dated to 520–510 B.C.27 In this scene, there are six women filling hydria and kalpis from a lion-headed waterspout. Five of the women wear older fashion clothing—an elegant and simple peplos and, over it, a heavier cloak or himation while the third (from left) wears only a peplos. Thin black lines around the neck of the second and fifth women may represent necklaces, while the thin black line and black dot on the fourth women is also likely a necklace. All six women have their hair tied up with bands. As with London B 329, the stature, dress, hair, and jewelry of all six women suggest that they are citizen women.

27 See http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999 .04.0045&query=entry%3d67 for a discussion of this vase: “Attributed to the Priam Painter by Beazley (Para., 147, no. 5). The Priam Painter is a particularly noted artist of the late phase of the black-figure technique [ . . . ] Unlike many of his more adventuresome colleagues, he appears to have shunned the new red-figure technique, preferring to treat established black-figure themes in new compositions with original detailing. Although a prolific painter, he favored only a few subjects, notable among which are scenes of women at Athenian fountain-houses, which appear on eight of the twenty-five hydria assigned to his hand. Boardman has suggested that these hydriai with fountains were painted with ‘some measure of sympathy for the Peisistratids.’ ” Boardman’s interpretation could logically still be considered as the ‘inspiration through experience’ for these vases, even though they were found in Etruria. Cf. Steiner, “The Alkmene Hydrias,” pp. 427–463.

96

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

Figure 1. Philadelphia MS5463: Attic white-ground funeral lekythos, with scene of two women. © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Archives.

Figure 2. London, British Museum, B329: Etruria © The British Museum.

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

97

Figure 3. Toledo 1961.23: © Toledo Museum of Art.

A third vase showing women at the well is an Attic Black Figure vase dated to 525–500 B.C. (Philadelphia MS2463). The woman on the right is filling her hydria, the central figure walks away with a filled hydria balanced on her head, while the woman on the left waits to fill an empty hydria (it is carried horizontally). All three women wear a himation and peplos. Because the pot is damaged, it is difficult to tell whether the central woman and the woman on the right wear jewelry. A close inspection of the woman on the left reveals a wide necklace. This closer look also reveals that her hair is similar to the other two women. Like the two earlier vases the women on this vase appear to be of citizen status. Another nice example is illustrated in the book A History of Greek Vase Painting by P.E. Arias (plate XXIII).28 On this vase there are three women filling hydria. This hydria resembles the work of the Nixokenes painter and is dated to ca. 510 B.C. (figure 5).

28 P.E. Arias, A History of Greek Vase Painting, (London, 1962); image accessed at http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=15932.

98

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

Figure 4. a and b, Philadelphia MS2463 (164433, 164431): Three women with hydriae at fountain © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Archives.

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience

99

Figure 5. P.E. Arias Plate XXIII; Italy © University of South Africa.

The woman on the right fills her hydria from the waterspout, while the central woman waits with an empty hydria. The woman on the left may have already filled her hydria since she holds hers vertically while the central figure holds her hydria horizontally (obviously empty). In this scene the woman on the left and the one in the middle both have their hair tied back, while the woman on the right has her hair down and all three have hair bands. These three elegant, but powerful, citizen women depicted on this vase that was exported to Italy, certainly do appear to represent an Athens worth respecting. As we noted above, Ferrari claims that the depictions of citizen women on Attic vases represent daily life not in sixth century Athens when the vases were made but rather Athens of the autochthonous ancestors and that the fountain house did not exist at that time and, quoting Herodotus, in any case Athenians had servants by this time who would fetch water. Hannestad uses the exact same passage from

100

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

Herodotus29 to suggest that slavery was virtually unknown in Athens at the time when the vases were painted (sixth century B.C.).30 It is certainly difficult for us to imagine that elite Athenian households were not already financially capable of owning slaves during the reign of Pisistratus. However, we nevertheless argue that citizen women had occasion to collect water. Indeed, we can see the connection between gathering water for a religious festival on figure 6, a vase from the British Museum (London B332). On this vase, Dionysos and Hermes are present at the fountain house while one woman fills her hydria and two other women wait to fill their hydria. The women may be preparing to celebrate the festival of the Hydrophoria, a religious ceremony that was celebrated on the second day of the three-day festival of Anthesteria.31 Dionysus is celebrated on the first day of the festival and Hermes on the third day. Williams writes that women participated in a water pouring ceremony on the second day of the festival, between the celebrations of Dionysus and Hermes.32 Peterson writes that the placement of the women between Dionysus (on the left?) and Hermes (on the right?) represents the order in which the festival was celebrated.33 Athenian women exiting the house to fetch water either at the well or fountain house would have brought them into the public and male world and would have made them available for inspiration to pot painters. Indeed, Peterson in Divided Consciousness suggests that Aristophanes, in his play Lysistrata, hints that entering this world might not always be a pleasant experience for a woman.34 And, in our inventory of sixty-one vases, we find at least three fifth-century vases that clearly depict a man accosting a woman at the well.35 These images provide impor-

Herodotus 6.137.1. L. Hannestad, “Slaves and the Fountain House Theme” in Ancient Greek and Related Pottery (Amsterdam, 1984), pp. 252–255. 31 For more on this festival, see, e.g., the following classics: W. Burkert, Greek Religion. (Cambridge, MA, 1985), pp. 237–241; H.W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca, 1977), pp. 107–19; and Froma I. Zeitlin, “Cultic Models of the Female: Rites of Dionysos and Demeter.” Arethusa 15 (1982), 129–157. 32 Dyfri Williams, “Women on Athenian Vases: Problems of Interpretation,” Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt. (Detroit, 1983), pp. 92–106. 33 Peterson, “Divided Consciousness,” 40. 34 Peterson, “Divided Consciousness,” 41. 35 Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig, Z369, New York (NY), Metropolitan Museum, 98.8.12, Berlin, Antikensammlung, F1910, (all in the Beazley archive). 29 30

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience 101

Figure 6. London British Museum B332: Etruria, © The British Museum.

tant evidence about sexuality and gender to Eva Keuls.36 It has been further argued that vases with ‘ambush’ scenes are meant to warn real women about the dangers to be found at the well and fountain and that women that entering the male (public) sphere leaves them open to

36

Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens (Berkeley, 1985).

102

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

such advances.37 The very notion that some vases may have been made to communicate such a message to citizen women implies that women were indeed going out of the house—otherwise, they could not have been accosted and certainly need not be warned. It is stretching the imagination to suppose that a social guideline so specific as ‘avoid the fountain house’ could be suggested before a potential problem arose. It should be noted on the other hand that while we have not yet conducted an exhaustive search of the ancient literature, we are unable to find any non-comedic literary references to the idea that fetching water was dangerous. It is only in the modern literature, Bérard and Keuls in particular, and a few images that we find the idea of danger at the well. Moreover, there are at least eight vases showing men and together women at the well with no sign of any unpleasant behavior on the part of the men. See, for example, Vatican City 41738 where men and women, servant men, and, apparently, elite women peacefully gather water. Susan Rotroff and Robert Lamberton were struck by Beazley Vase Number: 301818 (figure 7). This vase, found in the agora, shows five beautifully dressed women on a hydria. They are “visiting a fountainhouse, bringing empty jugs of the same shape that bears their portraits, filling them and returning home.” They postulate that the scene may represent “the Southeast fountain house in the Agora but which ever fountain house of Athens it is, the message is clear: these women finely turned out as they are, are performing a routine household task that takes them outside the house and into the public space of the city.”39 Their clothing shares the characteristics described above for elite women and their behavior suggests decorum. The find-spot location of the vase was Athens and the image closely resembles the black figure fountain house vases listed above. In addition, Hannestad suggests that citizen women were responsible for gathering water for the ritual bath

Such vases are cited in the works, for example, of Bérard, Keuls, and Peterson. Vatican City Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano, 417. See in the Beazley Archive (http://www.beazley.ox,ac.uk) and search the pottery database for: Vase number 302871. 39 Susan I. Rotroff and Robert Lamberton, Women in the Athenian Agora (Oxford, 2006). All three quotations in above paragraph from pp. 5–6. Also see Beazley Archive (http://www.beazley.ox,ac.uk) and search the pottery database for: Vase number 301818 (Wurzburg Universitat, Martin von Wagner Museum L317). 37

38

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience 103

Figure 7. Beazley Vase Number: 301818 © Wurzburg: Martin Von Wagner Museum.

of a bride.40 The implication is that women were often responsible for gathering water, whether for household use, on their way to a festival celebration, or in preparation for a wedding. Finally we can gain some further insight into the idea of women outside the house at religious events, again, from the comic play Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Lysistrata bemoans the fact that when serious need arises, women have ignored her plea, but, she says,

40

See footnote 27.

104

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton Ah! if only they had been invited to a Bacchic revelling, or a feast of Pan or Aphrodite or Genetyllis, why! the streets would have been impassable for the thronging tambourines! Now there’s never a woman here-ah! Except my neighbor Cleonice, whom I see approaching yonder. [. . .] Good day, Cleonice.41

suggesting that women are out and about when religious obligations call (to enjoy the activities associated with these rites). Despite our best efforts, we are unable to find distinguishing artistic or physical characteristics in the images that might enable us to determine which vases were exported and which found in Attica. Figure 8 (a composite of previously listed figures 5, 7 and 7 and cf. figure 7 in Håland article) illustrates our dilemma. All three figures are blackfigure, Attic made, from roughly the same period. All include women of upper class status. One is from Etruria, one from Athens and the provenance of the third vase is unknown. At this point, identifying the provenance, the intended audience, the market—local or export, as well as in some cases the intended use of vases remains an ideal, for which much further work will need to be done. Conclusion Given the evidence addressed above, it is already difficult to imagine that ancient Greek women did not enjoy the opportunity to meet and converse with their friends by going to the fountain house together. Thus far there is evidence that women had opportunity to be viewed in the process of gathering water. Regular civic and religious requirements appear to indicate that citizen women gather water for rites and rituals. Logic dictates that if citizen women were gathering water from public fountains and wells, then pot painters had an opportunity to view them and use them as inspiration for their images. There is no theoretical, philosophical, or historical need to deny pot painters’ experience. We have shown that women were in the outside world, public spaces, for a variety of purposes. These opportunities provide the experiential inspiration for vases made for both the export audience

41 See the Perseus website for the full Greek text and translation: http://www.perseus .tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0242:line=1

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience 105

Figure 8. is a composite of 3, 4a, 7.

as well as domestic audiences and consumers. From this evidence, we conclude that there is good reason to suggest that women were collecting water in public, at the very least for ritual purposes, and that while in fact the pictures on the vases we describe may indeed be “cultural constructs,” we also claim that their content contains the specificity of real women’s experiences.

106

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

Appendix one. Important urban/civic and rural festivals in Athens and Eleusis. Deity/Festival

Season

# of days

Times/ year

Public rites

Gender assoc.

every four years

public races, dances and athletic games

girls aged 7–14

Arkteia to Artemis

summer

ca. 30 days

Artemis

any

1–2 days puberty, visit to temple, (longer if motherhood sacrifices, processions distant travel is required)

women

Eleusian Mysteries for Demeter

Sept.

7 days

yearly

mysteries at Eleusis, processions, public purification, fertility rituals, obscenity

women and men, all status

Thesmophoria for Demeter

Nov.

4–5 days

yearly

camping in the area of the Agora, public and secret rites, sacrifices and feasts, procession, obscenity

women, perhaps only if married

Haloa for Demeter and Kore

Dec./Jan., 1–2 days? threshing

yearly

in city, ritual meals in public dining hall, rural festival with dancing, eating and sacrifice—on threshing floors

women inside hall, men sit outside

Adonia for Adonis

July

ca. 4 days?

yearly

women small groups of women assemble on rooftops, large groups assemble in town for dancing, singing, mock funerals, obscenity, processions

Anthesteria to Dionysos

Feb.

3 days

yearly

processions and carrying women and men, children of sacred things, jar and slaves opening, wine drinking, ritual meal, second day all access to gods is closed off, obscenity, led by 14 older women (venerable ones) and the “Queen Archon,” sacred marriage (portrayed by ‘king’ and ‘queen’ archon), rituals day and night

Lenaia to Dionysos

Jan.

yearly

processions, frenzy, dinking etc. Drama. See below (Bacchae)

women? men

women at the fountain and the well: imagining experience 107 Appendix one (cont.) Deity/Festival

Season

# of days

Times/ year

Public rites

Gender assoc.

Bacchae to Dionysos

yearly, secret, frenzy, dancing in perhaps mountains, drinking, rites more often performed at night

women primarily, perhaps some rites allowed to men

Saboi to Sabazios, related to Dionysos

yearly rites as above perhaps (Bacchae) more often

women primarily, some rites for men

Elaphebolion to Artemis

March

yearly

women and men

Munichion to Artemis

May

yearly

women and men

Hekatombaion to Apollo

July/Aug.

yearly

women and men

Thargelion

May/June

yearly

women and men

Skira, to July Athena, Posidon and Helios

2 days?

yearly

procession outside of city, women near Eleusis, assembly of women preside, sarifices, purifications

Bouphonia

August

1 day

yearly

two days after the Skira, sacrifice on acropolis

women? and men

Kronia to Kronos

July

1 day

yearly

slaves and masters ‘exchange’ roles, slaves eat at banquets, run through streets

women and men

Pyanopsia

October

yearly

boiling of beans

women and men

Gamelia to Hera

Dec./Jan.

yearly

marriage festival, sacrifices primarily women (possibly some singing, and some men dancing, processions, some rite symbolizing loss)

Metageitnia

yearly

neighborhood festival

women and men

Maimakterion

yearly

unknown

women and men?

yearly

unknown, animal sacrifices likely

women and men?

Poseidonia to Poseidon

Nov./Dec.

108

cynthia k. kosso and kevin lawton

Appendix one (cont.) Deity/Festival

Season

# of days

Times/ year

Public rites

Gender assoc.

Greater Panathenaea

July/Aug. 2 days, but every part of series four years of year end/ new year festivals, with months of preparation

processions of young girls, women and men women, men, singing, dancing, sacrifices, ritual meals, ascent to acropolis, ages, status and genders distinguished in rites. Women fashion very elaborate new clothing for Athena (carding, weaving, sewing, dyeing, embroidering)

Lesser Panathenaea

July/Aug. 1–2 days? As above.

yearly

procession, acropolis ritual of new clothing for Athena, ritual meals. Women fashion new clothing for Athena

women and men

Greater Dionysia

Mar./Apr.

yearly

tragedies and satyr plays presented

women perhaps, and men

Rural Dionysia

Nov./Dec

yearly

drama

women and men

anytime

small groups are initiated into the Bacchic rites

women and men

Private Dionysia Proerosia, Demeter?

Oct.

1 day

yearly

women assemble in Piraeus, sacrifice of animal, barley ritual

women, and probably men

Kalamia, Demeter?

Feb.

?

yearly

women assemble among themselves

women

Chloaia, Demeter?

Feb.

?

yearly

?

women and men

Antheia, Demeter?

Feb.

?

yearly

?

women and men

Asklepios and Hygieia

anytime

anytime

anytime as needed

women and purification, sacrifice, sometimes overnight stays men in temple

Artemis, Eileithyia and Demeter

anytime, 10 days after giving birth

1 day

anytime

women and gifts to the deities, sacrifice and banquet for men all members of the family, gift giving

“TAKE, SKAMANDROS, MY VIRGINITY”: IDEAS OF WATER IN CONNECTION WITH RITES OF PASSAGE IN GREECE, MODERN AND ANCIENT Evy Johanne Håland Introduction: From the Well of Water to Women and the Female Sphere In modern Greece, several religious rituals are performed to ensure a person’s health. They may also mark, and thus secure, the transitions from one state of life to another. Therefore, pilgrims still come to the many springs found all over the country, which are now dedicated to Panagia, the Virgin Mary, to get life-giving holy water (agiasma). Caves with life-giving water are found in most of the churches dedicated to Panagia, such as the one on the Aegean island of Tinos. Here, people fetch earth and holy water, both seen as very powerful fertility and healing remedies, particularly on the festivals dedicated to the Panagia. In comparison, water was also an important fertility-symbol in ancient Greece. Among the images of water in religion and myths are the rivergods, nymphs of springs, gods, and later saints of water. Several ancient ceremonies demonstrate the rites of propitiation to the nymph-spirits of springs. In many ceremonies, marriageable girls go down to a river and assimilate the life-giving waters by smearing themselves with mud, and girls in the Troad waded into the river Skamandros to wash off their virgin ‘wildness’ with the words: “Take, Skamandros, my virginity”.1 This essay will compare the importance of water in religious rituals linked to life-cycle passages in modern and ancient Greece. In particular, the focus here will be on girls entering their womanhood and marriage.2 1 Eschine, Discours, vol. 2: Contre Ctésiphon, Lettres, trans. Victor Martin/Guy de Budé, Société d’édition Les Belles Lettres (Paris, 1928), hereafter, cited as Aeschin. Ep. 10.3. 2 The term, ‘Ancient Greece’ suggests that this article is not centered on a particular time and place, since the central theme is the role of water in belief/rituals, etc. in ancient Greek society. Because of the similarity with later rituals as well, I have reason to believe the time periods can be merged. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 3rd IWHA (International Water History Association) Conference, Alexandria,

110

evy johanne håland

With very few exceptions, the ancient sources we possess are written by men. These male writers present cultural patterns and values that are very similar to the values found among men in present-day Greece and the Mediterranean society. In general, Greek women and their lives have been analysed from a Western, male standard. Both ancient and modern Greek women have thus been categorized as unfree, dependent, secluded, and not living a worthy life. Accounts of women written by men, and many academic women, may portray them as passive or subservient.3 But if a goal is to conduct research from the ‘female sphere’ which still exists in the Mediterranean society generally and in Greece particularly, the picture may change. Greek women have other values and interests than men and academic women from the North of Europe and the U.S., and it is important to try to search these out if this was the reality in ancient society as well. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct fieldwork among women and men in modern Greece when working with ancient and modern sources, since the ancient sources mostly are written by men, and we thereby might find a possible answer to the fourth dimension, i.e., the values and experiences of ancient Greek women, or to be more explicit: we have the opinion of modern and ancient men (i.e., the first and second dimension), which are similar; we also have the opinion of modern women (i.e., the third dimension); but, with very few exceptions, we do not have the opinion of ancient women (the fourth dimension).

2003. The paper is included in the conference CD-Rom, distributed by the IWHA secretariat [email protected]. Since 1985, I have had several periods of fieldwork in the Mediterranean, mainly in Greece and Italy where I have also been conducting research on religious festivals since 1987; cf. Evy Johanne Håland, Greske fester, Moderne og Antikke: En sammenlignende undersøkelse av kvinnelige og mannlige verdier [Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient: A Comparison of Female and Male Values] (Kristiansand, 2007), chapter 4. There, the topics discussed in the following are examined. The problems and fruitfulness of working with anthropological comparative approaches (such as using material from Modern Greece as models) are also discussed; cf. John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York, 1990), particularly pp. 1–13. Several of the aspects just mentioned in the following are discussed further in E.J. Håland, “Rituals of Magical Rain-Making in Modern and Ancient Greece: A Comparative Approach,” Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society 17, 2 (2005), 197–251 (the article is based on a paper presented at the IWHA 2nd conference Bergen 2001), focusing on water, religion and agriculture, and also festivals and rainmaking rituals in Greece. 3 See, for example, Barrie Machin, “St. George and the Virgin: Cultural Codes, Religion and Attitudes to the Body in a Cretan Mountain Village,” Social Analysis 14 (1983), 107–126; and Peter Walcot, “Plutarch on Women,” Symbolae Osloenses 74 (1999), 163–183. These and other references are discussed at length in Håland, Greske fester, particularly pp. 28–30, 332–356, 401–469.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

111

In the modern and ancient ‘patriarchal’ Mediterranean society, women are associated with practical religion, where fertility-, healingand death-cults are focal. These cults are connected with the domestic sphere, where women are the dominating power. ‘The female sphere’ is crucial when studying religion, gendered and social values, and popular beliefs. We discover that the ‘macro-’ and ‘micro-society’, i.e., the ‘public’ or ‘male’ and ‘domestic’ or ‘female spheres’, in fact have different meanings to what is generally assumed. In Greece, we do not find the ‘little’ society or ‘only the family’ at home; rather, this is where we meet the ‘great’ society. For instance, many decisions that are made in the public sphere in the modern Western world are still made in the domestic sphere in Greece, and this was certainly also the case in the ancient world. Therefore, it is important to search out to what extent the official male ideology is dependent on these cults, and thereby the female sphere to manifest itself. The ‘male sphere’ is usually connected with the official (dogmatic religious and political) world, and the female with the domestic world, but this does not imply that the female sphere is marginal as some researchers have claimed.4 Marginalization is a spatial metaphor and depends on where you are standing. This means that the center in a Greek village can be the central village square, ‘the man’s world’, and the kitchen hearth or courtyard, focal spaces that women control. When studying Greek village life, anthropologists have considered the two spheres of male and female importance in terms of ‘public’ and ‘private’, outside home and home, i.e., equivalents to the ancient polis (city-state) and oikos (household). There are, however, public spaces where women dominate, and one of these is the cemetery, while another is the public oven, a parallel to the fountain. So, when working with the gendered spaces, one realizes that the division in a male and female sphere in Greek society may be blurred. In reality, the world of the domestic and familial or the world of women, the female sphere, covers a more extended area and has greater power than generally assumed. Thus, the point of the following article is twofold: first, to show continuity or rather parallels in Greek rituals associated with water, ancient and modern; and second, to reconsider sources and ideas of male/female or public/domestic in ancient and modern Greece.5 4 For example, see Sarah B. Pomeroy, Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities (Oxford, 1998), p. 16. 5 I have already discussed the problems by using the word ‘private,’ connected with a modern society (and covering a more limited space as in the ‘nuclear family’),

112

evy johanne håland

August 15th, the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and Zōodochos Pēgē: The ‘Life-giving Spring’ August 15th marks the end of the fifteen-day fast in honor of the Panagia. August and particularly August 1st are usually considered the beginning of a new season in Greece, and since the cyclical perspective was and is central in connection with the festivals of the agricultural year, the modern festival dedicated to the Dormition of the Panagia marks the beginning of the passage to the new agricultural season. By the end of August, this transition towards the ‘female’, i.e., wet and fertile period in the agricultural year’s cycle, starts to replace the ‘male’, i.e., dry period, because the woman is looked upon as the productive partner in a relationship in the Mediterranean area.6 Concerning the agricultural year, the conditions of both weather and soil were the same in ancient Greece as they are today,7 and in August, the harvest and the threshing of the grain are finished. The earth is going to conceive again, when the transitional period towards the new agricultural year ends by the sowing season in October-November. For the modern Greeks, the transition to the fertile and healing period starts when Panagia descends into the underworld, and consequently ensures the future fertility in agreement with the divine underworld.8 August 15th is celebrated with special reverence all over Greece, and on this day pilgrimages are made to the greatest shrine of Greek Orthodoxy, the island of Tinos. A ritual connected with water is important at this shrine and particularly during the festival when people visit the ‘Life-giving Spring’. when working with ancient, and several other pre-industrial, societies, where domestic (covering a more extended space/the greater family/household) is more suitable; see Håland, Greske fester, pp. 28–30. 6 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Le Sens Pratique (Paris, 1980), chapter 3, Dēmētrios S. Loukatos, Ta Kalokairina [The Summer] (Athens, 1981), pp. 88–89 and 113–128, and Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6. See also E.J. Håland, “The ritual year as a woman’s life: The festivals of the agricultural cycle, life-cycle passages of Mother Goddesses and fertility-cult,” in First International Conference of the SIEF working group on The Ritual Year. In association with The Department of Maltese University of Malta, Junior College, Msida, Malta, 2005: Proceedings, ed. G. Mifsud-Chircop (Malta, 2006), pp. 303–326 and E.J. Håland, “15 August, the Dormition of Panagia, the Virgin Mary, on the Aegean island of Tinos,” in Acts of the 1st International Congress on Greek Civilization, The Public Festival: A Diachronic Glimpse at Its Socio-Economic & Political Role, ed. M. Melas (in press), particularly for the festival at Tinos, which was visited eleven times in the period 1990–2007. 7 This is discussed at length in Håland, “Rituals of Magical,” particularly pp. 202–204. 8 Håland, Greske fester, p. 97 and chapter 6.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

113

The church of Panagia, Euangelistrias (the Annunciation) at Tinos owes its fame to a miraculous icon of the Annunciation, which was unearthed in a field in 1821 following a mystical vision seen by one of the islanders, a pious nun.9 Below the main church at Tinos are several cave-shaped chapels. In the first is a holy spring where the pilgrims fetch water, which has fertile power and cures sickness (figure 1). According to the tradition, the well was found during the excavations made in search of the icon. The well was dry. As there did not exist any well near the building site, on the day of the laying of the corner-stone of the church, the bishop sent a boy to bring water from the town for the celebration of the hallowing of the waters. Shortly afterwards the child returned to say that the well next to the foundation was full of water. The bishop and the notables went on the spot and saw with great surprise that the dry well was filled up to the brink with water. They made the sign of the cross for this miracle and took from the well the water necessary for the celebration of the hallowing. Since then, the water of the well has been used by the pilgrims as a sacred water and everybody takes it along in special vials and keeps it at home as a talisman. The source is seen as a miracle and the chapel of holy water is called Zōodochos Pēgē, i.e., the Life-giving Spring (figure 2).10 All year, pilgrims come to Tinos, but the crowd is enormous during the days around the August-festival, particularly after August 1st. People, mostly women, make their way up to the church barefoot, on their bare knees, or on their stomachs, and they bring with them various offerings sometimes tied on their backs, such as tall candles, icons, and wax. They may also bring incense, silver candlesticks, censers, bread, wine, or sheep. The most common offering is a silver- or gold-plated ex-voto (in Greek, tama) representing the person who has been miraculously cured by the icon, or the cured limb, or the person or limb wanting to be cured, or a ship. The street, leading directly from the harbor to the church, is named Megalocharēs (megalo, great; charē, grace; i.e., the Blessed Virgin). Megalocharēs is a wide avenue about a kilometer in length, lined with shops and booths, particularly at its lower end. As

Håland, Greske fester, p. 98. It is also known as the Life-giving Well, and the chapel is called ‘Finding’ (Euresēs), particularly by the inhabitants of Tinos. For the story, see Ev. A. Foskolos, Perigraphē tēs Eureseōs tēs Thaumatourgou Agias Eikonas tēs Euangelistrias stēn Tēno kata to etos 1823. Skopoi kai drastēriotētes tou Ierou Idrymatos [The Panhellenic Holy Shrine of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Tinos: History—Miracles—Activity] (1968; reprint Tinos, 2007, 1993), p. 5. English version, trans. Theodora D. Silvestros (2004), pp. 14–15. 9

10

114

evy johanne håland

Figure 1. Pilgrims fetch holy water from the ‘Life-giving Spring’ on the Aegean island of Tinos. (Author’s photograph).

soon as the pilgrims disembark from the ships, and begin to make their way up the hill, they are assailed with the cries of the shopkeepers who stand outside their stores, hawking the items necessary for a successful pilgrimage: “Lampades! Tamata! Mpoukalakia gia agiasma!

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

115

Edō Lampades!” (“Large candles! Tamata! Little bottles for holy water! Here [are] large candles!”)11 At the top of the hill, at the doorway of the church, the pilgrims offer their large candles. Afterwards, they line up on the steps at the Church of the Annunciation, waiting their turn to enter the main chapel, to proskynēma, i.e., to perform the required set of devotions, the most important being to kiss the icon itself. Most pilgrims confine their attentions to the main sanctuary and to the chapel of holy water below the church, asking: “Where do we go for holy water?”—and they are directed downstairs, to the chapel beneath the main church. The pilgrims drop some money in a carved wooden counter with a slot, pick up candles to be lighted, and inside the first chapel they kiss the icons, after which they take some earth from the hole where the miraculous icon was found. Next, they line up to obtain holy water in small bottles or they drink directly from the tap. Many pilgrims only carry out the most essential rituals and obtain the holy symbols before they return to the harbor. The water is thought to be particularly powerful during the festival, which starts on the eve of August 15th. Now, the church is nicely decorated and the icon is placed on a blue and golden embroidered carpet. Both the earth and the water are considered to be more holy now, when Panagia is so near. Accordingly, they are more powerful, and during her panēgyrikos on August 15th, the Dormition of the Panagia, many children are baptised in the chapel of holy water, in the Life-giving Spring (figure 2). Particularly marriageable girls or newly married girls fetch earth and holy water, to assure their own fertility and health. Panagia, Agia Paraskeuē, and Their Sacred Springs Holy water, agiasma, is found in all modern Greek sanctuaries, but some sanctuaries offer particularly wondrous water and these have their own legend attached to it. Caves with springs, which were dedicated to ancient gods and goddesses, particularly nymphs, are often transformed

11 Håland, Greske fester, p. 102, see also Jill Dubisch, In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine (Princeton, 1995), p. 22.

116

evy johanne håland

Figure 2. A child is baptised in the chapel of holy water, in the ‘Life-giving Spring’, Tinos. (Author’s photograph).

to chapels dedicated to Panagia. Similarly a cult dedicated to Agia (Saint) Paraskeuē is found several places in Greece, as in the Vale of Tempe in Northern Greece, where we also find the Spring of Aphrodite (Venus) and the Spring of Daphne. Agia Paraskeuē is celebrated on July 26th, and the holy water in her caves is especially good at curing eye diseases. Hundreds of silver ex-votos representing a human eye can be seen adorning her icons. On the island of Mytilini in the village named after this saint, Agia Paraskeuē is worshipped in a cave where cult activity is documented from antiquity.12 The wonder-working nature of the sacred spring inside

12 Kōsta Makistou, Ē Sellada tēs Agias Paraskeuēs Lesbou (Athens, 1970), pp. 11–14, 81–90, and pp. 110–111. See also K. Makistou, Ena Panarchaio Mnēmeio stēn Agia Paraskeuē Lesbou. “T’ Tsyousiou ē Mana” [An Ancient Monument in Agia Paraskeuē Lesbou. “Foetus or Mother”] (Athens, 1978) for the underground construction at Agia Paraskeuē, which is shaped as a cervix of the womb and womb. According to the local tradition it is called ‘Foetus’ or ‘Mum’ (or ‘Source’). It has also been called the foetus in the womb, and connected with Dionysos in his mother’s womb. The main reservoir of the village has its source in the cave. The cave may have been dedicated to the nymph Brisa (cf. Brysē i.e., spring, source) who nursed Dionysos, according to the local mythology. The cult connected with the spring of Agios Charalampos in the vicinity may be a modern

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

117

the cave continues, and the ancient spring house is now a chapel dedicated to Agia Paraskeuē. Panagia is the main goddess in connection with the festival dedicated to the Life-giving Spring, which is also celebrated in connection with the cave because of its spring with healing water. The significance of water is demonstrated through this festival, which is celebrated on New Friday after the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, in the first Week after Easter (or White Week). It is dedicated to Panagia under her attribute of Zōodochos Pēgē, the Life-giving Spring. This festival is also found other places, for example in Athens.13 During this festival, the Athenians come to her chapel inside a circular spring house hewn in the rock on the Southern slope of the Acropolis to fetch life-giving water in the cave which is dedicated to her; accordingly, the water scoop is often used during the festival (figure 3). The Sacred Spring is situated inside a cave over which is constructed a church. Through antiquity the cave was dedicated to different deities: the spring house and its surroundings were sacred to the Water Nymphs from the sixth century B.C.; later, the sanctuary of Asklepios was built here. Subsequently, the cave was dedicated to Agioi Anargyroi, the patron saints of healing, and today it is dedicated to the Panagia. Thus, she has replaced the ancient Water Nymphs (cf. figure 4). From these short accounts of the modern shrines with healing water connected with female divinities, particularly the Life-giving Spring in the Acropolis cave, the following section will explore the cult of the water-deities in Ancient Greece, and their healing and thus life-giving capacities. From Modern Shrines with Healing Water to Ancient Greek Water-Deities Among the myths about water are the rivers of death and the regeneration of life. In ancient Greece, Lethe was the River of Forgetfulness, whose water no pitcher could hold,14 and among the nine rivers of the underworld was the river Styx. The gods of Homer and the

survival of cult related to former nymphs, such as Arethousa and the goddess Artemis. It is connected with passage rites and fertility. 13 E.J. Håland, “From Water in Greek Religion, Ancient and Modern, to the Wider Mediterranean and Beyond,” Comparative Civilizations Review 56 (2007), 56–75. 14 Plato, The Republic, vol. 2., trans. Paul Shorey, The Loeb Classical Library (1935; reprint London 1963), hereafter cited as Pl. Resp. 621.

118

evy johanne håland

Figure 3. The water scoop in the cave dedicated to the Panagia, the ‘Life-giving Spring’, Athens. (Author’s photograph).

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

119

Arkadians took oath by it.15 The Well of Memory, Mnemosyne, was also a Well of Life. Hence, water was also an essential fertility symbol in ancient Greece. Pliny tells about classes of water.16 According to Plutarch fire is masculine and water feminine.17 In his description of the moist and cold winter season, Hesiod associates the interior of the house with women and femaleness.18 Water may, nevertheless, figure as both a female and male symbol. Among the images of water in religion and myths are the river-gods, nymphs of springs, gods, and later saints, of water. The gods of the sea or ocean, Pontos, Okeanos and Poseidon, are male.19 So are rivers.20 Pausanias discusses the river called Arsen,21 which means ‘male’, and the river named Ladon.22 The goddess of love and fertility, Aphrodite, was born from the foam that gathered about the genitals of Uranos, when Cronos threw them into the sea.23 Springs are Nymphs and therefore female,24 such as the nymph Thelpousa.25 So, the fertility aspect of water is particularly related to the nymphs. The nymphs were closely connected with the land and the various aspects of its nature, like mountains and caves, water, and vegetation.

15 Herodotus, The Persian Wars, vols. 2–3, trans. A.D. Godley, The Loeb Classical Library (1921–1922, reprint London,1938), hereafter cited as Hdt. 6.74. 16 Pliny, Natural History, vols. 4 and 8, trans. H. Rackham and W.H.S. Jones, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1963–1968), hereafter cited as Plin. HN. 31.3–12. 17 Plutarch, Moralia, vols. 2–5, 7–10, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt et al, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1928–1969), hereafter cited as Mor. 263e. 18 Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. H.G. Evelyn-White, The Loeb Classical Library (1914, reprint London, 1950), hereafter cited as Op. 519–525. Bruce Lincoln, Death, War and Sacrifice (Chicago, 1991), also discusses water, water of memory and forgetfulness included. According to his presentation of the gender politics in Indian religion (pp. 223–224), water, earth, plants, and fish came into being as female. As in ancient Greek religion (such as in Hes. Th. and Plut. Mor., cf. infra), the very cosmos is classified according to gender. 19 Hes. Th. 131–133; Homer, The Odyssey, 2 vols, trans. A.T. Murray, The Loeb Classical Library (1919, reprint London 1946), hereafter cited as Od. 1.68–73, Homer, The Iliad, 2 vols, Trans. A.T. Murray, The Loeb Classical Library (1924–1925, reprint London 1946–1947), hereaftercited as Il. 14.201, 14.245–246. 20 Il. 20.73–74; Nonnus, Dionysiaca, vol. 1, trans. W.H.D. Rouse, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1940), hereafter cited as Nonn. 1.120–124; Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4 vols, trans. W.H.S. Jones, The Loeb Classical Library (1918; reprint London 1939–1954), hereafter cited as Paus. 2.17.2. 21 Paus. 8.25.1. 22 Paus. 8.25.2–13. 23 Hes. Th. 188–206. 24 Ovid, Metamorphoses, vol. 1, trans. Frank Justus Miller, The Loeb Classical Library (1916; reprint London 1966), hereafter cited as Ov. Met. 3.341–346. 25 Paus. 8.25.2.

120

evy johanne håland

They were deities providing not only the water of springs, but also rivers26 and pools; hence, they presided in general over the granting of water. All kinds of waters are in fact inhabited by nymphs, such as the Naiads, the Potameids (cf. potamos, river, stream), the Creneids, and the Hydriads (cf. hydria, water-pot). The nymphs were believed to give water through springs, and prayers and offerings of thanks were made to them in this connection, such as a votive relief with nymphs, found south of the Acropolis (figure 4). They were asked to send forth springs from the earth.27 The nymph or nymphs of a particular place caused fountains and springs of water to gush forth, warm water included, often to please goddesses as Artemis.28 The water belonging to the spring of the Sithnid nymphs flows into the fountain built by Theagenes, and it is called the water of the Sithnid nymphs, according to Pausanias.29 The nymphs were often given drinking cups,30 were associated with bathing establishments,31 and were also connected with the water of aqueducts and irrigation ditches. Local springs were often associated with a divine nymph, both a goddess of marriage32 and birth,33 and several authors preserving ceremonies that reflect very ancient usage describe the rites of propitiation to the nymph-spirits of springs. Pausanias explains:34 as you go on from Epidauros Limera about two stades, on the right is the Water of Ino, about as large as a small lake, but going deeper into the earth. They throw barley-cakes into this water on the festival of Ino. If the water keeps them submerged, it is auspicious for the person who threw them

Od. 6.123–124. Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica, trans. R.C. Seaton, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1912), hereafer Ap. Rhod. 4.1411–1421; The Greek Anthology, vols. 1–3, 5, trans. W.R. Paton, The Loeb Classical Library (1916–1918, reprint London, 1953), hereafter cited as AP. 9.417, 6.154, 16.291, 9.329, 9.327, 6.158, 16.264a. Cf. for offerings also Menander, vol. 1: Aspis to Epitrepontes, trans. W.G. Arnott, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1979), Dyskolos, hereafter cited as Men. Dysk. 440–450. 28 Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus of Sicily), The Library of History, vols. 1 and 3, trans. C.H. Oldfather, et al., The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1933, 1939), hereafter cited as Diod. 5.3.4–5. 29 1.40.1. 30 Od. 13.105, cf. Paus. 8.31.4. 31 The Odes of Pindar, trans. John Sandys, The Loeb Classical Library (1915; reprint London, 1919), hereafter cited as Pind. Ol. 12.19; AP. 9.627. 32 Aristophanes, vol. 3: The Lysistrata, The Thesmophoriazusae, The Ecclesiazusae, The Plutus, trans. Benjamin Bickley Rogers, The Loeb Classical Library (1924; reprint London, 1946), hereafter cited as Ar. Thesm. 973–981. 33 Plin. HN. 31.10. 34 3.23.8. 26

27

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

121

Figure 4. Votive relief with nymphs (National Museum, Athens 1966, see Travlos 1971: fig. 193).

in; but if it returns them to the surface, it is judged bad omen.35 The story that Ino nursed Dionysos is widespread, and according to Athenaios36 “the Nymphs were called nurses of Dionysos, because water increases the wine when mixed with it,” just as nurses help the growth of their children. The nymphs were believed to have the power of averting barrenness,37 to promote and protect offspring. Springs and brooks, which they personified, also were held to possess this power. According to Pliny,38 the spring at Thespiae causes women to conceive, and the spring Linus guards the embryo and prevents miscarriage. The nymphs were worshipped as deities of water, of marriage, and of birth,39 and were connected with all sources of water; thus, water gives fertility and 35 Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, vol. 5, trans. Charles Burton Gulick, The Loeb Classical Library (1933; reprint London, 1955), hereafter cited as Ath. 11.462bc, presents a parallel. Cf. Plut. Mor. 267d16 for Ino. The Romans honoured the Nymphs on January 11th; Ovid, Fasti, trans. James George Frazer, The Loeb Classical Library (1916; reprint London, 1966), hereafter cited as Ov. Fast. 1.463–465. 36 11.465a. 37 Pliny HN. 31.4. 38 HN. 31.7.10. 39 Callimachus and Lycophron, trans. A.W. Mair. Aratus, trans. G.R. Mair, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1921), hereafter cited as Callim. Hymn. 4.255–257; Euripides, vol. 1: Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus, Hecuba, The Daughters of Troy, Helen; vol. 2: Electra, Orestes, Iphigeneia in Taurica, Andromache, Cyclops; vol. 3: Bacchanals, Madness of Hercules, Children of Hercules, Phoenician Maidens, Suppliants, trans. Arthur S. Way, The Loeb Classical Library (1912, reprint London, 1919, 1947), hereafter cited as Eur. IT. 270.

122

evy johanne håland

life to everything that grows.40 Accordingly, they were believed to give fertility to the soil and to assist growth of everything coming from the ground and to animals and man. The water where they were worshiped had healing and thus fertilizing power.41 Through the custom of offering a lock of hair to Artemis or Hera, and later to Panagia before marriage, we meet the ancient Olympian religion and later the Christian church’s adoption of the cult of nature. Water and hair symbolize life: water is a chthonic symbol, and a living individual’s vitality is in her or his hair. Therefore, childhood is offered in exchange for the status as adult. Usually, girls offered a lock of their hair to the Nymph or Neraida on the eve of their marriage.42 The role of the springs in the wedding-rituals is illustrated by maiden’s preliminary sacrifice to the nymphs.43 Before marriage it was customary for girls to go to the nearest river or spring to bathe,44 probably to honour the nymphs of the spring that they might make the marriage fruitful in the begetting of children, since they also presided over birth.45 In the fifth century B.C., the historian Thucydides writes that close to the Ilissus river there is the spring of water which is now called Enneakrounos [The Nine Fountains], since the tyrants had the fountain made, but used to be called Kallirhoē or ‘Fair Stream’, when the water came straight out of the earth. The people [. . .] used to use this spring for all purposes since is was so close to them, and, from this ancient habit of theirs is derived the cus-

40 Cf. Paus. 8.38.3–4; Pind. Pyth. 2.8. See also Ap. Rhod. 4.1217–1219 for offerings in connection with marriage, Eur. El. 624–627 nursing-dues, thanks for children, or vows for an expected birth 640–642, 783–805. Cf. Floyd G. Ballentine, “Some phases of the Cult of the Nymphs,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 15 (1904), 77–119. 41 Cf. the water of Peirene (a human who by her weeping became a water-spring), Paus. 2.3.2–3. The spring was ornamented with white stone and chambers constructed like grottoes, from which the water ran out to the basin in the open air. 42 G. Deschamps and G. Cousin, “Inscriptions du temple de Zeus Panamaros,” Bulletin de correspondence hellénique 12 (1889), 479–490, give an overview over hair-offerings in connection with life-cycle passages. Cf. Hdt. 4.33–34; Callim. Hymn. 4.296–299; Paus. 1.43.4 (Nonn. 5.489–491); Plutarch, Lives, vols. 1–2, trans. B. Perrin, The Loeb Classical Library (1914; reprint London, 1948), hereafter cited as Plut. Arist. 20.6; AP. 6.133, for dedications of hair before marriage. Cf. Lincoln, Death, War, p. 171, for the homology among hair, plants and mud. 43 Plut. Mor. 772.1. 44 Lyra Graeca, vol. 1: Terpander, Alcman, Sappho and Alcaeus, trans. J.M. Edmonds, The Loeb Classical Library (1922; reprint London, 1963), hereafter cited as Sappho Fr. 82. 45 Pind. Pyth. 11.2–3.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

123

tom of using it for ceremonies before marriage and in other religious ceremonies.46

The spring of water Kallirhoē owes its name to the fact that it was dedicated to the Nymph Kallirhoē. On their wedding day, the Athenian bride and groom were given separate ritual baths with water brought from the Kallirhoē spring.47 The special vessel used for this purpose came to be known as a loutrophoros, and on several vases girls are represented as carrying water for this purpose. Because a loutrophoros was used for the nuptial bath, the vase-shape itself evokes and commemorates the wedding, such as the wedding procession, with the marriage torches (figure 5). It was also common to place on the grave of those who died unmarried (agamoi) a loutrophoros,48 in token that the dead had died unbathed, unmarried, and without offspring. Thus, at the time of marriage the nymphs were honored in different ways, by ritual bathing of the bride and groom and by dedicating votive offerings of vases and hair so that they might bless the union with children. In sum, the nymphs were believed to have the power of giving fruitfulness in marriage and of lessening the pain of birth, as their equivalents in modern Greece, the Nymphs, Nereida or saints, such as Agia Marina.49 The next section will explore the relation between water, haircutting, and rites of passage more closely. In this connection the healing and purifying aspects of water are central.

46 καὶ τῇ κρήνῃ τῇ νῦν μὲν τῶν τυράννων οὕτως σκευασάντων Ἐννεακρούνῳ καλουμένῃ, τὸ δὲ πάλαι φανερῶν τῶν πηγῶν οὐσῶν Καλλιρρόῃ ὠνομασμένῃ ἐκεῖνοί τε ἐγγὺς οὔσῃ τὰ πλείστου ἄξια ἐχρῶντο, καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀρχαίου πρό τε γαμικῶ καὶ ἐς ἄλλα τῶν ἱερῶν νομίζεται τῷ ὕδατι χρῆσθαι. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian

War, vol. 1, trans. Charles Forster Smith, The Loeb Classical Library (1919; reprint London, 1951), hereafter cited as Thuc. 2.15.5. This translation draws on Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner. Penguin Classics (1954; reprint London, 1986). According to Paus. 1.14.1, the Enneakrounos was built by Peisistratos in the Athenian Agora. 47 Cf. Aeschylus, vol. 1: Suppliant maidens, Persians, Prometheus, Seven against Thebes, vol. 2: Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, Fragments, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, The Loeb Classical Library (1922, 1926; reprint London, 1946), hereafter cited as Aesch. PV. 555–556; Ar. Lys. 378; Eur. Phoen. 347–349 for the bridegroom’s bath. 48 Demosthenes, Orationes, vol. 5: Against Leochares, trans. A.T. Murray, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1939), hereafter cited as Dem. 44.18–19, 30. 49 Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6.

124

evy johanne håland

Figure 5. A loutrophoros, the vessel used for the nuptial bath: wedding procession (=ARV 1031,51, see Boardman 1989: fig. 134).

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

125

Healing and Purifying Waters and Their Divinities In mythology, rivers were part of the land before the arrival of men, and rivers may figure as ancestors. Because moisture is necessary for growth, rivers and springs are also associated with those growing up: they are kourotrophoi (youth rearing). There was also the custom to offer, to rivers and springs, animals that were enorcha (with testicles). Accordingly, just as initiation is about the allocation of civic identity and the perpetuation of the community, rivers and springs frequently figure in the rites and mythology that mark rites of passage for maidens and youths.50 Offering locks of hair to the youth-nourishing rivers was a rite marking a person’s emergence from childhood.51 A marble relief illustrates such a hair offering (figure 6). The cutting of hair, ‘the crown of childhood’, admits boys and girls to society, announcing their passage to adulthood and marriage. By offering the aparchai, first fruits or primal offerings, to the life-giving waters, boys who were initiated as warriors and girls ensured their fertility in their married lives. Haircutting symbolizes the transition to another stage in life. This practice is found in ancient and later periods of Greece, where the fountains were decorated with maidenhair until modern times.52 In this connection the theme of death and rebirth is important, since the initiates are reborn into a new life. Moments of transition from one state of life to another are high points of danger, and the person is especially vulnerable to spirits, agencies, influences, or invisible mischief. At such crisis points, rituals instigated as safeguards usually include purification measures to wash off the past and assimilate new strength for the future. Baths are standard, in these measures.53

50 Ken Dowden, Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiantion Rites in Greek Mythology (London, 1989), p. 123. 51 Aesch. Cho. 5–6; Paus. 1.37.3, 8.20.3, 8.41.3. Cf. F.T. van Straten, “Gifts for the Gods,” in Faith, Hope and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, ed. Hendrik S. Versnel, Studies in Greek & Roman Religion 2 (Leiden, 1981), pp. 90–91; Louis Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, trans. Johan Hamilton and Blaise Nagy (Baltimore, 1981), pp. 22–23, 29, 31, 154. 52 Elenē Karita, Ē Morphē mias Agias: Ē Pelagia tēs Tēnou [The outline of a Saint: Pelagia of Tinos] (Athens, not dated), pp. 124–125; Proceedings of the Conference of the Greek Museum of Folk Art: To Nero: Pēgē, Zōēs, Kinēsēs, Katharmou [The Water: Source, Life, Movement, Purification]. Praktika Epistēmonikēs Synantēsēs (Athens, 1999), particularly the article of Elenē Psychogiou, pp. 47–63. 53 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

126

evy johanne håland

Figure 6. Marble relief, illustrating hair offering to Poseidon (=London, B.M.798: British Museum, see van Straten 1981: fig. 29).

In antiquity, marriage was a prime target for girls’ initiations but almost an accessory for boys’ initiations. But marriage leads to a more crucial aim, the birth of a child. So in both cases the real goal of initiation was the perpetuation of the household. The most significant ideological goal for women was glorious motherhood, and the caves dedicated to Artemis were important at marriage and birth. Before marriage, a woman must descend into the cave and make sacrifice to Artemis. A woman’s ritual obligations were as a pre-marital person, as a new bride, and later as the expectant or new mother, and according to the Cyrene Cathartic Law from approximately 340 A.D., “A bride must go down to the bride-room to Artemis before marriage,” and a pregnant woman shall go down and sacrifice to Artemis in the same way as a (1966; reprint London, 1991), p. 96. See, for the parallels between Greek wedding and death rituals, Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, 1994), chapter 1.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

127

bride.54 A vital part of the ritual was a woman’s journey to a Nympheion (sanctuary of the Nymphs) in the precinct of Artemis in order to make sacrifice to the nymphs. The first bath of mother and child was also an important occasion. The story of a god’s birth was scarcely complete without mention of it: “There is a river flowing through Gortys that the people who live around its spring call the Wash (Lousios), because it was used for washing at the birth of Zeus. [. . .]”55 Kallimachos56 also mentions the washing in his hymn to Zeus. The washing and purification after the birth of the ruler of the Olympian gods were evidently quite essential in Arkadia, since Pausanias brings back the theme when he reaches the river Lymax which flows past Phigalia and discharges into the Neda, telling that “they say it got its name from Rhea’s purification. When she had given birth to Zeus and the Nymphs cleaned her up, they flung the water they used into this river.”57 Even for mortals, the water might be fetched from a special spring, and the bath occurred immediately afterwards. Water is crucial not only in connection with washing and purification after a delivery and other life-cycle passages, but also in connection with sickness and disease. Thus, healing springs were often sacred to the nymphs, and “[. . .] on the banks of the river Kytheros; there is a water-spring that runs into the river with a sanctuary of the nymphs at the spring. [. . .] If you wash in the spring you can be cured of all kinds of aches and pains,” according to Pausanias.58 A cave (containing healing sulphur springs) not far from the river Samikon belongs to Anigros’s daughters, the nymphs: [. . .] anyone who enters it with any kind of leprosy, first prays to the nymphs and promises whatever sacrifice [. . .], and then wipes the diseased parts of his body, and when he swims across the river he leaves his disgrace in its water, and comes out healthy and clear-skinned.59

54 Franciszek Sokolowski, Lois Sacrées des Cités Grecques: Supplement. École Française d’Athènes. Fasc. XI (Paris, 1962), hereafter cited as LSS. 115.B.1–8, 9–14, 15–23, cf. Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (1983; reprint Oxford, 1985), pp. 344–345. Dowden, Death, pp. 113–114. 55 Paus. 8.28.2. This translation draws on Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 2 vols, trans. Peter Levi. Penguin Classics (1971; reprint London, 1984–1985). 56 Hymn. 1.14–16. 57 Paus. 8.41.2–3, cf. h.Ap. 120–121. 58 6.22.7, trans. Levi. 59 ὅς δ’ ἂν ἔχων ἀλφὸν ἢ λεύκην ἐς αὐτὸ ἐσέλθῃ, πρῶτα μὲν ταῖς νύμφαις εὔξασθαι καθέστηκεν αὐτῷ καὶ ὑποσχέσθαι θυσίαν ὁποίαν δή τινα, μετὰ δὲ ἀποσμήχει τὰ

128

evy johanne håland

Healing and purifying waters are powerful waters, in a positive sense. The ancients, however, thought that all rivers were not healing, and these water sources could be polluted. Pausanias is “convinced that the peculiar smell of the Anigros comes from the earth in which the water rises, just as the breath of certain waters beyond Ionia is fatal to human beings for the same reason. [. . .]”60 Different explanations were given for this smell, and some believed that the river was polluted at the purification of Proitos’s daughters, when the items infected at their purification were thrown in the river.61 Accordingly, the next two sections will examine some myths about virgins related to the rite of passage undergone by girls at puberty. The first story is about Proitos’s daughters where purifying waters sacred to the goddess Artemis, presiding over initiation, are central. The Proitids Purifying waters are important on the divine level, and after the marriage with Zeus, followed the bath of Hera, the goddess of marriage, when she renewed her virginity every year by washing in the spring Kanathos in Nauplia.62 Many myths relay tales of purification, such as the story about the daughters of Proitos, the Proitids. The daughters were beautiful and had many suitors, but they rendered the jealous goddess Hera angry by their devaluation of her. Accordingly they lost their beauty and became cows. Moreover, Hera poured down a dreadful skin-disease, alphos, over them.63 This hair loss mythically depicts the ritual shearing before marriage. Following a period of wandering across the boundless earth, they came to a cave and the waters of Lousoi, and their sickness was healed at Lousoi Artemis shrine. The cave probably housed a spring where the madness, or ritual dislocation, νοσοῦντα τοῦ σώματος· διανηξάμενος δὲ τὸν ποταμὸν ὄνειδος μὲν ἐκεῖνο κατέλιπεν ἐν τῷ ὕδατι αὐτοῦ, ὁ δὲ ὑγιής τε ἄνεισι καὶ ὁμόχρως, Paus. 5.5.11, trans. Levi. 60 τῷ δὲ Ἀνίγρῳ τὸ ἄτοπον εἶναι τῆς ὀσμῆς ἀπὸ τῆς πείθομαι δι’ ἧς ἄνεισι τὸ ὕδωρ, καθὰ δὴ καὶ τοῖς ὑπερ Ἰωνίας ἐστὶν ὕδασι τὸ αὐτὸ αἴτιον, ὁπόσων ἡ ἀτμὶς ὀλέθριός ἐστιν ἀνθρωπῳ, 5.5.9, trans. Levi. Probably Strabo’s hot springs at Hierapolis; the

ancients thought that the stream would kill you if you breathed it. All springs have their own significance, and at certain springs one could also be purified for the stain of murder. 61 Paus. 5.5.10. 62 Paus. 2.38.2. 63 Hes. Katalogoi Gynaikōn (Catalogues of Women and Eoiae), 18.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

129

of the girls was purged, leaving the spring with their sickness. This is a typical wilderness rite: time spent in a cave, the wild counterpart of the civilized precinct. Water and washing recurred at Lousoi (the very name Lousoi refers to ‘washing’). In its vicinity there were numerous springs flowing into the River Aroanios. The temple of Artemis Hemerasia at Lousoi was equipped with a bathing pool in its precincts obviously for sacred use: it purified the maidens before marriage. A parallel may be the ritual performed at the stream called Eleutherios (Freedom or Liberation), which runs not far from the Argive Heraion, a sanctuary dedicated to Hera. The women of the place use it for purifications and sacrifices, which are not spoken of (aporrētos), according to Pausanias,64 which means that they were secret rituals performed by women, and since men were excluded from the ceremony, they did not know what was going on. A kanephoros (basketbearer in religious procession), a girl pure of marriage, performed the initial rites of the sacrifices at the Heraion; other maidens were also present, and since the stream was called Eleutherios, it has been suggested that this stream, like the waters of Lousoi, purified the maiden and released her from her bovine condition.65 Moist, lush sites display natural sympathy with maidens’ initiation rites and are often associated with them, such as the waters of Lousoi, the mouth of the Alpheios, or the marsh of Lerna related to the Danaids. The Danaids as Well-Nymphs This section will examine the myth about the Danaids, being on the threshold of marriage and will illustrate an initiation ritual performed by girls before marriage, in a watery context. In Arkadia, Demeter had a temple and a sacred grove in the Marsh.66 Many sanctuaries dedicated to goddesses are situated in places where spring-water rises abundantly.67 At the sanctuary dedicated to Demeter at Phigalia, there was a sacred grove of oaks around the cave, where

2.17.1. Dowden, Death, pp. 134–135. Cf. chapter 4. He gives several examples of the rite of passage undergone by girls at puberty, cf. infra. 66 Paus. 8.36.6. 67 Paus. 7.27.9–10. 64 65

130

evy johanne håland

cold water flows out of the ground.68 Water also came up from the spring right beside the statue of Demeter’s daughter.69 We also learn about fertile sacred areas, such as in swampy marshes around fertile plains. Demeter was worshiped in the Eleusinian marsh and in the marshes at Lerna.70 Although mystery cults were important at both places, particularly the mysteries of Eleusis dedicated to Demeter, the goddess of the corn crop, and the marriage of her daughter ‘the Maiden’, Kore, are relevant in this connection. In ancient popular religion the typical uninitiated (amyētos) at Eleusis were made water-carriers in Hades, being engaged in pouring water into a leaky pithos (i.e., a large wine-jar) out of an equally leaky sieve (koskinon) as punishment.71 As part of the mythological tradition later, the Danaids, the daughters of Danaos, were selected as mythical prototypes, carrying water in sieves, trying to do the rather impossible task of filling a great well-pithos.72 The loutrophoria carrying of the bath was a special rite of purification common to marriage and mysteries, and according to the tradition the Danaids, were condemned in Hades for killing their husbands to carry in vain the water for their bridal bath. From this perspective, after the murder of their husbands, they can never obtain from another man the grace of the living water of marriage. So the symbolism of marriage and living water gather about the figures of the Danaids. Nevertheless, according to several vase-paintings the people carrying water in the underworld did not carry loutrophoroi, but, as already indicated, pithoi pierced at the bottom. In this way, their task presents the perpetual repetition of a nymph’s gestures assuring the fertility of her own marriage by making the water flow continually. In other words, their task is a fertility-charm. The sieve is a sacred ancient utensil and has always been connected with fertility-goddesses and fertility-rituals in Greece. The sources do not mention whether the loutrophoroi at the cemeteries and in weddings

Paus. 8.42.12. Paus. 4.33.4. 70 Paus. 2.37.1–3. 71 Plato, Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, trans. W.R.M. Lamb, The Loeb Classical Library (1925; reprint London, 1953), hereafter cited as Pl. Grg. 493ac, Resp. 363de; Paus. 10.31.11. 72 Cf. Jane E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903; reprint London, 1980), pp. 613–623. Dowden, Death, chapter 7. However, I do not agree with his opinion that the underworld-sequence serves to disrupt the logic of the Danaids-legend. 68 69

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

131

were pierced at the bottom, but for the archaeological reports sieve and pithos were one and the same. Certainly, pithoi for storage are not pierced; on the other hand, a pithos pierced at the bottom is a watering instrument, and the ritual illustrates the cult of the forces of vegetation, since the signification of a pierced pithos first and foremost was to irrigate the earth to make the crops grow. Accordingly, to pour water into a pithos pierced at the bottom so that the water poured in flows into the ground is a rain charm.73 The Danaids also discovered the springs of Argos. In this version of the myth, their water-carrying is fruitful, since they are represented as carrying water because they were well-nymphs, watering and thus fertilizing Argos. Strabo says that: “Argos, waterless once, the Danai made well-watered.”74 Girls, Virgins, Wells and Water The myths about the Proitids and Danaids lead us to girls, wells and, water in general, three aspects that, for practical reasons, have been connected from ancient times in the Greek environment. The rite of ‘descending to the water’ was common in several places in antiquity. Its purpose was to revive the water-sources and bring rain.75 Several sources describe boys descending to the rivers to dedicate a lock of hair to their native stream, such as Achilles vowing his hair to the River Spercheios upon returning from Troy.76 Nevertheless, girls are more often connected with water. In practical life, many girls had daily descents to rivers or streams, and several vase-paintings illustrate them drawing water from the fountain.77 The Athenians used to send their daughters to draw water. According to a myth, the Pelasgians came after the Athenian girls when they went to fetch water from the Nine Springs and raped

73 Diod. 1.97.2; Giulia Sissa, Le Corps Virginal (Paris, 1987), p. 148n.8, cf. pp. 150–154 for an overview of the different interpretations of the sieves of the Danaids. 74 Strabo, Geography, vol. 4, trans. Horace Leonard Jones, The Loeb Classical Library (1927; reprint London, 1954), hereafter cited as Strab. 8.6.8. 75 Lucian, vol. 4: The Goddesse of Surrye (De Syria Dea), vol. 8: Affairs of the heart (Amores), trans. A.M Harmon/M.D. Macleod, The Loeb Classical Library (1925: reprint London, 1953, 1967), hereafter cited as Luc. Syr.D. 47. 76 Il. 23.141–147. 77 J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-painters (Oxford, 1956), hereafter cited as ABV 334; J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1963), hereafter cited as ARV 30,2.

132

evy johanne håland

them.78 The Athenians gave this as their ideological reason for expelling these former inhabitants of the area. Like meadows, wells were, in antiquity, often a scene of abduction or molestation of women, the myths probably reflecting real life. The ancient stories about invading forces abducting the former inhabitants’ women leads to the fear of rape and other transgressions at the fountains and at other places, such as the brooks or the rivers where women have always gone. Legends frequently associate virginity with a river, spring, or well. Indeed, in Homer we learn about the Parthenios river.79 The word Parthenios however, is also connected with springs or wells, for example at Eleusis: At the Spring Parthenion at Eleusis, the maidens came to draw water and carry it in bronze vessels to their father’s house:80 they filled their jugs with water and carried them proudly back to the house. When Demeter came to Eleusis on her search for her daughter, she sat down by the side of the Spring Parthenion. The marriageable daughters of Metaneira and Keleus, the queen and king, found her there when coming to the Maiden Well to fetch water. The name of the well also suggests that virgins drew the water for their nuptial baths from the site. Given the suggestive setting, it is not surprising that their age and resemblance to goddesses (particularly, Kore, Demeter’s daughter) is underlined in the text. In Eleusis, there is also a well, “called Kallichoron [Well of Fair Dances], where the Eleusinian women first danced and came to the goddess,” according to Pausanias.81 Nymphs were the regular companions of the most important Maiden, the goddess Artemis, and at the spring called Pēgē (spring/source) the nymphs used to hold their dances and sing the praise of Artemis by night.82 All the cult sites of Artemis are complete with spring and plane tree, such as at her shrine in Aulis.83 A nymph is not only a divine being. The ancient Greek word nymphē has in fact many meanings, such as ‘young girl’ or ‘marriageable maiden’. Nymphē names a young woman at the moment of her transition from maiden (parthenos) to wife (gynē ). Still, the bride is called nymphē on the marriage-day. Not only the goddesses or nymphs of springs, but 78 79 80 81 82 83

Hdt. 6.137.3. Il. 2.854. h.Cer. 98–110. 1.38.6. Ap. Rhod. 1.1220–1226, cf. Callim. Hymn. 3.170–182; Sappho Fr. 83. Paus. 9.19.6, cf. Il. 2.303–307; Plin. HN. 16.217–218.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

133

also their human counterparts, girls, used to play close to rivers84 and at the fountains when going for water. A vase-painting shows a girl playing ball at the fountain house (figure 7). “Take, Skamandros, my virginity” Rivers have a central role in wedding rituals. A Cretan hieros gamos (sacred marriage) of Zeus and Hera takes place near the river Theren, where a temple stands and the natives of the place annually offer holy sacrifices and imitate the ceremony of the marriage.85 Hera Parthenos, after losing her virginity in the hieros gamos86 periodically recovers it in the aforementioned spring. Aeschines reports on the nuptial custom of Troy: “In the Troad, it is the custom for girls who are getting married to go to the Skamandros and bathe there.” They waded into the river Skamandros to wash off their wildness, while intoning the following ritual formula: “Take, Skamandros, my virginity.”87 The words addressed to the river clearly refer to the consummation of marriage. Four days after the bathing rite, in honor of Aphrodite there is a procession of newly married women.88 The ‘wildness’ of women and ‘madness’ of pubescent girls jumping into wells are notions found in several ancient sources written by men, such as early medical writings. They recommended marriage as the context wherein a female may transform savagery into a fruitful life. Thus, the wedding ceremony dramatizes the shedding of virgin ‘wildness’ and transition to civilized wifehood. The bride completes her preliminary rites by dedicating the first fruits of her hair to Artemis or another water nymph, to symbolize her transition to another stage in life. The bride then takes her nuptial bath, such as in the Skamandros. The bath is a crucial moment in her transition from girlhood to wifehood.89

Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans. Harold North Fowler, The Loeb Classical Library (1914; reprint London, 1990), hereafter cited as Pl. Phdr. 229b. 85 Diod. 5.72.4. 86 Paus. 2.38.2. 87 Ep. 10.3. 88 Aeschin. Ep. 10.6. 89 Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6; Dowden, Death, chapter 4. 84

134

evy johanne håland

Figure 7. Girls at the fountain (ABV 334,3, see Keuls 1993: fig. 210).

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

135

African folk models of fertility and the regeneration of life can be compared with modern and ancient Greek sources.90 According to a myth from East Africa, the young woman on her way to her marriage stops at a river in the wilderness. There, she gets pregnant all by herself, or with the collaboration of a python in the river. This wild, procreative power of the unmarried woman seems to represent the threat of a female capacity for regeneration of life without male control. It carries connotations of ‘auto-fertilization’ and becomes untenable for a male ideology that claims that female fertility must be conquered and domesticated by men, in order to be of any use for the regeneration of life (i.e., social life).91 Once domesticated, female procreative power is considered a life-giving source of blessing. Thus, domestication by marriage may transform dangerous female sexuality into beneficial fertility. A similar way of thinking may be found in several Greek myths, such as the different aspects of Demeter, who at the same time personified domesticated earth or ‘culture’, but who also incarnated the ‘wild’ nature.92 It is also illustrated by the ambivalent Pandora, the first woman who was made of water and earth, thus personifying fertility, but who also was seen as responsible for the destruction of man, according to male ideology.93 In addition, Peleus conquers the sea-nymph Thetis.94 During Perses’ first sexual experience, he beheads (castrates) the pregnant woman, Medusa.95 From the decapitation, connected with blood-sacrifice, killing, and male power over reproduction, new life bursts from the blood of her genitalized head,96 since the Greeks considered the woman to be captured between two mouths, between two necks, as the female body was captured between the upper and lower mouth, or the neck and the vulva.97 Their cult representations can be found in most places where hot springs exist. 90 The following draws on Anita Jacobson-Widding and Walter van Beek: “Introduction,” in The Creative Communion: African Folk Models of Fertility and the Regeneration of Life, ed. A. Jacobson-Widding and W. van Beek, Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology (Uppsala, 1990), p. 29. 91 Jacobson-Widding and van Beek, “Introduction,” p. 29. 92 Cf. Eur. Hel. 1301–1312, Bacch. 275–276, Phoen. 683–689; Hes. Th. 912–913; h.Cer. 4; Paus. 8.25. 93 Hes. Th. 570–591, Op. 60–105. 94 ARV 115,2. 95 Hes. Th. 276–283. 96 C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi, vol. 1 (Paris, 1936), hereafter cited as ABL 235.71. 97 Hippocrates, Opera Omnia, vol. 8, ed. É. Littré (1853; reprint Amsterdam, 1982), hereafter cited as Hp. Steril. 3.230 (auchēn/cervix uteri ), cf. Mul. 2.169 (trachēlos/neck, throat). Cf. Sissa, Le Corps, pp. 10–11, cf. 24, 75–82; Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6.

136

evy johanne håland

Most female researchers, such as Nicole Loraux, Froma I. Zeitlin, and Marilyn Arthur, have regarded the association between woman, wildness, wetness, clay pot or jar, womb, and the earth in ancient sources written by men as demonstrations of male dominance.98 The perception of women, presented by the sources written by men, is seen from the male sphere and therefore is based upon a male point of view. Simultaneously, we must recall that whereas ancient male authors were reared by their mothers in the Greek domestic context, where social identity had its first influences,99 modern Western researchers do not have the same context. Thus, the result, i.e., that the sources very often become ambiguous and paradoxical to the modern eye, and must now therefore be seen from a new perspective. Modern scholars must take into consideration the importance of the womb, nourishment, water, and springs in Greek culture as a whole and across time. Through such analysis, I have already located two contradictory views in ancient and modern male-produced sources.100 By comparing them with the few sources we possess from ancient women and the values found in present-day society’s female sphere, I have realized that the actual contradictory views present one value-system connected with the female sphere and another connected with the male sphere. Therefore, I argue that we should re-evaluate the traditional association by comparing the ancient male statements with the values found in the female sphere in Greece.

98 For example Aesch. Eum. 658–666; Plato, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles, trans. R.G. Bury, The Loeb Classical Library (1929; reprint London, 1952), hereafter cited as Pl. Ti. 49a, 51a; Aristotle, Generation of Animals, trans. A.L. Peck, The Loeb Classical Library (1942, reprint London, 1963), hereafter cited as Arist. GA. 716a6–24, 727b31–33; Plut. Mor. 372ef, cf. 368bd. This is true, particularly since it has been combined with the assertions about the central role of man in the procreation process, such as Aesch. Eum. 658–666, labelled the “victory of patriarchy,” by M. Arthur, “Politics and Pomegranates: An Interpretation of the Homric Hymn to Demeter,” Arethusa 10 (1977), 7–47 (reprint 1994), cf. N. Loraux, Les enfants d’ Athéna: Idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes (1981; reprint Paris, 1984); F. Zeitlin, “Signifying Difference: the Myth of Pandora,” in Women in Antiquity: New Assessments, ed. Richard Hawley and Barbara Levick (London, 1995), pp. 58–74. See also Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6, E.J. Håland, “Greek women and religion, modern and ancient: Festivals and cults connected with the female sphere, a comparison,” Medelhavsmuseet: Focus on the Mediterranean 4 (in press) for a more extended discussion of the following. 99 Cf. David Gilmore, “Introduction,” in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, ed. D. Gilmore, American Anthropological Association Special Publicaton 22 (Washington, 1987), pp. 14–15. 100 Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

137

The female body symbolizes everything connected with conception, nourishment, and birth. It can be thought to be a container, but also a microcosm. The aforementioned female researchers, particularly Loraux, have criticized the discrepancy between what she calls the “standard Greek representation of fertility,”101 and the actual disdainful presentation of women given by male-produced sources. She follows this by criticizing later analyses of the statement, i.e., those she calls “the supporters of the Earth Mother,” i.e., the “standard Greek representation of fertility” until André Motte.102 In fact, the standard Greek representation of fertility puts fertility in the hands of woman or in her womb, according to the logic behind the Life-giving Spring, also one of Panagia’s attributes. Cults dedicated to female healing, fertility-deities in womb-shaped caves containing water-springs, have always been crucial, and in antiquity, the term pēgē was connected with nourishing nymphs, but also used for goddesses as Hera and Magna Mater. Male writers needed the female body to explain very fundamental facts: Space is female103 connected with a nourishing receptacle, container, reservoir, or womb. Women are connected with wetness104 and water.105 The sieve of the Danaids is also a utensil connected with the female, since women are not only wet, but also leak, according to the sources. The goddess Rhea’s name is derived from the verb reō, meaning ‘to flow, run, stream, gush, pour.’106 As Gaia, the chthonic goddess Isis, is also the earth,107 the mother, she is also the matter,108 “the kindly nurse and See Plato’s statement in Menex. 238a, about the importance of the mother. André Motte, Prairies et Jardins de la Grèce Antique: De la Religion à la Philosophie (Brussels, 1973), pp. 81–82, see also Harrison, Prolegomena, chapter 6, versus N. Loraux, Né de la Terre (Paris, 1996), p. 151, Loraux, Les enfants, pp. 88–89, repeated by Zeitlin, “Signifying Difference,” p. 70. These and other references are discussed thoroughly in Håland, Greske fester, chapter 6. 103 Pl. Ti. 52, 50d. 104 Aristotle, Problems, vol. 1, trans. W.S. Hett, The Loeb Classical Library (1926; reprint London, 1953), hereafter cited as Arist. Pr. 4.879a26–35. 105 Hippocrates, vol. 4, trans. W.H.S. Jones, The Loeb Classical Library (1931; reprint London, 1953), hereafter cited as Hp. Vict. 27.1–6. 106 Cf. supra and note18. See also Anne Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place: Woman, Dirt and Desire,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton, 1990), pp. 137–145 and 153–158, cf. Ann Ellis Hanson, “The Medical Writers Woman,” in Before Sexuality, ed. Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin, p. 332 and Bourdieu, Le Sens, p. 354. The perspective of these and other researchers (cf. note 102 supra) is, however, another than mine, cf. infra. 107 Plut. Mor. 363d. 108 Plut. Mor. 366a (382cd for ‘matter’ opposed to ‘form,’ i.e., the male part of nature; see Arist. GA. 732a). 101

102

138

evy johanne håland

provider for all things,” the receptive and female principle of Nature. She receives all that is created by the male heaven, which rains but nevertheless also represents the dry and light or bright element in nature, since Osiris is sprung from the Sun.109 The Dog-star (Sirius) is the star of Isis, because it is the bringer of water (in the Nile).110 The Dog-star’s summer rising marks the beginning of the overflowing of the Nile, which is regarded as the effusion of Osiris. Sirius was also connected with Athena, and the similarity between Isis and Athena is mentioned several times by Plutarch, when drawing parallels between Egyptian gods and their Greek counterparts.111 They were both born in moist areas, which are usually connected with mother goddesses.112 The ambiguous perception of women, presented by the sources written by men, lay in the unique physical functions of the mature female body: menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation. In GraecoRoman-Egyptian culture, menstruation was likened to the Nile flood in heralding the fecundity of new life, growth and nourishment.113 From the Honor of Masculinity Toward a Poetics of Womanhood: From the Dry to the Wet Pierre Bourdieu created a “synoptic diagram of pertinent oppositions” as a model to help him understand the Kabyles of North-Africa.114 This general Mediterranean cultural pattern may be used as well specifically on Greek material. The male-female division, which he presented in an earlier study, is a structured system of gendered classification, where the elements of the male-female division, such as male and dry, female

Plut. Mor. 355f, but cf. 364ab; 770a; 373f, 374b; 372e; 377ab; 364d, cf. 357b. Plut. Mor. 366a38. 111 Mor. 354c, 376ab, cf. 359d,f. 112 Cf. Plut. Mor. 355f and Athena’s birth, not from Zeus (cf. Mor. 381f), but from a meadow at Lake Tritonis Aesch. Eum. 293, cf. Plut. Mor. 366ab for the importance of marshes, “the watery and saturated land best nurtures.” To call Isis Athena is expressive of “I came of myself ” 376 ab. For meadow/marsh symbolizing the female sex organ, see Motte, Prairies, for example pp. 7–25, 39, 50–58, 83–87 and p. 47, cf. pp. 19, 91, 94, 179, 246–247. 113 Jane Rowlandson, ed., Women & Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook (Cambridge, 1998), p. 354. 114 Bourdieu, Le Sens, p. 354, cf. P. Bourdieu, La domination masculine (Paris, 1998), p. 17, also for the following. 109 110

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

139

and wet, are inserted in layers.115 The calendar presents the agricultural year and the relations between humans and nature. It has importance for understanding the male ideal gendered dichotomy vis-à-vis the actual gendered relations in society. The model embodies the human and agricultural life-cycles related to gender, the very cosmos. Bourdieu as a man presents a man’s analysis of men’s historical paths, and his approach is similar to the presentations given by the ancient male writers. However, if we study the calendar in combination with focal features in the ancient Athenian and the modern Greek festival calendars from a non-androcentric perspective, the result will differ from Bourdieu’s. There is only a male dominance, as he claims, if we read the calendar from a dominant male focus. This will automatically be reproduced, only if we base our research on the male ideological sphere and value-system.116 On the other hand we can learn that what seemed peripheral from the male sphere becomes the center, if we look from the female sphere. We also find new, or female, values. And how do we look from the female sphere? What is the process? By conducting fieldwork in the modern female and male spheres and compare our findings with ancient sources, when simultaneously trying to see the material from the values of Greek women, which are similar to the few sources we possess from ancient women and also often found between the lines or distorted in the male statements, for example Hesiod, Aeschylus and Plutarch.117 So, by taking account of both spheres, we realize that they are complementary to each other and we can create a fuller picture of human experience. Accordingly, the one-sided analysis Bourdieu presents of the diagram must be read from another approach, from a chthonic perspective, i.e., from the bottom, below, or

115 P. Bourdieu, “The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society,” in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J.G. Peristiany (Chicago, 1966), p. 222; Bourdieu, Le Sens, p. 354. Cf. supra and notes 6 and 18. 116 Many scholars working with ancient society present similar values, for example Marcel Detienne, Les Jardins d’Adonis: La mythologie des aromates en Grèce (1972, reprint Paris 1989), particularly chapter 4–5 and F.I. Zeitlin, “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Orestia,” in Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers, ed. John Peradotto and J.P. Sullivan (Albany, 1984), pp. 159–194. Cf. also supra. 117 That is why their view is ambiguous. For example, when Plutarch severely criticizes women at the cemetery, etc. we might understand what was going on, and what the women thought about the process, since similar situations have gone on until modern times; see E.J. Håland, “Athena’s Peplos: Weaving as a Core Female Activity in Ancient and Modern Greece,” Cosmos: The journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society 20 (2006), 155–182, and eadem, “Greek women and religion,” in press.

140

evy johanne håland

inside, thus emphasizing the importance of the wet and ‘female’ part of the agricultural year—the gestation period (figure 8). Many Western scholars describe ancient Greek women as downtrodden and reclusive female creatures. In addition, in earlier ethnographers’ writings on the Mediterranean negative aspects of women were emphasized because they based their analyses on the conventional male values of honor and shame.118 Modern Greek male informants, however, presented them to their own ideal of the gender relations in society, which is strikingly similar to the ideal found in male-produced sources from antiquity.119 According to these male values of honor and shame, gender relations in society are spatially divided, and the most characteristic aspect of the code seems to be the association of these concepts with gender roles, power and sexuality. This male dichotomy of the gendered relations in society is a social construction of manliness and femaleness based upon biological facts, where everything positive is male and negative female, according to men. Women are dangerous creatures connected with the wild nature, while men represent culture. A woman is the possessor of harmful and impure powers, sexuality and magic, illustrated by, for example the aforementioned ancient Pandora, but also Medea or the Christian Eve, contrary to male positive associations. An ideal woman should stay inside the house, be modest and dominated by her husband, as Plutarch’s wife, the ‘male’ Timoxena who along with her husband was critical to ‘female’ women.120 This male ideology seems to reflect that men fear the power of women in connection with the realities of life related to death, birth and healing, and this knowledge makes her subordinate to man according to the official male ideology of honor and shame.

Cf. Gilmore, ed., Honor and Shame; Peristiany, ed., Honour and Shame. Cf. the statements of archaic legislators, the authors of the tragedies, authors such as Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch and late-antique Christian writers, such as John Chrysostom with the works of ethnographers such as John K. Campbell, Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community (Oxford, 1964); Machin, “St. George and the Virgin,” pp. 107–126. They have been used by several scholars working with ancient women, such as Peter Walcot, Greek Peasants, Ancient and Modern: A comparison of Social and Moral Values (New York, 1970), particularly chapter 4, Walcot, “Plutarch on Women,” 163–183. But, by combining ancient and modern male ideological statements presenting negative bias, the result becomes one-sided. 120 Plut. Mor. 608b–612b, 113a. See Håland, Greske fester, chapter 5 and 6 for discussion. 118 119

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

141

Figure 8. Synoptic diagram of pertinent oppositions from Pierre Bourdieu, Le Sens Pratique (Paris, 1980), p. 354.

142

evy johanne håland

That women may experience the world differently from men is difficult to discern from ancient male sources, and a modern perspective may help us here. Ancient and modern women have female knowledge, which I call a poetics of womanhood. How do women present public performances of being good at being a woman,121 for example when performing fertility-rituals in agricultural or procreation contexts, using magic as in healing contexts, nursing children, performing death-rituals, baking bread at the public oven, the latter being a parallel to their former water-drawing at the fountain?122 Women we meet in modern Greece are often strong personalities and active participants in social life, far from the suppressed, downtrodden and reclusive creatures presented by ethnographers; they run their households with a firm hand, and exhibit self-confidence.123 Interestingly, the few primary sources we possess from ancient women authors124 present goals and values, which are very similar to the values found among modern Greek women. To be good at being a woman means that women are good cooks, perform the necessary rituals to protect the spiritual and physical health of their family, keep their homes in order, and especially show cleanliness through washing and water. As an example, in modern Greece, a mother suffering the loss or disease of a child may present public performances in ‘being good at being a woman’. Her ‘public’ audiences are largely women who share her female, ritual space, interests; and values, and therefore are interested in competing with her performance in ‘being good at being a woman’. They also display their skills at home or publicly on their tombs at the memorials at the cemetery, when washing the tombs and displaying their cooking abilities through the sumptuous cakes offered. We may compare these modern women with the selected women who baked the offering cakes in the ancient festivals. At the Plynteria-festival dedicated to Athena, two noble girls, the loutrides (washers), washed the goddess’s robes and the statue. 121 Dubisch, In a Different, chapter 10. Her presentation is similar to my own and other female researchers,’ such as C. Nadia Seremetakis, The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani (Chicago, 1991); Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honour and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (1986, reprint Berkeley, 1988); and fieldwork experiences among women. 122 Since water normally is piped to Greek homes today, I also draw on my experiences from other Mediterranean countries, such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. 123 Håland, Greske fester, chapter 1, 4 and 6; Dubisch, In a Different, chapter 10; Lughod, Veiled Sentiments, p. 81 and chapter 4 for example p. 129. 124 Sappho Fr. 103; AP. 7.486, 7.649.

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

143

In modern Greece, many aspects of a woman’s housewifely abilities may be publicly displayed, such as keeping the street in front of their houses clean. Their cleaning-abilities are also shown when they wash their tombs at the cemetery every Saturday morning. Women seek to outdo each other in ‘being good at being a woman’. Their audience, competitors and most critical commentators are other women who share the same value-system and interests. We see and read about women in ancient society dedicating offerings on tombs. They displayed their clothes and other objects competitively and publicly.125 Their desired audience may not have been men, but other women who shared their values.126 Ancient women going on pilgrimage,127 celebrating the Thesmophoria128 and other female festivals, such as the Adōnia129 parallel modern women going to Tinos during the Dormition of the Panagia or celebrating the midwife, Babo (Agia Domenika), in the village of Monokklēsia in Northern Greece. At this festival, each woman pours out some water for the midwife to wash her hands, thus anticipating the day when the midwife will assist her in childbirth (figure 9). Similarly when women sprinkle Babo with water, they pay her great veneration, as if she was a reincarnation of Genetyllis, the ancient Greek goddess of childbirth.130 Today, the women lead the midwife on a carriage through the streets of the village as if she was a bride. Formerly, she was taken to the public fountain, where she was sprinkled with water. A similar ritual is also performed for newly married girls. When a bride is sprinkled they wish her: “May you have many children.”131 Accordingly, concerning the similarities in values between the modern and ancient worlds, several rituals might help us trying to get a new reading of ancient society, in connection to women, washing and water. Along with my attempt to alter our analytical perspective, our category of ‘public’ must be reconsidered and broadened, since there are female, male as well as mixed public spaces, although women most often

Plut. Sol. 21.4–5, Mor. 142c30. Cf. Håland, “Athena’s Peplos,” pp. 155–182, and eadem, “Greek women and religion,” in press. 127 Plut. Mor. 253f, 953cd. 128 Plut. Mor. 378e69. 129 Theocritus, vol. 1, trans. A.S.F. Gow (Cambridge, 1950), hereafter cited as Theoc. Id. 15. 130 Cf. Luc. Am. 42. 131 Håland, “Rituals of Magical,” p. 242. 125 126

144

evy johanne håland

Figure 9. The women wash the hands of the midwife, Babo (Agia Domenika), Monokklēsia. (Author’s photograph).

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

145

gather in what is not conventionally designated as ‘public’ space,132 such as the cemetery, or other similar places where women met in the ancient times as well. Women might dominate a ritual space such as the church on modern Tinos even if men are present. In some situations, however, women may also turn what is generally designed as male public space, into a feminised or female, ritual space. This happens in the church in the village of Olympos on the island of Karpathos, on Good Friday afternoon, when women perform their own ritual to be healthy or fertile and no man dares to be present. The ritual is a modern parallel to the ritual during the ancient women’s Haloa-festival when the archons (the magistrates) stayed outside of the sanctuary, discoursing on their original discovery and dissemination of Demeter’s gift, the domesticated foods, to the populace, while the women were within, securing the very food by their magical rituals. Male-dominated rituals are connected with the official male sphere and in ancient Athens the relationship between them was demonstrated with the Thesmophoria, a gathering of women to ensure fertility: If an Assembly was to be held, during the days this female festival was celebrated, it was held not in Pnyx, its normal setting, but in the theatre.133 So, the men’s political business was displayed by the women’s higher duties to Demeter and her grain, to ensure the food. At the fountain, the counterpart of the male kafeneion (coffee-shop), the women have until recently exchanged news and carried on their gossip. The modern church, cemetery and former fountain, present spatially and temporally bounded multimedia performances for women,134 and one can argue that their ancient counterparts shared the same values in similar spaces. In these instances women may provide the public audience for other women’s performances, and at these arenas, the modern counterparts of the former villages fountains the women’s talk becomes quiet if a man would dare to enter, which he generally would not do.135

Cf. Dubisch, In a Different, p. 212. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire, p. 194; J. Kirchner, ed., Inscriptiones Graecae. Consilio et auctoritate. Academiae litterarum Borussicae editae. Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis anno posteriors (Berlin, 1927–1977), hereafter cited as IG II² 1006.50–51, cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, books 1–5, trans. C.L. Brownson, The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1947), hereafter cited as Xen. Hell. 5.2,29. 134 Cf. Seremetakis, The Last Word, p. 7. 135 See also supra for Paus. 2.17.1. In other words, I do not agree that men always are present, and have demonstrated this in Håland, Greske fester, chapter 4–6, see also eadem, “Greek women and religion,” in press. 132

133

146

evy johanne håland Conclusion

Rivers and springs are often connected with rites of passage, and this article has particularly concentrated on their connection with female rites of passage for several reasons. First and foremost, I’ve argued that water is most often associated with women in ancient society. Potable water is particularly female, connected with nymphs of springs and fountains.136 Springs were sacred. This may be, as our male sources say, because women are connected with fertility, birth, nurturance, and wetness. In practical life, water and sources are also connected with women, or rather girls, since maidens draw water and the fountain has always been one of the meeting-places for the female. Ancient male writers are preoccupied by the connection between water-sources and springs, girls, women, marriage, birth, fertility and healing. To what extent were the male values representative for the ancient society? By using comparative material from modern Greece, first and foremost because of the similarity of values found in the societies, I have tried to give some indications about how we may try to approach the ancient sources. Accordingly, I have based this study on the fact that today Panagia is the most important Saint in the Orthodox Church. She is at the head of the entire church because she was the vessel of Christ (Theotokos, i.e., the Mother or Bearer of God, see figure 10). Modern Greek women are very proud of their motherhood, because it gives them a clear connection with Panagia, the primary mother, the Life-giving Spring. And evidence suggests that ancient women were similarly proud. This instance of the ‘poetics of womanhood’ accords more with Greek women’s experiences of ‘being good at being a woman’ than many analyses made from a male point of view, and may agree more with ancient women’s experiences too. Just as the divine Hera could renew her virginity by bathing in a spring, so also was this an initiation place related to losing virginity for girls in connection with their marriages and future motherhood. Thus, through the rituals associated with water, they became brides, feeding and nourishing mothers, new copies of the Life-giving Spring and valued members of the female-, male—and mixed spheres (see figure 11).137

AP. 9.330. Figure 9 illustrates the Annunciation taking place next to the fountain, cf. also the Spinning Panagia in the popular iconography of the Eastern-European tradition. 136 137

“take,

skamandros, my virginity”

147

Figure 10. The Panagia, Mother of God (i.e. Theotokou), at the entrance to the chapel dedicated to the ‘Life-giving Spring’, Tinos. (Author’s photograph).

148

evy johanne håland

Figure 11. The Annunciation taking place next to a fountain, picture found in the chapel dedicated to the ‘Life-giving Spring’, Tinos. (Author’s photograph).

BATHS, SCRUBS, AND CUDDLES: HOW TO BATHE YOUNG INFANTS ACCORDING TO SIMON DE VALLAMBERT (1564) Hélène Cazes Bathing newborn babies and infants is nowadays common practice: a staple of the self-help books on infant care, and the topic of innumerable specialized text books for nurses, midwives and caregivers, the bath appears to be one of the first cares given to babies.1 The collective representation and conceptualization of this first immersion is remarkably stable in our Western civilization. Browsing the web in search of instructions for bathing babies, one may be struck by the similarities between the selected questions and the organization of the discourse from Greek Medicine, West European Middle Ages and Renaissance, to our modern online pages. To give only one example, on the page devoted to infant care,2 the article on “Bathing Babies” is introduced by a short essay, where the main parts seem to be directly copied from the French treatise published in 1565 by Simon de Vallambert, L’art de nourrir et gouverner les enfans. The subtitles of the introduction (How often should babies be given a bath? When is the best time to give babies a bath? What type of bath should I give my baby? Health and safety) are replicas of the chapter titles found in de Vallembert’s Renaissance pediatric treatise, itself inspired by, amongst others, Galen, Soranus, and Avicenna. This recognition of continuity, allied with our own contemporary practice, may encourage the belief that bathing babies is an invariable and permanent feature of infant care, a necessary and universal gesture, shared by all human beings in all times and places. For a Westerner, the memory of numerous representations of the Nativity, and of Mary’s or John the Baptist’s birth, featuring a washtub in the front of the picture, may also reinforce the idea of a stable, ‘natural’ act.

1 For the first editing of this paper, I heartily thank Nicky Hodgson, University of Victoria. 2 http://www.emedicinehealth.com/bathingbabies/articleem.htm.

150

hélène cazes

Commonplaces are often deceptive: in the recognition of our practices, there always lingers the possibility of an anachronistic bias. And modern scholars are not the only victims of this unwanted prejudice: medieval and Renaissance doctors also sought to establish their own theories and recommendations on the model of the Ancients, thus privileging permanence against change, faithful continuation against rupture. The methodological defiance against such a desire of traditional anchorage must be reinforced by another caution: examining a practice from written accounts, and moreover, from prescriptive written accounts, given by doctors to midwives, we lack the direct and unmistakable immediacy of first hand and transparent documentation. We do not possess testimonies from the actual players of the play (mothers and midwives), but only from theoreticians, who were excluded from the scene of birth and who wrote their works in Latin, a language mostly ignored by the very actors. By carefully examining the discourse regarding infant bathing given in 1565 by Simon de Vallambert, and comparing sources and sequels, I will attend to maintaining contradictions and differences—in spite of our proclivity to recognize similarities and forget the difficulties of paradox or controversy. This essay will explore the different practices of infant bathing in Western Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, specifically in France. It will seek to establish not so much the confirmation of the practice, well attested and described, as its function within the system of health care, its justification within the larger conception of mankind, infancy, and hygiene, and, last but not least, its spiritual and implicit connotations for a Christian culture where baptism is the first and essential sacrament. In 1553, a publisher in Tours published a re-edition of a lost treatise of pediatrics, entitled Pedenemicon, written in Latin by Gabriel Miron, the former Physician of Francis Ist. Gathering, according to the scholastic tradition, everything that had been written on his topic and organizing his material as debates upon rubricated topics, Miron devotes several chapters to infant bathing. Remarkably, though, he cuts short his exposition of various types of baths, length, functions and uses by underlining the optional and ambiguous quality of the bath: “We can even say that we do not resort to it because of necessity but because of will, moved only by our will, as the bath is neither natural nor against nature and its administering pertains either to the conservation of health or to the healing of diseases.”3 3 Gabriel Miron, Pedenemicon (Tours, 1553), chapter 21, p. 46: [. . .] licet enim ei non occuramus necessario sed uoluntariæ uel quasi sola uoluntate moti, cum non sit res

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

151

This double ambivalence of infant bathing is precisely the open door for variance (in places and times) and controversy. Both natural and unnatural, the bath can be seen both as the comfort of the infant’s temper or the correction of its distemper. Moreover, the theory of infant bathing will then evolve with the conception of childhood. Beyond the apparent consensus on the necessity of bathing infants, beyond our intuitive recognition of a practice nowadays recommended and unanimously valued, the story can be heard of the hesitant and sometimes contradictory construction of our modern mental representations. New Baths? The question asked by Miron is at the core of a silent debate between Ancient and Modern medicine in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: the one upon the nature of the child. For pediatricians who engage in writing specific treatises on the diseases of children, age is clearly not only a matter of years; it also defines a particular balance of the organism, thus asking for distinct diagnosis and cures. Infant bathing, in its specificity, cannot be situated without consideration for the definition of the child it implies, and on which it is based. The question was stated more explicitly, in 1564, by Simon de Vallambert, Physician to Marguerite de France, the daughter of Claude de France and Francis Ist. Writing at the request of his protector, the first treatise on pediatrics in French, he mitigates the affirmation of a universal consensus regarding infant bathing with the notation of new practices, deemed better than ancestral customs. While he states that all the doctors concur on the necessity of bathing the newborn, de Vallembert nonetheless offers a remark on recent trends in bathing, which he dates from the century preceding his own, namely from the commentaries on the Canon of Avicenna given by Jacques des Pars in the fifteenth century: By common voice and consent of all the Doctors, the bath must be given for several days and for a long time: and more than any other one, Galen thus advises because, says he in the first book of the Healthy Diet ,4 the child will keep his good habits if, during the first year, you feed him only with milk and bathe him in soft and tepid water; do that, by these

naturalis nec contra naturam et eius administratio est uel sanitatis conseruatiua uel egritudinis curatiua. 4 Ps-Galen, De Sanitate Tuenda,” in Galeni Pergameni [. . .] opera quæ ad nos extant omnia, ed. Janus Cornarius (Basel, 1549), vol. 2 col. 260–261, chapter 14.

152

hélène cazes means, his body, being kept soft and tender for a long time, can grow better and reach a taller and nicer appearance.5

More or less a translation from the Latin occurring in the eighth chapter of Gabriel Miron, the praise of baths is thus linked with early good habits that the infant diet should build. Controversy arises, though, regarding the time of the bath: right after birth, when the navel cord has been severed, or after cleansing rubs? And later, before or after feeding the young child? On this point, modern physicians of the French Renaissance dare to disagree with the Galenic and Soranic traditions and, moreover, they comment on their own liberty. Following the lead of Gabriel Miron, who advocates bathing the child before feeding,6 Vallambert devotes two paragraphs to the topic of changes in infant bathing practices. He summarizes the revolution in one sentence, placed between a description of the old ways and advocacy for the new ways: From this time on—roughly one hundred years before this year 1564—we have adopted another way for so doing and followed another order, which was found to be more reasonable and practical, starting with the bath, as long as the child has neither imperfection nor default in his limbs.7

Now, in a time where adherence to tradition is highly valued as such—it could even be defined as the essential principle of Galenic medicine—the discrepancy regarding the order of caring administrations after birth is not insignificant. By reversing the order between cleansing, with salts, and bathing, Vallambert suggests that the function of

5 Simon de Vallambert, La Manière de nourrir et gouverner les enfans [. . .] (Poitiers, 1565), 48: Par commune voix et consentement de tous les Docteurs, le baing doyt continuer par plusieurs jours & long temps: ‘et sur tous autre Galien le conseille ainsi car, dit-il, au premier livre du Regime de santé, l’enfant conservera la bonté de son habitude, si la premiere année vous le nourrissez de lait seulement, & luy faites user de baing d’eau douce et tiede: afin que son corps, par ce moyen, estant longuement conservé mol et tendre, puisse mieux croistre & parvenir a plus grand,’ & plus belle habitude.’ 6 Miron, Op. cit., chapter 8, p. 46: Nam ut uidimus multi et fere omnes præcipiunt balneum ante primam lactationem, Galenus uero uult quod lactentur primo deinde balneantur. (Thus, although we can see that many—actually, nearly all—physicians advise bathing the child before the first nourishment, Galen wants the child to be first fed and then bathed.) 7 Vallambert, Op. cit., 43: Dépuis ce temps-là, il y ha environ cent ans, jusques a present, que lon compte Mil cinq cens soixante & quatre, on ha prins une autre maniere de faire, & suyvi un autre ordre: ce qui ha esté trouvé plus raisonnable et plus commode, commançant par le baing, encor’ que l’enfant n’ayt aucune faute ne imperfection en ses membres.

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

153

the bath has actually evolved. Later, in the last chapter devoted to the infant bath, he lingers again on the implications of this shift: specifically, the bath replaces three of the traditional four gestures ministered by the midwife. From Soranus’ Gynecology8 to the medieval pseudo-galenic treatise De Sanitate Tuenda, midwives had been advised to perform four vital acts after birth: severing the cord, cleansing the child, bathing the child and strengthening the bones. According to Des Pars, Miron and Vallambert, the bath is believed to act as a cleansing and strengthening means. Vallambert explains thus: Now it must be noted why we should begin with the bath: because the first thing that must be done to the child is the one by which we can best attain the cleansing of the skin, the healing of his tiredness and his wounds—if the child happens to bear any on his body—and by which we can most easily fix the disfiguration of the limbs. Once these three intentions are accomplished, the fourth will be attained later in another, more practical, manner, which is the hardening of the skin and the defense of the body against exterior encounters. Now it happens that a bath, made of pure and tepid water, is the best of all things for cleansing the skin, removing the tiredness and sprain from the body and making the limbs easy to manipulate and bring back in their due form.9

The revolution induced by the new order in the gestures of the midwife can be understood only by contrasting the implied discourses concerning childhood and water. To begin, if the first bath is a vital act, it must, according to Galen, Soranus, and our modern Renaissance physicians, be renewed during the first weeks and years, then less and less as the child grows and develops. A private practice, left to women, it pertains to the child up to the age of seven, which means while he still lives

8 Soranus, Gynecology, chapter 9: The subject of rearing children is broad and manifold. For it comprises the consideration as to: which of the offspring is worth rearing, how one should sever the navel cord and swaddle and cleanse the infant which is to be reared, in what manner one should bathe it, how one should bed it, and what kind of nurse one should select [. . .]. 9 Vallambert, Opus Cit., p. 44: Or faut noter que la raison pourquoy on doit commancer par le baing, est: que la premiere chose qui doit estre faitte a l’endroit d’un enfant, est celle par laquelle se mieux la mundification du cuyr d’iceluy, & la cure de lasseté et meurdrisseure, si aucune est en son corps, & avec laquelle on racoustre plus aisement le desfigurement de ses membres. Lesquelles troys intentions accomplies, la quatriesme apres s’accomplit par autre moyen plus commodement, qui est l’endurcissement de la peau, & la deffense du corps a l’encontre des rencontres exterieures. Or est il ainsi que le baing d’eau pure et tiede sur toutes choses mundifie mieux le cuyr, oste la lassseté et foulure du corps, rend les membres maniables a redresser en leur forme deüe.

154

hélène cazes

within the female circle of the house. Vallambert addresses the question several times in his treatise, once in each of his three books, devoted to the different ages of the child (first days, suckling age, and years after the weaning). Thus, in the second book, pertaining to the young suckling child, he devotes more than ten pages to the subject of bathing,10 giving the medical justifications for the practice, but also warning of the danger of accidents and excesses. The daily bath, made of pure water, plays an essential role in the proper growth of the child: In the last book, we talked about the bath that is to be given only at the time of birth and for the first two, or three, or four days, which bath was composed of certain substances that comfort the skin and the limbs; here we will talk about the bath and the cleansing in pure water, which must be reiterated often until the age of seven.11

The third book dwells much less on the subject of bathing; exercise and locomotion have replaced the bath for as a means of strengthening and comforting. The book briefly refers to the second book for further details whereas the only question addressed is the proper time for the bath, before or after meals: Galen commends two times of the day that are practical for rubbing and bathing children who are able to move and big enough already: the first one is in the morning, when they have woken up, before they are let to play; the other one is when they have played, before eating. And Galen does not want the child to be allowed to drink before the bath, because the distribution of what is contained in his stomach would happen too early, which must be avoided for sane bodies. This is the reason why he advises that the meal always come after the bath, for a sane and welltempered person. Now, regarding the quality of the bath and of the rub, refer to the last book, in their specific places.12

10 Vallambert, Op. cit., “Livre II Comme faut nourrir l’enfant durant qu’il tette,” pp. 99–110. 11 Vallambert, Op. cit., p. 100: Au livre precedant nous avons parlé du baing, qui est a faire seulement a l’heure de la naissance de l’enfant, & es deux ou trois ou quatre premiers jours, lequel estoit composé de certaines choses confortatives du cuir & des membres: icy nous parlerons du baing & du lavement d’eau simple, qu’il faut reiterer souvant jusques a sept ans. 12 Vallambert, Op. cit., p. 172: Galien ordonne deux heures du jour commodes pour frotter et baigner les enfans détriez, & qui sont ja grandets: l’une est au matin, apres qu’ils sont levez, avant que joüer: l’autre apres qu’ils ont joué, devant que manger. Et ne veut Galien, que quand l’enfant se baigne apres avoir mangé, il luy soit permis de boire avant le baing, parce que la distribution de ce qui seroit contenu dans l’esthomac se feroit trop tost, ce qui est a eviter es corps qui sont sains. Parquoy il conseille que le repas voise tousjours apres le baing en une personne saine et temperee. Maintenant

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

155

The Temperament of Children The relative brevity of the chapters about concerning bathing for older children does not indicate a lack of interest but implies that the first bath, given after birth, summarizes all of its virtues and uses. The author of the treatise can therefore dispense with longer and repetitive explanations. But also, as the child grows, the bath becomes less and less necessary and does not, for instance, need to replace physical exercise when the child is big enough to walk and move by himself. The newborn, then, appears to be the perfect case study regarding the private, early bath which should be administered to children. At this point, the order of first ministrations to be given to the child, far from being a finicky controversy, reveals the change in the conception of childhood. Controversy concerning the time of the first bath tells, in fact, of another controversy: whether the child should be considered as a small adult or as a specific person. The notion of age, which was mostly developed during the Middle Ages, refers not to the number of years attained by an individual, but to specific balances and temperaments that are constitutive of a life cycle. Here, the apparent departure from tradition is justified by the very vagueness of ancient models regarding childhood. Hot and humid by nature, the newborn would be, according to Galen, the perfect example of a temperament defined by its age. Thus, in the treatise on the Faculties of the Soul, the Greek physician comments on a passage from Plato (Laws, 2, 666a) explaining the differences induced by the age of the patient: “Shall we begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to work—this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of youth;—afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length, he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our youth,

pour sçavoir de la qualité du baing et du frottement, faut recourre au livre precedant, en leur propre chapitre.

156

hélène cazes and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible.”13 With this excerpt, I invite these noble Platonists to mind not only what is said about the consumption of wine in general, but also what is said on the differences between ages. Thus, he says that the nature of boys is furious, whereas the elders’ is sour, discouraged and hard, which does not comes from the difference in years but from the particular mixture of the body, specific to each age. The mixture of youth is very hot and sanguine, when the mixture of elders is less sanguine and cold.14

In spite of this excerpt, which concerns the differences among ages, Galen does not give (at least in the works that are now available to us) a systematic and precise definition of childhood. The door is then open for continuations, extrapolations and apocryphal precisions. In the treatise on Mixtures attributed to Galen, the author evokes a temperament that is hot and humid15 and establishes the possibility that such a temperament could be balanced, under certain conditions. Childhood could then be compared to spring, in that the balance of childhood is hot and wet: The opinion that spring is hot and wet, and simultaneously also well balanced, is a manifest conclusion. Spring is neither wet to same degree as winter, nor hot to the same degree as

13 Translation of Plato taken from Laws, trans. Benjamin Jowett, http://classics.mit. edu/Plato/laws.html (accessed 1 October 2006). 14 Galen, Les facultés de l’âme, trans. V. Barras, T. Birchler, A.-F. Morand (Paris, 1995), pp. 106–107: N’instituerons-nous pas la règle que, tout d’abord, jusqu’à dix-huit ans, les enfants ne toucheront absolument pas au vin, enseignant que dans le corps et l’âme, il ne faut pas conduire le feu avant de commencer à affronter les labeurs, prenant garde à la constitution furieuse de nos jeunes gens? Puis, jusqu’à trente ans, qu’ils ne goûtent au vin qu’avec mesure; que le jeune s’abstienne de toute ivresse et excès de vin. Mais, arrivé à quarante ans, lorsqu’il festoie dans les syssities, qu’il invoque les autres Dieux et qu’il invite tout particulièrement Dionysos à la cérémonie qui est en même temps divertissement des hommes âgés: car celui-ci a donné aux hommes le vin comme remède, secours contre l’âcreté de la vieillesse, afin que vienne l’oubli de la tristesse et du découragement, et que la caractère de l’âme, de dur devienne mou, comme le fer mis au feu devient ainsi plus malléable.» Avec ce passage, j’invite ces nobles Platoniciens à ne pas se souvenir seulement des propos qu’il contient sur la consommation du vin elle-même, mais aussi sur la différence des âges. Car il dit que la nature des jeunes gens est furieuse et que celle des vieillards est âcre, découragée et dure, ce qui n’est pas dû au nombre des années mais au tempérament du corps propre à chaque âge. En effet, le tempérament des jeunes est chaud et très sanguin, celui des vieillards peu sanguin et froid: c’est pourquoi la consommation de vin profite aux vieillards, car elle ramène la froideur due à l’âge à la bonne proportion de chaleur, tandis qu’elle est très contraire à ceux qui sont en croissance. Elle surchauffe leur nature, qui se met à bouillonner et à s’agiter violemment, et cela conduit à des mouvements démesurés et violents. 15 Galen, Selected Works, trans. P.N. Singer (Oxford, 1997), Mixtures 1, pp. 516, 205: One should not exclude the possibility of a mixture which is both hot and wet.

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

157

summer, and thus it possesses neither quality in a disproportionate sense.16 Determining nine different temperaments, depending on age, season, sex and individuals, the author of Mixtures then opposes the perfect mixture to relatively unbalanced ones: It has now been made clear that the terms “wet,” “dry,” “cold,” and “hot,” in relation to bodies, have several different senses. It has also been shown that there are nine different kinds of mixtures, of which one is well proportioned and well balanced, while the others are all ill balanced.17

Childhood is the first (and most favored) example of a natural lack of balance, as it is characterized by excessive heat and wetness. Now, this temperament is remarkably close to the definition of life. For instance, the description of animals is based on the qualities of ‘hot’ and ‘wet’, as opposed to the dry coldness of death: The body of a living animal is hotter and wetter than a dead one. [. . .] This is the reason that the Ancients described animals as hot and wet, not because of any predominance of moisture or heat in the absolute sense.18 Moreover, there is a natural unbalance in childhood, which is resolved only by the notion of age. By creating several models that depend on the seasons of life, age allows specific treatments for the child and recognizes the child’s particular unbalance as natural: We have touched here on the differences due to age: and it will be no bad thing to say something about these now. [. . .] The animal’s first composition is from blood and sperm, substances which are hot and wet. In the continual process of these becoming drier, membranes are first constructed, and casings, organs, and vessels; and finally, as the substance hardens, bones, gristle, and nails.19

In such a configuration, childhood is seen as an imperfect but unavoidable stage, beginning the development into the proper and balanced temperament of adult males. And, in a stunning symmetry, old age will be seen as an excess of dryness and coldness, announcing the coming death: Old men are thus dry in the same sense that children are wet, that is to say, in the solid parts of the body: bone, ligament, membrane, artery, vein, nerve, casing, flesh. Aristotle’s parallel between old age and the drying

16 17 18 19

Mixtures, Mixtures, Mixtures, Mixtures,

1, 2, 2, 2,

pp. 510, 209. 572, 231. 574, 232. 577, 233.

158

hélène cazes out of a plant is an apt one. Plants are to begin with soft and wet: they increase gradually in dryness as they grow older, until finally they lose their moisture altogether and die.20

The question of age is crucial for proper diagnosis and cures, as it implies the definition of specific temperaments and forbids applying the same model, based on the ideal well-tempered mixture, to all subjects. Now, except for a short aphorism of Hippocrates, transmitted with its commentary by Galen,21 there is no detailed description of first age in the ancient medical corpus and, as the author of the Mixtures sadly remarks: “On the subject of the stages of childhood and the prime of life, on the other hand, there is no agreement among doctors, nor is the dispute easy to resolve.”22 The danger faced by the physician would be to ignore the proper conditions of each age and err in its observation: “All these are mistakes which the majority of doctors make by ignoring the proper, specific indications, and turning instead to incidental features.”23 Gabriel Miron does not reason differently when, in the first chapters devoted to his subject, he begins by reminding the reader of the nature of the child: hot and wet, he is prone to be hotter because of his humidity and wetter because of his hotness.24 Age here appears as a temperamental system, containing risks of disease and death because of its own unbalance: the justification for pediatrics is that the child is more fragile and more susceptible to illness than the balanced adult. Supplying theories and systems where Galen and Hippocrates had only mentioned specificity, the medieval physicians, readers of Mixtures, elaborate on an alternative model for good health, where age intervenes as a factor for variance. Systematizing the qualities and their balances into fixed and recognizable temperaments, they allow childhood and its distempers to become a transitory balance: a mixture defined by age. Thus, the treatise by Bartolomeus Anglicus, De Rerum Proprietatibus, divides mankind by age and ascribes particular attributes, qualities, and potentialities to each period of life. And, in this manner, he defines infant care as specific to that age:

Mixtures, 2, 581, 235. Galen, “Commentaria in aphorismos Hippocratis,” chapter 14, Op. cit., vol. 1 col. 24. 22 Mixtures, 2, 583, 239. 23 Mixtures, 2, 643, 265. 24 Miron, Op. cit., p. 11: “quod eo quod in pueris humidum illud est maius, ita calor naturalis est maior.” 20 21

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

159

Children, when they come out of the womb, must be wrapped in piled roses mixed with salt in order to comfort their limbs, and to remove this sugared humor which resides in them. Then, we must tenderly rub their palate with a finger, and rub their gums with honey in order to wash their mouth and give them appetite by the sweetness and taste of honey. Then, we must bathe them often and then anoint with rose oil and rub all their limbs, especially for males, who should have harder limbs than females, because of the labor.25

The first bath belongs, then, to the specific care of infants. But the specific order of gestures implies a position towards the specific treatment of different ages. Thus, if, following Galen, the physician advises the midwife to first cleanse without a bath, and then bathe the child in water, the conception implied is that the humidity of the child should be addressed first, and corrected. According to the Hippocratic principle that elements of an opposed quality will cure an excess, such as cooling baths to cure fevers,26 then bathing children could reduce their natural but excessive hotness; but it would reinforce their natural wetness. The cooling effect of baths, underlined by Avicenna in his Canon,27 could very well, then, be so contrary to the nature of the child that it would kill him. Considering the never questioned tenderness of newborn, the delicate art of bathing them requires a fine balance between

25 Barthélemy l’Anglais, Le Grand Propriétaire (Lyon, 1498), VI, 4: “[. . .] les enfans a l’issue du ventre doyvent estre enveloppes en roses pisllees avec sel pour les membres conforter: et pour oster humeur glucuse qui est en eulx. Apres on leur doyt tout bellement froter le palet au doy; et les gencives du miel pour nettoyer la bouche pour luy donner appetit par la doulceur et laguesse du miel. Apres on le doyt souvent baigner et puys oindre de huylle rosat et froter par tous les membres et par especial des masles de qui les membres doyvent estre plus durs que des femelles pour le labeur.” 26 Galen, Commentaria, chapter 4, p. 17. 27 Avicenna, A treatise on the Canon of medicine of Avicenna, incorporating a translation of the first book, trans. O. Cameron Gruner (New York, 1970), chapter 401, pp. 325–336: “Natural action of the bath. The air of the bathroom has a warming action, the water of the bath has a moistening effect on the body. The first change in the body is to cool and to moisten; the second is to warm and to moisten; the third is to make the body warm and dry. It is useless to listen to those who assert that water taken internally does not moisten the internal tissues”; and chapter 403: “The frequent use of such a bath will have a refrigerant effect. This is because (i) water is fundamentally cold in nature, and even warming of it will not ensure continuance of the “accidental” (scholastic significance) heat, the natural quality remaining, and this natural coldness enters the body and makes it cold. (ii) Whether hot or cold, water is still “wet,” and wets the body (interiorly), so, imparting with much moisture, it binds the innate heat even to the degree of extinction. Consequently, the body becomes cold. Such a bath may have a warming effect if (a) the aliment previously taken has not yet digested, (b) there is a cold humour present in the body.”

160

hélène cazes

contradicting and comforting their nature: in danger because of excessive heat, the child would also be in danger from excessive refrigeration. The same ambiguous treatment applies to the child’s wetness: too much wetness suffocates the child, by obstructing the pores and ducts, thus forbidding sweat and natural evaporation. But too much dryness would constrict the pores and dissipate the spirits. The practice of bathing must then always be moderate, as its commendation results, in fact in the mitigation of two opposing functions: correcting and comforting. Soranus, referring to the practice of ancient Scythes of dipping their newborn in cold water, condemns it as Barbarian: After omphalotomy, the majority of the barbarians, such as the Germans and Scythians, and even some of the Hellenes, put the newborn into cold water in order to make it firm and to let die, as not worth rearing, one that cannot bear the chilling but becomes livid or convulsed.28 Vallambert, misquoting Galen and actually quoting this passage as it figures in the Pseudo-Galen’s De Sanitate Tuenda, abounds in the same direction: adverse cold water is dangerous for the newborn: For, to bathe children in cold water, as the Germans used to do before and during the time of Galen, is a barbarous and dangerous thing, as he himself says: for to cool too much the child, who is tender, is to extinguish his natural heat, and thus to kill him; and also to thicken the skin and constrict his pores will prevent the sweating of the body and, thus, make him susceptible to fevers and suffocation of the spirits.29

Thus, the ambiguous nature of the child, both distempered because of excessive heat and humidity, and well-tempered because of the specific balance of his age, induces an ambiguous practice of bathing. On the one hand, the bath provides a corrective effect to the inner heat of the baby, and thus helps the newborn to grow. On the other hand, it maintains the child in its natural humidity, protecting him against the “external encounters” of cold air and wounding objects. For this reason, the apparent continuity in discourses may deceive the reader. Expanding from the chapter “On cleansing” in Soranus’ Gynecology to

Soranus, Gynecology, 12.81, 82. Vallambert, Op. cit., pp. 46–47: Car de baigner l’enfant d’eau froide, comme faisoyent les Alemans au temps & devant le temps de Galien, est chose barbare & dangereuse, comme luy mesme le dit: d’autant que trop refroidir l’enfant, qui est delicat, est estaindre sa chaleur naturelle, & par ainsi le faire mourir: & aussi espoissir le cuir, & et resserrer ses pores, est empescher la transpiration du corps, & par consequant le rendre subjet a fievres, & a suffocation des esprits. 28

29

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

161

the medieval compendium De Sanitate Tuenda, the Renaissance treatises of Miron and Vallambert adopt a fixed organization of the matters: first, the justification of the bathing practice, then the composition and temperature of the bath, the length of the stay in water, the frequency of bath, the appropriate period for bathing, the seasonal variations, the necessity of drying up the child, and the way to rub the limbs efficiently. But these similarities mask the deep discrepancies between ancient and modern practices. By defining childhood as a specific age, with specific needs and nature, the late medieval physicians bend the Ancients’ theory towards an increasingly comforting conceptualization of the first bath. What is to be Done First: Drying or Bathing? When Vallambert proposes to replace cleansing, exercising, and strengthening of the limbs by the sole act of bathing, and places the chapters on bathing before those pertaining to rubbing and swaddling, he breaks from the tradition of Soranus and medieval physicians: the priority is, then, to cleanse gently and in a warm way, rather than desiccating first. This change is emphasized by the contrast established between the practices of old midwives, which reproduce the old order of cleansing with linen, oils, and herbs and rubbing off the blood and other matter from birth, and the new practice of bathing before scrubbing and rubbing: In the past, midwives used to resort to other means, as writes Jacques des Pars, for attaining the same goals as described above [i.e., to cleanse the skin and resolve wounds and deformations]. Thus, some would wrap the child first with the skin of a sheep or a lamb that had been recently scorched and still retained its warmth, intending to alleviate from him the labor he had to sustain when he exited the womb and to resolve the swelling on the surface of his body, and, with that, to deterge the skin and, finally, to fortify his limbs. Some, such as those who were called by commoners, used to put him immediately on warm straw and they would rub him gently with it, so as to cleanse him, reduce the patches of humidity, remove the tiredness and thicken the skin. Some used to spread unsifted flour on the whole body; they would then rub him with a piece of rind, using the inside part, in order to deterge from the skin all the bad humid parts acquired in the mother’s womb, and thus, to relieve him and strengthen his limbs. Those who saw that the child was healthy and had no need for that, without further ado, welcomed him

162

hélène cazes to their bosom, putting him in receiving linens and swaddles made of hemp, wool, fur, scarlet or silk.30

Vallembert’s next paragraph, stating that practices changed one hundred years before the time of the book, 1564, goes on to advocate for the new order. Under the title “The way of doing in present times for attaining similar goals, and why we begin with the bath,” Vallambert exposes the rationale for skipping the ‘dry’ cleansing and providing the child with a bath. After reaffirming the virtues of the bath,31 he demonstrates that the humidification attained by the immersion should not be corrected by the traditional addition of salts, brine, herbs or powders that was advised by Soranus,32 the De Sanitate Tuenda or even Gabriel Miron. Although Vallambert cites elsewhere the practice of bathing the child in wine or salted water, as a positive trait when it pertains to unhealthy babies, , to provide the child’s skin with strengthening components and help the desiccation, he strongly recommends the use of pure tepid water, that is to say, of an element compatible with the inner nature of the child, with no corrective effect on his constitution: Now it happens that a bath, made of pure and tepid water, is the best of all things for cleansing the skin. [. . .] For, in truth, there is nothing that cleans so well nor so gently the dirt from the surface of the body, nothing that removes so easily the tiredness, resolves the coagulated and crusted blood, thus ensuring it would not fill with pus or infection, nothing that helps so efficiently to straighten the figure of the head, and of 30 Vallambert, Op. cit., p. 43: iiij La maniere d’accomplir les mesmes intentions que dessus, desquelles usoyent anciennement les Sages-femmes de France. Au temps passé, les Sages-femmes, comme escrit Iaques des Pars, avoyent autres manieres de faire, pour accomplir les mesmes intentions que dessus. Car aucunes enveloppoyent l’enfant tout premierement de peau de mouton ou d’aigneau, recentement escorché & estant encor ‘en sa chaleur, en intention de l’alleger du travail qu’il avoyt soustenu a l’issue du ventre de sa mere, & de resoudre les gourfouleures de la superficie de son cors, & avec ce, deterger le cuir & finallement fortifier ses membres. Aucunes, comme celles qui estoyent appellees du commun, le mettoyent incontinant sur la paille chaude, & l’en frottoyent doucement, a fin de le nettoyer, rosoudre les humiditez, oster les lassetez, & espoissir la peau. Aucunes respandoyent sur tout son corps de la farine non sassee, puis le frottoyent d’une couanne de lard, avec le dedans, a fin de deterger le cuir des mauvaises humiditez acquises du ventre de la mere, & avec ce le soulager & renforcer ses membres. Celles qui regardoyent que l’enfant se portoit bien, & n’avoit point de besoin de tout cela, sans faire autre chose, le recevoyent en elur giron preparé avec linges & langeots de lin, ou de laine, ou de pelisse, ou d’escarlate, ou de soye. 31 See the text quoted in our notes 5 and 6. 32 Soranus, Gynecology, trans. Owsei Temkin and others (Baltimore, 1991), p. 12: “And others wash it with wine mixed with brine, others with pure wine, others with the urine of an innocent child, while others sprinkle it with fine myrtle or with oak gall.”

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

163

the other limbs, still maintaining the bones in their original softness. And these three things are necessary, well before the drying or the strengthening of the skin, which must be done afterwards, and which is the fourth intention, the reason why we rub with powder or anoint with astringent oil the body of the child. So that, in truth, it does not seem reasonable that the powdering or the anointment come before the bath, nor that the strengthening of the skin come before the softening and straightening of the limbs. And thus, the right conclusion is that we must begin with the bath, as soon as the navel cord has been severed.33

Relinquishing the traditional priority of correction for the comfort of a warm and gentle bath, Vallambert makes way for another conception of birth. He insists repeatedly on the necessity of helping the child, relieving the child from pain, and sparing him any discomfort. The chapters devoted to the length of the bath reveal this new attention to the feelings of the child. In 1553, Gabriel Miron showed consideration in the midwife to make sure to take the child out of the bath as soon as he showed signs of discontent: “This is why one should always check the face and the mood of the child, while he is in his bath, if you believe me.”34 In 1565, Vallambert makes the mood of the child the first criterion for determining the length of his stay in water: As soon as the body of the child begins to warm up and redden, we must stop cleaning him, but we should not remove him from bath before this stage, except if he does not enjoy remaining so long in there; for, to maintain him too long would pull his inner heat and spirits out to the surface of the body and would dissipate them; but, also, if he does not stay in long enough, the bath does not excite the native heat, does not resolve the superfluous fluids by bringing them to the pores, and these

33 Vallambert, Op. cit., pp. 43–44: “Or est il ainsi que le baing d’eau pure et tiede sur toutes choses mundifie mieux le cuyr [. . .] Car a la vérité, il n’y ha rien qui tant bien et doucement nettoye les ordures de dessus le corps, ne qui tant aisément oste la lasseté, ressout le sang coagulé & meurtry, engardant qu’il ne face apostume et devienne sanieus, ne qui tant ayde a radresser la figure de la teste, & des autres membres, conservant encore les os en leur mollesse. Et ces troys choses sont premierement necessaires que de secher et endurcir le cuir: ce qui se doit faire apres, & est la quatriesme intention pour laquelle on frotte de poudre ou bien lon oinct d’huile adstringente le corps de l’enfant. Et a la verité, il ne semble estre raisonnable que le poudrement et l’onction voisent devant le baing, non plus que l’endurcissement du cuir devant la mollification & radressement des membres. Et par ainsi la conclusion est bonne, que lon doit commancer par le baing tost apres avoir couppé le nombril de l’enfant.” 34 Miron, Opus Cit., 48: “ideo semper respiciatur facies infantis et modus eius, dum est in balneo meo dicto.”

164

hélène cazes superfluities hold and take the place of nourishment. And if he does not enjoy being in there, if you leave him, it makes him cry and brings anger into him and provokes disordered movements of his spirits and humours.35

Enclosed Protection and Exercise In order to avoid discomfort and to protect the fragile skin of the newborn, the tub must be dressed with swaddling linen or other pieces of soft material. This is constantly demanded by Renaissance physicians, who do not care about the form or the matter of the bath tub, but only about the temperature of the water and the gentleness of the contact. Miron’s first instruction, after the tepid temperature of water, concerns the bath tub: In the second place, we must examine in which vessel to bathe the child. The vessel can be made of whichever matter you want, for instance, wood, silver, mother-of-pearl, gold or whichever matter is used for a vessel, as long as it is not too big and it does not contain too much water. For it suffices that, sitting in the tub, the child has water coming up to his shoulders, though not attaining his neck nor head. And there should always be a delicate linen running around the interior of the vessel, so that the roughness of the vessel and its hardness would not enter in direct contact with the body of the small infant.36

Vallambert agrees, making recommendations for the softness and the safety of the bathtub:

35 Vallambert, Op. cit., Book 2, chapter 9, p. 105: “Sitost que le corps de l’enfant commance de s’eschaufer & rougir, faut cesser de le laver, & ne l’oster du baing plus tost, sinon qu’il se fachast d’y estre tant: car l’y tenir trop longuement, tire la chaleur interieure & les esprits a la superficie du corps, & les dissipe: & aussi quand il n’y demeure pas assez, le baing n’excite pas la chaleur naïve, & ne resout pas assez les superfluitez par les pores, lesquelles superfluitez tiennent & occupent le lieu de la viande. Et quand il ne prend pas plaisir d’y estre, si on luy laisse, cela le fait crier, & le tire en dépit, & en mouvement desordonné, tant de ses esprits que de ses humeurs.” 36 Miron, Op. cit., p. 46: “Secundo, uidendum est de uase in quo debet infans balneari. Vas potest esse ex tali materia qualem uoluerint exequentes hos, ut lignum argenteum ex cupro, aurocalco, uel quod sit uas figuli, quod non sit magnum, neque sit ibi magna quantitas aquæ, Sufficit enim, quod infanti stanti in balneo admodum sedentis aqua sit usque ad humeros, et non attingat collum neque caput. Et semper habeatur pannus delicatus qui sit ab intra in circuitu uasis, ne asperitas uasis et durities eius immediate attingat corpus infantuli.”

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

165

Chapter II. In which vessel, or tub we must bathe the child The vessel, or tub, where the child must be bathed can be anything we want, but it must not be too big nor contain too much water: it suffices that the child be in the water up to his shoulders and that the water does not reach the neck nor the head: and we must have a linen running all around the vessel or the tub, so that the roughness or hardness of the vessel not touch or offend the body of the child.37

The recommendation for safety and for softness is echoed by the exposition of the procedures to strengthen the skin: the child is described as a helpless being, propelled by violence out of the security of the womb and bearing every contact as an aggression: IIII. That it is necessary to thicken the leather and the skin of the child As it is a fact that the child, being in the womb, has a tender and supple skin, that the pores of the aforesaid skin are very open, and that the texture and jointure of his limbs is thin and loose, because of the quantity of heat and humidity which thins down and elongates them, it comes to pass that, as soon as he is born, he is easy to penetrate and to be offended by the air and by encounters with the outside, from which he was safe inside the mother’s womb, where he was armed and protected by many wraps and covers. In spite of this, he must, when he exits this place, breath the fresh air and dwell within bodies harder than his, which can offend and wound him if he is not provided against them; and even if we do provide as much comfort as we can, even if he comes in warm air, or if we bathe him, or wrap him with linen, nonetheless because our air, however warm, is cold in comparison with the place where he comes from, because all the gentlest things that we administer to him seem sour and hard in comparison with the covers he has, surely, when he is born, he feels the touch of everything as cold, sour or hard, and he takes to screaming and crying, as if he felt the injury and offense of the air and of other things. Therefore, to ensure that his body will not be so sensitive and subject to the pain of the excesses of air, we must immediately succour him by thickening the thinness of his body, by strengthening the tenderness of his skin and the surface of his limbs, so that he may bear better and endure the shock and the external encounters.38 37 Vallambert, Op. cit., Book 2, pp. 47–48: “II En quel bassin, ou cuvier doit on baigner l’enfant. Le bassin ou cuvier auquel on doit baigner l’enfant, peut estre de telle matiere qu’on voudra, lequel ne doit estre trop grand ni avoir trop d’eau, parce qu’il suffit que l’enfant soit en l’eau jusques aux espaules, & que l’eau ne surmonte le col ne la teste: & faut avoir un linge delié en forme de bourle autour du bassin ou cuvier, afin que l’aspreté ou dureté du bassin ne touche et offense le corps de l’enfant.” 38 Vallembert, Op. cit., pp. 38–39: “iiii Qu’il est necessaire d’espoissir le cuir et la peau de l’enfant. Comme ainsi soit que l’enfant estant dans le ventre, ayt le cuir tendre & delié, les pores dudit cuir fort ouverts, & la tissure et assemblage de ses membres rare

166

hélène cazes

In conjunction with the rubbing and oiling of the skin, the bath thus appears as a comforting act, to protect the harmless baby against the outer world that he discovers suddenly. In contrast to the freshness of cold air, as the water element is opposed to the air, the bath is an enclosed and safe space, where the temperature is warm, and where every pointed object has been removed. Similarly, the manner in which the nurse must handle the child in order to avoid discomfort and prevent pain is precisely described: Thus must the nurse handle him in the bath: first, she must take him with her right hand and rest his chest on her left arm, then she must clean him with the right hand. The reason why the child must lean on his chest, and not on his stomach, is that the chest is bony, hard and firm, bearing the leaning better: and, in contrast, the stomach is soft, tender and harmless, with the entrails inside: if he were to lean on them, then would arise two inconveniences: first, that the intestines, because of the pressure of the leaning weight, would be offended; second, that the parts of the upper body, because of their weight, could fall into the bath.39

The comfort provided during the first days must not preclude, though, the necessary toughening of the child, especially of the male child. As soon as the trauma of the birth is passed, the nurse should exercise

et lasche, a cause de beaucoup de chaleur & humidité qui les raréfie et estend: dont il advient que soudain qu’il est né, il est facile a penetrer, & a estre offensé de l’air et des rencontres de dehors, desquelles il estoyt en seureté dans le ventre de sa mere, estant là armé et enveloppé de beaucoup de couvertures: & nobobstant ce, luy est necessaire sortant de là, prendre ce grand air, & converser entre les corps plus durs que luy, & qui le peuvent offenser et grever s’il n’y est pourveu: & encores qu’on y pourvoye au mieux qu’il est possible, & qu’il vienne a l’air chaud, ou qu’on le baigne, ou qu’on l’envelope de linge, touteffoys par ce que nostre air, tant chaud soit il, est froid en comparaison du lieu ou il estoyt, & que toutes les plus douces choses qu’on lui administre luy sont aspres et dures aupres des enveloppes qu’il avoit, certainement incontinant qu’il est né, il sent tout ce qu’il touche, ou froid ou aspre ou dur, & se prend a crier & a pleurer, comme sentant l’injure et offense de l’air & des autres choses. Pour faire donques que son corps ne soit pas si sensible & subjet a souffrier les excez de l’air, & les autres choses exterieures, faut incontinant luy secourir, en espoississant la rareté de son corps, & fortifiant la tendreté de son cuir, & le dessus de ses membres, a fin qu’il puisse mieux soutenir & supporter le hurt et les rencontres des choses exterieures.” 39 Vallambert, Op. cit., Book 2, p. 104: “Et la nourrice le doit tenir au baing en ceste maniere: premierement le doit prendre avec la main droitte, & appuyer la poitrine d’iceluy sur son bras gauche, puis le laver avec la main droitte. La raison pourquoy l’enfant doit estre appuyé sur sa poitrine, et non sur son ventre, est parce que la poitrine est ossue, & dure & ferme, soustenant mieux l’appuy: & le ventre au contraire est mol, tendre, & paisible, avec les entrailles qui y sont: sur lequel s’il estoyt appuyé aviendroyent deux ionconvenians: l’un que les intestins par le pressement de l’appuy seroyent offensez, l’autre que les parties d’enhaut pesantes pourroyent tomber dans le baing.

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

167

the child during the bath and take advantage of the loosening of the limbs to straighten them and make them supple. In the alternation between protection and formation, the desire to cuddle the newborn must not lead to overlooking the disciplinary function of the bath: it is an occasion to bring the soft limbs of the child, whose bones are still humid and tender, towards their ‘due form’, in the same manner as the swaddling will ensure the proper development, in straight lines, of the limbs and the spine. In several chapters, Vallambert insists on the moves that the nurse must imprint upon the child, while he stays in the water: even right after the recommendations for safety and gentleness, he emphasizes the usefulness of the relaxing effect in order to correct the appearance and feebleness of the limbs: When he is bigger and more strengthened, the child will be able to be bathed in a sitting position or lying on his back. Then, as the nurse holds and cleans him, she must bring the top of his hands gently towards the back, and his feet towards the buttocks, without violence nor startling movements, then elongate the hands, the fingers and the arms along his sides, thus ensuring that his limbs will be made suppler, and nimble for movement.40

The Original Cleansing? In addition to the functions of protection, loosening, and moisturizing, the bath is, of course, primarily justified by its cleansing power. Coming out of the womb in blood, covered in wounds, the baby is in need of cleansing: what used to be attained by the rubbing of powders, piled flowers, straw, or linen is, for Vallambert, best ensured by immersion in water. Translating the medieval Latin mundificatio, which literally means ‘purification’, the first scrubbing is described as the erasure of flesh from the body of the child. Here, the pictures of Nativities and holy births meet everyday practice. Just as, according to miniatures and paintings, the child Jesus is laid on straw and the Virgin is bathed in a precious 40 Vallambert, Op. cit., Book 2, pp. 104–105: “Quand il sera grand, & un peu plus fortifié, il pourra estre baigné assis ou couché sur le dos. Ainsi comme la nourrice le tient & le lave, elle luy doit mener doucement les pates de ses mains vers le dos, & les pieds vers les fesses, sans violence ne soudainement puis estendre les mains & les doigts & les bras le long des costez, faisant cela en sorte que ses membres soyent rendus plus souples, & agiles au mouvemant.”

168

hélène cazes

bathtub, the midwives of old France used to scrub babies with warm straw and the midwives of the sixteenth century put them into a warm bath. And, in sacred representations, there is no doubt that the bathtub, placed in the foreground, evokes the first sacrament. Beyond the incidental coincidence of collective representations and without an explicit elaboration upon symbolism, the first bath is, for Miron and for Vallambert, considered in conjunction with baptism. Both physicians raise the question on the occasion of their exposition upon the appropriate temperature of the water, right after the justification of the bath as a means for cleansing. For Miron, the first bath should not be mistaken for a baptism and, moreover, the baptism should not endanger the life of the child. He gives several lines of argumentation for sparing the young child the trauma of an immersion in cold water: We could reply with these two answers: first, that it is not forbidden to administer the baptism with a pure and tepid water, nor is it prescribed that the water be cold, but only that it be simple soft water, or that, for a baptism, it would not be proper to have an oily mixture nor herbs; then, a little water suffices that will be spread on the head and it is not necessary to have the whole body naked, as it is done in many places; finally, that children are usually not baptized before they have lived a few days, except if the evidence of a near death obliges one to baptize the child, as it is the one sacrament, amongst the principal ones, that the divine power ordered for those who follow His precepts; last, keep in mind what Galen said about the long stay, and the qualities of baths taken in stagnant water or in rivers.41

By distinguishing the first physical cleansing and the spiritual remittance of original sin, the physician evokes the right to judge a religious practice in medical terms and to discuss potentially harmful religious practices. Vallambert follows the same path in 1564: evoking the Barbarian practice of cold baths, attributed to early Germans, he turns against modern Christian practices with the same virulence:

41 Miron, Op. cit., p. 48: “Ad hoc respondent quod uel non est prohibitum baptizare cum aqua simplici tepida, nec preceptum sit quod sit frigida, dum tamen simplex dulcis aqua, uel quod in baptismate non est proprie aquæ embrocatio uel effusio, pusillum namque aquæ sufficit uel quod sufficit illam supra caput effundi et non est necessum corpus totum esse nudum sicut fit in multis locis, uel quod non baptizarentur nisi aliquibus diebus transactis ut fit in pluribus locis, nisi necessitas euidentiæ mortis baptizare cogat, uel quod cum baptizma sit unum et de præcipuis sacramentis a deo ordinatum diuina potentia iuuat illos, qui sua præcepta exequuntur, uel quod Galenus intellexit de longa mora, et balneo facto in stagno uel flumine et sunt de qualitate balnei.”

baths, scrubs, and cuddles

169

Therefore, those who baptize Christian children would make a serious mistake and commit a greatly reprehensible act, if the baptized child were to be immersed naked in the baptismal font or if they had him stay for a long time in cold water; and it would be worse if it happened during winter and cold weather.42

Advocating specific infant care and the respect of the newly acknowledged infantile temperament, Miron and Vallambert exemplify a new conception of childhood: although feeble and imperfect, the child needs and deserves protection and care. Whereas the official Catholic doctrine affirms that children who died before baptism, marked by original sin, could not enter Heaven, the doctors consider themselves entitled to prescribe the proper manners of baptizing babies without harming them. Moreover, the young child, before the age of reason, reached at seven, deserves to be happy and loved. During all ministrations, Vallambert thus asks for the nurse to sing and play with the child: While doing all the aforesaid things, the nurse must entertain the child, by laughing with him, or singing songs, or holding him to her bosom, or taking him under the arms, holding him in her arms, making him dance and jump, cuddling him and giving him pleasure in all proper ways: which are usually limited to three, that is: first, the movement and exercise of the body; second, the senses of sight, of smell, of taste; third, the enjoyment of playing outside.43

By reversing the order of rubbing and bathing, by emphasizing the needs of the baby and placing first comfort rather than correction, Vallambert and Miron represent the medical side of the newly developing attitude towards children that Philippe Ariès analyzed in his classic book on childhood.44 Although they are attentive to the first days of the newborn, imagining the feelings and the helplessness of the babies, these modern physicians do not see in their faces the innocence, the

Vallambert, Op. cit., 47: “Parquoy ceux qui baptisent les enfans des Chrestiens, feroyent une grand’faute, & chose qui seroit fort a reprendre, si l’enfant qu’on baptise estoit plongé tout nu es fons de baptesme: ou s’ils le faisoyent demeurer longuement en eau froide: & pis seroit si c’estoit en hiver & en temps froid.” 43 Vallambert, Opus Cit., Book 2, 114: Ce temps-pendant que la nourrice fait toutes ces choses susdittes, & apres, elle doit esjoüyr l’enfant, or luy riant, or’disant des chansons, maintenant le tenant en son giron, maintenant le prenant sous ses aisselles, le soustenant entre ses bras, le faisant danser et sauter, le dorelottant, luy donnant recreation en toutes manieres convenables: lesquelles generalement sont reduittes en trois, l’une, consiste au mouvement et exercice du corps, l’autre, au sentiment de la veüe, de l’odorement, et du goust, la tierce, au portment a l’ebat, & en grand air. 44 Ariès, Philippe, L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ancien régime (Paris, 1960). 42

170

hélène cazes

promise and the perfection that we see in them; albeit gently, they are keen to correct and discipline their young bodies, all the more supple for being humid and tender. Anachronism is a temptation, whether for assimilating the Renaissance treatises with their self-claimed ancient models or for recognizing in their relative modernity the seeds of our own sensibility. Imitating the subtle balance between comfort and cure, this essay intended to show both the departure from and the obedience to the Galenic tradition of innovative practices for infant bathing. Nonetheless, and keeping in mind the constant risk of mental projections and prejudices, let us not throw out the baby with the bath water: the order of gestures, the priority given to the physician over the priest, the songs of the nurse, all express a new conception of childhood, still uncertain but surely perceptible.

POLEMICIZING WOMEN’S BATHING AMONG MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS Alexandra Cuffel Abd al-Malik ibn abīb, a ninth-century writer from Muslim Spain, warned women: “Flee the ammām for it is one of the houses of heresy and one of the doors to fiery hell.”1 This rather pointed remark simultaneously associates ammāmāt (public baths) with heresy, or ‘bad religion’, or immorality, and designates women as the primary perpetrators or ones to be ensnared by this ‘heresy’ and immorality located within the ammāmāt. Both Muslim and, later, Christian men made these connections. I argue that for Muslim men, the ammām was a place where foreign, non-Muslim women mingled with Muslim ones, or where Muslim women could socialize freely with one another without male company. Both situations sparked anxiety among the Muslim men who attempted to direct or describe women’s activities in the ammām. Early modern Christian travelers were similarly fascinated by the gyno- or androsociablity of the ammām; however, they associated women’s and men’s desire for baths and sexual misbehavior in them with the climatological affects on Middle Eastern peoples’ physiology or with what was, in their eyes, ‘strange’ treatment of women by Muslims. This biologically oriented polemic was a new tactic rooted both in these older concerns extant in the Muslim world, and in the increased preoccupation with climate and sanitation in Early Modern Europe. I—Muslim Men’s Imaginings/Fears of Women in the and Mixing of the Sexes

amām I—Nudity

In early Muslim sources, ammāmāt were clearly viewed as foreign institutions. Both Ibn abīb and the ninth-century hadith collector, Abu

!‫ﻓﺎﺟﺘﻨﱭ اﻟﺤﻤﺎم ﻓﺎﻧﻪ ﺑﻴﺖ ﻣﻦ ﺑﻴﻮت اﻟﻜـﺎﻓﺮ و ابب ﻣﻦ أﺑﻮاب ﺟﻬﻨﻢ‬ Abd al-Malik ibn abīb, Kitāb Adab al-Nisā [aw Kitāb al-Ghāya wa-l-Nihāya], ed. AbdelMagid Turki (Beirut, 1992), p. 235, number 157. 1

172

alexandra cuffel

Dawud from Sijistan in Persia, note a hadith in which the Prophet Mu ammad warns: “When you conquer the land of the non-Arab and when you find in it houses called ammāmāt the man should not enter it except with an apron! And women are prohibited [from] it except one who is in childbed or sick.”2 In another hadith cited by both of these men, Ā isha, one of the wives of the Prophet, is portrayed as asking women from Syria whether they come from a place with ammāmāt. When they answer in the affirmative, she cites a warning from the Prophet that a woman who undresses anywhere “other than the house of her people” (‫ )ﻏﲑ ﺑﻴﺖ اﻫﻠﻬﺎ‬tears away the veil between herself and God, something anyone who fears Allah should not do.3 The primary concern is one of modesty; men should cover below their waist and women should not uncover themselves at all. However, by indicating that public baths are foreign and that undressing to use them is immodest, these traditions mark foreigners themselves as immodest and engaging in practices hateful to God. This condemnation even seems to hold true for those foreigners who are Muslim or at least interested in Islam, as the women from Syria in the second hadith presumably were. Both the identification of the ammām as a foreign institution and the concern about nudity in these early Muslim sources reflect Muslim reactions to early Byzantine bathing culture that they encountered in the recently conquered areas such as Syria and al-Andalus. Archeological excavations indicate that Syria, the homeland of the women whom Āisha questions about ammāmāt, had numerous bathhouses from the early Byzantine period (third-ninth centuries A.D.).4 Bathhouses in the Byzantine empire and in Latin Europe derived from Roman baths, both structurally and functionally. Functionally, bathhouses did not serve simply to provide a venue by which people could clean themselves; they were also sites of recreation, socializing, and even showing off status.5 During the early Byzantine period, bathing naked and/or in the

‫ اﻧﻜﻢ ﺳـﺘﻔﺤﻮن أرض اﻟﻌﺠﻢ و اﻧﻜﻢ ﺳـﺘﺠﺪون‬:‫ﻋﻦ ﻋﺒﺪ ﷲ ﺑﻦ ﻋﻤﺮ و ﺑﻦ اﻟﻌﺎص أن رﺳﻮل ﷲ ﻗﺎل‬ ‫ﻓﻴﻬﺎ ﺑﻴﻮات ﯾﻘﺎل ﻟﻬﺎ اﻟﺤﻤﺎﻣﺎت ﻓﻼ ﯾﺪﺧﻠﻬﺎ اﻟﺮﺟـﺎل الا ﺑﻤﺌﺰر! و اﻣﻨﻌﻮﻫﺎ اﻟﻨﺴﺎء الا ﻧﻔﺴﺎء أو ﻣﺮﯾﻀﺔ‬ 2

Ibn abīb, Adab al-Nisā,’ p. 232, no. 154 and Abu Dawud, Sunan, Book 31 (Kitāb al- ammām), no. 4000. 3 Ibn abīb, Adab al-Nisā, p. 234, no. 156 and Abu Dawud, Sunan, Book 31, no. 3999. 4 Albrecht Berger, Das Bad in der byzantinischen Zeit (München, 1982), 33, 46, 49–50, 52. Berger indicates that Egypt and Palestine also had a substantial number. 5 Berger, Bad in der byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 21–25; Paolo Squatriti, Water and Society in Early Medieval Italy, AD 400–1000 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 44–45, 48–52; A. Lumpe,

early modern muslims and christians

173

company or proximity of members of the opposite sex continued to be practiced even among monastics, despite vehement objections on the part of church leaders.6 Men and women were increasingly separated in the bathhouse during this period; sometimes women were allotted their own bathhouse apart from that of the men, as in the large bath and the monastic complex and pilgrimage center of Karm Abu Mena in Egypt.7 The desire to preserve the modesty advocated by religious leaders, however, also led in part to the establishment of cloister baths, i.e., baths attached specifically to a monastery and to the construction of private baths.8 Nevertheless, Muslims coming into recently conquered portions of the former Byzantine empire, Italy, and Iberia would have been confronted with a bathing culture in which nudity in the bathhouse, and even mixed-sex bathing was either still practiced or known as a custom of the not too distant past. The distinctly non-Islamic quality of bathhouses would have been further emphasized by the presence of mosaics and (nude) statues in them, often of either Christian religious significance or from a particular bathhouse’s Pagan past.9 On the surface, therefore, the authors of these early medieval Muslim texts reacted to the foreignness of the bathhouses and, to their eyes, the immodest practices associated with them. However, while they clearly target the ammāmāt as foreign, their comments in fact reflect longstanding Christian rhetoric and objections to public baths. As in these hadith, early Christian authors saw bathhouses as especially detrimental to pious women’s virtue. For Christian opponents of frequent or regular bathing, one of the only reasons for a woman to go to a public bath was

“Zur Kulturgeschichte des Bades in der Byzantinischen Ära,” Byzantinische Forschungen: Internationale Zeitschrift für Byzantinistik, 6 (1979), 151–166; Cyril Mango, “Daily Life in Byzantium,” in XVI Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress Wien, 4–9 Oktober, 1981, Akten, part 1 (Wien, 1981), pp. 337–353. On Roman bathing culture generally: see F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity (New York, 1992). 6 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 26, 34–45; Lumpe, “Kulturgeschichte des Bades;” Squatriti, Water in Society, pp. 56–57; Herbert Hunger, “Zum Badewesen in Byzantinischen Klöstern,” in Klösterliche Sachkultur des Spätmittelalters (Wien, 1980), pp. 353–364. 7 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 42–43, 50. 8 Ibid., pp. 28–29, 38, 50–51; Herbert Hunger, “Zum Badewesen in Byzantinischen Klöstern;” Squatriti, Water and Society, pp. 58–63; Jill Caskey, “Steam and ‘Sanitas’ in the Domestic Realm: Baths and Bathing in Southern Italy in the Middle Ages,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, no. 2 (1999), 170–195. 9 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 49, 69, 74, 80–81; Heinz Grotzfeld, Das Bad im Arabisch-Islamichen Mittelalter: eine kulturgeschichtliche Studie (Wiesbaden, 1970), pp. 45–51, 150–151.

174

alexandra cuffel

if she was ill or pregnant.10 Later Muslim authors, such as Ibn al- ājj (d. 1336 A.D.), al-Aqfahsī (1349–1405 A.D.), al-Munāwi (d. 1621 A.D.) and Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Hādī reiterated the views voiced in these early Christian writings and hadith. Ibn al- ājj, Abd al-Hādī, and al-Munāwi took up another complaint also expressed by early Christian authors, namely that women don their finest clothes and cosmetics in order to go to the ammām.11 Al-Aqfahsī, on the other hand, seems to have been more concerned that women know what parts of their bodies needed to be covered, that men not attempt to see or have intercourse with one or more women not lawful to him in the ammām, or that neither women or men bathe with a hermaphrodite, since such a person could serve as a sexual partner for either.12 The link between foreignness, inappropriate nudity and, as we shall see, sexually inappropriate behavior in bathhouses is especially apparent in the autobiography of Usāmah ibn Munqidh (1095–1188 A.D.). Usāmah focused on crusading settlers’ behavior in the bathhouse as one of the primary indicators of their lack of culture and sexual propriety. In one tale, a Frankish man pulls off the apron of the ammām’s

10 Cyprian of Carthage, Liber de Habitu Virginum, para. 19, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1891) [henceforward abbreviated: PL] vol. 2 ser. 4, cols. 471–472; idem, Liber de Lapsis, para. 30 in PL, vol. 2 ser. 4 cols. 504–505; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, Book 3 chapters 5 and 9, especially 9.1, in Le Pédagogue, ed. and trans. Claude Mondésert and Chantal Matray [Sources Chrétiennes, no. 158] (Paris, 1970), vol. 3 St. Jerome, Letter 107 “Ad Laetam” (To Laeta) paragraphs 8 and 11, and Letter 108, “Ad Eustochium” (To Eustochium), para. 15 in Lettres, ed. and trans. Jérôme Labourt (Paris, 1955), vols. 2 and 5 respectively; Les Constitutions Apostoliques, 2 vols. ed. and trans. Marcel Metzger, Sources Chrétiennes, no. 320 (Paris, 1985), vol. 1, Book I.6. 13, and 9. 1–4 (This text warns against women in the bathhouse but does not discuss pregnant or sick women as such); Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 25–26, 33–35, 39–41; Hunger, “Zum Badewesen,” Squatriti, Water and Society, pp. 50–51, 57; Grotzfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, pp. 94 100 esp. p. 100, note 17. In his Adab al-Nisā pp. 232–233, no. 154, Ibn abīb includes several sayings suggesting that sickness was the primary reason for a woman to enter the ammām. 11 Mu ammad ibn Mu ammad Ibn al- ājj, Al-Madkhal, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1929), vol. 2: pp. 167–176; Shahāb al-Dīn A mad ibn Amād al-Aqfahsī al-Shāfa ī, Kitāb al-Qawl al-tamām fī Adāb dukhūl al- ammām, ed. Mu mmad Khayr Rama ān Yūsuf (Beirut, 1974), pp. 33–35, 41–42; Abd al-Ra ūf al-Munāwi, Kitāb al-Nuzhah al-zahīyah fī akām al- ammām al-shar iyah wa-al- ibb, ed. Abd al- amīm āli amadān (Cairo, 1987), pp. 25–33, 40, 45–46, 76; Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Hādī, Kitāb a kām al- ammām fol. 95b, as cited in Grotzfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, p. 100, note 17. This text, which according to Grotzfeld is in the Syrian national library (MS amm 4549), has not yet been edited. Ibn abīb does discuss women’s clothing in the baths, but he was more concerned that women would wear ‘thin’ clothing and reveal their nakedness. Adab al-Nisā pp. 212–214 nos. 120–122. 12 al-Aqfahsī, Adāb dukhūl al- ammām, pp. 35–44.

early modern muslims and christians

175

proprietor—already a breach of modesty and personal space by Muslim standards—and exclaims with pleasure upon seeing that the Muslim had shaved his pubic hair. The Frank thereupon requests that the proprietor do the same for him and his wife.13 Such a request and act violated the strict segregation of the sexes in bathhouses in the Islamic world (and elsewhere), and further demonstrated the Frank’s complete lack of sexual boundaries (if ripping off the proprietor’s apron was not enough!) by asking a man to perform a highly intimate service for another’s wife. In a second story, a European man again brings a woman into the bathhouse when men were bathing. Unsure whether she is indeed a woman (she is dressed by the time Usāmah sees her), Usāmah sends one of his friends to ask. Instead, his companion pulls up her robe, an action that does not in the least perturb her father who had brought her into the ammām.14 As Carole Hillenbrand and others have indicated, these stories need to be seen as part of a growing trend in Muslim literature of the crusading period to portray European Christians as sexually perverse.15 However, these stories also need to be understood in the context of the association between ammāmāt and the religious practices and/or sexual impropriety of indigenous non-Muslims. II—Mixing Religions The material that Ibn abīb collected for the section on baths in his Adab al-Nisā (Rules of Good behavior for Women) does not indicate clearly what was so disturbing about ammāmāt. It is tempting to see the juxtaposition of assertions that bathhouses are ‘houses of heresy’ and comments about their foreign origin as an indication that he and others feared that women would be led away from Islam by the nonMuslim women they encountered there. However, the texts do not make

13 Usāmah ibn Munqidh, Kitāb al- Itibār, ed. Philip Hitti (Princeton, 1930), pp. 136–137; Idem, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usāmah ibn Munqidh, trans. Philip K. Hitti (Princeton, 1987), pp. 165–166. On shaving pubic hair as part of bathing see Grotzfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, pp. 75–78. 14 Usāmah ibn Munqidh, Arabic, p. 137, English p. 166. 15 Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 347–51; Michael Evans, “ Unfit to Bear Arms’: The Gendering of Arms and Armour in Accounts of Women on Crusade,” in Gendering the Crusades, ed. Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert (New York, 2002), pp. 45–58.

176

alexandra cuffel

this link explicit. Later authors are somewhat more expansive about the basis of their concerns. In Muslim Iberia, the legalist, al- ur ūshī (c. 1060–1126 A.D.) or his imitator, included the comment, “Women enter the ammām with women of the book (al-kitābiyāt) without an apron [around her waist]. And the Muslim men go to the baths with the heretics, and the ammām is an innovation and a luxury,” in a list of shared religious and festive practices among Jews, Christians, and Muslims which al- ur ūshī considered to be unlawful innovations to Islam.16 By imbedding this statement in a broader discussion of religious practices that Muslims, especially Muslim women, have adopted from non-Muslims, al- ur ūshī implies that the act of inter-religious bathing is parallel to, or part of, the process by which Muslims accept non-Muslim customs. In his discussion of appropriate behavior for women at a ammām, Ibn al- ājj likewise juxtaposes concerns about nudity and mixing with dhimmi. He notes that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women all go to the bathhouse. If Muslim women disrobe there in order to bathe, then these women of other religions, who were subordinate to Muslims by Islamic law, would see the Muslim women naked, and could gaze at their genitals. This situation, according to Ibn al- ājj, is scandalous and forbidden.17 Turning to a different source of communal bathing, the Coptic celebration of Psalm Sunday at the pool known as al-Matariya, a place where, according to legend, the holy family rested and bathed, Ibn al- ājj expressed the same concerns about Muslim, especially Muslim women’s participation, namely that non-Muslim women would see them naked.18 Both al-Aqfahsī and al-Munāwī associated viewing the genitals with “the state of humiliation” (‫ )ﺣﺎل اﻟﻤﻬﻨﺔ‬and prohibited or strongly advised Muslim women not to reveal them to non-Muslim women. These authors recognized that Muslim and dhimmi women were sometimes obliged to bathe with one another, in which case both

16

‫و دﺧﻮل اﶵﺎم اﻟﻨﺴﺎء ﻣﻊ اﻟﻜﺘﺎﺑﻴﺎت ﺑﻐﲑ ﻣﱥر و اﳌﺴﻠﻤﲔ اﻟﻜﻔﺎر ﰱ اﶵﺎم و اﶵﺎم ﻣﻦ اﻟﺒﺪع و ﻣﻦ اﻟﻨﻌﲓ‬

al- ur ūshī, Kitāb al- awādith wa-al-bida,’ ed. Talbi, (Tunis, 1959), p. 140; and in Christians and Moors in Spain, 3 vols. ed. Charles Melville and Ahmad Ubaydli (Warminster, 1992), vol. 3, p. 120. On this passage and its authorship see Kitāb al- awādith wa-al-bida = El libro de las novedades y las innovaciones, ed. and trans. M. Fierro (Madrid, 1993), p. 134 (2.4.6). 17 al- ājj, al-Madkhal, vol. 2, p. 172. 18 Ibid. 2:59–60.

early modern muslims and christians

177

advocated that the Muslim woman seek privacy or a place of relative seclusion in the bathhouse.19 A mad ibn Taymīya (1263–1328 A.D.) writing in Damascus, likewise objected to women’s inter-religious bathing; however, he protested because some Muslim women were adopting the religious festivals of non-Muslims (in this case, Epiphany).20 The problem for him was that these women were adding new practices from other religions to Islam. Nudity and proper religious hierarchy in this situation do not seem to have concerned him. Although all these authors specifically cite the presence of nonMuslims as a problem for women’s communal bathing, Ibn Taymīya’s protests come much closer to pinpointing ‘unbelief ’ as the issue. Yet even for al- urū shī and Ibn al- ājj, the mixing of Muslim women with non-Muslim ones remains an implicit concern. In his section on appropriate bathing practices for men, Ibn al- ājj reminds his readers of the prohibition against exposing their genitalia to one another and against bathing with women, along with a lengthy discussion of the cleanliness and legal validity of using ammāmāt for ritual ablutions. He does not mention the presence of non-Muslims in his advice to men.21 Similarly, while al- urū shī does indicate that Muslim men bathed with dhimmi men, he refers to nudity only in connection with Muslim women’s interactions with non-Muslim women in the bathhouse. Al-Aqfahsī and al-Munāwī discuss nudity before dhimmi in more general terms; nevertheless, they also emphasize it as a particular problem in relation to Muslim women’s attendance of the ammām. These arguments need to be seen in the context of the commonality of inter-religious bathing and the frequent (often unsuccessful) attempts to prohibit inter-religious bathing that existed in Byzantine law and later, periodically, in Western Christian and Muslim law. 22 Yet, Heinz Grozfeld, in his study of

al-Aqfahsī, Adāb dukhūl al- ammām, pp. 42–43; al-Munāwi, Kitāb al-Nuzhah al-zahīyah, pp. 44–45. 20 A mad ibn Abd al-Halīm Ibn Taymīya, Kitāb iqti ā al- irā al-mustaqīm mukhālafat a āb al-ja īm, ed. Mu ammad Hāmid al-Fiqī, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1979), p. 227; idem, Ibn Taimiya’s struggle against popular religion with an annotated translation of his Kitāb iqti ā as- irā al-mustaqīm mukhālafat a āb al-jahīm, ed. and trans. M.U. Memon. (The Hague, 1976), p. 222. 21 Ibn al- ājj, Al-Madkhal, 2:167–174. 22 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 45, 69; Grozfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, pp. 123–128, esp. 126–127; S.D. Goitein A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish 19

178

alexandra cuffel

Muslim baths in the Middle Ages, noted that women in particular were singled out for prohibitions against bathing with members of other religions during the fourteenth-and fifteenth centuries.23 Texts such as those of al- urū shī or even Ibn abīb suggest that such concerns and attempted prohibitions began even earlier in some regions and they raise the question: what is the connection between the presence of non-Muslims at ammāmāt and stipulations that women in particular should not go to them, or if they do, should they be especially careful to cover their bodies and preserve communal distinctions? I would suggest that the preoccupation with Muslim women mingling with and being seen naked by dhimmi women has to do with three closely related issues: the belief current in much of Islamic society that women were more prone to religious error; the fear that community boundaries would completely disintegrate within the bathhouse; and finally, sex. In the realm of religious practice, women were regularly singled out by Muslim legalists as responsible for perpetrating unislamic religious innovations, and of allowing their emotions to get in the way of correct practice. Indeed, several of the authors mentioned above explicitly tie mixed bathing together with women’s adoption of religious customs from members of other faiths. In discussing why women’s visiting graves was potentially problematic, Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī (1284–1355), a contemporary of Ibn Taymiyya, explained, “A distinction between the man and the woman is that the man possesses restraint and strength, in as much as he does not weep and he does not become saddened in contrast to the woman.”24 By this statement al-Subkī clearly articulates the view that women were more emotional than men and as a result should be restrained from certain religious activities. Bathhouses had long been sites of political and religious exchange, thus increasing the likelihood and concern that Muslim women, like their menfolk, might engage in religious discussions with their non-

Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1967–1993), vol. 5, pp. 96–97; Robert I. Burns, “Baths and Caravanserais in Crusader Valencia,” Speculum, 46, no. 3 (1971), 443–458. 23 Grozfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, pp. 126–127. 24 Taqī al-Dīn Alī ibn Abd al-Kāfī al-Subkī, Shifā al-saqām fī ziyārat khayr al- anām (Beirut, 1970–1979), 84. Alexandra Cuffel, “From Practice to Polemic: shared saints and festivals as ‘women’s religion’ in the medieval Mediterranean,” The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68, no. 3 (2005), 401–419.

early modern muslims and christians

179

Muslim co-bathers.25 Furthermore, many baths were associated with healing under the auspices of Pagan, and later, Christian holy people, making the connection between bathing and non-Muslim practices and the likelihood of encountering non-Muslims at these baths great.26 These factors in combination with concerns about women’s vulnerability to outside influences seem to have fueled worries about women and inter-religious bathing. Because men were supposedly less likely to be led astray, the presence of non-Muslims was less of an issue when ammāmāt were being used by men. This danger of exchange and adoption of ‘wrong’ religious ideas, so feared for women, was compounded by the atmosphere of the ammām. There, the clothing that normally indicated an individual’s religious affiliation was gone. Non-Muslims were sometimes required to wear necklaces in the bathhouse that indicated their religious affiliation, and Muslims were forbidden to serve non-Muslims in the bathhouse, however, such stipulations were not regularly obeyed.27 Complete disrobing was the ultimate equalizer and disintegrator of any boundary, religious and personal. The word used in these texts for ‘genitals’ ( aurāt- ‫ )ﻋﻮرات‬can also mean ‘faults’, ‘blemishes’, or ‘imperfections’. To see the aurāt of another, therefore, was to see the person at their most vulnerable. In a world where physical power and wholeness were indicators of divine favor, such intimate exposure of a member of the religiously dominant group to her subjugated peers would have seemed anathema to many. However, this concern about exposure was not simply about religious hierarchy.

25 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 21–22, 36; Grozfeld, Bad im ArabischIslamischen Mittelalter, pp. 150–151. 26 Berger, Bad in der Byzantinischen Zeit, pp. 26–27, 33, 72–84. 27 Yahya ibn Sa id of Antioch, History, in Patrologia Orientalis, ed. R. Graffin and F. Nau, trans. I. Kratchkovsky and A. Vasiliev (Paris, 1915), vol. 23, fasc. 3, p. 490; Abd al-Majid or Mu ammad ibn A mad ibn Abdun al-Tujibi, “Risalah Ibn Abdun fī al-qa ā wa al- isba” in Documents arabes inédits sur la vie sociale et économique en occident musulman au Moyen Age, ed. É. Lévi-Provençal (Cairo, 1955), pp. 47–48; idem, “El Tratado de Ibn Abdūn,” in Sevilla a comienzos del Siglo XII, ed. E. Levi-Provençal (Madrid, 1948), nos. 152, 153; al-Aqfahsī, Adāb dukhūl al- ammām, p. 103. Grozfeld, Bad im ArabischIslamischen Mittelalter, p. 127.

180

alexandra cuffel III—Same-Sex Love

The prohibition against gazing at another’s aurāt is first mentioned in connection with bathing in some of the standard, early collections of hadith, such as al-Muslim and Abu Dawud.28 Ibn abīb, also cites these hadith against gazing at another’s genitals, but in a very different context: namely his section on siā q, the term in Arabic referring to sexual relations between two women.29 That he chose to place these traditions, normally listed in the context of bathing, in a discussion of same-sex love between women suggests that he, and perhaps others, saw communal bathing as a potential locus for sexual liaisons between women and for this reason regarded women’s attendance at ammāmāt with profound suspicion. Ibn abīb leaves no doubt that he disapproves of such practices for he lists them as among the actions by which the Muslim people will be destroyed in the last days using language very similar to approximately contemporary apocalyptic texts.30 I have shown elsewhere that in Arabic epics and texts such as 1001 Nights, Christian princesses or other non-Muslim women were regularly portrayed as preferring sexual relations with other women rather than with men.31 Frequently, the Muslim male hero who eventually ‘converts’

28 Al-Muslim, Sa i , Book 3, nos.667–668. Abu Dawud, Sunan, book 31, nos. 4001–4008. Muslim mentions these traditions in his section on menstruation—a bodily process that required ritual washing/purification after its completion. Abu Dawud included the texts in his chapter on the ammām. 29 Ibn abīb, Adab al-Nisā, pp. 204–205, no. 110. On the term si āq and same sex love between women in the Islamic world, see Fedwa Malti-Douglas, “Tribadism/ Lesbianism and the Sexualized Body in Medieval Arabo-Islamic Narratives,” and Sahar Amer, “Lesbian Sex and the Military: from the Medieval Arabic Tradition to French Literature,” in Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Francesca Canadé and Pamela Sheingorn (New York, 2001), pp. 123–141 and pp. 179–98 respectively; Sahar Amer, “Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbians-Like,” forthcoming in Journal of the History of Sexuality (2008). My thanks to Professor Amer for allowing me to read her article before its publication. 30 Ibn abīb, Adab al-Nisā, p. 204 no. 109. Compare with: Mu ammad ibn Ya qub al-Kulaynī, al-U ul min al-Kāfī, Ed. A.A. Ghaffari and M. Akhundi, 3rd ed (Tehran, 1968–1971), 8: 38–39; Mu ammad ibn Alī ibn Bābūwayh al-Qummī, Ikmāl al-dīn wa- itmām al-ni ma fī ithbāt at-raj ah (Najaf, 1970), p. 490; David Cook, Studies in Muslim apocalyptic (Princeton, 2002), 13, 333–344. 31 Alexandra Cuffel, “Reorienting Christian ‘Amazons’: Christian women warriors in medieval Islamic literature in the context of the crusades” in Gender, Religion, and Culture in the pre-modern world, ed. Brian Britt and Alexandra Cuffel (New York, 2007), pp. 137–166; Also see Remke Kruk, “Clipped Wings: Medieval Arabic Adaptations of the Amazon Myth,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 1, no. 2 (1994), 2:132–51; Idem, “Warrior Women in Arabic Popular Romance: Qannā a bint Muzā im and Other Valient Ladies,” Part One Journal of Arabic Literature, 24 (1993), 213–30.

early modern muslims and christians

181

the princess to Islam and ‘heterosexuality’, first encounters her while she is wrestling naked by a river or lake with her handmaidens.32 The codeword or activity indicating a sexual relationship between the women in these texts is wrestling; however, their nudity or partial nudity, the frequent presence of water, and the exclusively gyno-social context of their activities is strongly reminiscent of the atmosphere of the ammām. Much later the Ottoman author, Abu Uthman Umar Haleby, explicitly blames Greek, presumably Christian, women for soliciting Muslim women in the bathhouse and teaching them the art of same-sex love.33 That Christian women were so commonly associated with preferring partners of the same sex in Arabic popular literature may help to explain the combined Muslim anxiety about nudity and inter-religious mixing in bathhouses.34 Nadia el-Cheik and Remke Kruk have shown that from the early conquest period through the crusading era, Muslim authors were concerned about the sexual and religious temptation that Christian women posed for Muslim men; however, it may be that they also posed a temptation to Muslim women.35 Arabic epics and discussions of bathing and nudity in hadith and legal literature spanning from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries imply that Muslim men at least believed that non-Muslim women were both a religious and a

32 Sirat Amīra Dhāt al-Himma (Cairo, 1909), I. 3. 78–I. 4. 5, II.13.46–47; M.C. Lyons, The Arabian epic: Heroic and oral story-telling, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1995), vol. 3, paragraphs 9, 46, pp. 311, 345; Alf Laila wa Laila, 2 vols (Cairo, 1958), vol. 1, pp. 210–11; The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, 4 vols. trans. Powys Mathers (New York, 1972), 1: 352; Sīrat fāris al-Yaman al-malik Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan, 4 vols., (Cairo, 1930), vol. 2; The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan an Arabic Folktale, trans. and summarized by Lena Jayyusi (Bloomington, IN, 1996), pp. 262–266; Abd al-Raī m al-Hawrānī, Désires de femme, ed. René Khawam (Paris: Phébus, 1996), pp. 70–89. The Arabic of this text has not been edited. See Amer’s cautionary remarks about Khawam’s translations in her “Medieval Arab Lesbians.” On the island of al-Waq in Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan, see Kruk, “Clipped Wings.” 33 Omer Haleby, El Ktab des lois secretes de l’amour d’après le Khodja Omer Haleby Abou Othman, translation, categorization, and commentaries in French by Paul de Régla (Paris, 1883), p. 180 cited in Grozfeld, Bad im Arabisch-Islamischen Mittelalter, p. 101, footnote 19. 34 Monks were likewise portrayed as seeking other men as sexual partners, but this theme is not as ubiquitous as it is for Christian women. On this see A mad ibn Mu ammad Jurjānī, al-Muntakhab min kināyāt al-udabā wa-ishārāt al-bulaghā (Hydrabad, 1983), 28; Everett Rowson, “The Categorization of Gender and Sexual Irregularity in Medieval Arabic Vice Lists,” in Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, ed. Julia Epstein and Kristina Staub (New York, 1991), pp. 50–79. 35 Remke Kruk, “The Bold and the Beautiful: Women and ‘fitna’ in the Sīrat Dhāt al-Himma: the Story of Nūra” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World, ed. Gavin R.G. Hambly (New York, 1998), pp. 99–116; Nadia el-Cheik, Byzantium as Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA, 2004). Also Cuffel, “Reorienting Christian ‘Amazons.’”

182

alexandra cuffel

sexual temptation for Muslim women, as well as men, and that bodily exposure in front of dhimmi shamed Muslim women. Less ambiguous than their Muslim contemporaries and medieval authors, Early Modern European Christian travelers to the Middle East clearly and regularly stated that one of the primary sexual temptations for Muslim women, was in fact other women. Washing the Body, Neglecting the Soul: Muslim Women’s Bathing as “proof ” of Muslim (Sexual) Depravity and Disease in Early Modern Christian Writing That bathhouses were the primary locus of libidinous behavior, at least on the part of women, seems to be a new form of Christian anti-Muslim polemic in the Early Modern era. Medieval Christian authors from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had begun to target Muslims’ ritual bathing practices and regular visits to ammāmāt as proof that Muslims were religiously and even physiologically inferior to Christians. Both Bertrandon de la Broquière and Felix Fabri, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries respectively, said that Muslims bathed frequently because they stank in contrast to baptized Christians.36 Early Modern Christian authors mocked the ritual washings required by Muslim law as proof that “these brutish Barbarians, esteeming of the outward washing, and not that which inwardly toucheth the soule.”37

Bertrandon de la Broquière, Le Voyage d’outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquière, ed. Charles Schefer (Paris, 1892; republished, 1972), p. 90; Felix Fabri, Evagatorum in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem, ed. Konrad Dietrich Hassler (Stuttgart, 1849), 2:370 (fol. 15b); F.W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the sultans, ed. Margaret Hasluck, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1929; republished New York, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 31–34; Alexandra Cuffel “Does this Smell Okay to You? Hygiene and Invented Illness in Medieval and Early Modern Christian-Muslim Travelogues.” Forthcoming. Compare with: Speros Vryonis Jr. “Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries,” Byzantina kai Metabyzantina, vol. 2, Studies on Byzantium, Seljuks and Ottomans, reprinted studies, ed. Speros Vryonis Jr. (Malibu, 1981), p. 174. For other kinds of Muslim deformities that only baptism could cure according to medieval Christians see Thomas Hahn, “The Difference the Middle Ages Makes: Race Before the Modern World.” Journal of medieval and early modern studies, 31, no. 1 (2001), pp. 1–37. 37 Nicolas de Nicolay, The Navigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie, trans. T. Washington the younger, (London, 1585), p. 59; idem, Dans l’empire de Soliman le Magnifique, ed. Marie-Christine, Gomez-Géraud, and Stéphane Yérasimos (Paris, 1989), p. 137; Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busqecq Seigneur of Bousbecque, 2 vols., trans. Charles Thornton Forster and F.H. Blackburne Daniell (London, 1881), 1: 230 [Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum (1581), later published as A.G. Busbequii D. legationis Turcicae epistolae quattor—Known in English as Turkish Let36

early modern muslims and christians

183

Early Modern Europeans regularly asserted that “sodomy” was rife among Muslim men.38 Charges of sodomy was a common inter-religious or inter-ethnic insult by Early Modern Europeans, making Muslim men but one of a variety of groups so charged.39 However, such accusations against Muslims also could be seen as extensions of medieval Christian polemic which depicted the Prophet Mu ammad and his followers as excessively given to lust. In the medieval polemic however, authors focused primarily on the issue of multiple wives.40 Medieval Christian ters]; Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire Containing the Maximes of the Turkish Politie, the most material Points of the Mahometan Religion, their Sects and Heresies, the Convents and Religious Votaries, their Military Discipline with an exact Computation of their Forces by Land and Sea (London: John Starkey and Henry Brome, 1668) (Reprint: Frankfurt am Main, 1995), p. 158. 38 Jean Palerne, Foresien Voyage en Egypte 1581, ed. Serge Sauneron, (Cairo, 1971), pp. 90–91; Samual Purchas, Pilgrimage (1613), p. 246; Vincent Stochove and Gilles Fermanel, Voyage en Egypte 1631 (Cairo, 1975), pp. 100–101; Francis Osborne, Politicall reflections upon the government of the Turks (London, 1656), p. 81; Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, pp. 33–35; [Thomas Smith], The adventures of (Mr. T.S.) an English merchant taken prisoner by the Turks of Argiers, and carried into the inland countries of Africa: with a description of the kingdom of Argiers, (London, 1670), p. 28; Edward Grimeston, The History of the Serrail and of the Court of the Grand Seigneur Emperour of the Turkes wherein is seene the Image of the Othoman Greatesse a table of human passions and the examples of the inconstant prosperities of the court (London, 1635), pp. 162–63; Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the age of discovery (New York, 1999), pp. 109, 112–120. 39 Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen, pp. 112–120; Helmut Puff, Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600 (Chicago, 2003), pp. 107–166; Frederico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico (Austin, 2003). 40 Daniel Sahas, John of Damascus on Islam: The “Heresy of the Ishmaelites” (Leiden, 1972), pp. 136–137; Risalat al-Kindi: in Dialogue islamo-chrétien sous le Calife al-Ma’mun (813–834): Les épitres d’al-Hashimi et d’al-Kindi, trans. George Tartar (Paris, 1985), pp. 148–153; Theophanes the Confessor, The Chronicle of Theophanes: an English translation of anni mundi 6095–6305 (A.D. 602–813), trans. Harry Turtledove (Philadelphia, 1982), pp. 35; Eulogius, Memoriale Sanctorum in Corpus Scriptorum Mozarabicorum, 2 vols. ed. Johannes Gil (Madrid, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 376, 398–399; Petrus Alfonsi, [Dialogus contra Judaeos] Diálogo contra los judios, ed. Klaus-Peter Mieth, trans. Esperanza Ducay (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Alto-aragonienses, 1996), p. 98; Guibert of Nogent, Dei Gesta per Francos, ed. R.B.C. Huygens Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis, 127 A (Turnholt, 1996), p. 196; Roger Bacon, Opus Maius pars septima seu moralis philosophia, ed. Eugenio Massa (Turin, 1953), pp. 211, 219, 221; idem, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, 2 vols. trans. Robert Belle Burke (Bristol, 2000), vol. 1, p. 278, vol. 2, p. 814; Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Historia Arabum, ed. Jose Lozano Sanchez (Seville, 1993), pp. 5–6, 18; Gerald of Wales, De Principis instructione, ed. George Warner Rerum Britannicarum, Medii Aevi Scriptores, vol. 21(London, 1964) distinctio 1, p. 70; Fidentius of Padua, Liber de Recuperatione terrae sanctae, in Biblioteca biobibliographica della terra sancta e dell’ oriente francescano, vol. 2 of 5, ed. Girlamo Golubovich (Quaracchi, 1906–1927), pp. 18–19, 21–26; John Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002), pp. 54, 61–62, 73, 86, 93, 226, 238; Idem, “Un cadavre mutilé: le déchirement polémique de Mahomet,” Le Moyen Âge, 104 (1998), 53–72.

184

alexandra cuffel

allegations of Muslim homosexual desires and acts existed, but were more rare.41 Nevertheless, improper sexuality was at the center of this earlier polemic, and, important for our purposes, Muslim men’s treatment and sexual relations with women. Some writers maintained that the climate was responsible, following the growing trend in the Early Modern period of explaining the shortcomings of peoples of various geographical regions to the insalubrious nature of their climate and the impact of local air, food, and water on the four humours of the body.42 For the Italian physician and botanist, Prosper Alpini (1553–1617 A.D.) the problem was cyclical; the hot climate caused excessive sexual desire among other ailments, yet overeating, especially by women, and sexual indulgence likewise prompted the body to produce a surplus of bad humours that created the illnesses and foul body odor. Bathing served to ameliorate the diseases to which the Egyptians, for example, were naturally inclined.43 Among the ‘illness’ to which hot climates made people susceptible, according to Prosper Alpini and a variety of other European travelers, were adultery, sodomy, and bestiality. Included in this list of sexual transgressions, was women’s love of one another.44 For these authors, then, there was no beauty or health to be gained for Muslim women from the baths, rather it was a source or proof of illness and sexual excess. While Alpini does make positive remarks

41 Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, Pelagius, trans. Katharina Wilson in Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, ed. Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff (New York and Oxford, 1986), pp. 119–121. 42 Mark Harrison, Climates and constitutions: health, race, environment and British imperialism in India, 1600–1850 (New Delhi and New York, 1999); Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, 1989), pp. 39, 91, 121–122, 172–173, 179, 255–257, 276–77, 288; Andrew Wear, Knowledge and Practice in Early Modern English Medicine, 1550–1680 (New York, 2000), pp. 187–190; Karen Kupperman, “Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly 41 (1984), 213–240; Cuffel “Does this smell okay to you?”; Matar, Turks, Moors, and Englishmen, pp. 9, 88–90. Such theories were ultimately based on Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, and Places. 43 Prosper Alpini, La médicine des egyptiens, 2 vols., trans. R. de Fenoyl (Cairo, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 16–17, 57, 67, 86–89, 102–103, 143–150, 157–167, 234–237, 290–293, 304–321; Idem, Histoire naturelle de l’Egypte, 1581–1584, transl. R. de Fenoyl, ed. R. de Fenoyl and S. Sauneron, 4 vols. in 2 (Cairo, second edition 2007), vol. 1, pp. 138–150. Compare with George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey begun Ano dom. 1610 Four Books Containing a Description of the Turkish Empire of Egypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote parts of Italy and Lands adoiyning (London, 1627), p. 69. 44 Alpini, La Medicine des Egyptiens, 1: 293–295; Osborne, Politicall Reflections, p. 81; Stochove and Fermanel, Voyage en Égypte, pp. 100/101.

early modern muslims and christians

185

about the Middle East and its peoples elsewhere in his narratives, in this instance, Muslim men women are equally blameworthy. His reference to their fatness, dirtiness, and body odor are clearly designed to repel his readers, like Bertrandon de la Broquière and Felix Fabri’s comments about Muslims’ inherent stench. However, here the arguments are rooted in scientific rather than religious theory. More often Christian authors chose to condemn same-sex liaisons between women while simultaneously titillating them with references to the women’s hidden beauty or dissatisfaction with their husbands. After describing Muslim men’s love of other men, some Early Modern Christian authors suggested that Muslim women frequented baths and turned their passions to other women out of ‘vengeance’ against their husbands or in imitation of them: The Turkish Ladies detesting these damnable affections of their husbands, have also abandoned themselves by their example or for revenge, to another disorder . . . For the husbands are many times the cause of the losse of their wives; and the contagious example of their vices, gives them occasion to ill, and to faile in their faith to him who had first broken it.45

Husbands were blamed in other ways as well. Nicolay Nicolas, the French ambassador to Ottoman Sultan, Suliman the Magnificent (1494–1566 A.D.), explained that one of the principal reasons women went to the baths was to have a permissible reason and an honest cover to leave their houses, where they are continually enclosed either because of the great jealousy of their husbands or because of the custom retained from their ancestors who so enclosed their wives and daughters at the back of their houses, which they called women’s places (gynécées). So, being recluses without permission to go out or to appear in public, if it is not to go to the baths, where they still go with their faces veiled so as to repel the imperious rudeness of their suspicious husbands, who thus hold them subject and bound, often under the pretext of going to the baths, Turkish women go wherever they like to fulfill their physical passions and to have a goodtime without their husbands able to learn of it.46

Grimeston, History of the Serrail, p. 164. “L’autre raison et principale est pour avoir excusable occasion et honnête couverture de sortir hors de leurs maisons, où elles sont continuellement enfermées, pour la grande jalousie de leurs maris, ou bien pour observance retenue des anciens, qui ainsi tenaient closes leurs femmes et filles aux derrières de leurs maisons, qu’ils applelaient gynécées. Ainsi donc, les Turques étant recluses sans permission de sortir ni apparaître en public, si ce n’est pour aller aux bains,où encore elles vont à face voilée, pur se 45 46

186

alexandra cuffel

We later learn in his narrative that Turkish women sometimes become so ardently in love with one another, as if they were men, so much so that having seen some girl or woman of great beauty, they do not stop until they have found the means to bathe with her in order to massage her and touch her all over for their pleasure, as they wish, so much are they full of lustful feminine lasciviousness.47

Nicolay’s account is an especially important one, for it appeared in many editions and was translated into English, German, Dutch, and Italian. The accompanying engravings acquired a life of their own and were not only included in the various editions and translations, but were co-opted by other authors as well.48 Many Early Modern travelers and authors also took their cue from the ambassador for Austria to the Ottoman Empire, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (ca. 1521–1592 A.D.), who wrote extensively about the Turkish empire in various letters. For him, women’s sexual relations at the baths were not so much a source of condemnation for the men (though that is implicit in his remarks) as a source of mockery: The great mass of women use the public baths for females and assemble there in large numbers. Among them are found many girls of exquisite beauty [. . .] cases occur of women falling in love with one another at these baths, much in the same fashion as young men fall in love with maidens in our own country. Thus you see a Turk’s precautions (referring to women’s seclusion) are sometimes of no avail, and when he has succeeded in keeping his wives from a male lover, he is still in danger from a female rival! The women become deeply attached to each other, and the baths supply them with opportunities of meeting. Some therefore keep their women away from them as much as possible, but they cannot do so altogether, as law allows them to go there. This evil affects only the common people; the richer classes bathe at home as I mentioned.49

revancher de l’impérieuse rudesse de leurs ombrageux maris, qui ainsi les tiennent sujetted en enserrées, le plus souvent, sous couleur d’aller aux bains, elles se transportent ailleurs où bon leur semble, pour accomplir leurs voluptés et se donner du bon temps, sans que les maris puissant en avoir aucune p;ercevance.” Nicolas Nicolay, Dans l’empire de Soliman, p. 138; idem Navigations, trans. Washington, pp. 59–60. 47 “Voire quelquefois, deviennent autant ardemment amoureuses les unes des autres comme si c’étaient hommes, tellement qu’ayant apercu quelque fille ou femme d’excellente beauté, ne cesseront tant qu’elles auront trouvé les moyens de se baigner avec elle, pour la manier et tâter partout à leur plaisir, tant sont pleines de luxurieuse lascivité feminine.” Nicholas Nicolay, Dans l’empire de Soliman, p. 138, idem, Navigations, trans. Washington, p. 60. 48 Nicolas Nicolay, Dans l’empire de Soliman, pp. 32–36. None of his engravings depicted nude or partially clad women in the bathhouse. 49 Busbecq, 1:231.

early modern muslims and christians

187

These and similar passages use women’s social customs, in particular the practice of going to the public bathhouses, as a way of criticizing Muslim law, custom and society. More pointedly the criticism is aimed at the male Muslim population: their unwillingness to fulfill their wives’ sexual desires, their bad example in choosing same-sex partners, or their excessive jealousy laid the burden of culpability firmly on men, whereas the women come across as the pitiable, often beautiful victims of Muslim men’s bad behavior and the ‘false’ law of Islam. This pattern of targeting men and through them, Islam, while leaving women as the misled, desirable victims of both hearkens back to an older topos from medieval romances, in which the beautiful Muslim woman is portrayed as frustrated and unconvinced by Islam and ready to convert to Christianity and marry a Christian knight once the Muslim men have been defeated or outsmarted.50 Here, there is no question of women’s conversion. However for these Early Modern Europeans the confinement and so-called sexual ‘perversion’ of hapless Muslim women served as a convenient vehicle through which to demonstrate Muslims’ social and religious inferiority to Europeans, and to portray Muslim men—major military and economic rivals to European men—as failed or perverse in their masculinity. However, in these texts, Muslim men’s additional failure to satisfy and guide their wives compounds this insult. Women and the ammām are at the center of this polemic. For both medieval and Early Modern Muslims and Early Modern Christians, therefore, the potential for women’s inappropriate sexual behavior at the ammāmāt was a source of anxiety, polemic, and intrigue. For Muslim men the presence of non-Muslim women was an additional source of concern, for when Muslim women joined them in bathing, all distinction between Muslim and dhimmi was temporarily set aside; there were no obvious bodily signs of one’s superiority over another, religious practices merged, and proper sexual preferences, and, incidentally, male-female hierarchies, were placed at risk. Medieval Muslim men’s concerns over women’s bathing practices were part of a broader trend to pinpoint women’s customs as legally suspect, particularly those

50 Lynn Tarte Ramey, Christian, Saracen, and Genre in Medieval French Literature (New York and London, 2001), pp. 35, 45–50; idem, “Role Models? Saracen Women in medieval French Epic,” Romance Notes, 41, no. 2 (2001), 131–141; Jacqueline de Weever, Sheba’s Daughters: Whitening and Demonizing the Saracen Woman in Medieval French Epic (New York and London, 1998), pp. 11, 54–75, 96–100, 119; Sharon Kinoshita, “The Pagans are Wrong and the Christians are Right: Alterity, Gender and Nation in the Chanson de Roland,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31.1 (2001), 79–111.

188

alexandra cuffel

wherein women gathered without benefit of male familial supervision. In his thirteenth-century erotic manual, al-Tīfāshi a judge finds two women engaged in sihāq “at the cemetery of al-Qurāfā, where women gather each week under the pretext of honoring the dead.”51 Ziyāra, the practice of visiting the gravesites of the holy dead, was another instance wherein women often traveled without male company; and similar to their behavior in the ammām where they socialized freely with one another and women of other faiths, and like their bathing in holy pools during Psalm Sunday and Epiphany, these graveyard visits were often condemned as ‘unislamic’. Associating illicit sex between women served as a way discrediting women’s visitation of both ammāmāt and cemeteries. Both Muslim and Christian men also used the presence of women in bathhouses as way of polemicizing against the men of other religions. Usāmah ibn Munqidh’s bathhouse adventures really critique European men and their lack of sexual jealousy or protectiveness. In the European world, women’s bathing and the resulting sexual liaisons proved that Muslim men were too jealous, and that Muslim men and women were physically sick. However, in many instances, these tales of women at the bathhouse also emphasize their beauty and their inaccessibility, either because the bathhouse itself was forbidden to men when the women were there, or because the women wore concealing clothing in public. In such descriptions we have the beginnings of the trends attributed to nineteenth-century orientalism. Ironically enough, by the nineteenth century, Europeans were beginning to laud ‘Turkish’ baths as the new hope for sanitation and health for the poor.52

51 A mad al-Tīfāshī, Nuzhat al-Albāb fīmā lā Yūjad fī Kitāb, ed. Jamāl Jum’a (London, 1992), pp. 238–241; Idem, Les Délices des Coeurs ou ce que l’on ne trouve en aucun livre, trans. René R. Khawam (Paris, 1981), pp. 266–272. 52 Nebahat Avcioglu, “David Urquhart and the Role of Travel Literature in the Introduction of Turkish Baths to Victorian England.” Pp. 69–80.

PART TWO

WATER AND THE FORMATION OF IDENTITY AND POLICY

EARTH AND WATER: THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOVEREIGNTY IN ANCIENT THOUGHT Mark Munn Earth and water are vital to life. As a simple observation, this fact is so self-evident as to require no comment. On the other hand, when a fact of obvious significance is used as a political emblem, it assumes a new level of meaning. When Herodotus names earth and water as tokens of submission demanded by the Persians from their intended subjects,1 these elements invite analysis from the perspective of their historical context. They appear to signify human life, especially the life and livelihood of orderly human communities dependent on agriculture, an order that the Greeks called the oikoumenē, ‘the settled [world]’.2 In this historical context, these tokens are linked to a notion of sovereignty as it was claimed by Persian kings. Outside of the pages of Herodotus, however, scholars have not been able to discover a tradition, Iranian or otherwise, that explicitly identifies earth and water as tokens of submission to sovereign authority.3 Here I propose to explore the background to this political emblem, and to suggest that in demanding earth and water from the Greeks and from other peoples on the western fringe of their empire, the Persians were drawing upon traditions developed especially in Anatolia, the western bastion of their empire, where lifegiving water and the nurturing earth had long been associated with the ideals of sovereignty. These Anatolian traditions were associated with deities and reflected in the cult and myth. As an emblem of submission, ‘earth and water’ is devoid of any explicit association with deities or 1 Herodotus, Historiae 4.126–27, ed. Heinrich Stein, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1877), pp. 111–12; 5.18, 73, 6.48–49, 94, Stein vol. 3, 4th ed. (Berlin, 1882), pp. 17–18, 76–77, 154–55; 7.32, 131–33, Stein vol. 4, 4th ed. (Berlin, 1881), pp. 43–44, 119–21. 2 F. Gisinger, “Oikumene,” in Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 17 (Stuttgart, 1937), cols. 2123–74. For an analysis of the uses of the term, oikoumenē, in the wider context of the issues addressed in this paper, see Mark Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 188–220. 3 See A. Kuhrt, “Earth and Water,” in Achaemenid History, vol. 3, Method and Theory: Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop, ed. A. Kuhrt and H. SancisiWeerdenburg (Leiden, 1988), pp. 87–99.

192

mark munn

with cult. The separation of natural elements from any overt notion of divine agency probably reflects the tendency toward abstraction that characterizes Ionian cosmological thought in the period in which the Persian empire was setting down its roots in Anatolia, in the second half of the sixth century. Divine paradigms were closely connected to these abstract emblems, however, and were familiar to the Greeks and to the other peoples of Anatolia, and must have come to mind whenever the implications of this act of submission were contemplated. Earth and water are fundamental elements in the cosmologies of the ancient Near East and in the cosmogonic thought derived by the Greeks from the Near East. Placing these elements in their proper relationship was the essential task of sovereign creator gods according to various myths of creation. So, the division of cosmic water into an upper realm above the vault of heaven and a lower realm below the earth is second only to the division of light from darkness in the biblical account of Yahweh’s creation.4 The Babylonian creation epic features a similar separation of cosmic waters, personified as Apsu and Tiamat, with the establishment of the vault of heaven and the fundament of the earth by Marduk out of the body of Tiamat.5 Hesiod’s Theogony does not describe a sovereign creator and does not so clearly describe the parting of cosmic waters. Nonetheless, the separation of Gaia, earth, and Ouranos, heaven, lead to the formation of a world conceptually similar to that of the biblical and Babylonian accounts, where springs and rivers that emerge and flow on earth are described as the children of remote and watery Tethys and Okeanos.6 The separation of earth and water in the process of creation appears more explicitly within the Greek tradition in Ionian cosmogony. Thales, according to Aristotle, held that water was the first principle (archē ) of all things, and that earth rests on water.7 Such notions are evidently akin to the concepts

Genesis 1:6–8, The Oxford Study Bible, ed. M. Jack Suggs, Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, and James R. Mueller (New York, 1992), p. 11. 5 “The Creation Epic,” tablet iv, lines 128–46, trans. E.A. Speiser, in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Princeton 1969), p. 67. See also Bendt Alster, “Tiamat,” in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, ed., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1999), pp. 867–69. 6 Hesiod, Theogonia 336–70, ed. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1970), pp. 102–106. 7 Aristotle, de Caelo 2.13, 294a, ed. Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1, 6th ed. (1951; reprint Zurich 1996), p. 77; Metaphysica 1.3, 983b, ed. Diels and Kranz, p. 76. 4

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

193

attributed to Thales’ pupil, Anaximander, who is reported to have said that earth emerged from primordial water in a process of drying.8 As in Hesiod, no divine creator is described as the agent of this process, although the concept of a first principle (archē ) might be seen as the abstraction of the role of such a divinity. It is notable that Plutarch compares the cosmogonic thought of Anaximander to that of those who, like the Syrians, sacrifice to ancestral Poseidon (a reference to El, ‘father of the gods’ and god of primordial waters as he is attested in Ugaritic myth).9 The strongest models of sovereign creators were provided to the Greeks by their eastern neighbors, where institutions of actual sovereign kingship were more highly developed. Turning from cosmologies to the symbols and practices of cult, we find that living kings among the eastern neighbors of the Greeks played active roles, as intercessors between humanity and the gods, in maintaining the orderly and beneficial relationship between earth and water. This was especially true in Anatolia, where the Hittites, in the final century of their Late Bronze Age empire, built impressive monuments that demonstrated the close connection between their notion of kingship and the deities of heaven and of the underworld especially in connection with sources of water. These monuments include two artificial caves constructed at the edge of a set of large artificial reservoirs inside the walls of their capital city, Hattusa. The cultic function of these subterranean chambers is demonstrated by the presence of royal reliefs and a lengthy hieroglyphic Luwian inscription referring to the way to the underworld within one of them.10 Elsewhere in Hittite territory natural springs were embellished by royal inscriptions and cult monuments. The spring at Eflatun Pınar features an imposing sculpted platform with images of the Storm God and his divine consort surrounded by lesser deities supporting winged sun disks (symbols of divinity and of royalty among the Hittites), all supported by the figures of mountain gods with spouts built into their chests from which water once flowed into the pool

Aëtius, Placita 3.16.1, ed. Diels and Kranz, vol. 1, p. 88. Plutarch Quaestionum convivalium 8.8.4 (Moralia 730e), ed. Diels and Kranz, vol. 1, p. 88. El is “of the Sources [of the Floods], in the midst of the Headwaters of the Two Oceans” in “Poems about Baal and Anath,” trans. H.L. Ginsberg, in Pritchard (above, note 5), p. 129. See also Fritz Stolz, “Sea,” in van der Toorn et al. (above, note 5), p. 739. 10 J. David Hawkins, The Hieroglyphic Inscription of the Sacred Pool Complex at Hattusa (Südburg). Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten, Beiheft 3 (Wiesbaden, 1995). 8 9

194

mark munn

(see figure 1).11 At Ivriz, overlooking a powerful spring on the western side of the Taurus Mountains, an eighth-century relief shows the local king, Warpalawa, supplicating the Storm God, Tarhunza, who holds emblems of the fertility of vines and grain along with flowing water in his hands (see figure 2).12 By associating themselves with such potent sources of life, the kings who built these monuments sought to identify their kingship with nature’s beneficence itself. Nature’s beneficence, in turn, was seen as the source of true kingship. The classical Greeks, who generally spurned strong kingship as a form of political sovereignty, nevertheless observed the relationship between sources of water and the true kingship of Zeus. As an infant, Zeus was nurtured in a cave identified with a mountain, Dikte or Ida, and was tended by nymphs.13 These spirits of springs and sources of water are characterized by Hesiod as the “three thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean who are dispersed far and wide, and in every place alike serve the earth and the deep waters, children who are glorious among goddesses.”14 Nymphs, archetypal ‘brides’, personified the nurture and well-being associated with nature’s gift of water. They conjoined the pleasure and goodness of fresh water welling from the earth with the pristine beauty of marriageable maidens, so that life-giving waters were conjoined in meaning with life-generating powers of human fecundity. The conjunction of water sources and the blessing bestowed by divine nymphs formed a rich nexus in Greek art and cult. Beginning at the end of the fifth century, Greek votive reliefs often depict caves where springs rise as places where women could appeal to divine nymphs for

11 See Martin Bachman and Sırrı Özenir, “Das Quellheiligtum Eflatun Pınar,” Archäologischer Anzeiger 2004/1, 85–122, where Hittite ritual springs and water installations elsewhere are also discussed, pp. 118–21. 12 See J. David Hawkins, ed., Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, vol. 1, part 2 (Berlin, 2000), pp. 516–18, for discussion of the Ivriz relief and inscriptions, with bibliography. What Hawkins refers to as the long stems of the ears of wheat held by Tarhunza is here taken to be a stream of water, as it reaches all the way from his upraised hand to the ground at his feet. Illustrations of this relief are also given by Ekrem Akurgal, The Art of the Hittites (New York, 1962), figure 140 and pl. XXIV. 13 Hesiod, Theogonia 477–84, ed. Evelyn-White, p. 114; Apollonius, Argonautica 3.132–34, ed. Robert C. Seaton (1912; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1961), pp. 202–203; Apollodorus, Biblioteca 1.1.6–7, ed. James G. Frazer (1921; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1967), pp. 6–9; Strabo, Geographica 10.3.19, ed. Augustus Meineke (Leipzig, 1877), vol. 2, p. 663. 14 Hesiod, Theogony 364–66, transl. Evelyn-White, pp. 105–107: τρἶ γἆρ ξιιλιαιι ειρσι τανυισφυροι Ωκεανι⌋ναι, αις· ρ∏α πολυσπερειἐ γαι⌋αν καἶ βεινθε α λιιμνἠ πᾳντη ο∏μὠ⌋ ερφειπουσι, θεᾳων αςγλαἆ τιεκνα.

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

Figure 1. Hittite cult monument and spring basin at Eflatun Pınar, thirteenth century B.C.E. (photo: M. Munn).

195

196

mark munn

Figure 2. Neo-Hittite relief of the god, Tarhunza, and the ruler, Warpalawa, at Ivriz, eighth century B.C.E. (photo: M. Munn).

help in marriage, in conception and childbirth, and for the health of their children (see figure 3).15 In some examples, Zeus himself is present, as an archetype of the strong child for whom every mother prayed.16 The example of Zeus and his nurture as an infant in a cave serves also as an archetype for the generation of sovereign authority, divine and human. Legitimate kingship, in this manner of thinking, springs from the earth in the same manner, and same place, as pure water. As the opening chapters of Herodotus’ Histories demonstrate, the kings of Anatolia provided the most impressive models of kingship to generations of Greeks. King Midas of Phrygia, the first foreign king to send gifts to Delphi according to Herodotus, marks the historical horizon of this tradition, according to later Greek memory. 17 Midas ruled at

Jennifer Larson, Greek Nymphs (Oxford, 2001), 226–67. Zeus oversees the gathering of deities and nymphs attending the birth of Dionysus in a cave in a fourth-century relief from the Athenian Agora, inv. no. I 7154. Zeus is shown with Heracles in a smaller gathering at a water source, signified by a head of the river god, Achelous, in a Hellenistic relief in the National Museum at Athens, inv. no. 1778. 17 Herodotus, Historiae 1.14, ed. Stein, p. 19. On the historical Midas, attested in 15 16

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

197

Figure 3. Votive relief showing family of worshippers, left, approaching rock altar and three nymphs, right, in a cave setting overseen by Pan, above, fourth century B.C.E. Athens, National Museum (photo: M. Munn).

the end of the eighth century, and after him came the Lydian kings of Sardis, from Gyges to Croesus. The Lydian kings gave the Greeks the term, tyrannis, for their absolute form of kingship, and inspired Greek tyrants to emulate their model. By the time Croesus was overthrown by Cyrus the Persian in the mid-sixth century, the Greeks were generally on their way to rejecting tyranny as an acceptable form of sovereignty. As Herodotus famously narrates, the Persians eventually demanded the submission of the Greeks to their claims of universal sovereignty. When they did so, I suggest that they did so using symbols of the beneficence of earth and water that were associated with once-admired kingship among the Phrygians and Lydians. Among the Phrygians and Lydians we find cults that celebrated the close bond between fertility and sources of water and the divine forces that sustained rightful kingship. These concepts converge in the Anatolian deity who sometimes appears as a marriageable maiden, related to the nymphs of Greek cult, and who more often appears

Assyrian records, see J. David Hawkins, “Mita,” in Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 8 (Berlin, 1994), pp. 271–73. For later Greek memories of Midas, see Lynn Roller, “The Legend of Midas,” Classical antiquity 2 (1983), 299–313; Margaret Miller, “Midas as the Great King in Attic Fifth-Century Vase Painting,” Antike Kunst 31 (1988), 79–89; Oscar W. Muscarella, “King Midas of Phrygia and the Greeks,” in Anatolia and the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honor of Tahsin Özgüç, ed. K. Emre, B. Hrouda, M. Mellink and N. Özgüç (Ankara, 1989), pp. 333–44; Munn (above, note 2), pp. 66–95.

198

mark munn

in her maternal guise, when she was invoked simply as the Mother. She came to be known to the Greeks as the Mother of the Gods, or Cybele, known to the Phrygians as the Kybeleyan Mother, and to the Lydians as Kybebe.18 The earliest Greek source to comment on the Mother of the Gods is the sixth-century Homeric Hymn to this goddess. The short hymn sings of her love of drums, cymbals, and auloi, as well as the calls of wolves and lions, and the echoing sounds of woodlands. These characteristics are reflected in her iconography in Phrygian, Lydian, and Greek monuments of the seventh, sixth, and fifth centuries, and in the attributes she displays in the classical cult statue of the Mother of the Gods at Athens, where she regularly holds a drum and is accompanied by a lion (see figures 4–5). The boisterous music of her cult is thus associated with the burgeoning of life in nature, and in particular with the most powerful beasts of nature. The presence of water in this woodland setting is indicated in Greek iconography by the phiale, or libation dish, that the Mother also regularly holds and from which she pours (figure 5). In the Anatolian iconography of the Mother, she also regularly holds a water vessel, either a bowl or a pitcher (figure 4). The importance of natural sources of water to the imagery of the Mother in her Anatolian setting is even more strongly indicated by the locations of her cult monuments. In the seventh and sixth centuries, during the heyday of the Lydian empire, numerous small reliefs and large carved facades depicting the Mother standing in a doorway were carved on rock faces in the open countryside, almost always in the vicinity of springs and natural sources of water (see figures 4 and 6). The greatest concentration of such monuments is found in the region known as the Phrygian Highlands, where the sources and tributaries of several western Anatolian rivers are found.19 The setting of these Phrygian and Lydian monuments confirms Greek accounts of her cult, and also explains why the Mother of the Gods was frequently referred to as the Mountain Mother. 18 Lynn Roller, In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele (Berkeley, 1999), provides an excellent survey of the cult of the Mother of the Gods. On her name, Cybele, and its derivation from the older Anatolian cult of Kubaba, see Munn (above, note 2), pp. 120–25. 19 On the monuments of the Phrygian highlands, see R.D. Barnett, “The Phrygian Rock Façades and the Hittite Monuments,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 10 (1953), 78–82; C.H. Emily Haspels, the Highlands of Phrygia, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1971); Susanne Berndt-Ersöz, Phrygian Rock-Cut Shrines: Structure, Function, and Cult Practice (Leiden, 2006).

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

199

Figure 4. Phrygian Cult relief showing Matar (the Phrygian Mother) in an architectural façade, holding a water pitcher and a bird of prey, seventh or sixth century B.C.E., from Ankara (drawing: M. Munn).

200

mark munn

Figure 5. Mother of the Gods enthroned in a naiskos (architectural façade), holding a libation dish and a tympanon (drum), with a lion on her lap and at her side, attended by worshippers, fourth century B.C.E. Athens, National Museum (photo: M. Munn).

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

201

Figure 6. The Midas Monument, and architectural façade dedicated to Midas, named in an inscription above the façade, with a central niche to accommodate a movable statue of the Phrygian Mother, who is named in inscriptions within the niche, first half of the sixth century B.C.E. (photo: M. Munn).

202

mark munn

Figure 7. Map of western Anatolia, showing mountains associated with the Mother of the Gods (map: M. Munn).

Greek authors attest that the Mother of the Gods was regularly identified with particular mountains, all of them in western Anatolia (see figure 7). She is called the Idaean Mother after Mount Ida in the Troad,20 a mountain “of many springs,” according to Homer, and “the mother of wild beasts”.21 She is invoked on Mount Tmolus above Sardis, the source of the gold-bearing Pactolus river.22 She is called the Mother Sipylene after Mount Sipylus above Smyrna, where she was identified with the eroded image of an enthroned goddess overlooking a spring,

20 Euripides, Orestes 1453, ed. Arthur S. Way (London, 1912), p. 250; Apollonius, Argonautica 1.1128, ed. Seaton, pp. 80–81. 21 Iliad 8.47, 14.283, 15.151, ed. David B. Monro and Thomas W. Allen, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (1920; reprint Oxford, 1969); Homeric Hymn 5, To Aphrodite 68, ed. EvelynWhite, p. 411. 22 Sophocles, Philoctetes 391–402, ed. A.C. Pearson (1924; reprint Oxford, 1967); Euripides, Bacchae 55–65, ed. Arthur S. Way (London, 1919), pp. 8–10.

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

203

an image that was carved in the late Bronze Age (figure 8).23 And she is called the Dindymene Mother after several mountains named Dindymus from central Phrygia to the Hellespont, the most significant being the mountain identified with the Mother by Herodotus as the source of the Hermus river that flows across Lydia past Sardis.24 The flood plain of the Hermus river in front of Sardis included a great lake, the Gygaean lake (figure 9), which Herodotus mentions as one of the wonders of Lydia for the fact that it never dries up.25 Its waters, by implication, were believed to have been there since time immemorial, a quality that can explain why the Lydians especially revered this lake. A distinctive cult of Lydian Artemis was connected with the Gygaean lake (we will see shortly that Artemis has a special role in Anatolia as an avatar of the Mother of the Gods).26 Homer mentions the Gygaean lake below Mount Tmolus as a distinctive feature of the land of the Maeonian warriors (that is, the Lydians) who fought with the Trojans. In the Homeric catalog, in book 2 of the Iliad, the leaders of the Maeonians are said to have been born from the lake itself.27 Belief in the life-generating qualities of these primeval waters might also explain why the greatest burial ground of the Lydians, the area known today as Bin Tepe, ‘the Thousand Mounds’, was located by the shore of this lake. Conspicuous among these burial mounds are the royal tumuli of the Lydian kings, including the tumulus of Alyattes, also noticed by Herodotus (figure 9).28 The Lydians evidently believed that, after life, their kings and heroes should be interred beside the waters that originally gave them life. Thales of Miletus, a contemporary and subject of the greatest Lydian kings, Alyattes and Croesus, believed that burial (as opposed to cremation) of a body was the appropriate

23 Strabo, Geographica 10.3.12, ed. Meineke, vol. 2, p. 659; cf. Pausanias, Periegesis Graeciae 3.22.4, 5.13.7, ed. W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Ormerod (1926; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1966), vol. 2, pp. 138–39, 452–55. The original identity of this enthroned figure is uncertain, but it has been compared with the divinities accompanying other Hittite spring shrines as noted above; see Hans G. Güterbock, “Notes on Some Hittite Monuments,” Anatolian Studies 6 (1956), pp. 53–54. 24 Herodotus, Historiae 1.80, ed. Stein, vol. 1, p. 97; Arrian, Anabasis 5.6.4, ed. C. Abicht (Leipzig, 1899), p. 208; cf. Apollonius, Argonautica 1.1125, ed. Seaton, pp. 80–81; Strabo 12.5.3, ed. Meineke, vol. 2, p. 797. 25 Herodotus, Historiae 1.93, ed. Stein, vol. 1, p. 115. 26 Strabo, Geographica 13.4.5–7, ed. Meineke, vol. 3, pp. 875–77. 27 Iliad 2.865, cf. 20.391, ed. Monro Allen. 28 Herodotus 1.93, ed. Stein, vol. 1, p. 114.

204

mark munn

Figure 8. Hittite enthroned deity overlooking spring on Mount Sipylus, thirteenth century B.C.E., later identified as the Mother of the Gods (photo: R. Munn).

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

205

Figure 9. View from the Acropolis of Sardis north across the Hermus river to the tumulus of Alyattes, in the area of Bin Tepe, and the Gygaean lake beyond (photo courtesy of Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr.).

206

mark munn

way to resolve it back to its watery origins.29 The tumulus field beside the Gygaean lake is a place where the regenerative cycles of water and life might have seemed evident to Thales. In fact, Lydian ideology may well underlie the famous notion of Thales that water was the first principle (archē ), source of generation (sperma), and nourishment (trophē ) for all things.30 A generation after Thales, another Ionian philosopher, Xenophanes of Colophon, is quoted as saying that “all things that come into existence and grow are earth and water.”31 The same concept of elemental creation is reflected in the myth that Prometheus had formed mankind out of “water and earth.” Prometheus, according to Greek sources, was either the husband or the son of the eponym of Asia, so it is clear that Prometheus was commonly understood to have performed his act of creation on Asian soil; and Lydia was the heart of what the Greeks traditionally called Asia.32 The cultic and ideological traditions of Mermnad Lydia evidently had a strong impact on the formation of archaic Greek theogonic myth and Ionian science. Among Greeks, belief in the power of the Mountain Mother to generate kingship is demonstrated by her common identification with Rhea, the mother of Zeus.33 But the Mother of the Gods was also identified as the mother of worldly sovereignty through a tradition that identified her as the mother of the Phrygian king Midas.34 Although the surviving literary sources that refer to the Mother of the Gods as the mother of Midas are no earlier than Plutarch, the antiquity of the tradition seems to be confirmed by the Old Phrygian inscriptions on the Midas Monument, the most famous of the rock cut facades in the Phrygian highlands (figure 6). The inscription at the top of the façade

Servius ad Aen. 11.186, ed. Diels and Kranz, vol. 1, p. 77. Aristotle Metaphysics 1.3, 983b, ed. Diels and Kranz, vol. 1, pp. 76–77; Plutarch de Iside et Orsiride 34 (Moralia 364d), ed. Diels and Kranz, p. 76. 31 Simplicius In Aristotelis Physica commentaria 188.32, ed. Diels Kranz, vol. 1, p. 136. 32 Herodotus 4.45, ed. Stein, vol. 2, pp. 46–47; cf. Apollodorus Biblioteca 1.7.1, ed. James G. Frazer, vol. 1, pp. 50–53. 33 Euripides Bacchae 59–128, ed. Way, pp. 10–15; Apollonius Argonautica 1.1125–51, ed. Seaton, pp. 80–81; Strabo 10.3.19–20, ed. Meineke, vol. 2, pp. 663–664; cf. Sophocles Philoctetes 391–92, ed. Pearson. 34 Plutarch Caesar 9.3, ed. Bernadotte Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives vol. 7 (1919; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1967), pp. 462–63; Hesychius s.v. Mi/da qeo/j, ed. M. Schmidt (1861; repre. Amsterdam, 1965), vol. 3, p. 108; Suda s.v. eÓlegoj qrhÍnoj, ed. Ada Adler (Stuttgart, 1967), vol. 1, part 2, p. 241. 29 30

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

207

records the dedication of this monument to Midas, who is given the title Wanax, or Lord. Fragmentary inscriptions within the doorway of the façade, where a statue of the Mother once stood, name both the Mother and Midas.35 The divine Mother, as she was known to the Phrygians and the Lydians (during whose heyday these monuments were created), was therefore she who nourished the earth with life-giving waters, and she who engendered kings. The symbols that she holds in her better preserved reliefs represent both of these gifts together (see figure 4). She holds the water vessel in one hand, as we have already noticed, and in the other hand she holds a bird of prey, an eagle or a hawk, either of which were a common symbol of sovereignty. A particular type of hawk, in fact, was sacred to the Mother of the Gods, according to Aelian in his De Natura Animalium. It was called mermnos, he reports, and this is certainly related to the dynastic name of the Lydian kings, the Mermnads.36 When the Lydian kingdom was conquered by Cyrus the Persian, in the mid-sixth century, sovereignty over these lands and the symbols of that sovereignty passed into the custody of the Persians. There are several indications that the Persians took a serious interest in the cultic ideology of sovereignty in Anatolia. The clearest evidence is the testimony by Herodotus that the Persians, in their reaction to the Ionian Revolt at the beginning of the fifth century, justified their burning of the sanctuaries of the Greeks specifically because the Ionians, led by the Athenians, had burned the sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods at Sardis (whom Herodotus identifies by her Lydian name, Kybebe).37 Evidence that Anatolian ideology was capable of influencing even the henotheistic theology of Persian Zoroastrianism is found in the development of the cult of the goddess Anahita. Anahita, whose name means ‘Pure’ or ‘Untainted’, was most often identified by the Greeks as Artemis. But she was also identified as Aphrodite, a combination of identifications that she shared with the Mother of the Gods, and that demonstrates the role of this divinity as the archetype of divine nymphs: a pure virgin and most desirable bride. Her cult became widely 35 On the Midas Monument, see Susanne Berndt-Ersöz (above, note 19), 232–34. On the inscriptions on this monument, see Claude Brixhe and Michel Lejeune, Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes, vol. 1 (Paris, 1984), M-01. 36 Aelian De Natura Animalium 12.4, ed. A.F. Schofield (1959; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1972), vol. 3, pp. 12–13. 37 Herodotus 5.102, ed. Stein, vol. 3, p. 108. On the identity of Kybebe with the Mother of the Gods, see Munn (above, note 2), pp. 120–125.

208

mark munn

established across the Persian empire in the time of Artaxerxes II, but Anahita was best known to the Greeks from her worship at Sardis.38 Unlike the Anatolian Mother, whose cult is known to us second-hand through Greek sources, Anahita is known to us through Avestan hymns that describe her as her devotees saw her. Here I quote from the opening of one of these hymns that addresses the goddess by the full form of her names, Aredwi Sura Anahita (Moist, Strong, Untainted), and praises her in the words understood as spoken by the supreme god, Ahuramazda, to his prophet, Zoroaster:39 On my account, O Zarathustra, worship her, Aredwi Sura Anahita who spreads abroad, [who] is healing [. . .] who is worthy to be worshipped by the material world [and] worthy to be praised by the material world, who is a crop-increasing ashawan [manifestation of truth], a herd-increasing ashawan, and ashawan who makes the country prosper, who purifies the semen of all males, who purifies for conception the womb of all females, who gives easy delivery to all females, who gives milk to all females regularly and at the proper time; [worship her,] the vast, famed from afar, who is as great as all these waters which flow forth upon the earth, who forcefully flows forth from Mount Hukairya [the cosmic mountain] to the Wouru kasha sea [the cosmic sea]. [. . . She is] strong, regal, tall, beautiful, in whom flow down by day and by night as many falling waters as all the waters which flow forth on the earth. She who is strong flows forth! On account of her rayi [opulence, or might] and glory, I shall worship her with audible prayer, I shall worship her with well-recited prayer, Aredwi Sura Anahita, with libations. Thus may you be directed by [this] invocation, thus may you be better worshipped, O Aredwi Sura Anahita.

The attributes of Anahita in this hymn present an exemplary description of the features of the Mother of the Gods as she was known at Sardis, as she was worshipped according to what Greek sources describe as Phrygian and Lydian custom. In response to appropriate veneration, she makes crops and herds prosper, and she promotes human fertility. She is even worshipped by the supreme god himself, thereby showing

38 Plutarch Artaxerxes 27.3, ed. Bernadotte Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives vol. 11 (1926; reprint Cambridge, Mass., 1994), pp. 192–93; Xenophon Anabasis 1.6.7, ed. E.C. Marchant (Oxford, 1904); Pausanias 3.16.8, ed. Jones and Ormerod, vol. 2, pp. 100–101; 7.6.6, vol. 3, pp. 202–203; Berossus, FGrHist 680 F 11, ed. Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, vol. 1, part 3 (Leiden, 1958), p. 394. 39 Yasht 5, to Aredwi Sura Anahita, stanzas 1–3 and 15, modified translation of William Malandra, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion: Readings from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions (Minneapolis, 1983), p. 120.

the foundations of sovereignty in ancient thought

209

the king on earth the role that he too must play. Like the Mother of the Gods, who was associated with rivers and whose cult was observed at rock-cut shrines near springs in the Phrygian highlands, the beneficence of Anahita is closely linked with the flow of life-sustaining water from the earth. These were the ideological underpinnings of the Persian rhetoric of sovereignty which they announced to the Greeks, in the time of Darius I, in their demand for the submission of tokens of earth and water. This symbolism was specific to Lydia and Phrygia, whence evidently it was adopted by the Persians. For no Avestan text describes earth and water in such a way, nor does any Old Persian text. This symbolism was familiar to the Greeks, both through their familiarity with the cults practiced under the sovereign sway of the Lydians, and through the rationalizations of Ionian cosmologists like Thales and Xenophanes, who speculated on the essential qualities of earth and water. Significantly, Herodotus attests that this demand was made by Darius, and later by Xerxes, only of peoples who lived across the waters from the shores of Asia. Darius first makes this demand of the Scythians, later of the Macedonians, and finally of the Greeks on the islands and the European mainland.40 The very time in which these tokens were being demanded was the time in which the great world map of Hecataeus of Miletus was being displayed. This was a map that showed to the Greeks and to the people of Hecataeus’ Anatolian homeland that the world was divided into two great continents, Europe and Asia.41 After the Ionian Revolt was crushed, Persian rulership over Asia was unquestioned as far as the Greeks were concerned. But whether Persian sovereignty rightfully extended over the entire earth, as Persian rhetoric claimed, or whether it was properly limited to the soil of Asia, was an open question. By their demand that all peoples across the sea bring them tokens of earth and water, the Persians, under Darius and Xerxes, were asserting the unity of the earth and of their sovereignty over it. They were also making this demand, I believe, in the name of the deity who personified the life-giving forces of earth and water, the goddess known to the Greeks as the Mother of the Gods. The Greeks, or at least the Spartans and the Athenians among the Greeks, were prepared

See note 1, above. Herodotus 5.49, ed. Stein, vol. 3, p. 44. For further discussion of Hecataeus’ map, see Munn (above, note 2), 213–20. 40 41

210

mark munn

to reject the Persian demands and were vindicated through their victory over Xerxes. In rejecting the Persian demands, the Greeks were also rejecting the deity in whose name it was being made—the Mother of the Gods, probably invoked by her Lydian name, Kybebe.42 Although in the later fifth century the Greeks and Persians were reconciled in political terms, the gap between them in religious ideology remained an awkward one. Although the Greeks honored her, the Mother of the Gods was always treated as in some sense a foreign deity, at home in the mountains of Anatolia, the land of kingship and tyranny.

42

See Herodotus 5.102, ed. Stein, vol. 3, p. 108.

THE LEGACY OF HADRIAN: ROMAN MONUMENTAL CIVIC FOUNTAINS IN GREECE Brenda Longfellow After Greece came under Roman control in 196 B.C., successive Roman administrations largely allowed urban spaces in this region to develop with little intervention for over three hundred years, until the reign of the emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). Hadrian, who was educated in Athens, took special interest in the cultural heritage of Greece. His philhellenism is well documented, from his mastery of Attic speech, to his Athenian citizenship, to his attendance at the Eleusinian Mysteries.1 Hadrian studied Greek achievements in such areas as music, art, and geometry, the latter of which influenced the direction of architectural design during his reign.2 While emperor, Hadrian returned to the region at least three times, and his initiation of numerous civic building projects, including aqueducts and monumental civic fountains, or nymphaea, gave physical form to his philhellenism. Indeed, Hadrian’s sponsorship of large-scale hydraulic projects should be understood within the context of his larger pattern of imperial euergetism, which was aimed at improving the economic and cultural lives of the populace of Roman Greece.3 His unparalleled assistance took the form of tax relief, land redistribution, civic titles, sanction of civic festivals, and building projects that were so inclusive that Pausanias offered the Megarians, who are portrayed in Old Comedy as stupid and vulgar, as the only people in Greece whose economic situation not even Hadrian could improve.4

Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Hadian, 1, 5 (hereafter cites as SHA, Hadr.). John Day, An Economic History of Athens under Roman Domination (New York, 1942), p. 184; Donald J. Geagan, “Roman Athens: Some Aspects of Life and Culture I. 86 B.C.–A.D. 267,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 7, no. 1 (1979), p. 389. 2 David M. Jacobson, “Hadrianic Architecture and Geometry,” American Journal of Archaeology 90 (1986), pp. 69–85. 3 Cf. Paul Graindor, Athènes sous Hadrien (Le Caire, 1934); Geagan, “Roman Athens,” pp. 392–8; Dietrich Willers, Hadrians panhellenisches Programm. Archäologische Beiträge zur Neugestaltung Athens durch Hadrian (Basel, 1990). 4 Paus. 1.36.3. Also see Mary T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire (Princeton, 2000) for the range and extent of Hadrian’s assistance to cities throughout the provinces. 1

212

brenda longfellow

Of all his initiatives, Hadrian’s hydraulic projects produced the most dramatic changes to Greek urban spaces. The introduction of Roman aqueducts altered not only the appearance of cities and the surrounding environs, but also the amenities available for public use and the quality of day-to-day existence. For the first time, inhabitants of the region experienced the convenience of copious amounts of swiftly moving water feeding a network of public fountains, baths, and latrines before flushing away the sewage. Under Hadrian, Roman aqueducts were built to serve the communities of Argos, Corinth, Athens, and Coronea in Achaea, Dyrrachium in Epirus or Macedonia, and, perhaps, Sparta in Achaea, Nikopolis in Epirus, and Dion in Macedonia (figure 1).5 Inhabitants of at least two cities in the province of Achaea—Argos and Athens—could retrieve water at terminal nymphaea constructed on a scale commensurate with that of the aqueducts. Such fountains mark the junction between aqueduct and city and are unlike any previous artistic water display in Greece. This essay will suggest that these innovative edifices were part of a concerted effort to foster a new relationship between the emperor and the inhabitants of Greece. The placement and appearance of the Hadrianic nymphaea drew upon Greek architectural and cultural traditions in order both to connect the imperial gift with the local populace and to emphasize the claim of Rome over Greek heritage. These new cultural markers, however, elicited a surprising response of the Greek elites, who appear to have appropriated the Roman monumental fountain form for their own purposes. Prior to the reign of Hadrian, the most famous fountains of Greece were the monumental fountains built during the Late Archaic and Classical periods, including the Enneakrounos in Athens and the Peirene 5 Argos: W. Vollgraff, “Inscriptions d’Argos,” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 68 (1944–45), pp. 391–403; Corinth: Paus. 2.3.5 and 8.22.3; Yannis Lolos, “The Hadrianic Aqueduct of Corinth (with an Appendix on the Roman Aqueducts in Greece),” Hesperia 66, no. 2 (1997), 271–314; Athens: CIL 3.549 = ILS 337, Shawna Leigh, The Aqueduct of Hadrian and the Water Supply of Roman Athens (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1998); Coronea: SEG 32.460, Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire, p. 112; Dyrrachium: CIL 3.709, Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire, p. 112. Paul Cartledge and Antony Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, a Tale of Two Cities, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 2002), pp. 109, 130, Appendix I.3 tentatively link the aqueduct at Sparta to Hadrian. Susan Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece (Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1979), pp. 144–6 suggests a Hadrianic date for the aqueduct at Nikopolis based on brickwork, design, and numismatic evidence. Leigh, The Aqueduct of Hadrian and the Water Supply of Roman Athens, p. 102 reports that the finds associated with the end of the Dion aqueduct may suggest a Hadrianic/Antonine date for its construction.

the legacy of hadrian

213

Figure 1. Provinces of Achaea, Epirus, and Macedonia with the cities that may have received Hadrianic aqueducts (A. Wilburn).

214

brenda longfellow

and Glauke fountains in Corinth. The fame of these fountains stems not only from their architecture, but also from their evocative placement in the landscape and the physical links that they provided to historical rulers and memorable events in the mythical past. The Enneakronous, named for its nine spouts, was built by the tyrant Peisistratus, who seized power first around 566 B.C. and then successfully ruled Athens from about 545 to 527 B.C. Fed by the Kallirrhoe springs and built near the bed of the Ilissos River, the Enneakronous was the only Athenian landmark depicted on Attic black-figured hydrias and noted by Thucydides (2.16.4–5). Pausanias (1.14.1) also notes the Enneakronous, although, as will be discussed below, he erroneously identifies it with the Southeast Fountain House in the Athenian Agora (figure 2). In Corinth, the Peirene fountain marked the place where the Corinthian hero Bellerophon tamed the untamable Pegasus while the Glauke fountain, so named for the Corinthian bride horrifically murdered by Medea, provided a visceral reminder of the primacy of Corinth and the Corinthians in the Greek mythical past.6 The intervening centuries between the last of the Classical fountains and the first of the Hadrianic nymphaea saw only a dozen new civic fountains built on the mainland of Greece, none of which rivaled the fame or appearance of their earlier counterparts.7 In Athens and Corinth, these fountains were invariably one element in a larger building complex, usually a stoa. Post-Classical, pre-Hadrianic civic fountains typically were overtly functional in architectural design: small and narrow roofed basins framed by three ashlar walls and fronted by an ashlar parapet wall. This design, which also was standard in Asia Minor, allowed civic residents to draw the slow moving water directly

6 See Betsey Ann Robinson, Fountains and the Culture of Water at Roman Corinth (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2001) and Betsey Ann Robinson, “Fountains and the Formation of Cultural Identity at Roman Corinth,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Daniel Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen (Cambridge, MA, 2005), pp. 111–40, for discussions of the Corinthian fountains and their symbolic places in the cityscape. 7 Sandrine Agusta-Boularot, “Fontaines et fontaines monumentales en Grèce de la conquête romaine à l’époque flavienne: permanence ou renouveau architectural?,” in Constructions publiques et programmes édilitaires en Grèce entre le II e s. av. J.-C. et le I e s. ap. J.-C. (Actes du colloque organisé par l’école française d’athènes et le CNRS, May 1995), ed. Jean-Yves Marc, Jean-Charles Moretti, and Didier Viviers (Athens and Paris, 2001), pp. 167–236; Shawna Leigh, “A Survey of the Early Roman Hydraulics in Athens,” in Water Use and Hydraulics in the Roman City, ed. Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow (Dubuque, IA, 2001), p. 26.

the legacy of hadrian

215

Figure 2. Plan of southeast corner of the Classical Agora, Athens (American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations).

216

brenda longfellow

from the basin or from spouts set into the parapet.8 Due to being part of a larger complex, the fountain’s water tended to be hidden from the view of passersby. Research on these fountains undertaken by Agusta-Boularot indicates that many Late Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic fountains were repeatedly repaired through the Hellenistic period. These repairs allowed the fountains to function well into the Roman period and indicate that the Greek cities maintained their water systems even during periods of economic hardship. At the same time, the absence of new hydraulic installations during these centuries suggests that the preexisting systems were sufficient for the perceived needs of the communities even during periods of economic prosperity.9 Only with Hadrian’s personal interest in the well-being of the Achaeans did the existing Greek hydraulic systems experience major overhauls and transformations. The introduction of the Roman aqueduct to the region and the resulting increase in available running water should have revolutionized how Greeks thought about their water supply and the role of urban amenities, including fountains. In the province of Achaea, three nymphaea are securely associated with Hadrianic projects: the Larissa nymphaeum, which was the terminal nymphaeum for an aqueduct in Argos that was dedicated in A.D. 124 (figures 3 and 4),10 the Lykabettos nymphaeum, which was the terminal fountain for the aqueduct in Athens begun by Hadrian and completed by Antoninus Pius in A.D. 140 (figure 5),11 and the nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Classical Agora, which was a component of the urban hydraulic system in Athens that first flowed through the

8 Prior to the Hadrianic period, fewer new aqueducts were built than fountains. Following the construction of the fourth-century B.C. aqueduct that fed the Athenian agora, only a single new aqueduct is known before the reign of Hadrian. This short pipeline dates between A.D. 60 and 80 and supplies the Early Imperial hydraulic installations in the Argive agora. For information on the Argive aqueduct see Patrick Marchetti and Kostas Kolokotasa, Le nymphée de l’agora d’argos. Fouille, étude architecturale et historique., Études Péloponnésiennes XI (Paris, 1995). For information on the aqueduct see John Camp, The Water Supply of Ancient Athens from 3000 to 86 B.C. (Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1977), pp. 130–33 and Leigh, “A Survey of the Early Roman Hydraulics in Athens,” p. 68. 9 Agusta-Boularot, “Fontaines et fontaines monumentales en Grèce,” pp. 231– 236. 10 For a discussion of the inscription that provides the date for the edifice see Vollgraff, “Inscriptions d’Argos,” pp. 397–400. 11 CIL 3.549 = ILS 337.

the legacy of hadrian

217

Figure 3. Plan of the Larissa Nymphaeum, Argos (after Vollgraff, “Fouilles et sondages sur le flanc oriental de la Larissa,” 517, Abb. 1).

Lykabettos nymphaeum (figure 6).12 These three nymphaea seem to make visual references to one another, with the placement and appearance of the Lykabettos nymphaeum echoing that of the earlier Larissa nymphaeum, and the nymphaeum in the Classical Agora monumentalizing the Italian curvilinear forms found in the earlier two. In traditional Greek religion, a nymph usually protects each freshwater spring, and this nymph is often honored in a rustic grotto near the water source. What is particularly interesting about the Larissa and Lykabettos nymphaea is that they emphasize the rustic, sacral origins 12

Leigh, The Aqueduct of Hadrian and the Water Supply of Roman Athens, p. 221.

218

brenda longfellow

Figure 4. Larissa Nymphaeum., Argos.

of the water flowing into the Roman fountains, although these manmade fountains are conveniently sited within the urban landscape. For instance, the Larissa nymphaeum, which is the better preserved of the two, imitates a sacred grotto sheltering a mountain spring. Cut fourteen meters into the slope of the hill that serves as the Argive acropolis, this fountain is on a much larger scale than any Greek civic fountain built since the long-venerated Glauke fountain in Corinth. The Larissa nymphaeum takes a different architectural form than that the traditional Greek fountain form, yet this innovative structure makes deliberate reference to traditional Greek religion. Partly cut into the rock and partly constructed in brick masonry, the nymphaeum consists of a roughly quadrangular barrel vaulted structure that terminates in an axial apsidal niche cut into the back wall.13 This vaulted rectangular hall terminating in an apse is an architectural form

Front façade width: 15.50 meters. Back facade width: 10.12 meters. Side wall length: 12.55 meters. The beginnings of the barrel vault are partly preserved above the south, north, and west walls. Lateral buttresses, which provided support for the barrel vault, are set three meters back from the façade and along the exterior of both side 13

the legacy of hadrian

219

Figure 5. Façade of the modern purification basin built over the remains of the Lykabettos Nymphaeum, Athens. Note the two Ionic column bases from the Lykabettos Nymphaeum.

220

brenda longfellow

Figure 6. Current reconstruction of the Nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Classical Agora, Athens (American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations).

previously limited to fountains associated with Italian residences like the Small Nymphaeum in the so-called Villa of Cicero at Formia and the Grotta di Paris at San Vitorino. The walls are extraordinarily well built, and the entire complex is thoughtfully planned and executed. For instance, the rock surface of the lateral walls is shaped so that it rises towards the back wall in a rhythmic sequence of steps. Above the rock, the lateral walls are composed of one-meter thick brick-faced concrete.14 Approximately eight meters above the level of the floor, a sequence of small windows is cut into the lateral walls; these windows provide a diffuse source of light for the barrel-vaulted interior. Two settling basins fill the interior and the dividing wall between them is bridged by a seven-stepped water staircase, the earliest known

walls; W. Vollgraff, “Fouilles et sondages sur le flanc oriental de la Larissa,” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 82 (1958), 541. 14 Ibid., 541.

the legacy of hadrian

221

example of a water staircase in Greece, but a common feature of Roman fountains since the late first century A.D. This unusual interior space is fronted by a columnar façade that recalls a traditional Greek temple facade. The rear settling basin is completely carved out of the rock, and the roughly hewn surfaces of its floor, lateral and back walls are left exposed, emphasizing the grotto-like nature of the monument. The effect contrasts with that produced by the front settling basin, where the rocky surfaces of the floor, lateral, and front walls are covered with a thick layer of concrete and faced with marble, as would be expected in a Hadrianic monument. The dividing wall between the basins and water staircase are also revetted in marble. The Roman opulence showcased with the marble veneer in the front basin and the Roman ingenuity highlighted by the water staircase deliberately contrast with the rough stone surface of the rear basin directly behind. One effect of this deliberate disparity is that the viewer’s eye is drawn further and further back into the shadowy depths of the manmade cave. The play of diffuse light on the water, and its sound as it cascaded down the stairs and echoed in the vaulted space, further engaged the senses, focusing the viewer’s attention as the eye sought the source of the water. The back wall, which is almost entirely carved out of the living rock, is nearly two meters thick. The thickness of the back wall is necessary to support the barrel vault of the roof and the water conduit, which enters from the north and terminates at the axial apsidal niche in the back wall.15 The niche probably was framed by marble colonnettes, fragments of which were found in the settling basin below.16 The floor of the niche has a rectangular depression, which indicates that it probably held the white marble torso of a colossal statue that also was recovered from the rear settling basin (plate 1).17 The massive size of the statue, as well as the absence of any other logical candidates, suggests that this over life-size figure is one of Hadrian.18 The torso is heroically nude, with a chlamys enveloping the upper left arm. Traces of a red fillet are visible on the shoulders, indicating the presence of a crown or wreath.19 Fragments of a sword were found in the west basin,

Diameter of niche: 2.15 meters Ibid., 541. Ibid., 545. 17 Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 99. 18 The remains of the statue measure 1.93 meters in height. Vollgraff, “Fouilles et sondages sur le flanc oriental de la Larissa,” 550. 19 Ibid., 553. 15 16

Plate 1. Two views of the colossal statue recovered from the Larissa Nymphaeum, Argos (photos taken by B. Longfellow with the permission of the Fourth Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities).

222 brenda longfellow

the legacy of hadrian

223

and the angle of the right shoulder suggests that the figure carried this weapon upright in the right hand.20 The iconography for the heroic armed and nude statue, representing imperial command of the legions, is well known for imperial statues from the Augustan to the Aurelian period, including six other statues of Hadrian himself.21 The union of imperial munificence with traditional Greek religion is underlined by the dramatic interaction between the water and the statue. The conduit for the Larissa nymphaeum, which brought water to the fountain from the aqueduct, entered the back wall and plummeted just over 1.6 meters immediately prior to entering the apsidal niche.22 This drop caused the water to dramatically burst forth into the niche holding the colossal, heroically nude statue of Hadrian. Standing in front of the temple-like façade of the fountain,23 viewers could peer into the shadowy depths of the fountain to see the statue of the imperial donor set within the rushing torrent of the inexhaustible fountain that supplied a series of Roman hydraulic installations throughout “thirsty Argos,” a city memorialized in Homeric epic for its lack of water.24 The architecture of the Larissa nymphaeum simultaneously evokes the memory of Classical Greek grottos of the nymphs and the enormous fountains built by emperors in the heart of Rome. Furthermore, the Larissa nymphaeum unites elements of the Roman imperial cult with local Argive cultural heritage. Throughout the Roman empire, Hadrianic nymphaea were placed in historically and religiously significant places. Here at Argos, the nymphaeum is axially aligned with a staircase that once led to the Archaic Kriterion, which was the legendary law court of Argos. Pausanias (2.20.5) reports that the sanctuary of the river god Kephisos stood in front of the Kriterion, and archaeological investigation has uncovered two sanctuaries on terraces to the south of the nymphaeum.25 By appropriating this space and creating an architectural

Ibid., 551. Christopher Hallett, The Roman Nude: Heroic Portrait Statuary 200 B.C.–A.D. 300 (Oxford and New York, 2005), Appendix B, nos. 148–153. 22 Vollgraff, “Fouilles et sondages sur le flanc oriental de la Larissa,” p. 541. 23 Vollgraff’s find of an Ionic capital on the site led to his reconstruction of a tetrastyle Ionic façade for the edifice (Ibid., pp. 542–5). This part of his reconstruction has been accepted by Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 102 and Franz Glaser, Antike Brunnenbauten (KPHNAI) in Griechenland (Vienna, 1983), pp. 89–90. 24 “Aye, and as one most despised should I return to thirsty Argos . . .” Hom. Il. 4.170, trans. A.T. Murray (Cambridge, MA, 1999), p. 165. 25 Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 98. 20

21

224

brenda longfellow

form that echoes that of Greek sanctuaries to water divinities, Hadrian’s nymphaeum forges an ideological link between the semi-divine supply of water and imperial munificence. Here, the emperor was visually and physically linked to the divinities of the water supply.26 By greatly increasing the amount of water available to the residents of Argos, and its placement above the shrine of Kephisos, this edifice suggests that the power and prestige of the Roman emperor surpassed even that of the water divinities of Greece. At Argos, the juncture of Roman monumentality and Greek sacral grottos of the nymphs yielded a new architectural form within the urban landscape. The architectural form of the innovative Larissa nymphaeum is repeated in the slightly later Lykabettos nymphaeum in Athens. This monument has only recently been recognized as a nymphaeum,27 largely due to the absence of a superstructure that would have indicated its function. A modern purification basin now sits on top of the ancient edifice, so little of the ancient monument is visible today beyond the two Ionic bases and two steps preserved in front of the modern edifice. Before the modern building was built, engineers excavated the ancient edifice and patterned the modern building on the ancient, making use of the original rock-cuttings.28 The ancient monument was a barrel-vaulted reservoir divided into three aisles and terminating in a single axial apse.29 The reservoir was fronted by an Ionic temple façade. This monument’s repetition of the basic form of the Larissa nymphaeum suggests that this monument type was deemed particularly appropriate for Roman Greece. For, none of the other civic fountains associated with Hadrian throughout the Mediterranean either use this form or closely repeat the form of another Hadrianic fountain. Both the Larissa and Lykabetos nymphaea were located on prominent hillsides. This location allowed the water flowing through the fountain to acquire a good head before feeding the hydraulic network in the civic arena below. This location also permitted the monument to serve multiple purposes within the ideological scheme of the emperor. The elevated locations, coupled with the massive size of these nymphaea, gave 26 Walker The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 105, suggests that the Argos nymphaeum is an imperial adaptation of the shrine of Kephisos. 27 Shawna Leigh, “The ‘Reservoir’ of Hadrian in Athens,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997), pp. 279–90, was the first to identify the edifice as a nymphaeum. 28 Ibid., 284–6. 29 Internal length of the ancient building: c. 24.5 meters; internal floor width: c. 10 meters. Ibid., p. 281.

the legacy of hadrian

225

each monument a commanding view of the surrounding landscape, and perhaps even made the structure visible from the civic center, an omnipresent reminder of the munificence of Hadrian. Because little is known of the ancient topography of Lykabettos hill, it is not possible to reconstruct the nymphaeum’s environs or its neighboring edifices. Yet its architectural similarities to the Larissa Nymphaeum suggest that it too was built in order to be seen and recognized as melding Greek and Roman forms in the local landscape. The Lykabettos nymphaeum served as the terminus for the extraurban monumental aqueduct constructed by Hadrian and completed by his successor, Antoninus Pius. The water from the ancient aqueduct tunnel still enters the modern building at the back wall of the axial niche, indicating that, like the Larissa nymphaeum, the water entered the ancient monument at the axial apse.30 Lead pipes carried the water from the nymphaeum into the lower city, where it was divided into three branches, one of which terminated at a nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Classical Agora. Hadrian’s gift of a new water supply system to Athens does not seem to have been related to a drought or to an ongoing shortage in the water supply system, the later of which may have been the case at ‘thirsty’ Argos, if the Homeric epithet for the city is considered. Rather, the Hadrianic water supply system seems to have been created so that Roman structures and cultural institutions, such as baths and nymphaea, could be integrated into the Athenian landscape and culture. These displays appeared almost immediately after the construction of the aqueduct, judging from the date of a bathing complex north of the Olympieion and the nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Classical Agora. The partially excavated remains of the nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Classical Agora lie beneath the eleventh-century church and churchyard of the Holy Apostles. These remains consist of the concrete foundations of a large, hypaethral, apsidal basin that was paved in marble slabs and fronted by a parapet wall.31 In front of the parapet are foundations for a paved rectangular terrace that was accessed along its façade by three steps running the length of the Ibid., 281. Overall width of the nymphaeum: 19.50 meters. Greatest depth of the nymphaeum: 8.30 meters. Basin width: 14.50 meters; Basin radius: 7.25 meters. Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, pp. 151–2. 30

31

226

brenda longfellow

monument.32 A base for a colossal statue was found on the central axis of the terrace.33 Although no remains of a statue have been found, it can safely be assumed that an image of the emperor, either Hadrian or Antoninus Pius, would have been displayed on the base. A broad trench lies behind the basin and follows its curved line, marking the location of a semicircular façade wall that once followed the curve of the basin.34 The thickness of this trench suggests that the wall included statuary niches; it may also suggest that the edifice was two stories tall, although this will have to await Shawna Leigh’s current reassessment of the monument. Surviving fragments of an intricately carved cornice and the remains of both engaged and freestanding Corinthian pilaster capitals suggest that the rear façade wall was richly adorned.35 The semicircular basin utilized in this nymphaeum is the earliest appearance of the form among the Greek fountains. The unusual choice may have been influenced by earlier fountains with semicircular basins, such as the innovative Fountain of Domitian at Ephesus, which introduced the semicircular basin to the eastern provinces. Within Hadrian’s own oeuvre, the semicircular basin in the Agora may reflect a monumentalization of the apsidal niche at the rear of the Larissa and Lykabettos nymphaea. It could have been influenced by forms of architecture other than fountains, such as the funerary monument of Philopappos on the Hill of the Nymphs36 or the round Temple to Augustus and Roma on the Acropolis, both of which loomed on the skyline above Athens. Regardless of the source(s) of its inspiration, the semicircular form of the basin accords well with the Hadrianic taste for curvilinear form. This type of design enjoyed Hadrian’s personal patronage, as seen by the array of edifices employing such forms in his Villa at Tivoli. The semicircular basin may have been incorporated into the nymphaeum as a means of reminding learned patrons of, and paying homage to, Hadrian’s architectural legacy.

The terrace is approximately 2.70 meters wide. Ibid., p. 152. Statue base: 1.65 × 1.70 meters. Ibid., p. 152. 34 The foundations for this façade wall range from 2.45 to 2.55 meters wide. Ibid., pp. 152; 161. 35 Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, pp. 157–60. 36 Ibid., p. 163. 32 33

the legacy of hadrian

227

This edifice is best understood in relation to the preexisting monuments in the area.37 The Hadrianic nymphaeum is the last of a long sequence of hydraulic installations in the southeast corner of the Agora, the most famous of which is the Southeast Fountain House, which dates from the second half of the sixth century B.C. and is erroneously identified by Pausanias (1.14.1) as the famous Enneakrounos of Peisistratus. Although the earlier fountain was not damaged in the construction of the Hadrianic monument, the placement of the Hadrianic nymphaeum effectively blocked access to the still-functioning Archaic fountain for all but the most determined. The redundant location of this fountain suggests that the Hadrianic nymphaeum was intended as a visual and physical Roman replacement for the famous Greek one; Athenians making their way up the traditional Panathenaic Way to the Acropolis were forced to draw refreshment from the Hadrianic edifice rather than a monument symbolic of the Athenian past. Correspondingly, this location, with its potent symbolic value, must have forced direct comparisons between Hadrian and the Athenian tyrant, Peisistratus. This nymphaeum shifts away from the careful equilibrium between Greek and Roman forms sought by the earlier Larissa nymphaeum. Perhaps to balance its move to the epicenter of Athens, the Roman features of the nymphaeum in the Classical Agora overshadow the allusions to Greek heritage. The subtle use of the Italian apsidal form—previously hidden at the back of the architectural grottos on the Larissa and Lykabettos hills—now dominates the Agora monument in the form of a semicircular basin. Unlike the earlier Hadrianic nymphaea or any Greek fountain, water is the dominant feature of the monument and rendered visible for all to admire. The statue of the emperor has moved from the niche at the back of the Larissa nymphaeum to a massive base in the forecourt of the Agora nymphaeum, forcing passersby to acknowledge the emperor before receiving his gift of water, which is prominently displayed behind him. The temple façades of the Larissa and Lykabettos nymphaea are replaced by a back façade of arches framed by Corinthian columns.38 The nymphaeum, a Roman monument located See Susan E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge and New York, 2002), pp. 51–71, for a discussion of the ideological appeal of building monuments in the Classical Agora during the Roman period. 38 Robinson (Fountains and the Culture of Water at Roman Corinth, p. 47) points out that façades of arches framed by columns were distinctive architectural symbols of Romanitas as early as the Augustan period. 37

228

brenda longfellow

at the heart of Greek heritage, explicitly proclaims Roman ownership of Greek culture. The architecture of the Hadrianic nymphaea visually spans the gap between grottoes of the nymphs, which the Greeks called nymphaea, and Roman monumental fountains, which by the time of Hadrian were sometimes called nymphaea.39 The melding of Greek and Roman forms characterizes Hadrianic nymphaea in the province Achaea. The Larissa Nymphaeum, and, in fact, all subsequent Hadrianic nymphaea, demonstrated the power of the Roman imperial machine over the landscape, harnessing nature and Greek forms alike to serve Rome. After the reign of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius re-imposed the duty of public works on the local elites of Achaea.40 Hadrian’s introduction of Roman nymphaea into the Greek civic sphere seems to have made less of an impression on these local patrons than might be expected. Although the aqueducts and nymphaea created under Hadrian were maintained and thus presumably utilized by Greek inhabitants for some time in both Athens and Argos, local elites refrained from building monumental fountains of the same scale in the heart of cities. This lacuna seems to suggest that Roman-style fountains were not favorably viewed when they were monumental additions to Greek civic centers. Indeed, Pausanias, writing after Hadrian has died, actively ignores the nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Athenian Agora, which he would have had to negotiate around to visit the Southeast Fountain House. Yet he writes that there “[. . .] is a spring called Enneacrunos, embellished as you see it by Peisistratus. There are cisterns all over the city, but this is the only fountain.”41 He also does not acknowledge the Larissa nymphaeum in Argos, which had unprecedented amounts of water flowing through it to feed the civic center. He chooses instead to highlight the shrine of the river god Kephisos. He states that the sanctuary of Kephisos stands at the point where water can be heard running underground,42 suggesting that he is pointedly ignoring the rushing torrent in the terrace above. Given the lack of evidence for 39 The first monumental fountain labeled a nymphaeum in its accompanying inscription is the Trajanic fountain at Soada Dionysiade in present-day Syria (IGR III, 1273). For a brief discussion of the edifice see Salvatore Settis, “‘Esedra’ e ‘Ninfeo’ nella terminologia archittetonica del mondo romano dall’età repubblicana alla tarda antichità,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 1.4 (1973), pp. 708–9. 40 Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 265. 41 Paus. 1.14.1. 42 Paus. 2.20.5.

the legacy of hadrian

229

elite-sponsored fountains in cities, presumably Pausanias was not alone in trying to erase these Roman fountains from Greek cityscapes. Sanctuaries appear to have been a different matter, as at least one elite family constructed a Roman nymphaeum in a religious precinct that is comparable in size and grandeur to the imperial nymphaea of Hadrian. This use of the Roman nymphaeum outside of Greek cities suggests that, rather than being transformed by the accessibility of fresh water at Roman nymphaea, the Greek elites transferred the nymphaeum form to Greek sanctuaries, perhaps because there it better conformed to Greek associations of water with the divine. With this physical transfer, the architectural form mediated a place between Roman amenities and Greek expectations so that it served a function different from that intended by the original imperial patron. This appropriation of the Roman form for traditional Greek sanctuaries recalls the Greek tradition of sacred grottos of the nymphs, which had been so influential for the form and appearance of the Larissa and Lykabettos nymphaea. Around A.D. 150, less than two decades after Hadrian’s death, the Athenian millionaire Herodes Atticus and his wife, Regilla, built a nymphaeum in the Sanctuary of Zeus of Olympia, the height of which dwarfed everything in the sanctuary except the temple of Zeus itself. Possibly built by the same architect as the nymphaeum in the southeast corner of the Athenian Agora,43 the nymphaeum in Olympia has been held up by scholars as a demonstration of the symbiotic relationship between the imperial family and the family of Herodes Atticus, a Roman senator and Greek aristocrat who served with distinction under Hadrian and his successors.44 The nymphaeum, which is one of twenty-five buildings that can be associated with Herodes Atticus, has been reconstructed by Bol as a two-storied semicircular façade framing a hypaethral apsidal basin (figure 7).45 In each story, the central niche was occupied by a statue of Zeus. The remaining eleven niches in the lower story held

Walker, The Architectural Development of Roman Nymphaea in Greece, p. 163. Renate Bol, Olympische Forschungen, XV: Das Statuenprogramm des Herodes-Atticus-Nymphäums (Berlin, 1984); R.R.R. Smith, “Cultural Choice and Political Identity in Honorific Portrait Statues in the Greek East in the Second Century A.D.,” Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998), 56–93. See Jennifer Tobin, Herodes Attikos and the City of Athens: Patronage and Conflict under the Antonines (Amsterdam, 1997) for a discussion of the life and work of Herodes Atticus, and see Nigel Martin Kennell, “Herodes Atticus and the Rhetoric of Tyranny” Classical Philology 92, no. 4 (1997), 346–62 for a discussion of the lawsuits involving Herodes Atticus and the Athenians, who charged him with tyranny. 45 Bol, Das Statuenprogramm Des Herodes-Atticus-Nymphäums. 43 44

230

brenda longfellow

Figure 7. Current reconstruction of the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, Olympia (Photograph: Elmar Gehnen, DAI-Athen Neg. D-DAI-ATH-1996/ 1441. All rights reserved).

statues of the imperial family while the niches in the upper story held slightly smaller statues of the family of Herodes. Each statue base is inscribed with the name and titulature of the person honored, followed by the dedicator of the statue: Herodes Atticus dedicated the statues of the imperial family members while the citizens of Elis, the Greek polis in control of Olympia, dedicated the statues of Herodian family members. On the imperial family statue bases, Herodes’ name often is inscribed on its own line, and the empty space framing his name draws the eye more readily to it than to the names and titulature of the imperial family member being honored (figure 8). The dedicatory inscription for the nymphaeum itself is carved on the flank of a marble bull that stood in the center of the retaining wall of the semicircular basin. The inscription states that Regilla, the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, dedicated the monument to Zeus. This dedication to Zeus alone is surprising, given that it appears at a time when elites in other regions of the empire are dedicating equally large and

the legacy of hadrian

231

Figure 8. Base for a statue of Faustina the Younger. From the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, Olympia (Photograph: Gösta Hellner, DAI-Athen Neg. D-DAI-ATH-1979/538. All rights reserved).

elaborate fountains not only to the god of the sanctuary but also to the emperor.46 Furthermore, the fountain, which is reconstructed as standing eighteen meters high, towered over the Metroon next door, a building that housed the imperial cult. A short underground aqueduct piped water into the nymphaeum from the Kladeos, which is a tributary of the Alpheios River, the largest river in the Peloponnese. With this edifice, Herodes and Regilla provided the first source of running water in the Altis since the sanctuary was founded. The building of the fountain in the premier sanctuary to Zeus, and the appropriation of the largest river in the Peloponnese to provide the first major water source in the sanctuary, seems to be asserting the primacy, if not of Greece, then at least of the family of Herodes Atticus. In the provinces, as in Rome, the monumental fountain was intimately associated with the emperor as an element of the urban landscape. In fact, the construction of a monumental fountain that was not dedicated to the emperor might be perceived as a challenge to imperial authority.

46 Cf. the Hadrianic nymphaeum in the sanctuary of Leto at Xanthos in Asia Minor.

232

brenda longfellow

While no such civic fountain is known, the Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus, which was built in the panhellenic Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, may provide an example of one in a sanctuary. If so, then this monument may be more than an expression of the symbiotic relationship between local elite and emperor that has previously been suggested. Indeed, it might be better characterized as an appropriation of the emperor’s own visual language to glorify a local family and to reclaim, even in some small measure, the local sacred landscape.

THE DIVINE RIVER: ANCIENT ROMAN IDENTITY AND THE IMAGE OF TIBERINUS Gretchen E. Meyers The modern visitor to Rome is confronted with a cityscape altogether different from the one that greeted visitors in antiquity. One of the most dramatic features of the ancient urban landscape was the curvaceous Tiber River, which occupied a central position in the city and served as an important boundary and a passageway from Rome’s earliest foundation through the imperial period. However, today’s visitor might not perceive any of this. At the end of the nineteenth century the city of Rome surrounded both embankments of the Tiber River with two enormous protective walls intended to mitigate the effects of frequent inundations and often disastrous floods in the city. While high waters have indeed been kept out since that time, the relationship between the city and her river has suffered. Today’s Rome has been effectively separated from the river that gave her life; however, such disconnection was not always the case, particularly in ancient Rome. Historians, anthropologists, and architects have long recognized the role that physical space and landscape boundaries, such as rivers and natural formations, play in the formation of national identity.1 I have argued elsewhere that the familiar central Italic landscape of hills and rivers united with various architectural monuments on the banks of the Tiber in the Forum Boarium to tell a uniquely Roman story of origins, passageways, and foundation.2 In addition to the topographic and visual impact of the Tiber River on ancient Rome’s architectural geography, there were other visual and conceptual expressions of synergy between the Tiber and ancient Roman identity. In this essay I focus on Tiberinus, the divine river personified who appears in Roman art and literature 1 For example, see J. Armstrong. Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill, 1982). C. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York, 1980). 2 Gretchen E. Meyers, “The Tiber Runs Through It: Landscape and Identity in Ancient Rome,” paper presented at the 102nd annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South (Gainesville, Florida, April 6–8, 2006). Currently in preparation for publication.

234

gretchen e. meyers

near the end of the first century B.C., as one such expression. I begin by briefly surveying the visual and literary evidence for the Roman image of Tiberinus. Next, I orient Tiberinus among other river gods by examining Greek and Etruscan precedents for river god imagery. Finally, by contextualizing the earliest Roman examples of Tiberinus imagery I suggest that the image of the Tiber river god, as he appears at the end of the Republic and early Empire, united both native and international associations and typified Rome’s identity as she emerged as the multicultural capital of the Mediterranean. The image of Father Tiber, or Tiberinus, is perhaps most well-known for his soothing prophecy to an anxious Aeneas at the beginning of Book VIII of Vergil’s Aeneid (VIII.31–78). Later he appears on the reverses of Neronian, Flavian, Trajanic, Hadrianic and Antonine coins.3 Today visitors to the Louvre can see a colossal image of him, which was most likely part of an ensemble that also included the famous Vatican Nile, both dating to the second century A.D. and found in the vicinity of the Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius (figure 1).4 The French historian, Joel Le Gall, who has written extensively on both the history of the Tiber River and the figure of Tiberinus, credits these Nile and Tiber sculptures with immense iconographic influence on the portrayal of rivers in Early Modern and modern art.5 However, despite his acknowledged visual prevalence from the early Empire into modern times, little attention has been paid to the emergence of the image of Tiberinus and its original associations. In Roman art and literature Tiberinus is depicted as a bearded old man, generally with a bare chest and reclining on a rock or stream. He wears a crown of vegetation. He is associated with the cornucopia, however, this cannot be considered his primary attribute as he does not always have one, and is also shown with the canna palustre. He frequently carries an instrument of navigation, such as an oar or a pr ow.6 Certainly from the point of view of iconography, Tiberinus is a recognizable type among water deities, but deviations in his appearance do exist. His poetic appearance in the Aeneid is a good example. At the

3 Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, s.v. Tiberis, Tiberinus. See also, Joel Le Gall, Recherches sur le culte du Tibre (Paris, 1953), pp. 28–30. 4 Le Gall, p. 3. 5 Le Gall, p. 4. See also Joel Le Gall, Le Tibre: fleuve de Rome dans l’antiquité. (Paris, 1953). 6 Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, s.v. Tiberis, Tiberinus.

the divine river

235

Figure 1. Statue of Tiberinus from Louvre (photo from Louvre).

beginning of Book VIII, a fretful Aeneas sleeps and while he dreams he is visited by Tiberinus. In this passage Tiberinus is described three times by three separate voices: once by the poet, once by the river god himself and once by Aeneas. Each of these descriptions differs slightly and offers a glimpse at the range of subtle associations that an ancient Roman may have had with river divinities. Vergil offers a descriptive physical account of Tiberinus7 at lines 31–34: huic deus ipse loci fluuio Tiberinus amoeno populeas inter senior se attollere fronds uisus (eum tenuis glauco uelabat amictu carbasus, et crinis umbrosa tegebat harundo)

The scene of Tiberinus’ appearance and prophecy to Aeneas may have precedence in Ennius. See Arnaldo Momigliano, “Thybris Pater,” in Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, Storia e letteratura raccolta di studi e testi, 109, (Rome 1966), pp. 609–614. 7

236

gretchen e. meyers Tiberinus, the old river god himself, Lifted his head amid the poplar leaves Draped in a fine, grey-linen mantle, His hair crowned with shady reeds [. . .]8

This description clearly indicates an old man (senior), wearing a crown (tegebat crinis). He is clothed in a light garment (carbasus velebat), rather than bare-chested as typical iconography suggests.9 The portrayal of him lifting his head among the poplar leaves evokes an image of a figure reclining on the river banks (Aeneas is himself sleeping on the river bank), or of an anthropomorphic figure that is partially emerged in the water or even a part of the water itself. The god’s second description is delivered in his own words: [. . .] ego sum pleno quem flumine cernis stringentem ripas et pinguia culta secantem, caeruleus Thybris, caelo gratissimus amnis. hic mihi magna domus, celsis caput urbibus exit. I am he whom you see And cutting through the rich plowland— The blue Tiber, river most beloved by Heaven. Here is my home, and my headwaters Flow from high cities.10

Father Tiber describes himself in less anthropomorphic terms, emphasizing his characteristic natural attributes in his gliding flow (stringentem) and his high headwaters (celsis caput).11 His use of the word ‘blue’ (caeruleus),12 often associated with Neptune and other water divinities, is a

8.62–65, Virgil, Aeneid, trans. S. Lombardo, (Indianapolis 2005). P.T. Eden notes in his commentary that the usage of carbasus calls to mind a type of linen made from flax for which the Tiber Valley was well-known in the Augustan period, P.T. Eden, A Commentary on Virgil: Aeneid VIII, Mnemosyne Bibliotheca Classica Batava 35, (Leiden, 1975), p. 22. This detail indicates that Tiberinus should not be viewed as a generic river deity, but rather Vergil directed specific attention to Tiberinus’ Roman appearance. 10 Aeneid, 8.69–74, trans., S. Lombardo. 11 See W. Warde Fowler, “Vergil’s Idea of the Tiber,” The Classical Review 30 (1916) for a discussion of how this passage reflects Vergil’s scientific understanding of rivers and the physical relationship of land and water. 12 Many Vergilian commentators have discussed the usage of the term caeruleus here, especially given the fact that in poetic description the Tiber is more commonly referred to as flavus (yellow). For example, see R.D. Williams, The Aeneid of Virgil Books 7–12 (London, 1992), p. 233; K.W. Gransden, Virgil Aeneid Book VIII (Cambridge, 1976), p. 88; and P.T. Eden, A Commentary on Virgil: Aeneid VIII [Mnemosyne Supplement, 1975], p. 36. 8 9

the divine river

237

strong reference to the divine spirit of the river. The passage is reminiscent of traditions in early Italic and Etruscan religion where sacred natural places were venerated as homes of abstracted deities without human form (numina).13 This conceptualization of an attendant deity to a place or person is expressed in Latin with the term genius, although Etruscan inscriptions suggest a pre-Roman origin.14 Finally, upon waking up, Aeneas invokes the river god in prayer, describing him thus: tuque, o Thybri tuo genitor cum flumine sancto, accipite Aenean et tandem arcete periclis. quo te cumque lacus miserantem incommoda nostra fonte tenent, quocumque solo pulcherrimus exis, semper honore meo, semper celebrabere donis corniger Hesperidum fluuius regnator aquarum. Father Tiber, With your sacred water—receive Aeneas And keep him from harm. Whatever spring, Whatever pool holds you, from whatever soil You flow forth in all your beauty, pitying My trials, you will be honored forever With my gifts, O horned Rivergod, lord Of Hesperian waters.15

At first glance this picture seems to be a continuation of the description of Tiberinus given by the god himself: an appeal to the natural form of the waters. However, the use of the term corniger, ‘horned’, implies an animal or human form, rather than an abstracted divinity.16 As we shall see below, the image of a horned river god has a long history, and may be equally appropriate to a human figure, a zoomorphic creature or a shape-shifter. The inclusion of the term here in Aeneas’ speech indicates either that Aeneas saw or conceptualized something that the poet did not include in his description of the god, or that Aeneas’ prayer is the product of his own association with river divinities, not limited by this single experience.

13 See I.E.M. Edlund. The Gods and the Place: Location and Function of Sanctuaries in the Countryside of Etruria and Magna Graecia (700 –400 B.C.E.). (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 30–37 for a discussion of sacred places and divinity in Italic religion. 14 Nancy Thomson de Grummond, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (Philadelphia, 2006), pp.143–144. 15 Aeneid, 8.72–77, trans. S. Lombardo. 16 The word is used frequently in Greek and Latin literature for river gods; Eden, Commentary on Vergil, p. 43.

238

gretchen e. meyers

In this one passage Vergil calls to mind for the astute Roman three different conceptions of Tiberinus: an anthropomorphic male water deity, an abstracted spirit ( genius) of the waters and a (partially?) zoomorphic creature. With this multivalent image, Vergil includes all of the major iconographic associations of Greco-Roman rivers and orients the Tiber, and thus Rome, within the global context of the Mediterranean. Like many features of Augustan literature and art, Vergil’s Tiberinus serves many audiences and many purposes beyond the simple practice of identifying and glorifying the location of Rome.17 Rather, when he appears in art and literature at the end of the Roman Republic and Augustan age, the Tiber river god becomes a visible manifestation of a shifting sense of Roman identity, a manifestation which incorporates a broad range of influences, both native and international. In order to explore this point further, I will consider precedents for river god imagery and their impact on ancient Roman associations with water divinities. Long before Tiberinus arose in the Roman iconographic pantheon, Greek river gods were depicted in visual arts and literature. The most common depiction of Greek river gods is that of a man-headed bull. This form, which may have developed from Near Eastern prototypes, is well-known in the Archaic period and continues into the fifth century B.C., most prominently evidenced on coins from Sicily and Magna Graecia (figure 2).18 In Greek literature rivers are referred to as “bullform,” an epithet that is continued in Roman literary texts as well.19 However there is also visual evidence of Greek river gods with a more human and less bull-like appearance—both as older men and youths.20 In most of these cases, the bull-like nature of the more human river god is denoted by horns alone; however, others appear with no visible reference to the river’s bull-like nature. Coins from Gela and Selinunte, the Echelos relief and perhaps, the reclining figures from the Eastern pediment of the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Olympia, all represent

17 Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton, 1992), pp. 141–224. Such an interpretation can be applied to the representation of ‘Tellus’ on the Ara pacis. While her specific identification is disputed, Galinsky suggests that the ‘Tellus’ figure represents an iconographic polysemy typical of the Augustan period that allows for the viewer to bring broad associations and multiple meanings to a single image, pp. 148–149. 18 Ruth M. Gais, “Some Problems with River God Iconography,” American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978), p. 356. 19 C.J. Fordyce, Aenedios Libri VII–VIII with Commentary. (Oxford, 1977), p. 213. 20 Gais, pp. 357–360.

the divine river

239

Figure 2. Obverse of coin from Gela (photo from American Numismatic Society).

youthful male river gods without horns.21 Several observations regarding Greek river gods are important here. The first is a lack of consistency in the form the figure takes, other than the emphasis on masculinity. Based on these literary and visual examples, the male god can appear either youthful or older, with or without bull features. Secondly, Janusz Ostrowski observes that Greek river gods are both anthropomorphic and

Gais, pp. 355–359. Gais disputes the attribution of river god for the reclining figures in the Olympia pediment. She argues that the reclining position for river gods is a Hellenistic development and not iconographically plausible for these figures from the first half of the fifth century B.C. 21

240

gretchen e. meyers

Figure 3. Attic Black Figure Amphora with Acheloös and Heracles (photo from British Museum).

zoomorphic, and often a conflation of the two.22 Notably, the figure with the most complete conflation of bull and human facial features is the river god Acheloös, a man-bull figure personifying a Western Greek river with an extensive mythological past, who famously battled Heracles for Deineira.23 During the altercation, Acheloös changed shape frequently, alternating between a bull, serpent, etc. (figure 3). He, thus, becomes the prototype for the shape-shifting river and represents a river’s liminality and power.24 By virtue of his frequent depiction on Attic vases, many

22 Janusz A. Ostrowski, Personifications of Rivers in Greek and Roman Art, Studia ad Archaeologiam Mediterraneam Pertinentia 12 (Krakow, 1991), p. 26. 23 See H.P. Isler. Acheloös (Bern, 1970). 24 See Mirelle Lee, “Acheloös Peplophoros: A Lost Statuette of a River God in Feminine Dress,” Hesperia 75 (2006), pp. 317–325 for a discussion of Acheloös and liminality with regard to gender.

the divine river

241

of which were exported to Etruria, and on the coins of Greek colonies in Italy,25 the iconography of Acheloös had significant impact on the visualization and depiction of river deities in the west. The river god image is also prevalent in the art of the Etruscans from central Italy, but important differences in usage and iconography begin to emerge. Here again the image of Acheloös predominates.26 The plentiful depictions of Acheloös in Etruscan art, some of which represent scenes of his conflict with Heracles, are frequently viewed as derivative from Greek art,27 in the form of Etruscan modifications on themes from Attic pottery.28 Art historians are often quick to consider Etruscan artists as imitators of the Greeks, however, it is noteworthy that as frequently as Acheloös appears in Etruscan art he does so in media that are quintessentially Etruscan: namely metal and terracotta. Although there are cases where his full body is depicted, as in the Tomb of the Bulls at Tarquinia, it is more common in Etruscan art for only Acheloös’ head to be represented, frequently as a decorative appliqué on bronze vessels, as an apotropaic device on bronze shields, and as pendent in gold jewelry.29 His head also appears as an antefix on both sacred and domestic structures such as the newly excavated Auditorium villa near the Via Flaminia in Rome and the sanctuary at Pyrgi (figure 4). In addition, the Etruscan Acheloös’ head is often less animalistic than many Greek depictions; but rather, his head is a more simple conflation of man and bull imagery, generally taking the form of an older bearded man with horns. These images of Acheloös in Etruscan art are indicative of the complicated relationship between Greek artistic forms and their reuse and reinterpretation by Etruscan artists. Unlike Greek river gods, who are most frequently seen as civic 25 See Prudence J. Jones, Reading Rivers in Roman Literature and Culture (Lanham, MD, 2005), pp. 43–44 for the suggestion that rivers depicted on the coinage of Magna Graecia is a means of connecting the colony back to the mainland. This argument doesn’t take into account the depiction of local rivers on coins, or the variation between representations in Italy and mainland Greece. 26 It is not out of the question that the plentiful depictions of Acheloös in Etruria are actually generic representations of river gods or even depictions of a figure in Etruscan myth unknown to us. Otto Brendel, Etruscan Art, 4th ed. (New Haven, 1995), pp. 213–214 suggests an association with Dionysos. de Grummond points out that in a labeled image of Acheloös on a bronze mirror in Berlin, he is actually youthful and unbearded. She emphasizes the importance of not projecting Greek mythological interpretations onto Etruscan objects, pp. 183–184. 27 Jones, p. 43. 28 A.J. Pfiffig, Herakles in der Bilderwelt de Etruskischen Speigel (Graz, 1980), pp. 50–51. 29 Isler, pp. xxx.

242

gretchen e. meyers

Figure 4. Antefix of Acheloös (photo from Soprintendenza di Roma).

the divine river

243

emblems on coinage, the Etrusco-Italic representations indicate a ready reception in Etruria for the river god and his animal-like qualities in an apotropaic fashion, as indicated by his appearance on antefixes and shields. The frequent context of usage as an antefix or a repeated border, as on artifacts such as a large cast bronze lamp from Cortona,30 may also suggest an association with the river’s role as boundary, and serve to articulate the river god as a personified divinity of a naturally sacred place. And his association with Hercules on numerous mirrors and pottery serves as a further indication of the popularity of the Hercules myths with an Etrusco-Italic audience.31 This brief survey has established that there was a tradition of river god imagery on the Italian peninsula extending back into the Archaic period both to the south and north of Rome. In both cases the impact of Greece is strongly felt, particularly with regard to the partially zoomorphic features of the divinities, but it is mingled with local interpretation and reception. Given this tradition, the appearance of Tiberinus as an older man with no animalistic features in Rome during the late Republic would seem to be a rejection of past styles and associations. This has often been assumed to be the case, particularly due to the emergence of a new anthropomorphic river god form in the Hellenistic period originating most likely in Alexandria as a representation of Nile, known to us now largely through Hellenistic poetry and later sculptural representations.32 Scholars such as Le Gall have viewed Tiberinus as the Nile’s Roman counterpart, a symbol of the power of Rome and her burgeoning empire.33 However, other scholars have long noted the importance of multiple meanings and interpretations in late Republican and Augustan visual culture.34 Erich Gruen has discussed the complexity of Roman cultural identity in this period and has argued that the later years of the Roman Republic were characterized by a “bewildering variety”35 of legend and cultural influence and represent

Brendel, pp. 288–289. Margit von Mehren, “Two Groups of Attic Amphorae as Export Ware for Eturia: the so-called Tyrrhenian Group and ‘Nikosthenic Amphorae’” in Ceramics in Context, ed. Charlotte Scheffer, Stockholm Studies in Classical Archaeology, 12 (Stockholm, 2001), pp. 45–53. 32 Gais, p. 360. She calls attention to the reclining aspect of the figure and postulates a relationship with Hellenistic depictions of a reclining Hercules. 33 Le Gall, Recherches sur le culte du Tibre, p. 35. 34 Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton, 1992). 35 Erich Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca, 1992), p. 50. 30 31

244

gretchen e. meyers

a Rome “groping toward cultural maturity and self-definition.”36 In addition, nearly all of the early representations of Tiberinus occur in the context of foundation scenes—a phenomenon that is less common in later Imperial representations where his image is used more familiarly as an emblem of Rome. By examining the first visual representations of Tiberinus, I suggest that the deliberate alteration of river god iconography together with the placement of Tiberinus among recognizable foundation scenes serves a specifically Roman purpose: to reinforce the long-standing role of the river in shaping Rome’s national identity, while at the same time, to embody the city’s new identity on the larger stage of the ancient Mediterranean. Discussions of the iconography of Tiberinus have focused on his appearance and attributes, rather than the context of scenes where he is present. The first known representation of Tiberinus is a painted frieze from a columbarium on the Esquiline hill dated to the mid-end of the first century B.C. and now displayed in the Museo Nazionale Romano at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (figure 5).37 The frieze depicts numerous scenes associated with both Roman foundation myths: the story of Aeneas and the story of Romulus and Remus. Tiberinus appears on the frieze twice, both times in connection with the Italic version of the myth. As an older, bearded reclining man he observes Mars’ abduction of Rhea Silvia. Because this fragment is not well preserved, it is difficult to distinguish his attributes, other than his reclining position, crowned head and bare chest, although Rosanna Cappelli notes that an accompanying nymph holds a cornucopia, which could strengthen the attribution.38 A second panel more clearly depicts Tiberinus, again bearded and reclining, this time on the bank of a river. His arm is outstretched welcoming a basket with Romulus and Remus, a gesture that clearly marks his active, not passively observatory, role in the foundation of the city. He differs from the other depiction on the frieze in terms of his crown, which is more naturally unkempt and leafy and the attribute of the oar behind him. While neither river god figure on this frieze has horns or resembles a bull in any way, his appearance as Gruen, p. 2. Rosanna Cappelli, “Il fregio depinto dell’Esquilino e la propaganda augustea del mito delle origini,” in A. La Regina, ed. Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (Rome, 1998), pp. 51–58. 38 Cappelli, p. 55. Le Gall (1953) Recherches sur le culte du Tibre, p. 27 argues that the figure may not be Tiberinus at all, but might represent the god of the Numicus or Anio. 36

37

the divine river

245

older and bearded may recall early Italic associations with river gods, such as the Acheloös figure discussed above. In this way, the viewer is able to bring a traditional aspect to the contemporary image of the Hellenized river god that is particularly appropriate for the legendary nature of the scene represented. After Tiberinus’ early appearances in the Esquiline frieze and Vergil’s Aeneid (discussed above), early Imperial images of Tiberinus at foundation scenes of Rome continue and are also found at Pompeii in the Casa delle Origini di Roma where he is depicted again with Mars and Rhea Silvia,39 on the Ara Casali, on a fresco from Hadrian’s villa and on an altar from Ostia, dated to the first century A.D., where Tiberinus is visually equated with the familiar image of the she-wolf herself.40 His attendance at Roman foundation scenes can also be documented in third century A.D. sarcophagus scenes of Mars and Rhea Silvia.41 The river god’s presence within the visual tradition of a Greco-Roman city’s foundation myth is a unique and important aspect of the iconography of Tiberinus.42 In his work on Livy, Gary Miles has commented on the importance of a cyclical notion of foundation, degeneration, and refoundation in the creation of a Roman national identity, particularly in the early part of the Augustan age.43 Such contrasting, but complementary, notions of change and stability are embodied within the single figure of the anthropomorphic Tiberinus depicted at these foundation events. Although a Hellenistic counterpart of the Nile in form, this older, bearded river god visually echoes the past as well as participates in it. He is not simply an inactive emblem of Roman power, but an active contributor in the creation of the Roman city and Romanitas. Finally, the topographical context of the Tiber river and the port at the Forum Boarium may also provide evidence for ancient Roman associations between Rome’s foundation legends and the personified

Rosanna Cappelli, “Questioni di iconografia,” in Roma. Romolo, Remo e la fondaziione della città, ed. Andrea Carandini and Rosanna Cappelli, (Rome, 2000), p. 171, argues that the river god figure in the painting is actually the Velabrum, due to his more youthful and clean-shaven appearance. 40 Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, s.v. Tiberis, Tiberinus. 41 Ostrowski, pp. 37–38. 42 In her Reading Rivers in Roman Literature and Culture (Lanham, 2005), pp. 3–18, Prudence Jones discusses three general associations with rivers: cosmogony, ritual, and ethnography. In her discussion of cosmogony she establishes the role of water in the formation of the universe. It is interesting to then consider Roman notions of the Tiber as the source for the origin of the ‘universe’ of Rome. 43 Gary B. Miles, Livy. Reconstructing Early Rome (Ithaca, 1995), pp. 75–109. 39

246

gretchen e. meyers

deity of the Tiber. Both traditions of Rome’s foundation, the indigenous Romulean legend and the story of Aeneas imported later and popularized in Augustan Rome, feature the Tiber River as the conduit for transporting the founding figure to the city. When each of the respective founders arrives in Rome, he enters the city precisely at the Forum Boarium area, having sailed or floated on the Tiber River. The Lupercal, a shrine at the site of the legendary cave where Romulus and Remus were raised, and the hut of Romulus on the western edge of the Palatine hill, remained as monuments to the tradition, well into the historical period of the city. Furthermore, Roman legend maintained that the mythological traveler, Hercules, had passed through Rome on his return from capturing the cattle of Geryon, and had entered and left the city by way of the Forum Boarium, a tradition symbolically inscribed on the later city by the concentration of cult centers to Hercules in this area, such as the Ara Maxima of Hercules Invictus and the Temple to Hercules Victor.44 Thus, when visual images of Tiberinus, such as those discussed above, evoke the foundation legend of Rome, they simultaneously evoke the very real physical location of the river and its role in bringing both the mythological figures of the past, as well as the international travelers of the present, into the capital city. In addition, the symbolic urban landscape of the Forum Boarium, which combines foundation myth, water and the strong presence of Hercules, the conqueror of Acheloös, once again recalls the familiar Archaic, bullform river gods. When Hercules subdues Acheloös, usurping his horn that in turn becomes the cornucopia, through this act of control he is able to turn a symbol of raw power into a manifestation of abundance and prosperity—an appropriate association for the port of an affluent city on the banks of a river known for destructive floods.45 The emergence of Tiberinus onto the Roman stage coincides with the emergence of Rome onto the world stage. I have argued in this paper that the figure of Father Tiber represents Rome, but not simply the power of Rome. Rather, based on a long tradition of Greek, Etruscan and Hellenistic associations with river gods, I suggest that ancient Romans, much like Aeneas described at this paper’s beginning, brought a multiplicity of meanings to the figure of the divine river. For Harry R. Neilson, III, “Herakles the Navigator,” The Classical Bulletin 82 (2006), 10–11 discusses the symbolic relationship between Hercules and ports with regard to the Forum Boarium. 45 Gregory Aldrete, Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome (Baltimore, 2007), 10–13. 44

the divine river

247

Romans it seems, at least at his inception, Tiberinus recalled the city’s origins and its birth. In his new Hellenized form, adopted most likely from representations of the Nile, he not only spoke to the multicultural aspirations of the city, but his appearance and presence in foundation scenes allowed Romans to look back and consider where they came from. Amidst the complicated backdrop of Roman self-identity caught between the past and the future, the Tiber served as mediator. Furthermore, by removing his horns, hyper-masculine symbols of the Archaic man-headed bull river god, and replacing them with the cornucopia, he allowed himself to more easily accommodate his role as a symbol of origin and birth. Like Acheloös before him, who in losing his horn to Hercules, changed form from bull to snake to man bull, the Divine Tiber adapted to suit the times. As Ovid sings, cuncta fluunt, omnisque vagans formatur imago (All things flow; every image forms, wandering through change).46

46

Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV.178, trans. R. Humphries (Bloomington, 1983).

CISTERNS IN THE ASTYNOMOI LAW FROM PERGAMON1 Sara Saba [Cisterns: the astynomoi 2 in office having recorded the cisterns existing in the houses shall deposit the records before the strategoi in the month of Pantheios and see to it that the owners make them waterproof/covered and none of the extant cisterns be filled (with earth). (209) Otherwise after fining those who do any of those things 100 drachmas per cistern they shall collect (the money) and compel them to clean them out. (212) If any had been filled in beforehand, they [the astynomoi ] shall report to the owners, so that they are to clean them within eight months. (215) If they do not do so, after collecting the same fine from them, they shall compel them to clean them out. (217) The resulting revenue of the fines shall be handed in each month to the treasurers and they shall be used for the cleaning and maintenance of the cisterns and for nothing else. (221) Whoever owns cisterns and by not plastering them damage the neighbors, the astynomoi shall compel them (to plaster them) after fining them and, if there are fines because of these, after collecting the money, the astynomoi shall render it to those who were damaged. (227) As for the astynomoi who do not deposit in the archive the record of the cisterns or do not act as the law orders, the nomophylakes shall collect 100 drachmas from them and assign it to the same funds. (232)]

The passage translated above comes from a section of an inscription known as the Astynomoi Law from Pergamon (see figure 1), which dates to the second century A.D., under Hadrian, but contains a law originally passed in the second century B.C., i.e., under the rule of the Attalid king Eumenes II. This paragraph is also the starting point of my reflections on the topic of water management. Indeed, in a collection 1 This paper is a revised section of my dissertation titled “The Astynomoi Law: Urban Maintenance in Pergamon,” Duke University 2006, directed by Prof. K. Rigsby, whom I thank. Here, I would also like to thank the Epigraphy Center of Ohio State University where I further researched this topic. 2 I retain throughout my paper the term astynomoi—transliterating directly from the Greek—to designate civic magistrates in charge of controlling that the city’s maintenance policy was respected. For example, in Athens the astynomoi had to make sure that houses would not be illegally built on public ground or that pipes were properly sealed. See Aristotle, The Constitution of the Athenians 50. These officials are attested in several poleis in Continental Greece and Asia Minor.

250

sara saba

Figure 1. Lines 203–233 from the Astynomoi La w.

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

251

of essays on water and water infrastructures, a study on Pergamon is necessary. This is so because the past and most recent archaeological activity on this site has brought to light numerous infrastructures related to water, its distribution, and its administration that teach us about the available technology as well as the management of water resources in a major polis of Asia Minor.3 In this essay, I would like to focus on the abundant water infrastructures brought to light during the excavations of Pergamon. More specifically, I intend to look at Pergamene cisterns and their use during the centuries elapsed between the first issue of the Astynomoi law and its re-engraving with the support of archaeological and epigraphical evidence. Pergamon was a rather populous city, and its inhabitants needed a constant supply of water. Under Eumenes II, the inhabitants numbered around 25,000–35,000 people, and this number grew steadily to reach 150,000–160,000 under Hadrian’s rule.4 By the second century A.D., Pergamon had several new aqueducts and a refined water technology, yet available data testify that cisterns were still in use. The provisions contained in this second century B.C. law, if still in use, as I believe, in the second century A.D., can illustrate the special care once reserved to cisterns and help us to understand the water emergency strategy that cities still adopted in the technologically advanced Roman Empire. What do we know then about water infrastructures in Pergamon? Günther Garbrecht and his collaborators have studied the local Pergamene aqueducts, piping systems, fountains, and cisterns mainly from a technical point of view, thanks to their engineering background and expertise.5 Numerous inscriptions from Pergamon and surroundings

3 The annual excavation reports are published in Archäologische Anzeiger. For the topic discussed in this article see especially Wolfgang Radt, “Vorbericht über die Kampagne 1995,” Archäologische Anzeiger (1996), 443–454; Idem, “Pergamon, Vorbericht über die Kampagne 1998,” Archäologische Anzeiger (1999), 291–312. In the recent past, the volumes of Altertümer von Pergamon have completed the site’s publication; three of them are for inscriptions only. As a comprehensive, referential volume, see Radt Pergamon, Geschichte und Bauten einer antiken Metropole (Darmstadt, 1999), which is essential for a diachronic overview of the site. Also by Radt, see “Recent Research in and about Pergamon,” in Pergamon, Citadel of the Gods, ed. H. Koester (Harrisburg,1998), pp. 11–40; and “The Urban Development of Pergamon,” in Urbanism in Western Asia Minor, ed. D. Parrish (Rhode Island, 2001), pp. 43–56. 4 See Galenus, De cognoscendis curandisque animi morbis, ed. C.G. Kühn (Leipzig, 1823), vol. 5 p. 49, who was from Pergamon himself; see Julius Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig, 1886), p. 236. 5 See in particular Günther Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung von Pergamon, Altertümer von Pergamon 1, 4 (Berlin, 2001) with comprehensive bibliography. Among his works also

252

sara saba

enrich further the data coming from the ground, and among these texts the Astynomoi law stands out.6 This long law concerns the day-to-day local administration and, in particular, the role that the astynomoi had in it. As said, the law dates to the second century B.C., but the plaque where the text is engraved belongs to the second century A.D.7 This chronological gap between approval and engraving (or re-engraving) of the text has created interpretative problems in regard to the value and function of the law. The reason behind the republishing of a four-century-old law and its set up in a lively area of the city, i.e., the lower Market, is not easy to understand, but a few theories have been formulated over the decades. In brief, I should note that while the first editor, Walther Kolbe, thought that the law was republished because it was still applicable, Günther Klaffenbach, who is the author of the most extensive commentary, assumed that the inscription was only dedicated as a summa honoraria, i.e., the law was re-inscribed by a citizen entering the office of astynomia as a gift to the city.8 On this crucial issue, I agree see G. Garbrecht, “Fragen der Wasserwirtschaft Pergamons,” in Pergamon: Gesammelte Aufsätze ed. Kurt Bittel (Berlin, 1972), pp. 43–48. Idem, “Die Madradağ-Wasserleitung von Pergamon,” Ancient World 9, no. 4 (1978), 40–49. Idem, “Die Wasserversorgung des antiken Pergamon,” in Die Wasserversorgung antiker Städte: Pergamon, Rechte/Verwaltung, Brunnen/Nymphäen, Brauelemente (Mainz, 1987), pp. 11–48. Idem, “Die Wasserversorgung des antiken Pergamon,” in L’Eau et les Hommes en Méditerranée et en Mer Noire dans l’Antiquité de l’Époque Mycéienne au Règne de Justinien (Athens, 1992), pp. 296–318. Idem, “Alimentation en eau de Pergame, Die Entwicklung der Wasserwirtschaft Pergamons bis zur Römischen Kaiserzeit,” in Journées d’Études sur les aqueducts Romains, Tagung über römische Wasserversorgungsanlagen, (Lyon, France, 26–28 May, 1997), pp. 141–164. 6 First edition by Walther Kolbe, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” in Die Arbeiten zu Pergamon 1900 –1901, Miteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung (1902), 47–77. This first publication, however, was only meant to make the text known. Günther Klaffenbach, “Die Astynomeninschrift von Pergamon,” Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 6 (1953), 3–25 took charge of providing a full, yet strictly philological, commentary. 7 Kolbe, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” pp. 55–56 already detected the double chronology of the text. Klaffenbach, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” pp. 19–25 listed the arguments supporting this widely accepted conclusion. The theory of the double chronology was at first doubted by James H. Oliver “Review on D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century After Christ,” American Journal of Philology 70 (1951), 198–200, esp. p. 200; who thought the law was Imperial also in content and by the Roberts who instead suggested that it was late Hellenistic in all its aspects, Bulletin épigraphique (1952), note 137. These scholars came to accept the double date after the publication of Klaffenbach’s commentary, Oliver “The Date of the Pergamene Astynomoi Law,” Hesperia 24 (1955), 88–92, J. and L. Robert Bulletin épigraphique (1955), note 188. 8 Many have disagreed with Klaffenbach since his edition, from Oliver “The Date of the Pergamene Astynomoi Law,” Hesperia 24 (1955), 88–92, esp. 88–89 to Biagio Virgilio,

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

253

with those who think that the text was re-engraved because it was still applicable. This fact allows us not only to understand why the law was re-engraved so long after its first approval, but also, as it will be soon clear, to explain the constant presence of cisterns in town, despite the technological progress that fully reveals itself in the numerous aqueducts and articulated water distribution system. This certainly reached Pergamon as the city’s fully developed building policy demonstrates. In the following sections, I provide a brief overview of the archaeological results and the analysis of the above quoted section of the Astynomoi law, which I interpret in light of this data. Finally, I conclude with a historical assessment of the water-provision strategy conceived by the authorities in second century B.C. and A.D. Pergamon. Archaeological Data: Cisterns in Pergamon As of 2001, excavators counted 149 cisterns unevenly distributed in the different areas of the city.9 It is especially important to talk briefly about the results of the excavations conducted in the so-called living quarter.10 This quarter is located within the Attalid walls in a level higher than the gymnasia and the sacred precinct dedicated to Demeter. Ulrike Wulf studied the entire area, and her work was a major breakthrough in the study of local domestic architecture, water sources, and their infrastructures in town.11 Wulf also provided data on the means of water collection and distribution used on a daily basis. The excavations have revealed that in the Hellenistic period the majority of private

Gli Attalidi di Pergamo. Fama, Eredità, Memoria. Studi Ellenistici 5 (Pisa, 1993), 113–114, who returned to Kolbe’s theory, which is now the most popular. On the reception of laws in the Roman legislative corpus see Mario Amelotti “L’epigrafe di Pergamo sugli ASTUNOMOI e il problema della recezione di leggi straniere nell’ordinamento giuridico romano,” Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 24 (1958), 80–111 and again “Leggi greche in diritto romano,” in Symposion 13 (1997), 225–234. In the case of the Astynomoi law, however, a different legal phenomenon could have taken place. The regulation was re-used under Roman rule, but it was applied in a culturally and legislative Greek context. This speaks against the incorporation and supports the idea of a stronger local, autonomous administration. I treat extensively the problem of the re-engraving in my dissertation. 9 Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, pp. 18–19 mapped the cisterns’ location. 10 The excavations of this area started in 1973 and lasted for twenty years. 11 See Ulrike Wulf, Die Stadtgrabung: Die hellenistischen und romischen Wohnhauser von Pergamon unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Anlage zwischen der Mittel- und der Ostgasse in der Stadtgrabung von Pergamon, Altertümer von Pergamon, teil 3, (Berlin, 1999).

254

sara saba

dwellings could count on at least one cistern located in the courtyard. This situation slightly changed in Imperial times, when a few houses started to use a piping system in order to bring in fresh, flowing water.12 The technical aspects of cisterns have been fully studied by Werner Brinker13 who focused on 107 cisterns within the Eumenic walls, which, according to him, could provide the city with up to 3,200 cubic meters of water.14 In 2001, Garbrecht disclosed the new data pertaining to the 149 discovered and excavated cisterns to date. These, he thinks, are only a few of the many that must have been operative. The final report states that all of these 149 cisterns must have provided the city with about 4,000 cubic meters of water. Such a quantity could not have met the needs of the whole local population, but only with the cisterns’ support—and a reduction in the amount of water per person—the city could have survived a siege for a little less than year.15 In the second century B.C., under normal conditions, the population must have relied on the water brought in by the aqueducts built under Eumenes II and Attalos II’s reigns. These three Hellenistic aqueducts16 channeled water into different areas of town including the hilltop, for a total of about 4,500 cubic meters per day, which could have supported the whole population. Cisterns must not have been the main water resource for Hellenistic Pergamon, yet the Astynomoi law suggests that the local authorities thought cisterns still useful. The officials acted accordingly, forcing the residents to take proper care of them. The question is whether this was true also four centuries after the approval of this law, i.e., under Hadrian. Was this section on water obsolete in the second century A.D., or were the listed rules still applied in Pergamon?

See Wulf, Die Stadtgrabung, pp. 20–21. See Werner Brinker, Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Wasserversorgung früher Städte, (Ph.D. diss. TA Braunschweig, 1990), who explored the technical aspects of cisterns. The author was fully aware of the content of the Astynomoi law, but relied only on previous epigraphical studies and translations. 14 Werner Brinker, “Die Zisternen von Pergamon im Licht der Astynomeninschrift,” in Vorträge der Tagung “Geschichtliche Wasserbauten in Ägypten,” (Cairo, 1986), p. 8. In his dissertation, he also calculated the possible number of cisterns in Attalos’ Pergamon. He reached the conclusion that there must have been about 500 storing up to 13,500 cubic meters of water. See also Brinker, Ein Beitrag, pp. 120–121. 15 See Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, pp. 35–36. 16 See Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, p. 23. On the Attalos aqueduct see Idem, pp. 58–72, on the Demophon, pp. 72–89, and on the Hellenistic Madradag see pp. 89–131. 12 13

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

255

The Astynomoi law The archaeological data speak to us even more when one tries to compare them with the content of the Astynomoi law, more precisely with the section that deals with cisterns. Can the text reveal new insights on the civic administration and management of water resources in light of the excavation results? Lines 203–232 of the Astynomoi law contain second century B.C. provisions passed to salvage cisterns from disrepair.17 Had the law been applicable, these directives would have then been resumed and used in the second century A.D. to the same end. The polis’ priority was to provide a set of rules to repair and protect cisterns, including heavy fines to the offenders, when necessary. The paragraph that summarizes the duties towards the public and privately owned cisterns on behalf of the astynomoi and Pergamon residents starts in line 203 as the title in genitive plural for ‘cisterns’, φρεάτ{ρ}ων, shows.18 Φρέας usually means ‘well’, but in this inscription the word is used as a synonym for cistern, (δεξαµενή), which is an interesting linguistic detail because Pergamon has almost no well archaeologically attested.19 The paragraph is concerned with the condition of cisterns, and how the city dealt with the owners of those found in a state of disrepair. The local authorities established that the astynomoi should draw a list of private cisterns citywide, which they were in charge of inspecting. In order to pass the inspection, cisterns had to meet two criteria: 1) they should not be filled with earth at any time,20 and 2) they had to be στεγνάς, which could mean both ‘watertight’ or ‘covered’.21 If the astynomoi noted any irregularity, they had to fine the owner and force him to intervene to restore the cistern to good condition.

17 The text of the paragraph I treat precedes this introduction. The text I cite here is the result of my own autopsy in 2004 of the squeeze now in Munich at the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik. I have to thank the academic and non academic staff of the Kommission, who allowed me to study the squeeze and for the use their excellent library. 18 A handy parallel for the practice of introducing new sub-sections with a genitive in a legal text is the famous Andania law in Franciskez Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l’Asie Mineure (Paris, 1955), no. 65, on which see Nadine Deshours, Les mystères d’Andania: étude d’épigraphie et d’histoire religieuse, (Pessac, 2006). 19 See Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, pp. 23–36; Klaffenbach, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” p. 17. 20 L. 209; ll. 212–213. 21 L. 207; ll. 222–223. The adjective returns in line 236 in the context of the maintenance of conduits servicing public latrines.

256

sara saba The Inspection of Cisterns, Part I

The text states that cisterns in order to pass the inspection should not be filled with earth; however, the law is not void of exceptions to this. According to the document, if the cisterns were filled with earth from before, (π!ρότερον), the owners had an eight-month period in which to clean them.22 If these were not cleaned by the postponed deadline, the owners under scrutiny had to be fined the same amount of money already established for other offenders. This addendum raises the question as to who would benefit from these prorogues. This may be clarified by analyzing the conditional clause that introduces the exception. The protasis asserts (ll. 212–213, figure 1) ‘if any (cistern) had been filled in beforehand’, with no further specification. The adverb ‘before’ (π!ρότερον) attracts the reader’s attention; with this temporal reference the law could acknowledge an event justifying the temporary state of disrepair of a cistern, but which offers a too wide set of hypotheses. The apodosis of this conditional clause can help us to make better sense of this statement. Lines 214–215 (see figure 1) state: “[The astynomoi] shall report immediately the status of the cistern to the owners to the end that they repair it within eight months.” This reading suggests that in a few cases owners could have been granted a few extra months to clean their cisterns, because they were not anywhere near the cistern. In other words, the law assumes that the owners were ignorant of the situation, not negligent. If that was the case, the house where the non-functioning cisterns were located may have been rented or uninhabited. Therefore in Pergamon, even if the house had been rented, the owner, and not the tenant, was held fully responsible for the state of disrepair of the cistern. Indeed the law’s main concern is to establish the duties of owners, while residents who are not owners are hardly taken into account in this text. In line 133 may appear the only exception: in the context of the local building policy’s analysis, the text uses the participial noun ‘τοὺς ἐνοικοῦντας’ to refer to those who live in a certain house perhaps without owning it. In lines 128–133 we learn that tenants could not intervene on houses in any way without the permission of the legitimate owner. This reveals that if on the one hand the owners were fully responsible for their property, on the other hand the law tried to safeguard their right to their possession.

22

See the conditional clause of ll. 212–215, figure 1.

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

257

Not everywhere in the Greek world owners were considered absolutely responsible for their rented property. For example, in a text from Thasos dated to the fifth century B.C. and known as the Stele du Port,23 among the addressed problems appears that of the cleaning of public properties, such as streets, located around private dwellings. Lines 19–22 deal directly with this issue, and read as follows: τὴν ὁδὸν καθαρὴν παρεχέτω: ὁ ἐνοικέων/κατὰ το ἑαυτο ἕκαστος: ἄν δὲ µηδὲς ἐνοι/κῆι, ὁ ἄν ἦι τοἴκηµα καὶ ἐ[πιστά]τ[αι] καθαι/ρόντων αὐτοὶ ἑκάστο µηνὸς. [. . .]24 “Each dweller should keep the street clean around his property, but if no one lives there, the owner and the epistatai shall clean each month. [. . .]” Clearly, also this early text distinguishes between residents and owners. These were ultimately responsible for the cleaning had the house been uninhabited, but not if it was inhabited by other people. Also, this text further testifies to the attention paid by a local administration to the living arrangements in urban dwellings. To return to the question of the legal responsibility of the rightful property owners in the Astynomoi law, it may be hypothesized that, in the specific case of cisterns’ maintenance, this full responsibility depended on the overall high cost and/or the difficulty of the operation.25 In Pergamon, the authorities granted the benefit of the doubt to owners, whose cisterns were in a temporary state of disrepair. After eight months, however, had the owner neglected the cisterns, he would be fined. A final note concerns the employment of the revenues raised with the collection of these fines.26 The money was handed over monthly to the treasurers (ταµίαι) who had to use it exclusively for the cisterns’ maintenance. The carelessness of the citizens towards their property was used as a means to raise the money necessary to repair public infrastructures. Excavations have brought to light several examples of

23 The first edition with extensive commentary is by Herve Duchêne, La Stele du port, Fouilles du Port 1. Recherches sur une nouvelle inscription thasienne (Athens-Paris, 1992). 24 See Duchêne, La Stele du port, p. 46. 25 Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, p. 25 talks briefly about the technical aspects of coating and cleaning a cistern. His words give a good idea of how onerous this process was. In column I, ll. 29–32, also the Astynomoi law gives provisions for streets cleaning, and establishes that the responsibility was of οἱ τὰ κτηµατα κεκτήµενοι, which translates into ‘owners.’ Klaffenbach, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” p. 8 renders the expression with a relative clause, but throughout the Greek text this concept appears only as the noun ‘kyrio.’ It is possible that here the law used a paraphrase to express the concept of ownership that overrules misunderstandings, i.e., owners were legally responsible, not residents. 26 See ll. 216–221.

258

sara saba

cisterns that can be classified as public property, which suggests that they also had to be maintained with public revenues. For example, public baths had their own cisterns and another relevant case might be that of the so-called fountain houses, which were water deposits and public structures.27 These fountain-houses mainly were located by sacred areas or in general at crossroads going to significant spots. Wulf has suggested that these structures can be divided in two groups, according to the complexity of their plan. She stressed also that while the smaller Fountain houses, which were often constituted by the fountain itself and a columned façade-hall, used cisterns as water storage units, the more articulated Fountain-houses, i.e., containing multiple rooms, had their water brought in by a piping system. It must be noted that in the Astynomoi law the re-use of the funding raised with fines for the maintenance of public property is not unusual. For example, in the second column, lines 64–66, the text states that the revenues from fines levied from those who did not clean a public area as ordered were to be used for this same purpose. In short, the polis of Pergamon was determined to have a substantial contribution from her residents for the maintenance of public property, whether this was given voluntarily or demanded through a fine. One has to admit that public maintenance of water supplies was a logical and profitable way to spend money coming from revenues. It should be stressed also that the Astynomoi law records details concerning private property and infrastructures at a greater length, since those must have been the most damaged. Clearly, the polis had no tight control over them, therefore by means of this law the city tried to impose on the residents their duties, and perhaps to educate them with the help of heavy fines. Also, the importance granted to the yearly list of all private cisterns that the astynomoi had to turn in to the so-call strategoi,28 indicates the city’s lack of control over private properties of public interest such as cisterns, but also indicates the attempt to gain such control. That the polis was using all the available options to place private infrastructures of public

27 See Wulf, Die Stadtgrabung, pp. 71–117 for a discussion on baths—private and public—and for the fountain-houses, see esp. pp. 113–117. 28 The strategoi were high-ranking magistrates within poleis. Sometimes this term is translated as ‘generals,’ but this translation conveys the idea of a military office and, at least within a polis, by the second century B.C., this office did not entail any such duty.

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

259

interest under a stricter surveillance is shown by the heavy fines that the astynomoi themselves had to pay in case of failure.29 Inspection of Cisterns, Part II The astynomoi inspected cisterns following mainly two criteria, i.e., cisterns were not to be filled with earth and had to be ‘watertight’ or ‘covered’, (στεγνάς)-. I have discussed already the first criterion and would like now to shift the focus to the second in order to shed some light on the two possible interpretations of the adjective ‘watertight’ or ‘covered’, (στεγνάς). In line 207, the text strongly recommends that cisterns be ‘watertight’ or ‘covered’, (στεγνάς) and in lines 222–223 it reiterates this recommendation, lest the neighbors be damaged. It will soon be clear that the damage caused to the neighbors depends on the meaning one ascribes to the adjective. Στεγνός has different meanings, among which are ‘covered’, and ‘watertight’, the latter Klaffenbach preferred.30 This interpretation is fully justified: a non-waterproof cistern can cause serious damage to houses closely built together. Archaeological data, however, suggest that the meaning of ‘covered’ for στεγνάς is to be taken into account. According to these data, cisterns in Pergamon were roofed or covered in a variety of ways.31 Here, I suggest that the adjective is ambigous, for this reason I provide a double translation for lines 206–207. A watertight and a covered cistern could solve two different problems from which damage to neighbors could arise. Houses were built very close to one another, and therefore permeable cisterns could have caused structural damage to those properties. In addition, covers, in all their varieties, protected water from pollution, and might have also prevented mishaps, for example, residents accidentally walking into their uncovered cisterns. One final note: removing covers in some instances was difficult and may have caused the owners’ resistance to cleaning the cisterns. This could justify, for example, the repetition of the provision on keeping these infrastructures clean.32 Be this as it

29 Klaffenbach, “Die Astynomeninschrift,” p. 14 asserts that fines for magistrates who failed in their duties are normally, unsurprisingly, severe. 30 Klaffenbach “Die Astynomeninschrift,” p. 18. 31 See Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, pp. 25–27; Brinker, Ein Beitrag, pp. 103–109. 32 See Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, p. 35; Brinker, “Die Zisternen von Pergamon,” p. 12. See lines 210–11; 220.

260

sara saba

may, the law is very strict on the point of cisterns being watertight or covered (στεγνάς) and threatens the offenders with heavy fines, which would be used to repair damage to neighboring structures. Archeology and Epigraphy in Context It is time to return to the principal question. Did Pergamon in the second century A.D. really need these cisterns and the provisions contained in a law issued four centuries earlier? Garbrecht noted already that the second century B.C., text, i.e., the text of the law per se, did not foresee the building of new cisterns at all, but rather the proper maintenance of those already existing.33 The logical inference is that the local authorities thought that the new cisterns were not necessary and that the old ones would suffice to serve their purpose. Cisterns collected pluvial water, which was an alternate resource to the freshflowing water brought in by aqueducts. During the Hellenistic period, Pergamon could boast already three aqueducts, but they were external to the city and were easy to attack by armies of potential enemies. Such enemies were not imaginary, but rather a tangible peril in the second century B.C. Ancient sources testify to at least three sieges. They all took place in the third—second centuries B.C. and were conducted by Seleucid kings, as well as Philip V and Prousias of Bythinia.34 The local authorities were aware of this danger, while the citizens may not have thought of such a threat every day, especially given the opulence of the polis and the available flowing water. This threat was no longer true four centuries later under Hadrian, when the law was re-inscribed. By then, Pergamon was a different city in a very different political setting and the cisterns could not be thought of any longer as a means to provide water to the population under siege.35 The question is whether lines 203–233 on which I here

Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, pp. 17–37. See Polybius, Histories 4:48; idem, 16:1. For a treatment of these events as well as Pergamon’s defense strategies and resources see Markus Kohl, “Sièges et defense de Pergame. Nouvelles réflexions sur sa topographie et son architecture militaires,” in Les cites grecques et la guerre en asie Mineure à l’époque hellénistique, edd. J-Ch. Couvenhes and H.L. Fernoux, Actes de la Journée d’études de Lyon, (Lyon, 2004), pp. 183–194. 35 For the role of Pergamon as a possible capital of the Republican Provincia Asia see Kent Rigsby, “Provincia Asia,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 118 (1988), 123–153, 137–141. 33 34

cisterns in the ASTYNOMOI law from pergamon

261

comment were still used as an applicable part of the civic regulation or whether they contained obsolete provisions given the many new water infrastructures.36 Archaeological data reveal that during the Roman period two new water deposits were built by the living quarter.37 Clearly, the city needed water-collecting units in spite of the frantic building activity in which the city invested. Although Hadrian’s Pergamon had many more aqueducts, the population was almost six times that of Eumenes’ Pergamon. It should also be remembered that events other than wars could motivate the proper maintenance of the local cisterns. For example, the area where Pergamon was located was seismically active and earthquakes conspicuously damaged the aqueducts servicing the town. H. Falhbush has pointed out that the city was shaken by potentially damaging earthquakes at least twice, A.D. 106 and 178.38 With aqueducts out of service, cisterns would have been necessary for the maintenance of civic life, even if, in the second century A.D., some of these cisterns were in a state of disrepair. No doubt, occasionally residents needed to be reminded to repair their own cisterns. The provisions given in this law are based on common sense: had the residents followed them, the cisterns would have been fully usable and an important civic resource. Therefore, these provisions are ageless.

36 Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, 2001 p. 251 dates to the age of Hadrian the building of the Kaikos aqueduct. This alone brought into town 13,000 cubic meters of water, thus doubling the amount available to the polis through the Hellenistic aqueducts. Wulf, Die Stadtgrabung, p. 21 thinks that this paragraph of the law was no longer applicable under Hadrian. She justifies her claim with the fact that in the second century A.D. only eight out of the thirteen Hellenistic cisterns located in the living quarter were still functioning. This, however, is not a strong argument, and one could use the same data to support the opposite view. Eight functioning cisterns in an area where flowing water could have been available show that these infrastructures were still considered important and probably were still under the authorities’ surveillance. 37 Garbrecht, Die Wasserversorgung, p. 21. Each of those water deposits could contain up to 1,500 cubic meters of water. 38 M.N. Filgis and Wolfgang Radt, “Das Heroon,” in Altertümer von Pergamon 15.1, (Berlin, 1986), p. 14, note 63, “[. . .]H. Fahlbusch nimmt an, dass das Erdbeben von 106 oder 178 note Chr. die Aquädukte der Madradag- und der Kaikos Leitung stark beschädigt hat und daher grosse Teile der Stadt über längere Zeit durch Zisternen mit Wasser versorgt werden mussten, bis die Aquädukte dieser Fernwasserleitungen wieder hergestellt waren. Dies könnte ein Grund dafür gewesen sein, das Gesetz aus der Königzeit erneut in Kraft zu setzen.” (Fahlbusch assumes that the earthquake of 106 or 178 A.D. severely damaged the aqueducts of Madradag and that of the Kaikos. Because of this damage, many parts of the city had to resort to the water stored in the cisterns, at least until the aqueducts were repaired. This could be one of the reasons for which the law passed in the Royal period was enforced again)”.

262

sara saba

They could have been applied and followed by the residents both under Eumenes and under Hadrian. Eumenes II and then Hadrian committed to providing Pergamon with water and the essential infrastructures for it. Hadrian’s interest for Asia Minor is well known and equally known are his travels throughout this area, perhaps also to Pergamon.39 Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the reign of Hadrian was characterized by strong antiquarian interests.40 The cult of the past can certainly result in the reproduction of strictly symbolic monumenta, but it can also cause to re-use old provisions, just as happened with the Astynomoi law. Hadrian started a building and valorization program of Pergamon that recalls closely that carried out by Eumenes II. This may be significant in terms of self-promotion. Hadrian might have tried to assimilate his own persona with Eumenes II, whose name in Pergamon must have been synonymous with power and wealth. The Astynomoi law regulated the daily urban administration; the Roman emperor wanted to contribute to the new flourishing of the polis while assimilating himself to the king who made Pergamon’s fortune. Adopting legal dispositions given a few centuries earlier by that king could have been already a way to accomplish this result.41 The four centuries between the approval and the re-inscription of this law may have seen many changes, but the importance of water, specifically its collection and distribution within the boundaries of the city, did not change. In light of these considerations, I assert that the provisions in the Astynomoi law, here specifically those concerning cisterns, were still applicable in both second century B.C. and A.D.

39 On Hadrian’s travels and his possible, yet unattested, visits to Pergamon see Helmut Halfmann, Itinera Principis: Geschichte und Typologie der Kaiserreisen im römischen Reisen (Heidelberg, 1986). 40 See Osvalda Andrei, A. Claudius Charax di Pergamo. Interessi antiquari e antichità cittadine nell’età degli Antonini, (Bologna, 1984). 41 On Hadrian and his attitude towards the cities of the empire see Mary T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire (Princeton, 2000).

“WE AND THOSE WATERS OF THE SEA ARE ONE”: BAPTISM, BATHING, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY IN LATE ANCIENT BABYLONIA1 Scott John McDonough In the tumultuous third decade of the third century A.D., the four-yearold future prophet (or heresiarch) Mani came to live with his father, a Parthian aristocrat, among the Babylonian Jewish-Christian Gnostic sect now commonly called the Elchasites, after their founder, Elchasai[os] or Elxai.2 These Elchasites were termed ‘baptisers’ by the collator of the Greek Cologne Mani Codex, and may also be identified with the group known to later Arab observers as al-Mughtasila (The Cleansers).3 These designations point to the sect’s most defining practices, their constant ritual ablutions, which ranged from personal bathing up through baptisms for the vegetables they ate.4 It was these relentless baptisers who served as the central formative influence for Mani, who stayed among them for the next twenty years of his life. According to the testimony of Mani’s companions recorded in the Greek Cologne Mani Codex, Mani ultimately broke with the Elchasites over ritual practice, especially the constant purification that defined them to 1 The revision of this paper was generously supported by the William Paterson University of New Jersey’s Research Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences Summer Stipend Program. 2 Mani’s early life: Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist, ed. Gustav Flügel (Leipzig, 1871), pp. 327–8; Ibn al-Nadim, The Firhist of al-Nadim, trans. Bayard Dodge (New York and London, 1970), pp. 773–774; Cologne Mani Codex, ed. Ludwig Koenen and Cornelia Römer, Papyrologica Coloniensia XIV (Opladen, 1988), fr. 1, pp. 1–106; G. Haloun and W.B. Henning, “The Compendium of the Doctrines and Styles of the Teaching of Mani, the Buddha of Light,” Asia Major, n.s. 3 (1952), 184–212. For a concise summary of the debate over the connections between Mani and the Elchasites, see Iain Gardner and Samuel N.C. Lieu, Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 25–35. 3 Cologne Mani Codex 6–12, 94–99, the text appears to date to fourth century although it may be as late as the seventh-eighth centuries A.D. 4 On al-Mughtasila: Dodge, Fihrist 811; Albert Henrichs, “Mani and the Babylonian Baptists: A Historical Confrontation,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 77 (1975), 23–59. For a more cautious approach to the evidence, see Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelations of Elchasai. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Juenentum 8 (Tübingen, 1985), pp. 210–20 and 225–6.

264

scott john mcdonough

outsiders. Responding to Elchasite critics after his split from the group, Mani told the story that the waters had themselves rebuked the founder of their sect for his ritual bathing. In Mani’s story, Elchasai’s bathing pool took the form of a man and said, “Is it not enough that your beasts abuse me? Yet you [yourself ] maltreat [my home] and commit sacrilege [against my waters].”5 Elchasai’s efforts to find a more genial place to bathe were answered with further criticism: “We and those waters of the sea are one. Therefore you have come to sin and abuse us.” Like Elchasai, Mani claimed to have had his own visitations from the waters, among other spiritual visitors who taught him the basic precepts of his new faith, Manichaeism.6 Mani’s fused the precepts of Iranian aristocratic religion with the personal religiosity and sense of mission common among contemporary Jewish and Christian sects into a potent syncretic doctrine, one which he clearly hoped would unite the entire world. In service of this goal, the prophet attempted, with significant successes, to spread this new faith among the aristocratic courts of Sasanian Iran under Shapur I (c. 240/242–70) and that king’s immediate royal successors.7 Mani’s tale of Elchasai, along with his accounts of his own encounters with spirits of the water, presents a notable example of the mythologization of the ritual evolution of the doctrines of Manichaeism, this vigorous new world religion. However, this incident may be more significant in how it serves to highlight to the myriad ways in which the casual and ritual uses of water served to define social, political, and religious identities in Late Ancient Babylonia. In this period, Mani, a son of Iranian aristocrats taught by Elchasites, stood between two broad religious and cultural traditions. The first of these was that of the Magian, Iranian ruling class, led by the Sasanian King of Kings, who set themselves apart from their Babylonian subjects and their Roman enemies, through their rejection of public bathing and baptism.8 Second were the traditions of the non-Magian popula-

Cologne Mani Codex pp. 94–6, trans. Gardner and Lieu, pp. 63–5. Cologne Mani Codex pp. 11–13. On Mani’s other spiritual visitors, see Cologne Mani Codex pp. 13–4, 18–32 and 45–72. 7 Cologne Mani Codex pp. 107–147; Kephalaia, ed. Alexander Böhlig and Hans-Jakob Polotsky (Stuttgart, 1940 and 1966) and ed. Wolf-Peter Funk (Stuttgart, 1999–), 14.3–16.2 and 183.10–188.29; Ibn al-Nadim, Kitab al-Fihrist, p. 328. Mani’s Shaburagan was a translation of his teaching dedicated to Shapur I. 8 ‘Zoroastrian’ is the more, common, but anachronistic term for this Iranian religion. I prefer to use ‘Magian’ to describe Iranian religion and religious practices prior 5 6

“we

and those waters of the sea are one”

265

tion of Babylonia—Aramaic-speaking Jews, Christians, and Gnostic ‘baptisers’ (like the Elchasites)—who sought to disguise, defend and promulgate their ritual practices using water. Through varying degrees of compromise, resistance, and re-negotiation, both rulers and subjects in Babylonia made the practice or rejection of public baths and ritual immersion a cornerstone of communal initiation and identification, establishing boundaries of ritual, tradition, and law that made ‘community’ possible in an ancient, diverse and densely populated land. From earliest times, the writers of ancient Babylonia recognized that water, particularly the life-giving water of the Tigris and Euphrates, was fundamental to the preservation of their rich agricultural and urban civilization. In popular myth, the world of the Babylonians was born of land pulled from the primordial ocean, and, at least according to Mandaean tradition, floods and the slow return of salt water inland would herald its end.9 Water brought life to an otherwise barren, barbarous waste, and correspondingly the ritual use of water was a crucial aspect of the rich, diverse religious cultures of Babylonia.10 However, following the Achaemenid overthrow of Neo-Babylonian rule, and their suppression of local rebellions, Babylonia remained largely under the political control of non-native rulers for the next two-anda-half millennia. In the 220s, shortly after Mani’s birth, the Persian dynasty of the Sasanians wrested control of this ancient land from the Parthian Arsacids, declaring themselves “Kings of Kings of Iran and non-Iran.”11 In contrast to their predecessors, the Sasanians made the propagation and promotion of the Magian faith, and their alliance with its priesthood, primary elements of their political and cultural self-identification as to the ninth- and tenth-centuries, as this term was in more common use during the Sasanian era, along with ‘Mazdaean.’ In the Sasanian period, the term ‘Zoroastrian’ (Zaradushtakan) was only used by the members of the Mazdakite sect, ultimately deemed heretical by the Magian ‘mainstream.’ 9 Mark Lidzbarski, Ginza (Göttingen and Leipzig, 925), pp. 411–6. 10 The literature on ancient Babylonian religion and its water gods and cults is vast. For an introduction, see Jean Bottero, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods. (Chicago, 1992), pp. 232–250. 11 For a narrative of the rise of the Sasanians, see al-Tabari, Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’lmuluk, ed. Michael Jan de Goeje, et al. (Leiden, 1879–1901) and ed. Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo, 1960–69), 1.813–36; Translation and commentary of al-Tabari’s Sasanian material may be found in al-Tabari, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, trans. Theodor Nöldeke (Leiden, 1879) and al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari. Volume V. the Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakmids, and Yemen, trans. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, (Albany, 1999).

266

scott john mcdonough

“Mazda-Worshiping Kings of Kings of Iran and non-Iran.” This concept of ‘Iran’ (Aryan) fused elite notions of territorial, ethnographic, and religious identity, into an essentially Sasanian invention.12 For the Sasanians, Iranians were residents of the Iranian plateau, speakers of Indo-European languages, participants in a unique aristocratic culture, and, at least in theory, Magians. These Iranian Magians had quite different ideas about the proper ritual use of water than the native peoples of ‘non-Iran.’ Indeed, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Syrian biographer and geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, quoting an earlier Arab physician, claims that the Magian Sasanians were entirely ignorant of baths.13 As will become clear below, Yaqut’s statement is certainly an exaggeration. However, while few specifics details of Magian ritual from the Sasanian era survive, one point clearly seen in the sources is the Magian reverence for the four elements, representing pure emanations of the good god Ahura Mazda/Ohrmazd: earth, air, fire, and, significantly, water.14 Magian priests protected these natural elements from pollution by the most strenuous measures, up to and including the ritual exposure of the remains of dead to wild animals and nature (rather than burial, cremation or disposal at sea). As will be shown, bathing and ritual purification were no less restricted. Many purification rites are described in the Magian holy texts of the Avesta. Unfortunately, most of the unambiguous evidence of the nature of Magian rituals regarding water can only be traced as far back as the encyclopedic era of the ninth and tenth centuries, when Magian priests living under Muslim Caliphs sought to compile and preserve the wisdom of their faith in written form. Nonetheless, several Magian purification rites clearly predate the ninth-century. The most notable of these is the Barashnom, an elaborate nine-night cleansing with ox urine, dust, and, finally, water, that was a well-established practice by the time of the encyclopedists.15 In all cases, strenuous efforts were

Gerhardo Gnoli, The Idea of Iran (Rome, 1989). Yaqut Mujam al-buldan (Beirut, 1955–57), 1.199; W. Floor, “Bathhouses,” Encyclopedia Iranica (London and New York, 1985–), 3:863. 14 Discussion: Michael G. Morony, Iraq After the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), pp. 286–97. 15 M. Boyce, “Barashnom,” Encyclopedia Iranica (London and New York, 1985–), 3:756–57. Sacred Books of the East XVIII, trans. E.W. West (London and New York, 1888), pp. 279–366 and 431–58, translating the Epistles of Manochihr, documents an attempt by Zādspram, a ninth century mobad of Serkan in Fars, to simplify the Barashnom 12 13

“we

and those waters of the sea are one”

267

undertaken to physically separate pure water from contact with flesh still burdened by druj, ‘sin’ or ‘the lie’. For Magians, purification of the self was subordinate to protecting the purity of the environment, a very different attitude from that held by many non-Magian subjects of the Sasanians, or by their Roman neighbors to the west. Indeed, unbelievers, those outside the Magian Iranian elite, polluted water with their touch. Bathing in public, for simple cleansing, or even physical pleasure, as was done in Roman baths and gymnasia, was highly offensive to Magian sensibilities. Indeed, the eponymous subject of Journey of Arda Viraf specifically calls hot baths sinful.16 While Magian priests did not object to bathing per se, they were mortally offended by bathing that was not undertaken with proper reverence, out of the public eye, and bound within a proper Magian ritual framework. Magianism, specifically its beliefs and priesthood, was a foundational element of the early Sasanian state. The Sasanians justified their rule explicitly through their status as Mazda-worshipers, and especially through their association with the goddess Anahita, the pure ‘Lady of the Waters.’ Indeed, the Sasanian family first rose to prominence as protectors, or even priests, of the Anahita temple of Istakr in Persis/ Fars.17 After becoming Kings of Kings of Iran and non-Iran, the Sasanians dedicated treasure, and the heads of their slain enemies, to the Anahita temple and named many of the female members of the family after the water goddess. The Anahita temples and fire-temples dedicated by the Sasanian kings were often built atop springs and flowing waters. The enormous temple and palace site of the ‘Great Fire’ of Adur Gushnasp, located at Takht-i Suleiman in Iranian Azerbaijan, is still dominated by a huge artificial lake, securing the public association of the king, his gods, and the pure waters of life.18

ritual, an effort suppressed by Manochihr, his brother. I was unable to consult the critical edition of this text, Epistles of Manochihr, ed. B.N. Dhabhar (Bombay, 1912). 16 Le livre d’Ardā Virāz [Arda Viraf Namag/Book of Arda Viraf ], ed. and trans. Phillipe Gignoux (Paris, 1984), 41.6–8. 17 Anahita and the early Sasanians: al-Tabari, Ta’rikh 1.814 and 819. Nöldeke, Geschichte, p. 4 note 2; Mary Boyce, “Ardwisur Anahid,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (London and New York, 1985–), 1:1003–05. 18 For a summary of literature on the texts and archaeology of Adur Gushnasp, see Dietrich Huff, “Takt-e Solayman,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (London and New York, 1985–), online draft; Mary Boyce, “Adur Gushnasp,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (London and New York, 1985–), 1:475–76; J. Ruska and Clifford Edmund Bosworth, “Shiz,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (1960–), 9:490. See also: Dietrich Huff, “Takht-i Suleiman: Tempel des sassanidischen Reichsfeuers Atur Gushnasp,” Deuttsches Archäologisches Institut, Archäologische

268

scott john mcdonough

In addition to their connections with the Magian cult of Anahita, the Sasanian family was also part of a larger Magian aristocracy, dominated by the powerful Iranian landholders of Persis, Parthia and Media, and Magian priestly families, all united together by blood and culture. The prominent roles of these priests in the early Sasanian administration highlighted the religious sanctity of the ruling family, while the priests themselves served as an ad hoc royal bureaucracy.19 The integration of Magian priestly and bureaucratic classes in Sasanian administration played a significant role in the definition of religious and social identities in Sasanian Babylonia. To their Jewish subjects, the explicitly Magian Sasanians and their priestly representatives were vastly different from their relatively tolerant Arsacid predecessors. According to a passage in the Babylonian Talmud, Babylonian Jews informed the third-century Palestinian patriarch Judah that although the Arsacids had been like the armies of King David, the Sasanian Persians resembled the demons of hell.20 The large Jewish population of Babylonia faced increasing interference in their affairs from the Magian priesthood (Ar. habarim), which was either supported or condoned by the Sasanian kings. Indeed, the powerful late thirdcentury Magian priest Kirdir boasted in monumental inscriptions of striking down the works of the evil god Ahriman, and “[. . .] Jews (Yahud), Buddhists (Shaman), Hindus (Brahman), Nazarenes (Nasara), Christians (Kristiyan), Baptists (Makdag) and Manicheans (Zandik) were smitten in the empire, their idols destroyed, and the abodes of the demons disrupted and made into thrones and seats of the gods.”21 Flashpoints for conflict between Magian rulers and their subjects were places where non-Magian activities, particularly religious activi-

Entdeckungen: Die Forschungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts im 20. Jahrhundert I (Mainz, 2000), pp. 103–9; Mary Boyce, “The Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975), 454–65; Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, “The Religion of ancient Iran,” Historia Religionum (Leiden, 1969), p. 355; idem, La religion de l’Iran ancien (Paris, 1962), pp. 87–90, 287; Georg Hoffmann, Auszüge aus syrischen Akten persischer Märtyrer (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 281–93. 19 Shaul Shaked, “Administrative Functions of Priests in the Sasanian Period,” in Proceedings of the First European Conference of Iranian Studies. Part 1. Old and Middle Iranian Studies (Rome, 1990), pp. 180–93. 20 Babylonian Talmud, Kid. 72a. 21 Georgina Herrmann and D.N. MacKenzie, “The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam” Iranische Denkmäler 13 (1989), 258. Translation of and commentary on all of Kirdir’s incriptins may be found in Les Quatre Inscriptions du mage Kirdir, ed. and trans. Philippe Gignoux (Paris, 1991).

“we

and those waters of the sea are one”

269

ties, threatened the purity of Ohrmazd’s creation. According to the Babylonian Talmud, for reasons of ritual purity, Persian priests proscribed the ritual preparation of meat, demanded the exhumation of the dead, and, significantly, “[. . .] decreed against the use of baths because ritual bathing [was not observed].”22 The extensive network of Jewish public bathhouses constructed through Babylonia and the ceremony of the ritual bath (mikveh) were obvious public targets for zealous Magian priests.23 Nonetheless, the rabbis appear to have reached some sort of accommodation with the Sasanian authorities, continuing to debate legal issues related to public bathhouses into the fourth century.24 Unfortunately, there is little evidence regarding the nature of this accord, although other passages suggest that the several rabbis developed close personal relations with Sasanian kings and other members of the royal family, while Jews took steps to reduce the public profile of their more “offensive” rituals. As we will see, this may also indicate that the Sasanian kings were willing to compromise their cultural and confessional scruples in the interests of imperial harmony. The ritual uses of water in the practices of Christians and Gnostic baptizing sects were even more troubling to Magian authorities.25 Magian authorities’ concerns regarding issues of purity were exacerbated by the central, public role played by ritual bathing, especially baptism, in these traditions. Indeed, the growing use of baptism as an initiation, rather than a deathbed ritual, made baptism one of the most prominent symbols of the Christian faith. Moreover, aggressive Christian and Gnostic proselytizing among ethnic Iranian aristocrats, particularly from the late fifth-century onward, posed an increasingly serious threat to the social cohesion of the Magian, Iranian aristocracy.26 Further, Christian uses of water solidified the identification of Sasanian Christians with their Roman enemies, who were well-known as promiscuous bathers, and who, after Constantine, increasingly made Christianity a central element of their Roman identity. For the Sasanian ruling classes, especially the Magian priesthood, the propagation Babylonian Talmud Yeb. 63b. Babylonian Talmud Erub. 55b. 24 Babylonian Talmud Shab. 40b–41a. 25 On Christian identity, see Sebastian P. Brock, “Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties,” in Religion and National Identity. Studies in Church History 18, edited by Stuart Mews, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 1–19. 26 Acts of Pethion, Adurhormizd and Anahid, in Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum Syriace, ed. Paul Bedjan (Paris and Leipzig, 1890–97), 2:568. 22 23

270

scott john mcdonough

of Christian baptism and Roman-style bathing were symbols of the expanding cultural hegemony of the Christian Roman commonwealth (borrowing Garth Fowden’s term) and represented a dire, even mortal, threat to Sasanian or Iranian identity.27 Curiously though, on occasions when large populations of Roman prisoners were taken in warfare and deported to Babylonia (or points beyond), the Sasanian kings made a point of building analogues of their captives’ home cities. Indeed, the sixth-century Roman historian Procopius described Veh Antiok-i Kusro (The Better Antioch of Kusro) as a city populated with deportees from the 540 sack of Antioch, built complete with all of the trappings of Greco-Roman urbanism, especially baths.28 Other kings appear also to have been enamored of this specific aspect of Roman culture. Both Valash (484–488) and Kavad (488–96/498–531) had bathhouses constructed in their dominions, Kavad after taking a leisurely soak in the baths of conquered Roman Amida. Somewhat later, the powerful king Kusro II Parviz (591–628) was murdered shortly after taking a dip.29 The Iranian aristocracy and priesthood did not take these royal deviations from Magian orthopraxy lightly. Priests angrily denounced Valash for breaking Magian religious laws, eventually deposing and blinding him, according to Syriac Chronicle of pseudo-Joshua the Stylite (c. 510).30 Those kings who experimented with bathing also tend to be among those most vilified in the Perso-Arabic historical tradition, which was largely sympathetic to the Magian aristocracy.31 Indeed, accounts reflecting the views of the late-Sasanian Magian elites imply that royal interest in bathing was symptomatic of a far wider spectrum of royal failings: from military, political, and personal weaknesses, to open heresy. In this vein, Kavad, a noted builder of baths, also a supported the Magian heresiarch Mazdak, and believed in the idea that women and

Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993). 28 Procop. Bell. Pers. 2.14.1–4. 29 Ps.-Joshua the Stylite, Chronicon anonymum pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum. ed. JeanBaptiste Chabot, CSCO 91/43 (Leuven, 1927–49), 1:248 and 298; Chronicle of PseudoJoshua the Stylite, trans. Frank R. Trombley and John W. Watt (Liverpool, 2001), pp. 16–17 and 91; Morony, Iraq, p. 269. 30 Ps.-Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle 1.248. 31 For an overview of the debates surrouing this historical tradition, see Zeev Rubin, “The Reforms of Khusro Anurshiwan,” The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III (Princeton, 1995), pp. 264–5; Morony, Iraq, p. 564; Averil Cameron, “Agathias on the Sassanians,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23–4 (1969–70), 1–150. 27

“we

and those waters of the sea are one”

271

property should be shared in common.32 Similarly, Ferdowsi describes the murder of Kusro II taking place immediately after the king’s trip to a bath. While this may have simply been the proper fate for a king so ignominiously defeated by the Romans after two decades of conflict (602–628), the presence of the bath in the tale may be another sign of Kusro’s personal failings, and his murder a just fate for a king who frivolously polluted the sacred waters.33 Indeed, Perso-Arabic historical traditions even attribute the death of the notoriously pro-Christian fifth-century king, Yazdgard I ‘The Sinner’ to a kick delivered directly by a divine horse that rose from the waters of the sea.34 Clearly, the gods or their servants punished kings who strayed from the path of Magian purity. These incidents reflect the development of a fissure within the Iranian ruling clique itself. On one side were the Sasanian kings, who were willing to adopt an accommodationist stance towards their subjects and their customs, and on the other side, the Magian priests and their aristocratic supporters, who distained any compromise.35 In spite of early concerns that Christians constituted a potential Roman ‘fifth column’ in the Sasanian world, by the late period (500–650), Jewish and Christian subjects in Babylonia were the source of the bulk of Sasanian tax revenue (Magian aristocrats being largely untaxed), served 32 Patricia Crone, “Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt.” Iran 29 (1991), 21–42; idem, “Zoroastrian Communism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36 (1994), 447–462; Heinz Gaube, “Mazdak: Historical Reality or Invention?” Studia Iranica 11 (1982), 111–22. 33 Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians (London, 1979), p. 143. James-Howard Johnston, “Heraclius’ Persian Campaigns and the Revival of the East Roman Empire, 622–630,” War in History 6 (1999), 1–44; Touraj Daryaee, “Apocalypse now: Zoroastrian reflections on the early Islamic centuries,” Medieval Encounters 4, no. 3 (1998), 188–202; idem, “The Use of Religio-Political Propaganda on the Coinage of Xusro II,” American Journal of Numismatics 9, 2nd Series (1997), 141–154; J.M. Fiey, “The Last Byzantine Campaign into Persia and Its Influence on the Attitude of the Local Populations Towards the Muslim Conquerors 7–16 H./628 A.D.,” in Proceedings of the Second Symposium on the History of Bilad al-Sham During the Early Islamic Period up to 40 A.H./640 A.D., ed. M.A. Bakhit (Amman, 1987), pp. 96–103. 34 A. Shapur Shahbazi, “The Horse that killed Yazdegerd,” in Paitimana: Essays in Iranian, Indo-European, and Indian Studies in Honor of Hans-Peter Schmidt (Costa Mesa, 2003), pp. 355–361. 35 For a full discussion of this trend, see Scott McDonough, “Power By Negotiation: Institutional Reform in the Fifth-Century Sasanian Empire,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Los Angeles, 2005), pp. 231–84. For another perspective on conflict between the Iranian aristocracy and Sasanian monarchy, see also: Parvaneh Pourshariati, Decline and Fall of the Sasanid Empire: The Sasanid/Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran (Forthcoming).

272

scott john mcdonough

important roles in the bureaucracy and at court, and received considerable largess from the monarchy.36 In contrast with the countryside, dominated by Iranian aristocratic estates, urban foundations populated with deportees, Jews, and Christians (like Veh Antiok-i Kusro) were a haven of uncontested royal power. These royal cities served as safe locations for the kings to challenge the influence of the Magian priesthood. As the Sasanian kings grew confident that they had developed a base of support beyond the Magian aristocracy, they were more willing to make symbolic statements distancing themselves from their first vocal supporters and co-religionists. The establishment of bathhouses in the sixth and seventh centuries served as such a symbolic assertion of royal independence and strength, a break with the Sasanian family’s whole-hearted identification with the Magian, Iranian elite, and a symbol of a late Sasanian alliance between kings and non-Magian leaders. For some late Sasanian kings, allowing or personally establishing public baths showed their desire to transcend the rigid constraints of their own Magian, Iranian identity. In doing so, they might better rule as kings to all and as equals of their Roman foes—essentially forging a new, universal ‘Sasanian’ identity based on personal and political loyalty to the Sasanian family and tolerance of ritual difference. However, these efforts remained tentative, and their reception was, to put it charitably, mixed. This returns us to where this essay began, with the prophet Mani, three centuries earlier. Why did Mani reject the ritual bathing of his Elchasite brethren at the dawn of the Sasanian era? Mani sought to unite his world under a single syncretistic religion tying together the Jewish-Christian Gnostic beliefs of his upbringing with the aristocratic Iranian identity that was his birthright. Beyond his personal spiritual reservations regarding the pollution of water, Mani sought an alliance with the Magian elites of the Sasanian polity, from local governors and kings, members of the royal family, to the King of Kings himself. Thus, for Mani, restricting public bathing was both diplomatic and theologically defensible.

36 For discussions of the Sasanian social and economic systems, see Mohsen Zakeri, Sasanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society (Wiesbaden, 1995), pp. 13–94; Morony, Iraq, pp. 181–190; Vladimir G. Lukonin, “Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade,” in Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 681–746; N. Pigulevkaja, Les villes de l’état Iranien aux époques parthe et sassanide (Paris, 1963). See also Pourshariati, Decline and Fall of the Sasanid Empire.

“we

and those waters of the sea are one”

273

While Sasanian kings like Shapur I were sympathetic to Mani’s call, they were also deeply acculturated to the traditions of their own Iranian Magian upbringing. By embracing Magian traditions with regard to the purity of water and the other elements, while bringing a new gospel founded on Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic beliefs, Mani sought to forge a new, cohesive identity for the people of the Sasanian world. However, this fusion of identities could not be tolerated by the Magian priesthood. The Magian high priest Kirdir and his rigorist followers demanded and received Mani’s execution for heresy, in 274 or 277, by Bahram I (c. 271–74) a king less sympathetic to Mani’s call. This marked the Magian priesthood’s rejection and denunciation of Mani’s ecumenism and their affirmation of their own purity and distinct social and religious identity.37 The further rejection of Mani’s message by Christians, Jews, and others affirmed a world in which communal identity was fiercely defended against syncretism and ritual accommodation. Yet Mani’s universalism was a seductive ideal. In similar fashion, centuries later, the Sasanian kings directly challenged their Magian supporters in the interests of social and political unity. Again this challenge revolved around the vital element of water, although the late Sasanian kings took on their priestly allies in a manner that Mani could hardly have foreseen. Yet, for all the efforts of Mani and the Sasanian kings, water was ultimately too contested as both a symbol and a reality to serve as a force for concord in late ancient Babylonia. In the end, attitudes toward baptism and bathing defined the boundaries of personal identity in a world where Magians, Jews, Christians, and Gnostics lived alongside each other, but were never truly together.

37 W.B. Henning. “Mani’s Last Journey,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 10 (1942), 941–53; Walther Hinz, “Mani and Kardir.” In Atti del Convegno sul tema: La Persia nel Medioevo. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura. Cuadern. note 160 (Rome, 1971), pp. 485–502; James R. Russell, “Kartir and Mani: A Shamanistic Model of their Conflict,” Irania Varia: Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater. Acta Iranica 30 (Leiden, 1990), 180–93.

PART THREE

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WATER SOURCES AND RESOURCES

NATURAL WATER RESOURCES AND THE SACRED IN ATTICA Etienne Dunant* IT IS

WELL-KNOWN THAT WATER IS A VERY IM P ORTANT FACTOR FOR HUM AN

SETTLEM ENT IN ANY ENVIRONM ENT. IN THE CASE OF TYP ICAL

MEDITERRANEAN

ATHENS AND ATTICA,

THE

CLIM ATE INCLUDES, TODAY AND IN ANCIENT TIM ES,

LARGE VARIATIONS IN RAINFALL ACCORDING TO THE SEASON.

THE

P EAK OCCURS

IN AUTUM N AND WINTER, WHILE WATER-STRESS IS P ARTICULARLY AP P ARENT IN SUM M ER.1

CONSEQUENTLY, WHILE THERE ARE SP RINGS, RIVERS, AND STREAM S IN ATTICA, THEY ARE HIGHLY SEASONAL AND TO OB TAIN WATER IN THE DRIEST TIM ES OF YEAR CAN B ECOM E P ROB LEM ATIC. GREEK CIVILIZATION HAD TO fiND SOLUTIONS TO THIS P ROB LEM .2 IN THIS CONTEXT, ANCIENT GREEK SANCTUARIES TOOK GREA T CARE TO HAVE P ROVISIONS OF FRES H WATER FOR THEIR SIM P LE AND B ASIC NEEDS BY, FOR INSTANCE, B UILDING CISTERNS.

BUT IN

SOM E CASES A NATURAL

WATER RESOURCE—A SP RING, A RIVER OR A LAKE OF FRESH DRINKING WATER—WAS ALREADY P RESENT IN THE B OUNDARIES OF THE SANCTUARY.3

Research on the “where of cult,” as Robert Parker puts it, has started to seek answers on the interactions between Greek religion and its environment.4 Indeed, the ancient sacred geography has, in recent years, been one of the important themes in research on Greek religion, in particular since de Polignac’s book on Cults, Territory and the Emergence of the Greek City-State (1995) explored the mutual influences

* I would like to thank the organizers of the conference at the Northern Arizona University for having given me the opportunity to present this essay and to the University of Warwick for financial support. I am grateful to Dr. James Davidson and Professor Simon Swain of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Warwick, as well as to the editors, for their helpful comments. Any remaining errors are my own. 1 Basil D. Katsoulis and Harry D. Kambetzidis, “Analysis of the Long-Term Precipitation Series at Athens, Greece,” Climatic Change 14 (1989), 263–90. 2 James Whitley, The Archaeology of Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2001), p. 58: “We simply cannot place developments in Archaic and Classical Greece into any kind of environmental context, unless we are prepared to assume that the modern environment differs little from the ancient.” 3 In this survey, wells are not generally included with the ‘natural’ water resources, but are discussed when their religious importance is clearly stated. 4 Robert Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford, 2005), p. 50.

278

etienne dunant

between Greek religion and space in the context of the formation of the Greek city-state. This essay looks for places in Athens and Attica where a natural water resource coincided with the presence of a sacred dimension. The problem of defining what actually is a sacred place is a tricky one, especially in a civilization such as ancient Greece where there is no clear boundary between secular and religious spheres. In this essay the sites deemed sacred were not only sanctuaries, but also other places linked to the sacred in a large sense, either by a myth or a ritual. A related problem resides in how a ‘sanctuary’ is defined. I will define a sanctuary for the purpose of this discussion as a site with an attested temple and/or an altar. I have made this subjective choice of a definition for the sake of simplicity, but I recognize that the definition would not be completely satisfactory in a large scale study of ancient Greek religion, nor is it always possible to find traces of a temple or of an altar. Thus, my definition must be used with caution.5 The following survey, which took into account literary and archaeological sources, does not claim to be exhaustive. My survey concludes with a brief analysis drawing on the main characteristics of those sites, focusing in particular on the questions of location and territory. As a preamble, I must discuss in general terms the place of water in Greek religion. The need for purification is particularly important here for it was a prerequisite to the participation in any ritual, large or small. For this purpose, water (pure, salty, mixed with ash, etc.) was one of the privileged tools as testified by, for example, the many perirrhanteria (water hand basins) found in Greek sanctuaries. Water could also be used in other ritualistic actions such as libations, drinking, bathing, and washing of the cult statue. Virtually every sanctuary used water for ritual purposes.6 The Presence of Natural Water Resources in Sanctuaries in Attica: A Survey The twenty-four cases listed in this survey are of very different kinds. Elaborating on a typology for these sites is not only a difficult exercise Whitley, Archaeology, pp. 134–36. Jean Rudhardt, “La perception grecque du territoire sacré,” Melanges de l’ecole Francaise de Rome 113 (2001), 175–88. 6 Susan Guettel Cole, “The Uses of Water in Greek Sanctuaries,” in Early Greek Cult Practice, ed. Robin Hägg et al. (Stockholm, 1988), pp. 161–165. 5

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

279

but also one that would certainly not correspond to how the ancient Greeks understood their sacred locations. Table 1 gives an idea of the diversity of cases encountered and of the different criteria that could have been used: for example, the location, the type of source of water, or the divinities present. The sites are organized here according to two criteria: first, whether or not the site was a sanctuary; and second, the importance given to water in its sacred dimensions. Obviously, table 1 is not definitive since our knowledge of those sites is very fragmentary, and the absence of evidence for rituals and for the presence of an altar or temple does not imply that these never existed. Future discoveries could change our picture dramatically. Finally, some sites proved to be borderline cases. These are treated separately below. Sanctuaries Where Water is the Focal Point of the Cult For some cults and sanctuaries in Attica the focal point is water or, more precisely, the natural resource that flows by or gushes within the sanctuary. These sanctuaries should be those where the divinity and the water resource are overlapping entities, one equaling the other or one being the expression of the other. A sanctuary honoring the river-god Kephisos (Table 1–1a) was situated next to the eponymous river, on the way to the Piraeus between the long walls. Although the shrine itself was not excavated, two marble reliefs and an inscribed stele were found, all dated to around 400 B.C. On the reliefs, two founders are named; the first is a woman called Xenokrateia who claims she had founded the shrine dedicated to Kephisos for the sake of her son Xeniades and his education (didaskalia). On the other, the founder is a man called Kephisodotos or literally ‘gift of Kephisos’.7 Theophoric names already existed in Classical times, though such names are more common in the Hellenistic period. This name appears here in the context of the foundation of a sanctuary to Kephisos, and the cult was plainly concerned with childbirth and the education of the youth. Indeed, besides the already clear statement made by Xenokrateia, the inscribed stele gives the names of

7 There is no known relationship between the two founders, who are from different demes.

280

etienne dunant

the divinities that were to receive sacrifices and/or offerings. The list significantly belongs to the sphere of kourotrophic deities and reads: “To Hestia, Kephisos, Apollo Pythios, Leto, Artemis Lochia, Eileithyia, Acheloos, Kallirrhoe, Geraistai Nymphai Genethliai, Rhapso.”8 A sanctuary of the Nymphs (Table 1–1b) was found on the south coast of Attica, on the road from Athens to Cape Sounion. Alongside the river-gods, the Nymphs were the other deities closely associated with water, in particular with the springs. In this case, the sanctuary was located thanks to the discovery of an inscription in the vicinity of a well still used in recent years. The inscription was a sacred law, put up after the consultation of the oracle at Delphi and set the price one should pay to drink and use the sanctuary’s water. Alternative readings have been suggested as the text is somewhat problematic, but a recent reading has convincingly demonstrated to me that if it was permitted under conditions to drink the water, it was on the other hand forbidden to take water out of the sanctuary, in which instance a heavy penalty of fifty drachmas per amphora was imposed. There is no doubt that if the Nymphs were honored at this sanctuary, it was because of the spring, and the spring must have been the most important feature of this humble shrine. Two possibilities can be deduced from the sacred law: the spring was either to be protected from over-exploitation, or the water was sacred and, as a possession of the Nymphs, was not to be taken outside the sanctuary. The truth resides probably in a combination of these two reasons.9 The Kyllou-Pera on the Hymettos (Table 1–1c) is described by some later sources as a place on Mount Hymettos, near Athens, where women gathered to perform certain ceremonies. The details they give about this place are few: it is generally called Kyllou-Pera, and “is a place on the Hymettos where there was a sanctuary for Aphrodite and a spring” (ἡ Πήρα χωρίον πρὸς τῶι Ὑµηττῶι, ἐν ὧι ἱερὸν Ἀφροδίτης καὶ

8 Jennifer Larson, Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (Oxford, 2001), pp. 131–34. Reliefs: IG 13.986–87. Cult regulation: IG 2/3².4547. For theophoric names see Robert Parker, ‘Theophoric Names and the History of Greek Religion,’ in Greek Personal Names. Their Value as Evidence, ed. Simon Hornblower and Elaine Matthews, Proceedings of the British Academy 104 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 59–61, 67. 9 IG 13.256; Jean Bousquet, “Deux inscriptions attiques,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 91 (1967), 93–95; John McKesson Camp, “The Water Supply of Ancient Athens from 3000 to 86 B.C.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1977), p. 356. The recent reading is given in Guy Meyer, “Le prix de l’eau et le tarif du sanctuaire des Nymphes: IG, I3, 256,” Revue des etudes grecques 117 (2004), 321–24.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

281

κρήνη). Women drank the water from this spring, hoping for pregnancy or safe childbirth. In addition, we are told that the place had a bad reputation and that, according to a proverb reported by Zenobius, it was where women “violated nature by means of artifice” (ἐπὶ τῶν τὴν φύσιν βιαζοµένων ἐξ ἐπιτεχνήσεως). Aristophanes also calls the place a ‘brothel.’ From this mysterious information we can surmise a few points: first, that the water of the spring was thought to possess powers over female fertility; second, that the spring was out of town and was somehow connected with a sanctuary of Aphrodite, who is linked to female sexuality. Finally, Cratinus’ and Aristophanes’ mockery, as well as the existence of a proverb about the site, demonstrate that both spring and cult were well known in fifth century Athens.10 This spot is identified today with the valley of Kaisariani where several springs, sources of the Ilissos, still flow. One spring is now next to a monastery (figure 1) whose walls contain reused blocks from ancient buildings.11

Sanctuaries Where Water Has a Substantial Place in Cult or Myth The sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron (Table 1–2a) was one of the most important of the ancient Athenian territory. Located on the eastern coast of Attica, a very short distance from the sea, it was one of the sanctuaries where the Arkteia, a ceremony involving young girls called the ‘little bears,’ was performed. The sanctuary developed around natural features of the site: a spring and a cave-like cleft. The importance of these features has been confirmed by the location of the offerings found on the site as early as the eighth century B.C., showing concentrations on those two spots as well as at the temple and to the

10 Hesychius K 4521 citing Aristophanes, frag. 283 (273) in R. Kassel and C. Austin, ed., Poetae Comici Graeci, 3.2 (Berlin, 1984), pp. 161–62; Suda K 2672, citing Cratinus, frag. 110(102) in Kassel-Austin, ed., Poetae Comici Graeci, 4 (Berlin, 1983), p. 178; Winfried Bühler, ed., Zenobii Athoi Proverbia, 4 (Göttingen, 1982), pp. 283–90. 11 On Kaisariani see Edward Dodwell, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece: during the years 1801, 1805, and 1806 (London, 1819), p. 486; Ernst Curtius and Johann August Kaupert, Karten von Attika: auf Veranlassung des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (Berlin, c. 1881), pp. 24–25; Kaiti Argyropoulou, Mount Hymettus and the Kaisariani Monastery (Athens, 1962), pp. 14–16; E.K. Borthwick, “The Oxyrhynchus Monody and some ancient fertility superstitions,” American Journal of Archaeology 84 (1963), 226–27, 234; Bühler, Zenobii, pp. 286–290; Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, L’Aphrodite grecque, (Kernos supplement) 4 (Athens, 1994), pp. 74–75; Hans Ruprecht Goette, Athens, Attica, and the Megarid. An archaeological guide (London, 2001), p. 152.

282

etienne dunant

Figure 1. The Spring at the Monastery of Kaisariani on Mount Hymettos.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

283

east of the excavated area. Some, following the excavator, have called the area around the spring the ‘holiest of holies.’ Interestingly, while the cave had been propped up by the erection of buildings, the spring site remained largely untouched, apart from the platform built directly next to it. No fountains or basins were found, as if the site had been intended to remain as natural as possible. It is not clear, however, what the spring might have been used for in the cult. The goddess Artemis is known to relish such natural features, and the liminality of Brauron (space between civilized/wild or land/sea) suits her particularly well. The chthonic aspect of a spring next to a cave could also match the possibility of a heroic cult to Iphigeneia. In the case of Brauron, the myths attached to the sanctuary do not mention the spring. Archaeologically, if the spring stands out as one of the features, along with the cave that anchors the sanctuary in its space, it does not seem to have been the focus of the cult unless new evidence were to shed new light on it.12 The case of the healing sanctuaries shows an altogether different story. The three sanctuaries taken into account here are not the oldest ones in Attica. On the contrary, they were founded in Classical times (well into the second half of the fifth century B.C. for the Amphiaraion and the Asklepieion, and in the fourth century B.C. for the sanctuary of Pankrates) while the earliest attested sanctuaries generally date to the end of the eighth century B.C. Water is believed to have had an important part to play in these sanctuaries because of their medical functions. The Athenian Asklepieion (Table 1–2b) is on the south slope of the Acropolis, next to the theatre of Dionysos. Although its foundation is one of the best documented of all Greek sanctuaries, the choice of the location was never clearly explained in the sources.13 As a result,

12 For a bibliography on the sanctuary, the ancient sources on Brauron, and the archaeological reports, see Gunnel Ekroth, “Inventing Iphigeneia?,” Kernos 16 (2003), 59–60, note 1–8. On the spring see Ekroth, “Iphigeneia,” pp. 80, 102–5, figs. 6–9; P.G. Themelis, “The Topography of the Sanctuary,” in Le Orse di Brauron. Un rituale di iniziazione femminile nel santuario di Artemide, ed. B. Gentili and F. Perusino (Pisa, 2002), p. 109; Georges Daux, “Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques en Grèce en 1961,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 86 (1962), 679. 13 On the foundation of the Asklepieion, see Luigi Beschi, “Il monumento de Telemachos, fondatore dell’ Asklepieion ateniese,” Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente, 29–30 (1967–8), 381–436; Luigi Beschi, “Il rilievo di Telemacho ricompletato,” Archaiologika Analecta ex Athenon, 15 (1982), 31–43; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, pp. 127–42; Aleshire, Athenian Asklepieion, pp. 7–11; Kevin Clinton, “The Epidauria and the Arrival of Asclepius at Athens,” in Ancient Greek Cult

284

etienne dunant

and even after archaeologists precisely located the sanctuary, it has been debated as to whether this was the original setting. It is generally agreed today that the easternmost terrace on the south slope, just before the theater, is the original site.14 How the sanctuary was provided with water in its early years is not clearly known but, when the cliff was cut back to allow the erection of a stoa in the fourth century B.C., a room was built in a fissure in the rock where a spring had been flowing. This spring was situated at the core of the sanctuary, in a cave-like room, and was undoubtedly sacred.15 It was, however, never abundant, and it has been suggested that the structure to the west of the stoa, generally believed to be a sacrificial pit, could have been a water reservoir.16 The sanctuary of Pankrates (or Herakles Pankrates) (Table 1–2c) was discovered on the banks of the Ilissos, upstream from the stadium. Otherwise unknown from the literary sources, this rather humble sanctuary has revealed a great number of votive reliefs (58 in total), among which a couple were anatomical, thus demonstrating the medical aspect of the cult. The impression that the river was an integral part of the sanctuary is further reinforced by the natural setting, with bedrock layers forming a natural amphitheater opening onto the river which was, according to Vikela, the natural entrance to the precinct. The sanctuary’s other chthonic attributes, such as a cleft in the ground

Practice from the Archaeological Evidence, ed. Robin Hägg (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 17–34; John McKesson Camp, The Archaeology of Athens (New Haven, CT, 2001), pp. 122–23; Bernard Holtzmann, L’Acropole d’Athènes. Monuments, cultes et histoire du sanctuaire d’Athéna Polias (Paris, 2003), pp. 206–9. 14 The location of the early sanctuary is discussed by Sara B. Aleshire, The Athenian Asklepieion: the people, their dedications, and the inventories (Amsterdam, 1989), pp. 23–32; John Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (New York, 1980), p. 127; U. Köhler, “Der Südabhang der Akropolis zu Athen nach den Ausgrabungen der archäologischen Gesellschaft,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (Athenische Abteilung) 2 (1877), 253–60. 15 The Round Spring and the stoa are discussed in Roland Martin and Henri Metzger, “Recherches d’architecture et de topographie à l’Asclépiéion d’Athènes,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 73 (1949), 321–23; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, figs. 177–78; Aleshire, Athenian Asklepieion, p. 21, note 4; Camp, “Water Supply,” pp. 112–16. Sara B. Aleshire, Asklepios at Athens (Amsterdam, 1991), pp. 27, 29. 16 On the Pit/reservoir see Aleshire, Athenian Asklepieion, p. 26, note 7; Annie Verbanck-Piérard, “Les héros guérisseurs: des dieux comme les autres! A propos des cultes médicaux dans l’Attique classique,” in Héros et Héroïnes dans les mythes et les cultes grecs, (Kernos supplement) 10 (2000), pp. 329–32 written in opposition to Jürgen W. Riethmüller, “Bothros and Tetrastyle: The Heroon of Asclepius in Athens,” in Ancient Greek Hero Cult: Proceedings of the 5th International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, ed. R. Hägg (Stockholm, 1999), pp. 122–43.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

285

and the type of some of the reliefs, are more points in favor of water being an important part of the sanctuary.17 The Amphiaraion at Oropos (Table 1–2d) was founded at the end of the fifth century B.C in the territory of Oropos, located on the northern coast of Attica opposite Eretria.18 Whether this was a foundation ex nihilo or the result of another sanctuary transferred from Boiotia is still debated.19 What is sure is that Amphiaraos was not an Attic deity. According to the myth, he was an Argian seer who was one of the ‘seven against Thebes.’ While the six others were killed in battle, he was swallowed by the earth and was granted immortality. It was said by the people of Oropos that he came out of the earth at the spring where the sanctuary was founded. This spring was therefore sacred and, as Pausanias tells us, it was forbidden to use its water for purification, but cured people would throw gold and silver coins in it.20 The sanctuary was a manteion (prophetic sanctuary) during its early years, but very rapidly became a healing sanctuary. Amphiaraos then gradually took on the attributes of a more famous healing god: Asklepios. Because the sanctuaries of Asklepios were known to possess and use

17 Eugenia Vikela, Die Weihreliefs aus dem Athener Pakrates-Heiligtum am Ilissos: religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung und Topographie (Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, supplement) 16 (Berlin, 1994), pp. 1–3, 55–56, 172–174, 225, pl. 33; Parker, Polytheism, pp. 412, 419–21, note 100; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, p. 278. 18 On the control of Oropos see Gilbert Argoud, “Installations hydrauliques de l’Amphiaraion d’Oropos,” in Actes du troisième congrès international sur la Béotie antique (Montréal, Québec, du 31.10.79 au 4.11.79), ed. John M. Fossey and Hubert Giroux (Amsterdam, 1985), p. 9; Cinzia Bearzot, “Problemi del confine attico-beotico. La rivendicazione tebana di Oropo,” in Il confine nel mondo classico, ed. Marta Sordi, Contributi dell’Istituto di storia antica 13 (Milan, 1987), pp. 80–99; Vasileios Ch. Petrakos, The Amphiareion of Oropos (Greece Monuments and Museums) (Athens, 1995), pp. 6–9; Camp, Archaeology, pp. 322–24. An insight of Athenian control and administration is given in Hypereides, For Euxenippos. 19 On the transfer from Boiotia see Strabo 9.2.10; Albert Schachter, Cults of Boeotia. 1: Acheloos to Hera, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies supplement 38.1 (London, 1981), pp. 22–23; Robert Parker, Athenian Religion. A History (Oxford, 1996), p. 148; Pierre Bonnechère, “Les oracles de Béotie,” Kernos 3 (1990), 54, note 7; Verbanck-Piérard, “Les héros guérisseurs,” p. 318, note 163. 20 Pausanias 1.34.1–5. For the spring see Paus. 1.34.4. The baths would have used water from the river rather than from the spring. On prophetic consultations see Herodotus 1.46, 1.49, 1.52, 1.92, 8.134. For Amphiaraos in myth see Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 568–625; Pindar, Nemean 9.23–27, Nem. 10.8–9. The medical function is discussed by Schachter, Cults, p. 23, note 6; Maria Elena Gorrini and Milena Melfi, “L’archéologie des cultes guérisseurs: quelques observations,” Kernos 15 (2002), 249–50. On the Great altar see Paus. 34.8.3; Valiseios Ch. Petrakos, Ὁ Ωροπὸς καὶ τὸ Ἱερὸν τοῦ Ἀµφιαράου, Βιβλιοθήκη της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 63 (Athens, 1968), pp. 96–98.

286

etienne dunant

water, it is probable that the presence of water in abundance at the Amphiaraion allowed the transformation into a healing sanctuary. Several baths were built, and among the deities honored on the altar, one group in particular concerned the patrons of water and fertility (the Nymphs, Pan, Acheloos and Kephisos). One particularly important question remains. It is very probable that the spring was the feature that permitted the foundation of the sanctuary there. But were its powers already present or were they given to it a posteriori in order to fit the personality of Amphiaraos? The ‘Lesser Mysteries’ (Table 1–2e) is the last cult in this category. It took place at the sanctuary of the Mother at Agrai, next to the Ilissos. Polyaenus wrote that the river’s water was used for purification during the festival.21 The mythical foundation of the cult was said to have its origin in the purification, or naturalization, of Herakles so that he could take part in the Eleusinian Mysteries.22 Unfortunately, we know almost nothing of the unfolding of this initiation ceremony, which was a preparatory stage for the greater Mysteries of Eleusis, and therefore under the patronage of Demeter and Kore. We only know that the focus of the festival seems to have been the purification of its attendants for which the Ilissos would have played a role.23 Sites Outside Sanctuaries with Connections to the Sacred In each of these following cases the presence of water is the common trait, while the nature of the connection of water to the sacred varies significantly. The first two of these sites are categorized in this section because they were named after mythological figures but have not so far been identified as sanctuaries. First, the fountain of Panops (Table 1–3a) appears in Plato’s Lysis, where the philosopher sets it under the Polyaenus, Stratagems 5.17. IG 13.6B, lines 36–47; Plut., Demetrios 26.2; Plato, Gorgias 497c and scholion. For the date of foundation see John Boardman, “Herakles, Peisistratos and Eleusis,” JHS 95 (1975), 5; Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens (Mainz, 1989), p. 78; Erika Simon, “Neue Deutung zweier eleusinischer Denkmäler des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.,” Antike Kunst 9 (1966), 72–92. On the foundation of the Lesser Mysteries for Herakles see Plut., Theseus 30.5; Diodorus Siculus 4.14.3; Apollodorus 2.5.12; Tzetzes, Chiliades 4.14.3; Parker, Athenian Religion, p. 98. 23 On these purifications see Polyaenus, Strat. 5.17; Robert Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford, 1983), pp. 284–85, note 19; George E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton, N.J., 1961), pp. 240–41, pls. 83–84. 21 22

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

287

walls of Athens, next to a gate on the way to the Lyceum. Hesychius tells us that Panops was a hero in Attica honored with a temple (νέως), a statue (ἄγαλµα) and a fountain (κρήνη).24 Nothing proves that any of these were to be found together, and Plato does not mention any temple. Threspsiadis unearthed the most suitable candidate for the fountain next to the walls, but no traces of a temple were found. Panops was possibly one of Athens’ eponymous heroes. 25 Second, the spring Makaria (Table 1–3b) is said by Pausanias to be in the plain of Marathon. Its name was that of a mythological figure, daughter of Herakles, who killed herself in order to save the Athenians in their first war against the Peloponnesians. There is no evidence as yet of a cult.26 The third site was linked to the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Rheitoi (Table 1–3c) were two small coastal ponds, connected to the sea by streams, and located on the sacred way to Eleusis. They were consecrated to Demeter and her daughter Kore, and as such only their priests could fish in their waters. Being on the road used for processions from Athens to Eleusis, they also served as a border between the territories of the two towns. There, a narrow bridge was built across the stream (Inscriptionae Graecae I3 79; hereafter IG ) both to ease the way and to mark a sacred place where processions should go on foot.27 The fourth site is the Enneakrounos fountain house (Table 1–3d) built on the site of the Kallirrhoe spring. Two literary traditions refer to the location of the Enneakrounos fountain house, on the site of the Kallirrhoe spring. One, originating in Thucydides, places it among the sanctuaries on the banks of the Ilissos near the Olympieion. The other is from Pausanias’ account of his Athenian visit and situates it on the Agora. The fountain described by Pausanias was found and Hesych. s.v. Πάνοψ. On the fountain of Panops see Pl., Lysis 203a; Hesych. s.v. Πάνοψ; Photius s.v. Πάνοψ; Emily Kearns, The Heroes of Attica, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 57 (London, 1989), p. 193; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, p. 345; Ioannes Threpsiadis, “ΑΝΑΣΚΑΦΗ ΟΙΚΟΠΕ∆ΟΥ Ο.∆.Ε.Π.,” Archaiologikon Deltion. Chronika 16 (1960), 22–27; Pierre Vidal-Naquet, “La tradition de l’hoplite athénien,” in Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne, ed. Jean-Pierre Vernant (Paris, 1968), p. 163, note 9, where the author also mentions a possible link with the festival of the Pyanopsia: Lycurgus frag. 83 (Blass) = VI.3 (Durrbach); Parker, Polytheism, pp. 204–206. 26 On the spring Makaria see Paus. 1.32.6; Nicholas G.L. Hammond, “The Campaign and the Battle of Marathon,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 88 (1968), 20–21, pls. 3–4. 27 Thucydides 2.19.2; Paus. 1.38.1; Noel D. Robertson, “The Two Processions to Eleusis and the Program of the Mysteries,” American Journal of Philology 119 (1998), 555–56. 24 25

288

etienne dunant

excavated, but Thucydides was a first-hand witness of Classical Athens and his testimony cannot be dismissed. Several hypotheses to reconcile the sources have been advanced, one suggesting multiple sites for the Enneakrounos, hence its name (‘nine pipes’). But Owens’ thesis is the most probable; the name Enneakrounos was transferred from a derelict fountain to another one on the Agora, while the original spring near the Ilissos was still called Kallirrhoe. The old archaic fountain was painted and named on vases (e.g., figure 3 in Lawton and Kosso). In Thucydides’ description, the fountain had no temple or altar, but was amongst venerable sanctuaries that used its water for sacred rites. Its sacred character is finally established by the use of its water in the ceremonial bath before the wedding. The link with marriage and fertility is confirmed by the presence of the nymph Kallirrhoe amongst the divinities honored in the sanctuary of Kephisos which was clearly orientated towards child-bearing and the protection of youth.28 The last site in this section, and the one where the link between water and the sacred is the most hypothetical, is the Mycenaean fountain (Table 1–3e) discovered on the north slope of the Acropolis, where a great cleft runs from the top of the hill deep into the rock. Inside, a staircase leading down to a spring and invisible from the outside was built during Mycenaean times to provide a secure water supply to the fortress. It went out of use when the stairway collapsed a few decades later, and the spring was then filled in with debris. The top half of the stairway was eventually rebuilt to allow transit from the top of the Acropolis to its north slope. One theory claims that this passage was the path taken by the maidens in the famous but mysterious ceremony of the Arrhephoria.29 The spring was no longer in use, but was possibly 28 Thuc. 2.15.3–6; Paus. 1.14.1; Cratinus, frag. 198 (Kassel-Austin) = 86 (Kock); Suda s.v. Λουτροφόρος καὶ Λουτροφορεῖν; Edwin J. Owens, “The Enneakrounos Fountain-House,” JHS 102 (1982), 222–25; Renate Tölle-Kastenbein, “Kallirrhoe und Enneakrunos,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 101 (1986), 55–73; René Ginouvès, Balaneutikè. Recherches sur le bain dans l’antiquité grecque, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 200 (Paris, 1962), pp. 267–282. 29 See Oscar Broneer, “A Mycenaean Fountain on the Athenian Acropolis,” Hesperia 8 (1939), 317–433; Oscar Broneer, “What happened at Athens,” American Journal of Archaeology 52 (1948), 112–13; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, pp. 72–75; Dora P. Crouch, Water Management in Ancient Greek Cities (Oxford, 1993), pp. 255, 257–59; The description of the Arrhephoria is in Paus. 1.27.3; Aristophanes, Lysistrata 638–47. The ritual of the Arrhephoria is discussed notably in Parker, Polytheism, pp. 218–23; Guy Donnay, “L’Arrhéphorie: initiation ou rite civique?,” Kernos 10 (1997), 193–96; Pirenne-Delforge, L’Aphrodite grecque, pp. 54–59; Robert Louis Fowler, “Greek Magic, Greek Religion,” Illinois Classical Studies 20 (1995), 8–9.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

289

kept alive in the Athenians’ memory. Plato’s Critias provides a possible example of this memory perpetuated at Athens.30 Unfortunately, any connection between the Arrhephoria and a memory of the old spring is at best conjectural. Sanctuaries Where Water was Present but not Known to be Central to the Cult Among these were sites for which the link with water is exclusively toponymic: the altar of the Ilissian Muses (Table 1–4b) and the sanctuary of Dionysos en limnais (Table 1–4a). The altar of the Ilissian Muses was fittingly close to the river Ilissos, but nothing is known about this cult that could indicate that these Muses were any more deeply associated with water here than they were elsewhere in Greece. Similarly, the only connection between the sanctuary of Dionysos en limnais and water resides in the god’s epiclesis. Thucydides lists the altar with sanctuaries to the south-east of the Acropolis. A location near the river Ilissos, known to be a sacred area, is therefore possible but not yet demonstrated.31 A sanctuary of Herakles (Table 1–4c), associated with the gymnasium of Kynosarges, was also situated somewhere in the vicinity of the Ilissos. Although not precisely located, the gymnasium was most likely near a substantial supply of fresh water since it needed significant amounts to operate. It is still debated how closely the sanctuary of Herakles was associated to the gymnasium. However, an inscription prohibited the tanners from polluting the river upstream from a sanctuary of Herakles. If this Herakleion was the sanctuary at Kynosarges, the inscription would confirm the need for clear water for the cult.32 30 Pl., Critias, 112c–d, trans. B. Jowett (Oxford, 1953): “Where the Acropolis now is there was a fountain, which was choked by the earthquake, and has left only the few small streams which still exist in the vicinity[. . .]” 31 Pausanias 1.19.5. For the association of the Muses with water, see Maria Teresa Camilloni, Le Muse (Rome, 1998), pp. 7, 22–38. On Dionysos en limnais see Thuc. 2.15.4; Arthur W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1968), pp. 19–25; G.T.W. Hooker, “The Topography of the Frogs,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 80 (1960), 117; Margherita Guarducci, “Le Rane di Aristofane e la topografia ateniese,” in Studi in onore di Aristide Colonna, (Perugia, 1982), pp. 167–72; Parker, Polytheism, p. 290, note 3. 32 Paus. 1.19.3; Hdt. 5.63.4, 6.116; Demosthenes, Against Aristocrates 213; Plut., Themistocles 1.2; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, p. 340; Marie-Françoise Billot, “Le Cynosarges, Antiochos et les tanneurs. Questions de topographie,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 116 (1992), 119–56. Tanners’ inscription IG 13.257; Francizsek Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques. Supplément, École Française d’Athènes. Travaux et mémoires 11 (Paris,

290

etienne dunant

The Kallichoron well (Table 1–4d) was at the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. It was said in myth to be the place where the goddess, meeting young Eleusinian girls fetching water, was invited by them into their house. During the rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries, it was the spot marking the end of the procession from Athens and the last stop before one could be allowed in the sanctuary for the initiation. It was acting therefore as a spatial boundary, with its water possibly used for preliminary purification, while it also materialized the myth.33 At the Piraeus, the sanctuary of the Thracian goddess Bendis (Table 1–4e) possessed its own water supply, and the priests/esses decided to sell some of it in order to pay for the sanctuary’s maintenance. Concurrently, the procession to the sanctuary had to stop on its way at a Nymphaion where people were given sponges, basins and water. What source provided water to either place is not clear (spring, well or even water brought onsite by an aqueduct), nor is the significance of the association of the Nymphs with Bendis. The last site, a sanctuary of Dionysos (Table 1–4f ) built next to a spring, is on the island of Salamis, not far away from the cave where Euripides was said to have written his plays. There is no known evidence that the spring was considered sacred.34 Borderline or Special Cases Two fountains are in an intermediate category, at the margins between a profane spot with sacred connotations on the one hand, and the sanctuary proper centered on a spring, on the other. They both are

1962), p. 19, note 4; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, pp. 340–41; Billot, “Cynosarges,” pp. 155–56. 33 Two wells were discovered by archaeologists and George Mylonas suggested that the older was the one described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (lines 99 and 272) and that, when it was abandoned, its name was transferred to another further north, the one seen centuries later by Pausanias. Mylonas, Eleusis, pp. 44–47. Procession and Kallichoron: Euripides, Suppliants 392; Paus. 1.38.6; Robertson, “The two processions,” p. 558, note 32; Kevin Clinton, “The sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis,” in Greek Sanctuaries: New approaches, ed. Nanno Marinatos and Robin Hägg (London: 1993), pp. 116–18. 34 On Bendis see IG 2².1283, lines 16–20 (Nymphaion); IG 2².1361, lines 8–10 (Water of Bendideion); Meyer, “Le prix de l’eau,” pp. 324–25; Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 134–35. For Dionysos see David Blackman, “Archaeology in Greece 2000–2001,” Archaeological Reports 47 (2000), 15–16.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

291

on the slopes of the Acropolis. The first is the Klepsydra (Table 1–5a), on the north-west side of the hill. The spring was known and tapped by shallow wells as early as the Neolithic period, and was converted into a fountain-house around the second quarter of the fifth century B.C. Architecturally, every effort was made to maintain a cave-like feel to the fountain which was built in the ground under an overhanging rock. The natural roof collapsed in the first century A.D., despite the supporting beams that had been erected to try and prevent this. While the fountain’s name was Klepsydra, the spring was named Empedo, which was probably the name of the nymph dwelling there. Its sacred nature can be deduced from several observations: the location itself is very prominent in the sacred topography of ancient Athens, on the processional way to the Acropolis, directly under the sacred rock. The obvious efforts made for the conservation of a ‘natural’ look would also seem strange for a profane fountain where a less difficult but more intrusive architectural development could have been achieved and maintained. Furthermore, in Plutarch (Ant., 34), Antony is said to have gone to war with water drawn from the Klepsydra, as ordered by an oracle. Finally, the boundary stone of a sanctuary of the Nymphs (IG I3 1063), discovered on the Agora, could have marked the fountain’s sacred space, as Parsons suggested. If we admit that there was a sanctuary of the Nymphs at the fountain, we are forced to view the spring as its major feature, if not the focus of its cult.35 The second fountain, called today the south slope sacred spring (Table 1–5b), is on the south slope of the Acropolis and was built in the late sixth century B.C. over a spring found deep in the ground. The sacredness of the spot is not doubted, although the exact identity of the deity concerned is not very clear. The area was later occupied by several divinities such as Isis and Themis, and an inscription found nearby was dedicated to Hermes, Aphrodite, Pan, the Nymphs, and Isis. The importance of the spring is further demonstrated by the presence of a boundary stone for it, a few meters south (figure 2). The stone could

35 Ar., Lys. 910–913 and schol. 911, schol. 913; Paus. 1.28.4; Photius s.v. Κλεψύδρα; Hesych. s.v. Κλεψύδρα, s.v. Πεδώ. Publication of the excavations and list of sources in Arthur W. Parsons, “Klepsydra and the Paved Court of the Pythion,” Hesperia 12 (1943), 191–267; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, pp. 323–31; Crouch, Water Management, pp. 262–63; Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis. History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 78–79; Camp, Archaeology, pp. 70–71.

292

etienne dunant

Figure 2. The boundary stone of the South Slope Spring on the Athenian Acropolis. See Kosso & Lawton’s article: The Kallirrhoe fountain, Fig. 2.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

293

be the consequence of an amendment imposing the re-establishment and marking of the sanctuaries’ limits within this sacred area.36 The final cases belong to a specific category: the cave shrines. Four of these shrines are in some way associated with a spring and all are home to Pan and the Nymphs. They share common features, such as the time they started to shelter a cult to Pan, some time at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. after the battle of Marathon, and generally also the presence of votive miniature loutrophoroi which were typical offerings made by brides.37 In three cases—the caves at Vari, on the Penteli and on the Parnes—the spring is inside the cave, while at Oinoe near Marathon there are springs in close vicinity. In none does the spring seem to receive any specific attention. At Vari (Table 1–5c), the best known case, the area of the cave where the spring is found is actually devoid of any offerings.38 The only sign that its water might have been used for a cultic purpose is the presence near the entrance of the cave of a bath-like basin with waterproof plastering which could have been used for ritualistic baths, but this is very conjectural. The presence of baths is mentioned in the cave of Pan at Oinoe (Table 1–5e) by Pausanias, but there is nothing to support it archaeologically.39 At the cave of Pan on the Penteli (Table 1–5d), some terracotta pipes were discovered that could have channeled the spring’s water but nothing more is known

36 Martin and Metzger, “Recherches,” pp. 342–43, 347–48; Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary, pp. 138–42, figs. 193–94; Aleshire, Athenian Asklepieion, p. 22, note 3 and 28; Holtzmann, L’Acropole, p. 209. List of deities: IG 2².4994. Boundary stone: IG 13.1098–1099. Law for the setting of boundaries within the Pelargikon: IG 13.78a. 37 Hdt. 6.105. The introduction of the cult of Pan in Attica is discussed in Parker, Athenian Religion, pp. 163–68. 38 On Vari see R. Chandler, Travels in Greece or, an Account of a Tour Made at the Expense of the Society of Dilettanti (Oxford, 1776), pp. 150–55; Charles H. Weller et al., “The Cave at Vari. I–VI,” American Journal of Archaeology 7 (1903), 263–349; Walter R. Connor, “Seized by the Nymphs: Nympholepsy as Symbolic Expression in Classical Greece,” Classical Antiquity 7 (1988), 162, 166–74 and 179–89; Philippe Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece, trans. Kathleen Atlass and James Redfield (Chicago, 1988), pp. 104–07; Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 14–16, 243–45; Günther Schörner and Hans Ruprecht Goette, Die Pan-Grotte von Vari (Mainz, 2004), pp. 111–19. 39 Paus. 1.32.7; Georges Daux, “Chronique des fouilles,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 82 (1958), 681–86; Georges Daux, ‘Chronique des fouilles,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 83 (1959), 587–89; Eugene Vanderpool, “Newsletter from Greece,” American Journal of Archaeology 62 (1958), 321–22; J. Papadimitriou, “Μαραθών, σπήλαιον Πανός,” Ergon (1958), 15–22; John Travlos, Bildlexicon zur Topographie des Antiken Attika (Tübingen, 1988), pp. 218, 246, figs. 302–03; Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 246–48; Eran Lupu, “The Sacred Law from the Cave of Pan at Marathon (SEG XXXVI 267),” ZPE 137 (2001), 119–124.

294

etienne dunant

in terms of cult.40 The fourth cave of Pan, found on Mount Parnes (Table 1–5f ), was made famous by Menander’s Dyskolos. It has a spring and shares the other caves’ characteristics.41 Robert Parker summed up the situation thus: “Indeed, it often seems that the true owners of the Attic caves are the Nymphs, while Pan is, as it were, a lodger or a neighbour.”42 The main natural feature seems to be the cave itself, and the presence of a spring could simply be a ‘bonus’, proving even more to the Greeks that the Nymphs dwelled there. Sacred Water in Attica: Problems Posed and Some Answers Water was an essential part of ancient Greek religion, whatever the degree to which it was integrated into a sanctuary’s topography, cult, or myth. It was used both on profane and cultic levels in probably the vast majority of the sanctuaries; it was needed to quench the worshippers’ thirst, to clean the altar or the temple and to wash the sanctuary’s possessions. But water was also a religious tool and as such conveyed particular powers and ideas. To quote Ginouvès: “il nous a semblé que l’action de l’eau, dans le monde religieux, se situait à trois niveaux, d’ailleurs reliés par des transitions insensibles: l’eau purifie; mais aussi elle tue le passé, pour préparer une renaissance; et enfin, par une sorte d’efficacité immédiate, elle donne fécondité, force ou régénération, santé ou connaissance.”43 To these very broad conceptions on the religious use of water in ancient Greece must be added the idea, as Ginouvès himself did, that there was a sense of place; that is, water was found somewhere. Two points can be deduced from this. First, the Greeks must have had some immediate expectations from places with a spring, a river, or any natural water resource. Those places must have borne a religious 40 See Hubert Gallet de Santerre et al., “Chronique des fouilles,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 77 (1953), 202; Eugene Vanderpool, “Newsletter from Greece,” American Journal of Archaeology 57 (1953), 281; J.M. Cook and John Boardman, “Archaeology in Greece,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 73 (1953), 112; P. Zorides, “Η σπηλία των νυµφών της Πεντέλης,” Archaiologike Ephemeris. Chronika (1977), 4–11; Travlos, Bildlexicon, pp. 329–30; Larson, Greek Nymphs, p. 246. 41 Jere Mark Wickens, “The Archaeology and History of Cave Use in Attica, Greece from Prehistoric through Late Roman Times,” 2 (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1986), 245–69. 42 Parker, Athenian Religion, p. 165. 43 Ginouvès, Balaneutikè, p. 426.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

295

significance to their mind, whether vague or minimal, but surely present. One example would be the idea that these springs and rivers were inhabited by Nymphs. This explains why Odysseus, washed ashore and waking up next to a river, is naturally drawn to expect the presence of nymphs when he hears the voices of young girls.44 Second, this sense of place must also have implied an idea of locality, and therefore a great diversity of experience from one spot to another. As far as we know, not all springs had the same level of sanctity and not all rivers shared the same powers.45 As can be seen in the survey, and as far as our current knowledge is concerned, some sanctuaries possessing a natural water resource did not give it any particular place in their cult, no more, in any case, than a sanctuary without one. Indeed, one cannot expect all the sanctuaries along a same river to share the same ritual concern for it. As for the sanctuaries with a spring, such as the one dedicated to Dionysos on Salamis, we have to assume that, in the absence of any evidence stating otherwise, the foundation next to a water resource was purely practical. In cases of profane places where water had a religious dimension it can be demonstrated that water was an element that possessed powers regardless of the sanctity of its location. Water used in religious instances was not necessarily from a sanctuary, although the notion of its being from somewhere in particular was nevertheless very strong. This meant that, although there were qualities shared by most water resources, there was also an emphasis placed on their particularities which was intrinsically linked with their location. The case of the spring Kallirrhoe is particularly enlightening, since if the water used in Athens for the bridal bath was not from a sanctuary, it still had to be from this precise spring. Similarly, Socrates highlighted the way the Greeks differentiated between water from several places when, to a man complaining about his own drinking water, he answered back that he

Homer, Odyssey 6.117–124. In myth (Hom., Iliad 21.195) all waters come from and go back to Oceanos, the great river that circles the world. Nevertheless, the Greeks gave springs and rivers various characteristics and qualities (temperature, color, taste, and so on). See for example Paus. 1.26.5, 3.24.7, 3.24.9; Plut., Lysimachus 28.4. On Pausanias and natural features including springs see Anne Jacquemin, “Les curiosités naturelles chez Pausanias,” Ktema 16 (1991), 123–30. The differences among sources of water are later emphasized by the medical treatises of the Hellenistic period. See in particular the various articles in, ed., René Ginouvès et al., L’eau, la santé et la maladie dans le monde grec, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique supplement 28 (Paris, 1994). 44 45

296

etienne dunant

was too difficult to please, that the water at Epidauros was warmer, that the one at Oropos was colder, and that both were highly sought after.46 It was the same for the springs with a heroic/divine name or with the cults with a topographical epiclesis such as the Ilissian Muses: they may or may not have had water with particular powers, but what they certainly did was anchor a deity to a spot where there was water.47 Next is the question of the origins of the cult. The establishment of a sanctuary is not often documented, and establishing whether the presence of water in the sanctuary is a matter of choice or of necessity is not therefore always possible. Later foundations are easier to study because there are more documents to work from, but even these do not always allow definite answers. The cave-shrines of Pan and the Nymphs in Attica, for instance, were all founded in the fifth century B.C. The evidence from these four shrines could lead one to think that the spring was an important feature of the sites. And the mention of baths at Oinoe and the terracotta water pipes at the cave on the Penteli would appear to confirm it if the cave at Vari, with the total absence of votives around the spring while they abound elsewhere in the cave, did not suggest something very different. In fact, the other caves dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs in Attica did not have springs. The caves, not the springs, seem to be the determining features behind the foundation of these sanctuaries. The Athenian Asklepieion gives a different picture since its foundation, a private one, was influenced by another sanctuary used as a model: the Asklepieion of Epidauros, where water already played a role. The choice of the site at the foot of the Acropolis must have been motivated by several factors, and in all probability water resources were taken into consideration. At least one of the two springs of this area, the south slope fountain, was known. The setting of the boundary stone for this fountain during the same years as the installation of the Asklepieion, is a sign that access to water was an issue in the area. Finally, the example of the sanctuary dedicated to Kephisos is relatively straightforward, since the object of the cult is the river flowing nearby. The cases of the other sanctuaries focused on the water-resource—the sanctuary of the Nymphs on the coast and the Kyllou-Pera—are not as clear in the absence of documents on the Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.13.3. About waters and local identity see Susan Guettel Cole, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space. The Ancient Greek Experience (Berkeley, CA, 2004), pp. 27–29; Larson, Greek Nymphs, pp. 8–11. 46

47

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

297

early stages of the sanctuary, but one can expect that water initiated the foundation of the cult. The role of water in the foundation of the site is even less clear for the Klepsydra, where the cultic dimension is hardly documented. The idea that sanctuaries were fixed in time and did not evolve is obviously erroneous. But if architectural forms evolved, so too could the cult. Such may be the case at Brauron where archaeology has demonstrated that the spring, along with the cave, was a focus of a cult as early as the first recorded ritual activity. In the literary documents and the iconography however, the spring does not appear. Does it mean that, although the spring was the reason why the sanctuary was founded there, the focus of the cult changed over time and shifted away from the spring? The silence of the sources on the spring cannot be used as evidence either way. At the Amphiaraion of Oropos, on the other hand, the evolution of the cult is clearer. While the precise circumstances of the foundation at Oropos are unknown, the older sanctuaries to Amphiaraos were indisputably prophetic and so must have been the case at Oropos in the first years. It later evolved to become a healing sanctuary. This evolution was caused by several factors, not least the success of Asklepios in Attica and Greece more generally. But the presence of water in large quantities at the sanctuary must have been a decisive condition for the success of this transformation. Finally, the implications of the size of the sanctuaries for our understanding of the role of water in cult could be another worthwhile avenue of research. Some smaller sanctuaries, those attended by a local audience, seem to have had different characteristics in their cult than the larger ones. In these cases, it appears that the importance given to water at small sites is larger: the three sanctuaries classified as focused on water are indeed smaller ones. In the case of the sanctuary of Kephisos, the influence of the personality of the founders is paramount. Concerning the Kyllou-Pera, the archaistic appearance of the cult could support the idea of an old sanctuary that somehow kept its original focus on water. Does it mean that some other sanctuaries that used to give focus on a spring, or a river, evolved in order to attract a larger audience, specializing into medical sanctuaries or civic centers for the initiation of young girls? It is difficult to say, and this must therefore remain a hypothesis for future exploration.

298

etienne dunant Conclusion

What is particularly interesting in the study of the natural water resources in sanctuaries is that these sites reflect human behavior towards the environment. Springs and rivers are stable elements of the landscape and their significance cannot be totally transferred to another place.48 In terms of spatial organization, these water resources were focal points, and the sanctuaries founded next to them became, in turn, centers for territories and communities of different sizes. In that sense, the small sanctuary of the Nymphs on the coast, visibly catering the needs of a local population and about which our only source does not mention a temple or any significant structure, was as much a center as the large religious complex of the Amphiaraion where worshippers came from Attica and far beyond.49 But if the water resource is the fixed focal point, the sanctuary and its cult are to be understood as the result of a dialogue between a series of dynamics and the site. The many differences observed between these sanctuaries are generally not caused by the water resource itself, but are rather due to the complexity of a number of factors such as the size and importance of the community for which it acts as a center, historical events, political agendas, and so on. But this dialogue must also have been highly influenced by a regional identity. It is, for example, interesting to observe what powers were attributed to water and in what circumstances it was used: e.g., the propitiatory dimension of the bridal bath from the Kallirrhoe, the Kyllou-Pera and its mysterious cult performed by women wanting to be mothers, and the healing powers of the sanctuaries of Pankrates and Asklepios. But it is also very interesting to point out what is absent from this list. Compared to Boiotia, for example, a land rich in oracles, Attica does not have a prophetic sanctuary next to a spring.50 This study of Attica will therefore gain in significance once the sanctuaries of the Athenians are compared with those of other regions of Greece. 48 Springs can dry up or change place, particularly in a country prone to earthquakes like Greece, and the ancient Greeks were aware of these phenomena (see note 30). But at a given time springs are generally fixed to a particular spot. 49 On a few principles about the relation between natural places and cult centers see Richard Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Places (London, 2000), pp. 33–36. 50 Sanctuaries with oracular potential using water in Attica would be the Amphiaraion and the cave at Vari. Both have significant foreign influences; Boiotia influenced the Amphiaraion (see note 19), while Archedamos the nympholept of Vari was ‘Theraian’ (IG 13 977–8). In Boiotia, sanctuaries such as the Apollonian Ptoion and the Trophonion at Lebadeia were oracles with plentiful supplies of spring water.

natural water resources and the sacred in attica

299

Table 1. Detailing of the sites surveyed. Sites surveyed

Location

Form of water

Features

Divinity/ies

1.a Sanctuary of Kephisos

Near Phaleron

River

River-god Sanctuary

1.b Spring Halykos 1.c Kyllou Pera

Road to Sounion Kaisariani valley on the Hymettos

Spring or Well Spring

Nymphs Sanctuary Grove

2.a Artemis at Brauron 2.b Asklepieion 2.c Sanctuary of Pankrates

Brauron

Spring, marshes Spring River

Rock formation Cave Cleft and rock formation

Kephisos— Unknown/ Acheloos, Probable Nymphs, Hestia, Apollo, Artemis, Leto . . . Nymphs Unknown/ Probable Nymphs, Yes/ Possible Aphrodite, Acheloos(?), Hermes(?) Artemis, Yes/Yes Iphigeneia? Asklepios Yes/Yes Pankrates, No/Yes Herakles, Zeus Meilichios, Palaimon Amphiaraos Yes/Yes

2.d Amphiaraion 2.e Lesser Mysteries

Athens Athens

Near Oropos Spring and River Agrai River

Sanctuary n/a

3.a Fountain of Panops

Athens

3.b Spring of Makaria

Plain of Marathon

3.c Eleusinian Rheitoi

On sacred way to Eleusis Athens

Spring

Fountain

Athens

Spring

Athens

3.d Kallirrhoe/ Enneakrounos 3.e Mycenaean Spring 4.a Dionysos en limnais 4.b Ilissian Muses 4.c Herakles at Kynosarges 4.d Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis 4.e Sanctuary of Bendis

Spring Fountain and/or channelled water from the Eridanos Spring n/a Streams, Bridge Coastal lakes

Demeter (Mother), Kore, Herakles Panops

Makaria, daughter of Herakles Demeter, Korè

Temple/Altar*

Yes/Probable No/No

No/No No/No

Cave

Nymph Kallirrhoe unknown

No/No No/No

Unknown

Dionysos

Yes/Probable

Athens Kynosarges

River (?), Marshes (?) River River

Altar Muses Gymnasium Herakles

No/Yes Possible/Yes

Eleusis

Wells

Wells, Cave

Demeter, Korè

Yes/Yes

Piraeus

Spring or Well

Assoc. with Nymphaion

Bendis, Nymphs

Possible/Yes

300

etienne dunant

Table 1 (cont.) Sites surveyed

Location

Form of water

Features

Divinity/ies

Temple/Altar*

4.f Sanctuary of Dionysos 5.a Spring Klepsydra 5.b South Slope Sacred Spring 5.c Cave of Pan

Peristeria, Salamis Athens

Spring

Dionysos

Shrine/No

Spring Spring

Empedo, Nymphs Nymphs

No/No

Athens

Cave of Euripides Fountain, Cave Fountain

Vari

Spring

Cave

5.d Cave of Pan

Penteli

Spring

Cave

Pan, Nymphs, Apollo, Cybele(?) Pan, Nymphs

5.e Cave of Pan

Oinoe

Spring

Cave

Pan, Nymphs

5.f Cave of Pan

Phyle

Spring

Cave

Pan, Nymphs

No/No No/Yes No/ Unknown No/ Unknown No/ Unknown

1. Sanctuaries. Water is focal point. 2. Sanctuaries. Water has a substantial place. 3. Not Sanctuaries but connections to the sacred. 4. Sanctuaries. Water is not central. 5. Borderline and special cases. *As can be deduced from today’s knowledge.

“BEAUTIFUL AND USEFUL”: THE WATER SUPPLY OF PISIDIAN ANTIOCH AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN COLONY E.J. Owens and Dr. Mehmet Ta lıalan Introduction “When I reflect upon the greatness of your good fortune and spirit, it seems entirely fitting to point out to you works which are no less worthy of your eternal renown as they are of your glory, and which will be as useful as they are beautiful.”1 Thus, Pliny the younger, the governor of the province of Pontus-Bithynia in Asia Minor, begins a letter to the emperor Trajan, in which he seeks the emperor’s support and approval for the construction of a canal to link Lake Sapanca in the territory of Nicomedia to the sea, and so facilitate the transport of goods across the region. Sextus Julius Frontinus, Rome’s water commissioner and one time governor of Britain, also used the theme of splendor and utility, when he famously compared Rome’s aqueducts with the Egyptian pyramids and the monuments of the Greeks: “With so many indispensable structures carrying so many aqueducts, you may compare the idle pyramids or the other useless, although famous, works of the Greeks.”2 The arched aqueduct sweeping across the countryside and negotiating river valleys is for many one of the most characteristic features of the Roman empire and a lasting monument to Roman achievements in water technology.

1 Pliny, Epistulae, 10.41, trans. B. Radice (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), vol. 2, p. 330. The field work for the present study formed part of a broader analysis of the water supply of Pisidian Antioch, which was undertaken jointly by the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, Swansea University, and the Yalvaç Museum, Turkey. The project was financed by the British Academy and Swansea University. I would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities research Board in the UK, which helped to finance study leave to permit the results of the research to be written up. 2 Frontinus, De Aquaeductibus, 1.16, trans. C.E. Bennett, (London, 1925), p. 357.

302

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan Aqueducts and Urban Water Supplies

Although aqueducts increasingly were built to supply water to cities throughout the Roman empire, few cities could or did rely exclusively on a piped supply. First, aqueduct supplies were often prone to seasonal fluctuations. The majority of aqueducts operated on the principle of “constant flow”,3 whereby the water was usually collected in a small tank at the source and was then conveyed to the city by means of a channel or pipeline. Once in the city the water was then distributed to specific buildings and for various uses. Few cities formulated a large-scale, water-storage strategy, and public fountains usually ran day and night. Indeed, at Rome, the senate decreed that it was the duty of the city’s water commissioners to ensure that public fountains delivered water as constantly as possible both day and night for the needs of the people.4 However, springs varied in output depending on the season and local rainfall patterns; small springs might even dry up completely at the height of the summer. In consequence, the quantity of water delivered by an aqueduct could vary and at times might even fail totally. Second, aqueducts were expensive to build and maintain. Even when the use of cheaper materials might offset the overall cost of construction, an aqueduct still involved enormous financial outlay, and was probably one of the most expensive public building projects, which a community undertook. Pliny states that the citizens of Nicomedia expended 3,500,000 sesterces (HS) on two abortive attempts to build aqueducts.5 The 64 kilometers of the Aqua Claudia at Rome cost 350,000,000 HS to build,6 while it has been estimated that the costs of three of Rome’s aqueducts varied between 1,966,000 HS and 2,248,000 HS per kilometer.7 The cost of the aqueduct supplying Alexandria Troas in western Asia Minor more than doubled during construction from an initial estimate of 3,000,000 drachmas to 7,000,000 drachmas on completion.8 Once built, regular maintenance meant that financial outlay was not over and inadequate surveying or sub-standard construction, A. Trevor Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply, (London, 1992), pp. 1–2. Frontinus, De Aquaeductibus, 2.104. 5 Pliny, Epistulae, 10.37. 6 Pliny, Naturalis Historiae, 36.122–3, trans. H. Rackman, (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), vol. 10, pp. 97–99. 7 Philippe Leveau, “Research on Roman Aqueducts in the Past Ten Years,” in A. Trevor Hodge ed., Future currents in aqueduct studies (Leeds, 1991), p. 153. 8 Philostratus, Vitae sophistarum, 2.1, trans. W.C. Wright (London, 1922), p. 142. 3 4

“beautiful

and useful”

303

necessitating repair, added to the expense. Thus, the Aqua Claudia in Rome took fourteen years to build, but it was out of service for major repair for nine years of its first nineteen years of use.9 Third, there were potential military dangers in relying exclusively on external sources of water. In war, aqueducts could be cut. When the Athenians besieged Syracuse in 415 B.C., one of their first actions was to cut the city’s aqueducts.10 When Belisarius, the emperor Justinian’s general, besieged Naples in 536 A.D., he also cut the aqueduct, which brought water to the city.11 Potentially more dangerous than the disruption of the water supply was the fact that the aqueduct channel, if sufficiently large, might even be used to allow the enemy’s forces to gain entry into a city. During the siege of Naples, Belisarius used the aqueduct channel to introduce 400 troops into the city undetected.12 After some difficulty in getting out of the channel, the soldiers brought about the capture of the city. When, in the following year, Belisarius organized the defense of Rome against the Goths, one of his first acts was to block up all of the aqueduct channels to prevent the Goths from using them in a similar way to gain entry to the capital.13 Given these potential problems, most cities adopted a pluristic approach to maintain adequate supplies of water to satisfy the varied demands of their inhabitants. On-site springs, wells, public and private water-storage cisterns, and aqueducts were combined to ensure that supplies of water were available throughout the year. Such an approach to water supply was essential. It averted potential difficulties, which any seasonal fluctuations in supply to the aqueduct might bring. Moreover, during a siege it allowed cities to continue to resist even when the piped supply was disrupted. Thus the citizens of Naples continued to hold out against Belisarius, after he cut the aqueduct, because the city had numerous wells. After Belisarius had blocked up Rome’s aqueduct channels during the Gothic siege, the Romans again resorted to wells, springs, and the river Tiber for drinking water. 14 Belisarius’ action, however, did have a detrimental effect on life in the city; first, it halted the water-powered grain mills, which were used in N. Smith, “Roman Hydraulic Technology,” Scientific American 238 (1978), 14–5. Thucydides, 6.100, trans C.F. Smith, (London, 1921), vol. 3, p. 365. 11 Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.8.45, trans. H.E. Dewing (London, 1919), vol. 3, p. 83. 12 Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.9.10–10.19. 13 Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.19.18. 14 Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.19.28. 9

10

304

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

the production of bread,15 and, second, it closed the capital’s baths.16 Even after the domination of Rome effectively brought peace across the empire, most cities continued to rely on a range of options to ensure supply. Thus, at Pergamon, which was eventually supplied by eight aqueducts, municipal laws still required property owners to clean and maintain private cisterns.17 In contrast to the majority of the cities of the empire, when the Romans established a veteran colony at Pisidian Antioch, like the colony of Caesarea Palaestina and a few other Roman cities,18 they built a monumental aqueduct to supply the city with its water needs. This, however, was not the only aqueduct that supplied the city. Fieldwork in the territory of Antioch has brought to light evidence that the city was also supplied by a series of pipelines that brought water from a second spring. The new evidence raises questions about the organization of the water supply to both the Hellenistic city and its Roman successor, and the precise purpose of the pipelines. Antioch in Pisidia Antioch is situated on the northern edge of Pisidia, the mountainous region of south western Asia Minor, at the point where several important roads across the region converged. It stands on a sloping hilltop on the banks of the river Anthius in the western foothills of Sultan Dağları, the chain of mountains, which separates western Asia Minor from the central Anatolian plateau.19 The hill rises to a maximum elevation of ca. 1199 meters to the east and tilts towards the south and the west, overlooking the fertile land from which it drew its prosperity (plate 1). The Seleucids founded Antioch in the first half of the third century B.C. as one of a string of urban settlements extending across western Asia Minor from Syria to the eastern shores of the Aegean sea. In 25 B.C. the emperor Augustus created the province of Galatia, after King Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.19.18–27. Procopius, De bello Gothico, 5.19.27. 17 H. Dessau, ed., Insriptiones Latinae Selectae, (Bern, 1892), no. 483. 18 John Peter Oleson, “Aqueducts, Cisterns and the Strategy of Water Supply at Nabbataean and Roman Aura ( Jordan),” in A.T. Hodge, ed., Future currents in aqueduct studies, p. 46. 19 B. Levick, Roman colonies in southern Asia Minor, (Oxford, 1967), pp. 42–6; S. Mitchell and M. Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, (London, 1998), pp. 1–4. 15 16

and useful”

Plate 1. The site of Antioch from the north.

“beautiful

305

306

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

Amyntas, Rome’s staunchest ally in the region, was killed, and then established a Roman colony at Antioch. Antioch has been described as “a new Rome on the borders of Phrygia and Pisidia.”20 The new colony was favored by Augustus and the early Julio-Claudian emperors and its development was rapid. A portfolio of typical Roman urban buildings was constructed and it quickly became the most important Roman urban center in the region. The Water Supply of Antioch and the Monumental Roman Aqueduct Because of the development of the Roman colony, few traces of the Hellenistic city survive. In particular, little is known about its the water supply. Today there are no natural springs on the site and so far evidence of neither cisterns nor wells has come to light. Roman coins, depicting the river god Anthius, indicate that the river played an important role in the history of the city and its territory, and it has been assumed, in view of the lack of any other evidence, that the river must also have been an important source of water to the city.21 In contrast to Hellenistic Antioch, a monumental aqueduct was constructed to supply the Roman colony. The aqueduct was a significant engineering achievement. Its construction involved sophisticated surveying techniques across wild and difficult mountainous terrain, and it combined most of the monumental features commonly associated with Roman aqueducts—a subterranean masonry channel, arched bridges across river valleys, an arcade and an inverted siphon—to deliver an estimated 3000 cubic meters3 of water per day from springs ca. 10 kilometers away.22 The aqueduct ended at a water tower, which was located in a recess in the rear wall of a monumental fountain-house. The fountain stood immediately inside the city walls at the northern end of the main north-south arterial road, and from here water was distributed throughout the city by means of a network of stone and terracotta pipes to street fountains, public buildings, and probably even private properties.23

Levick, Roman colonies, p. 78. Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, p. 1 and note 1. 22 J. Burdy and M. Ta lıalan, “L’aqueduc d’Antioche de Pisidie,” Anatolia Antiqua, 5, (1997), 133–66. 23 E. J. Owens, “The water supply of Antioch,” in Thomas Drew-Bear, Mehmet Ta lıalan and Christine M. Thomas, ed., Actes du Ier congèes international sur Antioche de Pisidie, (Lyon, 2002), pp. 337–41. 20 21

“beautiful

and useful”

307

Figure 1. Water tank.

The Water Pipelines of Antioch Besides the monumental aqueduct, evidence that the city was also supplied with water from a remote spring to the north west of the city has recently come to light. The local authorities of a modern farming village to the north west of Antioch reported that quantities of pipe fragments and several complete sections of terracotta pipes had been recovered during the construction of a new water pipeline to supply the village. A visit to the spring and the discovery of extensive scatters of pipe fragments in the territory to the north and west of Antioch confirmed that water from the spring was delivered to the city. Although, in comparison to the city’s other aqueduct, the supply was neither monumental in construction nor is it likely that it delivered the same quantity of water. Nevertheless, the effort, which the inhabitants of Antioch made to bring water from this spring a distance of over 15 kilometers, is impressive and suggests that it provided the city with an important source of water. The water from the spring was collected in a stone-built, vaulted tank, measuring approximately 9.70 × 4.15 meters. The walls were built from irregular-sized limestone boulders, which were laid in roughly regular horizontal courses. [figure 1] Although the roof had collapsed, traces of the vaulting remained on the eastern and northern sides of the

308

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

structure. From here extensive scatters of pipe fragments marked the course and direction of the supply [figure 2]. In some places, complete lengths of pipeline, which was laid in a roughly cut trench, remained in situ [figure 3]. In other places, evidence of a collapsed trench further confirmed that at least one of the pipelines was laid underground. Elsewhere, pipe fragments were associated with the remains of a low, solid stone boulder wall, which was used to support the pipeline across uneven terrain [figure 4]. It is clear that more than one pipeline led from the spring and it is probable that there had been several refurbishments and additions to the supply over a long period of time. Five fairly complete sections of terracotta pipes were recovered from the vicinity of the spring itself [figure 5]. Of these, four differed in size, diameter, and fabric. A similar range of different pipe fragments was recovered from the fields between the spring and the city. Because it was possible neither to date the different pipelines nor to relate them specifically to each other or to the other features, conclusions about when they were built and what they supplied remain tentative. However, given the importance of the city of Antioch and the increasing evidence for water supply lines in other Classical and Hellenistic cities,24 it seems unlikely that Antioch relied only on the river Anthius for water. It is therefore conceivable that one of the lines might have supplied the Hellenistic city. Certainly, some of the pipe sections resemble the Hellenistic pipeline from Pergamon,25 though at least one of the pipelines appears to have been hidden in a sub-surface trench, which would have suited the uncertain political and military conditions of the region in the Hellenistic period. Ultimately, conclusions about the supply to the Hellenistic city remain speculative. It is certain, however, that one of the pipelines was built to supply the city’s Roman baths. The bathhouse occupied a prominent position at the north-western corner of the city, and the original survey of Antioch concluded that the baths were probably supplied by water from the monumental aqueduct, which entered the city several hundred meters to the east of the bath building.26 The scatter of pipe fragments of the terracotta pipelines, however, could be followed to a point on the ridge, which faced the northern edge of the city, opposite the bathHodge, Roman Aqueducts, pp. 24–45. G. Garbrecht, “Die Wasserversorgung des antike Pergamon,” in Frontinus Gesellschaft, Wasserversorgung antiker Städte, 2, (Mainz, 1987), pp. 24–8. 26 Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, p. 199. 24 25

“beautiful

and useful”

Figure 2. Fragments of water pipes.

309

310

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

Figure 3. Overgrown trench.

house. Up to this point the course of the pipeline had not involved any large-scale and expensive engineering works. However, the low broad valley, which separated the ridge from the northern edge of the city, could not be avoided. Roman engineers had two options in negotiating this natural obstacle. First, they could have built a high-level bridge. The Roman empire provides many examples of high-level bridges carrying aqueducts over river valleys and other natural obstacles, of which the Pont du Gard is probably only the most famous.27 Alternatively, an inverted siphon could have been employed, and, indeed, a stone siphon had been used in the construction of the monumental aqueduct to cross the same depression. No structural features of a bridge were found in the valley. However, fragments of a distinctive terracotta pipe came to light [figure 5]. The pieces had an external diameter of ca. 24cm but an internal diameter of only 8 centimeters; the resulting walls of the pipe were 8 centimeters thick. At Kremna, another of Augustus’ colonies in Pisidia, three complete sections of a similar terracotta pipeline came to light [figure 6]. Here they formed part of a siphon tube, which transported water across a broad valley

27

Hodge, Roman aqueducts, pp. 129–47.

“beautiful

and useful”

311

Figure 4. Supporting wall of terracotta pipelines.

to the colony.28 It is thus likely that a similar terracotta siphon tube was employed at Antioch to carry the water across the valley to the baths. The header tank for the siphon was located on the ridge opposite the baths. Here the foundations of a large limestone structure, foundation,

28 E.J. Owens, “The Kremna Aqueduct and Water Supply in Roman Cities,” Greece and Rome 38 (1991), 41–58.

312

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

Figure 5. Complete terracotta pipe sections.

fragments of water pipe, and quantities of reddish waterproof plaster came to light. The actual end point of the pipeline remains uncertain. However, a magnetometer survey of the area to the east of the baths discovered the outline of a basilica and, next to it, a large rectangular, sub-surface anomaly. The anomaly measured approximately 14.00 by 12.00 meters and included no identifiable features.29 In all likelihood, this was an underground reservoir, which received water from the pipeline and stored it to supply the baths. Baths and bathing were central to the social and cultural life of the cities of the Roman empire, and the fact that one of the key themes of the present volume is baths and bathing is an indication of their importance in antiquity. When Lucius, the hero of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, visited Hypata in Thessaly, he met a noble woman called Byrrhaena. She boasted to him about the range of facilities available in Thessaly, which rivaled even Rome.30 However, the only amenity, which she specifically mentioned, was the region’s baths. For the indi29 I am grateful to Professor R. Bagnall of Columbia University, Dr. Tatyana Smekalova of St Petersburg University, Russia and Dr. S. Smekalov of the Baltic Technical University, Russia, for this information, which is about to be published. 30 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 2.19, trans. J. Arthur Hanson, (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), vol. 1, pp. 96–7.

“beautiful

and useful”

Figure 6. A section of a terracotta siphon pipe from Kremna.

313

314

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

vidual baths were equated to sex, wine, laughing and gambling—the real pleasures of life.31 The correlation between the construction of aqueducts and the spread of bathhouses across the Roman empire is increasingly apparent.32 In Asia Minor aqueducts were regularly built to supply the bathhouses.33 Similarly in the Roman province of Britain civilian aqueducts were constructed to supply bathhouses.34 Although the volume of water delivered by the monumental aqueduct was sufficient to meet most of Antioch’s water needs, baths consumed large quantities of water, and changing rainfall patterns and seasonal variations in the output of the spring meant that the actual amount of water that was delivered was prone to fluctuation. In turn, variations in the output would affect the general supply to the city, and at times, the civic authorities might have to intervene to regulate the water supply. Even modern communities in rural Turkey sometimes still have to ration the supply of water in order to ensure sufficient water remains available throughout the dry summer months. Certainly the system of sluices in the castellum divisorum at Pompeii and the use of taps throughout the city suggest that Pompeii’s water supply could be controlled and rationed, if necessary.35 Given the importance of the baths in the life of the city and especially to the Roman colonists, who had been settled at Antioch, it must have been felt that water supply to the bathhouse could not be jeopardized, if the main supply to the city should fluctuate. For this reason the citizens of Antioch ensured that their baths operated throughout the year by constructing a pipeline specifically to deliver water to the bathhouse. The Water Canal at the Western Gate Water was not only essential; it also could be exploited to beautify the urban environment. At Antioch the visitor was confronted with a magnificent monumental water feature, as he or she passed through Dessau, ILS., 8157; Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 8. 19738. Hodge, Roman Aqueducts, p. 6. 33 J.J. Coulton, “Roman Aqueducts in Asia Minor,” in S. Macready and F.H. Thompson, ed., Roman Architecture in the Greek world (London, 1987), p. 82; Owens, “Kremna,” p. 56. 34 G.R. Stephens, “Civil aqueducts in Roman Britain,” Britannis, 16 (1986), 198–9. 35 A. Trevor Hodge, “In Vitruvium Pompeianum: Urban Water Distribution Reappraised,” American Journal of Archaeology, 100 (1996), 261–76. 31 32

“beautiful

and useful”

315

the main city gate. The main entrance to Antioch was from the west through an imposing triple-arched gateway, which was built during the reign of Hadrian.36 The road leading up from the gate was a broad, monumental, colonnaded thoroughfare with two limestone-paved carriageways. The carriageways were separated by a wide, raised, artificial water canal [ figure 7]. The extant remains of the canal ran northwards from the gate for a distance of over 90 meters. Because the road sloped upwards from the gateway, the canal was divided into a series of stepped basins, each measuring ca. 6.50 by 2.00 meters. The foundations of the canal were constructed from limestone blocks and the upper surfaces of the blocks, which formed the floor of the basins, were roughened into a series of narrow parallel grooves to act as a key to hold a coating of waterproof cement. The interstices and gaps between the blocks were filled with rubble and tile set in waterproof cement. A parapet of limestone blocks, set on edge, formed the side and end walls of the basins. A shallow semi-circular channel had been cut along the outer edge of the foundation blocks to collect any overspill from the canal itself. A semi-circular basin fountain, which provided the visitor with refreshment on entering the city, stood at the lower end of the canal opposite the monumental western gateway. A hole in the block, which formed the floor of the basin, indicated the location of the pipe for a pedestal fountain.37 Because of the slope of the terrain the difference in level between the upper end of the canal and basin-fountain was in excess of 2.25 meters and over 3.00 meters between the top of the canal and the gateway. Thus, on entering the gate the visitor was presented with a stunning visual effect. Water cascaded over the dividing walls of the canal, while the fountain at the bottom projected fresh drinking water upwards. The canal, however, was not only important because of its aesthetic impact. It also brought practical benefits: it attracted vegetation and, in the summer months, evaporation would have cooled the surrounding atmosphere. Moreover, it can also be regarded as a form of propaganda for the Roman colony. In a region where water was a scarce and valuable resource, the running water in the channel made an unambiguous statement of prolific abundance, in that the city could allow such a large quantity of water merely to run away. It must have emphasized

36 37

Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, pp. 96–9. Owens, “The Water Supply of Antioch,” pp. 341–2.

316

e.j. owens and dr. mehmet ta^lıalan

to the local population of the region the benefits of an assured water supply, which Roman domination and technology brought. The source of the water in the canal remains unknown. The closest parallel to the channel at Antioch is the canal at Perge in Pamphylia on the south coast of Turkey.38 Here, a similar artificial water course ran along the main street of the city, carrying the overflow from a monumental fountain. Unfortunately, at Antioch it was not possible to establish how the canal was supplied, because all traces of the upper end of the canal have disappeared. Certainly there was no evidence that there was a monumental fountain at the top end of the channel. Moreover, the fact that the road turned at ninety degrees to form the main east-west roadway of the city made it difficult to locate a monumental building at the upper end of the canal. One possible source of supply for the canal was the overflow from the supply to the bathhouse; and, if the line of the canal is extended northwards, it leads directly to the bath building. It is commonly maintained that that the overflow and waste water from the baths were usually employed to flush a city’s drainage system. However, the removal of excess water from the baths through the drainage system was dependent on the location of the bath building within the city. In the case of Antioch the baths were located towards the lower end of the site in the north western corner of the city. From here the overflow could easily have been evacuated through the city wall without the need to construct a drain. At Rome, the bathing facilities that Marcus Agrippa built on the Campus Martius provide a parallel for the exploitation of the overflow from a bath supply. The overflow was not merely allowed to drain away. It fed the euripus virginis, a broad, artificial canal, which crossed the Campus Martius and emptied into the river Tiber.39 Antioch’s links with Rome and the imperial family were close and direct. The two major streets of the colony were named in honor of the first two emperors of Rome, Augustus and Tiberius and between 15 B.C. and A.D. 35 at least three members of the imperial family held honorary pubic positions in the city, as did other senior public figures in the political and military hierarchy of the empire.40 Moreover, the city was divided into seven wards, recalling the seven hills of Rome and G.E. Bean, Turkey’s Southern Shore, (London, 1968), p. 54. P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, (Ann Arbor, 1988), p. 140, figure 114. 40 Levick, Colonies, pp. 76–7; Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, pp. 8–11. 38 39

“beautiful

and useful”

317

the names of the districts derived either directly from the topography of the capital or its political institutions. Thus, it is not only feasible that canal at Antioch was built in imitation of the euripus at Rome but also it also seems possible that it utilized the overflow from the bathing establishment to create a stunning visual display at the main entrance to the city. Conclusion: “Beautiful and Useful” Although a terracotta pipeline probably supplied Hellenistic Antioch with water, the establishment of the Roman colony transformed the city’s water supply. A monumental aqueduct provided water for the bulk of the city’s need; and eventually a series of terracotta pipelines supplemented this source, as demand increased. None of the terracotta pipelines compared to the monumentality of the city’s main aqueduct, nor individually did they supply the same quantity of water. Nevertheless, one of the pipes, in particular, had an important impact on the development and the reputation of the city. It was built specifically to supply water to the city’s baths, one of the most essential civic amenities, which urban authorities provided. At the same time no water was wasted; the overflow was exploited to embellish the civic environment and enhance the city’s reputation in the region.

RUNNING WATER: ADVANCES IN URBAN WATER SUPPLY DURING THE ROMAN EMPIRE Deborah Chatr Aryamontri Roman systems for water supply have always been considered some of the most remarkable achievements of the ancient world and have been closely tied to the idea of Roman civilization itself.1 The image of wealthy and lascivious bathers inside massive Imperial Baths, like the ones portrayed by the painter Alma Tadema in the nineteenth century, is certainly among the most recurrent stereotypes of Roman customs, and the majestic bridged aqueducts still draping the countryside of modern countries are widely recognized as typically Roman. Several other engineering accomplishments such as dams, cisterns, monumental fountains, and sewers were all related to water storage and consumption. Although the Greeks and Romans shared the same theoretical knowledge of hydraulics, Roman civil engineers paid distinctive attention to controlling the regulation of water flow and to perfecting water supply installations.2 They focused, in particular, on those used to bridge

Since the early 1980s the study of ancient technology in general, and ancient hydraulic engineering in particular, has witnessed increasing attention from scholars. A recent conference at Columbia University focused on this subject (The Romans and Water: Management, Technology, Culture, Columbia University, New York, September 22–23, 2006; conference program can be reviewed at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cam/events/ water.htm), as well as a session of the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting in 2000, now in Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, ed., Water Use and Hydraulics in the Roman City (Dubuque, Iowa, 2001). For a recent overview of Greek and Roman water technologies and previous bibliography see Örjan Wikander, ed., Handbook of Ancient Water Technology (Leiden, Boston, and Köln, 2000). State of the art articles on specific topics are published in the proceedings of the Cura Aquarum International Congresses on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region (the last one in 2006). For a collection of ancient texts in translation on hydraulic engineering see John W. Humphrey, John P. Olsen, and Andrew N. Sherwood, Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook: Annotated Translations of Greek and Latin Texts and Documents (London and New York, 1998). 2 Gravity flow conduits, pressurized water systems, and mechanical water-lifting devices were not a Roman innovation. Principles of fluid mechanics were already acknowledged and practically applied by the Greeks. The substantial difference lay in the far-reaching scale and pervasive employment of these principles and systems by 1

320

deborah chatr aryamontri

depressions: inverted siphons and aqueducts,3 where sometimes the arcades were constructed with two (plate 1) or even three levels, as in the Pont-du-Gard.4 As A. Trevor Hodge has pointed out, bridges for water transport existed in the Hellenic world, but were a rarity.5 The Greeks preferred to use underground, rock-cut channels to collect the water from springs, and their urban water system remained less complex than that of the Romans even in Hellenistic times, when architectural structures related to transportation and distribution of running water became a medium of the central authority and local notables to win favor with the community.6 Since the Republican period, Roman engineers had already provided Rome with aqueducts (the Aqua Appia, in 312 B.C., and the Anio Vetus, in 272 B.C.) and in the Aqua Marcia (144 B.C.) for the first time they conveyed water in elevated masonry conduits.7 Thanks to the improvement of hydraulic cement and developments in construction techniques, Roman aqueducts continued to carry a greater volume of water from farther away and were able to reach distances of more than one hundred

the Romans. See Örjan Wikander, “The Roman Empire,” in Handbook (see note 1), 649–660, esp. p. 649; Renate Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia dell’acqua. La cultura idraulica nel mondo classico, trans. Lydia Salerno (Milan, 2005), p. 52. 3 Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, p. 52 (see note 2). For a description of an inverted siphon in antiquity see Vitr., De arch. 8.6.5–9. For the question of Hellenistic aqueducts and siphons and their influence on Roman hydraulic engineering see Michael Lewis, “Vitruvius and Greek Aqueducts,” Papers of the British School at Rome 67 (1999), 145–172; idem, “The Hellenistic Period,” in Handbook (see note 1), 631–648, esp. pp. 647–8; A. Trevor Hodge “Siphons in Roman Aqueducts,” Papers of the British School at Rome 51 (1983), 174–221, esp. p. 174; H. Paul M. Kessener, ”Vitruvius and the Conveyance of Water,” Bulletin Antieke beschaving 76 (2001), 139–158, esp. p. 139; H. Paul M. Kessener, “Roman Water Transport. Problems in Operating Pressurized Pipeline Systems,” in Wasserhistorische Forschungen. Schwerpunkt Antike, ed. Christian Ohlig (Siegburg 2003), pp. 147–160. 4 The Pont-du-Gard crosses a valley almost fifty meters deep. A. Trevor Hodge has hypothesized that the Romans used a bridge with a depression of up to fifty meters, while for deeper canyons they would choose an inverted siphon (see A. Trevor Hodge, “Siphons in Roman Aqueducts,” Scientific American 252, no. 6 (1985), 114–119, esp. p. 119). 5 A. Trevor Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply, 2nd ed. (London, 2002), p. 32. 6 Gemma C.M. Jansen, “Urban Water,” in Handbook (see note 1), pp. 103–125, esp. p. 111; Lewis, “The Hellenistic Period,” (see note 3); Andrew Wilson, “Drainage and Sanitation,” in Handbook (see note 1), pp. 151–179, esp. pp. 165–7. 7 Still essential: Thomas Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1935); Esther Boise Van Deman, The Building of Roman the Aqueducts (Washington, D.C., 1934). For a recent overview see Peter J. Aicher, Guide to the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome (Wauconda, Ill., 1995) and Hodge, Roman Aqueducts (see note 5).

running water

321

Plate 1. Two-tier section of the Aqua Trajana near the ancient city of Forum Clodii (Canale Monterano, Italy). (Photo by the author)

322

deborah chatr aryamontri

kilometers.8 The amount of water supplied daily to the urban population of Rome was already remarkable during the Roman Republic, and it increased significantly from Augustus on. According to Pliny the Elder, in 33 B.C., Augustus’ son-in-law “Agrippa, under his ædileship, after adding the Virgo aqueduct and repairing and putting in order the other aqueducts, constructed seven hundred basins in addition to five hundred fountains and one hundred and thirty tanks, many of them magnificently adorned [. . .] all this in the space of a single year.”9 Before the introduction of aqueducts, Roman settlements had to rely on wells, cisterns, and local springs for their drinking and household water needs.10 Even if the use of these water sources was never completely overtaken by the presence of aqueducts, a continuous increase in the urban population over the time made these relatively simple methods of water supply insufficient. The construction of aqueducts indubitably not only produced an easily reachable and potentially unlimited amount of running water for an enlarged number of dwellers, but also supplied water of high quality.11 Roman aqueducts exploited the principles of gravity in order to deliver water to the city and, depending on the climatic conditions or the needs of the urban buildings, they were equipped with collecting tanks, usually located at the end of the aqueduct. Technically speaking, these collecting tanks, or reservoirs must be distinguished from rainfall storing cisterns, which accumulated water independently of aqueducts. Collecting tanks were an integral part of the aqueduct system, able not only to balance the considerable oscillation of demand and

8 See e.g. the Serino aqueduct—ninety-six kilometers long (Fontis Augustei Aquaeductus), or the aqueduct of Carthage at one-hundred and thirty-two kilometers in length. 9 Pliny, HN 36.121. 10 Even if the Romans had a good knowledge of pumping systems and water-lifting devices, they preferred to avoid the use of river water both for pressure and pollution reasons. See A. Trevor Hodge, “Collection of Water,” in Handbook (see note 1), pp. 21–28, esp. pp. 27–8; A. Trevor Hodge, “Purity of Water,” in Handbook (see note 1), 95–99 esp. p. 95; Rabun Taylor, Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome (Rome, 2000), pp. 39–42. 11 The Greeks and Romans were well aware of the different qualities of water, even if they did not always understand the scwince of those qualities. Rain water was considered pure by every ancient author and Pliny considered the best water the one coming from wells in constant use and sheltered from the sun (Pliny, HN 31.38–39). Frontinus tells us that because of variation in the quality of water, the different aqueduct streams were kept separated and the Aqua Marcia in Rome was used only for drinking purposes. On the qualities and the purity of water see Hodge, “Purity of Water,” (see note 10).

running water

323

supply over the seasons, but also to control the storage and overflow of water.12 In arid regions like North Africa the two water collecting and supply strategies were used complementarily in preventing periods of drought.13 Collecting tanks must be regarded as distinctly Roman since the Greeks never developed any particular measure to control the inlet and outlet flow of the water.14 In the Roman world, collecting tanks were of various architectonic shapes and construction methods and usually of massive size. They are an example of the level of complexity that Roman hydraulic engineering achieved. On average, these grandiose reservoirs accumulated around 10,000 cubic meters of water,15 and could also reach the impressive amount of 80,000 cubic meters, such as the one that supplied the baths of Caracalla in Rome.16 Although the Romans were unable to run modern chemical and physical analysis of water, they understood its hygienic and therapeutic qualities, as well as the importance of ensuring safe drinking water, free from harmful substances and organisms.17 For that reason, along the course of aqueducts, water passed through one or more filtering devices and settling tanks (piscinae limariae) designed to clean the water of mud, particles, and other impurities.18 The maintenance of water-supply and disposal systems was taken in such consideration by the Romans that they assigned individual magistrates to the incessant task of managing and maintaining the water supply system (cura aquarum).19 The Romans reached such a high level of complexity and detail in water legislation that they remain unsurpassed by other ancient societies in this field and set an example for modern nations.20 12 It is not clear, however, if these collecting tanks were part of the standard facilities of an aqueduct. See Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, pp. 147, 150–153 (see note 2). 13 See Andrew Wilson, “Urban Water Storage, Distribution, and Usage in Roman North Africa,” in Water Use and Hydraulics (see note 1), pp. 83–95, esp. p. 83. 14 Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, p. 155 (see note 2). 15 For example the Piscina Mirabilis near Misenum could hold 12,600 m3 and the one in Albano Laziale near Rome, nicknamed Cisternone and still functioning today, has a capacity of about 10,132 meters3. 16 Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, p. 153 (see note 2). 17 See above note 11. 18 See e.g. the settling tank of the Metz aqueduct or the reservoir of the Baths of Trajan on the Esquilin Hill in Rome, where the nine sectors of the reservoir are connected with zigzag openings to increase the settling process. 19 The office was established in 11 B.C. by Augustus. For an overview on this office see R.H. Rodgers, “Curatores Aquarum,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 86 (1982), 171–180. 20 In the Greek world magistrates had the function of water control, but this was not their primary or specific function. Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, pp. 218–229

324

deborah chatr aryamontri

Once the aqueduct had reached the built-up area, the water could finally be distributed to the town. Unfortunately, the ancient texts do not help us much in understanding how the urban pipe network system was structured. The only literary sources that specifically focus on Roman hydraulic engineering are Vitruvius’ eighth book of De Architectura21 and the precious manual De Aquaeductu urbis Romae by Frontinus.22 Nevertheless, both works reveal several difficulties that interfere with our obtaining a clear and complete picture. Vitruvius is at times enigmatic and ambiguous in his descriptions, and current scholarship is now more critical in evaluating his reliability on technical matters. On the other hand, Frontinus provides us with a great deal of technical details, but they mainly concern the use, maintenance, and administration of an already existing network, rather than the analysis of the construction and design methods associated with it. Moreover, Frontinus focuses only on Rome, without providing us a precise account of other cities or smaller towns.23 Hence, our knowledge of the urban pipe network is based especially on archaeological evidence, primarily from Pompeii, even if the lack of water pipes, removed or destroyed, creates serious difficulties.24 Water could be dispensed to the city directly from the main conduit, as in Minturnae, Timgad and Volubilis,25 or gathered in one main distribution center (castellum aquae), that according to Vitruvius, would (see note 2); Christer Bruun, “Roman Water Legislation,” in Handbook (see note 1), pp. 575–604. 21 Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, author of this celebrated treatise, was an architect and engineer active between the late first century B.C. and the early first century A.D., during Caesar’s and Augustus’ times. 22 Sextus Iulius Frontinus was appointed Rome’s water commissioner (curator aquarum) in 97 A.D. and was active between the first and the second century A.D. under the emperors Nerva and Trajan. 23 A. Trevor Hodge, “Aqueducts,” in Handbook (see note 1), 39–66, esp. pp. 39–40 and note 1; Harry B. Evans, Water Distribution in Ancient Rome: The Evidence of Frontinus (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1994), pp. 7–8. 24 Although the long distance water supply system has been the object of several investigations, only few studies are available for the integral urban water system, and it is exclusively for Pompeii, Hercolaneum, Ostia, and, in particular, Volubilis. See Jansen, “Urban Water,” pp. 111–112 (see note 6); Christoph P.J. Ohlig, “ ‘Du must die Füsse finden!’ Zum praktischen Nutzen metrologischer Überlegungen,” in Omni pede stare Saggi architettonici e circumvesuviani in memoriam Jos de Waele, ed. Stephan T.A.M. Mols and Eric M. Moormann (Napoli 2005), pp. 291–300. 25 I.A. Richmond, “Commemorative Arches and City Gates in the Augustan Age,” Journal of Roman Studies 23 (1933), 149–174, p. 155 figure 5; Wilson, “Urban Water,” p. 93 (see note 13).

running water

325

be constructed near the city walls (ad moenia).26 In the latter case, as in Pompeii, from the distribution building two options arose: the water could directly reach the final destination; or, before being piped to public and private buildings, it could eventually be distributed to other secondary pressure towers (castella dividicula) placed throughout the inhabited area. Archaeological evidence leads scholars to believe that the occurrence of these pressure towers was more a localized response to the presence of sloping sites rather than a standard feature present in all urban supply networks.27 In any case, they were an accomplishment of Roman hydraulic engineering, even though it is not possible to determine with certainty if they were an advance of the Imperial period or a development from Republican times. The main distribution centers in Pompeii and in Nîmes give us an understanding of how they worked.28 Inside the building the closed conduit (specus) of the aqueduct discharged the water in a settling basin where it was filtrated through a complex of grates before entering the urban supply system. Vitruvius illustrates a specific hierarchy in the water delivery from the distribution center to the town: the water would be piped from one compartment to public basins and fountains; from a second one, to public buildings and baths; and from a third one, to private dwellings. However, this controversial description of Vitruvius must be regarded as a hypothetical one, since such a hierarchy has never been found.29 Archaeological evidence shows that the water was distributed with pipes ( fistulae) departing either directly from the aqueduct or from the pressure towers. The most common pipes were made of lead, even if we also have evidence of bronze, terracotta, and wooden pipes. As Vitruvius and Pliny testify, the Romans were well aware of the danger of Vitr., De arch. 8.6. Jansen, “Urban Water,” pp. 112–113 (see note 6); Wilson, “Urban Water,” p. 93 (see note 13); Evans, Water Distribution, p. 8 (see note 23). 28 See lately Christoph P.J. Ohlig, De aquis pompeiorum = Das castellum aquae in Pompeji: Herkunft, Zuleitung und Verteilung des Wassers (Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2001); H. Paul M. Kessener, “Reflections on the Pompeian castellum divisorium,” in Omni pede stare (see note 24), 301–309; idem, “Frontinus and the castellum aquae at Pompeii and at Nîmes,” in Cura Aquarum in Ephesus. Twelfth International Conference on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering, Ephesus, Selçul-Turkey, October 2–10, 2004, ed. Gilbert Wiplinger (Dudley, Mass., 2006), pp. 349–357. 29 Vitr., De arch. 8.6.2. On this topic see Bruun, “Roman Water Legislation,” p. 587 note 52 (see note 20); Tölle-Kanstenbein, Archeologia, p. 179 note 11 (see note 2); Jansen, “Urban Water,” p. 118 note 33 (see note 6); Evans, Water Distribution, pp. 7–9 and note 27 (see note 23); Ohlig, De aquis pompeiorum, pp. 33–48 (see note 28). 26 27

326

deborah chatr aryamontri

lead to human health.30 Yet, the theory stating that lead pipes poisoned the Roman population to the extent of having caused the fall of the empire must once and for all be debunked.31 First, the water rarely stagnated inside the conduits, but was almost always flowing through the pipes, avoiding the absorption of toxic metal particles.32 Second, flowing or stagnant, the direct contact of the water to the pipes was extremely improbable because of lime deposits that had formed over time inside the conduits.33 The street fountains (salientes), usually built with a basin (lacus) underneath the spout, were the first facilities that increased, thanks to the growing consolidation of aqueducts. They provided unlimited drinking water “free of charge”34 in very convenient locations both for commercial services and city dwellers.35 The architectonic features of these public fountains vary and cannot be classified in restricted categories. For example, fountains could have had a simple nozzle coming out of the wall, a simple open basin, or a larger covered basin, or could have been nymphaea or monumental and decorated buildings (figures 1a–c). When a basin was present, it usually had an overflow hole that allowed excess water to stream alongside the street. The almost continuous, uninterrupted flow, well attested in Pompeii and Ostia, must not be interpreted as a waste of water. 30 In the second century B.C., Nicander of Colophon (Nic., Alex. 2.74) provides us with the earliest description of lead poisoning; Pliny talks about the noxious fumes of a lead furnace (Pliny, HN 34.167) and Vitruvius openly asserts that water conducted through terracotta pipes is healthier than the one in lead pipes. Vitruvius adduces as evidence the afflicted physical condition of lead workers, or plumbarii. (Vitr., De arch. 8.6.10–11). 31 About this topic see Hodge, Roman Aqueducts, p. 308 (see note 5) and see above note 11. 32 According to a senate ruling on public fountains quoted by Frontinus, it was decreed the fountains had to flow day and night. See Gerda de Kleijn, The Water Supply of Ancient Rome: City Area, Water, and Population (Amsterdam, 2001), p. 100. 33 A. Trevor Hodge has calculated that the rate of incrustation inside the conduits should amount at 1 millimeter per year. Consequently, sinter was a convenient protection and incrustation obstructions were a long-term problem. For a general discussion on sinter see Hodge, Roman Aqueducts, pp. 227–32 (see note 5); Deane R. Blackman and A. Trevor Hodge, Frontinus’ Legacy: Essays on Frontinus’ De aquis urbis Romae (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2001) ; and Hodge, “Purity of Water,” p. 98 (see note 10). 34 Frontinus (Frontin., Aq. 104.1) writes “publici salientes” quoting a decree of 11 B.C. See Bruun, “Roman Water Legislation,” p. 585 (see note 20); Evans, Water Distribution, p. 11 (see note 23). 35 For example, on Via dell’Abbondanza in Pompeii they were located at a distance of 70 and 80 meters apart and it has been estimated an average of one fountain per one hundred-and-sixty people in Pompeii.

running water

327

Figure 1. a Bronze fountain spout; b. Squat stone pier decorated with a basrelief head of a male water deity (Glanum, France) (Photo by the author); c. Fountain on Via dell’Abbondanza in Pompeii (Photo by the author); d. sectioned view of a fountain with open basin (illustration by the author; e. axonometric view of a fountain with open basin. (illustration by the author)

Roman plumbers were sufficiently skilled to produce taps to block the flow of the water when needed, and we have evidence of those devices. Indeed, some of this water could eventually be recycled.36 In Pompeii an incessant offtake was employed to dilute the effluvia coming from the waste on the streets or the sewage (figures 1d–e). The importance of

36

Frontin., Aq. 94.3. Frontinus speaks of aqua caduca, i.e., the overflown water.

328

deborah chatr aryamontri

street fountains is quite evident if we analyze the corner of the Insula of Menander (I 10) in Pompeii: there the façade of the house in the north-east corner of the insula was modified to accommodate a large fountain, probably soon after the linking of the Serino aqueduct during the Augustan period.37 The individuals who benefited most were those who did not previously have easy access to affordable clean water based largely on socio-economic factors. Large segments of urban populations could not meet the expense of the construction of a well or cistern in their own houses, and most of them lived in rented accommodations, by the Imperial times located in high-rise buildings (insulae), without water supply systems in the upper floors. Nevertheless, as the amount of running water available significantly increased, water related facilities in domestic buildings seem to become a more standard amenity. Wealthy denizens were granted private pipe networks, equipped with lead distribution boxes and tubs for their personal needs, even though they mainly used these pipelines to water their gardens or adorn them with fountains as a display of their social status.38 Recent studies of the Garden houses at Ostia have revealed that during the second century A.D. middle class population lived in apartments with toilets (latrinae) and other water utilities also on upper floors.39 Flushing toilets started to be accessible to everyone just at the end of the Republic and spread all over the Roman towns during the Imperial times. Before them, people rarely had private toilets in their own homes and had to use chamber pots to be emptied into vats placed under the stairwells. If vats were not provided, jars could be emptied into a nearby cesspool or an opening to the central sewer. In the second and third centuries A.D., luxury public latrines (figure 1f ) 37 Roger Ling, “Street fountains and house fronts at Pompeii,” in Omni pede stare (see note 24), 271–276. 38 On pipelines and their legislation see De Kleijn, The Water Supply (see note 32); Bruun, “Roman Water Legislation,” pp. 576–9, 585–595 (see note 20). On use of water as amenity see Linda Farrar, Gardens of Italy and the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire. From the 4th Century BC to the 4th Century AD, BAR International Series, 650 (Oxford, 1996); Gemma Jansen, “Water and Water Technology in the Pompeian Garden,” in Omni pede stare (see note 24), pp. 277–290. 39 Saskia Stevens, “Reconstructing the Garden Houses at Ostia. Exploring Water Supply and Building Height,” Bulletin Antieke beschaving 80 (2005), 113–123. For the toilets see Gemma Jansen, “Private Latrines in Ostia. A Case Study,” Bulletin Antieke beschaving 71 (1996), 15–16; eadem, “Private Toilets at Pompeii: Appearance and Operation,” in Sequence and Space in Pompeii, ed. S.E. Bon and R. Jones (Oxford, 1997), 121–134; Ann O. Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy: Water, Sewers, and Toilets (Chapel Hill, N.C. and London, 2007) (forthcoming).

running water

329

flourished in some cities of the empire in conjunction with particular socio-economic circumstances when was possible to show off to the utmost urbanitas, Roman proper behavior. We can observe in these facilities a special attention to the salubrity and pleasantness of the place, lavishly decorated with marbles, and sometimes, as in Ostia, with a small fountain. People had to sit side by side without any privacy, and the largest latrines could accommodate up to seventy people, but they were a way to “celebrate defecation with status and dignity.”40 They were a tremendous improvement to the previous cesspits and European technology did not surpass Roman toilets until the beginning of the twentieth century. These toilets, to carry away the sewage, had a well-designed drainage system that brought reasonably clean water in a channel running first in front of, and then underneath, the seats that were provided with holes for defecation, and the running water released the excrement into the elaborate discharge system. Roman drains and sewers appear to differ in terms of construction and distribution in accordance with the geological underground features and population density of the towns. Nevertheless, at least in the main cities of the empire, a sewage system, even when scattered, was present and some homes and other businesses ran their wastewater through pipes into it. In addition, some rainwater was captured through roofs, gutters (figure 2a) and small pools (impluvia) to be stored in cisterns for household and drinking purposes. The rest ran guttered down through vertical terracotta pipes on the streets, along with the water from fountains, to canals (figures 2b–d) and manholes (figure 2c) in the ground that led to the main branch of the sewage, which finally directly discharged into the nearest river or the open sea.41 The Roman sewer system is a stunning accomplishment of engineering, and proof of this is the fact that part of the Cloaca Maxima in Rome is still functioning.

40 Richard Neudecker, Die Pracht der Latrine: Zum Wandel öffentlicher Bedürfnisanstalten in der kaiserzeitlichen Stadt (Munich, 1994), p. 153; Gemma Jansen, “Social Distinctions and Issues of Privacy in the Toilets of Hadrian’s Villa,” Journal of Roman Archaeology, 16 (2003), 137–152. 41 Gemma Jansen, Water in de Romeinse stad. Pompeji—Herculaneum-Ostia (Leuven, 2002); eadem, “Systems for the Disposal of Waste and Excreta in Roman Cities. The Situation in Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia,” in Sordes urbis: la eliminación de residuos en la ciudad romana: actas de la Reunión de Roma (15–16 de noviembre de 1996), ed. Xavier Dupré Raventós and Josep Anton Remolà (Rome, 2000), 37–49; Maria Antonietta Ricciardi and Valnea Santa Maria Scrinari, La civiltà dell’acqua in Ostia Antica (Ostia Antica, 1996).

330

deborah chatr aryamontri

Figure 2. a. Terracotta drainage pipeline embedded in a masonry wall in Pompeii (Photo by the author); b. drainage hole of roof tiles (Lucus Feroniae, Italy) (Photo by the author); c. the famous manhole The Mouth of Truth (Rome, Italy) (illustration by the author); d. stone drainage channel (Glanum, France). (Photo by the author)

Nevertheless, probably the most conspicuous expression of Roman hydraulic engineering is represented by the Imperial public baths or thermae, which went on to become an emblem of Roman civilization (figure 3b).42 Bathing was, in fact, one of the most important leisure 42 For a comprehensive bibliography until 2001 see Hubertus Manderscheid, Ancient Baths and Bathing: a Bibliography for the Years 1988–2001 ( Journal of Roman Archaeology.

running water

331

activities for the Romans. During the Imperial period it became not only part of the regimen of personal hygiene, but first and foremost, a place of socialization and recreation. At the very beginning, Romans bathed rarely, and only for basic health and cleanliness. As Seneca and Cato recount, during the Roman Republic people used to wash or bathe at home in a gloomy and tiny room called lavatrina, furnished with basins and a bathtub and usually located near the kitchen to exploit heat sources.43 From the end of the third century B.C., public baths (balneae or balineae)44 started to spread and bathing became more and more a public activity rather than a private one. In the second century B.C., as we can deduce from Plautus’ comedies, utilization of public baths was common.45 We do not know exactly when the Romans started to take warm baths in hot rooms called calidaria, but we know for sure that they took them at least since Scipio’s times, around the middle of the second century B.C. Between the second and first century B.C., Romans also started to take steam baths in sweat rooms named laconica with the introduction of the hypocaustum, a central heating system with an underground furnace and tile flues to distribute the heat (figure 3a).46 During the first certury B.C. public and private baths had become of general use, and baths that were opened to the public upon payment of a small sum were already available in Rome (balneas Senias).47 However, it is only between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the empire that public baths developed into more elaborate complexes and were called for the first time thermae, a word originally indicating ‘hot water’. Agrippa’s Thermae, the first of their kind, were public baths free of charge.48 They incorporated a sweat room, a hot room, wondrous art works, landscaped areas for exercising, and pools for swimming, organized on an irregular floor plan. Such bathing com-

Supplementary series, 55) (Portsmouth, R.I., 2004). For the most recent works on the topic see Ann O. Koloski-Ostrow, “The City Baths in Pompeii and Herculaneum,” in The World of Pompeii, ed. Pedar W. Foss and John J. Dobbins (London and New York, 2007), pp. 224–256 (forthcoming). 43 Sen., Ep. 86.12; Cat., apd. Non. s.v. Ephippium; for the term see Varro, Ling. 9.68; Non. s.v. Latrina. 44 Varro, Ling. 8.25, 9.41. 45 Plaut., Pers. 124; Poen. 703; Trin. 406; Stich. 228. 46 On the operation of the hypocaust and the water provisioning, utilization and disposal in Roman baths see Hubertus Manderscheid, “Greek and Roman Baths,” in Handbook (see note 1), pp. 465–535, esp. pp. 484–514. 47 Cic., Q Fr. 3.1; Cic., Cael. 25, 26. 48 On the gratuity of the baths under Agrippa’s aedilship see above note 9.

332

deborah chatr aryamontri

Figure 3. a. reconstructed cutway model of the Baths at Villa Eolo (Ventotene, Italy) (Photo by the author); b. Ruins of the Baths of Caracal in an engraving of P. Schenck (seventieth century A.D.) (from Romolo A. Staccioli, Le Terme di Roma antica (Roma, 1995), pp. 12–13); c. Interior view of the Grand Central Station in New York City.

running water

333

plexes, from this point called thermae, started to be built by the emperors in Rome and in the Roman world as part of their political propaganda. Nero, with the construction of his baths in Campus Martius, expanded Agrippa’s idea and created the first example known to us of a bath complex with a symmetrical spatial organization floor plan that later will develop multiple accesses to each single room. Though it is hard to know for certain, they likely displayed all the elements that became canonic in the thermae during the empire: changing rooms (apodyteria), cold halls ( frigidaria) (plate 2), warm rooms (tepidaria), hot rooms (calidaria), and sweating rooms (laconica).49 The emperors competed in building more and more majestic structures, magnificently decorated and provided with sumptuous facilities such as Olympic-sized swimming pools (natationes). Some of the baths were large enough to hold thousands of bathers. In the early fifth century A.D. about one thousand-and-five hundred people could enjoy the Baths of Caracalla at the same time, whereas twice that number could be accommodated in the Diocletian’s Baths.50 These buildings were so imposing that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries their architecture was used as a model in the construction of American railroad stations, such as the Grand Central Station in New York (figure 3c). The Romans chose bathing and body treatments as a pleasant way to spend their spare time (otium). Baths were for everyone, men and women of any age and any social level, but they were more a place for self-presentation rather than a place for social-equalization.51 During the empire the luxurious public baths became places where elite Romans could make a show of their own wealth. Even the emperors and their entourage frequented the baths, mingling with common people, as exemplified by Hadrian.52 Other emperors, like Commodus and Gordian I, overindulged in this pleasure to the point of taking several complete baths a day.53 We have accounts of wealthy denizens Manderscheid, “Greek and Roman Baths,” pp. 514–529 (see note 46). Filippo Coarelli, Roma (Milan, 1994), p. 253. 51 Donatella Alessi, “L’uso delle terme e I suoi frequentatori,” in Terme romane e vita quotidiana, ed. Marinella Pasquinucci (Modena, 1987), pp. 22–24; J. DeLaine, “Introduction: Bathing and Society,” in Roman Baths and Bathing. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Roman Baths Held at Bath, England, 30 March–4 April 1992. Part 1: Bathing and Society, ed. J. De Laine and D.E. Johnston (Portsmouth, R.I., 1999), pp. 7–16, esp. p. 13; Garrett G. Fagan, “Interpreting the Evidence: Did the Slaves Bathe at the Baths?,” in ibid., pp. 25–34. 52 Hist. Aug., Hadr. 17.6. 53 Hist. Aug., Comm. 10.5; Hist. Aug., Gord. 6.6. 49 50

334

deborah chatr aryamontri

Plate 2. View of the frigidarium of the Central Baths in Pompeii. (Photo by the author)

running water

335

who were transported in the baths by their slaves on lettigae from one room to the other.54 In one of his works the poet Martial, who offered a vivid account of Roman society during the first century of the empire, describes an individual who got drunk at the baths every day after having inherited a large fortune.55 The habit of bathing became so frequent and lavish and the baths themselves so opulent that in the first century A.D. the conservative Seneca, philosopher and emperor Nero’s political adviser, in one of his letters expresses his longing for the times when bathing was a private and somber activity.56 The cult of the body reached extreme heights during the empire and Roman bathing rituals well reflect the fanatic approach of Roman society to achieve a healthy body. The thermae grew so much in importance in Roman’s lives that they also had a very strong impact on city planning. For example, the construction of the Central Baths in Pompeii apparently affected the traffic flow of the town57 and, at the beginning of the fourth century A.D., an entire section of Rome, between the Viminale and Quirinale hills, was leveled to construct the Baths of Diocletian. The private buildings and dwellings in this area, lawfully purchased by the emperor, were torn down. The road network was completely altered to make room for this massive complex, and a new branch was added to the Aqua Marcia with the only purpose of supplying the baths with the appropriate amount of water.58 The practice of bathing during the Roman Empire can be summarized with the epitaph of one Tiberius Claudius Secundus: “Baths,

Petron., Sat. 28. Mart., Epigr. 12.70.5–9. 56 Sen., Ep. 86.12. 57 Eric Poehler, “A Reexamination of Traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI—The Casa del Fauno, the Central Baths, and the Reversal of Vico di Mercurio,” in Pompeiana.org, ed. Eric Poehler, Kevin Cole, Steven Ellis ed., 2006, 5/20/2007 , paper given at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Insitute of America, 2005. 58 An inscription with the dedication of the Baths, now at the Museo Nazionale Romano alle Terme in Rome, states that Maximianus commended to construct the Baths, having “purchased building for such magnificent work of architecture perfect in every detail” (CIL VI 1130 [= 31242], 1131: “. . . coemptis aedificiis pro tanti operas magnitudine omni cultu perfectas”). See Amanda Claridge, Rome (Oxford, 1998), p. 352; Coarelli, Roma, p. 251; Maria Grazia Cecchini, “Roma: le terme e la città,” in Terme romane e vita quotidiana: supplemento all’edizione romana della mostra “Terme romane e vita quotidiana” tenutasi a Castiglioncello e Rosignano Marittimo nel 1987: Roma 29–1–16–4, 1989, Museo della Civiltà Romana, ed. A.M. Liberati Silverio (Rome, 1989), pp. 7–9. O.F. Robinson, Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration (London and New York, 1992). 54 55

336

deborah chatr aryamontri

wine and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine and sex make up life.”59 From a broader historical perspective, Roman waterworks and water related facilities, both for utilitarian and leisurely purposes, exemplify the culmination of the empire’s achievements in engineering and design and undoubtedly enlighten our understanding of daily Roman culture and life—a life deeply intertwined with water, the essential substance, as Vitruvius recalls, to human existence and all other forms of life.60

59 CIL VI 15258: “Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.” 60 Vitr., De Arch. 8.1.1.

VILLAS AND AQUATIC CULTURE IN LATE ROMAN SPAIN John W. Stephenson Introduction Spanish cities, towns, and dwellings have long been situated in intimate contact with water sources. Along numerous river valleys like the Ebro, Tajo, Duero, and Guadalquivir, cities such as Córdoba, Mérida, and Toledo still hug their riverine corridors as did their Roman forerunners (figure 1A, Toledo). In these urban surroundings, great public structures associated with water—dams, bridges, aqueducts, baths—stand among the most recognizable and evocative ancient remains. No less arresting are the vestiges of ‘water architecture’ in domestic settings, where works of remarkable engineering and artistic skill are preserved. Particularly in the rural villas of Spain, elaborate bath complexes, varied water features like pools and fountains, and structures such as dams and aqueducts built to provide for water are preserved. A dependable source of water was crucial on these estates for industrial and agricultural operations as well as for human consumption, but as important were the esthetic effects made possible when water was employed in the design of villa interiors.1 Roman villa residences were watery environments, harnessing water’s rich sensory qualities and symbolic potential to create a pleasing and meaningful world. Decorative elements such as sculpture, painting, and textiles that embellished villa spaces were often designed

1 Roman writers confirm that a dependable water source was a primary concern of builders when siting rural dwellings, thus Cato, De Agri Cultura 1.1.3 notes that there must be no lack of water in the location of a villa, and the Spanish writer Columella, De Re Rustica 1.5.4 recommends situating villas by rivers or streams. Modern discussions of aquatic features in Roman architecture appear in the context of studies of Roman gardens. An indispensable reference is Wilhemina Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas destroyed by Vesuvius (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1979); see also Pierre Grimal, I giardini di Roma antica (Rome, 2000); articles focusing on the horti, great periurban garden villas of Rome, appear in Maddelena Cima and E. La Rocca, ed., Horti Romani: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma, 4–6 maggio 1995 (Rome, 1998); see also the chapters in Susan MacDougall, ed., Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Washington, D.C., 1987), including Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti, “The Importance of Water in Roman Garden Triclinia,” pp. 137–184.

338

john w. stephenson

to work with water to achieve a desired ambience. This essay explores the aquatic elements of villa architecture in Roman Spain, with an emphasis on the achievements of late Roman designers. Villa culture in the late Empire in Spain is notable for its extensive use of water as a design feature and also as a carrier of meaning in domestic art. These features are examined in greater detail in a discussion of a recently excavated dining hall in a late Spanish villa, where the proprietor created a watery architectural setting that was enhanced by carefully chosen sculptures on aquatic themes. Roman villas, freestanding rural dwellings incorporating agricultural and industrial functions along with a luxurious residence, began to appear in earnest in Hispania, or Roman Spain, in the first century A.D.2 The importance of water in the villa culture of Roman Spain, always considerable, becomes in the period of the late Empire nearly impossible to overestimate.3 Spanish villas grew in size and luxury when new constructions and renovations were undertaken, chiefly in the Constantinian period of the early to mid-fourth century. Water features such as pools, fountains, and canals are discovered in these late Spanish villas in unusually large numbers and degrees of elaboration, as compared to other provinces and earlier periods. Ángel Fuentes Domínguez describes a fashion for aquatic entertainments, “espectáculos del agua” and other aquatic phenomena in late Roman Spanish cities in terms of an authentic “cultura del agua.”4 In the villas, a similar ‘water culture’ is revealed in new constructions of showy water features and a wealth of décor on watery themes. And an interest in spectacle, a noted social feature of late antiquity in general, is evident also in Spanish villa life of the period. With its constant stream of visitors, banquets, and entertainments, the late Roman villa could be a showplace, and water increasingly played a part in the show. The proliferation and elaboration of villa bathing facilities during the fourth century is a striking aspect 2 In addition to the Iberian peninsula, comprising the regions of modern Spain and Portugal, the late Roman dioceses Hispaniorum included a small portion of north Africa, the coastal strip of Mauritania Tingitana in present-day Morocco. 3 The first century Spanish poet Martial stresses water features among the pleasures of his estate on his return to Spain in 98 (Epigram 12.31. 1–5), “this grove, these springs, this matted shade of the running vine, this channel of irrigating water, the tame eel which swims in its enclosed waters.” (Hoc nemus, hi fontes, haec textilis umbra supini Palmitis, hoc riguae ductile flumen aquae . . . Quaeque natat clusis anguilla domestica lymphis.) 4 Ángel Fuentes Domínguez, “Las Termas en la Antigüedad Tardía,” in Termas Romanas en el Occidente del Impero, ed. Carlos Fernandez-Ochoa and V. García Entero (Gijón, 2000), p. 135.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

339

Figure 1. A. View of Toledo, Spain. B. View from the villa of Torre Aguila.

340

john w. stephenson

of this culture of water, and bathing is but one category of water use that is commingled with wider social changes in this transformative era. If they arise during a time of prosperity and bustling activity at the villas, private baths also point to a concern for privacy that may seem paradoxical, reflecting in part the influence of a new religion and in part a hardening of social boundaries between elite and nonelite in the late Empire.5 The importance of water to villa life is evident first in the locations of the villas themselves, a concern that is expressed in the works of late Roman writers. Sidonius Apollinaris, who owned a villa in Aquitania in southern France and visited those of friends in Spain, is our most valuable writer on this subject.6 Sidonius’ Gallic villa was built with its foundations sunk right into a lake’s shore, and the writer proudly describes the view from a dining room opening over the lake, where diners could gaze out on a scene of boats racing on the water below.7 The estate includes a stream, a river, and a swamp in addition to the lake, and Sidonius contrasts these wild and unused sources with those shaped and cultivated by men. Another villa rested over a river so that its baths might be entered by boats though a grotto.8 A number of late Spanish villas are situated just adjacent to the banks of lakes or rivers in this way, including the villa of Fortunatus and the recently uncovered villa of Torre Aguila, (figure 1B, view from Torre Aguila).9 If a lake or river was unavailable to supply the needs of the estate, builders created their own water 5 I treat such issues connecting features of late villas in Spain with social developments of the period in A Social History of Late Roman Villas in Hispania, (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 2006). 6 Sidonius writes about villa interiors in a series of letters and poems; most of the applicable material comes from three texts, the Epistle 2.2, which includes a description of his villa (owned by his wife) at Avitacum, Epistle 2.9, describing a visit to the villa of his friend Domitius, and Carmen 22, a panegyric on the ‘burgus’ (castle) of his friend Pontius Leontius. 7 “Here it was the custom of our elders to imitate the race of Drepanum in the mythical tale of Troy,” Sidonius, Epistle 2.2.19–20, trans. W.B. Anderson, Sidonius: Poems and Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), p. 435. 8 The ‘castle’ of Pontius Leontius: “The house rises from the river’s brim and gleaming baths are set within the circuit of its walls [. . . during storms] whole fleets have been forced up into the baths,” Carmen 22.125–135, Anderson, Sidonius, p. 273. 9 Villa of Fortunatus: Josep de Calassanç Serra Rafols, “La Villa Fortunatus de Fraga,” Ampurias 5 (1943), pp. 6–35; villa of Torre Aguila: Francisco Germán Rodríguez Martín, “La villa romana de Torre Aguila (Barbaño, Badajoz) a partir del siglo IV d. C. Consideraciones generales,” in Congreso Internacional La Hispania de Teodosio 2 (1997), pp. 697–711.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

341

bodies. At villas such as Pisões in southern Portugal and Cerro da Vila on the Algarve coast, lakes were formed behind dams and water was conducted to the villa by elaborate systems of aqueducts.10 Such water works are some of the most imposing standing remains of rural villas, potent expressions of the will of their owners to put their stamp on the landscape.11 Of the most desirable waterfront settings, the seashore was of course a favorite, and a number of late villas have been discovered on the long (5600 miles) littoral of Spain.12 Among these, a plan unique to Spain has now come to light in the recently excavated round villa of Baños de la Reina, on a shoreline site on the southeast coast above Cartagena.13 The aesthetic appeal of constructed water features in these seaside villas drew in part from a Roman fascination with questions of man’s relation to nature, and of the play between nature and artifice.14 Such interests are captured in a letter by the wealthy Christian lady Melania the Younger, who owned many residences in Spain and elsewhere (and ultimately donated them all to the church in 404). She describes a bathing facility in her Spanish seaside villa, which is open to the air and affords bathers a panoramic perspective of land and sea. Melania writes, “We have a truly impressive property, and in this place we have a bath complex which is the most splendid in the world. For on one side is the sea, and on the other is a fragrant forest where boars and deer run. [. . . I ]n the pool (piscina), while one bathes, they can see both boats

10 Pisões: Fernando Nunes Rabeiro, A villa romana de Pisões (Beja, 1972); Cerro da Vila: José Cavaco, Vilamoura na Epoca Romana: O Cerro da Vila (Vilamoura, 2000). 11 Nicholas Purcell, “Town in Country and Country in Town,” in MacDougall, Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, p. 193, discusses the cultural background of such landscape modification, with standards set by Hellenistic dynasts on traditions already begun by archaic Greek tyrants and Persian kings: “Great excavations, cuttings, or tunnels belong in this category . . . aqueducts too, rivers running on high arches, can be seen in this context of creating a man-made landscape.” 12 Other prominent seaside villas include Centcelles, near ancient Tarraco on the northeast coast, and Cerro da Vila on the Algarve coast of Portugal. 13 Excavations were completed in 1999: Juan Manuel Abascal, Rosario Cebrián, and Feliciana Sala, “El vicus romano de ‘Baños de la Reina’ (Calpe, Alicante),” in Albert Ribera i Lacomba, ed., Los orígenes del cristianismo en Valencia y su entorno (Valéncia, (2000), pp. 49–64. 14 For a discussion of this urge toward “naturalized artifice,” especially in the “simultaneously mimetic and invented” environments of garden-fresco rooms in Roman houses, see Ann Kuttner, “Looking Outside Inside: Ancient Roman Garden Rooms,” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 19 (1999), pp. 7–35.

342

john w. stephenson

tilting with the wind and wild beasts in the wood.”15 From this watery vantage point, the built environment of the villa seems to merge with the manifold scenes of nature on the estate, in a manner that recalls Sidonius’ descriptions of views from his villa. A setting comparable to Melania’s, the fourth century seaside villa of Cerro da Vila, lies on a lovely stretch of the Algarve coast of southern Portugal (2A, plan with water bodies in grey).16 This villa lies between the seashore and a forest, and includes two extensive bath complexes—one with a large outdoor piscina or swimming pool. This pool (ca. 20 by 37 feet) is only one among a variety of hot, cool, and tepid pools in the thermal sectors. Fresh water was supplied by an inland reservoir created by a dam and was conducted to the villa by a dedicated aqueduct over one mile in length. Elsewhere in the residence, a luxurious dining room opened at its rear upon an apsidal pool draining to a long open air canal. Larger pools are discovered at several villas in the region, where they appear on the exterior of the main residence. At the Portugese villa of São Cucufate, two vast rectangular pools of ca. 130 feet in length flank the front and rear of the wide residence building.17 In addition to a probable use for swimming, these piscinae served the villa’s requirements for fresh water. They also enhanced the visual aspect of the villa from the exterior, creating reflections of the façade and casting up sparkling, reflected light. This kind of outdoor piscina is preserved at the Portugese villa of Pisões, where a long pool (130 by 30 feet) ran the breadth of the façade, and where an extensive bath complex featured a colonnaded open air swimming pool (figure 2B). Among other exterior water features, a number of Spanish estates include monumental nymphaea or shrines dedicated to water deities. These shrines take the form of apsidal temples, as preserved at the villas of São Cucufate, Carranque, Quinta do Marim, and Milrue, all con-

Gerontius, I 18, trans. Elizabeth. A. Clark, The Life of Melania the Younger (New York, 1984), p. 129. 16 José Cavaco, Vilamoura na Epoca Romana: O Cerro da Vila (Vilamoura, 2000). Bathing accommodations are so extensive at this seaside villa that the excavators have argued for a semipublic bathing establishment associated with the residence; others believe this was only a large family facility. In later centuries and into the Arab period, the villa became an industrial site, when pools and new tanks were put to use to ferment garum, the popular fish sauce. 17 Jorge de Alarcão, Robert Étienne, and F. Mayet, “Os monumentos cristãos da villa de S. Cucufate,” in Actas del Congreso Internacional de Arqueología Cristiana 8 (Barcelona, 1972), pp. 383–88. 15

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

343

Figure 2. A. Plan of the villa of Cerro da Villa. B. Plan of the villa of Pisões.

structed in the fourth century. At Milrue, an elaborate brick and marble peripteral temple was built on a high platform, with a square cella and an apsidal termination (figure 3A).18 The temple was surrounded by a barrel vaulted gallery and an arcade on Corinthian columns. The building’s identification as a shrine to water deities is based in part on a band of marine mosaics wrapping around the podium wall. An intriguing chapter in the lifespan of these water temples is their later conversion (as at Milrue and Cucufate) into Christian churches and martyria, reflecting in part the strong conceptual links between pagan and

18 Theodor Hauschild, “A villa romana de Milrue, Estói (Algarve),” Arqueologia 9, (1984), 94–104; the villa is situated on the Algarve coast in southern Portugal.

344

john w. stephenson

Figure 3. A. Villa of Milrue. B. House of Cantaber, Conimbriga.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

345

Christian symbolisms related to water, and merging the ancient image of the villa as a private paradeisos with a vision of a watery Eden.19 One must leave the exterior spaces of the villa and enter the residence proper to fully appreciate the late Roman fascination with water and its effects. The peristyle garden, a bit of unroofed green nature bounded by columned galleries within the fabric of the dwelling, was a favorite location for water features like pools and fountains. Owners spent much energy here fashioning a locus amoenas, a pleasing setting with a bucolic ambience and sacred undertones, where water, with all of its manifold associations with life, purity, and fertility, was central to the message. The addition of décor in the form of sculpture, paintings, mosaics, and textiles enriched these associations and resulted in a densely populated little world that was enlivened by water.20 The sensory appeal of water in the domestic setting is evoked by a writer on Islamic houses: Water is an element that provides a welcome contrast to the solidity and stability of the architecture. [. . . It adds] an extra dimension of scintillating movement, sound and light to the courtyard and garden environment. When falling, it can provide a continuous background of sound, masking outside traffic noise, or when placid, dense silence. It can slide like a sheet of curved glass over the edge of a waterfall. Thus water affects the quality of the environment, supplies movement, grandeur, exuberance, sparkle and delight, and can be seen, heard and felt.21

Roman designers in Spain developed a variety of features that exploited the visual, aural, and tactile qualities of water. The inclusion of simple masonry pools in gardens was practically de rigueur. Such pools most often take the form of semicircular basins, which are decorated inside with mosaics on marine themes, especially images of the sea god Oceanus

19 Both of these temples saw later intrusive Christian burials in and around the cellae; at São Cucufate, the temple may have become the martyrial shrine to the titular saint, worshipped at the villa from the fifth century onward—Saint Cucufate. 20 For sculpture in Spanish peristyles, see Eva Maria Koppel, “La decoración escultórica de las villae romanas en Hispania,” in Poblamiento rural romana en el sureste de Hispania (Murcia, 1995), pp. 27–36; for mosaics, see Katherine Dunbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge, U.K., 1999); for textiles see Sabine Schrenk, Textilien des Mittelmeeraumes aus spätantiker bis frühislamischer Zeit (Riggisberg, Switzerland, 2004). The latter, a recent catalogue of the late antique textiles in the Abegg-Stiftung Museum in Bern, Switzerland includes a discussion of textiles specifically designed as domestic hangings and curtains, many of which are decorated in marine themes. 21 Jonas Lehrman, Earthly Paradise: Garden and Courtyard in Islam (Berkeley, 1980), p. 21.

346

john w. stephenson

among the fish.22 A form of pool distinctive to the Iberian peninsula (known elsewhere only at Vienne, in southern France) is the “gutter basin,” a continuous circuit of canals running inside the perimeter of the open courtyard, as preserved at the villa of Torre de Palma and at the Casa del Anfiteatro at Mérida.23 Also favored in Spain were long rectangular pools set in the courtyard, as in the villa of Fortunatus, and sometimes built with apsidal projections, as in the villa of El Ruedo.24 The latter was inserted into the existing peristyle in the fourth century, during renovations that also included the addition of a low wall around the viridarium (garden), and the construction of an elaborate nymphaeum, fed from a new canal and basin in the dining hall. Many gardens in Spanish houses were further enlivened by the sights and sounds of running, cascading, and jetting water. The most spectacular peristyle pools in the peninsula must be those preserved in the periurban dwellings of Conimbriga (Coimbra, Portugal).25 These large pools, unique to Spain, cover the entire inner courtyard and are interspersed with watertight masonry caissons of elaborate curving plan. Each caisson is filled with planted soil and surrounded by water to give the appearance of islands of floating greenery, while pipes embedded in their structures provide water to a series of fountain jets. The so called House of Cantaber incorporates such a system in a cross shaped basin encircled by canals (figure 3B). At the Casa dos Repuxos (House of the Fountains) at Conimbriga, the main peristyle encloses a pool fitted with over four hundred fountain jets, all emerging in rows from the edges of each caisson. The striking effect of this arrangement can be appreciated today in the restored and replanted garden.26

22 A good example is located in the peristyle of the recently discovered villa of Maternus at Carranque, near Toledo, where a semicircular basin is paved with a mosaic depiction of Oceanus. The basin is located at an important focal point directly outside the fanciest hall of the villa, the circular triclinium. This type of basin is most widespread in the urban residences of North Africa, and probably originated in that region. 23 Stephanie Maloney and John Hale, “The Villa of Torre de Palma (Alto Alentejo)”, Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 (1996), 275–294; Linda Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens (Stroud, U.K., 2000), p. 75. 24 Villa of Fortunatus: Serra Rafols, “La Villa Fortunatus de Fraga” (see above, note 9); El Ruedo: D. Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil and J.R. Carrillo Diaz-Pines, “The Roman villa of El Ruedo,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 8 (1995), 121–154. 25 Discussed by Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens, pp. 79–80. 26 A photograph of this peristyle with running fountains appears in Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens, pl. 3.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

347

The entire villa of Pisões was outfitted with waterworks that must have made the interior spaces sparkle and murmur with running water (figure 2B).27 Carried through an aqueduct from a reservoir behind a brick and concrete dam, water ran into the baths and the house and to the small peristyle pool, and thence into a system of canals, cascades, and pools in the surrounding rooms, to drain finally out of the house by gravity and into the long piscina below. Like many Spanish villas, the site was positioned on a gentle incline, both to enable water to flow by force of gravity down through the house, and also, I argue, to create an ascending axis of pedestrian flow from the front entry to the principal halls. Thus visitors tended to ‘go against the flow’ in traveling to the most prestigious reception rooms, experiencing a bit of carefully staged drama on entering the house. A Water Triclinium with a Stibadium Couch at the Villa of El Ruedo In the residential quarters of some of the more luxurious late Spanish villas, prestige and entertaining rooms were the focus of efforts to design with water. Especially in dining rooms, owners combined architectural water features with thematic decoration to create environments that were rich in aquatic associations. A rectangular dining room (ca. 25 by 33 feet) in the recently discovered villa of El Ruedo, near Córdoba is such an interior.28 Around the turn of the fourth century, the villa was remodeled by the addition of a biapsidal pool in the garden, and a curving stibadium couch and a fountain-nymphaeum into an existing triclinium (figure 4). The stibadium became the preferred form of dining furniture in the late Empire, eventually replacing the traditional three couches that had defined the triclinium. There are perhaps only three such stibadia preserved in durable materials in the entire Empire, as most were constructed of wood and bronze and are now lost. The recently discovered fourth century villa at Faragola in southern Italy preserves another water triclinium with a stibadium comparable to the El Ruedo structure.29

Nunes Rabeiro, A villa romana de Pisóes (see note 10). The villa has been excavated and stabilized in several campaigns since 1988. 29 Giuliano Volpe, “The Late Roman Villa at Faragola, Italy,” in Minerva 12.1, Jan./Feb. 2006, pp. 44–45, figure 9; this villa, near Ascoli Satriano, has only been excavated since 2001, by the University of Foggia. 27 28

348

john w. stephenson

The platform of the couch at Ruedo is horseshoe-shaped in plan, constructed around a core of brick and coated with opus signinum and measuring about thirteen feet in width. The smooth upper surfaces slope gently away from the center for comfortable reclining, and the edges of the structure are rounded, still ready to accept textile throws and cushions. In the curving inset at the front center of the couch where a separate marble table would usually appear, a round molded basin is sunk into the solid platform. This basin was connected by a concealed lead pipe issuing from the nymphaeum in the rear wall, allowing water to fill its cavity to a level dictated by a hidden lip. Dishes were probably floated in the basin on little boats, as described in a letter by Pliny the Younger.30 A channel runs from this basin out of the wide triple entry directly into the peristyle garden, where water drained into the new biapsidal pool. Water entering the villa flowed into an upper chamber in the nymphaeum, which was lined with opus signinum, waterproof brick-concrete, and then spilled down an inclined surface paved with white marble and into a lower basin set flush with the rear wall. Water collected here behind a three foot high balustrade before draining into the basin in the couch. The interior walls of the fountain were stuccoed and painted, and the outer face was framed by two columns of local Cabra marble. The discovery nearby of fragmentary brick vaulting confirms that the fountain was of the type known as a nymphaeum ad edicola, representing a small temple facade.31 The term ‘nymphaeum’ means literally ‘place of the nymphs,’ thus retaining something of its sacred meaning as the home of a presiding spirit of a water source. The dark environment of the Ruedo dining room partakes of this sense of rusticity and mystery associated with cave-fed springs, appropriate to the ambience sought by villa designers. This nymphaeum was almost certainly embellished with several statues on mythological themes, and the assemblage is noteworthy for its the-

30 Pliny, Epistle 5.6; this kind of stibadium platform with its inset basin was not a novel idea. In fact, the whole structure corresponds to Pliny’s description of this outdoor dining setting of his Tuscan villa in late first century. Existing ‘water triclinia’ at Pompeii include the biclinia at the House of Octavius Quartio, which features an aedicula with two columns and a statue base at its rear, and a long canal extending before it. However, the aedicula was not a fountain. The Ruedo water triclinium is a distant relative of the grandest imperial water triclinium: the Canopus at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli. 31 Norman Nuerburg, L’architettura delle fontane e dei ninfei nell’Italia antica (Naples, 1965), pp. 61–64.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

349

Figure 4. Villa of El Ruedo, dining room with stibadium, reconstruction and seating arrangement.

350

john w. stephenson

matic and material connections to water (figure 4 shows my hypothetical reconstruction of their locations). Some thirty-seven figural sculptures, reliefs or fragments of sculptures have been recovered from the villa, with pieces ranging in date from the first to the second century and into the fourth century.32 At a late date, these sculptures were methodically destroyed and deposited in water, a testament to a moment of iconoclasm that represents a dramatic shift in the attitude of a late proprietor or interloper—one of whom was probably a Christian. The collection included a sculpture group depicting Andromeda rescued by Perseus (figure 5A–D). Other figural sculptures include an Attis, a Hermaphroditus in bronze, a Hypnos/Somnus in bronze, a season genius and a figure of the eastern deity, Attis. These sculptures were discovered broken into over seventy-two pieces, and lying in the tank of the nymphaeum and in the apsidal pool in the garden. Destruction and deposition in water is a common fate of sculpture in late villas. A group with Venus and Adonis was found broken in a garden nymphaeum at the great Gallic villa of Montmaurin, while a Ganymede and Zeus’ eagle was discovered in pieces in a cistern near the dining room at the House of the Greek Charioteers at Carthage.33 This practice mirrors the actions surrounding the Roman tradition of damnatio memoriae, when individuals who fell out of favor might suffer condemnation and the mutilation of their portraits.34 Their images and even their broken bodies could end up thrown into rivers, sewers, and other water sources. For example, four busts of Caligula, whose reputation suffered damnatio after his death in 41 A.D., were found in the Tiber at Rome, where they had presumably been purposely thrown.35 Similarly, a colossal head of Constantine was recently found in the Cloaca Maxima, the great sewer of Rome. While expressing an insult to the represented figure through their image, deposition in water was inspired by a belief in the purifying power of water immersion. These ideas formed the background to iconoclastic actions carried out on pagan images by Christians, who often expressed a moral enmity 32 Vaquerizo Gil and Noguera Celdran “The Roman villa of El Ruedo” (see note 23), pp. 101–104. 33 Montmaurin: Georges Fouet, La Villa Gallo-Romaine de Montmaurin (Haute Garonne) (Paris, 1969), p. 131; Carthage: Elaine K. Gazda, ed. Roman Art in the Private Sphere (Ann Arbor, 1991). 34 The subject is treated at length by Eric R. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture (Boston, 2004). 35 Varner, Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, pp. 29–30.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

351

Figure 5. A. Perseus and Andromeda from El Ruedo. B. Hermaphroditus from El Ruedo. C. Attis from El Rudeo. D. Hypnos from El Ruedo.

352

john w. stephenson

toward their frank sexuality and reverence for the old gods. The locations and state of the finds at El Ruedo probably attest to a few minutes or hours of violence on a single day in the fifth century. Most of the sculptures had been dismembered and parts of each were cast into both the nymphaeum and the garden pool. A closer examination of the Ruedo sculpture collection suggests that the pieces were carefully chosen as part of a thematic program appropriate for the water triclinium. The base of the Perseus and Andromeda group was discovered here, at floor level near the nymphaeum (figure 5A). The body of Andromeda was thrown into the biapsidal pool, at its north end, closest to the triclinium. Unfortunately the head of Andromeda and most of the body of Perseus have been lost. Only the bare feet and lower legs of Perseus remain, his right foot propped on the head of the slain sea monster, originally to support the hero as he reaches to grasp Andromeda. Below the figures coils the body of the monster. The scene illustrates the moment in myth when Andromeda, chained to a rock in the sea and awaiting death at the jaws of a sea monster, is rescued by the hero Perseus. Water plays a central role in Andromeda’s story.36 Her mother Cassiopea boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids of the sea, incurring the wrath of Poseidon who sent a flood and a sea monster to ravage the country.37 The oracle of Amun proclaimed that Andromeda must be sacrificed to the monster, and so she was chained to a rock at the base of a cliff near the sea. As the monster bore down with gaping jaws, Perseus appeared: “When Perseus saw her [. . .] he imagined her a marble statue,” writes Ovid.38 The hero flew down on his winged sandals with the head of Medusa and froze the monster 36 The significance of water in the myth is revealed especially when it is represented in association with water in a cultic context; at Pompeii, Perseus and Andromeda appear with winged putti in a relief on the exterior of the ‘water crypt’ of the Iseum, which enclosed a basin for collection of sacred water. They appeared in sculpture among images of Perseus’ deeds at the Serapeum at Alexandria, in a courtyard holding basins and canals for Nile water. Perseus’ struggle to kill the sea monster and free Andromeda has been interpreted in these cultic contexts as symbolizing a primal battle with the chaotic sea and its divinities, in order to bring forth fresh waters of fertility and prosperity; Robert A. Wild, Water in the Cultic Worship of Isis and Serapis (Leiden, 1981), pp. 44–46 and 78–84, pls. 5.1–2, and 6.1–2. 37 Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.670 ff., Apollodorus 2.4.3–5 and Poetica Astronomica 2.11, Hyginus, Fabulae, 64. 38 Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 673–6, trans. A.D. Melville, Ovid: Metamorphoses (Oxford, U.K., 1986), p. 95; thus emphasizing the play between nature and artifice, and probably alluding to just such a sculpture group as this.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

353

into stone or slew it with his harpe. Andromeda steps forth from her chains, and the two are soon wed with a banquet in the palace of her father, king Cepheus: “The noble doors flung wide reveal the whole great golden hall, and there, a gorgeous banquet spread, the chiefs of Cepheus’ realm attend the royal feast.”39 This sculpture was set on the floor or perhaps within the nymphaeum itself in the dining room at El Ruedo, an environment which evokes in miniature the setting of the myth. The side wall of the font rose behind the group as a cascade of water rushed by, pooling below. The dimly lit room (lit only from the front entry) would enhance the dark atmospheric quality of the tableau, as captured in vase paintings and Pompeiian frescoes. Although the myth stresses the dangerous and chaotic forces of water in the sea, the erotic and convivial outcome of the episode harmonizes with the ambience and kinds of entertainments that were accommodated in the triclinium. Another sculpture probably located in the triclinium is the Hypnos (or Somnus), god of sleep (figure 5D).40 Hypnos’ winged head is bound by a fillet with incised vegetal decoration, from which great wings spring. The eyes were originally inset with glass paste, and the coiffure, wings, and fingers display elegant and detailed workmanship. The figure strides forward with its left leg leading, and it reaches forward forcefully with the right arm, with the kind of torsion and occupation of space characteristic of Hellenistic sculpture. The pose seems to convey the overwhelming power of the onset of sleep. The body of this cast bronze figure was broken into six pieces and flung into the nymphaeum, while the head was separated and left in a distant room. However, lead clamps remain in the niche left of the nymphaeum to reveal its original location. Why might the proprietor choose this sculpture for the triclinium? A look at Ovid’s description of Hypnos/Somnus in his Cave of Sleep (Metamorphoses 11.592–615) suggests a literary model that may have joined the sculpture and its watery dining context. Ovid places Hypnos in his cave residence, calling it his peaceful “domus and sanctuary.”41 Emerging from the back of this cave

Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 761–4, trans. Melville, Ovid: Metamorphoses, p. 97. The excavators have assigned a Hadrianic date to this piece, identifying the figure as an adaptation of an early third century B.C. work by Praxiteles, said to be created for a sanctuary of Asclepius as a symbol of the curative powers of sleep; Vaquerizo Gil and Noguera Celdran, “The Roman villa of El Ruedo,” pp. 101–104. 41 “Domus et penetralia,” Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. 592–3. 39 40

354

john w. stephenson there flows the stream of Lethe, whose waves, gently murmuring over their gravelly bed, invite to slumber. In the cavern’s central space there is a high couch of ebony, downy soft, black hued, and spread with a dusky coverlet. Here lies the god himself, his limbs relaxed in a languorous repose.42

The goddess Iris has come to ask the reclining god a favor for Juno, and she must escape before the drowsiness of Hypnos with “heavy eyelids raised” overwhelms her. Ovid’s setting calls to mind nothing so much as a water triclinium and its couch, and reveals how appropriate the sculpture would be in the dining room of a literate patron. Ovid frequently depicts such a grotto-water triclinium; elsewhere in the Metamorphoses, a dripping grotto is the setting for a feast hosted by the river god Achelaos, who reclines with his guests while barefoot nymphs serve heaps of food and wine in jeweled goblets (8.565–573).43 This setting would surely remind readers of some of their own dining grottoes at villas on the Campanian coast, most notably Tiberius’ sculpture ornamented grotto at Sperlonga. An additional sculpture recovered from the triclinium at El Ruedo is believed by the excavators to have been original to that location: a dancing Hermaphroditus in bronze (figure 5B).44 The figure makes a formal pendant to the Hypnos as it rises in a spiral dancing motion from a planted right foot through an (originally) raised left arm, with the head bowed and the right arm pointed downward. In keeping with its mythical androgyny, the figure displays feminine qualities like rounded hips, a soft abdomen, and rounded breasts. The head is bound with a fillet engraved with ivy, suggesting a Bacchic corona. The mythical background to Hermaphroditus’ character again suggests a thematic link to the watery environment of the dining room. Hermaphroditus was a beautiful youth, raised by water nymphs in a cave on Mount Ida in Phrygia. In one of the most sensuous passages in the Metamorphoses, Ovid tells of the virginal youth’s encounter with

42 Ovid, Metamorphoses 11. 608–12: “Ianua, ne verso stridores cardine reddat, nulla domo tota est, custos in limine nullus; at medio torus est ebeno sublimis in antro, plumeus, atricolor, pullo velamine tectus, quo cubat ipse deus membris languore solutis.” 43 Joseph Solodow, The World of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Chapel Hill, 1988), pp. 78–79, recognizes this setting as “none other than a first century grotto-nymphaeum, each one of its features finding close parallels in contemporary construction”. 44 María Luisa Loza Azuaga, María Luisa, “El Hermaphrodita en Bronce de la Villa de Almedinilla (Córdoba),” Archivo Español de Arqueología 67 (1994), pp. 269–273.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

355

the nymph Salmacis, at her spring fed pool in Hallicarnassus.45 In a tale that deploys themes of water, reflection, and the gaze suggestive of Narcissus, the nymph falls desperately in love with the youth as she spies him swimming.46 Grappling in the water in a desperate embrace with the unwilling Hermaphroditus, her prayers are answered as her body is melded with his to form a single being. Answering his prayer, Hermes and Aphrodite make the waters of the spring forever able to feminize a man: the tale served as an aition for the dangerous reputation of the real spring in Asia Minor. The Hermaphroditus episode has been called “Ovid’s most elaborate use of the ambiguous symbolism of water.”47 As with the Andromeda and Hypnos stories, these qualities include sexual overtones and a suggestion of danger. Whereas in Andromeda’s tale water is the chaotic sea and abode of hostile creatures, for Hermaphroditus the virginal symbolism of a clear, pure pool becomes a symbol of sexuality and lost innocence. In Ovid, the element of landscape performs a unifying function for its parts, and the same is true for the sculpture assemblage in the room at El Ruedo. Moreover, the themes of sexuality, lost youthful innocence, and even danger would not be inappropriate to a dining setting.48 One further sculpture, a figure of Attis, may have been located in the water triclinium and would be well suited thematically for placement there (figure 5C). It is carved in giallo antico, Numidian marble from the Chemtou quarry in Tunisia. The figure wears a chlamys with two round fibulae over a sleaved tunic and leggings with laced boots. The pose follows an iconographic type of the “mourning Attis,” with feet planted forward and a frontal body with crossed arms.49 The Attis was broken into four pieces and hurled into the peristyle pool.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.285–388; the pool itself is a primary focus of description, introduced as “a limpid shining pool, clear to its very bottom, no marsh reed, no barren sedge, no spiky rush; the water crystal clear, its margin ringed with living turf and verdure always green; Metamorphoses 4.291–296, trans. Melville, Ovid: Metamorphoses, p. 83. 46 Salmacis spends her days bathing, washing and combing her hair, and gazing at her reflection, and generally living like a wealthy Roman matron. 47 Charles P. Segal, Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Wiesbaden, 1969), p. 25. 48 See for instance Alan Booth, “The Age for Reclining and its Attendant Perils,” in William J. Slater, ed., Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991), pp. 105–113, on the perceived dangers of early sexual advances upon unattended youths at banquets. 49 Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), p. 25. 45

356

john w. stephenson

The story of Attis makes a pendant to that of Hermaphroditus, with which it shares essential features.50 Like Hermaphroditus, Attis is a youthful Phrygian deity. According to the ‘Phrygian’ account of his birth, the primal hermaphroditic deity Agdistis was castrated by the other gods, and its genitals fell to the ground to produce the almond tree. The tree’s fruit fell into the lap of a river nymph, Nana, who was impregnated and bore Attis. Agdistis, now called Cybele, had meanwhile turned female, and on seeing the youthful Attis, fell hopelessly and jealously in love with him. Unable to seduce him, or angered by his infidelity with a nymph, she caused him to go mad and castrate himself, after which he died. Cybele ordained that Attis be remembered with mourning rituals each year, and decreed that only castrated eunuchs, or galli, could be priests of the cult.51 The cult of Attis and Cybele, called Magna Mater in Latin, was brought to Rome in 204 B.C. on the command of oracles during the Hannibalic war.52 The mysteries featured the use of water and culminated in a communal banquet. Attis shares important qualities with other eastern mystery deities dealing with fertility, rebirth, and immortality, as well as issues of masculinity—including Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras. In particular, the Attis myth and cult shows close parallels to that of Adonis.53 The cult of Attis flourished in Spain during the Empire.54 Attis is best attested in the southern province of Baetica where El Ruedo is located, and where at least seventeen sculpted Attis images and a number of inscriptions have been uncovered.55 As part of the Magna Mater cult, the cult of Attis has both a political aspect

50 Apollodorus 3.12.6; Hyginus, Fabulae 191; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.012–105, 686–704, 14.535–555. 51 In another tradition, Cybele revived her dead lover and both became objects of cult reverence. The most notorious practice of the cult, aside from the self-castration of the galli, was the ritual of the taurobolium, in which an initiant stood in a pit below the sacrifice of a bull, allowing some fifty liters of blood to spill onto his body. The criobolium enacted the same rite using a sheep. 52 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, p. 6. 53 Hippolytus (Refutation 5.9.8–9) makes the connection explicit. Features of the Adonia festival include a procession with an image of the god, marked by frenzied dancing and funeral dirges, ending at a cave-grotto and the ultimate deposition of the image in water—either into the sea or in wells or fountains. 54 J.F. Ubiña, “Magna Mater, Cybele and Attis in Roman Spain,” in Cybele, Attis and Related Cults, ed. Eugene Lane (Leiden, 1996), pp. 504–434, working with foundational material compiled by Antonio Garcia Y Bellido, Les religions orientales dans l’Espagne romain (Leiden, 1967). 55 Ubiña, “Magna Mater, Cybele and Attis,” p. 411.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

357

and functions regarding agrarian fertility.56 One of the most interesting aspects of the cult was its place at the intersection of late antique paganism and Christianity. As a form of piety that increasingly expressed ideas about salvation, this mystery cult responded to spiritual concerns and anxieties in late antiquity that were ultimately addressed chiefly by Christianity. Yet the cult of Attis and Magna Mater expressed an elite pagan identity in the late Empire, as it “became an isolated stronghold of aristocratic religiosity and a brave banner of its spiritual resistance to Christianity.”57 At El Ruedo, the sculptural décor that focused on the Perseus and Andromeda group was well suited to the environment of the water triclinium. The presence here of the Hypnos and the Hermaphroditus contributes to an impression that the proprietor sought to create a private, sensuous environment within a watery locus amoenus. Just as in Ovid, where a watery “cave works together with other elements of the sylvan setting to create the atmosphere of mysterious suspension from reality,”58 the appearance of the Hypnos in the water triclinium at El Ruedo seems to draw the very room into a less familiar world. These images evoke their mythical watery settings—the dark and dangerous sea, a cave-fed spring, a crystal clear pool, that were paralleled in miniature in the nymphaeum and dining room. Although the original setting of the Attis is not known, its own aqueous associations would agree with the program of this room. Here it would have evoked not only the aura of an exotic eastern cult focused on water, but also a contest for late Roman aristocratic identity, perhaps signaling an allegiance to a pagan form of piety in an increasingly Christian world. All of these sculptures play on the polysemic nature of water as a symbolic element to explore questions about gender, sexuality, and the body. As Christianity became established in Spain in the course of the fourth century, long established technologies and symbolisms of water were incorporated into the new cultural milieu. The conversions of

56 On two (and possibly a third) inscribed taurobolium altars from Córdoba, the blood sacrifice is dedicated to the preservation of the emperor and the state. 57 Ubiña “Magna Mater, Cybele and Attis,” esp. p. 427, describes the ‘baptism in blood’ connected with the taurobolium: devotees of Christ and Magna Mater “accused each other of imitating their respective initiation rites.” The cult was a special target of Christian writers (such as Prudentius, Contra Symm. 1, 624–30; Augustine, Civ. Dei. 2.26 and 7.26), who claimed that perverse and erotic practices were associated with the rites. 58 Segal, Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, p. 22; the “place of dreams” had since Homer been imagined as existing in a far place beyond the encircling Okeanos.

358

john w. stephenson

pagan nymphaea and water temples into Christian martyria have already been mentioned in this light. For Spanish Christian patrons, the ancient equation of water with life and purity took on new meanings, as the theme of the paradeisos acquired yet more exalted and mystical connotations in Christian evocations of Paradise.59 Naomi Miller outlines how the architectural motif of the villa peristyle enclosing a central basin contributed to both the form and symbolism of baptismal fonts in Christian baptisteries.60 An early fifth century writer seems to evoke such a setting in an aquatic villa like Pisões or El Ruedo, in describing the Garden of Eden: “He established a paradise [. . .] and at the center of this place there flows a pure stream, irrigating the lovely garden with its clear waters, and cutting a fourfold channel with its rippling flow.”61 Early Christian writers like Jerome were capable of developing the metaphorical associations of water with purity to promote the virginity of Christian maidens. Jerome conjures a villa garden when he quotes Song of Solomon 4.12 in a letter to a young reader: “a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.”62 The image of an untapped spring in its hortus conclusus is incorporated by the fifth century into images of Mary’s virginity and the miraculous birth of Christ.63 In this way, the symbolism of water is employed as a nexus around which late Roman and Christian ideas about the body and sexuality evolve. The sculptures at El Ruedo can be understood as documents of a particular moment in this conversation; the fact that their messages were finally silenced by immersion in water is somehow fitting. The rise of bathing complexes in the late villas reveals similarly a shift in the conception of the body, as a new degree of personal modesty led patrons to create private alternatives to the daily visit to the 59 Sebastián Rascón Marqués, “El mediterráneo y los lugares paradisiacos en la cultura material de la meseta durante los últimos siglos del impero,” in Hispania en la Antigüedad Tardía: Ocio y Espectáculos, ed. Luis Garcia Moreno and Sebastián Rascón Marqués (Alcalá de Henares, 1997), pp. 265–283. 60 Naomi Miller, “Paradise Regained: Medieval Garden Fountains,” in Medieval Gardens, ed. Elizabeth MacDougall (Washington, D.C., 1986), pp. 135–54. 61 Cyprian of Gaul (50–56), paraphrase of the Old Testament, trans. Nora K. Chadwick, Poetry and Letters in Early Christian Gaul (London, 1955), p. 143. 62 Jerome, Letter 10. 7. 7 to Laeta, trans. Charles Christopher Mierow, The letters of St. Jerome (Westminster MD, 1963), p. 22, and Letter 22. 25 to Eustochium, from Song of Solomon 4.12, a favorite of early Christian writers (Hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa; fons conclusus, fons signatus). 63 Brian E Dailey, “The ‘Closed Garden’ and the ‘Sealed Fountain’ ”: Song of Songs 4.12 in the Late Medieval Iconography of Mary,” in Medieval Gardens, ed. Elizabeth MacDougall (Washington, D.C., 1986), pp. 253–78.

villas and aquatic culture in late roman spain

359

great public thermae. Sidonius Apollinaris recalls64 that in the villa of his friend Consentius, “we were pleased to go to baths fittingly provided for privacy and modesty” ( privato bene praebitas pudori ). So Tertullian, Jerome, and other church fathers called for an end to public bathing.65 Private facilities reflect also a new equation between bodies, their concealment and hardening boundaries of social status. As Thébert writes: “Could the man who in the morning sat enthroned in his private apse to receive dependents, in the afternoon join those same dependents in the public swimming pool, without clothes to indicate his rank? Private baths made it possible to maintain the necessary social distance.”66 Late Roman innovations in water design formed a basis for the brilliant achievements of later historical cultures in Spain. In the monuments of Islamic Spain, from the Umayyad palace of Medinet al Zahra at Córdoba to the Nasrid palace of the Al Hambra at Granada, water architecture created an ideological and formal center about which court life revolved, and united distant eastern traditions with a more immediate patrimony in late Roman Spanish design. These monuments speak of a capacity to accommodate new meanings with old that has made water architecture and its symbolism a key point of continuity between cultures.

64 Carmen 23.495–499; Sidonius’ baths (Epistle 2.2.4–10) have “such an abundance of enclosed light as forces all modest persons to feel themselves something more than naked.” (haec abundantia lucis inclusae ut verecundos quosque compellat aliquid se plus putare quam nudos). 65 Discussed by Ángel Fuentes Domínguez, “Las Termas en la Antigüedad Tardía,” in Termas Romanas en el Occidente del Impero, ed. C. Fernandez-Ochoa and V. García Entero (Gijón, 2000), pp. 135–145; an early Christian denial of the body could at its extreme lead to such ascetic practices as alousia, the shunning of the act of bathing; Fikret Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), pp. 318–320. 66 Yvon Thébert, “Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa,” in A History of Private Life, vol. 1. ed. Paul Veyne Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 380. To complicate matters, late Roman attitudes toward public bathing were situational—varying according to specific contexts, class and also with the gender of those involved. Thus John Chrysostom describes (disapprovingly), “the ease with which the great ladies of Antioch would strip down in the baths, their white, well-nurtured flesh, draped with golden chains and jewels, conveying, to their male retinue, a message of social distance so secure as to admit no flicker of sexual shame” (Homilia 28), glossed by Peter Brown, “Bodies and Minds: Sexuality and Renunciation in Early Christianity,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David Halperin, J. Winkler, and F. Zeitlin (Princeton, N.J., 1990), 488. For Christian initiates, the Roman tradition of communal bathing was crystalized and sacralized in the momentary ritual of baptism, a practice that also reveals a nexus of bodily concerns. Initiates were baptized in the nude before other initiates and clergy, but structural provisions in baptisteries, including cancella screens between columns, were intended to prevent their full exposure.

360

john w. stephenson

This essay has surveyed only a few of the many water features to be found in Spanish villas, and has attempted to demonstrate the exceedingly rich range of associations linked by the subject of water in late Roman domestic design. The sculpture ensemble and its setting in the water triclinium at El Ruedo represent just one example of the striking phenomenon of a vibrant “cultura del agua” witnessed especially in late Roman Spain. Taken together, this material forms a body of primary evidence contra the traditional view of a precipitous decline and decadency of material culture in the late Roman Empire, a subject that has undergone a long overdue period of revision in recent scholarship.67

For an important treatment of this topic for late Roman Spain, see Michael Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its Cities (Baltimore, 2004), and the essays in Hispania in Late Antiquity: New Perspectives, ed. Kim Bowes and Michael Kulikowski (Leiden, 2005). 67

THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE IN BEDE’S DE NATURA RERUM Lin Ferrand The man who came to be known as the Venerable Bede was born in 672 A.D. in the region around the mouths of the Tyne and Wear rivers in Northumbria. He entered the monastery at Wearmouth at the age of seven and was soon transferred to the brother monastery at Jarrow where he lived for the rest of his life. Amply supplied with classical texts by the adventurous abbots of his community and with a lifelong commitment to teaching and learning, he went on to become the foremost European scholar of his age. It is generally believed that Bede wrote his secular treatise De natura rerum1 in 703 A.D. The work is closely modeled on an earlier work of the same title written in the early seventh century by Isidore of Seville.2 However, it has often been noted that Bede did not copy slavishly from Isidore. He omitted nearly all of his religious and metaphorical material, simplified the presentation of the remaining natural historical material, and supplemented it with information found in the thirteenth book of Isidore’s Etymologies,3 the second book of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History,4

1 Bede, De natura rerum, in John A. Giles, ed., Opera quae supersunt omnia, nunc primum in Anglia, ope codicem manuscriptorum editionumque optimarum, vol. 6. (London, 1843), pp. 100–122, hereafter cited as De natura rerum. The author wishes to thank Luca Grillo, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Classics, Princeton University, for his assistance in translating the chapters of De natura rerum cited in this paper. 2 Isidore of Seville, Traité de la nature, ed. and trans. Jacques Fontaine, (Bordeaux, 1960), hereafter cited as Traité. 3 “Acerca del mundo y sus partes” in Isidore of Seville, Etimologías, vol. 2, book 13, ed. and trans. José Oroz Reta and Manuel A. Marcos Casquero Isidore of Seville, (Madrid, 1983), hereafter cited as Etimologías 13. This work was described and extracts translated in Ernest Brehaut, “An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville,” Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, 48, no. 1 (1912), 15–270, hereafter cited as Encyclopedist. Digital version of Encyclopedist available at http://bestiary.ca/etexts/ brehaut1912/brehaut1912.htm. 4 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 2: An Account of the World and the Elements, ed. and trans. John Bostock and H.T. Riley (London, 1855), hereafter cited as Natural History 2. Digital version available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_GrecoRoman.html).

362

lin ferrand

and occasionally the writings of the Church Fathers.5 According to Smyth6 and others, he also used material from a source long believed to have been written by Isidore but now thought to have been written in late seventh-century Ireland by an author often referred to as “Pseudo-Isidore.”7 Some have claimed that Bede did not hesitate to use his observations of his surroundings as a basis for emending his classical sources.8 It is important to ask whether his choices were consistent with what he could have observed in his own time and place—rather than with our constantly-evolving view of scientific truth—in order to evaluate the degree to which this is demonstrated in De natura rerum. In a widely-read book on the Anglo-Saxon period, Wormald describes the joint monastic communities of Wearmouth (founded 674 A.D.) and Jarrow (founded 681–2 A.D.) as “an island of Mediterranean culture in a barbarian sea” during the late seventh and early eighth centuries.9 Not only did the founder of the twin monasteries make several trips to Rome to bring back manuscripts as well as experts in masonry, manuscript production, and chanting techniques; there were also local examples of Roman building techniques, e.g., Hadrian’s Wall and associated structures located just across the Tyne from Jarrow, which supplied materials as well as models for the monasteries’ construction.10 However, whatever the religious and intellectual lives of the monastic elite and the buildings in which they lived and worshiped, their physical environment in the Tyne and Wear estuaries was very different from that found along the coast of the Mediterranean. Some disparities, e.g., greater seasonal variability in the length of daylight can be attributed to the difference in latitude. Others result from a combination of latitude, geological history and/or persistent atmospheric and oceanic

5 Charles W. Jones, “Manuscripts of Bede’s De Natura Rerum,” Isis, 27, no. 3 (1937), 430–440. 6 Marina Smyth, Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland (Woodbridge, UK, 1996), hereafter cited as Ireland. 7 Pseudo-Isidore (unknown seventh-century Irish author), Liber de ordine creaturarum, ed. and trans. Manuel C. Diaz y Diaz (Santiago de Compostela, 1972), hereafter cited as Creaturarum. 8 See, for example, Faith Wallis, The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool, 1999), pp. 307–312 for a discussion of Bede’s use of tidal data collected along the coast of Britain, hereafter cited as Reckoning. 9 Peter Wormald, “The Age of Bede and Aethelbald,” in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. James Campbell (London, 1991), p. 75. 10 Rosemary Cramp, Wearmouth and Jarrow Monastic Sites, Vol. 1 (London, 2006), pp. 23–27, hereafter cited as Wearmouth.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

363

circulation patterns. These include cooler water and air temperatures, heavier soils, contrasting vegetation types, and less seasonal variability in rainfall. This essay will focus on the relationships between sections of Bede’s De natura rerum that described aspects of the environment that comprise the so-called hydrologic cycle and its known textual sources. Its goal will be to assess the degree to which observation informed Bede’s decisions to include, omit, revise, and/or to add to material found in Isidore’s De natura rerum. The Local Environment The time at which Bede wrote his De natura rerum was long enough ago that we must ask whether the climate in northeast England was significantly different from the climate today. In her recent book, Petra Dark summarized the evidence for the climate in first millennium A.D. Britain using a variety of paleoclimatological techniques, including study of textual sources, ice cores, glacial movement and glacial lake sediments, tree rings, and peat stratigraphy.11 While all the evidence seems to point to a warmer period in the second and third centuries of this era, there is little agreement regarding the centuries between 500 and 800 A.D. For the relatively brief period in which Bede lived before writing De natura rerum, the evidence appears to be contradictory. According to Dark, glacial movement data from Scandinavia suggests that this period was cooler, while data from glacial lake sediments in Switzerland and Norway suggest that is was warmer. Tree ring data suggests a period of relative warmth after 750 A.D. but does not indicate a deviation from current conditions earlier in the eighth century. In addition, peat stratigraphy, for which there is more local data, is notoriously difficult to interpret. One of the earliest peat studies in northern England concluded that warmer, drier conditions began in the second and extended through the seventh century. However, other studies suggested a wetter period in the sixth and seventh centuries. More recent peat studies have provided similarly inconclusive results for this period. For example, R.C. Chiverrel found that there was a change to a wetter or cooler climate between 670 and 980 A.D. but

11 Petra Dark, The Environment of Britain in the First Millenium AD (London, 2000), pp. 19–28.

364

lin ferrand

that this was preceded by a warmer or drier period between 650 and 860 A.D.,12 time periods that unfortunately overlap during the period of interest. Given the ambiguity of our current understanding of late seventh century Northumbrian climate and the lack of a firm basis for concluding otherwise, one can assume that the climate Bede experienced was approximately the same as the twentieth century climate in the Tynemouth region.13 The monastery at Jarrow was situated, like its predecessor at Wearmouth, at a site where a river flows into the North Sea. That being the case, we must also ask whether local sea level has changed significantly during the intervening years. While there has been a substantial worldwide rise in sea level during the Holocene era (approximately the last ten to eleven thousand years), it is generally believed to have been relatively constant during the last 1,500 years.14 Isostatic rebound has also been a significant factor in local sea level change along some portions of the British coast. The last glaciation covered Scotland, which continues to rebound upward since the ice disappeared, but not southern England, which continues to sink as the island restabilizes. Data reported by W.R. Peltier15 illustrate the effects of this restabilization. While the mean sea level relative to the coast has fallen in the area near Dundee on the east coast of Scotland in the last 1500 years, it has simultaneously risen in the area around the Fenlands. Given its location between these points, the area around the mouth of the Tyne has probably not experienced a significant change in relative mean sea level during that time. Given these conclusions and despite the fact that this area has been continuously altered by its inhabitants since Bede’s time, it is reasonable to assume that the site of the monastic community of Jarrow was 12 R.C. Chiverrell, “A Proxy Record of Late Holocene Climate Change from May Moss, Northeast England,” Journal of Quartenary Science, 16 (2001), 9–29. 13 Weather data averaged over thirty-year periods as prescribed by the World Meteorological Organization are available online from the Met Office of the UK Ministry of Defense at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/index.html. Data include monthly maximum and minimum temperatures, days of air frost, hours of sunshine, rainfall depth, days with rainfall depth of at least one millimeter, and wind speed at ten meters above the ground surface. However, as we currently appear to be in a period of relatively unstable climate, I will avoid using data collected in the last ten to fifteen years whenever possible. Averaged data for 1969–1990 are used throughout this essay. 14 Chiverrell, 14. E.g., estimates for post-glacial sea level change at http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise. 15 W. Richard Peltier, “Postglacial Variations in the Level of the Sea,” Reviews of Geophysics, 36 (1998), 603–689.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

365

situated, then as now, beside a tidal estuary, i.e., along a stretch of the river that was invaded by sea water at each high tide. It may well have been surrounded by what we currently refer to as ’wetlands,’ i.e., areas of land that are submerged for at least part of the day. The tidal wetland that was known as Jarrow Slake survived (despite much earlier proposals to fill it)16 until the 1970s. Saxon-era buildings extending from the church of St. Paul at the northwest corner of the site down to the edge of the Tyne’s flood plain in the south were excavated by Rosemary Cramp.17 Even without its persistent rainfall (discussed below) Bede’s environment would have been consistently damp. On the other hand, life at Jarrow would not have been as cold as its latitude suggests. The climate of the British Isles is profoundly affected by its surrounding seas, the most marked effect being the moderation of temperature. Despite the fact that it is further north than Edmonton in Canada (55ºN vs 53ºN), winter temperatures at Jarrow are considerably warmer while summers tend to be cool. Monthly averages of high and low temperatures for the period between 1961 and 1990 are shown in figure 1. In the absence of data for Jarrow itself, I have included data for Boulmer18 (approximately thirty miles to the north) and Durham19 (situated on the banks of the Wear River approximately fifteen miles to the south). The results are consistent with data collected between 1881 and 1915, published for the US military during WWII and declassified in 1946, which indicate that the average daily temperature range was about 10ºF on the east coast of England.20 Nor would the cumulative depth of rainfall in an average year at Jarrow be as great as one might expect. Due to the prevailing westerly winds in the northern hemisphere and the spine of hills that extends north-to-south through central northern England, annual rainfall on the northeast coast of England is significantly less than on its west

See, for example, William Armstrong’s arguments against a contemporary proposal to fill Jarrow Slake in his Observations on the Improvement of the Tyne (Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1836), pp. 4–8. 17 Rosemary Cramp, “Monkwearmouth and Jarrow: The Archaeological Evidence,” in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 5–18; Cramp, Wearmouth, p. 18. 18 Averaged data from the weather station at Boulmer can be found at http://www .metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/19611990/sites/boulmer.html. 19 Averaged data from the weather station at Durham can be found at http://www .metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/19611990/sites/durham.html. 20 Air Forces Weather Research Center, Climate and Weather of the British Isles, vol. 6, no. 2, US Army Weather Directorate, 1942, hereafter cited as Climate and Weather. 16

366

lin ferrand 30 Boulmer Max Temp (deg C) Boulmer Min Temp (deg C) 25

Durham Max Temp (deg C) Durham Min Temp (deg C)

20

15

10

5

0 Jan

Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 1. Average monthly temperature extremes (1961–1990): monthly average temperature minima and maxima in the region around Jarrow.

coast. Average annual rainfall in the region of interest is approximately twenty-six inches. The most significant difference between the climate at Jarrow and typical Mediterranean climates, also found on the southwest coast of Australia and around Capetown and San Francisco, is the lack of seasonality in the rainfall rate at Jarrow. (The climate found along the southern coast of Europe has distinctive properties that have come to be associated with a climate type now known as ‘Mediterranean’.) While average temperatures may vary considerably from one Mediterranean climate to another, depending, for example, on altitude, they are all characterized by the concentration of nearly all rainfall into a winter rainy season. This difference is clearly illustrated in figure 2 which shows monthly average rainfall depths for Boulmer, Durham,21 and San Francisco.22 If the assumption that environmental conditions at Jarrow in the late seventh century were approximately duplicated in the twentieth

See notes 17 and 18. Monthly rainfall depth for 1960 through 2006 is available online from Golden Gate Weather Services at http://ggweather.com/sf/daily.html. 21 22

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

367

12 SF (annual = 51.8 cm) Boulmer (annual = 65.5 cm)

10

Durham (annual = 65.0 cm) 8

6

4

2

0 Jan

Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 2. Average monthly rainfall (1961–1990) in the region around Jarrow (Boulmer and Durham) and in a typical Mediterranean climate (San Francisco).

century is correct, one can use available data to test the hypothesis that some of choices that Bede made in adapting Isidore’s work were based on his own experience. A systematic formulation of these environmental conditions as components of the hydrologic cycle provides a useful tool for this analysis. This conceptual model, outlined below, will allow us to identify sections of Bede’s De natura rerum that describe specific hydrologic processes and to compare each of these sections to the relevant data. The Hydrologic Cycle and the Elements The hydrologic cycle (figure 3) is made up of a series of processes in which water moves and changes its state (ice-liquid-vapor) to produce the phenomena referred to as ‘weather’ in the short term or ‘climate’ in the longer term. The cycle is driven by energy from the sun which causes water (mostly from the sea and other open water bodies but also from the land surface) to evaporate, i.e., to change state from liquid to gas and rise into the atmosphere where it may be transported long

368

lin ferrand

Precipitation Overland flow Stream flow

Recharge

Transpiration Evaporation

Evaporation Groundwater flow

Liquid water flow Water vapor flow

Figure 3. Schematic representation of the hydrologic cycle.

distances by winds. Atmospheric water vapor eventually condenses and/or freezes, i.e., changes state from gas to liquid and/or solid, to form clouds that may precipitate as rain, snow, sleet, or hail. Upon reaching the ground and melting if it arrives in solid form, precipitated water will either flow over the land’s surface to join flowing streams and rivers or infiltrate through the ground surface. Infiltrated water may reevaporate from the soil’s surface or be taken up by the roots of plants which eventually transpire it as vapor into the atmosphere, or it may continue moving downward to contribute to subsurface flow. Whether on the surface or underground, water in liquid form flows downhill under the force of gravity eventually to rejoin the sea. We begin our analysis of Bede’s revisions of Isidore by comparing their descriptions of the elements and possible transformations from one element to another. For the purposes of hydrological analysis, one might refer to the four classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire as ‘states of matter.’ The analogy between earth-water-air and the standard earthly states of solid-liquid-gas or ice-water-vapor is obvious. The state that might be considered analogous to fire, i.e., plasma, does not exist naturally on earth but is the substance of the sun that provides the energy to drive hydrologic processes. While this may be pushing the analogy farther than is necessary or useful, the coincidence

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

369

of the first three elements with the states of water as it moves through the hydrologic cycle is clear. Isidore’s De natura rerum gave two differing versions of the properties and interactions of the elements.23 The first assigned the contrasting properties of thinness versus thickness, mobility versus immobility, and sharpness versus roundness. In this view, fire is thin while air, water, and earth are thick. Fire, air, and water are mobile while earth is immobile. Fire and air are sharp while water and earth are round. Isidore’s second version, attributed to Ambrose, assigned a more limited set of properties to the elements: humidity versus dryness and hotness versus coldness. Air and water are humid while earth and fire are dry; fire and air are hot while water and earth are cold. In this version, these attributes were assigned such that every property belonged to two elements, closing the circle of the elements in a manner that was compared to dancers in a ring. Bede adopted Isidore’s second version in his description of the properties of the elements.24 However, he added and emphasized the relative heaviness of the elements and their resulting relative positions. In Bede’s view earth, as the heaviest element, cannot be sustained by any other and naturally takes the lowest position. Water is as much lighter than earth as it is heavier than air. Air, if placed in a vessel that is submerged in water, will rise immediately to the surface. Fire seeks without rest for its natural place above the air but may be suffocated by and vanish into air—a confusion arising from the fact that Bede is referring here to the glowing gases of earthly combustion rather than to the plasma of the sun—before it succeeds. He accounted for obvious exceptions to the general rules of position by noting that their ability to interact around the circle of elements is the reason that we see fire on earth and clouds and earthly objects in the air. Bede’s concepts of the relative heaviness and relative positions of the elements do not appear to originate in the works of Isidore or of Pseudo-Isidore. His ideas, however, may have derived from Pliny who said of the four elements: The highest of these is supposed to be fire, and hence proceed the eyes of so many glittering stars. The next is that spirit, which both the Greeks and ourselves call by the same name, aera. It is by the force of this vital principle, pervading all things and mingling with all, that the earth, together with the fourth element, water, is balanced in the middle of

23 24

“Des éléments du monde,” chapter 11 in Isidore, Traité. “De elementis,” chapter 4 in Bede, De natura rerum.

370

lin ferrand space. These are mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that they cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier are so suspended, that they cannot fall down. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite direction, each of them remains in its appropriate place, bound together by the never-ceasing revolution of the world, which always turning on itself, the earth falls to the lowest part and is in the middle of the whole, while it remains suspended in the center, and, as it were, balancing this center, in which it is suspended. So that it alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it, being connected with every other part, whilst they all rest upon it.25

Consistent with his practice of using less complex language than his sources and making material as accessible as possible to his students, Bede adopted a simplified version of Pliny’s treatment of the elements and added a concrete example—an air-filled vessel that bobs to the surface—from common experience. Bede’s view of the significance of the relative weights and natural positions of the solid, liquid, or gaseous states of water will be apparent in his descriptions of the hydrologic processes. Clouds and Rain Bede26 adopted, although in condensed form, Isidore’s27 essentially correct description of evaporation, cloud formation, and precipitation as rain. Although Isidore seemed to favor the idea that rain water derives from sea water, he noted that some believe that vapors exhaled by the ground also contribute. In his Etymologies, he apparently accepted this belief and said that rains derive from exhalations from earth and sea.28 Bede correctly favored the later view that air lifts characteristically light water vapor from both earth and sea.29 He agreed that water vapor in the atmosphere gathers together to form clouds; however, Bede correctly added30 that the condensed droplets must remain small in order to remain suspended in the air. Neither Isidore in his Etymologies nor Pliny, whose interest seemed to have been in objects more exotic than

25 26 27 28 29 30

“Of the elements and the planets,” chapter 4 in Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2. “De nubibus” and “De imbribus,” chapters 32 and 33 in Bede, De natura rerum. “Des nuages” and “Des pluies,” chapters 32 and 33 in Isidore, Traité. Brehaut, Encyclopedist, p. 238. “De nubibus” in Bede, De natura rerum. “De nubibus” in Bede, De natura rerum.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

371

water falling from the sky,31 mentioned the importance of the size of atmospheric water droplets. However, Pseudo-Isidore noted that air is capable of keeping water droplets suspended as long as they remain miniscule (in minutissimus guttis).32 Given Bede’s emphasis on the relative heaviness of the elements and their natural positions, it is not surprising that he adopted this view to explain the presence of liquid water suspended in air and noted that it must return to its rightful place between earth and air as it gathers together. In his chapter on rain,33 Bede reiterated the importance of droplet size when he said that rain drops formed from clouds, where small drops merge into bigger drops until the air can no longer support them. But Bede’s understanding of the process was called into question when he repeated Isidore’s claim that the merging of cloud droplets resulted from the effects of wind or sun. In fact, both wind and sun promote evaporation rather than condensation or an increase in droplet size. However, in keeping with our emphasis on what was observable, it is relevant to remember that the arrival of a rainstorm is frequently heralded by a perceptable increase in wind. One might, therefore, attribute Bede’s decision to retain Isidore’s explanation to personal observation of a correlation between wind and precipitation. Both Bede and Isidore commented on the rather remarkable fact that salty sea water becomes fresh rain water during the hydrologic processes described above. Isidore simply and accurately attributed this to distillation by the fire of the sun; dissolved solids are left behind when water is evaporated from the sea. Bede adopted this idea but incorrectly added that the conversion from salt to fresh water could also be caused by movement through the atmosphere as vapor after evaporation had taken place.34 In addition, Bede’s somewhat puzzling assertion that water could be changed from saline to fresh by pouring it on earth was apparently adopted from the work of Pseudo-Isidore, who claimed that this method was routinely used by mariners to produce sweet water from salt water.35 31 “Showers of milk, blood, flesh, iron,wool and baked tiles,” chapter 57 in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. 32 “Del espacio inferior y los distintos hemisferios,” chapter 7 in Pseudo-Isidore, Creaturarum; Smyth, Ireland, p. 193. 33 “De imbribus,” chapter 33 in Bede, De natura rerum. 34 “De nubibus” in Bede, De natura rerum. 35 “Del espacio inferior y los distintos hemisferios,” in Pseudo-Isidore, Creaturarum. Smyth, Ireland, pp. 202–203 and 232–233, notes that this question was carefully investigated by Carol Anderson (Divine Governance, Miracles and Laws of Nature in the Early

372

lin ferrand

The possible observational basis for a final characteristic of clouds and rain added by Bede—that rain is slow and perennial but rain clouds more swift and sudden—can be evaluated by looking at local weather data. Rainfall occurs on approximately one day in three year-round on the northeast coast of England and can therefore reasonably be described as a perennial condition (figure 5).36 And the fact that an average day of rain only results in about one fifth of an inch of water (figure 6) supports the idea that rain is slow.37 However, although clouds that produce rain may appear suddenly (e.g., when a thunderstorm develops), figure 6 indicates that general cloudiness is also perennial; one can expect more than sixty percent of the sky to be covered with clouds on an average day.38 In this case, one can conclude that the details added by Bede were consistent with his experience of a world that was generally cloudy and often raining moderately but that occasionally produced sudden storms. Frozen Precipitation: Snow and Hail Given the right atmospheric conditions, water that condenses to form clouds may precipitate in a solid or earth-like state rather than as liquid water. The possible forms of frozen precipitation include snow, sleet, and hail. Data regarding the frequency of snow and hail in the area around Jarrow can be used to assess the probable influence of personal observations of these phenomena on Bede’s adaptations of his source material. However, it is necessary to begin by noting the potential for confusion inherent in the differing terminologies used in modern English for frozen precipitation. In Amerian English, ‘hail’ is used exclusively to denote the roughly spherical many-layered balls of ice that are produced when ice crystals falling through thunderclouds are repeatedly caught and lifted by updrafts, gaining an additional layer of ice on each circuit through the cloud, while ‘sleet’ is used to describe raindrops that are frozen during their descent. In British English, ‘hail’ may be used to describe either

Middle Ages, Ph.D. diss., UCLA, 1982) who was unable to identify any soil that would be capable of desalinating sea water in this way. 36 See notes 17 and 18. 37 See notes 17 and 18. 38 See Table 9. Information obtained from Climate and Weather, p. 32.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

373

20

15

10

5 Boulmer (annual = 121 days) Durham (annual = 123 days) 0 Jan

Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 4. Frequency of rainfall (1961–1990); average number of raindays per month in the region around Jarrow.

100%

Boulmer (annual av = 21%) 80%

Durham (annual av = 21%)

60%

40%

20%

0% Jan

Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 5. Intensity of rainfall (1961–1990); average depth of rainfall on raindays in the region around Jarrow.

374

lin ferrand

100 Leith Spurn Head 80

60

40

20

0 Mar

Jun

Sep

Dec

Year

Figure 6. Average cloudiness (1881–1915) on the northeast coast of the UK represented as percent of sky covered. Tynemouth is approximately halfway between Leith (Scotland) and Spurn Head (Yorkshire).

of these while ‘sleet’ refers to a mixture of rain and melting snow.39 In contemporary English all seem to agree on the definition of snow: whether single flakes or clumps, snow is made up of hexagonal ice crystals formed when water vapor turns directly to ice without passing through a liquid state. But whether any or all of this is consistent with Northumbrian usage in Bede’s time is unknown. Bede’s Mediterranean sources advance a variety of explanations for icy precipitation. Isidore explained the production of frozen precipitation in his De natura rerum in two ways. He attributed to Ambrose40 the claim that waters solidified by the frozen breaths of the winds usually form snow and that this snow falls over the surface of the earth when the atmosphere relaxes. He went on to say without attribution41 that hail is formed when some of the water in the clouds contracts into ice and then hardens under the harshness of the winds. Once formed, this ice is reduced by wind into small fragments and partially melted by the 39 40 41

Storm Dunlop, Oxford Dictionary of Weather (Oxford, 2001), p. 200. “De la neige” chapter 34 in Isidore, Traité. “De la grêle” chapter 35 in Isidore, Traité.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

375

heat of the sun to fall in pieces to the earth. Isidore noted that some hail is spherical and proposed that this results when the pieces of ice are shaped by the sun’s heat and the friction of the air as they travel the long distance from clouds to earth. In his Etymologies Isidore added that air may contract to form clouds which may freeze to form snow or (if the clouds are thick and the freezing more disordered) to form hail.42 According to Pliny43 there is no doubt that hail is produced by frozen rain while snow is produced by the same fluid less firmly compacted, that snows falls during the winter but hail does not, that hail falls more frequently during the day than at night, and that hail melts more quickly than snow. Pseudo-Isidore explained that snow results when the miniscule water droplets capable of remaining suspended in air are frozen; hail when coalesced droplets are frozen before they have fallen as rain.44 Bede appears to have extracted ideas from each of these sources but uniquely combined them to claim that grains of hail are formed in the air from drops of rain and frozen by the actions of cold and wind, but that they quickly dissolve into snow.45 Somewhat contradictorily, he goes on correctly to adopt Pseudo-Isidore’s idea that snow is formed when water vapor freezes before it has condensed into liquid droplets.46 But none of this would have been observable in Bede’s time. However, the occurrence of a given type of frozen precipitation was easily observable. Bede47 agreed with Pliny48 that hail falls more frequently during the day than during the night. Hourly data for weather conditions at dozens of stations across the United Kingdom are now available.49 But given my decision to exclude very recent weather data (see note 15), I will not attempt to assess the accuracy of Bede’s statement about diurnal variation in hail frequency for the region around Jarrow. Unlike Pliny50—who claimed that snow but not hail falls during Translation based on “Del aire y las nubes,” chapter 7 in Isidore, Etimologías 13 and Brehaut, Encyclopedist, p. 237. 43 “The nature of hail, snow, hoar, mist, dew; the forms of clouds,” chapter 61 in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. 44 Del espacio inferior y los distintos hemisferios,” in Pseudo-Isidore, Creaturarum; Smyth, Ireland, pp. 212–213. 45 “De grandine,” chapter 34 in Bede, De natura rerum. 46 “De nive,” chapter 35 in Bede, De natura rerum. 47 “De grandine,” chapter 34 in Bede, De natura rerum. 48 “The nature of hail, snow, hoar, mist, dew; the forms of clouds,” in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. 49 http://www.met-office.gov.uk/education/data/uk_map.html. 50 “The nature of hail, snow, hoar, mist, dew; the forms of clouds,” in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. 42

376

lin ferrand 10 WINTER

SPRING

SUMMER

AUTUMN

8

6

days with hail

4

days with snow

2

0 Dec Jan

Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct Nov

Figure 7. Average monthly frozen precipitation (1881–1915); snow and hail at Tynemouth.

the winter—Bede did not comment on seasonal variation in snow or hail. Data from the region around Jarrow collected between 1881 and 191551 (see figure 7) suggest that Bede had good reason not to repeat Pliny’s claim that only snow falls during the winter. The data also demonstrate that hail (at least in the British sense) is far more frequent during the winter than during the summer. Without more information, it is not possible to assess the accuracy of Bede’s mysterious assertion52 that snow does not fall on the deep sea. However, there is no reason to believe that Bede ever traveled far from his birthplace and it is likely that this statement was based on the reports of others rather than on his own experience. Why the Sea does not Grow and Why it is Salty Water completes its movement through the hydrologic cycle when the droplets that fall as precipitation reunite and eventually find their way—underground or in surface channels—back to the salty seas. In everyday experience, rivers can be observed to pour substantial volumes

51 52

See Tables 34 and 36. Information obtained from Climate and Weather, pp. 85, 87. “De nive,” chapter 35 in Bede, De natura rerum.

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

377

of fresh water into the sea and so it is natural to ask why the level of the sea does not rise and why its waters do not become less salty with the passage of time. The location of the monastery at Jarrow provided the opportunity for daily observation of this phenomenon. Isidore’s De natura rerum offered two possible explanations for the apparently constant volume of the sea.53 He attributed the first explanation, that the sea is so vast that it can absorb the water contributed by all the world’s rivers without visible effect, to Bishop Clemens.54 However, he added that the evaporative power of sun and wind is also a factor and pointed out that lakes and ponds could be seen to dry up under their influence. His second explanation, that rivers sometimes return to the places from which they flow out, was attributed to Salomon.55 Isidore went on to explain in his Etymologies56 as well as in De natura rerum that conduits hidden in the depths of the sea allow river waters to flow back towards their sources where they are reintroduced into their habitual channels. This explanation was also put forward by Pliny.57 (Pseudo-Isidore’s discussion of the sea was limited to tides, the sea as a travel route, and the sea as the source of aquatic and avian life.)58 Bede59 condensed but essentially repeated both of Isidore’s explanations. In fact, the North Sea is not vast enough to absorb all of the water that flows into it without visible effect. If all the river water that flowed in, directly or via rivers emptying into the Baltic, remained in the North Sea, its water level would rise by approximately one meter per year.60 But the combined effects of ocean currents and evaporation “Pourquoi la mer ne croît point,” chapter 41 in Isidore, Traité. “The vast unmeasurable sea, gathered together by His working into various basins, never passes beyond the bounds placed around it, but does as He has commanded,” First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ed. and trans. by Philip Schaff (Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, reprint 2001). Digital version available at http://www .ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.html 55 This variant spelling was used consistently in the text of Isidore’s De natura rerum that was translated by Fontaine in Traité. In this case, Isidore’s attribution appears to be erroneous. The passage quoted by Isidore, “ad locum unde exeunt flumina reuertuntur” actually appears to derive from Ecceles. 1:7, “omnia flumina intrant mare et mare non redundat ad locum unde exeunt flumina revertuntur ut iterum fluant” in the Vulgate of Jerome. Digital version available at http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/ www/Vulgate/Ecclesiastes.html. 56 Translation based on “Del mar,” chapter 14 in Isidore, Etimologías 13 and Ernest Brehaut, Encyclopedist, p. 241. 57 “How the water is connected with the earth; Of the navigation of the sea and the rivers,” chapter 66 in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. 58 “De la naturaleza de las aguas y del movimento del océano,” chapter 9 in PseudoIsidore, Creaturarum. 59 “Cure mare non crescat,” chapter 40 in Bede, De natura rerum. 60 http://www.mumm.ac.be/EN/NorthSea/facts.php. 53 54

378

lin ferrand

keep mean sea level approximately constant. The erroneous idea that sea water returns via hidden conduits from the depths of the sea to rivers’ sources, perhaps because it could be neither confirmed nor refuted by direct observation and because water does flow underground, was shared by natural philosophers who considered the phenomenon of springs for many centuries61 after Bede wrote his De natura rerum. After this initial agreement, Isidore’s and Bede’s explanations for the constant volume of the sea diverged. According to Isidore62 the sea exists to receive the waters of all the rivers; it is of variable depth but has a uniformly flat surface; the naturalists ( physici ) say that the surface of the sea is higher than the surface of the land. Bede omitted all three of these claims but added the apparently unique idea that fresh waters, being lighter than salt water, remain and spread on the surface of the sea. Bede’s omission of Isidore’s comment about the purpose of the sea was consistent with his practice throughout. Given that he lived beside a tidal estuary where large areas of nearby land were alternately submerged and above water, it is not surprising that he might be reluctant to make a definitive statement about the relative levels of land and sea. (His later work demonstrated a life-long interest in tides.)63 Perhaps the idea that the depth of the sea varies while its surface is flat seemed too obvious to someone living his life near the sea to be worth mentioning. Bede’s concept of fresh water floating on salt water exemplifies, again, his focus on the relative heaviness of the constituents of the natural environment, but the source of this idea is unclear. While the density of water does increase with salt content (assuming a constant water temperature), the relatively shallow and well-mixed water in the Tyne and Wear estuaries and along the nearby coastline would probably not have provided observable examples of this. At present, there is a pronounced salinity gradient, with lighter, fresher water at the surface, in the deepest parts of the North Sea, e.g., off the west coast of Norway. However, this gradient disappears as one approaches the much shallower region along the east coast of the British Isles. Along this coast, the sea is essentially as salty at its surface as it is at the bottom depth Pierre Perrault, On the Origin of Springs, trans. Aurele LaRocque, (New York, 1967), p. 123. 62 “Pourquoi la mer ne croît point” in Isidore, Traité. 63 Wallis, Reckoning, pp. 307–312. 61

the hydrologic cycle in bede’s DE NATURA RERUM

379

of 250 meters near Norway.64 Nor is this idea of Bede’s consistent with Pliny, who agreed that the fire of the sun evaporates lighter fresh water, leaving the heavier acrid components of the sea behind65 but who concluded that this would lead to higher salinity at the surface of the sea than at greater depths. And while Isidore’s Etymologies pointed out that many other substances in addition to salt could be found in natural water bodies66 and that only those bodies that are salty can properly be called seas,67 he did not refer to the relative heaviness or position of various waters. Isidore68 and Bede69 reiterated some of these arguments in their discussions of the reasons for the persistent bitterness of sea water. In this case, Isidore attributed the idea, namely that the quantity of fresh water lost to evaporation each day is equal to the input of rivers, to “the ancients” via Ambrose. Bede repeated the evaporation/distillation argument discussed in the section above on clouds and rain but added that the waters left behind are heavier and sink because the surface of sea water is sweeter than the waters of the abyss. Bede’s additional contributions on this topic were his idea that the sea is fed by rains as well as by rivers –easily observable by someone living near the coast of the Mediterranean or of the North Sea—and his claim that fresh waters “nourish the moon” while sea waters “nourish the sun.” The source for the later statement—atypical for Bede’s De natura rerum in that its physical significance is not obvious—appears to come directly from Pliny.70 Conclusion Some of the changes that Bede made when adapting Isidore’s De natura rerum for his students seem to be based on observable characteristics of the physical environment of a tidal estuary on the northeast coast of England. These include the year-round persistence of light to moderate rainfall, the rapid development of storm clouds, and the occurrence 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

http://www.ospar.org/eng/doc/pdfs/R2C2.pdf. “Why the sea is salt,” chapter 104 in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2. “Sobre la diversidad de las aquas,” chapter 13 in Isidore, Etimologías 13. “Del mar” in Isidore, Etimologías 13. “Pourquoi la mer a des eaux ameres,” chapter 42 in Isidore, Traité. “Cur sit amarum,” chap 41 in Bede, De natura rerum. “Why the sea is salt” in Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2.

380

lin ferrand

of frozen precipitation that is not snow during the winter. However, other changes are not explainable in that way. For example, there does not seem to be an observational basis for claiming—even though these claims may be correct—that snow forms when vapor is frozen, that salt water can be transformed to fresh by pouring it through soil, or that fresh water from rivers floats atop the salty water of the sea. There is much additional work to be done before we can definitively assess the degree to which Bede’s De natura rerum was affected by his personal observations. Future work will extend the analysis to additional hydrologically-based and atmospheric phenomena. Hydrologic and atmospheric topics that remain to be analyzed include the causes, names, and properties of winds,71 earthbound water,72 the dual nature of water,73 the air,74 thunder and lightning,75 rainbows,76 and weather prediction.77 It will also be useful to consider sections of Bede’s De natura rerum that deal with astronomical phenomena that might be observably affected by differences in latitude.

71 “De ventis” and “Ordo ventorum,” chapters 26 and 27 in Bede, De natura rerum. 72 “Aquis terram necti,” chapter 44 in Bede, De natura rerum. 73 “De natura aquarum duplici,” chapter 38 in Bede, De natura rerum. 74 “De aere,” chapter 25 in Bede, De natura rerum. 75 “De tonitruo” and “De fulminibus,” chapters 28 and 29 in Bede, De natura rerum. 76 “De arcu cœli,” chapter 31 in Bede, De natura rerum. 77 “Signa tempestatum vel serenitatis,” chapter 37 in Bede, De natura rerum.

THE CHALLENGE FOR A MEDIEVAL CENTER OF INDUSTRIAL GROWTH: YPRES AND THE DRINKING-WATER PROBLEM Paul Trio A Definition of the Problem by Way of Introduction1 In order to be able to sketch the problems regarding water management in the town of Ypres during the Middle Ages, we first of all need to discuss its demographic, industrial, and topographic development during this period.2 The Southern Low Countries—consisting of present-day Belgium and Northern France—experienced during the course of the eleventh century until around the middle of the thirteenth century a significant economic expansion. At the head of this development was the region ruled by the Count of Flanders.3 Thanks to the flourishing textile industry with important sales in all of Western and Eastern Europe, some very large cities developed here, e.g. Arras, Douai, SaintOmer, Lille, Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres. As a result, the County of Flanders became one of the most urbanized regions, with some of the largest towns to be found in medieval Western Europe. With its sixty-thousand inhabitants, Ghent was, in the thirteenth century, the second-largest town north of the Alps, after Paris. Still according to

1 There exist two short and popularizing contributions concerning this issue; see H. Vermeulen-Meynne, Yper en haar waterstelsel (Ieper, s.d.) and R. Boone, Overheidszorg voor drinkwater in Vlaanderen (Ghent, s.d.), pp. 174–184. Because of the limited originality of these publications, I will not refer to them in my essay. My thanks go to my colleague Marjan De Smet for her English expertise and her critical reading of the manuscript. 2 For a more or less accurate view of the medieval topography of the town, one still has to fall back on Henri Hosdey, “Ypres (Ieperen). Plan d’Ypres en 1564,” in Atlas des villes de la Belgique au XVI e siècle, ed. Charles Ruelens (Brussels, 1887), 4 pp. + map. The recent study by Ann Vanrolleghem, Ieper à la carte. De Ieperse vestingen in kaart gebracht (Ypres, 2006), is mainly interesting for its reproduction of numerous post-medieval maps and plans. The introduction should, however, be used with great caution. It merely repeats older theories on the origin of the town. 3 Among other works, see David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London, 1992).

382

paul trio

medieval standards, Ypres4—with its population of forty thousand at the end of that century—was also a metropolis.5 The town owed its growth especially to the afore-mentioned textile industry, which initially processed the local wool from sheep grazing on the nearby salt marshes of the Yser basin. However, at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, the supply of wool partially broke down, due to the silting-up of the salt marshes, which rendered them useless as pastureland for the sheep. Moreover, the demand for high-quality cloth necessitated the import of raw materials from England, where better wool was to be obtained. Consequently, from the twelfth century onwards, wool was increasingly bought on the English market, and good connections between Ypres and the sea became a conditio sine qua non for its continued development.6 The Necessity of Good Connections by Water During the Middle Ages, the most efficient and cheapest way of transporting bulk goods such as wool (as an import) or cloth (as an export) was by water. The connection of Ypres to the North Sea, and thus to England, was guaranteed by the Ieperlee, a tributary of the Yser river, which discharges into the North Sea. As a result, English woolexporting ports such as Boston and Hull could be reached relatively

A general introduction to Ypres’ medieval history is still to be found in AlbertEugène Gheldolf, Histoire administrative et constitutionnelle des villes et châtellenies d’Ypres, Cassel, Bailleul et Warnêton jusqu’à l’an 1305, (Histoire de la Flandre et des institutions civiles et politiques jusqu’à l’année 1305 sur le plan de l’ouvrage allemand de Leopold-August Warnkoenig) 5 (Paris, 1864), pp. 7–182. See important additions on the social, economic, and institutional history in Octaaf Mus, “Rijkdom en armoede. Zeven eeuwen leven en werken te Ieper,” in Inventaris van het archief van de Commissie van Openbare Onderstand Ieper. Oud Régime zonder de oorkonden, ed. Octaaf Mus, Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de liefdadigheidsinstellingen 11 (Ypres, 1972), pp. 1–27; Paul Trio, “Bestuursinstellingen van de stad Ieper (12de eeuw-1580),” in De gewestelijke en lokale overheidsinstellingen in Vlaanderen tot 1795, ed. Walter Prevenier and Ann Augustyn, Algemeen Rijksarchief en Rijksarchief in de Provinciën, Studia 72 (Brussels, 1997), pp. 333–360. For the geographical location of the town within the County of Flanders, see Map 1. 5 Pieter Boussemaere, “De Ieperse lakenproductie in de veertiende eeuw opnieuw berekend aan de hand van de lakenloodjes,” Jaarboek voor middeleeuwse geschiedenis 3 (2000), 131–161. 6 For the importance of the cloth industry as a catalyst for the spectacular development of the town, see especially Marc Dewilde et al., ed., Ypres and the Medieval Cloth Industry in Flanders. Archaeological and Historical Contributions, (Archeologie in Vlaanderen, Monografie) 2 (Asse-Zellik, 1998). 4

Map 1. Map of Flanders, 1592 (from Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; private collection).

ypres and the drinking-water problem 383

384

paul trio

easily and quickly, and the switch from local to English wool created no insurmoutable problems. And indeed, until deep into the thirteenth century, the presence of numerous Ypres merchants in England has been attested.7 Until the middle of the fourteenth century, Ypres cloth was one of the most sought-after international luxury products, and it was widely sold, even as far as the Levant, the Balkan, the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, and Russia (e.g. in Novgorod, Ypres cloth was already to be found around 1130). However, there was also a drawback to the strong dependence on English wool. Each time the English King prohibited the export to Flanders—as he did, for instance, in 1270–1280, or on several occasions during the Hundred Years’ War—which resulted in economic disaster for Ypres. Ypres had developed into a town at its exact location, because of the fact that the Ieperlee was navigable up to that point, and no further, so that the town functioned as a transfer point for goods. Indeed, all kinds of goods had to be unloaded and loaded here, to be transported further either by boat or over land. In this way, Ypres connected the coastal plain with sea ports such as Newport and the swiftly rising international town of Bruges, to the industrialized South (Lille, Valenciennes, and so on) and the river Lys.8 This river, in turn, provided access to Ghent and the Scheldt basin with towns such as Audenarde and Tournai. The first urban core of Ypres originated around the Church of Saint Peter, and the meandering Ieperlee was straightened from that point downstream to facilitate transport. This human intervention certainly dates from before 1127.9 In the following period, the port activities moved towards the present-day Great Market Square, probably as the result of intervention by the Count of Flanders.10 The port, where ships were loaded and

7 On this aspect, see Octaaf Mus, “Het aandeel van de Ieperlingen in de Engelse wolexport, 1280–1330,” in Prisma van de geschiedenis van Ieper, ed. Jan van Houtte and Octaaf Mus (Ypres, 1974), pp. 332–355. 8 Jean-Marie Duvosquel, “De weg van Ieper naar Komen in het begin van de XIVde eeuw of de toegang van de Ieperlingen tot de Leie,” in Wevend aan het verleden. Liber amicorum O. Mus, ed. Jan van Acker (Furnes, 1992), pp. 117–130. See Map 2. 9 Octaaf Mus, “Van Sint-Pietersnederzetting tot Sint-Pietersparochie. 9de–10de eeuw—1102,” in Tien eeuwen Sint-Pietersparochie te Ieper (Ypres, 1991), pp. 11–38. See Maps 3 and 4. 10 Octaaf Mus, “De geboorte van een marktplein,” in De Ieperse markt. Een historisch fenomeen, ed. Octaaf Mus (Ypres, 1985), pp. 1–27; idem et al., Omtrent de vestingstad Ieper (Lier, 1992); idem, “L’évolution de la ville d’Ypres depuis l’origine jusqu’à 1400,” in Dewilde et al., Ypres, pp. 43–56.

ypres and the drinking-water problem

385

Map 2. Roads connecting Ypres to the south in the eleventh–thirteenth centuries (from Duvosquel, “De weg”, p. 119).

386

paul trio

Map 3. Map of the town of Ypres, 1572 (from Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 2 [Cologne, 1575]; private collection).

ypres and the drinking-water problem

387

Map 4. Map of the town of Ypres in the eleventh and twelfth century; reconstruction drawing by Octaaf. Mus (from Mus, “L’évolution”, p. 45). Legend: 1: Motte-and-bailey structure of the (post-)Carolingian villa 2: Church of Saint Martin 3: Old moat 4: Early urban core around the Church of Saint Martin 5: Early urban core around the Church of Saint Peter 6: Church of Saint James 7/8: Comital motte-and-bailey 9: Motte-and-bailey of the Viscount

388

paul trio

unloaded by means of the town crane, was from that moment onwards situated on the Leet (i.e., the local name for the river and the market place across the Town Hall). This wharf stretched between the Ieperlee and the new Great Market Square, where extensive depots and market halls were also built. Until the end of the thirteenth century these halls were gradually extended and became the complex which is now known as the Cloth Hall.11 It is the single largest medieval civic building preserved in Western Europe, indeed a vivid illustration of Ypres’ impressive economic and demographic expansion during the thirteenth century. The vital importance of the Ieperlee as a connecting waterway becomes clear from the huge sums that the town kept spending during the Middle Ages to keep that river navigable. For instance, plots along the Ieperlee were methodically bought by the town in order to perpetuate its possession of the river, and to facilitate its maintenance. A study of the Town Accounts, dating back as far as 1280, reveals annual payments for purchases, such as dredging operations, fortifying the river banks, and the construction and maintenance of locks and portages, etcetera.12 Frequently recurring judicial conflicts with the riparian proprietors testify to the town’s desire to ensure transport via the Ieperlee from and to Ypres. Because of the increasing importance of Bruges as a gateway to the world by sea, Ypres in 1311–1320 paid for deepening the Zylinc, which was supposed to guarantee a direct connection between the Yser and Bruges, rendering the detour via the North Sea unnecessary. The town’s efforts to ensure a better infrastructure by water, were not always welcomed by its competitors. In the fifteenth century, when Ypres wanted to broaden the Ieperlee to make the passage of more tonnage possible, the town of Ghent tried to thwart that plan. The latter town viewed it as a threat to its staple of grain and other products that

11 Paul Trio, “Ypres,” in Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale, ed. A.A.M. Romanini et al., 12 (Rome, 2002), pp. 389–392. 12 Guillaume Des Marez and Emile De Sagher, ed., Comptes de la ville d’Ypres de 1267 à 1329, (Commission royale d’histoire), 2 vols. (Brussels, 1909–1913), but especially in the part ‘commun ouvrage’ (general works), see, for instance,. the years 1304–5 (Idem, II, 199–201). On the history of the Ieperlee as a vital connection to the sea and Bruges, see Emile Vanden Bussche, “L’Yperleet,” La Flandre 13 (1882), 177–246; Godgaf Dalle, “De verbinding Nieuwpoort-Ieper over water,” in Wevend aan het verleden. Liber amicorum O. Mus, ed. Jan van Acker (Furnes, 1992), pp. 85–90; Staf Verheye, “De Ieperlee,” Iepers Kwartier 25 (1989), 21–64.

ypres and the drinking-water problem

389

were imported from Northern France via the river Scheldt. Ypres, on the other hand, hoped that the improved connection over water would enable the town to develop into a regional center of trade, thus offering an alternative for the dwindling cloth industry. In the end, Ypres tasted defeat against the much bigger and far more powerful town of Ghent, which had also gained the support of the Burgundian Duke in this matter.13 With this, the further decline of Ypres became inevitable, and the disastrous siege of 1383 only made things worse. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, there were barely ten thousand inhabitants left.14 This story illustrates how, in the Middle Ages, a good connection by water was crucial for the growth and flourishing of towns. The fall on the Ieperlee river clearly was sufficient to power water mills, since several are mentioned.15 These could be used for several industrial activities (for instance, the fulling16 mill). However, this advantage for industry proved to be disadvantageous for the navigability of the river. Locks designed to allow boats to pass had to be constructed to remedy this defect. Very soon in the town’s history, mention is made of portages towing boats from one level to another. A drawing that used to be kept in the Town Archive of Ypres, and which possibly dated back to the Middle Ages, shows four such portages operated by the town between Ypres and Newport.17 Such installations and their maintenance demanded from the town government serious financial efforts and continual vigilance.

13 Marci Sortor, “The Ieperleet Affair: The Struggle for Market Position in LateMedieval Flanders,” Speculum 73 (1998), 1068–1100. 14 Mus, “Het aandeel”; idem, “Mutaties in de samenstelling van de Ieperse magistraat in de 15e eeuw,” in Getuigen in polderklei. Huldeboek dr. Godgaf Dalle (Beauvoorde, 1990), pp. 77–92; idem, “Pieter Lansaem, promotor van de nieuwe draperie te Ieper in de tweede helft van de 15de eeuw,” Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis te Brugge 130 (1993), 61–88. 15 Octaaf Mus, “De localisatie van de Ieperse 12de-eeuwse vesting,” Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis te Brugge 136 (1999), 78; Verheye, “De Ieperlee,” 53. See Map 7. 16 The process of fulling consists of cleansing, shrinking, and thickening cloth by moisture, heat, and pressure. 17 Henri Pirenne, “Les ‘Overdraghes’ et ‘Portes d’eau,’ en Flandre au XIIIe siècle, à propos d’une charte inédite provenant des Archives de la ville d’Ypres,” in Henri Pirenne, Histoire économique de l’Occident médiéval (Bruges, 1951), pp. 542–550; Louis Deschamps de Pas, “Ce que c’était qu’un overdrach. Note sur ces sortes d’ouvrages établis sur divers canaux de la Flandre et notamment à Wattendam,” Annales du Comité Flamand de France 6 (1861–2), 210–222; Verheye, “De Ieperlee,” 58–64.

390

paul trio The Demand for Clean Water

Even in the Middle Ages, it was never doubted that water was essential for quenching thirst, preparing food, and ensuring at least an elementary level of hygiene for the body, cooking and eating utensils, and clothing. Water for extinguishing fire also had to be close at hand at all times, although, for that purpose, the quality of the water was less important.18 The growing population required large quantities of pure water, as did the processing of wool, if we concentrate for the moment just on the most important branch of industry in medieval Ypres.19 Since the specific geographic and especially the geological situation of the town prevented the use of groundwater for the purposes mentioned above, the town had to rely almost exclusively on surface water, hardly a dependable source considering the varying amounts of precipitation for this area. In addition, the town is built on a layer of the so-called Yperian clay, as a result of which groundwater is only to be found at great depth.20 Medieval technology was not sufficiently advanced to reach that source of water. Indeed, until the nineteenth century, each attempt to bore down to the groundwater table failed.21 However, there still was the Ieperlee, which was fed by some brooks originating in the nearby hilly area, and which provided a regular supply of large quantities of clean water to the location where the town would develop.22 As a result of Ypres’ position in a depression in the landscape, most 18 Jacoba van Leeuwen, “Van dagelijks water tot feestelijk geklater. Bronnen, putten en fonteinen in de middeleeuwse Vlaamse stad,” in Het wellende water. De bron in tekst en beeld in de middeleeuwse Nederlanden en het Rijnland, ed. Barbara Baert and Veerle Fraeters, Symbolae. Facultatis litterarum Lovaniensis series B 14 (Louvain, 2005), pp. 233–253. 19 Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” in 800 jaar drinkwater in Ieper. Een historische, ecologische en technische verkenning, ed. Johan Declercq et al. (Ypres, 1999), p. 4. E.g. concerning Bruges see Jean-Pierre Sosson, “Drinking Water, Waste Water, Navigable Water, the Bruges Example 1250–1500,” in Water and European Cities. From the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, ed. Jean-Luc Pinol and Denis Menjot (Leicester, 1997); E. Vandevyvere, Watervoorziening te Brugge van de 13de tot de 20st e eeuw (Bruges, 1983). 20 Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 4. 21 Alphonse Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution des eaux alimentaires et fontaines d’Ypres,” Annales de la Société historique, archéologique et littéraire de la ville d’Ypres et de l’ancienne West-Flandre 9 (1880), 51–57; I.B. Annoot, L’eau et l’industrie à Ypres (Ghent, 1889); Annick Vandenbilcke, “De modernisering van het drinkwaterstelsel (19e eeuw-1914),” in 800 jaar, pp. 16–21; Lieven Stubbe, “Van bron tot kraantje,” in 800 jaar, pp. 25–30. 22 Verheye, “De Ieperlee.”

ypres and the drinking-water problem

391

of the water from these higher areas flowed via the Ieperlee and its branches and other brooks into a broad river bed through the future urban area. The present-day situation of the Ieperlee, with its well-delineated river bed, which bifurcates in the heart of the town to form an artificial island, probably differs from its situation in earlier times. The river probably was not embedded until the time the town could harness sufficient manpower and organizational skills to supply the necessary quantity of manual labor. Heavy rainfall would have made the ground soggy, as a result of the subsoil of this low depression, and this would have caused serious problems with regard to drainage and the preparation of building sites.23 This might explain the chessboard-like street pattern of the inner city, since its construction could only be realized after sophisticated and massive drainage.24 Once again, one might see in this project the hand of the Count of Flanders, who was also elsewhere actively involved in urban development.25 So, via the Ieperlee and other, smaller rivers, the inhabitants of Ypres could—from the very beginning—count on a regular supply of large quantities of water from rainfall, which they could, either directly or indirectly, consume (for instance, beer) or use to make certain handicrafts. An additional benefit was the fact that this water was very soft (containing little calcium), which made it ideal for the production of cloth (e.g. for the washing of wool and fulling).26 Until now, this factor has not adequately been taken into account in theories about why the textile industry flourished so quickly and so massively in Ypres. And yet, it is suspected that this supply of water soon proved to be insufficient and too irregular, while, moreover, the Ieperlee with its strong current was better suited for draining polluted water. As a result, one had to rely on an alternative human-built system for the abundant and continuous supply of clean water. This issue will be addressed below in the section about the Ypres urban water supply network. No other town in the Low Countries developed a system for the non-natural

See Map 4. See Map 3. 25 Brigitte Meijns, “Les fondations de chapitres dans le comté de Flandre: état des recherches actuelles,” in Les moines dans la ville. Actes du colloque de Lille 31 mars et 1er avril 1995, Histoire médiévale et archéologie 7 (Lille, 1996), pp. 197–211. 26 Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 4. 23 24

392

paul trio

supply of water so soon, in such a significant way, and so ingeniously as the town of Ypres. Forced by the town’s specific situation and geography, and ‘victim’ of its own economic miracle, the urban magistrate must very soon have decided to create its own water supply system, which would make the town less dependent on the whims of nature. To guarantee a steady supply and to maintain a sufficient stock (for instance for dry spells, as in Summer), the logical step was to make reservoirs. Initially, the construction of some broader town moats must have sufficed, which not only served as part of the town’s defence structures, but also saved as water reservoirs.27 The oldest urban core around the Church of Saint Peter had already, before 1127, an extensive defensive structure with earthen walls surrounded by moats. In 1214, much larger ramparts were created, probably to a large degree coinciding with the belt of moats which survived until the nineteenth century, and some parts of it even until today. On certain locations south of town, the moats were much broader (e.g., the Botergracht [Butter Moat] or Kasteelgracht [Castle Moat]), indicating that, here also, water was stored from the rivers and brooks descending from the hilly area to the town and filling the town moats. During the course of the Middle Ages, various activities and urban ordnances tried to ensure that the flow and the purity of this water would be maintained.28 For example, the accumulated silt and different types of vegetation were removed on a regular basis, at the town’s expense, while numerous regulations tried to prevent pollution of the water. In 1293, the urban government prohibited bathing in the town moats. Washing or bleaching cloth in those same moats was also heavily fined (1296). Already in 1280, some of the heaviest fines were imposed on those endangering the purity of the water in the moats, for instance by their having sewage drains installed in the vicinity of the moats. The fact that the town let out the fishing rights in those

27 For the history of the Ypres moats in the Middle Ages, see Mus, “De localisatie”; idem et al., Omtrent de vestingstad; Johan Termote, “De stadsverdediging van Ieper vóór 1388,” in Wevend, ed. Jan van Acker, pp. 219–231; Vanrolleghem, Ieper. See Maps 3, 4, 5 and 8 in Appendix. 28 Des Marez and De Sagher, ed., Comptes, passim, for instance,. in anno 1326: ‘3 pijpmeesters, van ommegane 6 s. par.’ (3 freshwater counts for controlling 6 s. par.); ‘werke te doene tusschen den groten lode van der oostvivre ende den viverkine’ (work on the large pipe between the East Pond and the Small Pond (idem, II, 579, 596); Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 8–11.

ypres and the drinking-water problem

393

Map 5. Map of the town of Ypres (from Lodovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi; private collection).

394

paul trio

moats indicates that the water was indeed clean. These first urban ramparts were approximately three kilometers long. Since we do not know how deep and broad they were, we have no way of calculating their capacity.29 In the beginning of the fourteenth century (from 1302 onwards), a new belt of defences was begun, which was to include the population of the outskirts of town. When these new ramparts were finished in 1328, they—and the moats along them—measured seven and one-half kilometers. However, after the siege of 1383, this line of defence was relinquished for several reasons (it was indefensible, also because of the decreasing population). Supposedly, this new belt of moats also functioned as a water reservoir, while at that time the first belt of moats was also still fulfilling that function. Apart from the moats, also the ‘waddingen’ should be mentioned, a kind of water reservoir constructed by the town to water and wash the horses. These were situated just outside the town gates. Such pools are mentioned for the Torhoutpoort (Torhout Gate), the Boezingepoort (Boezinge Gate) and the Blekersbrug (Bleachers’ Bridge).30 This phenomenon is also to be found in other Flemish towns. Even so, the moats proved to be insufficient to guarantee a regular supply of clean water, possibly also because, at times, the water in them became polluted. Rather early on, two additional reservoirs were created: the pond of Zillebeke and that of Dikkebus, named for the parishes in which they were situated.31 It is not inconceivable that these initially were natural depressions or the broad beds of brooks supplying water from the hills, which were afterwards manually dammed up, deepened, and broadened. Zillebeke Pond was the nearest body of water, situated south-west of town, a good two kilometers from the town center. Nowadays, this pond has a surface area of approximately

A realistic panoramic view from 1564 (see Vanrolleghem, Ieper, p. 51) shows us a double moat. Apart from the obvious defensive advantages of this double moat, one could wonder whether this design had also a water management purpose. Might it not have been so that one moat contained the polluted water, and one contained clean water, which would make them fit snugly into the entire urban system of water management? See also Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 7. 30 Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 2; Mus, “De localisatie,” 48–51. See Maps 6 and 8. 31 See Maps 1 and 6. For the most recent history, from the nineteenth century onwards, see Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 57–65; Vandenbilcke, “De modernisering,” 16–21; idem, “De vernietiging en de moeizame wederopbouw van het drinkwaterstelsel (1914–1930),” in 800 jaar, pp. 22–24; Stubbe, “Van bron.” 29

ypres and the drinking-water problem

395

Map 6. Map of the area surrounding Ypres, with the Dikkebus Pond and the Zillebeke Pond, 1648 (from S. de Beaulieu, Les glorieuses conquêtes de Louis le Grand [Paris, 1676]; private collection).

396

paul trio

Map 7. Portage on the Ieperlee near Ypres, drawing from the beginning of the fifteenth century (from Deschamps de Pas, “Ce que c’était”; private collection).

Map 8. Map of the town of Ypres, 1712 (from Eugène Henri Frickx, Table des cartes des Pays-Bas et des frontières de France; private collection).

ypres and the drinking-water problem 397

398

paul trio

sixteen hectares. Dikkebus Pond was situated circa four kilometers from the center of Ypres, more specifically to the south-east of town. This pond is now almost twice as big as that of Zillebeke. Very early on, an extensive water supply network was constructed to bring the water that was gathered in these ponds to the consumers, namely the industry and the population of Ypres; the network was unrivalled both in the Low Countries and abroad. Once the water from both ponds had reached the outskirts of town via brooks or canals, it was further distributed throughout town via subterranean pipes, the so-called ‘pijpen’. Everywhere in town, there were wells, cisterns, or water reservoirs which were supplied with clean water by these pipes. Both archaeological and archival sources tell us about this network of pipes. Essential among the latter type of sources are the Town Accounts, especially the oldest ones from 1280 onwards, and the late medieval rent books and charters containing transactions of movable and immovable property. Since the system was more or less in use until the nineteenth century, similar sources from the Early Modern period also might enlighten us on that subject.32 To this day, both ponds are still being used as water reservoirs, as they were in the Middle Ages, to supply the town with purified city water. A map from 1847 indicates the numerous mains and wells spread, and still preserved, all over the inner town. The network consisted of twenty-three kilometers of pipes that supplied eight-hundred and ninety-nine cisterns or water reservoirs, public as well as private ones. The west side of town (i.e., the left bank of the Ieperlee) was mainly supplied from the Dikkebus Pond, while the eastside (i.e., the right bank of the Ieperlee) received its water mostly from the Zillebeke Pond. The continued existence of the system allows us more or less to compare this situation to the medieval one. Recent archaeological excavations and chance finds during construction projects have already uncovered quite a few of these medieval—and more recent—pipes: large tubes with a diameter of eleven and a half centimeters, and smaller ones with a diameter of eight and a half centimeters, the mains and the

Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 17–51; Johan Declercq, “De watervoorziening van de 16e tot de 18e eeuw,” in 800 jaar, pp. 12–15; Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 5; Vandenbilcke, “De modernisering”; idem, “De vernietiging”; Stubbe, “Van bron.” 32

ypres and the drinking-water problem

399

smaller connecting pipes respectively.33 In a general report from 1596, mention is made of twenty-six mains (‘moerbuizen’), usually in wood; the smaller pipes were usually made of lead. In his famous description of the entire Low Countries from 1567 (Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi), the Italian inhabitant of Antwerp Guicciardini praises Ypres for its water supply system. Loosely translated: Everybody knows that the town of Ypres has foundations of lead, as a result of the extensive and almost immeasurable system of leaden pipes, which supplies almost all houses and other necessary places in town with water.34

Also Guicciardini could not say to what century this system dated back. In the years 1295 and following, several pieces of land situated along Zillebeke Pond were acquired, in order to expand this reservoir.35 In 1320 and following years, the capacity of the Dikkebus Pond was increased, but the oldest mention of this pond being supplied with water dates from 1269, when the tributary brook was optimized. The maintenance of these bodies of water, brooks, and pipes not merely entailed costs, but also were profitable in some ways. The surrounding meadows and the dredged up silt, which served as a fertilizer, could be let out. The Administration of the Water Supply System Most of the pipes and wells in town were the property of the urban government, and had to be maintained at the town’s expense. The town appointed four ‘pensionaries’ for the supervision of this extensive network, the so-called pipe masters or freshwater counts (‘pipemaistres’, ‘comtes de l’eau douce’, ‘comites dulcis aquae’).36 These town officials appear already in the oldest Town Account of 1280. In 1304, there were four of them, and this number appears on the town’s paylist 33 Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 4–7. See here for additional information on the map from 1847. 34 Quoted in Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 3. 35 For the earliest mentions of the ponds and the rivers that fed them, see Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 4–8; Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 4–5; Rik Opsommer, “Enkele gegevens over Dikkebus- en Zillebekevijver in 1414,” in 800 jaar, pp. 8–11. 36 Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 13–15; Antoon Viaene, “De pijpemeesters van Ieper,” Biekorf 63 (1962), 280–281; Dewilde, “De middeleeuwse drinkwatervoorziening,” 5; Opsommer, “Enkele gegevens.”

400

paul trio

during the entire medieval period. This organization is unique in the Low Countries during that period, existing nowhere else. Keeping in mind that the number of town officials in the Middle Ages was very limited, even for very large towns, the fact that there were four such officials indicates that the Ypres water supply system was very extensive and complex and had to be checked continuously. Contrary to many other tasks, the supervision of the water supply system was never contracted out. The remarkable nature of the Ypres’ situation is also due to the fact that many other towns could rely on ground water reserves, or were supplied by more natural supply systems. Similar large towns, such as Ghent and Bruges, for example, could rely for their water supply on a very extensive network of rivers and brooks which had, from olden times, flowed through the urban territory.37 These required not much more than the occasional canalization or some maintenance. That the Ypres magistrate took great care to ensure that the supply of drinkable water was not polluted can be deduced from the early urban ordinances.38 The regulations set down by the town magistrate in 1296, for instance, stipulated that no cloth was to be bleached within two meters of a well. Many wells and pipes, however, were situated on private property and had to be maintained at the expense of the proprietors. However, also on private property, the afore-mentioned officials had the right to supervise the water supply network. Several sentences found in medieval documents from Ypres tell us about persons being fined for—inadvertently or knowingly—polluting the wells. Already in 1280, people were fined for not heeding a warning of the pipe-masters. During the siege of Ypres in 1383, not only the suburbs were almost completely destroyed—never to be rebuilt for reasons of safety—but also the water supply system was seriously damaged, as a contemporary source testifies: “destruit certains conduitz par lesquelles leaue douce aloit en le ville d’Ypre” (“destroyed certain conduits through which fresh water reached the town of Ypres”).39

37 38 39

Boone, Overheidszorg; Vandevyvere, Watervoorziening; Sosson, “Drinking Water.” Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 13–14. Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 17.

ypres and the drinking-water problem

401

What to Do with the Dirty and Smelly Water? 40 Not all water was used for consumption, either directly or indirectly (e.g., Ypres had an important beer brewing industry). Quite a large quantity of relatively clean water was used for various industrial activities.41 Since, in Ypres, approximately half the population was actively involved in the textile industry, this branch of industry undoubtedly required most of the more or less pure water. Several processes of cloth production really needed water, such as the washing of the wool, the fulling of the cloth (with a mixture of water, clay, urine, wine lees, sand, and lime) and the washing of the cloth, to name just the most important. Other professions which were relatively successful in Ypres also required much water. The leather workers (tanners and cobblers) soaked their hides in water. Afterwards, the hides were for some time immersed in lime pits, and then the last traces of flesh and hair were removed by rinsing them with water. Also the parchment makers, beer brewers, and hatters needed large quantities of clean water for their professional activities. These craft industries at the same time produced much waste water. Using brooks and canals especially designated for draining the polluted water—in other words, sewers—seemed the most practical and the most feasible solution of the problem. Recent research has discovered the route of such a (mainly open) sewer throughout the eastern part of the town center.42 This sewer discharged in the Ieperlee, which clearly indicates that the Ieperlee was also used as a discharge canal. We will return to this later. It was a public urban sewer, and in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sources, it was

40 There are no real exemplary studies for the Low Countries. For the end of the Middle Ages and more in general, see Peter Poulussen, Van burenlast tot milieuhinder. Het stedelijk leefmilieu, 1500–1800, Monografieën Leefmilieu nu 28 (Antwerp, 1987). For Bruges, there is the recent study by Sosson, “Drinking Water.” The situation for Bruges was not quite the same as for Ypres, as we will discuss below. 41 Information concerning other industrial activities, not related to the cloth industry, is, for example, to be found in Mus, “Mutaties”; idem, “Het beleg van Ieper in 1383. De vernietiging van de buitenwijken en de gevolgen voor de binnenstad en de bewoners ervan,” in Verwoesting en wederopbouw van steden van de Middeleeuwen tot heden. 18de Internationaal Colloquium Spa, 10–12.IX.1996. Handelingen, Gemeentekrediet. Historische Uitgaven, -8° 100 (Brussels, 1999), pp. 21–49; idem, “De ligging van de Ieperse handelswijken in de 11de, 12de & 13de eeuw (deel I),” De omwalling 8 (1999), 3–10; idem, “Pieter Lansaem,” always with references to the older literature. 42 Mus, “De localisatie.” The location of this open sewer system can still, to a large degree, be traced by following the beds of the earlier town moats; therefore, see Map 4.

402

paul trio

always referred to as the ‘riole van de stede’ (sewer of the town). This suggests that, apart from this sewer, there existed quite a few private sewers, connecting private dwellings with the town sewer. The bed of this urban sewer partly followed the old and no longer functional town moats, dating back to the period of the first urban development. It would certainly not be unreasonable to suggest that the urban sewage network must have originated in the twelfth century, at a time when these town moats had already been given up as a defensive structure. In French administrative texts from the thirteenth century, the term ‘ruisseau’ (ditch) was used to refer to these sewers. As we have already mentioned before, the Ieperlee must have become the designated discharge canal for the polluted town water at quite an early stage. This waterway, bifurcating in the center of town, was ideally suited for this purpose. Not only did this natural—though canalized—waterway flow through the entire town, it also had a large capacity and a strong current,43 both of which were important advantages for the discharge of polluted water and other waste products which, in the Middle Ages, were thrown into the water without much ado. On the one hand, the large capacity helped to dilute the dirty water, which might otherwise have caused several inconveniences, such as vermin and stench; on the other hand, the sewage water was relatively quickly removed from the center of the town, thanks to the waterway’s strong current. The function of this urban sewer (including the Ieperlee)44 becomes clear not only from the name ‘riool’ (sewer), but also from the fact that many activities and major housing complexes, all of them generating much waste water, were situated close to it. Indeed, it was no coincidence that mainly the leather workers and certain activities from the textile industry, which used water in their processes, chose to settle near the town sewer; the town government possibly actively encouraged this, or even stipulated it. The fullers, for instance, were initially concentrated in the Volderstraat (Fullers’ Street), which discharged into the Ieperlee. Already before 1219, a fulling mill was situated there, near the bifurcation of the old and new branch of the Ieperlee. Nor was it a coincidence that both the old and new town meat hall and fish market were also situated immediately beside the urban sewer.

43 44

See the above-mentioned water mills and portages. See also Vandenpeereboom, “Distribution,” 3.

ypres and the drinking-water problem

403

All kinds of scraps were unceremoniously dumped into these open sewers. Several documents also indicate that numerous ‘necessaries’, or cesspools, were connected to the town sewer. Indeed, large housing complexes generating large quantities of human waste certainly benefited from being situated near the main sewer. In addition, hospitals, monasteries, and refuges of monasteries from the surrounding countryside were invariably found near it.45 Another contributor of polluted water was undoubtedly the bathhouse: in the positive sense of the word, this was a public bathing facility where one could wash and treat oneself to hot and cold baths; in the negative sense, it became a den of iniquity or brothel. And the one did not exclude the other. Ypres had several of these establishments, as did other medieval towns in the Low Countries and elsewhere. These produced large amounts of polluted water as a result of the use of soap,46 and to the extent that these bathhouses can be still situated, they are always to be found in the vicinity of the town sewer. Because of the extensive water supply network, which took care of their need for clean water, there were no restrictions on the establishment of these bathing houses. Conclusion Because of the geological and topographical situation of Ypres, the town developed into an important center of textile industry with international fame, on condition that the industry as well as the population could be supplied with sufficient clean water. To realize this goal, a complex and ingenious network of reservoirs and pipes was created very early on, probably during the course of the twelfth century. Not only did such a system weigh heavily on the urban budget, its maintenance and—whenever necessary—its improvement or adaptation required a strong organization and rigorous control. That the water supply system of Ypres was an efficient one becomes clear from the fact that no major 45 Monasteries (Franciscans, Regular Chapter of Saint Martin); refuges of the extra-mural monasteries (Merkem, Nonnenbossen, Zonnebeke, Messines, Warneton); hospitals (Our Lady, Saint Catherine, Belle, Saint John, Nazareth; the Hospice of the Thirteen Poor Widowers; Saint Nicholas, Holy Spirit, Thirteen Poor Children); other houses (Beguines [Blue and Black], Begards, afterwards Grey Friars). See the localization in Mus, “De localisatie,” 99. 46 Sosson, “Drinking Water.”

404

paul trio

changes were implemented during the entire Ancien Régime. Such an extensive and early system, with such an elaborate organization, is in the Low Countries (present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Northern France) during the Middle Ages. As a result, the old town moats and the natural waterway in town could be used as a sewer, allowing the urban authorities to spend less money and energy on this problem than other towns were required to do.

PART FOUR

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY IMAGERY: WATER IN MEDIEVAL THROUGH EARLY MODERN CULTURES

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER: AQUEOUS MOMENTS IN MEDIEVAL EPIC, ROMANCE, ALLEGORY, AND FABLIAU Anne Scott Introduction A reading of Western medieval literary texts, both familiar and less well known, suggests that water—as motif, theme, symbol, or element of local color—appears occasionally but not often with real force, as a structuring element. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for instance, makes sparing use of water imagery, most notably perhaps in the “shoures soote” that drive the springtime regenerations of the General Prologue (l. 1).1 Holy wells and watery miracles sometimes occur in the saints’ lives, and sea voyages of exile and return can figure in the romances (e.g., King Horn, ll. 111–36).2 When we do encounter significant references to water, then, in any medieval story, we cherish them and assume, rightfully so, that these references figure into the development of these stories in ways that permit them to take on a range and depth of meaning not otherwise possible. Four well-known medieval works—the eleventh-century (or earlier) Old English epic Beowulf,3 the twelfthcentury French romance Yvain, the fourteenth-century Middle English allegory Pearl, and Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, a fabliau written in the late 1300s—come to mind not only because they contain aqueous imagery,

See below, under the Miller’s Tale section, for publication information. See James Rattue, The Living Stream: Holy Wells in Historical Context, Woodbridge, UK, 1995). For an edition of King Horn, see Joseph Hall, ed., King Horn (Oxford, UK, 1901. See also Carol Falvo Heffernan, “Wells and Streams in Three Chaucerian Gardens,” Publications on Language and Literature, 15, no. 4 (1979), 339–356. Charles Connell’s “From Spiritual Necessity to Instrument of Torture: Water in the Middle Ages,” in this volume, discusses water references in the writings of early Christian writers. Misty Urban’s “Magical Fountains in Middle English Romance,” also in this volume, more thoroughly elucidates the functions of water in medieval romance. 3 The Beowulf manuscript is usually dated ca. 1000. For arguments concerning its date of composition, see Robert E. Bjork and Anita Obermeier, “Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences,” A Beowulf Handbook, ed. Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1997), pp. 13–34. 1 2

408

anne scott

references, and motifs but because water appears to be central to the literary and thematic design of these works vis à vis their respective genres. Moreover, the references to water showcased in these four pieces help us understand the ways in which religious and/or geographical issues unique to each story’s provenance and authorship have shaped these references. While not an exhaustive study, this article will shed light on the role that water plays at, and in, this intersection of genre, place, and culture. From our analysis of this confluence of ideas, we hope to learn, as well, the ways in which the medieval mind perceived, intuited, and grasped the concept of water as different from, or similar to, our own perceptions. Beowulf Of these four works, Beowulf 4 employs water imagery most ambitiously and pervasively, which is not surprising given the poem’s setting: the lands and seas of Northern Europe. Patricia Svec, in her linguistic study of Beowulf, notes over two-hundred references to water in this poem,5 the preponderance of references indicating that the poet employed a highly specialized vocabulary to reflect not only his poetic concerns but also his familiarity with the watery locale of his poem’s northern setting. The formulaic locutions employed throughout the poem’s sea-faring scenes, specifically the poem’s kennings and phrases that describe sea and ship, have made this Old-English poem famous: e.g., ‘swan-road’ (swan-rād, a word occurring only once in the poem), ‘sea-wood’ (sund-wudu), ‘wavetraverser’ ( yð-lida), ‘ship with curved prow’ (wunden-stefna), ‘foamy-necked boat’ ( flota fāmigheals) and ‘wave-way’ ( yð-lād ). These phrases hearken back to the most memorable noun compound of all—‘whale-road’ or hron-rād—occurring in the tenth line of the poem. The poet also mentions water numerous times in conjunction with scenes depicting coastal burial, sea journeys, ominous bodies of water, and acts of heroism. Through an enveloping structure, the famous Scyld Scefing at the poem’s beginning, and the infamous Dragon

4 All quotations are taken from Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Lexington, Massachusetts, 1950). All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. 5 “Water Words in Beowulf: Principles of Selection,” Ball State University Forum 30, no. 1 (Winter 1980), 5.

come hell or high water

409

at the end of the poem, are each given burials by sea, the former earning an elaborate water ceremony due to his rank and prestige: “They let the sea take him, gave him to the ocean,”6 the latter being dumped unceremoniously over the cliff ’s edge into the cold waters below.7 In two other episodes that bracket a section of the tale’s narrative, Beowulf arrives at Hrothgar’s kingdom and returns to his own land, by sea (ll. 194–228, 1888–1913). This latter example provides a framework for aesthetic comparisons between two beautiful descriptions of sea-travel and also underscores the plot’s use of parallel structure. It also suggests the insularity, not contiguity, of the communities that make up this Northern Germanic world, as well as the ocean travel required to connect these insular communities and to provide avenues for communication, so that, on the shore, coastguards could ask, and receive, information about their newly-arrived guests.8 The former example of parallelism encourages us to contrast both characterization and character (the good Scyld as opposed to the evil Dragon), which, in turn, helps us to track the plot’s thematic development of good vs. bad kingship, leadership, and governance made evident in these enveloping scenes as well as though the poem’s digressions. A third example of parallel scenes involving water furthers the storyteller’s enhancement of suspense. Perhaps for sheer sensationalistic purposes, the Beowulf-poet stirs up the fear of his readers and implies the terror of Beowulf ’s retainers by giving us close-up shots of Grendel’s mere—a charged word that relies “heavily on a connotative value of ‘darkness’ that [the poet] assigns to it”9—broiling with his own blood and then later foaming with Æschere’s bloody head, the mother’s grim wer-gild or ‘man-price’ demanded for her son’s death. Even a forest animal, a

“[l]ēton holm beran, / gēafon on gārsecg,” ll. 48–9. “They also shoved the dragon, the worm, over the cliff wall, let the waves taken him, the flood enfold the treasure keeper.” (“[D]racan ēc scufun, / wyrm ofer weallclif, lēton wēg niman, / flōd fæðmian frætwa hyrde,” ll. 3131–33). 8 Water “was the link between land-dwellers. The sea and the streams offered mobility, challenge, and adventure” (Svec, “Water Words in Beowulf,” 5). It is at the sea’s edge where Hrothgar’s coastguard questions Beowulf, the newcomer, about his presence on the shore. (ll. 229–257). We also recall in John Gardner’s existentialist satire of Beowulf that Grendel becomes “mad with joy” and kisses the frozen water of the creeks at the thought that a new adventure awaits him on the shore, in the person of Beowulf himself (Grendel, [New York, 1971], p. 151). 9 Svec, “Water Words in Beowulf,” 9. 6 7

410

anne scott

hart, stands trembling at the edge of the mere,10 choosing to be pursued and devoured by dogs rather than risk entry into that realm. Watching the mere stained first with Grendel’s blood sets up the readers (and retainers) for a false sense of confidence, as we (and they) discover that it is subsequently the blood from one of Hrothgar’s retainers that fouls the waters a second time—and that the mere at this point, is clearly not a safe haven: not yet, and perhaps not ever. In this epic poem, water is variously portrayed as a whale-road of transportation, a boundary between nations or realms, a place where new tidings are heard, an environment that “rebuffs inquiry and action”11 in which events become difficult to interpret and things become mysterious, a wild and uncivilized place12 where evil lurks, a metaphor for the womb13 or an image of hell,14 a grave, and an arena or proving ground for exceptional bravery. Regarding this last point, it is within the environment of water that Beowulf ’s mettle is tested most strenuously, an idea that English readers of the poem would readily appreciate, given their familiarity with their own island existence, surrounded, as Susana Monge notes, by a sea “that is cold, hostile and treacherous.”15 Beowulf ’s earlier fight with Breca, performed with the brashness of youth and prolonged across several days, prefigures his more mature struggle to defeat Grendel’s mother in her watery lair.16 While there, he wields the monster mother’s deathblow with the magic sword that he finds in those depths—one whose hilt depicts, in wavy patterns, the

See Charles Frey, “Lyric in Epic: Hrothgar’s Depiction of the Haunted Mere,” English Studies, 58 (1977), 299; and Robert Finnegan, “Beowulf at the Mere (and Elsewhere), Mosaic 11, no. 4 (1978), 47. 11 Frey, “Lyric in Epic,” 299. 12 As noted by Kempe Malone (“Coming Back from the Mere,” PMLA 69, no. 5 (1954), 1294, the use of the word ‘paved’ (OE stræt) occurs in reference to the road leading to Heorot, a civilized place that stands in contrast to the raw and untamed wilderness of the mere and its surroundings. 13 See Paul Acker, “Horror and the Maternal in Beowulf,” PMLA 121, no. 3 (2006), 702–16 for a thorough study of the maternal and sexual implications of the poem. 14 For the view that, as a version of Hell, the watery environment of the mere is therefore unimportant, see Finnegan, “Beowulf at the Mere (and Elsewhere),” 45–6. See also Geoffrey R. Russom, “At the Center of Beowulf,” in Myth in Early Northwest Europe, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, ed. Stephen O. Glosecki (Tempe, Arizona, 2007), 225–40. 15 Susana Fidalgo Monge, “The Sea in Beowulf, the Wanderer, and the Seafarer: On Semantic Fields and Mediterranean Limitations,” SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 9 (1999), 155. 16 William Lawrence has explored the speculative topography and geography of the mere in “The Haunted Mere in Beowulf,” PMLA, 27, no. 2 (1912), 208–45. 10

come hell or high water

411

Biblical flood that cleanses the world of giants (ll. 1689–90). Regardless of any Christian symbolism attached to Beowulf ’s actions, however, we also realize that it is not next to, or at, but rather in Grendel’s mere that Beowulf learns that his human strength is simply not enough. There, he learns what must transpire in order to conquer evil: namely, he understands that a man must enter the realm of evil and exist in it, and even use implements that are found there—in other words, to become a part of it and to engage with its inhabitants—in order to keep evil at bay. More importantly, he must enter those depths before he can re-enter civilized land once again. A nation’s simply banishing or relegating the ‘other’ to its primal, uncouth territory is, apparently, not enough.17 Beowulf ’s exploration of his heroism within the medium of water invites closer scrutiny, aided through our understanding another Old English poem permeated by water imagery, “The Seafarer,” copied into the Exeter Book in the late tenth century. In this confessional poem, the Seafarer-Speaker seems to express his need to “direct the mind toward God” through the metaphor of “steering a ship,”18 as if the life he desires to lead could incur such spiritual turbulence and pain (e.g., “My feet were surrounded by cold, bound by frost”)19 that strong guidance from above is necessary for the speaker to “stay the course” in his spiritual development. As Michael Matto argues, this desire of an individual, alone and through his own agency, to steer the mind toward God parallels the “purpose of idealized monastic private confessional.”20 And yet, at the same time, the Speaker’s hyge (l. 96) or mōd-sefa 17 Integrating, rather than segregating, the ‘other’ is a feature of non-Western, oral-traditional stories. See Anne Scott, “The Ethics of Heroism in Medieval and American Indian Tales,” American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research 3, no. 3 (Spring 1990), 37–58. 18 Michael Matto, “True Confessions: The Seafarer and Technologies of the Sylf,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103, no. 2 (2004), 165. 19 “Cealde geþrungen / wæron mīne fēt, forste gebunden,” ll. 8–9. All quotations are taken from “The Seafarer,” in Seven Old English Poems, ed. John C. Pope (New York, 1981). Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. 20 165. See also Clair McPherson, “The Sea as Desert: Early English Spirituality and The Seafarer,” American Benedictine Review 38, no. 2 ( June 1987), 116, for a discussion of how the monastic tradition and the ascetic values of the Desert Fathers have influenced this poem. McPherson also makes the case that the rich local color of “The Seafarer” derives exactly from its origins in England and its “distinct northern insular geography” (117), and that, in lieu of placing the speaker of the poem in a geographically inappropriate ascetic desert setting similar to what we would find represented in the recordings of the Desert Fathers, the author makes use of England’s stormy ocean climate instead.

412

anne scott

(l. 59), his inner mind, longs to travel across the expanse of turbulent waves, the hwæl-weg (‘whale-way’, l. 63), i.e., to experience life in all of its instability. That the Speaker’s inner mind (but not his soul [sāwol]) longs for this watery realm suggests that, like this unstable realm, the speaker’s inner mind is also unstable or conflicted, wanting on the one hand to experience the freedom of the “detachable spirit” which, like a lone-flyer (ān-floga), can traverse across the world’s land and sea to approach God, but discovering that, as a man on earth, he is land-bound and cannot leave his idea of the material self behind.21 Like the speaker of “The Seafarer,” Beowulf seeks out a watery (read: unstable) world in the form of Grendel’s mere and, like an ānfloga, he is willing to explore that world by himself, to see what stuff he is made of. And like the Seafarer’s experience of his own ocean faring, Beowulf suffers in the mere, his physical body being exposed to all manner of hardship. Unlike the speaker in this confessional poem, however, Beowulf does not desire spiritual transcendence through his physical hardship in the water, nor does he discover that while his body remains submerged in that realm during his fight with Grendel’s mother, his hyge or inner mind longs to obtain a spiritual understanding of this physical experience. Instead, one gathers from reading this Old English epic that a quintessential physical experience defines the heroic self through and through, and that it is this very mere, made dangerous through the amorphous and perception-altering properties of water itself and through the very nature of the Northern seas, which acts as a catalyst by which Beowulf defines himself as an epic hero. In other word, he defines himself as heroic not from the inside out via a meditative or contemplative experience, or through a dialogue between the mind and body, but from the outside in. In this way, the mere provides a dangerous physical medium in which Beowulf shapes his sense of self, or at the very least, confirms it. Beowulf, as epic hero, is a man of the world, and it is his encounter with Grendel’s mother in her watery lair—the one place on land that is ironically not like land at all—that makes his physical experience of 21 See Matto, “True Confessions,” 171, for a more detailed discussion of the terms mōd-sefa and hyge. Dee Dyas states that the seafarer’s world “is made up of both land and sea and the clearest statement of motivation in the poem implies a profound contrast between the two states of spiritual being which they represent (“Land and Sea in the Pilgrim Life: The Seafarer and the Old English Exodus (FN1) Source,” English Language Notes 35 (December, 1997), 1.

come hell or high water

413

his worldly existence as youthful hero somehow more real, palpable, and concrete. The stability of this kind of heroism—an unchanging heroism defined by physical acts performed by real warriors and chieftains against evil(s) incarnate—offers a counterpoint to the destabilizing feuds that undermine the alliances and communities forged through battles, arranged marriages, and comitatus, the chieftain’s code of honor and brotherhood dictating his behavior toward his thanes, and vice versa. When we finish reading the poem, we receive the impression that as long as there are monsters to conquer and territories to traverse and explore, especially those submerged in water and made more mysterious, alien, and dangerous as a result—then the tragedies that these feuds engender somehow matter less. Yvain The fountain in Chrétien’s Yvain, like the mere in Beowulf, becomes a focal point for this story’s organization and themes. In addition to adding structure to the narrative and providing characters and readers with a visual touchstone that guides them through the romance’s dreamlike framework, the fountain, today called the Spring of Bérenton,22 additionally serves as a meeting place where male characters learn something about themselves as knights, leaders, and lovers of ladies.23 Chrétien initially describes the fountain in slow, luscious detail—a bubbling spring isolated within Brocéliande, a deep forest that still exists as part of Brittany today.24 Amidst the spring sits a great rock atop a throne of four rubies, above which hangs a basin of gold suspended from a chain attached to a magnificent tree, “the most beautiful tree that Nature had ever created” (“le plus bel arbre que janais Nature ait

22 Nora K. Chadwick, “The Forest of Brocéliande,” in Early Brittany (Cardiff, Wales, 1969), pp. 292–354. 23 See Hester Lee-Jeffries, in “Sacred and Profane Love: Four Fountains in the ‘Hypnerotomachia’ (1499) and the ‘Roman de la Rose,’ ” Word and Image 22, no. 1 ( January/March 2006), 5–6 for a discussion of fountains as “both places (and spaces) for talking, hearing about, and meditating on, love.” 24 Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain: or, the Knight with the Lion, trans. Ruth Harwood Cline (Athens, Georgia, 1975), p. 197. The forest is now called Paimpont, “located about 25 miles [ . . . ] to the west of Rennes.”

414

anne scott

pu créer” (p. 10; ll. 350–97).25 According to the description given by the eighteen-feet-tall, elephant-eared herdsman who lives in this wood, a great thunderstorm will ensue if water obtained from the spring by means of the basin is poured on the rock, following which the skies will fill with rain and thunder and afterwards the tree will fill with the polyphonic singing of birds who are apparently delighted by the rainfall. However, although the strange and wondrous features of this place might warrant any knight errant’s attention and might intrigue readers through its repeated appearances, Chrétien employs a telescoping narrative to gradually reduce the quantity of details associated with the fountain, instead concentrating on the fountain’s important function as meeting place and as a catalyst or nexus point for a knight’s revelations about himself and his place in the larger world. At the beginning of this romance, a knight named Calogrenant recalls an anecdote to his Arthurian comrades that foregrounds the fountain within his naïve exploits as a knight errant. Seven years ago, says Calogrenant, he encountered the fountain as part of a simple need to seek out adventure, nothing more (p. 5; l. 177). Regretting his actions soon thereafter—“I wished to see / the marvel: how the spring and tree / provoked the storms. I realize / today I was not very wise,” (ll. 397–401; “Je décidai de voir le prodige de la tempête et de l’orage et je fis là une folie,” p. 12)—he poured water on the rock, caused the heavens to open up in a terrible storm, and subsequently was unhorsed by the fountain’s guardian knight.26 Esclados the Red Knight criticizes Calogrenant sharply for stirring up trouble for no reason. Specifically, Esclados deplores the act because Calogrenant did not openly declare his grievance to him and did not seek justice first, but instead provoked war impulsively through his rash act at the fountain: “Without provocation / you brought about this devastation, vassal, to cause me harm and shame! / If you were fair, you would proclaim / your challenge, if you’ve grievance, or / seek justice first and then wage war!” (ll. 457–62; “[ V ]ous m’avez, sans défi, gravement offensé. Vous auriez dû me provoquer, si vous en aviez eu quelque raison, ou du moins 25 All quotations are taken from Claude Buridant and Jean Trotin, ed., Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), (Paris, 1972). Translations have been obtained from Cline’s edition. Page references refer to the French edition; line references refer to Cline’s edition. 26 William A. Nitze’s study of the fountain in Yvain contextualizes it within a medieval and classical tradition of fountains, their guardians, and the female personages (e.g., goddesses, heroines) associated with them. See “Yvain and the Myth of the Fountain,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 30, no. 2 (April 1955), 170–79.

come hell or high water

415

réclamer votre droit, avant de me chercher querelle,” p. 13). In other words, Calogrenant misuses his masculine and chivalric energy, his desire to seek glory, in an ill-defined adventure for adventure’s sake only, and in the process he subverts the more civilized processes of open discourse and adjudication required for behavior becoming of an Arthurian knight. The result of this action within the world of nature—namely, a deluge that might well wash away Esclados’ kingdom—stands in stark contrast to the quiet bubbling spring and the rituals that could harness its energy to beneficial use. That Yvain, who has listened carefully to Calogrenant’s shameful story, not only repeats most of this knight’s mistakes at the fountain but exacerbates them through further errors tells us that Chrétien intends for this theme of knightly ignorance and education to drive his plot, and for the fountain to act as a synechdoche to remind readers of this theme. It is true that in contrast to Calogrenant’s adventure, Yvain’s quest has a decided purpose: to avenge the name of his brother-in-arms for the shame that he suffered at the hands of Esclados. But Yvain’s quest, namely, his desire for glory, vengeance, and proof of success in battle, becomes obsessive. As the narrator says directly, “Whatever price he’d have to pay, / he would not stop until he’d seen [. . .] / the fountain, great stone, and the gale / with thunderbolts, wind, rain, and hail” (ll. 726–30; “Combien qu’il doive le payer, il n’aura de cesse qui’il voie le pin ombrageant la fontaine, et le perron et la tourmente, qui déchaîne la grêle, la pluie, le tonnerre et le vent,” p. 20). Yvain pours water on the fateful rock, provokes the waters of heaven to come pouring out, mortally wounds the guardian knight in a conflict that has no clear motivation as far as Esclados is concerned, and then pursues a course of action that is decidedly rash and impolitic. By chasing the dying Esclados back to his castle, who had “turned round and fled in his defeat, / and [. . .] acquired no shame thereby” (ll. 818–19; “S’il prit la fuite, comment le lui reprocher?” p. 23), Yvain thereby violates the rules of chivalric combat, and effectively tells his readers that he has not tamed the raw male energy that makes him no better than the eighteen-foot herdsman who rules his wayward bulls by wrenching their horns into submission. Yvain spends the remainder of the romance learning, though one trial and tribulation after another, that although he can ‘get the girl’, namely Esclados’ widow Lady Laudine, and win her kingdom in one fell swoop of vengeful energy, he cannot permit his untamed emotions or desires to run rampant forever. In subsequent adventures, Yvain

416

anne scott

learns the civilized and civilizing acts of telling time, honoring his word, dispensing mercy, being trustworthy, and using his ‘fortitudo’ in measures equal to his ‘sapientia’, or at least one hopes that this is the case.27 However, when he visits the bubbling fountain for one last time, regretful for having lost his Lady’s trust, Yvain pours water on the fountain’s rock again in another fit of passion, transforming what usually is seen to be a “benevolent symbol”28 into a violent one, nearly causing Laudine’s castle (and now his) to collapse under the rain and hail (ll. 6442–49). Similar to Rabanus Maurus’ “startlingly original comment” on the fountain described in Genesis 2:16, the fountain in Yvain now seems emblematic of Yvain’s greediness, in that Yvain’s rage to obtain Laudine’s love and all the power and recognition that it conveys upon him causes the fountain to become so turbulent that it allows “almost no one to be at rest,” provoking a torrential rain “all over the place” and acting out the “restlessness that characterizes the greedy.”29 Yvain only becomes mollified—and therefore the rain storm becomes quiet—when the Lady’s helper, Lunette, connives with Yvain to win back Laudine’s love once more, but this time through an act of verbal trickery. By now, the fountain as a fountain—as a magical place of bubbling water, gold basins, rubies, and singing birds—has receded into the background of the romance’s central story about growing up and the need to sideline raw emotions in the service of civilized court behavior. What remains of the fountain is its symbolic relevance concerning Yvain’s actions. When we interpret the fountain, as some have, along the lines of mythological or even Christian symbolism, we see that the fountain’s ancient relevance as a fertility symbol as well as a place of baptism30 combine to underscore the romance’s theme of knightly

27 The anonymous Old French epic, Song of Roland, makes liberal use of the distinctions between ‘sapientia’ and ‘fortitudo’ in defining the heroism displayed by Roland and his brother-in-arms, Oliver. 28 Nelly H. Severin, “The Function of the Magic Fountain in Chrétien’s Yvain,” Chimeres (Spring 1976), 32. 29 Heffernan, “Wells and Streams in Three Chaucerian Gardens,” 342–43. 30 Cline notes Wace’s description of Brocéliande as follows: “Once hunters made a practice of going to Bérenton [the fountain] in hot weather, dipping out the water with their hunting horns, and wetting the top of the stone, which, according to custom, would cause rain. So it was the custom, long ago, to cause rain to fall in the forest and surrounding regions,” p. 196. For information about the fountain as a symbol of Christian baptism, see Carol Heffernan, “Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain: Seeking the Fountain,” Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the Classical Tradition 5, no. 1 (1982), 109–21.

come hell or high water

417

maturation: Yvain’s desire to propagate himself or spread the ‘seed’ of his knightly reputation through his conquest of people and acquisition of land and love cannot transpire until he has become, literally and figuratively, clean of heart and mind. Chrétien makes this message transparent through the story’s language of water and land: the rainstorms that ensue after one has engaged in the baptism rite at the bubbling spring of Brocéliande ideally are only beneficial, or fertile, in moderation and can only nurture the land and make it prosper if they have been invoked in temperance. Given Yvain’s second episode of brazen desperation at the fountain so late in the story, and the trickery so obviously apparent in his second wooing of the Lady Laudine at the end of the story, it is not clear whether Yvain has actually learned this lesson. Like the fountain of Narcissis in the Roman de la Rose, the fountain in Yvain becomes a site where the “competing drives of Eros and Thanatos [. . . are] made visible.”31 However, Yvain’s reflections at the fountain never quite seem to lead him to an understanding of the passions that drive his behavior. In this way, then, the magical transformations of character that we might expect to occur within the genre of medieval romance and within the deep woods of Brocéliande—given its medieval reputation for magic and mystery32—do not occur, and we are left instead to ponder not Yvain’s status as well-reputed knight but rather his ordinary humanity, i.e., his lust, greed, and nearsightedness.33 The Pearl The fourteenth century allegory Pearl presents another study of human strength and limitations as explored through the motif of water. This time, however, we do not follow the exploits of an epic superhero or a

31 Lee-Jeffries, “Sacred and Profane Love,” 2. Like the fountain of Narcissis in Roman de la Rose, the fountain in Yvain is also a “place of reflection,” a “memorial site [. . .] of mourning,” and a site “for the projection, realization, and pursuit of desire,” 7. 32 Chadwick, pp. 292, 293, passim. 33 See Derek Pearsall’s study of the Canterbury Tales for the comment that characters in medieval romances display not human perfection but rather an “ideal code of conduct in operation”; that is, knights live their lives both “at the extreme edge of expectation” and simultaneously in the realm of the “real,” therefore betraying the vicissitudes of human failings despite their quest for ideal behavior (The Canterbury Tales, [London, 1985], pp. 114, 135, 154).

418

anne scott

chivalric knight but rather a man—a simple and ordinary father who grieves the untimely death of his two-year-old daughter beyond all measure. In one of the most poignant pseudo first-person accounts in all medieval literature, the Father enters a fanciful landscape typical of allegorical dream-visions to search for his lost ‘Pearl’, only to find that she is forever unattainable. This grieving Father’s test will not take place within a watery realm as does Beowulf ’s test, or through his encounters with, and at, a magic fountain as is true of Yvain, but rather on one side of a dangerous river or ford, the other side of which lives his young girl, or so he thinks. The dialogue that transpires between father and daughter across the river points up the implacable failings of human beings in their quest for comfort, security, and knowledge. The poem begins by establishing the quality of the Father’s grief: Perle, plesaunte to prynces paye To clanly clos in golde so clere: Oute of oryent, I hardyly saye, Ne proved I never her precios pere. So rounde, so reken in uche araye, So smal, so smothe her sydes were, Quere-so-ever I jugged gemmes gaye, Sette hyr sengeley in synglere. Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere; Thurgh gresse to grounde hit fro me yot. Dewyne, fordolked of luf-daungere Of that pryvy perle wythouten spot. Sythen in that spote hit fro me sprange, Ofte haf I wayted, wyschande that wele, That wont was whyle devoyde my wrange And heven my happe and al my hele. That dos bot thrych my hert thrange, My breste in bale bot bolne and bele [. . .] (ll. 1–17)34

34 All quotations taken from A.C. Cawley and J.J. Anderson, ed., Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (London, 1976). “Pearl of delight that a prince doth please / To grace in gold enclosed so clear, / I vow that from over orient seas / Never proved I any in price her peer./ So round, so radiant ranged by these, / So fine, so smooth did her sides appear/ That ever in judging gems that please / Her only alone I deemed as dear./ Alas! I lost her in garden near: / Through grass to the ground from me it shot; / I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear/ For that pearl, mine own, without a spot. // Since in that spot is sped from me,/ I have looked and longed for that precious thing / That me once was wont from woe to free, / To uplift my lot and healing bring, / But my heart doth hurt now cruelly, My breast with burning torment sting” (stanzas 1–2). All modernizations are obtained from J.R.R. Tolkien, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo (New York, 1975).

come hell or high water

419

And thus the Father relates his “devely dale” (l. 51) or profound grief for several more stanzas as he slips into a “slepyng-slaghte” (l. 59; “sudden sleep”) and wakes up in a land of “glemande glory” and “crystal klyffes so cler” (ll. 70, 74). Examining his excessive ruminations, we note that his sadness is not only obsessive; it seems, also, to fall prey to his memory of the little girl’s physical traits: her small size, her smooth sides (l. 6). The Celtic landscape in which he finds himself, with its “Holtewodes [woodlands] bryght,” leaves of “bornyst [burnished] sylver,” and glades of “schymerynge schene” (ll. 75, 77, 80), reinforces, as well, the Dreamer’s need to take comfort in a heightened physical world that dazzles his senses. The Father-Dreamer’s grief, then, is a human grief tied to the human world of sight and sound, and rooted in a natural longing that increases “ay more and more,”35 the more his eyes and ears find that they cannot apprehend that which was lost. We are not surprised to learn, then, that when the Father spies a little girl across a perilous river and believes that he has found his dead child come alive again, he thinks of every which way to cross the river to be with her, to no avail; he also believes that if he can just keep her in his sight, this will dispel his grief forever. In the dozens of stanzas that follow, the little girl, arrayed in sparkling white, teaches the Father about the dangers of immoderate grief and the consolation that one gains from mastering several fundamentals of the Catholic faith: e.g., the presence and role of Christ and the Virgin Mary in one’s life, the doctrines of Mercy and Grace, and the heavenly court over which Christ presides, where many other Brides of Christ (l. 759) like the daughter dwell forever more. Importantly, she also tries to teach her Father to let go of his earth-bound senses that betray him into believing only that which he “ses wyth yye” (l. 302; “sees with eye”). Medieval readers of the text familiar with Celtic lore might well acknowledge that the little girl’s crucial messages will be duly received and unquestioned by the Father, since it was believed that, within or next to watery places like rivers, one could spy, commune with, and learn from fairy spirits,36 of which species the little girl seems one. It is near the end of this doctrinal matter of the allegory that the river

35 The phrase with slight variation occurs a total of five times at the ends of stanzas 11–15. 36 See note to l. 177 in Cline, Yvain, p. 196. See also Heffernan, “Three Chaucerian Gardens,” 349.

420

anne scott

that separates the Father from his daughter becomes crucial in our understanding his impossible literal-mindedness,37 as well as the obstinacy, or perhaps simple desperation, that comes from his being a human being, a slave to his five senses. For, despite the little girl’s patient delivery of her religious teaching and despite the Father’s ardent willingness to comprehend her Christian lessons and to accept the inevitability of her being dead and gone, he cannot escape the vivid appearance of her material presence: Delyt me drof in yye and ere, My manes mynde to maddyng malte. Quen I sey my frely, I wolde be there, Byyonde the water thagh ho were walte. I thoght that nothyng myght me dere To fech me bur and take me halte, And to start in the strem schulde non me stere, To swymme the remnaunt, thagh I ther swalte. Bot of that munt I was bitalt. When I schulde start in the strem astraye, Out of that caste I was bycalt; Hit was not at my Princes paye. [. . .] For, ryght as I sparred unto the bonc, That braththe out of my drem me brayde. Then wakned I in that erber wlonk. [. . .] (ll. 1154–71).38

The price that the Father-Dreamer pays for trying to cross the river is the heavy cloak of his human loneliness and disconsolate thoughts once again: “My hede upon that hylle was layde / Ther as my perle to grounde strayd. / I raxled, and fel in grete affray, / And [sighed] to myself ” (ll. 1174–75).39

37 A.C. Spearing, “Symbolic and Dramatic Development in Pearl,” Modern Philology 60, no. 1 (August 1962), 8. 38 “Delight there pierced my eye and ear, / In my mortal mind a madness reigned; / When I saw her beauty I would be near, / Though beyond the stream she was retained. / I thought that naught could interfere, / Could strike me back to halt constrained, / From plunge in stream would none me steer, / Though I died ere I swam o’er what remained, / But as wild in the water to start I strained, / On my intent did quaking seize;/ From that aim recalled I was detained . . .// For right as I rushed then to the shore / That fury made my dream to fade./ I woke in that garden as before. [. . .]” (stanzas 97 and 98). 39 “My head upon that mound was laid, / Where once to earth my Pearl had strayed. / I stretched and fell in great unease, / And [sighed] to myself ” (stanza 98).

come hell or high water

421

In this sense, then, the river is not merely the “river of the water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God;40 nor is it simply a dividing line between human ignorance and divine knowledge or a physical obstacle that separates the human world from Heaven: it is also a symbol for the stubborn perceptions that trick us into thinking that they, like water, are penetrable and negotiable, when actually they are as impenetrable as stone, preventing a well-intentioned but all-too-human being from moving toward the clear and unfettered beliefs required of him to be a man of good faith, in all senses of that phrase. Finally, we have to allow that, from the author’s unique and subjective perspective, apparently shaped as it is by his personal experience of grief and loss, the river’s voice might truly be “private, audible only to [himself ],”41 and thus not open to our scrutiny or interpretation, not now or ever. As an “objective correlative”42 to the Father’s emotional state, therefore, the river seems to track as well as take on the coloration of the Father’s emotional response to the loss of his daughter, exemplifying initially that visual touchstone in his dream landscape, which helps him locate his daughter and that refreshes his hope,43 and then exemplifying a perceptual barrier that keeps the Father from seeing the daughter in her spiritual state, to becoming that thing which retreats from interpretation entirely, as he is left to ponder his existence on earth privately and alone, separate from his daughter. These ever-shifting valences attached to the river, as symbol, thus seem more integral to the poem’s meaning than any overarching allegory that could be placed upon the story’s narrative. The Miller’s Tale The Miller’s Tale44 employs water imagery as a means of demarcation as well, but, as we might expect, to vastly different, and one might say even ambiguous, ends. As a fabliau, the tale’s generic parameters—e.g., 40 Cawley, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, p. xiv; E.V. Gordon, ed., Pearl (Oxford, 1980), p. 51. 41 W.H. Herendeen, “The Rhetoric of Rivers: The River and the Pursuit of Knowledge,” Studies in Philology 78, no. 2 (Spring 1981), 107. 42 The phrase is found in Spearing, “Symbolic and Dramatic Development in Pearl,” p. 4. 43 See Stanton de Voren Hoffman, “The Pearl: Notes for an Interpretation,” Modern Philology 58, no. 2 (November 1960), 73 for a discussion of the poem as an elucidation of “spiritual dryness or interior desolation.” 44 All quotations taken from Larry Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., (Boston, 1987). Modernizations are my own.

422

anne scott

a senex amans45 husband, often ignorant and fearful; a young wife, often restless and discontent; and a man, more clever and intelligent than the husband (in this case, a “poure scoler” or clerk [ll. 3190, 3199]), with whom the young wife is willing to engage in sexual dalliance or “pleye” (l. 3660) behind the husband’s back—provide the impetus for the plot’s movement and resolution as well as its theme of cuckoldry. The tale’s focus on cuckoldry, in turn, gives rise to certain other themes and issues common to this fabliau and others, namely, class satire and those aspects of the human condition—e.g., ethics, morals, bodily appetite, and relationships—that enrich this satiric story. As shown in the Miller’s Tale, water imagery helps define these themes as well as destabilizes them, forcing us to question the entire satiric enterprise of the story itself. This fabliau is well-known for the ruse of a second flood, fabricated by “hende”(clever) Nicholas, the boarder at John the Carpenter’s house, who predicts that this flood will wash everybody away: “Shal falle a reyn, and that so wilde and wood / That half so greet was nevere Noes flood” (ll. 3517–18). The game, of course, is to get the Carpenter to hang three tubs from the rafters of the ceiling so that, when this alleged flood threatens to return, the Carpenter will be hanging safely in one of the tubs, ready to float on the flood, while the two lovers (Nicholas and the carpenter’s wife Alison) clamber out of their tubs to enjoy their mirthful sexual dalliance in rhythm to the morning church bells (ll. 3653–56). This second flood, of course, is not predicted in any medieval Bible story, apocryphal or not, and the details of the original flood that Nicholas tells the Carpenter are decidedly of low-class or popular origin, namely, a version of the flood that is peppered with the domestic squabbling of Noah and his shrewish wife that unschooled commoners might have enjoyed watching during a street corner drama.46 Nicholas’s histrionic ability to trick John into believing in this fake flood, therefore, points to the dividing line between a clever clerk and a stupid Carpenter whose knowledge of his religion only extends to his Creed (l. 3456)—a dividing line, that is, between high and low classes that fuels the tale’s humor and satire. It also drives a wedge between biblical exegetes and a clever but less educated man like Nicholas who can reinterpret and reinvent the biblical flood in such a way that calls into question the

45 46

‘Old Lover.’ See notes to ll. 3538–43 in the Riverside edition.

come hell or high water

423

authority of the Bible itself as well as the authoritative discourse of the Church Fathers whose interpretation of the biblical flood squarely supports its function as a moral agent of God against sinners and sodomites. This make-believe flood will not punish sinners but will, in fact, permit their licentious actions to occur. When water imagery re-appears in the tale, however, it is not clear which class is particularly sinful or is being retaliated against, or why. Snoring in the rafters for his “heed mislay” (l. 3647), the Carpenter is startled awake by the desperate cries of Nicholas for “Water! Water!” (l. 3815) who has been “scalded in the towte” (l. 3853) by none other than another clerk, Absolon, who has tried unsuccessfully to compete for Alison’s affections and who has just caught wind of her disgust for him in the shape of her rear-end, which she has presented to him for a mis-directed kiss (ll. 3730–37). At the mention of this word ‘water’, John comes crashing to the ground from high in the rafters, thinking the flood has indeed come, and our assumptions about the story’s satirical focus also become problematic. The Miller’s Tale being a fabliau, we fully expect the illiterate Carpenter to serve as the butt of the higherclass Nicholas’s joke or “game” (ll. 3186, 3405), as Chaucer says. And indeed, the persons who laugh at the Carpenter’s folly are members of his own illiterate peasant class, which allows Chaucer to fully rub the Carpenter’s nose in his stupidity by having his very own kind deride him. However, we also remember that it is a clerk who bests another clerk in this tale, when Absolom brands Nicholas with a hot poker; and it is the peasant woman Alison who gets the better of the clerk Absolom by having him kiss her “nether ye [eye]” (l. 3852); finally, it is the raucous peasants whose loud and gauche laughter ring in our ears when tale ends (ll. 3840, 3855), as we imagine them not just deriding John but also undermining the social structures that would have them mutely occupying their received ‘estaat’ or station in life. As John Ganim notes, the tale might well celebrate not the authoritative discourse of the higher classes but rather the cacophonous “heteroglossia” of the poorer masses.47 Although Nicholas’s shout of “Water!” works perfectly as a literary device by which Chaucer is able to join plot and subplot together and to handily tie off any loose ends of his story, any sense of a tidy thematic conclusion to the story that we might derive from this literary

47

“Bakhtin, Chaucer, Carnival, Lent,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1987), 59–71.

424

anne scott

device becomes illusory in the face of the tale’s loud celebration of class subversion or inversion when the story ends. The potential advent of a second flood and Nicholas’s cry for water thus seem to act as leveling devices that reduce all classes represented in this story to being subjected to the same derisive opinions and humor, or at the every least, suggest that as all classes scrape the bottom morally and socially in this tale through their actions and words, then it is the lower class that might well receive the privilege of laughing last. This interpretation of the Miller’s Tale has shown that the shift in the story’s satirical focus mirrors the ways in which the water motifs themselves have caused our interpretive stance to shift through the course of the fabliau: the Miller’s Tale is not so much about the pleasure that an audience experiences from laughing at a raunchy joke derived from a parody of Noah’s flood which is enjoyed at the expense of a stupid carpenter as it is about the pragmatic animal instincts that have any of us either lusting after another man’s wife or crying out for water to sooth a scalded ‘towte’, regardless of what station we occupy or whose station is being satirized: Nicholas’s cry for water at the end of the story is, in fact, no different from any man’s cry for the same, under similar conditions. Conclusion From images of a magnificent sword-hilt carved in wavy runes that relate the story of the biblical flood, to the kneading troughs hung in the rafters of a peasant’s barn as he awaits a flood that never comes, it is certainly the case that the authors of these four stories have integrated images of water into their stories in ways that enhance these genres and that inform the authors’ grasp of larger ideas and issues. But did the medieval mind actually grasp the idea of water in ways any different from our modern mind? The answer to this question is both no and yes. Although the water references in these four stories certainly tie into, and often seem to take their relevance from, the accepted Christian beliefs of the day; and although they also derive from the local color of certain geographical regions and the cultural beliefs that held sway those hundreds of years ago, it is very clear that these stories draw upon an understanding and perception of water and its physical and metaphorical properties common and accessible to all persons: namely, its ability to be both clear or opaque, clean or foul;

come hell or high water

425

its ability to both flow freely or be contained; its cleansing and soothing properties; its essential shapelessness and qualities of shifting and changing; and its dual qualities of healing and nurturing, harming and destroying. Substitute a stone cave for Grendel’s mere, or a loud brass bell for Yvain’s fountain, or a cliff or fence for the Dreamer’s river, or a loud expletive in place of Nicholas’s cry for water, and we can then appreciate more clearly that the shifting, penetrating, and mysterious nature of water becomes indispensable in each of these stories—an essential ‘vehicle’ as it were, for a great many ‘tenors’ or deeper truths about the stories’ characters and ourselves.

MAGICAL FOUNTAINS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE Misty Rae Urban From the Lake and its Lady in Arthurian romance to the ubiquitous seas voyaged over by questing kings or exiled queens, water in the Middle English romances surrounds, nourishes, defeats, and provides a medium through which romance heroes and heroines are transported and transformed. Though an element of basic necessity to human life and health, and reflecting the geographical reality of an insular, wellwatered country,1 the waters appearing in the Middle English romances never serve a purely practical function. Characters only rarely pause by pools or streams to refresh themselves or their horses, are seldom caught bathing, and are never seen doing their laundry. Instead, as Anne Scott has elegantly observed of medieval literature more generally, the waters found in the Middle English romances serve as a metaphorical medium carrying out the literary and thematic designs of a text, conveying the sediment of a deeper emotional truth.2 In particular, fountains that appear in the Middle English romances actively participate in their fictions in a number of ways, providing imaginative signposts on the literary landscape, marking narrative segments that advance plot, and acting as metaphorical catalysts that both spur and symbolize the process of transformation which the embattled hero undergoes. The magical fountains found in the romances of Floris and Blancheflour, Ywain and Gawain, and Melusine, which possess talents ranging from testing a lover’s chastity to raising a teeth-rattling storm, serve to organize the stories in which they appear by harnessing an array of subtle interpretations and movements to their seemingly innocent powers. Examining how the magical functions in these romance stage and facilitate the hero’s 1 Rosalind Field makes this point about water in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman romances, where, she points out, the “return by water [. . . is] an unavoidable concomitant of the the island setting and one that becomes a defining feature of a truly insular tale type.” See Field, “The King Over the Water: Exile-and-Return Revisited,” in Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, ed. Corinne Saunders (Cambridge, 2005), p. 43. 2 See Scott’s “Come Hell or High Water: Aqueous Moments in Medieval Epic, Romance, Allegory, and Fabliau” in this volume.

428

misty rae urban

physical, social, and psychological transformations can not only reveal how these powerful metaphors act as indices to the thematic depths of their individual stories but can also discover a stylistic complexity and a narrative sophistication that critics have been reluctant to grant the body of Middle English romances as a whole.3 A glance at the multivalent functions of other waters within the Middle English romances might help frame and illuminate the investigation into the magical fountains discussed below. In several romances, sea voyages neatly organize the thematic movements of deprivation, struggle, fight and achievement, recognition, and resolution that constitute the narrative. King Horn and Havelok the Dane both engage in sea voyages in the effort to reclaim their inheritance, and the passage by water signifies not just a transition between narrative scenery but also a movement through a deeper psychological process which the hero experiences on his quest to establish his identity and claim his inheritance.4 Middle English heroines including Emaré, Constance, and other exiled queens also travel by sea, and their watery passages divide and organize the scenes of the heroine’s testing as well as serving to reconnect all the main characters at the end. The so-called Greek Sea also figures prominently in a cluster of Middle English romances featuring exiled knights and their scattered families, especially in the tales of Octavian, Sir Isumbras, Sir Tryamour, and Sir Eglamour of Artois, in which the voyage over the Greek Sea recalls the landscape of the epic journeys undertaken by classical heroes such as Odysseus, Jason, Aeneas, and Apollonius.5 In all of these narratives, a sea voyage accommodates and underlines the 3 Thomas Han and Dana M. Symons, in their entry on the “Middle English Romance” in A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c. 1350–c. 1500, observe that in “the conventional judgement of literary histories, [. . .] this genre—arguably the most popular form of non-religious writing in medieval English—hardly deserves notice,” (ed. Peter Brown [Malden, MA, 2007], p. 341). Ad Putter and Jane Gilbert, in their introduction to The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, allude to a tradition of viewing the Middle English romance as repetitive, redundant, and designed for the lower classes, full of tags and verbal formulas that “betray the hand of the hack professional” (New York, 2000), p. 3. 4 Havelok, additionally, is one of the few Middle English romances that also portrays the sea as a source of nourishment and life. Havelok’s foster father Grim supports the family by working as a fisherman, and later in Lincoln, the young Havelok, appearing as a simple peasant, gains employment in an earl’s household by demonstrating his facility in carrying the earl’s meat up to the castle, a burden that includes a load of cuttlefish, salmon, plaice, lampreys, and eels. See G.V. Smithers, Havelok (Oxford, 1987), ll. 896–98. 5 Four Middle English Romances: Sir Isumbras, Octavian, Sir Eglamour of Artois, Sir Tryamour, ed. Harriet Hudson (Kalamazoo, MI, 1996), pp. 1–2.

magical fountains in middle english romance

429

narrative arc of separation, journey, and restoration that provides the basic plot of the medieval romance, while the liquid topography maps a symbolic inner journey of challenge, testing, and growth.6 In the first portion of the Roman de la Rose, written by Guillaume de Lorris around 1230, a modest body of water called the pool of Narcissus presents a different sort of trial: the pool serves as a ‘perilous mirror’ where a visitor reposing on its banks sees reflected various portions of the surrounding Garden of Delight. This pool functions as a specular tool of special clarity, where the reflective water amplifies what the dream-vision’s narrator has already seen: I approached the fountain, and when I was near I lowered myself to the ground to see the running water and the gravel at the bottom, clearer than fine silver. It is the fountain of fountains; there is none so beautiful in all the world. The water is always fresh and new; night and day it issues in great waves from two deep, cavernous conduits. [. . .] At the bottom of the fountain were two crystal stones [. . . and] when the sun, that sees all, throws its rays into the fountain and when its light descends to the bottom, then more than a hundred colors appear in the crystals which, on account of the sun, become yellow, blue, and red. The crystals are so wonderful and have such power that the entire place—trees, flowers, and whatever adorns the garden—appears there all in order. [. . .] There is nothing so small, however hidden or shut up, that is not shown there in the crystal as if it were painted in detail.7

In the passage following this, the poem’s narrator spots the cluster of bushes upon which reposes the object of his desire, the prim little rosebud. The pool of Narcissus serves then not just to afford a clear reflection of what the narrator has seen and knows but to introduce or 6 The same might be said of non-romance narratives that contain a sea journey. Brendan’s voyage to the Promised Land in the enormously popular medieval versions of The Voyage of St. Brendan, for instance, provides an allegory for the saint’s spiritual education and development which parallels the growth of romance heroes and heroines. 7 Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose, third ed., trans. Charles Dahlberg (Princeton, 1995), p. 51. In the continuation by Jean de Meun, the character of Genius gives a lengthy and didactic speech in which he corrects the previous reading of this exquisite fountain which offers a detailed view of every element in the garden, calling it a “perilous mirror,” “bitter and poisonous,” whose reflections mislead and distort (pp. 333–335). Genius speaks of another fountain, one which “issues from itself ” and which flows continually with waters “delicious,” “sweet,” and “pure.” The carbuncle above it shines like a sun, and the olive tree which grows over it bears a scroll announcing it “the fountain of life.” In contrast to the fountain in the Garden of Delight, which reflects the trifles and fancies of the world, all who gaze into this fountain are rewarded with not just clear but correct vision, for they “see all things in the park and understand them rightly, themselves as well” (pp. 335–337).

430

misty rae urban

reveal what was previously hidden. In producing the rosebud, the pool of Narcissus projects the image that will organize and concentrate the narrator’s desire, which drives the rest of the poem. The image of the pool, in its reflective and interpretive abilities, also replicates the poem’s allegorical project and provides a fictive lens for reading the romance’s larger philosophical concerns about vision, perception, imagination, and truth.8 Where the trees and reflective rocks accompanying Narcissus’s pool appear in later Middle English romances, they signal a literary inheritance from the Rose’s pool and its function both as a narrative device introducing the love-object into the knight’s heroic quest and as a metaphor powerfully compressing the larger themes of the poem. The lakes, streams, wells, and fountains of the Arthurian romances and Breton lais also frequently serve as testing grounds or as sites conjoining pursuing lovers with their beloveds. In a dramatic episode from Béroul’s Tristran, a ford proves the trial for La Belle Isolde’s chastity; after Tristan, disguised as a leprous beggar, carries her across the water, the Queen can claim that “no man has ever been between [her] thighs [. . . but] the leper and [her] lord, King Mark.”9 Furthermore, in the Breton lais and other Celtic myths that cast their influence over the Middle English romance, the lake or fountain customarily serves as an intersection, a space mediating this world and the Otherworld, with the female keeper acting as teacher or guide. In every case, we can read the Otherworld as a space where events and people are meant to reflect on and instruct those in the surface world of the story. In the lay of Lanval by Marie de France, for example, the drowsing hero meets his fairy patroness next to a stream.10 Though this scenic backdrop changes to a forest in the Middle English Lay of Launfal composed by Thomas of Chester, the narrative still serves to show how the fairy world out-

8 Claire Novet explains how the pool functions as a speculum mediating the vision of the poet’s “naked” eye and as an “allegory for the mirror of allegory” in “An Allegorical Mirror: The Pool of Narcissus in Guillaume de Lorris’s Romance of the Rose,” The Romantic Review 91.4 (Nov. 2000), 353–375. 9 Béroul, The Romance of Tristran, ed. and trans. Norris J. Lacy (New York, 1989), ll. 4205–4212. 10 “Fors de la vile en est eissuez; / tuz suls est en un pre venuz. / Sur une ewe curant descent” [He went forth from the city and, all alone, came to a field; by a running stream he dismounted] (ll. 43–46) and from there, down the bank of the river, he sees two damsels who summon him to their lady’s tent nearby (Karl Warnke, ed., Lais de Marie de France, trans. Laurence Harf-Lancner [Paris, 1990], p. 136).

magical fountains in middle english romance

431

classes the chivalric court of Arthur and his queen.11 A similar thematic movement unfolds in the Middle English romances when rivers, lakes, wells, or fountains serve as the places where the hero encounters his next adventure. Floris of Floris and Blancheflour learns of a magical pool that will test his lover’s chastity; both Ywain and Raymondin meet their fairy-like mistresses at or through magical fountains that index the stages of their heroic quest, act as testing ground for the hero’s chivalric and social development, and outline the boundaries of narrative spaces and fictional worlds. The special properties of these magical fountains illuminate the protagonist’s psychic transformation and throws into relief not just the complexities of the romance characters but the enduring concerns which their narratives struggle to resolve. To be sure, the magical waters of Middle English romance inherit meaning from more than just the continental and insular romances populating the literary tradition. As several essays elsewhere in this volume amply demonstrate, water in literature carries a wealth of symbolic meanings and cultural associations. For the European Middle Ages, a period deeply invested in Christian spirituality, passage through or immersion in water unavoidably evoked the ritual of baptism,12 though the rite of washing in water for purposes of spiritual purification was not a Christian invention. In an early study on magical fountains, George L. Hamilton lists an impressive number of tales known worldwide that support what he calls “the universal belief in the sacredness of certain bodies of water.”13 As Hamilton’s study suggests, water imagery affords a range of significations touching on the primordial and amorphous, 11 Helen Cooper notes that fairies often descend into Middle English romance to enable or educate the human world in the perfection of chivalry, illustrate or accommodate the flaws of human nature, and remedy failures in human systems of justice (The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare [New York, 2004], pp. 197–198). The association between fairies and fountains is discussed below. 12 D. Douglas Waters usefully summarizes the history of critical investigation into the baptism imagery associated with another magical pool in English romance, the fountain into which the Recrosse knight falls in Edmund Spenser’s Fairie Queene. He notes the tradition that the cleansing water represents not just God’s grace, the “well of life,” but also the word of God in which the Christian soul must continuously be “washed.” For Waters, see “Spenser’s ‘Well of Life’ and ‘Tree of Life’ Once More,” Modern Philology 67.1 (Aug. 1969), 67–68. For the Redcrosse Knight episode, see I.xi.29–34 of the Fairie Queene in Hugh MacLean and Anne Lake Prescott, ed., Edmund Spenser’s Poetry, third ed. (New York, 1993), pp. 144–145. 13 George L. Hamilton, “Storm-Making Springs: Rings of Invisibility and Protection—Studies on the Sources of the Yvain of Chretien de Troies,” The Romantic Review 2.4 (1911), 355.

432

misty rae urban

representing as it does a universal pre-Creation chaos in the mythologies of several cultures as well as a trope for the workings of the unconscious in the individual psyche.14 The destructive potential of water in cases of both shortage and abundance would hardly require explication to a medieval romance audience, just as its necessity for nourishment could be taken as self-evident. Set against this anthropological, literary, and theological background, the fountains of Middle English romance do far more than simply act as decorative details embellishing the narrative landscape. Rather, the magical fountain in the Middle English romance serves as a landmark that operates across several registers of meaning in the story in which it appears. Structurally, the fountain marks an intersection of narrative place and plot movement, organizing episodes of testing and challenge; thematically, it enacts and amplifies the moral and psychic dilemmas facing the characters. Symbolically, it marks a threshold, or more precisely an initiation between worlds—not in terms of the natural or supernatural but rather a journey towards meaning, away from the original, broken world of the romance story and toward the hyper-refined, idealized world that the hero achieves. The fountain is not just a stage but also a metaphor for the hero’s procession from an artificial and flawed courtly world into the more perfect, more mannered world signaled by the life-bearing fountain. In the three romances examined below, the hero’s adventures around fountains bring him into a more ordered and idealized world which the fountain itself marks as a natural, elemental state of being. Put another way, the fountain serves to naturalize the hero’s elevation by representing his mastery of, and harmony with, this primitive, and magical, source of water. Floris and Blancheflour One of the earliest existing Middle English romances, adapted from a French version in the mid-thirteenth century,15 Floris and Blancheflour 14 Sigmund Freud’s use of the term ‘oceanic’ to indicate an ultimate sense of satisfaction touches on a common perception of water as self-existing, expansive, selfsupporting, and complete in and of itself. William B. Parsons examines Freud’s use of this term and its implications in “The Oceanic Feeling Revisited,” The Journal of Religion 78.4 (Oct. 1998), 501–523. 15 The most recent edition of the Middle English romance, as the time of this printing, appears in Sentimental and Humorous Romances: Floris and Blancheflour, Sir Degrevant,

magical fountains in middle english romance

433

offers a singular instance where a body of water serves as a chastity test. Floris, heir to a Saracen king of Spain, pursues his childhood love, the beautiful Blancheflour, to Babylon, where the slave merchants to which his parents sold her have delivered her into the harem of the Emir. There she is enclosed in a high tower at once impervious to attack and, as it will turn out to Floris’s benefit, not heavily guarded. When Floris arrives in the city, the guardian of the bridge, a porter named Dares, describes to the prince the floor plan of the tower and the enchanted orchard, encased in walls of crystal, which contains two special features. One is a well in which the streams issue from Paradise, and the gravel of the streambed is composed of precious stones including sapphires and sardonyx, topaz and chalcedony. The well has this ingenious power: if an unchaste woman tries to wash her hands in this stream, the water will boil up, turn red as blood, and, in some versions, give a loud yell. For pure maids, the water remains quiet, fair, and clear. Over the special well stands the most beautiful tree on earth, the Tree of Love, which sheds its blossoms only on the maiden destined to become the Emir’s next bride. Despite the elaborate description given it, this magical fountain appears only once in the tale, in the context of Dares’s conversation with Floris. Neither Floris nor Blancheflour, in the remainder of the narrative, ever enters the orchard; the well’s powers are never put to use. Upon first reading, the chastity-testing well seems nothing but a gratuitous detail that lends atmosphere and color, spicing up Dares’s narrative. However, the imagined well occupies a place of structural prominence in terms of the narrative’s episodes. The conversation between Floris and Dares takes place on a bridge, which represents a liminal space or place of passage. Separating the thematic movements of quest and achievement, this inflated narrative moment imaginatively dwells on the tests confronting Floris in the form of the Emir’s barricaded tower, of which the well forms the figural center. Futhermore, the well and its diagnostic powers enhance the renown of the Emir who possesses such mystical resources, just as he employs another ingenious, water-based feature of the palace that inspires awe—its plumbing. As Dares describes it:

The Squire of Low Degree, The Tournament of Tottenham, and The Feast of Tottenham, ed. Erik Kooper (Kalamazoo, MI, 2006). Though the surviving manuscripts are all of later date, the first English adaptation probably appeared c. 1250.

434

misty rae urban In þe tur þer is a walle; Suþe clere hit is wiþalle; He urneþ in o pipe of bras, Whider-so hit ned was. Fram flore into flore Þe strimes urneþ store, Fram bure into hall, Þe strimes of þis walle.16 In the tower is a well, extremely clear all throughout, which runs in a pipe of brass wherever it may be needed. The streams of this well run rapidly from floor to floor, from inner chambers into the hall.17

Not only is the Emir capable of harnessing water—clear, useful water— for practical purposes, but he is able to turn other aqueous reserves to his own ends, in this case in using them to fulfill his erotic objectives by identifying the girl most suited to become his next wife.18 The magical pool in the orchard is described in this way: Yif a woman com that is forlaught And she be do to the streeme For to weshe her hondes clene, The water wille yelle as it were woode And bicome as red as bloode. On what maide the water fareth so, Sone she shall to deth be do, Tho that been maidens clene, They may wesh therein, I wene; The water woll stonde faire and clere; To hem maketh it no daungere.19

16 Cambridge University Library Gg.4.27.2, fol.2r. In Floris and Blauncheflur, ed. F.C. De Vries (Amsterdam, 1966), ll. 223–230; in Floris and Blauncheflour, ed. A.B. Taylor (Oxford, 1927), ll. 645–652; in “Floriz and Blauncheflur” in Middle English Romances, ed. A.C. Gibbs (London, 1966), ll. 111–118. Gibbs, de Vries and Taylor agree that ‘walle’ in the MS should read ‘welle.’ 17 All translations are my own. 18 This passage about the indoor well only appears in one of the four extant versions of the Middle English poem: that contained in Cambridge University Library MS Gg.iv.27.2. The description is omitted from versions of the story appearing in British Library MS Egerton 2862, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius D.iii, and the Auchinleck manuscript. Gibbs suggests that the narrator’s rather vague description of this functioning water-system reflects how the “domestic and sanitary arrangements of the Saracens were a source of wonder to Western Europe,” Middle English Romances, p. 80. Perhaps it was thought an unnecessary detail by other scribes, or perhaps the free-flowing water for domestic purposes diminished the powers of the Paradise-fed stream able to test female chastity. 19 “Floris and Blancheflour” in Middle English Verse Romances, ed. Donald B. Sands (New York, 1966), ll. 618– 628. Cambridge Gg. 4.27.2 suggests that, for the unclean

magical fountains in middle english romance

435

If a woman comes who is unchaste, and she bends down to the stream to wash her hands, the water will yell as if it were crazed and turn as red as blood. For whatever maid the water does so, she will immediately be put to death, but those who are pure maids may wash there safely, I suppose. The water will stand fair and clear; it presents no danger for them.

The well, interestingly, can detect impurity by hands alone. The shout and the discoloration announce an imposter, signaling that only maidenly intactness is appropriate for a girl ranking as candidate for bridal selection. The turning of water to a liquid resembling blood carries a conventional association of pollution, with the pure waters reflecting the infectious blood of a crime,20 but it also carries apocalyptic connotations.21 The crime of hymeneal loss, presumably marked by blood in its commission and blood-colored water in it detection, can only be expiated by the blood of capital punishment, itself a murder. The test of the pool makes clear that the possession of intact hymen is, for the Emir’s purposes in particular but perhaps nuptial imperatives more generally, a matter of life and death. The narrative moment stages an imaginative testing of Blancheflour, in a way confirming her legitimacy as the love-object of Floris’s quest, and also awards her a trial parallel to Floris’s challenge of scaling the Emir’s lofty tower, which likewise confirms her adequacy as his match and mate. While the expensive and exquisite stones that pave the Emir’s stream borrow from the same tradition informing the crystalline pool in the Roman de la Rose, its other aspects mark the influence of Greek narratives

maiden, the water will whelm up and actually change from water into blood, but where this MS has ‘bulmeþ,’ the other three manuscripts present forms of ‘yellen.’ (See De Vries, Floris and Blauncheflur, pp. 94–97). In these three versions, the well is described first, before the testing by the tree; only Gg. 4.27.2 switches the order to describe the Tree of Love first, then the function of the hand-washing well. 20 The notion that water could turn colors to reflect the commission of a crime is not strictly a medieval idea. Morley J. Helfand observes a notice in the Los Angeles Times of March 18, 1957, which stated that residents near Lake Albano, near Rome, believed that the lake’s waters had turned red not due to an aquatic growth but as a consequence of the unsolved murder of a woman which had taken place on its banks two years prior. “Lake Turns Red,” Western Folklore 16.3 ( July 1957), p. 213. 21 Waters turning to blood act as portents in both Testaments of the Christian Bible; in Exodus 7:14–24, the Nile turns to blood as one of the plagues sent to convince the Egyptian Pharoah to free his Hebrew slaves, and in Revelations 8:8–9, a third of the seas become blood when the second angel blows his trumpet. See Michael D. Coogan, ed., The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third ed, New Revised Standad Version (Oxford, 2001), p. 93 and p. 432.

436

misty rae urban

on the romance.22 In the fragment known as Alexander B, the river that flows from Paradise is the Pison, or Ganges, and is full not of precious stones but of “dredful dragonus,” “[a]ddrus & ypotamus & oþure ille wormus, & careful cocodrillus.”23 The association of the Paradiseflowing stream with the Alexander romances enhances the danger this water poses to an impure maiden in Floris and Blancheflour. A chastitytesting well also appears in the Greek romance Clitophon and Leucippe, where sexual purity is likewise crucial to the love-pursuit.24 Maidens and water have a slightly different relationship in two other Middle English romances; in the version of Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild from the Auchinleck manuscript, Horn tells Rimenhild to look into the well in her garden to determine his fidelity to her. If she sees his shadow, she must believe he is bound to marry another, but if she does not see his shadow, “Than chaungeth never mi thought, / For no woman olive.”25 In an episode from Bevis of Hampton, Bevis, battling a dragon, finds reprieve in a nearby pool that became sanctified when a virgin bathed in it. The water is so holy that the dragon cannot come within forty feet of the well.26 When read against one another, the intersection of these narrative moments invites the suggestion that the chastity-testing stream in Floris and Blancheflour is far more than a holdover from the story’s Eastern analogues. In referencing other romances with which medieval English audiences might be familiar, the magical well functions as an intertextual symbol that confirms Floris’s situation within a romance narrative and puts him in the company of other knights who have braved magical, dangerous, or clairvoyant waters. 22 See Gerald Martin Bordman, Motif-Index of the English Metrical Romances, FF Communications Vol. 79 No. 190 (Helsinki, 1963), pp. 33 and 40, for a listing of all appearances of magical waters in Middle English romance. 23 Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Walter W. Skeat, Early English Text Society Extra Series 31 (London, 1878), ll. 140–158. Rather than attempt to cross this creature-infested river, Alexander halts his army, sets up camp, and strikes up a written correspondence with Dindamus, king of the Brahmans, who lives on the other side of the dragons, hippopotami, and other exotic threats. 24 Taylor, Floris and Blauncheflour, p. 81. 25 “Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild” in Ancient English Metrical Romances, ed. Joseph Ritson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1885), p. 231. Rimnild in turn gives Horn a ring with a clairvoyant stone which can tell him when she has fallen in love with another or lost her maidenhead. 26 The well offers Bevis a moment of refreshment and later saves his life when, battered and well-nigh dead from wounds and venom, the dragon’s tail knocks Bevis into the well. At once the water removes the venom, heals our hero’s inujuries, and restores his courage, and he emerges to a triumphant victory. “Bevis of Hampton” in Four Romances of England, ed. Herzman, Drake, and Salibury, ll. 2785–2858.

magical fountains in middle english romance

437

Last but not least, the well of chastity, as an obstacle to our hero’s quest, serves the useful narrative function of heightening tension; Floris must reach his lady before the Emir’s selection process gets underway. Further, this dilated moment around the fountain allows the audience to dwell on the importance of the heroine’s chastity, which is, along with her birth and beauty, key to determining Blancheflour’s fitness as a suitable love-object. At the same time, the narrative moment is a testing of Floris himself. This description of the initiation into sexual love prepares him for the reunion with his lady once he is smuggled into the tower in a basket of flowers. While he stands on the bridge, Floris lingers in an exterior space of suspension and frustrated longing, but he will soon enjoy the interior space of reconciliation—indeed, the Emir will find Floris in Blancheflour’s bed, which certainly ruins her for the chastity test. The Paradise-fed waters, precious stones, and magical attendant tree draw Floris and Blancheflour into a landscape that signals, like the Garden of Delight in the Roman de la Rose, the refinement, beauty, and unparalleled virtue of a love both soulful and rewardingly sexual. The magical well enters this poem mainly to stage a psychic transition, translating Floris’s emotional state from one of anxious seeking to a calm, pure, even transcendent achievement of his quest. In this way, the fountain foreshadows Floris’s initiation into both eros and proper marriage, associating each with the edenic garden and the magical well to imply they are a natural, God-ordained, even paradisiacal state of being. Ywain and Gawain Scott’s analysis of the magical fountain in the French romance Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes excellently captures how the fountain “becomes a focal point for this story’s organization and themes.”27 In Ywain and Gawain, a free adaptation of the French original,28 the fountain’s qualities and storm-making abilities are retained in the Middle English version

“Come Hell or High Water,” in this volume. The poem exists in a single manuscript, British Library MS Cotton Galba E.ix. The mauscript version reflects a Northern dialect, written down in the early fifteenth century, but most editors agree that the poem was composed in the early to midfourteenth century. See Sir Perceval of Galles and Ywain and Gawain, ed. Mary Flowers Braswell (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995), p. 77. 27 28

438

misty rae urban

with minor but significant alterations. As with the magical water in Floris, the fountain acts as a site mediating two worlds, one a world of lack and the other a world of fulfillment. A lively set of imaginative associations and debates surrounds the magical storm-making fountain in Chrétien’s Yvain in the critical tradition, but less interest has been paid the appearance of the same fountain in the Middle English romance, perhaps because Ywain and Gawain is generally considered less stylistically accomplished than its French source. Many of the critical observations apply to both fountains by elucidating sources for both the magical-water motif and the fairy-mistress-of-the-fountain motif in earlier tradition and folklore. As Mark Munn makes clear elsewhere in this volume, water in early Mediterranean sources often proves the domain of a powerful female figure who can grant sovereignty and shape destiny, a power shared by many naiads of Celtic lore. Storm-making or otherwise portentous waters feature in a variety of ancient and medieval literatures, many of which it is highly possible that both Chrétien and his English redactor were entirely ignorant.29 Broad surveys of the fountain’s analogues in other literature eventually reach the conclusion made by Albert C.L. Brown that Chrétien reworked an archaic fairy story with “no clear conceptions of the meaning which the fairy material that he used bore to its first hearers. Certainly he has obscured the original meaning of this material almost entirely, and was intent only on working out a story of strange adventure, that should depict some of the very newest and latest ideals of twelfth-century society.”30 At its simplest, we might read 29 W.A. Nitze, in an early study on fountains in medieval romance, observes a long heritage of classical traditions involving what he calls the “fountain-cult” and suggests Chrétien was working with ancient Gallo-Roman material; see “The Fountain Defended,” Modern Philology 7.2 (1909), 147. Louise B. Morgan observes a series of magical or otherwise oddly-performing fountains drawn from the medieval encyclopedists and suggests they may have contributed to the folkloric background about fountains from which Chrétien drew; see “The Source of the Fountain-Story in the Ywain,” Modern Philology 6.3 (1909), 331–341. 30 Albert C.L. Brown, “Chrétien’s ‘Yvain,’ ” Modern Philology 9.1 (1911), 125. Robert Kellogg offers an explanation for why traditional material incorporated in modernized stories can baffle any attempts to impose a coherent interpretation: “Traditional art amalgamates the present and the past, preserving elements it no longer clearly understands because they have been passed down, comfortable with archaism and anachronism, and yet continuously avoiding a debilitating decadence by gradually filling old images with new significance when intelligibility and relevance require it.” (“Varieties of Tradition in Medieval Narrative,” in Medieval Narrative: A Symposium,

magical fountains in middle english romance

439

the appearance of a magical, guarded fountain in a fourteenth-century Middle English romance as an archaic piece of staging meant to evoke a distant past and a marvelous landscape that exists “simply to engage the imagination of the reader.”31 Nitze later closed the source debate and offered what has more or less become the accepted argument by suggesting that Chrétien drew his conception of the magical fountain from the twelfth-century AngloNorman poet Wace’s Roman du Rou, linked two ancient and independent motifs of the magical spring and the water-guarding otherworldly mistress, and put their narrative potential to the service of a thematic design addressing Yvain’s moral rehabilitation and redemption.32 The arc of education and moral process also informs interpretations of the fountain that are less concerned with literary or geographical analogues and more invested in tracing the symbolic imagery and effects of its powers.33 While, as Scott has pointed out, the French romance leaves open the question of just how much Yvain has changed, in the Middle English version, Ywain progressively develops from a hot-head who precipitously engages in self-aggrandizing battles into a mature knight who fights aggressors, champions the oppressed, and behaves with becoming humility.34 The fountain plays an assured and constant

ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Peter Foote, Andreas Haarder, and Preben Meulengracht Sorensen [Odense, 1979], p. 122). 31 Timothy S. Jones and David A. Sprunger, ed., Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations (Kalamazoo, MI, 2002), p. xxii. 32 William A. Nitze, “Yvain and the Myth of the Fountain,” Speculum 30, no. 2 (1955), 170–179. 33 Maxwell S. Luria proposes that the storm figures the Christian ritual of baptism in “The Storm-making Spring and the Meaning of Chrétien’s Yvain,” Studies in Philology 64, no. 4 (1967), 564–585. M.L. Carter argues that the episode enacts a psychological process where the romance forest stands in for a “preconscious realm” and the violent storm that follows Yvain’s “tampering with the magic spring” symbolizes the “untamed passions that threaten the artificial structure of courtly society as well as the deeper commitment to the welfare of his fellow-men that Yvain finally achieves;” see “The Psychological Symbolism of the Magic Fountain and the Giant Herdsman in Yvain,” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, General Fantasy and Mythic Studies 11.3, no. 41 (1985), 30. Anne Wilson also reads the violent activity of the fountain as a device that advances what she calls the “magical plot” of the narrative, a series of movements that perform the psychological process of exorcising the guilt Yvain feels for killing the fountain’s guardian, but she views the fountain as having an “inconstant character” that changes according to the narrator’s requirements. See The Magical Quest: The Use of Magic in Arthurian Romance (New York, 1988), p. 61. 34 Braswell, Ywain and Gawain, p. 79.

440

misty rae urban

role in advancing the hero on his quest, beginning with the episode wherein Ywain’s fellow-knight and kinsman, Colgrevance, recounts his encounter with a giant herdsman who instructs him as to the qualities of this special body of water. Like the extraordinary water in Floris and Blancheflour, this fountain— consistently described as a well in the Middle English version—stands under the fairest tree in all creation. A small chapel (which will figure in the story later) stands in the middle distance. A basin of gold hangs next to the fountain, and the instructions regarding the basin’s usage are these: By the well standes a stane; Tak the bacyn sone onane And cast on water with this hand, And sone thou sal se new tithand. A storme sal rise and a tempest Al obout, by est and west; Thou sal here mani thonor-blast Al obout the blawand fast. And thare sal cum slik slete and rayne That unnese sal thou stand ogayne; Of lightnes sal thou se a lowe, Unnethes thou sal thi selven knowe. And if thou pas withowten grevance, Than has thou the fairest chance, That ever yit had any knyght, That theder come to kyth his myght.35 By the well stands a stone. Take the basin and at once cast water over it [the stone], and immediately you will see a novel event. A storm shall rise and a tempest [rise] from east and west; many thunder-blasts will blow all about you. There will come such sleet and rain that you will have difficulty standing against it; such bright flashes of light will you behold that you shall hardly know yourself. And if you can get through this without injury, then you have the best chance yet of any knight who came to that place to obtain power and victory.

In Ywain and Gawain, this exchange importantly sets up the main impetus for Ywain’s adventures; he will immediately proceed to the fountain and raise a storm himself, then fight, pursue, and defeat the fearsome

35

Ibid., ll. 333–348.

magical fountains in middle english romance

441

knight who gallops out of the forest to challenge all comers. However, this storm also makes a crucial thematic statement about the nature of Ywain’s quest. The translation given here does not do justice to the full number of meanings compounded in this passage. ‘Lightnes,’ here in the context of lightning produced by storms, can also mean more generally brightness, splendor, radiance, but also ‘enlightenment’ or ‘spiritual insight,’ according to the Middle English Dictionary.36 To ‘kyth his myght’ could be as simple as “to do great deeds”, but ‘might’ could refer to courage and fortitude, military dominion, physical strength, or moral ability and virtue. ‘Myght’ can equally refer to miraculous power, the strength of God, or one of the nine orders of angels. ‘Kyth’ can hold several meanings: to chase, capture, or grasp, more commonly, but it can also mean to feel, to experience, or to receive. Thus the experience Colgrevance describes, and which Ywain later has, could be anything from a physical test to a spiritual experience. The Middle English poet also introduces a darker tone into this passage than the more playful description in the original. In Chrétien’s version, the giant herdsman whom Colgrevance interrogates promises that when water is poured on the stone, “La venras une tel tempeste, / Qu’en chest bos ne remaurra beste, / Chevreus ne dains ne chiers ne pors; / Nis li oisel s’en istront hors” (So you will begin such a terrible storm that no animal will remain in the forest; the deer, wild boars, and birds will disappear at once]).37 The storm is a noisy event that frightens the animals. In the Middle English, the storm is a test of self-knowing; the weather’s intensity endangers and disorders both the inner and outer senses. In this way the storm prefigures Ywain’s later madness, in which he loses all sense of self and has to be healed by means of a magic ointment. The points at which the fountain appears in the narrative also hints at its larger purpose. The major plot episodes in Ywain and Gawain roughly map out as follows:

See the Middle English Dictionary provided online through the Midde English Compendium (Ann Arbor, 1998), http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med/. 37 Chrétien de Troyes, “Le Chevalier au Lion” in Romans, Classiques Modernes: Le Livre de Poche (Paris, 1994), ll. 395–398. Translation is my own. 36

442 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

misty rae urban court: narrator’s introduction to his story fountain: Colgrevance recounts his encounter with the knight court: Ywain sneaks away to the storm-making fountain fountain: Ywain defeats the unknown fountain knight court: Ywain, with the help of her maiden Lunet, marries Alundyne fountain: Ywain fights and defeats Kay court: Ywain entertains Arthur Ywain and Gawain joust abroad court: damsel accuses Ywain of vow-breaking woods: Ywain wanders in madness woods: damsel heals hero with ointment court: Ywain defeats treacherous earl woods: Ywain finds and saves lion fountain: Ywain finds imprisoned Lunet castle: Ywain defeats giant and delivers Gawain’s sister fountain: Ywain does battle as Lunet’s champion castle: Ywain defeats two devils’ sons court: Ywain fights Gawain in disguise fountain: Ywain raises magical storm; Lunet rides to meet him court: Ywain reconciled with wife Alundyne; truth and love restored

As this sketch suggests, the fountain and its wilderness setting provide a structural counterpoint to courtly settings wherein the hero learns a new code of chivalry and justice. As in Floris and Blancheflour, the fountain foreshadows a change in emotional state for the hero: the violent battle he will undergo, the violent love into which he will fall, and the trials he will subsequently undertake to redeem himself for unwittingly breaking his vow to return to his lady after a year of absence. The fountain also marks the points in the narrative where the hero encounters the confrontations in which he turns from vanquishing other ladies’ lords to behaving as the protector and defender of ladies. The knight who rode out alone in the beginning to win glory, Ywain at the end only survives his adventures and regains Alundyne’s favor through the loyal service of his companion lion and the equally loyal service of Lunet, his wife’s trusted confidante. The last time Ywain returns to the fountain and raises its magical storm, it is Lunet who rides forth to meet him. Lunet’s replacing the knight as champion of the fountain signals that his new qualities of courtesy and courtliness are those necessary to restore Ywain to his place as Alundyne’s husband, champion, and the new protector of the fountain, which metonymically stands in for both land and lady, the demesne it is now Ywain’s duty to defend. As part of the fountain’s consistency, the last storm Ywain raises at the fountain is just like the first one, but described in slightly different terms:

magical fountains in middle english romance

443

He kest water opon the stane: The storm rase ful sone onane, The thoner grisely gan outbrest; Him thoght alse the grete forest And al that was obout the well Sold have sonken into hell.38 He cast water upon the stone; the storm arose at once, and the thunder burst out frightfully. He feared the whole forest and all that surrounded the well should have sank straight into the ground.

Here ‘hell’ carries the association with the conventional Christian hell, a place of damnation, and as with the earlier instance, the language presents a metaphor describing Ywain’s state of mind. Even though he has recovered from a period of madness, has spent years abroad jousting and fighting, and is presumably much more stable in his mind and emotions, the storm once against stages a crucial test. As the earlier appearance of the fountain introduced Ywain’s crisis of self-knowing and potentially the test of spiritual enlightenment that awaited him, here he awaits a judgment that might end with his being cast out, again, of the society he craves. Throughout the tale, the fountain gains in metaphorical meaning, until by this point it requires only the merest mention for readers to understand that Ywain is translating to one more new state. The fountain serves not just as the indicator of but the cause of Ywain’s metamorphoses; the fountain has its own agency, is a challenger in and of itself. The magical well not only organizes narrative episodes but also administers its soul-shaking storm to those who desire entry into Alundyne’s world. The knight who survives these tests without defeat emerges with greater self-knowing and increased opportunities for wealth, status, and marital happiness, but the tests do not become easier in proportion to Ywain’s developing prowess. Posessing a judgment of its own, the fountain stands at the threshold of and mediates the passage between two very different fictional worlds. In one, the world of Arthur’s court, knights quarrel, try to steal glory from one another, and put all their stock in deeds of battle; Gawain, for example, lures his cousin away from his new bride with threats that he will become soft through inaction. The second world, into which Ywain first aggressively demands entrance by pursuing and hacking at the resident champion and into which he is finally repatriated only through the wiles of a

38

Braswell, Ywain and Gawain, ll. 3841–3846.

444

misty rae urban

clever handmaiden, is a hyper-idealized, almost fairy-like world where retainers idolize their mistress and show zealous, if over-protective, service to her. The tale of Ywain and Gawain charts Ywain’s evolution from bachelor knight to landed squire and king, incorporating him at last into the socially instrumental dyad of husband-wife, lord-lady, ruler-demesne through a series of passages presided over by a magical fountain which can unleash all the most powerful forces of nature but also, in its function as a well, harnesses the natural element to the uses of human civilization, the service of human needs. The fountain proves to be not only the property site most vulnerable to breach, most in need of a defense that can stabilize chivalric loyalties and establish aristocratic ownership, but also a guarantor of social prosperity; once the fountain falls quiet, all the key players—Ywain and Alundyne, Lunet and the lion—live out their lives “[i]n joy and blis.”39 Melusine The opening chapters of the Middle English translation of the French prose Mélusine, “englisht around 1500,”40 contain a parade of fountains that serve as the structural underpinning of and unifying metaphor for several versions of the unfortunate-knight-meets-providential-fairymistress story. Two sets of lovers meet and fall in love at fountains before ever the main characters, Raymondin and Melusine, are introduced. When their story does commence, it is clear their destiny will follow the path established by the earlier couples: they will fall in love, test one another, hold their marriage, win their land, and then build a magnificent castle where they will not in fact live happily ever after but instead will live happily for some time and then endure a tragic, inevitable separation. In Raymondin and Melusine’s case, they will also amass great wealth, acquire several estates, and spawn ten formidable sons. The story writ large uses the myth of a supernatural ancestor to explain the might of the Lusignans, a powerful medieval dynasty, as well as their gradual decline in France by the time that the French prose author, Jean d’Arras, was writing (c. 1387–1393). In the work of

Ibid., ll. 4020–4026. According to A.K. Donald, ed., Melusine, Early English Text Society Extra Series 68 (1895; reprint Millwood, NY, 1981). 39 40

magical fountains in middle english romance

445

the unknown English author preparing a translation a century later, perhaps for print,41 the problems of human nature and destiny, God’s inscrutable will, and the meaning of marvelous events gain greater focus. Especially dramatic in the English text is the transformation of the halffairy Melusine from a lamia figure who has the body of a serpent from the waist down—a shape she acquired by way of her mother’s curse in consequence of Melusine’s rebellion against her human father, and the reason she makes Raymondin promise never to see her on Saturdays—into a flying dragon who calls out with a woman’s voice and who circles the fortress of Lusignan three days before death or misfortune is about to befall one of her descendants. In the English Melusine, the sequence of four meaningful, magical fountains that cascade majestically through the initial episodes act as narrative markers anchoring its key themes, images that lend a deeper level of interpretation to the story’s events, and mini-allegories in themselves for the broader questions of how human life maps out and acquires meaning under the control of an omnipotent Christian God. The first three fountains that appear in the narrative inherit as much from a tradition of medieval historiography that identifies mysterious bodies of water throughout Celtic lands42 as from a well-developed body of Celtic myth that binds supernatural women to a pool, well, fountain, or spring where they, in pre-Christian times, most likely served as patron goddesses.43 Much like the sovereignty-granting women of pagan mythology, identified by Munn, the Christianized fairies of the 41 Wynkyn de Worde prepared and issued a printed version of the English prose romance in 1510, which is recorded in A.W. Pollard and G.R. Regrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640, second ed. revised & enlarged, vol. 2 (London, 1976–1991). Four pages of this edition, the only other evidence of this printing, now reside in the Oxford University Bodleian Library collection. The English prose manuscript survives intact as British Library MS Royal 18 B.ii. 42 One such, the fountain of Berenton in the Amorican forest of Broceliande, is described by Wace in Book III of the Roman de Rou. The Historia Britonum attributed to the eighth-century Welsh historian Nennius features several bodies of water with supernatural properties. Lawman’s early-thirteenth-century English Brut also contains its share of magical waters, one of them a lake in the vicinity of Scotland, dug by elves in a neat rectangle, where four different kinds of fish keep to their separate four corners without ever intermingling. See Brut, trans. Rosamund Allen (London, 1993), ll. 10971–984. 43 A visit to the Roman Baths at Bath, England, easily proves the regard in which the ancient spring’s patron goddess, Sulis, was held even through the Roman occupation by the number of votive offerings and prayer tablets inscribed to her that have been recovered from the waters.

446

misty rae urban

medieval romance enter the human world to render aid where needed, correct injustice where necessary, or bestow wealth and prosperity along with sexual companionship.44 In addition to her power to influence a single human destiny in particular, the fountain-damsel of romance often has the ability to shape or at least understand human events on a larger scale, gifted as she is with superior knowledge and, often, prophetic gifts recalling those belonging to the Latin goddesses of human destiny, the Parcae or Fates.45 These cultural associations of the fountain as both evidence for a greater power and the intersection of the fairy and human worlds clearly inform the author’s strategic placement of the fountains in the narrative of Melusine. By the time a medieval reader or listener hears the stories of the meeting of Melusine’s parents, the fairy Pressyne and Elynas, King of Albany, as well as the adventures of Raymondin’s father, the Earl of Forestz, with his first wife—both alliances that were structured around a meeting at a fairy fountain—it is clear that the fountain itself has been established as a synecdoche for a larger story involving a supernatural wife, a marriage structured on a taboo, and a subsequent betrayal or quarrel which generally leads to the collapse of the mortal husband’s fortune and prosperity. The marriage of Elynas and Pressyne dissolves when Elynas violates the taboo to see her in childbed, which also applies to her lying-in period. Upon the birth of triplet girls—Melusine, Melior, and Palatyne—the king is so excited that he bursts into Pressyne’s chamber to congratulate her. She is bathing the babies—a practical, motherly thing to do, but not the only time that a bath serves as the site of betrayal in this tale—and upon his explosive entrance Pressyne immediately removes herself and her daughters to the ‘lost isle’ of Avalon to raise them in exile. Her childhood spent on a mythical island famous in Celtic myth and English romance helps reinforce Melusine’s other-worldly provenance and connections and also suggests a mythic 44 It is worth noting that the fairy mistress does not always require a fountain to attract her mortal admirer. The Melusine author describes the meeting between Robert du Chastel Roussel and his supernatural wife thusly: the “knight by auenture on an euen founde oon of the fayree in a medowe / and world haue had her to his wyf.” Here the condition upon which she assents is “that neuer he shuld see her naked;” Donald, Melusine, p. 5. The story of Robert du Chastel Roussel effectively retells the story of Raimondus given by Gervase of Tilbury in the Otia Imperialia I.15. For the Latin story and its English translation see Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S.E. Banks and J.W. Binns (Oxford, 2002), pp. 88–91. 45 Laurence Harf-Lancner, “Fairy Godmothers and Fairy Lovers,” in Arthurian Women: A Casebook, ed. Thelma S. Fenster (New York, 1996), pp. 133–51.

magical fountains in middle english romance

447

association for the other watery landscapes in this text. In the case of Raymondin’s parents, the Earl of Forestz’s fairy wife is not actually Raymondin’s mother; she leaves the earl after a quarrel and he marries a daughter of the Earl of Poitou, who gives him three sons (in turn, not in a multiple birth), the third of which is Raymondin. The subtle yet not exact parallels of their births and childhoods help illuminate both the inevitability with which the narrative brings Raymondin and Melusine together and the fundamental differences which eventually drive them apart. In these early scenes, the fountain provides a visual image that links and explicates this story type, setting up key expectations for the introduction of the third fountain, where Melusine and Raymondin meet. This fountain is, provocatively enough, named the Fountain of Soif, or Thirst, a name which amplifies its role as both stage and metaphor for the ambition held by its half-fairy attendant and the desire provoked in the knight-adventurer who comes across it. Raymondin, having accidentally killed his uncle while hunting a boar, rides through the forest in a kind of daze, and around midnight: he aprouched nygh to a fontayne of fayerye, named þe fontayne of soyf / And many one of the Countre þer about called hit the fontayne of fayerye, bycause that many a meruaylle fell & happed there many tymes in tyme passed. And was this fontaynne in a wounderfull & meruayllous place / and ouer it was a roch of meruayllous height / and al alonge the said Fontaynne was a fayre medowe, nygh to the high Forest.46

The fountain and its clear designation as ‘of fayerye’ declares the intrusion of the marvelous into Raymondin’s life, just as the adjectives describing the place, the rock, the meadow and the forest all enhance the beauty of the scene and prepare the ground for a wonderful event. Raymondin comes to the fountain troubled by “the gret dysplaysaunce that he had within hym self,” so removed from the normal state of perception that he takes no note either of the marvelous fountain or the three ladies disporting themselves there, so “pensefull & heuy of herte [. . .] that he ne wyst where he was, ne whither he went / ne in no manere he ledd hys hors / but his hors ledd hym where that he wold [. . . he] herd ne saw nought / so sore was hys wit troubled.”47 In fact he is so absent-minded at this point that Melusine has to address

46 47

Donald, Melusine, p. 27. Ibid., 27–28.

448

misty rae urban

him twice, and then tug on his hand, before he “awaketh hym fro slepe.”48 This sleep might well constitute all of Raymondin’s life prior to this moment, for Melusine bursts upon his vision with unparalleled glory: “he beheld her, and perceyued the gret beaulte that was in her, and toke of hit grett meruyall, For it semed to hym that neuer byfore he had not seen none so fayre.”49 The marvel that is Melusine simply duplicates, in mobile form, the marvel of the fountain which comes to provide his link to her; they share their magical associations, and wondrous powers, between them. As in the test of self-knowing imposed on Ywain, the magical fountain marks the site of Raymondin’s awakening to a profound change in the course of his destiny, for, as Melusine assures him, she is “she after god that may best counseylle [him] / and that may furthre and enhaunse [him] in this mortal lyf.”50 The story pattern of the providential fairy’s entrance into the course of human events, marked by the statuesque figure of the magical fountain, has so far not been disturbed; nor, in its shadow, does Melusine’s condition on their marriage that Raymondin never attempt to see her, or inquire after her on Saturdays, seem malignant. The Fountain of Soif becomes a narrative rendezvous point as Melusine plots out Raymondin’s restoration to favor in the court of Forestz as his cousin assumes the title of the uncle Raymondin mistakenly killed, a disaster for which, thanks to Melusine’s wise counsel, Raymondin will never be punished. From halting the decline of his fortunes, Melusine turns to building them; she advises Raymondin to win a grant of land from the new Earl of Forestz with the old trick of asking for no more than can be compassed by the hide of a deer. Melusine arranges for Raymondin to purchase a deerskin cut into strips which will then magically encompass not only the rock with the fountain but a good share of the meadow and the rich valley beneath it.51 At this point a fourth fountain appears in the narrative, this of a quite different Ibid., 29. Ibid., 29. 50 Ibid., 30. 51 Lawman describes how Hengist, the Saxon warrior, wins an estate from the British King Vortigern by using the same trick in Brut, ll. 7079–98. Dido purchased the land upon which to build Carthage by bargaining for “a tract / They could enclose with one bull’s hide;” see book I of Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York, 1990), ll. 501–4. Later retellings added the detail that Dido had cleverly cut the hide into small strips; it appears in the Roman d’Eneas, a source probably known to Jean d’Arras if not the English translator of Melusine. Nadia Margolis notes that the shared story puts Melusine in a tradition of ingenious but doomed women; see “Myths in 48 49

magical fountains in middle english romance

449

character: where the ends of the cord meet, Melusine says there “shel sprying out of the roche a fayre fountaynne, which in tyme to comme shalbe full necessary and conuenable.”52 Also a fountain, much like the fountain of Soif, this water shall be defined not by its marvelous location or associated events but by its ability to supply human needs and wants. Melusine, herself an image of the Celtic fée or mermaid who belongs to a liquid domain,53 introduces a new kind of magical water that no longer serves the fairy world but instead serves human ends, in a manner that recalls the divine agency behind Moses’s striking a rock in the wilderness to provide the Israelites with water.54 Melusine’s prediction comes true when, as Raymondin carries out the surveying, “there sprange at [the] ende of the said thong a fayr fontayn, the which rendred so moche of watre that a ryuere wexed or grew thereof. Wherof many a mylle dyde grynde corne / and yet now grynden.”55 The change in fountain announces a significant move in the narrative as the author drops his largely folkloric thread and moves into a different, more quasi-historical romance thread, one marked by the activities of castle-building, estate-winning, and dynasty-founding. Though still in possession of the magical fountain of Soif—the rock, literally, upon which his future and fortune is built, and which becomes the foundation for the mighty castle of Lusignan—Raymondin additionally owns a very useful mill-stream, a source of water and revenues. This second fountain on their property heralds the prosperity and abundance that will characterize Melusine and Raymondin’s empire building and legitimizes the success of their endeavors with what appears as a God-given natural feature. Furthermore, the very prosaic but functional uses of their mill-stream, put at the disposal of human agency, symbolizes the order of human industry imposed on

Progress: A Literary—Typological Comparison of Melusine and Joan of Arc,” in Melusine of Lusignan, p. 256. 52 Donald, Melusine, pp. 39–40. 53 Laurence Harf-Lancner deals at length with Melusine’s fairy ancestry in Les Fées au Moyen Âge: Morgane et Mélusine (Paris, 1984), as does Françoise Clier-Colombani, La Fée Mélusine au Moyen Age: Images, Mythes et Symboles (Paris, 1991). The suggestion that Melusine’s mermaid form marks her as an avatar of a primitive female divinity or Serpent Goddess is taken up by Linda Foubister in Goddess in the Grass: Serpentine Mythology and the Great Goddess (Victoria, BC, 2003) and, in greater length and detail, by Gillian M.E. Alban in Melusine the Serpent Goddess in A.S. Byatt’s Possession and in Mythology (New York, 2003). 54 Exodus 17:1–7, in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 107. 55 Donald, Melusine, p. 44.

450

misty rae urban

the natural world, just as Melusine’s marriage and her building of the castle of Lusignan mark the imposition of human courtesy and culture on the wild forest where the fountain of Soif stood. Raymondin transforms from pariah to patriarch, and once again a magical fountain signifies his passage or translation from the fragmented, original world of betrayal to the highly-refined, almost fairy-like perfection of the courtly world that Melusine constructs and over which she presides. The bounteous fountains provide a visual image for the prosperity that Melusine gifts to her husband, offspring, attendants, and dependents. The two fountains with which she is connected signify, separately, both her marvelous properties and her more practical, quite human accomplishments, thus pointing to the two conflicted but intertwining strands of the broader narrative, Melusine’s human and fairy careers.56 Not least, the fluid fountain and Melusine’s suppressed identity as an aquatic creature—who spends her Saturdays, as Raymondin will learn, splashing in the bath with her enormous serpent tail—form a sort of repressed unconscious for the further events of the narrative, magnifying the vexed issue, which runs throughout like a buried aquifer, of the adequacy, agency, and obligations of human will in a larger context limited by inexplicable fairy transformations and framed, first and last, by the unfathomable omnipotence of a God whose judgments a mortal creature cannot presume “to knowe & to comprehende in his wit” but who ought, instead, “to be meruyalled of hym.”57 Conclusion In the Middle English romances of Floris and Blancheflour, Ywain and Gawain, and Melusine, magical wells and fountains serve as the structural centerpiece where all the threads of the story cross and are drawn together. The fountain signals the hero’s changing psychic and social state and acts as signpost, even allegory, for his ritual indoctrination into an idealized romance world, where he achieves a broader self-

56 Sara Sturm-Maddox charts separate human and supernatural narrative threads in discussing the separate yet intertwining fates of the main characters in “Crossed Destinies: Narrative Programs in the Roman de Mélusine,” in Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fictions in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Athens, GA, 1996), pp. 12–31. 57 Donald, Melusine, 2.

magical fountains in middle english romance

451

understanding as well as the rewards of marital love and a prosperous domain. Itself an image of vital water being harnessed and contained for purposes both practical and aesthetic, the fountain in Middle English romance draws from an impressive array of sources literary and popular, mythic and historic, and compresses them into an image fluid in purpose, abundant in meaning, suggesting above all that human control over such a powerful element can be not only natural but pre-ordained. The metaphorical weight of the magical fountain and the layers of meaning for which it forms an index present a powerful argument for the stylistic complexity and textured richness of these narratives and persuasively contradicts their occasional reputation as inferior members in the larger body of Middle English literature.

SEA CHANGE IN SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO Ruth Stevenson Shakespeare’s oceans and especially his seas do not, as Renaissance lore affirmed, merely parallel the flora and fauna on earth, but, as the seventeenth-century poet Andrew Marvell has further explained, the ocean of the mind also “creates, transcending these,/Far other worlds and other seas.”1 Such mental waterways ebb and flow throughout Shakespeare’s plays, creating poem-dramas with extensive ranges of metaphorical investigation by means of seas that are “fluent,”2 that develop “liquid surge,”3 or become “an enraged, foamy mouth.” 4 Shakespeare’s seas coalesce into “eyes”5 or sink into “a stomach o’er charged with gold.”6 They produce “a rapture,”7 and they can create the transfiguration into “coral” and “pearls” of The Tempest’s explicit “sea-change.”8 In Othello,9 the sea’s liquidity suggests the associative plasticity of Shakespeare’s use of words, while its unfathomable depths and susceptibility to lunar transformation emphasize his interest in psychological probing and emotional change. In the following essay, I shall expose the water references that cumulatively become definitive parts of the play’s overall verbal network, clarify the “poetry of the words,” as Wallace Stevens calls it, that constructs this network, explain the pertinence of a particular figure of speech, synecdoche, that operates within it, and, finally, point out the work’s metamorphic fusion in the incandescent phrasing of Act 5. In doing so, I will investigate the

1 Andrew Marvell, “The Garden,” Seventeenth-Century Verse and Prose, Vol. 1: 1600–1660, ed., Helen C. White, Ruth C. Wallerstein, Ricardo Quintana (NY: 1966), ll. 41–46. 2 William Shakespeare, Henry V, 3.7.33 in The Riverside Shakespeare, textual ed., G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: 1974). The following six references are also from The Riverside Shakespeare. 3 Timon of Athens, 4.3.439. 4 Twelfth Night, 5.1.78. 5 Romeo and Juliet, 3.5.132. 6 Pericles, 3.2.54 7 Ibid., 2.1.155. 8 The Tempest, 1.2.398; 399; 401. 9 William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. M.R. Ridley (NY: 1967), the text for all subsequent references to the play.

454

ruth stevenson

working of Othello’s mind, his verbal revisions, and his final complex identity. The Verbal Network and its Principal Figure of Speech Sea references grow slowly in the play and are first located outside of Othello’s consciousness in the nautical words of Iago and Roderigo about boats. Early in the first scene, Iago calls himself “beleed and calmed” (1.1.30) as though he were a ship cut off from the wind. Roderigo refers to the “gondolier” (1.1.125) who transported Desdemona to Othello, and Desdemona, herself, in Iago’s words, is a “carrack” (1.2.50), which Othello has boarded. Her father wants to know where they have “stowed my daughter” (1.2.62), as though she were cargo in a ship’s hold. The movement from words about such surface structures of the water to those that circulate within the depths of the Moor’s mind become a unique linguistic narrative within Othello. Wallace Stevens called such a formation “the poem of the words.” “Every poem,” he says, “is a poem within a poem: the poem of the idea and the poem of the words.”10 In the latter, “the primary relation of each word . . . is to the other words, not to the things or actions they describe.11 That is, “between and among these words,” as Helen Vendler explains, “there grows a “network [. . .], a referentiality that does not so much extend outward to some putative real world as horizontally to the inwardly-extensive world of terms or images.”12 The sea network in Othello, which started with the surface gondola, carrack, and cargo-carrier, gradually extends horizontally to other vessels in naval formations, notably the Venetian fleet, settles on a single part of rigging, the sail, for its figurative usefulness, and thereafter descends into the sub-aquatic network of the play at large. Shakespeare uses the sail as a conspicuous, clearly isolated image when the people of Cyprus cry, “A sail, a sail, a sail” (2.1.51) and then again shout, “A sail” (54) when they see Iago’s ship. They repeat their cry, “A sail!” twice more (92) as they hail Othello’s vessel (2.1.92), thus emphatically drawing our attention not only to the motif of the sea, but Wallace Stevens, quoted by Helen Vendler in On Extended Wings: Wallace Stevens’ Longer Poems (Cambridge, MA: 1969), p. 1. 11 Wallace Stevens, The Practical Imagination (NY: 1983), p. 9. 12 Vendler, Wallace Stevens: Words Chosen Out of Desire (Knoxville: 1984), p. 54. 10

sea change in shakespeare’s OTHELLO

455

especially to the literary figure of synecdoche, as the word ‘sail’ stands for both ship and fleet. Shakespeare uses this figure as visual structural symbol for both Othello, the man, and Othello, the poem-play, to depict two different but finally interactive value systems. The figure of synecdoche first represents Othello’s mind-set, suggested in his pre-play conversion to hierarchical, monotheistic Christianity and reflected in his land-based, goal-oriented action. Despite the turbulence of his military service and references to “flood and field” (1.3.135), his narrations of war concentrate on discrete, concrete experiences (capture, slavery, redemption, ll.136–38) as well as on solid, static shapes: “antres vast and deserts idle/Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven” (141–142). He is a soldier, not a sailor. He enjoys the tangible, specific parts of the world—dew drops, sword blades, pearls, and monumental alabaster—and he believes in the earthy whole of which they are a visible part. His world view is that of completeness, balance, civilization. There is little sense of explicit flow in his vocabulary, and critics have long admired his diction for its lapidary, chiseled perfection.13 Moreover, there is no room in Othello’s thinking for mobile speculation and doubt. His is a secure disposition, a “free and open nature” (1.3.397), which Iago relentlessly exploits. Othello’s mind, then, enfolds synecdoche—the part for the whole—because his world view is shaped by a paradigm of parts to the whole, of the perfection that he seeks, for example, when he is reunited with Desdemona after their sea voyages and cries, “If it were now to die,/‘Twere now to be most happy, for I fear/My soul hath her content so absolute,/that not another comfort, like to this/Succeeds in unknown fate” (2.1.189–93). However, this longed for perfection becomes violently and painfully undone as his world falls apart—as does his syntax and vocabulary—under the relentless pressures of Iago, who exploits Othello’s unified habit of thought, knowing that one crack will splinter into others and destroy all coherence. Meanwhile, the poetry of the sea words underlying Iago’s explicit, primary plot action tells the far more graphic story of how the orderly sensibility of the Moor, deliberately immune to unruly, primitive, sexual speculation, gradually opens up and both reacts to and interacts with the construction of the play’s linguistic network.

13 G. Wilson Knight, for example, drew particular attention to the “beautiful solid forms” and “unique solidity” of language in The Wheel of Fire (1930; 5th revised edition, New York, 1957), p. 97.

456

ruth stevenson

The second use of synecdoche balances the critique of Othello’s totalizing impulse as Shakespeare makes a case for the existence and beauty of ‘wholes’—not as internalized, ordered world views such as Othello’s but as aesthetic accomplishments. The play seeks to illustrate the aesthetic principle of completion; in addition, within its own specific language in Act 5, metaphors, that have flowed through Othello and broadened its psycho-sexual expression while gradually opening up the limiting synecdochic enclosure of Othello’s mind, increasingly coalesce in image patterns of final comprehensive intensity. Gradual Immersion and Metaphoric Expansion In Act I, Iago remarks that “another of [Othello’s] fathom they have not.” A ‘fathom’ measures six feet and is used principally to calculate marine depths. It also, as a verb, means to get to the bottom of, penetrate to the meaning of. The idea of the mind as sea depth recurs act by act, as water becomes increasingly prominent as a metaphor signaling thought, feeling, and subconscious impulse. Othello’s first sea reference picks up the underwater currents of ‘fathom’ when he insists that he would not have put into confinement his freedom for anyone except Desdemona “for the sea’s worth.” As M.R. Ridley, the Arden editor, notes, the sea was regarded in Shakespeare’s time and by Shakespeare as a jewel house of sunken treasure and pearls (1.2.28), presumably embedded deep in the ocean bottom or cast about by errant undertows. Othello’s second water reference, the famous “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them” (1.2.59), simply raises the night power of the water into the Venetian atmosphere itself, into a visual tableau, a small artwork: the swords of Brabantio’s men glisten in the torchlight, powerless, not capable of subjugating Othello or even of drawing blood but simply of hosting the water drops that will corrode their steel edge. Brabantio’s moving comparison of his grief when he learns of their consequent union to a “floodgate that engluts and swallows other sorrows” (1.3.56) signifies both his impotence in halting the flood of their passion and his own quasi-sexual reaction of englutting and swallowing, as thought of that passion enters his own sensual consciousness. Act 1 concludes with a striking set of repetitions—seven times in seventy-three lines—of the word drown or its variants drowned and drowning. The repetition reinforces the play’s thematic insistence on

sea change in shakespeare’s OTHELLO

457

water, and the depth that ‘fathom’ first indicated has developed into the thought of an utter immersion of the human body and mind into the sea, to become part of its elemental composition. Act 1, then, exposes many parts of the seascape, intimates its liquid hold on the play, and projects an insistent immersion into water itself. Act 2’s diction in the opening scene opens the floodgate of sea terminology: ‘cape’, ‘sea’, ‘flood’, ‘main’, ‘sail’, ‘billow’, ‘surge’, ‘water’, ‘flood’, ‘fleet’, ‘embay’d’, ‘drowned’, and on and on for forty-five words. Within this now unmistakable oceanic orientation, Iago inserts animal, sexual life, when he speaks salaciously to Desdemona of the “cod’s head” and “salmon’s tail” (2.1.155) and when he compares Cassio’s finger at his lips to “clyster pipes” (2.1.176), that is, syringes for vaginal douches. Iago asks Roderigo whether he didn’t see Desdemona “paddle with the palm of Cassio’s hand” (2.1.251–2), as though her fingers swam with short downward strokes across the skin’s surface. Act 3 omits water reference until scene 3, and here its latent association with body fluid slowly develops. Othello imagines his own transformation into a toad living “upon the vapour in a jungle” (3.3.274); the vapour is visible, floating moisture, part of the hot moist jungle that he remembers, a sharp contrast to the idea of the condensation of dew in the cool Venetian air of Act 1. In the next scene, his own sexual language begins to develop explicitly: he tells Desdemona “this hand is moist, my lady” (3.4.32), “hot, hot, and moist, this hand of yours” (3.4.35). His words become more graphic: “for here’s a young and sweating devil here” (3.4.37). He refers to his own moisture, his “salt and sullen rheum,” the watery mucus discharged from his own nose and eyes (both sexual instruments in this context, 3.4.46–7), and he asks for the handkerchief which he now must suspect that Cassio had wiped his wet and sexually sticky beard with, from the preceding scene (3.3.45). The strands of the handkerchief were themselves “dyed in mummy [. . .] with sugar from maidens’ hearts” (3.3.72), that is, soaked in maidens’ blood, the internal male fluid now touching the sweet maiden blood externalized in the threats of handkerchief cloth. In Act 4, Shakespeare moves back and forth between internal and external water imagery. Othello foams at the mouth (4.1.54); and, when he envisages water pelting him as if heaven “rained/All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head” (4.2.49–50), the internal pain becomes externalized as an assault upon his mental power. He reaches inside himself to find a “drop of patience” (4.2.54) but can envision only the transformation of his basic sexual identity, “There, where

458

ruth stevenson

I have garnered up my heart/Where either I must live or bear no life,/The fountain, from which my current runs/Or else dries up to be discarded thence/ . . . as a cistern for foul toads/To knot and gender in!” (4.2. 58–63). His ‘fountain’, his seminal life, has become even more rank and fetid than the jungle vapour that sustains toads in Act 3 (3.3.274). The water imagery has converted into an embedded part of his sexual imagination. A different but related despair afflicts Desdemona: “I cannot weep nor answer have I none/But what should go by water” (4.2.105–06). Her words have no anchor, no purchase. They simply pass through Othello’s hearing without taking hold, as water flows without differentiation. The word ‘weep’ recurs three more times: “Do not weep. Do not weep” (126). “Would it not make one weep?” (128). These expressions of grief culminate in the willow song, with the willow tree, itself, located “near fresh streams” (4.3.44), the fluid emblem of tears. Psychological Revision and Artistic Fusion In Act 5 the networks of liquid metaphor change direction and gather force. Echoing Desdemona’s assertion of despair that her answers to Othello go only by water, that is, only by tears and only by language that slips and flows and holds no lasting verbal connection with him, Othello informs Emilia that he has killed Desdemona and claims that “she was false as water” (5.2.135), the very definitive mobility and changeability of water here explicitly used as marital/sexual condemnation. However, within eleven lines, the counter-state, that of wholeness and perfection so precious to him, receives its last fantasy-ed utterance and is then dismissed: “If heaven would make me such another world/Of one entire perfect chrysolite [yellow sapphire, topaz],/I’d not have sold her for it” (5.2.145–47). The beautiful treasure from the bottom of the sea in Act 1, here represented as chrysolite, has been imagined as total perfection and discarded. Othello has in these words begun a revision of what he values. In Act 1 he would not surrender his freedom for the sea’s worth except for Desdemona. Now, in Act 5, after her death, he realizes that she is not only more valuable than sea treasure but worth more than a world of entire perfection. When the truth of Iago’s manipulation and the falseness of his own accusations against Desdemona emerge with the story of the handkerchief, the diction of the play moves deliberately to art. First, there is

sea change in shakespeare’s OTHELLO

459

music. Emilia recalls Desdemona’s willow song and imagines herself a water bird, a swan, “dying in music,” and singing the lyric song, “Willow, willow, willow” (248–50). Second, Shakespeare gives to Othello new language that for the first time brings the water flow finally into explicit complicated association with his own inner being. He describes a sword that he keeps in his chamber that is different from the one just taken from him. The one he still has, he says, “is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook’s temper” (5.2.254). ‘Ice’ here recalls Othello’s tendency to compress water and to make it discrete and whole, while the dew that earlier would rust the careless blades of the weapons of Brabantio’s band of soldiers has expanded into an icebrook weapon, where the cold steel has actually reached aquatic edge. The brook, itself, suggests a mind in continual flow and the ‘fresh streams’ of Desdemona’s tears. Othello now thinks in images of movement rather than completion, and the lapidary perfection that his previous utterance has displayed opens out into sharpness of the cold water, and elasticity of the sword’s “temper.” He abandons a desire to control fate (266), to create the wholeness towards which he has consistently yearned. Instead he returns to the sea: “Here is my journey’s end [. . .], the very sea-mark of my utmost sail” (5.2.269). The originating emblem of synecdoche, the sail, has turned from the proud dominance of a warship coming into harbor into the feeling of a man who has lost everything and is no more than a sail, woven canvas, woven sheets, a shroud, at the end of all movement, at the ‘utmost,’ from the Old English meaning ‘outer most,’ beyond all that’s known. At this point Othello refers to himself in the third person, as though his old identity were gone, and he now has no home, no place on land where he belongs: “Where should Othello go?” (5.2.272). When he returns to the first person, he imagines himself existing far beyond the known world, in the grasp of fiends, who, he prays, will “Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!” (281). His body now experiences the drowning of Act 1 and is suffused with water, poured into ‘steep-down gulfs’—deeper than the fathoms that first measured his worth, gulfs that steep him, saturate him in a bath ‘of liquid fire,’ the ice cold swords now melting and transforming him into seas of flame. This cathartic transformation of consciousness exhibits in him stark recognition of unfathomable elements—both sexual and psychological—of which he had only the barest intimations in Act 1. In his new consciousness he turns from his former hard edge. “Soft you,” he says, and employs his own synecdoche, which expands now

460

ruth stevenson

beyond a whole: “a word or two” (5.2.339). The ‘word’ stands for the address he is about to make; ‘or two’ signifies an opening out to a new way of speaking. He dismisses his old statements about service to the state—“no more of that” (341)—and turns to his life to come as it will be recorded in words, the medium of continuing life. He finally defines himself in a flow of descriptions that are simple, even simplistic, in this last-minute revision, mere moments before his suicide, but that share the hall- or sea-mark of considering, finally, step by step, from simple to complex, what lies beyond limits. He first calls himself “one who loved not wisely but too well” (345) and thus reveals his perception of his own extremity, his going beyond normal limits by loving “too well,” with, perhaps, an oblique pun on the noun ‘well,’ with its buried springs, like his own fountain, and its source in sub-terrestrial waters. He next calls himself “one perplexed in the extreme” (347), indicating mental confusion that goes beyond the outermost or farthest, that is the most remote in any direction. In reaction to this extremity, he returns to the security of images but adds the mediation of parable, speaking “of one [himself ] whose hand, like the base Indian threw a pearl away/Richer than all his tribe” (347–48). The ‘pearl,’ hearkens back to the sea treasures of Act 1, the lapidary round firmness of his past language, and above all, the bottom of the ocean, where the pearl develops its opalescent beauty. He now expresses his feelings with figurative words that reflect his anguish even as they revise his former linguistic habit. He speaks of himself as “one whose subdued eyes/Albeit unused to the melting mood,/Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees/Their medicinable gum” (349–52). Here the shimmering Venetian dew of Act 1, has become “subdewed eyes” and Othello’s innate hardness softens further into the “melting mood,” as the preceding “liquid fires” of his anguish recede and congeal into fragile teardrops which he compares to the “medicinable gum” of Arabian trees. Gum Arabic (as it is called in the sixteenth century) flows from various African trees and, in its flow, dries into brittle solids. In like manner, Othello’s tears are round and ‘soft’, like Desdemona’s, but become gradually hard, forming a final emblem of his characteristic, lapidary utterance. Simultaneously, a picture of the gum staining the tree on which it trickles conjures fleetingly to our eyes the image of the handkerchief, which recalls the earlier foam at Othello’s mouth and Cassio’s offending semen. Othello’s new language is suggestive and capacious. It has synthesized disparate elements in words still simple and elegant and reflective of his natural impulse to order but also now

sea change in shakespeare’s OTHELLO

461

expansive and far reaching, the opening of synecdoche partaking of and resulting from his reaction to new currents of perception. Just before the actual suicide, Othello tells the story of an infidel, a turban’d Turk—metaphorically now himself—the infidel being the one (himself ) who lost faith and did not believe in Desdemona, the turbaned Turk (also himself ) being the one who now combines web imagery with that of the sea. The turban is a long scarf woven of linen or silk and wound around the head, while ‘Turk’s head’ is a nautical term referring to knots made by winding smaller ropes around larger ones. From this figurative patterning of self-condemnation, the impulse towards synecdoche finally turns in Othello’s last words of consciousness to a new rhetoric, the literary figure of chiasmus, whose chi, written as an X, finally enfolds him into a synthesis of all parts of himself into the new whole or knot of overlapping elements, including life and death, ecstasy and consummation: I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee, no way but this, Killing myself to die upon a kiss (5.2.359–60).

The final sea reference falls on Iago, described by Lodovico as “More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea” (5.2.363). The sea, then, is the final measure of Iago’s and the play’s ‘fell’ness,” that is, of its lethal torture. It is also the final measure of its art, ‘fell’ referring to the sewing of a seam—like those of the handkerchief, the sail, the turban—with the raw edge flattened, turned under, and stitched down. Othello’s mind, which is largely the mind of the play itself into which flow verbal elements of accumulating complexity, gradually becomes aware of ‘other seas’ within his own being, and his final enfolding of them into the chiasmus of his death by means of the ice-brook sword turns their innate horror into a lacework of both momentary and non-ending design.

FROM SPIRITUAL NECESSITY TO INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE: WATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES Charles W. Connell Praised be Thou, my Lord, for Sister Water, Who is very useful and humble, precious and chaste. Saint Francis, Canticle of Brother Sun1

This paean to water by Saint Francis in the thirteenth century reflects western civilization’s romance with water. By Chaucer’s time in the fourteenth century, for example, water had become a romantic companion, a keeper of secrets.2 In a similar vein, Mandeville and Marco Polo envisioned water as the path of wonder that carried them to distant and mysterious places inhabited by exotic peoples. But in fact the nature and function of water in the Middle Ages was quite varied. To pragmatic merchants the sea was a dangerous but necessary means to bring them riches or disaster.3 At its most practical level, water was

1 Original in Italian, translation used is found in Ray C. Petry, ed., Late Medieval Mysticism (1957; reprint Philadelphia, 1980), p. 124. 2 Geoffrey Chaucer, “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” in Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath. Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Bedford, 1996). The maid is consumed with the desire to tell her secret, but exercises discretion in going to the marsh where she confides in the water: Dopun to a maris faste by she ran. Til she cam there her herte was afire. And as a bitore bomblethe in the mire, She leyde her mouth unto the water doun: ‘Biwreye me not, thou water, with thy soun,’ Quod she. ‘To thee I telle it and namo. Mine housboonde hath longe assess eres two. Now is mine herte all hool, now it is oute. [ll. 970–977, pp. 76–7. This translation is Beidler’s own, based on the Hengwrt manuscript.] 3 Regarding the popularity of travel books during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see J.H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (Cleveland, 1963), pp. 5–9; Raymond Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, 3 vols. (1897–1906; reprint New York, 1949); Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 1, book 1, The Century of Dis-Discovery (Chicago, 1965), pp. 59–65, 74–80; and J.R.S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe,

464

charles w. connell

the means to provide the power needed to ground grain more easily on the feudal estate or sustenance for grain and legumes or fish that could be harvested to provide the essentials of life itself.4 Water was often a safer, more rapid path for transportation, but in the early Middle Ages those same waterways brought the ravages of the Vikings to medieval doorsteps. So, water presented a two-edged sword to the medieval world—life and death, hope and danger, romance and horror. The scope of this essay, however, will be narrower in range than this overview suggests. Instead, it will focus on some of the symbolic uses of water from the earliest Church Fathers to various twelfth-century mystics in order to illustrate the irony of the nature of water as an element with both spiritual and pragmatic functions that may seem on the surface to have no relationship, but upon closer examination are more clearly related. Examining the work of a selection of early Christian writers and Augustine on baptism, the imagery of water in the work of women mystics of the High Middle Ages, and a brief look at the use of water as an instrument of torture, this paper will argue that the use of water in all three of these has a remarkable symmetry of purpose and meaning. Early Christian Writers The essential nature of water to early medieval Christians flows from Greek, Roman, Jewish, and New Testament sources. Water was regarded first of all and most simply as one of the four natural elements that sustain life in the physical world.5 Three of those were regarded as more 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1998), passim. Also, cf. A.C. Moule, Christians in China before 1550 (London, 1930). 4 See Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (London, 1962), pp. 80–85, et passim, regarding the practical uses of water and water-driven technologies. 5 For an introduction to this part of the medieval cosmos, see the summary in “The Medieval System of Four Primary Elements,” in James C. Franklin, Mystical Transformations. The Imagery of Liquids in the Work of Mechthild von Magdeburg (Madison, N.J., 1978), pp. 17–21; hereafter cited as Franklin. For John and the frequency of references to water in the Bible see Franklin, pp. 65ff. He does not mention which edition of the Bible he uses in his quotes for John and other evangelists for this study, but he does cite Robert Young, Analytical Concordance of the Bible, 22nd American edition, rev. by William B. Stevenson (New York, 1955) as his source for the data on the frequency of the water references. See Franklin, p. 74, note 1. His translation of John 3:5 (p. 67) is very close to that of the New Revised Standard Edition in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, edd. Bruce Metzger and Roland Murphy (Oxford, 1962), which reads as follows:

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

465

ethereal, transformative elements, namely air, fire, and water. Water, above all of the rest, however, came to be used in the symbolism for life and death in medieval Christianity in various ways. For the early Christians, in establishing the ultimate goal of Christian life, John 3:5 drew the gauntlet tightly in declaring that “No one who has not been born again in water and the Holy Spirit can enter the kingdom of heaven.” The context for this is found as one might anticipate, however, in the Old Testament and Jewish legal discussion of stain and purification through the act of washing.6 Jewish concern for cleanliness was extensive, and in distinguishing the forms of water supply to be used, three of the six prescribed in the Mishnah are described as running water. This image of water in motion is important in the early development of Christian theology and ritual, as in the depictions in the mosaics of Ravenna of Christ and the Baptist in running water, but the earliest Christian writers on the subject of baptism were not as careful as their Jewish counterparts who compiled the Mishnah.7 Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian, for example, argued that various forms of water should be allowed for the rite; baptism was a form of conversion, and water was a symbol, a metaphor, that in the words of Peter Cramer was considered “possibly the most important” aspect of what he calls the “crisis of baptism,” i.e., a time of decision, resolution, and/or climax. By this he means that the physical act of washing with water in a highly-charged ceremony with gestures and words spoken in a dramatic setting serves to create a “metamorphosis of the soul.”8 This sense of change within the individual from the “profane to the sacred,” according to Hippolytus, was best accomplished by a ceremony of baptism at a set time of the day (when the cock crows), on a fixed day of the week (Sunday), and in his words: “It should be [with] water flowing [or as called by others for about one hundred years prior, ‘living water’] into a font or flowing from above.”9 The depictions of baptism in later Christian art, for example the mosaics at Ravenna, continued to reflect the classical naturalism in showing Christ and the Baptist in “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” 6 Much of the ensuing discussion relies on the insightful work of Peter Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200–c. 1150 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 12–13, hereafter cited as Cramer. 7 Cramer, p. 13. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

466

charles w. connell

“running water of the Jordan,” as did the depiction of Christ’s baptism in the nave of the church at Daphni (c. 1100), and the illumination in the Fulda Sacramentary (c. 1000) representing Christ being baptized in a rushing, dark-blue stream.10 The more cynical and ironical, thus often controversial, figure among the pre-Latin Fathers was Tertullian (fl. c. 200 A.D.). His treatise on baptism (De baptismo) begins by commenting on the Church’s attachment to water in creating its very first rite. He refers to Catholicism as religio aquae in what appears to be not-so-flattering terms: the complete simplicity with which a man is sent down into the water, dipped with one or two words and then gets out hardly even cleaner, if at all; the lack of pomp and new-fangled machinations, the absence of a fee [. . .]—all this makes it incredible that there should be any eternal repercussion (consecutio aeternitatis).11

The latter has been referred to as the ‘stupidity of water,’ meaning that if it is a mere physical thing with natural functions of washing and nurturing life, how can it affect so much change? In fact, as we later learn, this passage was meant to draw the contrast with pagan rites which required a fee and elaborate sensual ceremonies, whereas in fact this Christian rite could easily separate the physical act of dipping in water from the spiritual accomplishment, i.e., it is the “impossibility of mere water effecting an act of God which makes it believable.”12 Tertullian demonstrated a further concern with the pagan practices that “polluted” water, namely that the devil himself baptized with water, and that pagan spirits were known to “settle upon waters” in imitation of the Holy Spirit. However, it appears that he believed that water itself had “dignity,” and since Christ had made water holy by being baptized in it, “when God was invoked [water acquired] [. . .] the sacred significance of conveying sanctity.”13 This attachment to water, this “life-giving Water” that has the power, according to Cyprian of Carthage (fl. c. 250 A.D.), to succor, to wash away the “stain of former years, pouring into [his] cleansed and hallowed breast the light which comes from heaven, after that [he] drank

Ibid., p. 12 and note 11. De baptismo 2.1, p. 277, quoted in translation by Cramer, p. 53. 12 Cramer, p. 54. 13 De baptismo 3.1, quote found in Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at Baptism. Ritual, Theology, and Drama (Ithaca and London, 1985), p. 108 and note 11. 10 11

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

467

in the Heavenly Spirit, and was created into a new man by a second birth,” was widespread among the early Christian writers.14 In these early stages of the development of Christian theology, this battle with pagan rationalism and mystery had to construct the path to faith that is implied in the words of Cyprian and Tertullian. As Tertullian put it, when the world was all “formless shadow and sad abyss and untilled earth and shapeless sky, only water, an element always perfect, joyful, simple, and pure of its own nature, was adequate to become vehicle to God.”15 Or again, “And so, made holy by the holy [a reference to Christ’s baptism in water], the nature of water has itself taken up the power to make holy.”16 In the words of Peter Cramer, Tertullian made water the authoritative element, one that is “imbued with a grace higher than that of other elements; it has the power to create, [. . .] something which is all at once Biblical, scientific, and poetic.”17 Thus, by the early third century water offered a vehicle for clever metaphor; it offered the simplicity of a natural element with movement that could be a sign of transformation that even the least educated convert could comprehend. And so it remained a powerful metaphor throughout the Middle Ages. In the next stage of the early Middle Ages, it was Augustine who set the standard for the subsequent medieval use of water symbolism around the rite of baptism. The key to understanding Augustine’s position is his work On Christian Education. It is fundamentally a treatise on the nature of signs, of which the essence is summed up this way by Cramer: “all signs are things, but not all things are signs.”18 Furthermore, sacraments are where signs and things meet, that is, a place where God reaches down into man in order to assist man in the task of fulfilling the purpose of creation, namely the coming closer to the image of God.19 Thus, baptism as a sacrament is the meeting of sign

The most prominent of those include, in addition to Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, and the Gnostics. For this quote from Cyprian’s letter to Donatus (Ad Donatum, 3–4), see Cramer, pp. 50–51. 15 De baptismo 3.2, p. 278, quoted in Cramer, p. 57. 16 De baptismo 4.1, p. 279, quoted in Cramer, p. 57. 17 Cramer, p. 56. 18 This overview of Augustine on baptism is drawn from Cramer, ch. 5, on “Augustine.” He uses the edition of De doctrina christiana by J. Martin, found in the Corpus christianorum series Latina XXXII (Turnhout, 1962). This particular discussion regarding signs is found in De doctrina christiana I.2ff, pp. 7ff; see Cramer, p. 103 and note 48 and note 48. 19 Cramer, pp. 110–11. 14

468

charles w. connell

(conversion) and thing (water). According to Augustine, “All who are born are dammed; none is free except by being reborn.”20 Augustine believed that there was no harm in symbols unless that as a multitude of “likenesses” they become a “system [. . .] a method for divining the future,” which is what he believed happened with the pagans and the Jews. Instead, these forms should be seen as something pointing beyond the human existence. As Cramer summarized his analysis of Augustine’s thought: “The movement of the stars, the ebb and flow of the sea, the whole flux of nature, can be no more than the source of eloquence about the divine. [. . .] the means of ‘insinuating’ the truth, and not the truth itself.”21 In combining this sense of signs with the material symbol, Augustine argued that “Sacraments can only be made from certain natural elements—water, corn, oil and wine.”22 Thus, the sacrament of baptism’s natural water “rhythm” enables the soul to become free from original sin: “As the will becomes more than itself by obedience, so the work of the water is made more than itself by the movement it brings about.” And, Cramer continues, there is a moment of transformation—“the finitude of mere water to the infinity of what it means.”23 Post-Augustinian Writers Among the successors of Augustine, there are several examples of how water continued to offer important signs of hope. One of the more interesting was Theodulph of Orleans, who in the ninth century Carolingian world continued to struggle with questions raised by Tertullian about the “stupidity of water.” Briefly, according to Theodulph: Since the element of water is the most appropriate among all the elements of this world to the grace of purging, vivifying, re-making, it is reasonable that the grace of baptism should be conferred on it. [. . .] So, through this visible element the invisible thing is signified, and as the water cleans the body outside, so the soul, in some hidden way, is purified by the water’s mystery.24 Augustine, Sermo 294.16 col. 134, quoted in Cramer, p. 123. Cramer, p. 99. 22 This argument is found in Augustine’s treatise On Catechizing. See Cramer, pp. 98–9 for a discussion of his notion of sacrament as language. 23 Cramer, pp. 99, 121. 24 Liber de ordine baptismi, PL cv, 13 col. 232; translation by Cramer, p. 156. 20 21

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

469

According to Cramer, Theodulph has “wound into a single thread the physical, ordinary functions of water—it washes and it nurtures life—with the presence of spirit in water, by way of its Biblical sense;” that is, water as everyday thing and as spirit are fused together in the rite of baptism.25 By the twelfth century, with the powers of rationalism beginning to challenge the faith of Christians, Peter Lombard, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Peter Abelard reexamined the dualism presented to them by Scripture over the necessity of baptism. In contrast to John’s mandate that baptism is required if one is to be saved ( John 3:5), there is the letter of Paul to the Romans (Rom. 10:10) wherein we read that “the heart has only to believe, if we are to be justified.” If the will alone is needed for justification, what does baptism with water add? Lombard’s answer was that “baptism in water is an expression of the will that precedes it,” for the “[sacrament] is the sign of everything of which it is the cause.”26 As unsatisfying an answer as this might have been, even for the philosophers to whom it was largely addressed, the sacrament of water still bore strong symbolic meaning for most of the faithful in the later Middle Ages, at least until the development of a stronger anti-clericalism and heresy of the thirteenth century began to take hold.27 There were still poets such as Adam of Saint Victor (d. 1192), called by some the “greatest poet of the Middle Ages,” who praised the natural role of water. His poem on the gospel symbols for the four evangelists, for example, likens the words of the evangelists to a healing rain: “Those, whose doctrines stream, like nature’s/Rain, is on the Church outpoured.”28 The Church tried to reach closure to debate by declaring the necessity of baptism in the doctrine of the seven sacraments at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. But, as the Church took a more institutionalized approach to the necessity of baptism, thus closing off much of the debate about the role of water in that rite, we begin to see the fascination with water imagery shift more and more into the writings of the women mystics.

Cramer, p. 156. Lombard, Sentences, 4.4.7, p. 261; translation by Cramer, p. 261, see note 128. 27 The Cathars, for example, offered the alternative explanation that baptism was the “laying on of hands” and not a water-baptism. See Cramer, pp. 235–6. 28 Quoted in Petry, Late Medieval Mysticism, p. 80. 25 26

470

charles w. connell The Mystics

Beginning with an example from the work of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), a contemporary of those male philosophers of the twelfth century, we find a broader and quite rich imagery of water that is both moving and life-giving. In her work titled Scivias (Know the Ways), a collection of her visions, she described the vision of the One sitting on an iron-colored mountain shouting to the “frail mortals” below: “pour yourself forth in a fountain of abundance! Flow with mystical learning, so that those who want you to be scorned because of the guilt of Eve may be inundated by the flow of your refreshment.”29 In contrast to this image of a fountain of life, Hildegard also provides an image of the other side of water, a much more dangerous one: “Now that lake of great length and depth which appeared to you is Hell. [. . .] Though the lake shows them sweetness and delights, it leads them, through perverse deceit, to a perdition of torments.”30 Thus, in this case, water is a source of man’s Fall, because the serpent that in this case, water is a source of man’s Fall, because the serpent that emerged eventually from the same lake in the later development of the vision was the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve. This notion of trial and danger associated with water was not new, of course. The path to truth was filled with hardship, as witness the perils of the epic heroes such as Beowulf, or the dangers faced by Saint Brendan as he crossed the seas. Alone at sea, Brendan turns to God to experience what Cramer calls the “exorcism of baptism.”31 Like her predecessors, Hildegard was struggling with the dualistic nature of the symbolic cleansing and the physical dangers that water might present in her meditations. A younger contemporary of Hildegard’s, Elisabeth of Schonau, also had powerful visions where water played a key role. In one, translated as “On the Feminist Aspect of Jesus,” we read: I entered a trance and saw something like [. . .] a virgin standing on a throne with a golden chalice in hand emerging from the sun. [. . .] The chalice in her right hand is the fountain of living water, which God has offered to the world, teaching and refreshing the hearts of those who turn

Scivias Book I, Vision I, quoted in The Writings of Medieval Women. An Anthology, trans. and intro. Marcelle Thiebaux (Garland, 1994), p. 325, hereafter cited as Writings. 30 Scivias Book I, Vision 2, in Writings, p. 326. 31 Cramer, pp. 174–5. 29

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

471

to him, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty let him come to me, and let him drink, and from his womb shall flow the living waters’ ( John 7:37–38).32

For Elisabeth the water of the golden chalice was the “sweetest and most generous Grace of the Holy Spirit.”33 However, the most powerful visionary with respect to the imagery of water in particular, and liquids in general, was Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1212–c. 1282), a thirteenth-century mystic whose poetic work entitled The Flowing Light of Godhead is filled with liquid images drawn from the three primary cosmic elements of fire, air, and water. Her work shows the influence of both the secular, courtly love literature of the minnesingers and Ovid’s Art of Love, as well as imagery drawn from Scripture’s Song of Songs. Her “liquidity” has been described as having a godlike quality that is used to inform her visions of the parched soul thirsty for the divine moisture of the Spouse in numerous forms, including dew, rain, blood, honey, milk, and wine, in addition to water.34 Examination of the work of Mechthild provides several groups of images based on the standard medieval concept of water and fluids as primary elements in the natural cosmos of being. Her work was not in any way scientific or even systematic, but each of the images did carry specific symbolic meaning that according to James Franklin came from the physical property of liquids as well from Biblical readings.35 Moreover, as Carol Flinders puts it, Mechthild took the imagery of water to a higher level, endowing all liquids with a significance that is “altogether original [. . .] and exceedingly powerful.”36 To further underscore this point, she continues to paraphrase Mechthild, “By things that flow, we are cleansed, healed, nourished, and consoled, and by things that

Writings, pp. 361, 363. Ibid., p. 363. 34 Writings, pp. 391–2. A more detailed account of her life and work, including the elaboration of her use of images based on the medieval notions of water and liquids, is found in Franklin. In his Introduction to the work, he states that: “There exists in Das Fliessende Licht a general group of images based on the medieval concept of water and fluids as one of the four primary and irreducible elements that were thought to comprise the totality of matter within the cosmos. This groups of images, each one related to the other by the primary characteristic of liquidity, has in Mechtilds’s work a number of specific symbolic meanings, these meanings arising not only from the physical properties of fluids but also from the significance traditionally ascribed, in the Bible and elsewhere, to water specifically, and to liquids generally.” (p. 13) Also, see Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace. Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics (New York, 1993). 35 Franklin, p. 13. 36 Flinders, p. 53. 32 33

472

charles w. connell

flow, the void between the human and the divine is closed.” Flinders supports this synopsis by directing our attention to these passages in Mechthild’s Flowing Light: “We two are fused, poured into one mold (3.5).” And, again, “God’s love flows from God to man without effort, as bird glides through the air without moving its wings (2.3).”37 Mechthild struggled with a common problem for the mystics, one that was raised by the twelfth-century early scholastics as well, namely, how does one describe the indescribable? In responding to the problem, Mechthild turned to water, because water afforded her a way to connect with the ultimate indescribable being, namely God. She reasoned that since man is tied to earth and cannot attain the ethereal spheres of air and fire, and since God does not currently manifest himself on earth which is evil and impure, therefore, water is the only natural sphere that is approachable by both God and man. Water is clearly a transitional element, a means to cross over, wherein God himself is represented as a gushing spring, a life-giving source issuing from the womb of mother earth herself.38 Since the primary goal of Mechthild and most mystics was to rid them-selves of their fleshly bodies and the stain of sin that clings to them, water came to “assume characteristics that transcend the merely physical attributes of water.”39 Water and liquids were symbols of the transition between man’s soul and his body and between heaven, God’s realm; and earth, the realm of man.40 In conclusion, in the work of Mechthild, who in many ways represented the pattern of developing thought on the importance of water since the time of the early Christian writers, water represented a New Testament perspective of a loving, merciful God. As James. C. Franklin enumerates the reasons for the predominance of water in the imagery of Mechthild, water was tangible; it represented a transitional position in the cosmos; it had practical significance as a purifying agent; it carried all the traditional symbolism of liquids found in the Bible and the sacraments; and, perhaps, it bore an archetypal weight in the “mythopoetical collective unconscience of mankind.”41 Though acknowledging

37 Flinders, p. 53. Flinders uses The Revelations of Mechthild of Magdeburg, or The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Lucy Menzies (London, 1953). Thus, number in parenthesis refer to this edition. 38 Franklin, pp. 13, 20–23, 29, 70, and 73. 39 Ibid., p. 70. 40 Ibid., pp. 31–36. 41 Ibid., pp. 64–6.

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

473

some of the dangers that water represented, by the time of the mystics, however, water came to represent a flowing goodness. Torture So far we have sampled the spiritual symbolism of water’s nature and function wherein water was found to be most often a source of joy and life. Next, we examine the dark side, the way in which water was used as an instrument of torture.42 Given our discussion of the symbolism of water in the creation of the rite of baptism, the use of water to endanger seems in direct conflict with the teachings of the Church. However, both the medieval Church and the ‘state’ saw it differently. Torture, in the form of trial by ordeal, is rarely mentioned in the sources prior to 800 A.D. Rare exceptions include the ordeal of the boiling cauldron which is found in Frankish law codes of the sixth century, and other less certain mentions of the ordeal in the miracle stories in Gregory of Tours.43 The earliest mention of the trial by cold water is found in Charlemagne’s time, where ironically we learn of its use from an edict condemning it!44 The apparent heyday of the trial by ordeal came between the ninth and twelfth centuries, when it was used throughout the Christian world and in a great variety of cases. During this period, it is important to note that the oath became the cornerstone of the judicial procedure, that is, in the words of Edward Peters, confession became the “queen of proofs.”45 In criminal law before the twelfth century, which was predominately private, that is, public officers were not expected to investigate crimes, it was the accuser’s responsibility to see that legal action was pursued. The accuser took an oath that the charge of wrongdoing was true, and the accused could respond with an oath that the accusation was false. Sometimes others (“oath helpers”) were called in support of the accused and the

42 The major part of the research for this section of this paper is drawn from Edward Peters, Torture (Philadelphia, 1996), hereafter cited as Peters, Torture; and Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water. The Medieval Juridical Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), hereafter, cited as Bartlett. See also Daniel Mannix, The History of Torture (Dorset Press, 1986); Leonard Parry, The History of Torture in England (Montclair, N.J., 1975); and Karen Farrington, Hamlyn History of Punishment and Torture (London and New York, 2000). 43 For this and what follows in the overview, see Bartlett, pp. 4–5, 10. 44 Bartlett, p. 10. 45 Peters, p. 41; Bartlett, pp. 26–30.

474

charles w. connell

court was asked to decide the truthfulness of the oaths. In some cases, especially involving men whose reputations were questionable, an ordeal was needed to help decide. In the latter cases, there was a sense of “immanent justice” that prevailed, meaning that it was believed that God would not permit wrongdoing to go unpunished.46 It was in this same sense of “immanent justice” that these procedures became part of the liturgical life of European society as early as the ninth century. It was not until the twelfth century that the idea of God’s judgment determining justice was transformed into a notion of the effectiveness of human juridical practices and authority, wherein the precedent of the inquisitorial process and the use of the jury of peers to decide was first established.47 However, the developments that transformed the trial system of criminals was not as straightforward as this summary implies. The attack on the use of the ordeal as a way to determine God’s will was undermined by the shift to the approval of the use of torture. Whereas in the period from the seventh to the twelfth century it was ruled that no free man could be tortured, this was done in a period when the legal universe was “largely irrational” according to H.C. Lea; that is, it relied upon divine intervention to determine issues. Ironically, as the intellectual and political attacks on the ordeal per se of the “rational” eleventh and twelfth centuries increased, the approval of the use of torture in the pursuit of truth was being justified as a means of judicial inquiry that relied upon human agents, a “rational human process” to determine issues.48 Thus, judicial torture was deemed a legitimate means of dealing with crimen exceptum, which in essence was a crime so dangerous to society or outrageous to God that its prosecution was permitted great leeway.49 Apparently torture was first used in Italy in the thirteenth century against “notorious criminals,” not heretics. But as Peters notes, “It is but a short step from instituting torture for those strongly suspected of committing a crime to trying those suspected of heresy, an offense more Peters, Torture, pp. 41–2. Ibid., pp. 42–3. 48 Edward Peters, introduction to Torture by H.C. Lea (Philadelphia, 1973), pp. ix–xii. For the attack on the ordeal, see the following: John Baldwin, “The Intellectual Preparation of the Canon of 1215 against Ordeals,” Speculum 36 (1961), 613–36; Walter Ullman, “Reflections on Medieval Torture,” Juridical Review 56 (1944), 123–37; and Parry, History of Torture in England (cited above, note 40). 49 Peters, Torture, p. 6. 46 47

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

475

heinous and more difficult to prove.”50 Earlier on, in the twelfth century, the rational processes of prosecuting these crimes (whether in civil or church courts) had been moderate and fair; that is, they avoided rigid, excessively formalized charges, testimony was open and evidence was presented with a chance for rebuttal, and there was even the possibility of trained judges who might be more equitable in the proceedings.51 However, changes occurred by the first half of the thirteenth century. In the case of the Church’s persecution of heretics, for example, the friars became the agents. At first, they were under the jurisdiction of the dioceses and more subject to local custom, but then were freed of such by the Church. In their hands, according to Lea, the inquisition became oppressive, and in 1252, the papal decretal Ad extirpanda, officially sanctioned torture.52 As the endorsement of torture became operational, the question of methods turned to traditional means used in the ordeal that preceded. As one might expect, there were various ways in which water might be employed, and in some ways water could be the least life-threatening method. Water torture by various means was also the least likely to leave external marks of evidence that torture had been used. For example, water-boarding was a method popular in Paris by which a person was tied to a board supported horizontally by two trestles. By means of a funnel-like device, while pinching shut the nose of the individual, one would pour about nine pints of water (sometimes up to double this amount) slowly into the mouth. If the person survived, he/she was taken to be warmed in the kitchen, says one old text.53 Similarly, a victim lying flat would have a cloth wrapped around the mouth and nostrils so that he/she could barely breathe, then a steady stream of water was poured into the mouth through the cloth over the mouth. The water ran down the cloth to the back of the throat and the victim experienced the agony of near death by drowning. Then the cloth was removed to see if the victim was ready to talk. Another means was the ducking stool, by which an individual (more often a woman) was strapped into a chair affixed to a free-swinging arm at the side of a river with very cold water. The individual would be swung out and down

Peters, intro. to Lea, Torture, pp. xvi–xvii. Peters, intro. to Lea, Torture, pp. xvi–xvii. 52 Peters, Ibid., pp. xvii–xviii. 53 See the following website for discussion and illustration: http://www.middleages .org.uk/water-torture.htm. 50 51

476

charles w. connell

into the water and held there for various periods of time. Sometimes this only lasted a few seconds for each ‘duck,’ or in more serious cases, could be repeated over the course of an entire day. Another use for the river can be traced back to the Babylonian Code wherein the accused would be thrown into a river. If they survived they were assumed to be innocent, but if they drowned, they must be guilty. The Assyrians later reversed those rules and declared that the guilty were supposed to float, and the innocents would begin to sink. This latter method was adopted by the Christians in medieval Europe. Prisoners were stripped and bound with a knotted rope then tossed into the water. The knot on the rope floated a distance from the body and was observed to see whether the prisoner sank far enough to drag the knot under water. If so, he was presumed innocent and dragged to safety. However, many drowned in this process of determining their innocence. Another simpler test was developed whereby the accused was simply cast into a very cold pond of water that has been blessed by a priest. If the individual did not sink, he/she was judged guilty for having been rejected by the holy water, whereas the innocent would be ‘welcomed’ into the blessed water as determined by their sinking. But water could be used in other, even more painful, ways. For example, two methods involved boiling water. In one, a cauldron was filled with water and brought to a boil, then the prisoner was thrown in naked, sometimes pulled out in time to ‘confess’ or recant; other times the prisoner died a horrible death for his/her unproven ‘sins’ or crimes. The most complicated involved a technique whereby the vessel of water was brought to a boil, and a rock was placed at the bottom. The accused came forward, arms wrapped in linen bandages, and if he/she could snatch the rock from the bottom of the vessel without obvious injury, the first test was passed. However, the individual still had to wait three days, then the bandages were removed in order to exam the arm(s). If the arm(s) was ‘unsinged’, the person was judged innocent.54 Regardless of the method, or whether the water was hot or cold, the result was seen to be a sign of God’s will.

54

Parry, pp. 88–89.

from spiritual necessity to instrument of torture

477

Conclusion This brief examination of the nature and function of water in the Middle Ages has focused very narrowly on select spiritual uses of water. Yes, it can be argued that the use of water in torture had a symbolic spiritual function just as much as water used in baptism. In fact, as early as the ninth century, Hincmar of Rheims (845–82) had defended the ordeal as being similar to the sacrament of baptism. He wrote: The same authority which ordained that the Holy Spirit should be breathed into the water of baptism by the priestly breath also, it is believed, granted to the Church that there should be the hot water [. . .] in which the righteous are saved unharmed, and those who are adjudged wicked are punished.55

In most cases involving torture, the water was blessed before the accused endured the water treatment. Rejection by or acceptance into the water was regarded as a sign of God’s judgment on the innocence or guilt of the accused prisoner.56 In all cases the outcome of the water torture was a transformation of the individual. Whether by death or proven innocence, the outcome was a form or ‘rebirth’, just as baptism was for the initiate into the Christian faith. Often torture was used in the process of the Inquisition, wherein the accused who was determined innocent was regarded as having been reborn into the faith of the medieval Christian Church. If the accused was determined guilty, and died as a result, an obstacle to rejuvenation of the faith in general had been removed. Thus, in many ways the water torture was a crisis event like baptism, that is, a time of decision, a time of change, a time for a ‘metamorphosis of the soul’.

55 Hincmar, De divotio Lotharii, 6. PL 125, cols. 664, 668, 669. I used the trans. by Bartlett, p. 88. 56 In Bartlett, pp. 74, 85–89, see the discussion of Hincmar’s reflections on the ordeals of water, as well as the nature of the arguments of those of those who condemned the practice of the ordeal on the grounds that ordeals both “robbed the elements of their natural properties through incantations” or that they were not sanctioned by the Church Fathers since these practices were superstitious. These arguments all pre-figured the twelfth century attacks on the ordeal, as per Peter the Chanter who argued against it on the basis that “miracles cannot be guaranteed.” In addition to the scholarly work of Baldwin (cited above, note 48) on this topic, see Colin Morris, “Judicum Dei, The Social and Political Significance of the Ordeal in the Eleventh Century,” Studies in Church History 12 (1975), 95–112; and, John Roberts, “Oaths, Autonomic Ordeals, and Power,” American Anthropologist 67, no. 6, pt. 2 (1965), 186–212.

478

charles w. connell

Similarly, in the work of the women mystics, water symbolized change. Fountains, rivers, streams, even chalices emitting liquid, were all regarded as life-giving symbols. The drama of the visions was like the drama of the ceremonies of torture and baptism. Blessings of the symbol of water to insure the presence of God in the judgment or in the interpretation of the symbolism brought comfort to those involved, even to the falsely-accused innocents involved in torture. All in all, this “bringing out” of meaning from the brute matter of the world, in this case water, was a “great current in the medieval way of thinking.”57

57

See Cramer, p. 161, and pp. 161–66 for further discussion on this point.

THE “WATER OF THOMAS BECKET”: WATER AS MEDIUM, METAPHOR, AND RELIC Alyce A. Jordan Introduction In life, and particularly in death, Thomas Becket was nothing short of a medieval celebrity. During his seven-year tenure as chancellor of England, Thomas became the close companion and confidant of the English king. When, in 1162, Henry II chose Thomas to become the next archbishop of Canterbury, following the death of Archbishop Theobald the year before, popular consensus held that it was Thomas’ track-record as a skilled executor of royal policy, rather than any demonstrated aptitude for the ecclesiastical profession, that had recommended his appointment. Following his consecration, however, Thomas proved himself an ardent, if unanticipated, defender of the Church. Thomas Becket and Henry II, former friends and falconing companions, entered into a series of combative engagements focused on the issue of clerical immunity. The dispute culminated in the Thomas’ refusal to endorse the Constitutions of Clarendon, a document alleging the primacy of secular law over canon law in the adjudication of clerics accused of criminal acts. In 1164, fearing for his safety, Thomas fled Canterbury. He spent the next six years living in exile in France. A series of protracted negotiations returned the prelate to England near the end of 1170, where, on December 29th, he was murdered in Canterbury cathedral by four of Henry II’s knights. Public outrage and miraculous occurrences prompted the archbishop’s swift canonization in 1173. St. Thomas’ relics were translated in 1220 to a sumptuous elevated tomb at the east end of Canterbury cathedral. Thomas Becket’s shrine remained, for centuries, one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in Europe (figures 1–2).1 The primary textual sources, which include the Latin lives and miracles of the saint together with Becket’s letters, are collected in James Craige Robertson and J.B. Sheppard, ed., Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Rolls Series, 7 vols. (London, 1875–85), hereafter cited as Materials. The major contemporary 1

480

alyce a. jordan

Figure 1. Canterbury Cathedral.

The Roman Catholic Church venerated Thomas Becket as a stalwart defender of, and martyr for, Church liberty. The rapid rise and diffusion of his cult, however, was driven not by the ecclesiastical community, but by the poor and indigent for whom the archbishop immediately began performing miracles. According to William FitzStephen, one of Becket’s biographers, Thomas worked his first miracle the very night of his death. A citizen of Canterbury who witnessed Thomas’ murder had dipped his shirt in the archbishop’s blood. When the man returned

biographies of Becket are Frank Barlow, Thomas Becket (1986; reprint London, 1997); David Knowles, Thomas Becket (1970; reprint London, 1971); and, most recently, Anne Duggan, Thomas Becket (London, 2004). An important recent contribution to the study of Becket includes Michael Staunton, The Lives of Thomas Becket (Manchester, 2001), which provides previously untranslated primary texts.

the “water of thomas becket”

481

Figure 2. Canterbury Cathedral.

home and recounted the calamitous events to his paralyzed wife, she instructed him to rinse the blood out of the garment and mix it with water. Upon drinking the liquid, the woman was immediately cured.2 Word of this and similar miracles quickly spread. Within days, the monks of Canterbury were besieged by pilgrims clamoring for access to Becket’s tomb and his wonder-working blood. Accommodating these desires was problematic. Thomas Becket had been killed by four knights loyal to Henry II, and it was widely believed they had committed the murder on direct orders from the king himself. The knights vowed to desecrate Thomas’ body if the monks did not

2 William FitzStephen, Materials, vol. 3, p. 150. One of Thomas’ longtime friends, supporters, and clerks, and an eyewitness to the archibishop’s murder, FitzStephen wrote his Vita of Thomas in 1173–74. See Staunton, Lives of Thomas Becket, pp. 205–206, for an extended translation of this portion of FitzStephen’s text. On the positions of Henry II and Archbishop Thomas regarding the Constitutions of Clarendon see Knowles, Thomas Becket, pp. 77–100; Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 99–1116; Dugan, Thomas Becket, pp. 44–48, 260–262.

482

alyce a. jordan

dispose of it quickly, and Henry II decreed that any veneration of the slain archbishop would result in fines and imprisonment. So fearful were the Canterbury monks of royal retaliation that they buried the archbishop’s body in the cathedral crypt that very night and denied public access to the tomb until Easter of the following year.3 Henry’s knights had, in the course of their vicious attack, shed a great quantity of Thomas’ blood across the paving stones of the cathedral, which the monks had carefully collected. Large-scale distribution of the blood, however, posed numerous problems, among them issues of limited supply and means of preservation. Beyond such practical concerns existed a host of theological complications. Although miraculous healings were frequently effected by saintly relics, no hagiographic precedent existed for the consumption of a martyr’s blood. The Old Testament book of Leviticus specifically prohibited the drinking of blood. Indeed, the only person whose blood figured prominently in Christian doctrine and ritual was Christ himself.4 Popular practice, however, had already offered a solution to these logistical and doctrinal impediments. Diluting the blood with water, as the paralyzed woman from Canterbury had done, simultaneously eliminated the unsavory aspects of ingestion and insured a virtually endless supply of the healing liquid. Equally important, diluting the martyr’s blood with water also facilitated a necessary semantic realignment, one which distinguished the Canterbury tincture from the blood of Christ, without eliminating the distinctive power that the former liquid derived by virtue of its association with the latter. In his biography of the archbishop, John of Salisbury observed that the exceptional nature of Thomas’ sanctity appeared in the parallels between the Passion of Christ and that of the slain archbishop, and Benedict of Peterborough, one of the Canterbury monks charged with documenting the healing miracles attributed to St. Thomas’ water, stated that he did not believe “[. . .] any previous case existed in which God allowed this prerogative; thus alone in the whole world the blood of the Lamb of Bethlehem and the blood of the Lamb of Canterbury were chosen 3 On the immediate aftermath of Thomas’ murder and his hasty burial see Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 246–250. 4 Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 264–267; Sarah Blick, “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows at Canterbury Cathedral,” Mirator (September 2001), 28–29; and Pierre André Sigal, “Naissance et premier développement d’un vinage exceptionnel: l’eau de saint Thomas,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 44 (2001), 36, discuss the problematic issues surrounding the consumption of blood.

the “water of thomas becket”

483

to be imbibed.”5 Becket’s distinctive holiness was also manifest in the extraordinary quantity and diversity of miracles now credited to the saint’s water, which cured all manner of affliction—from blindness to leprosy, paralysis to insanity—and even effected the resuscitation of the dead, a miracle previously attributed to Christ alone.6 Accounts of Thomas’ healing water multiplied rapidly. Pilgrims flocked to Canterbury in such numbers that, within months of the archbishop’s death, the cathedral began compiling written records of his miracles. Two monks, Benedict and William, documented the healings that occurred at the saint’s tomb, together with events recounted by pilgrims who journeyed to Canterbury to give thanks for miracles that had occurred elsewhere. Between 1172 and 1179, the monks recorded hundreds of miracles striking in their veracity and clinical detail.7 At the tomb, Canterbury monks dispensed spoonfuls of ‘St. Thomas’ water’ or applied sponges soaked in the tincture to afflicted parts of the body.8 Pilgrims could purchase small containers of the water in order to bring to ailing friends or relatives too ill to make the journey themselves, or to preserve the liquid for their own future use. Having initially distributed the water in containers made of wood or clay, the Canterbury monks soon began contracting with local metal smiths who fashioned ampullae out of tin. Produced for centuries, these ampullae became the essential Canterbury keepsake. Combination container, souvenir, and secondary relic, by virtue of their contact with

Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, p. 43, quoted in Madeline Harrison Caviness, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral 1175–1220 (Princeton, 1977), p. 149. The Christological associations with the water of St. Thomas were foregrounded in the Becket miracle windows at Canterbury Cathedral. See Caviness, Early Stained Glass, pp. 83–97, 146–150; and Madeline Harrison Caviness, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Great Britain 2 (London, 1981), pp. 157–214, for images and analyses of the Becket windows. 6 Both Benedict and William record miraculous resuscitations from the dead thanks to the intervention of St. Thomas’ water (William, Materials, vol. 1, pp. 160–162, and Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, pp. 229–234). 7 Benedict of Peterborough, a monk at Canterbury, was the first custodian of Becket’s tomb. Beginning in 1171, he undertook an accounting of the miracles that occurred at the tomb and incorporated miracles attributed to Thomas’ water that occurred elsewhere and were conveyed to Canterbury by letters. In 1172, Benedict was joined in this task by another Canterbury monk, William, who began his own compilation of miracles. After Benedict left Canterbury to become abbot of Peterborough, William continued recording the miracles on his own. Both authors added to their miracle collections in 1178–1179. Benedicts accounts appear in Materials, vol. 2, pp. 21–279; William’s compilation appears in Materials, vol. 1, 155–545. 8 Sigal, “Naissance d’un vinage exceptionnel,” p. 39. 5

484

alyce a. jordan

the miracle-working liquid, Canterbury ampullae have survived in great quantity and comprise a singularly important body of evidence of the saint’s enduring popularity (figures 4–5, 7).9 The powerful Christological associations and extraordinary efficacy of the water of St. Thomas exercised, I believe, a defining influence on other aspects of his cult. In the remainder of this essay, I shall examine Thomas Becket’s miracles, together with the liturgies and surviving medieval imagery devoted to his life, in an attempt to elucidate some of the literal and symbolic ways in which water shaped the hagiographic legacy of this celebrated saint. The ‘Water of St. Thomas’ in Word and Image The meticulous records of Becket’s miracles compiled by Benedict and William have allowed scholars to systematically track the rapid geographic expansion of his cult and analyze the spectrum of maladies he cured. The renowned French scholar, Raymonde Foreville, devoted much of her career to just such studies.10 The records of Benedict and William collectively document over two hundred and fifty individual miracles performed by St. Thomas.11 While a majority of these (one in five) were attributed to the intervention of the saint’s healing water,12 a substantial number of reports indicate that St. Thomas also maintained a certain subspecialty in saving people from water. Seafarers delivered from tempests and children rescued from accidental falls into rivers,

9 Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, Medieval Finds from Excavations in London: 7 (London, 1998), p. 38; Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, Salisbury Museum Medieval Catalogue Part 2 (Salisbury, 1990), pp. 16–24. Benedict and William describe ampullae of various shapes, executed in variant materials (William, Materials, vol. 1, pp. 176, 476, 534; Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, pp. 49, 69–70, 106). Becket ampullae constitute an especially precious visual resource for the study of St. Thomas in England, given the widespread destruction of Becket imagery following the suppression of the saint’s cult by Henry VIII in 1538. See Tancred Borenius, St. Thomas Becket in Art (1932; reprint London, 1970). 10 Among the many publications this French historian devoted to Thomas Becket, see especially Raymonde Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque international de Sédières 19–24 août 1973 (Paris, 1975); Raymonde Foreville, Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique (London, 1981). 11 Raymonde Foreville, “Les ‘Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis,’” in Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique, p. 445. 12 Kay Brainerd Slocum, “Optimus Egrorum Medicus Fit Thoma Bonorum: Images of Saint Thomas Becket as Healer,” Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 10 (2000), 175.

the “water of thomas becket”

485

streams, and wells comprise the majority of such miracles.13 Another subcategory of water-related miracles involved the transformation of the relic itself. Benedict and William record multiple instances in which St. Thomas’ water increased or decreased in quantity, bubbled ominously when in the possession of an impious owner, and changed its nature, transmuting into milk, wine, and even blood.14 The liturgical offices devoted to St. Thomas’ feast day (December 29, the anniversary of his murder) emphasize the miracles attributed to the archbishop’s aqua sanctissima. Studens livor, the most popular of the offices devoted to Becket’s feast, affirms that “[t]he intercession of Thomas cures illnesses and weaknesses. He [. . .] tends fever [and] cures the insane [. . .] the admixture of blood for this reason excels the power of water.”15 The miraculous transmutation of St. Thomas’ water is also recorded in this liturgy: “The water of Thomas, varying its colour five times, changed once into milk, four times into blood.”16 Elsewhere in the same office we are told that Thomas calms storms at sea.17 The liturgical text embellishes these accounts of the wondrous connections between water, St. Thomas, and the water of St. Thomas with a wealth of poetic language evoking the medium’s visual and tactile qualities. Thus the liturgy recounts that, soon after his death, “the martyr began to glisten with remarkable miracles,”18 and later that “Thomas shines with wondrous miracles,” and “cleanses those besmirched with the spots of leprosy.”19 The medicinal acumen of Thomas’ healing water is evinced further in another office, preserved in a manuscript of French origin, dedicated to the saint’s feast. In equally redolent language, the office recounts that “The blood of Thomas in a potion of water restored the dead to life. The people came together from all sides, excited by the gleaming of the miracles. Bringing tributes, vows and prayers from his most holy water various diseases are cured. Having drunk it the sick are returned to health.”20 This office additionally emphasizes Thomas’ Foreville, “Les ‘Miracula,’ ” 454–457. William, Materials, vol. 1, pp. 354–357; Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, pp. 50–53, 134–135,188–192; Sigal, “Naissance d’un vinage,” p. 38. 15 Quoted in Kay Brainerd Slocum, Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 86. 16 Quoted in Slocum, “Optimus Egrorum Medicus,” p. 179. This liturgical office is attributed to Benedict of Peterborough. 17 “Thomas [. . .]sedat fluctus [. . . .]” Quoted in Slocum, Liturgies, pp. 166, 196. 18 Quoted in Slocum, Liturgies, p. 79. 19 Quoted in Slocum, Liturgies, p. 143. 20 Quoted in Slocum, “Optimus Egrorum Medicus,” p. 179. 13

14

486

alyce a. jordan

protection of seafarers, noting that he has “[. . .] assisted shipwrecked sailors with his protection.”21 Thomas’ water thus proved capable not only of curing a wide variety of ailments, but of offering protection from the very dangers with which the medium of water was traditionally associated. The feast of St. Thomas was adopted throughout England and the continent. This annual evocation of the spectrum of associations surrounding St. Thomas’ water reinforced, amplified, and increasingly defined the ongoing popularity of the saint’s cult. At Canterbury, the redesigned eastern portion of the cathedral to which Thomas’ relics were translated in 1220, known as the Trinity Chapel, functioned as a customized stage for his veneration. The saint’s elevated shrine sat in the middle of the choir, surrounded by stained glass windows, which depicted a representative sampling of his miracles, including two stories in which a boy and a man, both of whom had fallen into swollen rivers, are saved from drowning through the saint’s intervention (figures 1–2, 8–9).22 Contemporary medieval sources document Archbishop Stephen Langton’s lavish and meticulously choreographed ceremony celebrating the Translation of St. Thomas to his new Canterbury shrine, on 7 July 1220, as a major event of the early thirteenth century.23 Performed annually at Canterbury and many other churches throughout England and France, the office for the Translation of St. Thomas, composed within a few years of the 1220 ceremony, recorded a number of miracles that occurred in conjunction with the Translation itself, including two instances in which the saint again saved a man and a boy from drowning.

21 Quoted in Slocum, Liturgies, pp. 88–89. Benedict and William both record miracles in which Thomas saves victims of shipwrecks (Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, pp. 213–214; William, Materials, vol. 1, pp. 301–302, 316–317, 324–325, 378–380, 474–475, 526). 22 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, pp. 195–196, 206. The story of the boy saved from drowning survives in three scenes. On the basis of the iconography and remaining inscriptions, Caviness identifies the story as a conflation of two different accounts of boys (Robertulus and Phillip, the latter a son of Hugh Scot of Warwickshire), both of whom were saved by Thomas after falling into rivers (Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, 226–227, 238–239). The story of John, the servant of Sweyn of Roxburgh, whom Thomas saved after he fell from his horse into the River Tweed, is recounted both by Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, 266; and William, Materials, vol. 1, 296–297. 23 Concerning the details and impact of the Translation ceremony see Anne Duggan, “The Cult of St. Thomas Becket in the Thirteenth Century,” in St. Thomas Cantilupe Bishop of Hereford: Essays in His Honour, ed. Meryl Jancey (Hereford, 1982), pp. 21–44. Duggan, 22, describes Becket’s Translation as “one of the grandest state occasions of the century.”

the “water of thomas becket”

487

St. Thomas rescues the boy from the English Channel while en route to Canterbury from Witsand (Wissant), on the north coast of France (the same voyage Archbishop Thomas undertook when he made his ill-fated return to Canterbury in November 1170). The man, not insignificantly also a pilgrim traveling to Canterbury from a town named Devizes, west of Reading, is saved after falling into a river.24 The Translation text links the man’s rescue with the miraculous transmutation of Thomas’ water celebrated in the earlier liturgy for the archbishop’s Feast: “Although a liquid then [at the time of the martyrdom] was transformed five times, now a man submerged five times has been saved from drowning.”25 Such poetic elision of St. Thomas’ water with the saint’s performance of additional water-related rescues served at once to remind the faithful of earlier miracles, document new ones, and conjure further symbolic associations between the two. Elsewhere in the Translation office, evocative imagery merges with these water-borne miracles: “As a fluid when stirred emits the odor held inside, so Thomas shines with miracles when he is besought. In witness to Christ’s martyr, when the martyr is translated, a boy nearly drowned en route, is borne aloft by the waves. When a man coming from Devizes called upon Thomas, although he sank five times, he did not taste death.”26 The rich intertextuality established between the Translation office and the office of the martyr’s Feast complements the equally rich exchange that transpired between both liturgies and the ensemble of miracle windows which formed their backdrop (figures 1–2, 8–9). That St. Thomas could be credited with the rescue of pilgrims obliged to navigate treacherous waters on their way to Canterbury would surely have comforted the many future pilgrims whose journeys to the saint’s shrine would necessitate comparably dangerous water crossings.27 Thomas’ particular ability to safeguard and rescue people from bodies of water may be connected not only to the saint’s wonder-working 24 Sherry L. Reams, “Reconstructing and Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80 (2005), 128. 25 Quoted in Reams, “Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” pp. 153– 154. 26 Quoted in Reams, “Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” pp. 155–156. Slocum, Liturgies, pp. 268–269, provides a somewhat different translation of the Latin text. 27 Reams, “Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” p. 155, observes the powerful symbolic patterning established between the office’s recurrent evocation of “people sinking and then being lifted from the water” and conceptions of miraculous rebirth, “like Jonah or like every Christian at baptism.”

488

alyce a. jordan

tincture, but to salient details of his own life. Two key events in Becket’s biography involve his own voyages across the English Channel. While Henry II’s chancellor, Thomas made this trip many times as part of the routine peregrinations of the court between London and the king’s various Norman strongholds.28 As archbishop of Canterbury, however, Thomas made this journey only twice, once in 1164, when he fled England to seek protection from Louis VII of France, and again in 1170 when he returned to England, to resume his post as archbishop of Canterbury, a position he would hold for barely a month before his murder.29 Both of these Channel crossings assumed prominent positions in the saint’s posthumous legacy. Together with his birth, flight from Northampton (after his refusal to accept the Constitutions of Clarendon), and death, these two voyages were identified by biographers among the five most significant events in Becket’s life. The compilation came to be referred to as ‘Thomas Tuesdays,’ because all five transpired on the same day of the week.30 Canterbury cathedral commemorated the archbishop’s fateful return from exile with a special liturgical office know as the Regressio (return) of St. Thomas.31 Whether because of their significance as exempla of the voyage undertaken by many Canterbury pilgrims, as links to Thomas’ special skills in protecting people from drowning, shipwrecks, and stormy seas, or as a material connection to ‘St. Thomas’ water,’ these particular ‘Thomas Tuesdays’ also became canonical elements in Becket iconography. Images of St. Thomas appeared almost immediately upon his death. Depictions of the saint’s murder were included in manuscripts and were

28 On Thomas’ activities during his tenure as Henry II’s chancellor, see Knowles, Thomas Becket, pp. 30–49; Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 41–63; Duggan, Thomas Becket, pp. 16–32. 29 Barlow, Thomas Becket, pp. 115–116, 222–224; Duggan, Thomas Becket, pp. 84–92, 196–200. 30 Duggan, “Cult of St. Thomas Becket,” pp. 23, 40, note 105; Slocum, Liturgies, pp. 247–253. The identification of Tuesday as a providential day in the life of St. Thomas dates to the early years following his martyrdom and is first recorded in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Vie de Saint Thomas. The five original Thomas Tuesdays were subsequently expanded to seven with the addition of Thomas’ prophetic vision of Christ while in exile at Pontigny, and the day of his 1220 Translation ceremony. All seven Thomas Tuesdays were celebrated at Canterbury. 31 Duggan, “Cult of St. Thomas Becket,” 23, note 7. The Regressio was celebrated on 2 December.

the “water of thomas becket”

489

widely disseminated on enameled reliquaries produced in Limoges.32 While this first generation of visual art focused on single images of the saint, or abbreviated accounts of his martyrdom, a shift to more elaborate renderings occurred at Canterbury cathedral, whose choir was redesigned and decorated to house the saint’s new shrine. Two Canterbury windows devoted to the life of Thomas were destroyed following the suppression of his cult by Henry VIII in 1538.33 However, four other life of Thomas Becket windows, all dated between 1210 and 1240, survive in the French cathedrals of Sens, Chartres, Coutances, and Angers. They are among the earliest surviving works of monumental narrative art devoted to Becket outside of Canterbury.34 All four expand the visual repertoire devoted to Becket and vary in form and content from one to the other. All of them, however, preserve at least one scene of the archbishop crossing the English Channel (figure 3). The Chartres window depicts both of the archbishop’s Channel voyages. The same phenomenon recurs in medieval Becket cycles in all media, indicating that these Channel crossings were considered fundamental elements of the archbishop’s biography. Depictions of Thomas traveling by ship also comprised one of the standard types of ampullae available at Canterbury cathedral. Manufactured over several centuries, Canterbury ampullae depicting St. Thomas aboard ship became increasingly elaborate in design and may have been sold specifically in conjunction with the archbishop’s return to England, celebrated annually at Canterbury on December 2nd (figure 4).35 Ship ampullae often carried additional scenes on their reverse side, such as Thomas’ martyrdom or the Crucifixion. This particular ampulla depicts Christ on the cross flanked by Longinus with his spear and Stephaton 32 Borenius, St. Thomas Becket in Art; Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque, contains numerous articles supplementing Borenius’ compilation of Becket iconography. On the Becket reliquaries, see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Enamels of Limoges 1100–1350 (New York, 1996), pp. 14, 162–164. Fifty-two reliquaries produced between 1180 and 1220 are known to exist. 33 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, 175–177. One panel depicting the archbishop, surrounded by his monks and cross-bearer, conversing with a man in secular attire, survives from these windows. See Madeline H. Caviness, ed. Medieval and Renaissance Stained Glass from New England Collections (Medford, MA, 1978), pp. 12–13. 34 Catherine Brisac, “Thomas Becket dans le vitrail français au debut du XIIIe siècle,” in Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque, pp. 221–231. 35 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 61–63, 79–82. Spencer, p. 101, observes that exvotos in the shape of ships, executed in materials ranging from wax to precious, jewel-encrusted metals, were left at Thomas’ shrine, and that ships also hung above the shrine.

490

alyce a. jordan

Figure 3. Archbishop crossing the English Channel.

holding a bucket—a reference, perhaps, to the parallel between the mixture of blood and water that comprised the ‘water of St. Thomas’ and the mixture of blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side when Longinus pierced him with his lance.36 When filled with “St. Thomas’ water,” these ampullae fused biography and miracle, metaphor and relic, into potent, polyvalent signs that retained their significance long after their miraculous contents had been depleted.37 Other models of Canterbury ampullae frequently incorporated visual elements that similarly foregrounded the connection between Thomas Becket and Christ. One group of ampullae, for example, placed the container itself within a circular framework reminiscent of the tracery comprising a rose window—a shape popularized in contemporary gothic architecture and typically associated with Christological subjects

Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 61–63. Because the ampullae had held the blood of St. Thomas, the empty ampullae continued to function as touch-relics, sacred objects which had come in direct contact with the saint’s body. Ampullae, like other pilgrims’ badges, could also be hung on walls, buried beneath foundations and in gardens, or affixed to wells or troughs. Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 16–20, 39. 36 37

the “water of thomas becket”

Figure 4a. Ampulla.

Figure 4b. Ampulla.

491

492

alyce a. jordan

(figures 5–6). Some ampullae situated the container in a circular matrix evocative of Christ’s cruciform halo.38 These formats offered the added benefit of providing a location for text. One oft-repeated inscription reads, Optimus Egrorum Medicus fit Toma Bonorum (Thomas is the best doctor of the worthy sick)—a message that conveys not only the efficacy of the ampulla’s contents, but also the archbishop’s exceptional status as an exemplar of Christ, the ultimate doctor, who, through the shedding of his blood, ensured the salvation of the faithful (figure 7).39 The doctrinal complications that fueled the dissemination of the archbishop’s powerful relic as ‘St. Thomas’ water’, rather than St. Thomas’ blood, are scarcely apparent at Canterbury, where both textual and visual references to the latter abound. Many of the Becket miracle windows, for example, retain inscriptions that elaborate on the stories depicted. A scene depicting the cure of Ethelreda of Canterbury from quartan fever includes the explanatory text: “She was dried up, bloodless; when the blood [of the saint] had been imbibed, her blood came back.”40 Another window recounts the cure of Hugh of Jervaux, who suffered from a grave, but unidentified, malady. The first scene depicts Hugh in bed surrounded by his doctor, two monks, and a fourth figure. The inscription explains, “Physicians, his father and brothers and friends are in despair.” In the following scene, Hugh receives the water of St. Thomas. The inscription reads, “Hope remains for the hopeless in the blood of the saint.” A third panel states, “This man drinks [. . .] he is healed by the blood,” while Hugh, still in bed, turns on his stomach and discharges blood from his nose on to the floor.41 38 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 47–59, groups both of these formats under the heading “Ampullae with Openwork Penannular Frames.” 39 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 47. Madeline Caviness, “Beyond the Corpus Vitrearum: Stained Glass at the Crossroads,” Compte Rendu: Union académique internationale, 72ème Session (Brussels, 1998), p. 21, has identified parallels between phrases appearing in the Canterbury Becket windows and inscriptions on the Becket ampullae. Such phrases, Caviness observes, “could be recited like a spell over the sick person who was to receive the blood of Thomas; even if he/she could not understand the Latin, the inscribed letters carried the mystique of literacy that was associated with the church.” Inscriptions on the ampullae, then, added yet another layer to their miraculous, multivalent power. For further literal and symbolic connections between the Canterbury Becket windows and ampullae, see Madeline H. Caviness, “Stasis and Movement: Hagiographical Windows and the Liturgy,” in Stained Glass as Monumental Painting, Proceedings of the XIXth International Colloquium of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Krakow 1998, ed. Lech Kalinowski et al. (Krakow, 1999), pp. 71–72; and Blick, “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows.” 40 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, p. 184. 41 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, pp. 191–192.

the “water of thomas becket”

Figure 5. Ampulla.

493

494

alyce a. jordan

Figure 6. Rose window.

the “water of thomas becket”

495

Figure 7. Ampulla.

According to Benedict’s account of this miracle, after Hugh drank the water of St. Thomas, he disgorged a bloody discharge from his nose and his health soon returned.42 In the window, this miracle is depicted in such a way as to contrast the life-giving blood of St. Thomas, with the diseased blood of the patient, and to emphasize the superior medicinal qualities of the saint’s relics over the ineffective cures previously administered by Hugh’s physician (figure 8).43 Such references to the curative powers of Thomas’ blood find a visual counterpart in the many representations of the miraculous liquid’s distribution, with their

42 43

Benedict, Materials, vol. 2, pp. 159–160. Caviness, Early Stained Glass, p. 149.

496

alyce a. jordan

Figure 8. Curative powers of Thomas’ blood.

evocations of the distribution of the Eucharist.44 The final scene in this series is modern, modeled after an authentic panel from a neighboring window, in which Hugh, now cured, prays at the tomb of St. Thomas. Albeit modern, this scene echoes an oft repeated visual leitmotif of the Becket miracle windows: the importance of thanking the saint for his wonder-working water through acts of pilgrimage and donation to his Canterbury shrine.45 That references to the archbishop’s blood and its parallels to the blood of Christ would be most overtly articulated at Canterbury is not surprising, given the cathedral’s status not only as the fountainhead of the miraculous liquid, but also as the venue in which the powerful alliance

44 Caviness, Early Stained Glass, pp. 149–150, observes that the numerous depictions of monks distributing St. Thomas’ miraculous tincture in the miracle windows seem intended to convey “the visual overtone [. . .] of the sacrament.” 45 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, p. 192. For authentic medieval depictions of pilgrims at St. Thomas’ tomb see Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, Pl. 110–160 and Caviness, Early Stained Glass, Figs. 120, 197f, 210.

the “water of thomas becket”

497

between the blood of Christ and the blood of St. Thomas could best be clarified and controlled. Beyond the cathedral precincts, however, the archbishop’s relics were both literally and figuratively diluted. The same water that facilitated the limitless dissemination of Becket’s blood also provided a means of circumventing any controversial confusion or conflation with the blood of Christ. Thus, while the inscriptions in the Canterbury miracle windows speak repeatedly of Thomas’ blood, the inscriptions on the ampullae typically refer to their contents as St. Thomas’ water, Canterbury water, Canterbury medicine, or simply reference the saint’s curative powers.46 The identification of St. Thomas with his healing water may ultimately have contributed to the import placed on the other water-related elements I have identified, including the saint’s own voyages across the Channel as well as his protection of water-faring travelers from drowning, tempests, and shipwrecks. Conclusion A final connection may be drawn between the martyred archbishop of Canterbury and Christ—their shared lack of physical remains. Christ’s bodily assumption into heaven precluded the existence of physical relics. This absence made the secondary relics with which Christ’s body had come into contact, such as the Cross of his crucifixion, the Crown of Thorns, or the shroud in which his body was wrapped, of such seminal importance. Indeed, the only way in which a medieval Christian could experience a corporeal relic of Christ was through the miracle of Transubstantiation—the mystical transformation of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood—that occurred during the Mass. In the case of Thomas Becket, the absence of bodily remains was, initially, a by-product of necessity. The monks of Canterbury, fearing the desecration of the archbishop’s corpse, had hastily buried it. This made the saint’s blood—the only corporeal relic available—all the more precious. The subsequent dilution of Thomas’ blood with water resulted in a tincture that retained all the import of a corporeal relic and that was readily expandable. The water of St. Thomas thus constituted a bodily relic which, in contrast to relics such as bones, could

46 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 45–59. Spencer identifies the “Optimus Egrorum Medicus” inscription as the one most commonly found on Becket ampullae.

498

alyce a. jordan

be made available to all. Relics were precious commodities housed in churches inside reliquaries whose access was jealously guarded. At Canterbury, however, every pilgrim could take away his very own vial of St. Thomas’ healing water, a point emphasized in the Trinity Chapel miracle windows, where pilgrims repeatedly appear with large ampullae. In a scene from the story of the plague in the house of Jordan Fitz-Eisulf, two pilgrims hold Canterbury ampullae, while Fitz-Eisulf revives his dead son, William, by pouring water from a third ampulla into the boy’s mouth (figure 9).47 Indeed, the surviving evidence suggests that the Canterbury clergy consciously promoted the dissemination of St. Thomas’ water by limiting the sale of souvenirs exclusively to ampullae. Whereas souvenir badges were widely available at other pilgrimage sites throughout Europe as early as the late twelfth-century, Canterbury badges appear not to have been marketed until well into the fourteenth.48 Similarly, when the archbishop’s remains were translated to their new shrine in 1220, a time when the procurement and distribution of bodily relics would typically have occurred, the Canterbury monks took extreme measures to insure that none of the saint’s relics were diverted to any location other than his new resting place. In so doing, the monks also insured that veneration of the saint remained focused on his Canterbury shrine.49 The cult of Thomas Becket retained its exceptional popularity well after the Middle Ages. Although textual records of the miracles wrought by St. Thomas do not extend beyond the thirteenth century, the continued production of Canterbury ampullae testifies to the ongoing efficacy of the saintly tincture. New miracles involving water also continued to fuel the saint’s veneration. Sources dating from the fourteenth century state that, following Becket’s translation, a miraculous spring appeared in the cathedral crypt at the original site of the martyr’s tomb.50 Indeed, current scholarship devoted to Thomas Becket

47 Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, pp. 197–199. The inscription reads, “The prayer of the father, the will of the martyr [are] that he may be restored.” 48 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, p. 78. 49 Reams, “Reconstructing and Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Office,” pp. 149–150. Whether or not relics were procured and subsequently distributed at the time of Thomas’ Translation is disputed in the medieval sources. 50 Blick, “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows,” pp. 22–23. The Becket window at the French cathedral of Coutances appears in the north transept

the “water of thomas becket”

499

Figure 9. Two pilgrims hold Canterbury ampullae.

depends in no small part on the import of water in the life of the saint. Henry VIII’s directive that all imagery devoted to ‘bysshop Becket’ be destroyed went far toward obliterating visual evidence of the devotion to St. Thomas in England. The quantity of surviving ampullae and pilgrim badges, however, offer poignant testimony to the popularity of Thomas’ shrine as a site of pilgrimage right up until the moment of Henry suppression of the Becket’s cult in 1538. The overwhelming majority of these ampullae and badges have been excavated from English riverbanks over the course of the past century—a result of contemporary waterfront development and a medieval tradition which encouraged the assignment of pilgrim souvenirs into bodies of water when they became too worn or damaged as a method of “[taking]

clerestory opposite a well, located in the south transept, whose water is also credited with miraculous healings.

500

alyce a. jordan

them out of circulation.”51 That these ampullae and badges, retrieved from riverbanks, today constitute a seminal visual resource for the study of Thomas Becket in England seems an appropriate testament to the innumerable miracles St. Thomas worked through his own wondrous, healing water.

51

Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, pp. 16–31.

“ALMOST MIRACULOUS”: LORD NORTH AND THE HEALING WATERS OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS Ronald W. Cooley In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before the large-scale development of seaside resorts, inland mineral spas were the retreat of choice for England’s gentry and for the prosperous middling sort, seeking to combine therapy and recreation. The oldest of the English watering places, and of course the most famous, was Bath. But during the heyday of spa culture many newer resorts arose to challenge Bath’s pre-eminence. Foremost among these, and almost as interesting as Bath in the literary iconography of English places, is the spa town of Tunbridge Wells on the border of Sussex and Kent. Built from scratch to capitalize on the discovery of mineral springs in the early seventeenth century, the town had also to be constructed discursively and imaginatively if it was to thrive. It had to come to signify something in the minds of those, chiefly Londoners, on whose trade it depended. This essay explores a key phase of that construction, the retrospective creation of the myth of origins, part romantic, part rationalist, on which the town’s subsequent life story would rest. The mythopoetic process begins with Thomas Benge Burr’s account of the discovery of the chalybeate springs printed in the first civic history, his 1766 History of Tunbridge Wells. “Dudley, Lord North” writes Burr, was a nobleman “in the court of Prince Henry [. . .] where he entered into all the gallantries of the times with a vivacity and spirit, which, however entertaining to others [. . .] was not only destructive to his fortune, but ruinous to his constitution also.1 In 1606, on the advice of friends and physicians, North retires to the hunting seat of a friend in the Sussex weald for a change of air, but failing to find relief, and longing to return to society, he soon sets out once again for London: Fortunately for him his road lay directly through the wood in which these useful springs were concealed from the knowledge of mankind; so that,

1 Thomas Benge Burr, The History of Tunbridge Wells (London, 1766), pp. 4–5, hereafter cited as Burr.

502

ronald w. cooley when his lordship came upon the spot, at the beginning of his journey, and while he had the day before him, he could not well pass by without taking notice of the water, which seemed to claim his attention on account of the shining mineral scum that everywhere swam on its surface, as well as on account of the ochreous substance which subsided at the bottom, and marked its course to a neighboring brook. His lordship accordingly observed these uncommon appearances, the meaning of which he could not instantly comprehend; however they induced him to alight from his carriage, in order to examine it more attentively; and at the same time he ordered one of his attendants to borrow a little vessel from the neighboring hovel, that he might taste it: and the peculiar ferruginous taste of the water not only convinced Lord North, that it held its course through some undiscovered mine, contained in the dark cavities of the earth, but also gave him room to fancy, that it was imbued with some medicinal properties which might be highly beneficial to the human race.2

He brings some of the water back to London, where his physicians pronounce it healthful. The following spring, Burr relates, “My Lord North returned [. . .] to add the power of the water to the purity of the air [. . .] And notwithstanding the low condition to which he was by this time reduced, the success he met with more than answered his most sanguine expectations, insomuch that, after about three months continuance [. . .] he returned to the town perfectly freed from all his complaints.” Burr concludes that “Lord North, immediately on this almost miraculous re-establishment of his health, by repairing to the court of his royal master confirmed the rumor of his having discovered these valuable springs of medicinal water; of the excellency of which, he was himself an incontestable evidence.”3 Burr’s story has no rival, and it has come been either reiterated or taken for granted in most subsequent treatments, whether popular or semi-scholarly.4 Two things, however, are curious about this account. The first is a matter of ambiguity in tone. Burr’s story might be described as equal parts Faerie Queene and Royal Society, a blend encapsulated in his characterization of North’s recovery as “almost miraculous.” On the one hand, Lord North appears as a romance figure: the dissolute aristocrat wandering in the wilderness in the forlorn home of finding means to

Burr, pp. 10–12. Burr, pp. 14–15, 17. 4 See, for example, Alan Savidge, Royal Tunbridge Wells (Speldhurst, 1975), pp. 25–27. 2 3

“almost

miraculous”

503

recover his health and spirits, who happens upon an enchanted spring.5 On the other hand, both North and Burr adopt a rationalist stance, seeking to offer “incontestable evidence” of their discoveries. The second curiosity involves the considerable interval between Burr’s account and the events it relates. Lord North’s own version of the story, published much earlier in his 1645 Forest of Varieties, is maddeningly brief. In a marginal note to some remarks on maintaining physical and mental health, North lays claim to the discovery and urges his readers to patronize domestic resorts, rather than the continental “Spaw”: “The use of Tunbridge and Epsam waters, for health and cure, I first made known to London, and the Kings people; the Spaw is a chargeable & inconvenient journey to sick bodies, besides the money it carries out of the Kingdome, & inconvenience to Religion.”6 In the 1659 second edition, North adds no new information, but appends an explicit invitation to speculation and embellishment: “Much more could I say, but I rather hint than handle, rather open a door to a large prospect than give it.”7 The obvious inference is that Burr, writing a century and a half after the event, takes up the invitation and romanticizes North’s claim, for the sake of a good yarn, and presumably also for reasons of competitiveness and local chauvinism. In the Restoration heyday of inland spa culture, Tunbridge Wells had rivaled Bath as a destination for genteel Londoners. By the mid eighteenth century, however, when Burr was writing, Bath had reasserted its pre-eminence, as “a new phase of investment in visitor facilities from about 1700” began the transformation of a country town into one of England’s ten largest cities.8 Burr’s account in 1766 serves, in part, to create a myth of origins that will help to distinguish the rustic spa town of Tunbridge Wells from its older, more populous, and more urbane competitor, and defend its uncertain position in the expanding leisure marketplace. Bath, of course, had always held the advantage in terms of both antiquity and romance. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the twelfth century chronicler of ancient British lore, attributed the foundation of the city 5 For some particular instances of this romance motif, see the essays by Misty Urban and Anne Scott in this volume. 6 Dudley, Lord North, A Forest of Varieties (London, 1645), p. 134. 7 Dudley, Lord North, A Forest Promiscuous of Several Seasons Productions (London, 1659), p. 129. 8 Peter Borsay, “Health and Leisure Resorts 1700–1840,” in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, ed. Peter Clark (New York, 2000), vol. 2, p. 777; The Image Of Georgian Bath, 1700–2000: Towns, Heritage, And History (Oxford, 2000), p. 11.

504

ronald w. cooley

to the father of King Lier, King Bladud, who “constructed the hot baths there which are so suited to the needs of mortal men”9 in the time of the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah. Geoffrey’s Bladud is a sort of Magus figure who dabbles in necromancy and conducts experiments in flight using homemade wings—experiments that end more or less as our elementary-school reading of Greek myth would lead us to expect. Inclined though we may be to dismiss the fabulous Bladud, the fact that Geoffrey names him as the builder of the baths is clear evidence that the hot springs themselves were well-enough known in Geoffrey’s time to invite some mythologizing about their origins. Indeed, there is archaeological evidence of a pre-Roman shrine on the site, and “early on in the Roman period, the natural hot springs became the focus of a monumentalized sanctuary that included the sacred spring itself [. . .] an imposing temple with an external altar, and an elaborate bath-suite.”10 Geoffrey, however, says nothing of the legend which later became most strongly associated with Bath and Bladud, the story of his exile as a swineherd and his miraculous cure from leprosy by the healing virtue of the waters. In this story, “the young Bladud had returned after his education in Athens afflicted with leprosy [. . .] had been driven from the royal court and reduced to herding pigs, and [. . .] while watching the pigs wallow in the hot mud of Bath’s springs [. . .] had recognized the healing powers of the waters” and subsequently cured his own affliction and resumed his royal station. As folklorist John Clark demonstrates, “the story of Bladud and the pigs [. . .] was popular, (if not necessarily taken seriously) in the eighteenth century,” and seems to have been well known in Bath at the beginning of the century. It may have been created and disseminated in the last decades of the seventeenth century, either as a contrived piece of promotional ‘fakelore,’ or even as a fanciful misinterpretation of some decaying commemorative statuary.11 Nevertheless the legend was institutionalized: it was (and is) an integral part of the cultural history and reputation of Bath. For Burr, the local historian and propagandist of Tunbridge Wells, the task seems to have been twofold. First, there was a task of identifi9 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 80. 10 Miranda Aldhouse-Green, “Gallo-British Dieties and their Shrines,” in A Companion to Roman Britain, ed. Malcolm Todd (Oxford, 2004), p. 200. See also the essay by Deborah Aryamontri in this volume. 11 John Clark, “Bladud of Bath: The Archaeology of a Legend” Folklore 105 (1994), 44, 45, 46, 47.

“almost

miraculous”

505

cation. He had to fashion for his town what had been created for Bath perhaps a century earlier—a romantic myth of origins that would help draw patrons to the still-rugged weald of Kent, rather than to the more expensive and cosmopolitan Bath. Hence the striking parallels between Burr’s story of Lord North and the legend of Bladud and the pigs—an afflicted prince in exile, an astonishing cure, and a triumphant return to health, society, and status. Second, and ultimately more important, was the task of differentiation. He had to make Tunbridge Wells seem to supply what modern Bath could not—hence, perhaps, his emphasis on the “change of air” and on a landscape “in the highest degree romantic,” an “assemblage of all nature’s beauties—hills, vales, brooks, lawns, groves, thickets, rocks, water-falls, all wildly noble and irregularly amiable.”12 For Lord North, according to Burr’s rendering, neither the retreat to the countryside nor the healthful waters would suffice to restore his vitality. Only by adding “the power of the water to the purity of the air” could a cure be achieved. On the theme of strategic differentiation, it is perhaps worth noting that despite Burr’s story about Lord North taking samples of the water to London for analysis, Tunbridge propaganda has customarily insisted that the waters lose their potency when bottled and transported. According to Benjamin Allen’s Natural History Of The Chalybeat and Purging Waters of England, “these [light chalybeate] Waters do not well conserve their Virtue two hours.”13 This is a sharp contrast to, say, Epsom, another of the ‘new’ seventeenth-century spas, where the manufacture of bath salts for sale gave rise to a product that can still be found on any drugstore shelf. The need for differentiation helps to explain the peculiar tone of Burr’s account, the curious aura of pseudo-scientific empiricism he strives to attach to an otherwise romantic narrative. However dramatic North’s cure might be, it is far from instantaneous; it occurs only after a suitable interval for rational investigation of the properties of the water. Relating Lord North’s transportation of a sample of the water to London for analysis, Burr scrupulously remarks, from whence the bottles were procured on this occasion it is not now very easy to determine, but that Lord North sent some part of his retinue back to Eridge for as many as were necessary, is very probable: at least it

Burr, p. 7. Benjamin Allen, The Natural History of the Chalybeat and Purging Waters of England with their Particular Essays and Uses (London, 1699), p. 26. 12 13

506

ronald w. cooley is not likely they were to be had nearer, as at that time the whole of the surrounding country was rough woods and uncultivated forests.14

If Burr is, in fact, embellishing and romanticizing North’s own skeletal account, rather than drawing on some other source now lost, then this passage seems to involve a kind of affected skepticism, in which Burr authenticates his own mythologizing by pretending to subject it to the scrutiny of a more enlightened age. He pronounces his account preferable to others he has ostensibly heard, “because it is the only one unattended with miraculous, or, at least, very improbable incidents.” Burr employs the same skeptical, slightly superior tone, in relating the pronouncements of North’s physicians on the water: “We have no particular account of the process they used upon this occasion, but as their sole business was to discover the nature and the properties of the water, they undoubtedly exercised all their skill, and tried all the experiments, the then infant state of chemistry would admit of.” For Burr, of course, the proof is not so much in the chemical analysis, but in the observable effect of the water therapy on Lord North, who “was himself an incontestable evidence to all that had known him in his past languishing and deplorable condition,” nevertheless the carefully qualified scientific testimony is important to the tone of his account.15 A truly miraculous cure would strain credibility—what was needed was an “almost miraculous” cure, presented in a language of skeptical empiricism. One detail in North’s own brief account does resonate, in a slightly different way, with this theme of calculated skepticism and differentiation. That detail is his observation that travel to the continental Spa is an “inconvenience to Religion.” During the English Reformation, attempts were initially made to suppress the holy wells that had served as devotional sites throughout the Middle Ages, along with the so-called superstitious practices attached to them. Increasingly, however, as Phyllis Hembry notes, “English Catholic recusants began to leave the country for Spa in the Spanish Netherlands under pretext of drinking the waters” and the official policy became one of secularizing and promoting domestic spas and discouraging emigration.16 By 1645 when North

14 15 16

p. 2.

Burr, pp. 12–13. Burr, pp. 3, 14, and 17. Phyllis Hembry, The English Spa, 1560–1815: A Social History (London, 1990),

“almost

miraculous”

507

was writing, the promotion of English domestic spas had become firmly attached to the cause of Protestant nationalism. Burr capitalizes on this linkage a little more than a century later, by prefacing his expanded account of North’s discovery with the observation that “the origin of places, as well as most of the discoveries that have been useful to mankind, were, in the dark ages of superstition and priestcraft, generally ascribed to the interposition of some avaricious saint, whose credit the monks of the time found themselves interested to advance.” According to Burr, “even the banishment of popery could not totally eradicate [our ancestors’] fondness for miracles, and their violent propensity to swallow the absurd tales of designing knaves.”17 These remarks serve explicitly to dissociate Burr’s own narrative of the discovery of the Tunbridge springs from competing accounts—or, perhaps, to secure credit for his story by insisting that other, less credible accounts exist. Implicitly, however, they also serve to dissociate his story from Bath’s legend of Bladud and the pigs, a miraculous story generally, if erroneously, held to be a relic of those same “dark ages of superstition and priestcraft.” The reputation of Tunbridge Wells, in contrast, rests on the “incontestable evidence” of Lord North’s subsequent health and long life, and on uncertain but far from ludicrous conclusions arrived at in the “infant state of chemistry.”18 We may well doubt that Burr had even the slender testimonial evidence to which he lays claim in his book, but he does have strong precedent for the theme of the “almost miraculous” cure, the curious fusion of romance and pseudo-scientific empiricism with which he infuses his story. The earliest works devoted specifically to Tunbridge Wells are not local histories, but medical treatises extolling the therapeutic benefits of the waters. The first such treatment appeared in 1632, only a generation after North’s discovery, published by the local physician Ludowick Rowzee (Rouse in later editions). Rowzee is concerned to itemize “the chiefest diseases against which Tunbridge water may be used with good successe” and he insists that physicians not “make it a [. . .] Panacea, a medicine for all diseases, as some physicians doe to the like Springs [. . .] Which causeth those springs to become infamous, and to lose the credit they justly deserve.”19 Nevertheless a certain amount Burr, pp. 1–2. Burr, pp. 1–2; 17; 14. 19 Lodwick Rowzee, The Queenes Welles that is, a Treatise of the Nature and Vertues of Tunbridge Water (London, 1632), pp. 38–9. 17 18

508

ronald w. cooley

of romantic mythologizing is essential to promotional literature, even in the field of medicine. Thus Patrick Madan, in his 1687 Phylosophical And Medicinal Essay Of The Waters Of Tunbridge, embellishes Rowzee’s account of the way water is “impregnated” with minerals as it passes through the earth: Venus comes from the Salt Sea through many Crannies, Interstices, Pores of the Earth, and dangerous Precipices foaming to meet her beloved Mars in the Bowels of the Earth: whom she no sooner embraces, but she is impregnated and big with a Valliant Hero, in the Bed of Honour with no insipid delight: From thence soon after this Congression, she rises Tryumphing in our Hemisphere at Tunbridge, generously imparting and distributing this Impregnative Faculty to her Votaries, in order to preserve and perpetuate Mankind.20

By this time the iron-rich Tunbridge waters had come to be promoted particularly for the treatment of gynaecological and reproductive complaints, and it is perhaps not entirely surprising that Madan’s scientific treatment should be so provocatively embroidered. A final precedent for Burr’s careful balance of romance and rationalism is to be found in a remarkable sermon entitled God’s Blessing on the Use of Mineral Waters, preached by William Nichols at the chapel of Tunbridge Wells in September, 1702, and printed soon after. Nichols’s text is John 5:2, which reads as follows in the Authorized Version: Now there is at Hierusalem by the sheepe market, a poole, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folke, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the mouing of the water. For an Angel went downe at a certaine season into the poole, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

Nichols’s sermon culminates with injunctions to “maintain [. . .] an easie and friendly conversation” among visitors to the spa, so that “the waters of the place [may] have a more powerful Influence upon our Bodies.”21 But its exegesis of the scriptural text barely touches this theme; rather, it is devoted to an elaborate naturalistic account of the phenomenon

20 Madan, Patrick. A Phylosophical and Medicinal Essay of the Waters of Tunbridge (London, 1687), pp. 6–7. For discussion of the natural history behind this account, see the essay by Lin Ferrand in this volume. 21 William Nichols, God’s Blessing on the Use of Mineral Waters. A Sermon Preach’d at the Chapel of Tunbridge-Wells, Septemb. 6, 1702 (London, 1702), p. 16.

“almost

miraculous”

509

of healing waters, both in biblical and modern times. Of the pool at Jerusalem, Nichols is at pains to deny that there was a more particular Interposition of the Angelick ministry than is usual in Medicinal Springs, and other Remedies which Nature provides for our Use. For it is observable, that the Jews had always a very religious way of expressing themselves, attributing the common productions and occurrences of Nature, either immediately to God Almighty, or to the ministry of his Holy Angels.22

Nichols goes on to insist that, “to speak in our way, it is not improbable that this Pool was any more than a sort of Thermae, or Hot Bath, heated by the Inflamation of sulpherous or bituminous Matter.”23 Having offered this naturalistic account of the healing waters of Bethesda, Nichols proceeds to argue that such an explanation is in no way inconsistent with Providential or even Angelic influence. Rather, he insists that whatever angelic powers “troubled the waters” of Bethesda are at work in Tunbridge Wells as well: “if we were able to look into the Invisible World we might [. . .] discover, with what kind of officiousness they assist in the Application of the Medicinal Waters of this Place: How they by gentle influences persuade Distempered Persons from the remotest distance, to repair to this Bethesda.”24 To put it starkly, Nichols finds it necessary to diminish the status of the Biblical Bethesda from the miraculous to the providential, or to borrow Burr’s terminology, to the “almost miraculous,” so that he can elevate “this [English] Bethesda” at Tunbridge to a similar status. In writing The History of Tunbridge Wells, Thomas Benge Burr faced the rhetorical challenge common to all local historians, though heightened by circumstances. As a civic partisan he had to celebrate the virtues of his town and indulge in the hyperbole, mystifi cation, and even perhaps the fabrication that characterizes the rhetoric of praise. The rival spa town of Bath already had its own romantic myth of origins; so to compete, he had to write a romance. As a historian writing in a sceptical age, Burr had nevertheless to display (or at least to profess) a certain detachment from earlier accounts of the spa’s virtues. The problem was, in a sense, its own solution, and it was imbedded in those very accounts. Together, Rowzee’s and Madan’s medical propaganda

22 23 24

Nichols, p. 5. Nichols, p. 7. Nichols, p. 10.

510

ronald w. cooley

and Nichols’s sermon lay the groundwork for what we might call the empiricist romance of Burr’s local history. For them, as for Burr, the praise of Tunbridge Wells is intimately tied to the water’s “almost miraculous” qualities. With the hint of a miracle Burr’s history seeks to draw patrons to the spa; with the “almost” it seeks to escape the taint of superstition and the scorn of enlightenment skepticism.

WATERS OF PARADISE: A BRIEF HYDROLOQUY ON THE GARDENS OF SPAIN AND NEW SPAIN Irene Matthews Holy Scripture testifies that Our Lord made the earthly Paradise in which he placed the Tree of Life. From it there flowed four main rivers: the Ganges in India, the Tigris and the Euphrates in Asia, [. . .] and the Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and flows into the sea at Alexandria[. . .]. I believe the earthly Paradise lies here, which no one can enter except by God’s leave. Christopher Columbus, Third Voyage1

It took some time—six years and a third arduous voyage to the ‘Far East’ beyond the West—for Christopher Columbus to assure himself that he had reached one of the goals of his repeated explorations, the veritable Garden of Eden. So far, he had not yet discovered any huge pot of gold for his Catholic Monarchs, nor had he yet encountered the Grand Khan, nor any tumult of worthy heathens convertible to the true faith under the beneficent smile of the Christian God. But many proofs supported his latest great discovery, this “earthly Paradise”: the light skin and the beauty and the nakedness and the humility of the inhabitants; the mild climate, gentle landscape, and lush vegetation that matched so many descriptions of the biblical Eden; the indubitable fact that the natives called this part of their world ‘Paria,’ an obvious form of ‘paraíso’ (Paradise); and the confluence of sweet streams of water which, by God’s leave and were he to choose to do so, Columbus could have navigated right up to Adam and Eve’s very own front gate. The Admiral reiterated his proofs on several occasions, yet he never did choose to sail to the top of the world and into the Garden. His theosophical interpretation was justified, however, not only by the geographical and metaphysical knowledge of his time preferred by those

1 The Voyages of Christopher Columbus, trans. and intro. Cecil Jane (Amsterdam, 1970), pp. 220–221.

512

irene matthews

scholars unwilling to risk the fires of heresy,2 but also by the historical circumstances under which he originally set sail in 1492. This had been Christian Spain’s year: its disparate and contentious fiefdoms united by a royal marriage, the publication of a Spanish vernacular grammar, the first in any European language, the assumption of the keys to the Moorish stronghold in Granada, and—the day before Columbus sailed—the final deadline for the expulsion from Spain of its entire Jewish population. The expedition to the Indies transported three powerful tools of empire: a dominant language, a dominating religion, and, if necessary, recourse to force. The other, significant connecting factor was the most essential—water. The Atlantic Ocean facilitated the achievement of those Spanish imperial objectives, and linked one naturally barren plateau in southern Iberia with another in central Mexico. The Atlantic, of course, did not irrigate the fields and pastures wrought from those plateaus; it took human engineering to tame the floods and the inclement climate and introduce sweet, freshwaters to men’s habitats and enclaves—to render them possible at all. Once survival needs were satisfied, the water of life soon came to represent delight, excess, leisure. Pools and fountains confirmed mastery of nature and of competitive desires. “Waters of Paradise” describes how the essence of all life forms was harnessed and constrained to provide pleasure and power—the visible achievements of Conquest. I. A Lost Inheritance This is the similitude of Paradise which the god-fearing have been promised therein are rivers of water unstaling rivers of milk unchanging in flavour, and rivers of wine––a delight to the drinkers, 2 Chronicler of the Indies Bartolomé de las Casas confirms how Columbus, as he hastened north and left behind the huge onrush of sweet water (pouring as we now know, from the Orinoco delta), seems to have used Biblical evidence to confirm the geographical proofs: “[. . .] not finding any islands now assures [Columbus] that the land whence he came is a great continent where is located the Terrestrial Paradise, ‘because all men say that it’s at the end of the Orient, and that’s where we are’ says he.” Quoted in William Howard Adams, Nature Perfected. Gardens Through History (London, 1991), p. 261.

waters of paradise rivers, too, of honey purified, and therein for them is every fruit and forgiveness from their Lord.

513

Qur’an (Sura 47:15ff)3

The abode of beauty is here, as if it had been inhabited but yesterday. Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra, 18294

Although a Genoa native and widely traveled in the seas around Europe and along the coast of Africa, Christopher Columbus spent a deal of time in the south of the Iberian peninsula, negotiating his projected voyages. When he crosses the Atlantic, his imagination is almost as febrile as that of Washington Irving; in addition to his paradisiacal evocations, Columbus constantly looks back to praise the climate, the topography—especially the rivers—and the vegetation of Andalucia as he tries to write word pictures of his new world for the readers at home. Columbus’s affinity for the specifics of comparative geography was very inexpert, however; he apparently carried with him no one with any skills as a naturalist, no one with the “most rudimentary knowledge of flora and fauna, much less any ability to describe, record, analyze or preserve any of the specimens of life that might be found on those new lands.”5 Nor was there anyone on board to sketch or draw any of the new sights, geological, biological, or anthropological, since “not once in all of Spain’s history of discovery did it send out an artist of any sort—not even during the century of Goya and Velásquez.”6 The lack of scientific and artistic expertise on his crew list and his struggles with visual rhetoric suggest that prior to departure, Columbus (like most sailors of his day, no doubt) had expended little energy absorbing the beauties—actual and mythical—of the historic architecture and the gardens of al-andalus. The post-Islamic Mudejar style of these gardens confirms that many Spaniards respected and assimilated some aspects of ‘Moorish’ culture, but the fate of much Islamic architecture, and its gardens, was miserably short-lived.7

Accessible at www.islamia.com, “Essential Koran.” Here, in Tales of the Alhambra (London, 1875), p. 23. 5 Kirkpatrick Sale chastises this botanical and aesthetic neglect in The Conquest of Paradise. Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (London, 1990), p. 2. 6 Ibid. 7 The palaces at Madina-al-Zahra outside Cordoba, for example, were surrounded by celebrated gardens which included architectural, planting, and irrigation techniques drawn from both pre-Roman and, particularly, from oriental ideas imported by the Moorish Arabs; these gardens were destroyed in 1010, less than a century after their 3 4

514

irene matthews

Nevertheless, we are fortunate to be able to enjoy still a handful of ancient gardens throughout the south of Spain, and above all, almost intact albeit much adapted to ensuing tastes and use, two masterpieces of late Islamic style in Granada, the last outpost of the Muslim empire in Europe: the gardens of the Alhambra (Red Fortress), begun in A.D. 1238, and of the Generalife (Garden of the Architect)8 from A.D. 1319. Despite their late construction, both gardens rely on certain aesthetic fundaments of Islamic and earlier Persian architecture. The secretive, often angular, placements of interlinked courtyards defer the pleasurable surprises of adjacent views behind decorative walls, and the sight and sound of water are ubiquitous, cooling both the air and the spirit. Water was—and is—a priceless commodity in the mountainous plateaux that formed the central area of the great Persian empire that cradled Islamic garden design. For many thousands of years, the most zealous of rulers, the most expert of engineers, sought the means to transport the precious liquid to their cities from the foothills of the mountains without losing it to the air on the way. Almost two thousand years before the Alhambra was conceived, Cyrus the Great had established at Pasargadae (near Persopolis) great gardens, served by lengthy underground aqueducts, or guanat, which also brought water stored in great cisterns to feed the garden pools and irrigate community cultivation areas. On the surface, large smooth reservoirs reflected the architecture and the sky; narrow open channels served to water decorative plantings and delineate the gardens’ fundamental harmonies. Water represented, actually and symbolically, the presence of life, carefully hoarded and distributed within its walled surrounds, in contrast to the stark peaks and parched desert without.9 creation, and like these, most other gardens remain visible to modernity only through recent excavation of their foundations. The Mudejar style was developed by Muslim artists working under Christian masters, a complement to earlier Mozarabe style in which Christians worked under Muslims. Not all potentates appreciated Mudejar style or the Islamic gems that preceded it; the authors of The Poetics of Gardens lament, “Certainly, the vast, dour, unfinished square palace with a round courtyard that was commissioned by [Charles V, son of los reyes católicos] betrays a minimum of sympathy for the lush delicacy it was superseding” (Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, and William Turnbull, Jr., The Poetics of Gardens [Cambridge, Mass., 1988], p. 190.) 8 The usual translation of Jannah al-{Arif (from janna—both ‘garden’ and ‘paradise’ and al-arif meaning ‘master-builder’ or ‘architect’). Al-arif may also translate as ‘the One who Knows,’ or the Gnostic—thus, ‘the Noblest of Gardens.’ Emma Clark, The Art of the Islamic Garden (Marlborough, 2004), p. 98. 9 Set in a once-fertile plain watered by the River Polvar northeast of Shiraz, Pasargadae may not be the oldest formal garden known to history or literature, but it is

waters of paradise

515

The Arab Muslims, despite their reputedly expansionist and warlike political temperament, succumbed to the twin delights of the spiritual and the physical that coexisted in the great Sasanian gardens they saw in the lands they conquered—regions of ancient Sumeria, Babylon, and Assyria as far east as Kabul. Just as the landscapes of the New World matched Christopher Columbus’s Bible, so did the Persian gardens match the words of Mohammed enshrined in the Qur’an where Paradise again is a garden with “abundant shade” and bubbling fountains fed by the rivers of life flowing below, destined for “those who believe and do righteous work.”10 Some commentators consider the Islamic garden to have been, above all, a reflection or rather an anticipation of Paradise. The physical representation of this cosmology may date back at least four thousand years to Persian ceramics in which the world—represented by a plaque or bowl—appears uniformly divided into four zones by two axes forming a cross. A pool appears at the point of intersection—the focal point where the Spring of Life breaks surface. This iconography, closely connected with the Buddhist mandala, expresses a vision of the universe, a life-symbol which, as adopted and expressed by the conquering Arabs in the form of an enclosed garden to represent the celestial paradise, spread throughout the entire extent of their empire: to the Middle East and Egypt, North Africa and Spain, and by the sixteenth century to Mughal India.11 the earliest garden on archeological record. Its quadripartite groundplan incorporates both architecture and planting, water rills, and shady pavilions—a possible precursor of later garden developments. (Penelope Hobhouse, Gardens of Persia [Carlsbad, CA, 2004], p. 14). 10 George Plumptre, The Water Garden (London, 1993), p. 24. The European etymology of ‘Paradise’ through its Greek-Biblical root (paradeisos, the ‘Garden of Eden’) also remits back to the Persian derivation ( pairidaeza) denoting a ‘walled-around’ park or garden, an ideal secluded world, protected from the desert. 11 James Dickie, “The Islamic Garden in Spain,” Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 4 (1974), 90–91. Hobhouse mentions other, equally early, antecedents: cuneiform tablets which tell of the Sumerian God of Water’s command to the Sun God to provide fresh water to transform the parched land of Dilman into a green and fruitful paradise (Gardens of Persia, pp. 46, 68). Not all interpretations concur with a ‘paradisiacal’ or spiritual precedence for these gardens, however. Eelco Hooftman suggests that the original Islamic tradition of landscape architecture (perhaps not quite the same thing as ‘gardening’) derives from the utilitarian concept of the orchard—“maximizing benefit for Allah’s creatures by providing shade, fruit for humans, fodder for livestock, habitat for wildlife and water for all.” (In “Cultural Heritage of Islam” [unpub., 2000], p. 15.) And D. Fairchild Ruggles argues that “in [the] Andalusian gardens, the political meaning reverberated more loudly than the religious. In its formative period, garden iconography appears to have been primarily agricultural and economic, having more to do with the celebration of earthly success

516

irene matthews

This classic Persian garden—and presumably its concomitant call, if not to spirituality, then certainly to contemplation and repose—contained a number of essential design elements, most having to do with coolness and shade, but also with a love of symmetry. The basic fourfold design (chahar-bagh) was organized around a series of axially aligned watercourses and pathways often culminating in shallow reflective pools or fountains which served to both moisten the air and temper the soul with soothing sound (and, practically, to suppress dust and discourage insects); the channels and fountains also irrigated the sometimes sunken flower beds. But the Maghrebi army—more Berber than Arab—had to adapt the four-square geometries of the Persian garden to fit its new terrains on the outskirts of conquest. The snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada form the spectacular backdrop to the Alhambra and the Generalife as they perch protectively above steep escarpments and tilled terraces on the crags that overlook the city of Granada. Their patios do not cluster into the regular pattern of an ancient Persian rug, but rather resemble undulating quilts loosely stitched from different textures and fabrics, the surfaces studded with the glistening sapphire and emerald and jet of fountains and basins. The courtyards and allées take many different shapes and sizes. In the Alhambra—an enclosed urban complex with various small gardens—narrow inauspicious passageways lead into the delights of yet another dappled space whose every surface is embroidered with the play of sunlight and the reflections of water multiplying the patternings on the stucco walls and illuminating the tall ceilings. The Generalife—begun as the summer residence and park of the Sultans of Granada—combines hidden water courts with open vistas from the Cerro del sol (Peak of the Sun) across the ravine to the Alhambra some fifty yards below. Its sloping site lent itself to a pretty water-stairway with its own water-balustrade descending a bank through a grove of small trees, lingering at small circular terraces each

than with the hope for eternal bliss. [. . .] Specific Qur’anic symbolism of the garden as an earthly anticipation of the ultimate reward of the believers was not attached to the garden until, as settings for tombs, gardens were associated with death and, thus, the afterlife” (Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain [University Park, PA, 2000], p. 221). While these pragmatic, horticultural, explanations offer feasible alternatives to the concept of piety and God and man and nature as one, they do not adequately explain the Islamic emphasis on certain formal garden arrangements—not always the most practical—nor the ubiquity of inedible plants apparently chosen for their beauty, nor the brilliantly decorative use of water.

waters of paradise

517

with a shallow central basin and jet. The cool mountain water also courses over an open façade: parallel terraces with plantings set against the hillsides, parterres, and walkways, often backed with orchards, vegetables, and grazing pastures, much more verdant than the terrains of the East. Within the ‘pleasure’ area, unlike the contemplative use of water in the Alhambra, the abundant supply is applied more extravagantly and playfully, with small surprises devised for the unwary guest very much like those recaptured in the gardens of Renaissance Italy. Andrea Navagero, a Venetian ambassador visiting both the Alhambra and the Generalife in 1526, notes in detail some of the technology of effect: “The water is held back with many screws, so that it may gush out at any time and in any way and in whatever quantity is desired”; indeed, up to ten yards (‘diez brazas’) in the air!12 Ahistorical plantings make it difficult to substantiate the original patterns of flowers and greenery. James Dickie points out, for example, that “the gardens of the Partal in the Alhambra [. . .] enjoy no more antiquity than forty years, and with their box-edging, ubiquitous ivy and enormous Versaillesque perspectives [. . .] are diametrically opposed to the Muslim sensibility with its emphasis on the intimate and the within.”13 It seems curious that modern landscapers should resist digging yet again where others dug before; poetical descriptions and designs from early miniatures and carpets, however, show us idealized versions of gardens, pavilions, hunting grounds, and the people who used them. The Persian and Islamic garden traditions often included both formal and informal elements, plantings suited to a kitchen garden or fruit orchard, as well as the intimate, purely decorative foliage and flowers of the pleasure garden or courtyard. Often, too, there was a

12 Mentioned in Ehrenfried Kluckert, European Garden Design (Cologne, 2000), p. 36. The preponderance of such boisterous fountains in Italy reminds us that influences other than the Islamic probably played a part in the gardens of Mediterranean Spain. In particular, early Roman hydraulics may have influenced some of the larger systems of water portage employed by Muslim and local engineers. The Generalife’s first stages of construction began with a complicated system of reservoirs, cisterns, aqueducts, and pipes bringing water from the River Darro to a vast storage tank within the walls of the Alhambra complex itself. 13 Dickie goes on to refer to detailed medieval and modern botanical research and suggest some of the most likely garden flowers of this medieval period, many highly perfumed such as myrtle, jasmine, narcissi, stock, lily, wallflower, almond, and pomegranate blossom (an exotic introduction naturalized over the centuries), as well as herbs, bushes, and trees including lemon, medlar, mulberry, and cypress (‘The Islamic Garden in Spain,’ 89).

518

irene matthews

significant difference in the design of an intimate, internal courtyard and an external garden, intervening between the scale of human desire and aesthetics, and the landscape without. Planted with citrus and date palms, this area might be demarcated by formal rows of larger trees: deciduous planes whose transpiration served to humidify the air, or tall evergreens, such as cypress, whose slender profile and dark narrow leaf both acted as an elegant marker against the wilderness and also filtered the dust and hot winds. From within, one could look out from a central pavilion or turret over these elegantly domesticated barriers of foliage to the wild or harsh elements beyond. The external garden emulated one of the most significant features of the desert—the oasis. In fertile Spain the garden did not have to offer succor against thirst and death, but it is likely that traditional fruit trees and evergreens figured in the Andalucian designs, as well as, indubitably, scented shrubs and flowers to please the human senses and attract birds and butterflies. The stepped levels of the sunken flowerbeds and terraces created an impression of walking on flowered carpets as the pathways wove between blossomed bushes and treetops whose roots were planted deep below. More durable, and more important, than the evanescent vegetation are the displays of water: the liquid is ubiquitous yet used sparsely, as if indeed it were precious, and modestly, as if ostentation were undesired. Inherited directly from the Persian garden in its parched climes were both the idea of the four rivers of life running together into a central axis, and the technique of making a little water go a long way: narrow channels, shallow pools and basins filled to the brim, their edges faceted or carved into a lotus pattern whose external diameter looks much broader than its actual volume warrants. And they are set into ground level or into another basin to catch the overflow running gracefully from the brim; the thinnest skin of water on the surface serves to reflect the light and condition the air and the floor. The fountain spouts are narrow and singular, their jets elegant rather than exuberant. The famous Patio of the Lions in the Alhambra, for example, exemplifies a number of Perso-Islamic watery concepts. The twelve lion supports of the central fountain—possibly dating from the eleventh century14—guard the

14 Like other archeological assumptions in the fortress and gardens, the precedence of the lions still excites contradictory interpretations; Godfrey Goodwin dismisses an earlier date: “These gruff fellows were made for the sultan and were not brought from the palace of Samuel ibn Nagrella, the great Jewish vezir, as once was supposed.”

waters of paradise

519

confluence of two water-axes which cool the surrounding rooms, rising as slender jets and trickling down narrow stepped conduits into the courtyard, converging on the basin and burbling forth again from the lions’ jaws. Verses inscribed on the lions’ basin help to guide the viewer toward multiple, metaphorical illusions: the basin is “carved from solid ice from which the water seems to melt,” yet the water also resembles a lover’s tears, or yet again, mingles nature and human nature: [. . .] truly, what else is this fountain but a beneficent cloud pouring out its abundant supplies over the lions underneath? Like the hands of the Caliph when he rises in the morning to distribute plentiful rewards among his soldiers the lions of war.15

According to Craig Campbell, the Nasrid dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Granada apparently underwent a transformation that softened their religious fanaticism and warlike tendencies into a flowering of art and poetry,16 undoubtedly nourished by, and reflected in, the beautifully coordinated open rooms and corridors of the palatial courtyards and gardens. While we cannot know exactly how these varied and delightful spaces were used, the writers of the Poetics of Gardens wax lyrical, imagining an “entire palace for camping in”17—a series of intimate clearings, both interior and exterior, whose exquisitely carved columns and intricate reflective mosaics on floors, walls, and ceilings emulated nature’s own canopies. Scented plants, silk and velvet cushions, perhaps a small brazier to warm one on a chilly night or cook a little supper, and the ever present play of water recalled a lush world of plenty. It is tempting indeed to project oneself romantically back into some sort of anachronistic Arabian Nights; were the walls of the Red Fortress never threatened until Isabel and Hernando determinedly crusaded

Goodwin does allow that the group was disfigured by the addition of a historically inappropriate central basin, and by ill-placement, now rectified (Islamic Spain [London, 1990], p. 75). 15 Federick P. Barghebur, The Alhambra. A Cycle of Studies on the Eleventh Century in Moorish Spain (Berlin, 1968), pp. 170–172; cited in Ruggles, pp. 213, 249 note 14. 16 Craig S. Campbell, Water in Landscape Architecture, (New York, 1978), p. 23. 17 The Poetics of Gardens, p. 194. The writers go on to imagine how “the intricacy and surprises [. . .] must have made for continuing excitement [finding] ourselves in a forest where the columns are trunks and the stucco capitals and the decoration beyond them are like branches and leaves. The surfaces [. . .] catch the light of the sun, and, even more wondrously, catch the shimmering reflections from fountains and pools,” p. 194.

520

irene matthews

southwards? And was the Generalife, the “noblest of gardens,” designed and destined purely for pleasure? Apparently not. Nearby Cordoba served as the court of the independent emirate of Andalucia from 756 A.D.; the Umayyad Caliph {Abd al-Rahman I began building the Grand Mosque at the end of that century, its arcades opening onto the Patio de los Naranjos (Courtyard of the Oranges), whose ranks of fruit trees parallel the columns inside the mosque—perhaps the oldest extant garden in southern Spain. In 936 {Abd al-Rahman III began his magnificent garden city of Madinat al-Zahra, set in a green and watered landscape near Cordoba. He spent forty years laying out a vast network of buildings, gardens and stables linked by miradors and watercourses. By the end of the tenth century Cordoba functioned as the center for scholarship in Western Europe, attracting classicists, philosophers, poets, and doctors, and rivaling Damascus and Bahgdad at a time when much of Europe was in cultural decline. The botanists and gardeners of Andalucia had long naturalized exotic fruits and flowers; they engineered existing and new, highly complex, hydraulic systems to bring water to the hilltop fountains. But Cordoba’s intellectual and poetical significance did not last; Berber rebels captured the city in 1010 and sacked its great gardens. Cordoba’s caliphate splintered, the center of horticultural interest shifted to Toledo which, in turn, fell into Christian hands in 1085 as did Seville in 1248. Granada remained isolated as a prosperous but small tributary sultanate, ruled by the Nasrids who came to power in 1232, their territories extending to Malaga and Almeria on the Mediterranean coast.18 Far from purely decorative, the Alhambra and the Generalife formed part of the hilltop fortifications that protected the town of Granada. Yet, despite the tenuous political confrontations of the region and the period, and the many highly sophisticated civic and artistic advances introduced by Islam into many parts of the medieval world, most historians agree on the essentially spiritual or contemplative purpose of the Islamic garden, drastically different in nature from the social and ceremonial play areas of other great southern European aristocracies. While all aspects of life could be divided into their inner and outer significance, external manifestations were essentially subordinated to the will of Allah, and Islam nurtured no distinction between religious

18

Penelope Hobhouse, pp. 154–157.

waters of paradise

521

and public life. God ruled supreme over all nature including human nature; spiritual motives and purposes pervaded every aspect of Islamic existence, including its gardens: Ian McHarg endorses strongly what he feels is the Islamic concept of man as a steward of nature, rather than a conqueror.19 By the end of the fifteenth century, the era of Columbus, there was, of course, no need for the caliphs of the Muslim world to continue conquering; the Spaniards had taken over that role. II. A World Destroyed [. . .] Rivers, rivulets, fountains and waters flow But never return to their joyful beginnings; anxiously they hasten on the vast realm of the rain god As they widen their banks, they also fashion the sad urn of their burial. Nezahualcoyotl (King of Texcoco:1431–72)20 I know not how to free ourselves without destroying their city—the most beautiful city in the world [. . .] Hernán Cortés (as he sacks Tenochtitlán, 1521)21

In 1519, almost thirty years after Columbus’s first landfall on ‘Hispaniola’ in the Caribbean, Hernán Cortés and his troops hacked their way across the mainland from the Gulf of Mexico to arrive at the capital of the Aztec empire: Tenochtitlán, an island city situated on a series of lakes in a valley surrounded by high, volcanic sierras. The Tenochcas—one of a number of civilizations on the continent which rose and fell in importance over a period of several thousand years—seem to have descended from a once-nomadic group of bellicose Chichimecs or Colhua Mexica who skirmished their way south from their birthplace and late in the twelfth century found refuge on a muddy promontory extending into the lagoon of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. They 19 Design with Nature, (Garden City, NY, 1969). As Hooftman points out, “Of course, such an attitude to the environment has always been very important for nomadic people to survive in a fragile desert ecosystem. Within a traditional muslim community scarce resources, including water and pasture, was public ownership.” (“Cultural Heritage,” 14) A conservation area for open grazing was also recommended in the Qur’an, likewise that “no plant or tree should be cut except for a specific, useful purpose,” 14. 20 (Trans. unknown.) Accessible at historicaltextarchive.com. 21 Cited in Roderick William Cameron, Viceroyalties of the West, (Boston, 1968), p. 62.

522

irene matthews

called their new home Aztlan (Place of Whiteness), after a myth which told them what to expect there; they themselves became known as Aztecs.22 Over the next two hundred years they gradually conquered surrounding groups, exacted tribute, learned how to manage the waters of the lake, and consolidated their situation and their capital, Tenochtitlan—founded in 1325—until it was one of the most densely populated, wealthy, and architecturally elaborate cities in the world. Lake Texcoco had a spectacular site. The Valley of Mexico lies towards the southern edge of the altiplano (Central Highlands), a mile and a half above sea level. Not a true valley but an intramonte basin with no natural outlet, it is shaped like a figure 8, measuring about seventy-five miles from north to south and over thirty-seven across. The early years of living on marshland on the fringes of a brackish lake was not always easy or comfortable; the Mexicas—used to an urban existence supported by agriculture—were constantly threatened by two watery extremes: flooding on the one hand, and a lack of drinking water on the other. The surrounding lake was brackish, the nearby rivers uncontrollable torrents during the wet summer months and dry gullies in winter. Lake Texcoco demanded a deal of hydraulic management; and the Aztec god of rain and fertility, Tlaloc, demanded a deal of sacrificial appeasement.23 Other groups were better situated. Originally a small lake virtually separate from Lake Texcoco, unlike the northern lakes Xochimilco (the ‘place where flowers grow’) had the enormous advantage of fresh

22 Historians still disagree over the origins of the ‘Aztecs’ who seem to have included a number of different groups with different names, including the ‘Colhua Mexica,’ who eventually gave the whole country its name. As Tenochca, after a patriarch, Tenoch, they built their capital city Tenochtitlan in the uneasy shadow of an older city, Tlatelolco, while the earlier, dominant power on the other bank of Lake Texcoco were the Texcoco themselves. The heir to the Texcoco throne, Nezahualcoyotl, fled his besieged kingdom and sought refuge in Tenochtitlan, where he supervised many important constructions—a fresh-water aqueduct, and the palace and garden-grove at Chapultepec—“the start of [his] distinguished career in landscape design.” (Eric R. Wolf, Sons of the Shaking Earth [Chicago, 1959], p. 149); Susan Toby Evans, “Aztec royal pleasure parks: conspicuous consumption and elite status rivalry,” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 20, no. 3, (2000), 212. 23 References abound to the ancient and modern topography of Tenochtitlan/ Mexico City. Cf. Jorge Hardoy, Urban Planning in Pre-Columbian America, (London, n.d.), and Jeremy A. Sabloff, The Cities of Ancient Mexico. Reconstructing a Lost World, (London, 1997). Lake Texcoco, the largest of the lakes in the cuenca, was especially saline, the adjoining waters of Lake Zumpango and Xaltocan muddy and swampy.

waters of paradise

523

water replenished by melting snow and natural sweetwater springs, and like the other lakes, a shallow bed (nine–twelve feet). Here, perhaps for several thousand years, inhabitants of the area had cultivated food crops and flowers, caught fish, and trapped waterbirds, through an efficient network of small manufactured islands called chinampas. This system of wetlands agriculture, the ‘floating gardens’ of the Valley of Mexico, seems to have evolved out of a system of growing plants in swamps on basketlike structures suspended from poles projecting from the lake bed, or perhaps a framework of mud and branches or treetrunks cut from the foothills of the nearby mountains or dragged from the bottom of the lake and held in place by the roots of the ahuejote (a type of slender willow) planted around the edges. Over time the structures stabilized, forming long, low, narrow planting platforms—less than twelve feet wide and up to sixty feet long—that extended over the surface of the water. The narrowness eased access for sowing and harvesting, and ensured the maize, beans, leafy vegetables and flowers in the center of the planting surface received sufficient water through their roots, thereby avoiding the problems of salinization and mineral residues associated with surface irrigation.24 As the number of chinampas increased, an intricate pattern of planting surfaces and canals developed: flat-bottomed canoes carried seedlings to planting areas and produce to market; they also brought human waste to fertilize the platforms. Regular dredging kept channels clear and ensured fertile mud and bottom plants to enrich the soil, thus sustaining the continual cropping. In some places chinampa produce merely augmented land-grown staples. In the Valley of Mexico, however, Xochimilco’s chinampa system—gradually and reluctantly incorporated into the Aztecs’ interests—came to supply most of the food for Tenochtitlan and the

24 Some historians argue that the chinampas themselves never ‘floated,’ but were constructed rather by piling up layers of mud from the bottom of the lake until they reached above the water’s level. These mud piles were also tethered with willows planted around the edge. In this version, the true ‘floating islands’ were small nursery rafts where seeds were intensively generated then towed to the chinampas for transplanting, a method which enabled the hugely intensive crop rotation. In either case, as the islets grew too tall for easy access or adequate irrigation from below, a layer would be sliced off the top and used to construct a new chinampa or mend a ragged fringe. It seems certain that in later years, some chinampas were larger than the early ‘ideal’ models, no doubt in response to the commercial demands of an exploding population in the city.

524

irene matthews

surrounding area.25 As in the case of the gardens of Granada, the record of aesthetic appreciation is not precisely contemporaneous, but it takes little imagination to envision the beauty as well as the practicality of this watery web whose horizontal and vertical lines of tutelary willows doubled their numbers in the reflection of the canals and lagoons and marshaled between them innumerable tiny islets of vegetables and scented flowers, floating midst the imperceptible glide of flat-bottomed canoes. Towards the southeast, across the calm, obsidian-black waters, from the snowcapped crests of Popocatepetl (Smoking Mountain) and Iztaccihuatl (White Lady) serene plumes of sulphur wafted against the dawn sky. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the Valley of Mexico, approximately a third of Lake Xochimilco had been reclaimed and transformed into chinampas. The conquistadores brought with them an urge to convert the heathen and to accumulate gold and land; they brought with them tank-like armored horses to awe peoples who had never seen beasts so large and frightening. The Spaniards also brought European diseases to which the indigenous peoples succumbed in huge numbers (spread perhaps, in part, as a result of the prevailing use of human waste as fertilizer). At first, however, Tenochtitlan’s canals and canoes and bowmen resisted the Spaniards’ advance; the warriors withdrew, regrouped, built better boats, and returned to lay siege and lay waste to the entire city. They flattened and built over the vast ceremonial structures and erected their own seat of power on the debris at the heart of the Mexican empire. Over centuries, the indigenous peoples had developed a symbiotic relationship with the lake; but now, through willful destruction but also the more gradual effects of neglect and ignorance, the Spaniards conquered anew by engineering an architecture fundamentally incompatible with a watery foundation. Apparently fearful of the potential of the water, they rendered the delicate system

25 In addition to the crops grown for market, Xochimilco boasted a broad variety of native or naturalized species: oak forest mixed in with madrones and pine, grazing lands, waterplants, many different types of shellfish, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and migratory birds—all conducive to human habitation and exploitation. See Patricia Romero Lankao and Eike Duffing, Tres procesos contradictorios. Desarrollo urbano, medio ambiente y políticas públicas durante el siglo XX [“Three contradictory processes. Urban development, environment and public policy in the twentieth century”], in María Eugenia Terrones López, ed., A la orilla del agua. Política, urbanización y medio ambiente. Historia de Xochimilco en el siglo XX. (“On the water’s edge. Politics, urbanism, and the environment. History of Xochimilco in the 20th century.”) (Mixcoac, Mexico, 2004), p. 215.

waters of paradise

525

of canals and bridges, dams, and dykes useless; presumably none had ever seen for himself the glories of Venice, to which Tenochtitlan was often compared.26 The Europeans subsequently sought in vain for alternative means of dealing with the frequent droughts and heavy seasonal rains which caused flooding. Against all odds, Xochimilco initially proved more resilient than Tenochtitlan: the Spaniards admired and valued the Xochimilcos’ creativity and productivity, and awarded the area the status of city with its own coat of arms. The chinampa system was always fragile, however, and needed careful husbandry. Large grazing animals, wheeled carts, the plough, replaced the gentler native hydroculture and terracing with devastating erosion. And as the lakes gradually drained, the chinampas flooded or desiccated, water hyacinth proliferated in the choked, stagnant canals: the whole foodmarket system fell into disuse and neglect.27 The food supply was not the only victim: as the watershed was gradually tapped down to dangerously low levels, the entire ecosystem suffered. Even today, the town of Xochimilco sinks measurably year by year, and many of the most important buildings in the center of the capital city—whose population of over twenty million comprises the largest

26 As late as the mid-nineteenth century, alongside the evidently short-sighted projects to pave over access to Xochimilco, some local officials still advocated fuller exploitation of the waterways. The advent of steamboats in the 1850s improved access between the center of the city and Chalco, to the east of Xochimilco, and ideas of navigable canals between Mexico City and outlying townships abounded—a resuscitation of the commercial and social connections four hundred years earlier. The alternative scheme—draining most of the lake—eventually trumped these ideas, although the smaller canoes and the chinampas persist. 27 27 In 1990, an international conference in Mexico City on the “Past, present and future of chinampas” identified three critical periods in the overall deterioration of Xochimilco’s waterways: 1901–1914, 1959–1961, and 1989, relating to: the provision of the drinking water supply to Mexico city; the deterioration of the chinampa canals to become almost unnavigable, threatening the entire horticultural system; and latterly, the Federal ‘rescue plan.’ One solution to the diminishing water levels was to refurbish the canal waters with reclaimed water from treatment plants; the Xochimilco citizens, however, saw this as an inequitable exchange of centuries of sweet water for inadequately treated sump effluent. The chinampa system survived, but much of its native flora and fauna did not, choked out by invaders which thrived on the alien irrigation. And in 1989, the Xochimilcos protested that the federal government had not taken into account the needs of the region, that they would lose agricultural land, that the plan for protective and reconstitutive dykes and lakes would not work, and that, above all, nobody invited them—the local residents and farmers—to join the discussions. See Ernesto Arechiga Córdoba, “De la exuberancia al agotamiento. Xochimilco y el agua, 1882–2004” (From exuberance to exhaustion. Xochimilco and water, 1882–2004), in López, pp. 97–149.

526

irene matthews

urban agglomeration on the American continent—are threatened not only by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes but also by alarmingly visible subsidence. And for the many thousands of rural migrants who pour into the city on a daily basis, the summer monsoon season offers a rare opportunity to earn a peso or two: for a small tip they will carry you in your high heels or snappy trousers—piggy-back, or in their arms, or perched on a small chair—across the flooded downtown streets.28 Nevertheless, from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, a shrunken and polluted Xochimilco has remained a unique spot dear to the memory, where the inhabitants of Mexico City have taken their leisure on Sundays. Finally, on the initiative of a number of Mexican institutions, in 1987 UNESCO declared Xochimilco a World Heritage Site and in the following year, in response to an “ecological rescue plan,” the Grupo de Diseño Urbano (Urban Design Group) headed by Mario Schjetnan and José Luís Pérez began to lay out a large park, compatible with the historical usage of chinampas and providing a buffer circle to defend the area from the pressures of uncontrolled urbanization. The Ecological Park covers an area of over seven hundred acres and includes an ecological park proper, a sports park, a plant and flower market, and reclaimed lagoon. The flat and treeless site was split by an extension of the ring road originally planned to encircle Mexico City but which, because of the rapid expansion of the urban area, now mostly lay within the city itself. This Periférico posed numerous environmental and visual problems for the project, yet also offered a positive side. The broad artery would enable a “splendid, unbroken view [. . .] of the mountains that rise to the south of the valley”29 across a revitalized lake, setting off the arboreal structure of the chinampas against a splendid, originary backdrop and conferring an essential sense of identity on the otherwise featureless landscape. Technical solutions thus became direct participants in the aesthetic enhancement of the area, and it was decided that, above all, ‘hydraulic considerations’ would determine the primary orientation. For example, all rainwater would be channeled into ‘natural’ reservoirs and basins whose levels would fluctuate with seasonal changes in rainfall, providing ecological niches for different types of native birds and aquatic plants, Elena Poniatowska waxes poetic over the women workers of Xochimilco and the person-porters of the city center in El último guajolote (Mexico, 1982). 29 Mario Schetjnan, “The Ecological Park of Xochimilco,” Lotus International 91 (April, 1991), 110–113, 117–118. 28

waters of paradise

527

matching historical views of the lakeline and foliage. Main access to the area stands beside a fan-shaped shoreline where treated water flows through seven low conduits towards the large lagoon. All waterside areas are reserved for leisure activities, with flower-lined paths leading towards the wharf in one direction, and an ‘enchanted island’ in the other. A central educational zone houses nurseries for aquatic plants and regional specimens; to the east lies an area dedicated to intensive agriculture, and next to it a reconstruction of a more spontaneous and rural landscape, a wildlife reserve with lagoons, accessible by flatbottomed boat, by bicycle, and on horseback. Finally, to the south, and to make a visual connection with the area of chinampas in their original ‘home,’ long rows of willows border canals, and elongated gardens emulate the historic shape of the chinampas. This apparently benign and well-informed rehabilitation of a seriously degraded area did not please equally all its constituents. Throughout most of its modern history—for eight hundred years at least—Xochimilco had been subjected to a see-saw of celebration, exploitation, and neglect; now, many political and economic interests had to be reconciled before the final plans were executed.30 A Commission for the Rehabilitation of Xochimilco was set up, local community groups were invited to opine and, apparently, the Plan experts and engineers actually listened to them. However, despite this democratic effort, the design itself has been criticized: for its formality, for its modernity, for being ‘designed’—the inevitable consequence, perhaps, of replacing an actively productive horticultural system with a scientific pleasure park. Nevertheless, a casual visitor to Xochimilco park on any weekend finds it hard to resist the environmentally sound site: pleasingly varied in aspect, but above all, watery in a natural altiplano whose high sky elsewhere exposes a degraded, infertile, overbuilt terrain. It is equally hard to resist the evident pride of the local residents in their identity as ‘Xochimilcos’. The redevelopment of Xochimilco has undoubtedly helped to mitigate the Distrito Federal’s unfortunate environmental record: the

30 As Ernesto Córdoba points out, a fear of flooding often combined with a need to create a healthier environment for the city dwellers and reflected the cultural incapacity of non-natives to live alongside the lakes and stop seeing them as a threat. (“De la exuberance,” p. 124) and note 75 citing Alain Musset, De l’eau vive à l’eau morte. Enjeux techniques et cultures dans la valle de Mexico (XVI–XIX siècles) (From live to dead water. Technical processes and cultures in the Valley of Mexico, 16th–19th centuries [Paris, 1991]).

528

irene matthews

World Health Organization recommends nine square meters of green space per capita in urban areas; Mexico City’s tally at the beginning of the 1990s was one-fifth of this, a figure that has likely worsened with the increasing pressure on the urban area since then. The city’s army of some four thousand municipal gardeners spends most of its time repairing damage caused to trees and verges by vandalism and pollution. And, as mentioned above, the traffic that was supposed to wheel round the periphery of the city now whips through densely populated areas. In addition to the attractive Alameda Gardens in the very center of the city—whose beautiful fountains are sorely crowded by myriad omnipresent vendors—several other parks and squares battle the pressures of living in a megalopolis. The most important, for its size, its central location, and its historical connections is Chapultepec Park, which lies at one end of the Paseo de la Reforma, the major avenue that slices diagonally from west to east through the city. Like Xochimilco, Chapultepec is one of very few open spaces utilized in ways that resemble the lifestyle of Tenochtitlán even before the Spanish incursions. III. A World Reclaimed? A militaristic-aristocratic society, the Aztecs headed a far-flung empire based on conquest, on a tributary system based on peasant husbandry, and on a type of contractual slavery very much like that of the Spanish empire that would succeed them. Urban agriculturalists—an apparently incongruous combination—the Tenochcas’ immediate food supplies were taken care of by the Xochimilcos, widespread tribute and trade replenished their coffers, and a regular supply of sacrificial victims taken in both war and play appeased their gods. Like many military dictatorships when not actually at war, the rulers of Tenochtitlán had plenty of leisure time and sought to flaunt their wealth and power in ways that might particularly impress their immediate rivals, in this case the Texcoco, whose principal enclave lay to the north east on the far shore of Lake Texcoco. The Xochimilco chinampa system lay in the wrong place to do so, and the wrong style, since “it was not kingly to [. . .] cultivate plants for utility or profit.”31 What was needed was some

31

Susan Toby Evans, “Aztec royal pleasure parks,” 216.

waters of paradise

529

sort of visible, ostentatious display. Chapultepec (Grasshopper WaterHill), a promontory to the west of the city where the Tenochcas had first settled, had been one of the principal attractions of the area since their arrival. The multiple sweetwater springs that arose there provided the prime source of drinking water for Tenochtitlan. In the 1420s and 1430s, Nezahualcoyotl—“an accomplished landscape architect and poet as well as a statesman and tactician,” according to Susan Toby Evans32—engineered a series of aqueducts running across the lake and through which the springs and fountains of Chapultepec served to fill both the cisterns of the city and the ponds and bathing pools in the Aztec aristocracy’s country palaces. The fountains of Chapultepec were valued not only for their essential qualities but also for their powers to purify the soul, albeit without the direct spiritual significance awarded water by Islamic culture. Additionally, many of the indigenous peoples regarded hills and mountains as sacred; a small temple to the war and sun god Huitzilopochtli—a principal deity of the Aztecs—was constructed here at the peak. But above all, Chapultepec heights served as an important landmark, confronting the summer palace area of the rival Texcoco kingdom across the waters of the lake on a sightline that ran right through the center of the Aztec capital. As Susan Toby Evans explains, “the two hills were the ends of an axis, each behind its capital city [. . .] forming a balanced linear symmetry and aligned duality. Each stood facing the other across the lake in perfect mirrored embodiment of the Aztec concept of the city-state, the altepetl, water hill.”33 Towards the end of the fifteenth century, Moctezuma II determined to upgrade fifty thousand square meters of Chapultepec into his own palatial garden-retreat-monument. He planted dramatic groves and sweeping gardens with formal lines of great cypresses, the ahuehuetl (Taxodium, ‘Montezuma Cypress,’ Mexico’s national tree); nurtured showy plantings of exotic species in his own botanic gardens; and—in anticipation of his own death—added his portrait to a series of huge rock carvings emblazoning great Aztec rulers. The Spaniards were not unaware of the political significance of Moctezuma, nor even—somewhat amazingly given the previous lack of interest and naturalistic knowledge mentioned earlier—of the

32 33

Ibid., 225, note 24. Ibid., 216.

530

irene matthews

powerful culture of nature. Sonia Lombardo Ruíz reports that at least one (anonymous) contemporary commentator made the connection: “Moctezuma’s pleasure in gardens is comparable only with that of the great musulmen caliphs.”34 Subsequent chroniclers also compared life in Mexico to Moorish culture: “both had a stratified society dominated by wealthy nobles living in extensive and beautiful houses with elaborate gardens, attended by many wives, courtiers, servants and workers.”35 Some of these comparisons seem born of envy, some—especially comments by members of the more conservative religious orders—evidently censured such displays of luxury. Once again the conquistadores took over the most appealing areas of the city, razed the buildings to the ground, and severed the Chapultepec aqueduct at the outset of their blockade. The colonial history of the area is somewhat muddied, but the park itself escaped the initial destruction, and probably as early as 1530 Chapultepec was converted from a viceregal hunting area into a public park. The aqueduct was certainly rebuilt to support the renaissance of the lost city. Once more, however, most non-utilitarian areas of historical interest were clumsily degraded; the pagan temple was replaced with a hermitage dedicated to Saint Michael; the stone portraits carved into the hillside suffered irreparably when “one of the last Spanish viceroys [. . .] tried to blow them up with gunpowder.”36 Also in the seventeenth century the foundations were laid for a military fortress, later to be converted into a palace-summer home for the Spanish viceroys on the crest of the hill, so the surrounding park remained royally inaccessible except when being besieged by one or another armed insurgency. Throughout most of the Spanish colonial period and for many decades afterwards, the main value of the hill lay in its strategic elevation, as both a military school and defensible seat of government. It was not until 1937 that a ‘popular’ ministry of Culture converted the castle into a museum of colonial history and ethnography.37 Fragile, natural ecosystems usually cannot fight back against the violences of predatory conquest. The avatars of Islam in Iran seem to have been exceptional—most successful warriors seem to take pleasure

34 Desarrollo urbano de México-Tenochtitlán según las fuentes históricas [“Urban development in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, from historical sources”] (Mexico, 1973), p. 100. 35 “Aztec royal pleasure parks,” 220–221. 36 E.B. Tyler, cited in Evans, “Aztec royal pleasure parks,” 210. 37 “Castillo de Chapultepec.” http://www.mexicocity.com.castillo.html, 1–2.

waters of paradise

531

in ruining and then building over the ruins of their acquisitions. Like the gardens of Islam and the chinampas and canals of Xochimilco—seriously deteriorated under forceful cultural change and expansion—the importance of Chapultepec’s waters seemed to have evaporated in the welter of confrontational history. But centuries after its royal heyday and subsequent decline, Chapultepec park houses a number of important cultural centers, including the beautiful National Museum of Anthropology whose impressive vestibule boasts a gorgeous mushroom-shaped fountain to cool the air, quiet the environment, ready the visitor for the explosion of aesthetic and historical artifacts displayed beyond. And the fifteen hundred acres of gardens, recalling those of Netzacoyoatl some six hundred years earlier, still include majestic stands of cypresses, and pleasure pools restored into highly popular recreational areas for the city. Both now part of the urban area of the Distrito Federal, the waters of Chapultepec and Xochimilco are vital elements in the daily survival of the largest city in North America.

INDEX

Achaea, 212 Acheloös See mythology, Greek Acropolis See Athens Adab al-Nisā See Ibn Habīb Adonis See mythology, Greek Aelian, 28 Aeneas See mythology, Greek Aeneid See Vergil Agrippa, Marcus, 316, 322, 333 Ahriman See Zoroastrianism Ahuramazda See Zoroastrianism Alpini, Prosper, 184 Amazons See mythology, Greek Ambrose, 374 Amphiaraos See mythology, Greek Ampulla(e), 479–500 Anahita See Zoroastrianism Andalus, al- See Spain, under Islam Andromeda See mythology, Greek Anglicus, Bartolomeus, 158–159 Anixamander, 193 Antioch, 304–317 Aqueducts of, 306–317 Antoninus Pius, 216, 225–228 Aphrodite See mythology, Greek Apollo See mythology, Greek Aqua Claudia See Rome Aqueducts See Roman Empire, aqueducts Arab, 172, 263, 266, 342, 515 Archimedes, 51–53, 59 Argos, 212, 216, 223, 225 Aristophanes, 87, 100, 103–104, 281 Aristotle, 192 Art See individual cultures L’art de nourrir et gouverner les enfans See Vallambert, Simon de Artemis See mythology, Greek Asklepieion See Athens Asklepios See mythology, Greek Astynomoi See Greece, ancient: government Athens, 70, 87–108 See also Attica, Greece, ancient: culture, hydraulic projects Acropolis, 283 Agora, 213–216, 227

Asklepieion, 283–284 Festivals, 106–108 Fountains in, 290–293 Hadrian and, 211–232 Attica Natural water sources in, 277–300 Atticus, Herodes, 229–232 Attis See mythology, Greek Augustus, 304, 306 Avicenna, 159–160 Aztec, 521–529 Babylonia, 263–273 Babylonian Talmud See Judaism Baños de la Reina, 341 Baptism In Christianity, 115–116, 150, 168–169, 269–270, 439, 464–470, 473, 477–487 In Manichaeism, 263–273 In medieval European literature, 431 In Persian tradition, 263–273 Baths and bathing See individual cultures, children, bathing of Becket, Thomas, 479–500 Bede, 361–380 Belisarius, 303 Beowulf, 407–413 Blancheflour See Floris and Blancheflour Britain See also Roman Empire Climate in early medieval Britain, 363–364 Bruges, 384, 388 Bull See mythology, Greek Byzantine Empire Bathing, 172–173 Caere, 70 Canals See Roman Empire, hydraulic projects Canterbury Tales See Chaucer, Geoffrey Cato, 331 Cazes, Hélène 149–170 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 407, 421–424 Childbirth In ancient Greek religion, 126–127 Bathing as part of, 149–170 Midwives, 143–144, 149–168

534

index

Children Bathing of, 149–170 Chrétien de Troyes, 413–417, 437–444 Christianity See also Gnostics Bathing and, 173–176 Conceptions about Islam in early modern Christianity, 182–183 and pagan water traditions, 109–148, 350–359 In Persia, 263–273 Cisterns, 249–262, 322, 328 See also Roman Empire, hydraulic projects Climate in early medieval Britain See Britain, climate of Columbus, 511–531 Commerce See also industry Access to water in medieval commerce, 382–389 Concrete vaults in baths See Roman Empire, baths: architecture of Conferences on water, 3–4 Connell, Charles, 463–478 Cooley, Ronald, 501–510 Corinth, 214 Cornucopia, the See mythology, Greek Cult, 5–6, 13, 22, 24, 28, 38, 116–117, 122, 131, 191, 193–209, 223, 246, 262, 278–280, 283, 286, 289–298, 335, 356–358, 484, 489, 498–500 Cybele See mythology, Greek Cyrus, 207 Danaids See mythology, Greek Darius, 209 De natura rerum See Bede Delphic Oracle, 28 Demeter See mythology, Greek Dew, 453–461 Dionysos See mythology, Greek Eflatun Pinar, 193 Egypt, ancient, 22, 138, 301; Egypt, Arab period, 515. See also Nile River Mythology See mythology, Egyptian Elchasai See Elchasites Elchasites, 263–273 Eleusinian Mysteries See Greece, ancient: religion Epirus, 212 Eros See mythology, Greek Etruscans, 89 Art, 241 Religion, 236–237, 241–243

Eumenes II, 251, 254, 261–262 Euphrates, 265 Euripides, 23 Euthymos, 28 Ferrari, Gloria, 87–90, 92–93 Flanders Textile industry in, 381–391, 401–404 Floris and Blancheflour, 432–437 Forum Boarium, 246 Fountains civic See Roman Empire, fountains in medieval European literature See literature France Bathing of children, 149–170 Fregellae, 56, 58 Frontinus, 324 Galatia, 304–306 Galen, 152–160, 170 Garden, 10, 13–14, 328, 337–360, 427–452, 511–531 Ghent, 381–382, 384, 388–389, 400 Gnostics, 263–273 Greece, ancient Art Marsyas Painter, 81–82 Nudes, female, 61–86 Bathing and, 67–73, 79–86 Debate over social status of, 61–67 Eroticism and, 74–84 Vases, 61–86 Meidian style, 81, 83 Women in, 61–86, 93–102 Baths and bathing, 43–59, 225 Architecture of baths, 44–59 Byzantine Empire See Byzantine Empire Culture Gender relations, 138–145 Rites of passage in, 109–148 Weddings, 90–91, 102–103 Women And religious ceremonies, 109–148 And virginity, 131–135 And water in Athenian culture, 87–108 Government under the Roman Empire Astynomoi, 249–262

index Gymnasia See Greece, ancient: baths Hydraulic projects, 211–232 Cisterns, 249–262 Mythology See mythology, Greek Religion, 91–92, 117–148, 198 Ceremonies involving women, 109–148 Eleusinian Mysteries, 65, 211, 286–287 Sacrifices, 125 Symbolism of water in, 294–295 and water sources, 277–300 Roman Empire and, 211–232 Water and infrastructure See hydraulic projects Greece, modern Gender relations, 142–145 Religion Baptism, 115–117 Comparison to ancient Greek practices, 109–148 Saint Panagia, 112–115, 117, 137, 146 and water supplies, 220–224 Grendel, 409–412 Hadrian, 22, 211–212, 216, 221–229, 245, 249, 251, 261–262, 315, 335 Hammāmāt (public baths) See Islam, bathing Hattusa, 193 Hauser, Friedrich, 65–66 Healing, 2, 12–13, 109–112, 117, 122–128, 137, 140, 142, 146, 150, 179, 208, 283–286, 297–298, 425, 469, 482–485, 497–500, 501–510 Healing Waters, 501–510 Helen See mythology, Greek Helen See Zeuxis of Herakleia Hera See mythology, Greek Herakles (or Hercules) See mythology, Greek Hermes See mythology, Greek Hero of Alexandria, 52 Herodotus, 88, 99–100, 191, 196–197, 203, 207, 209 Hesiod, 68–69, 72, 192–194 Hippocrates, 158–159 Historiography of water, 3–4 Hittites, 193–194 Holy, 2, 12–13, 109–115, 133, 167, 176, 179, 188, 225, 266, 407, 436, 465–67, 471, 476, 485, 506, 511

535

Homosexuality And Christian beliefs about Islam, 183–187 And Islamic concerns about bathing, 179–182 Håland, Evy Johanne, 109–148 Hydraulic projects See individual cultures Hydrological cycle, 367–368 As interpreted in medieval Europe, 368–380 Hypocausts, 45, 331 Ibn Habīb, 175–176 Ida See Mount Ida Ieperlee, 382, 384, 388–391, 398, 401–402 Iliad, 68 Industry Use of water in, 401–403 Isidore of Seville, 361–362, 368–380 Islam See also Spain, under Islam Bathing, 171–188 Hammāmāt, 171–188 Isis See mythology, Egyptian Italic bath design See Roman Empire, baths Italy, ancient See Etruscans, Magna Graecia, Roman Empire Jarrow, 362–367 Jerome, 358–359 Jordan, Alyce 479–500 Judaism In Persia, 263–273 Justinian, 303 Kephisos See mythology, Greek Literature, medieval Water in, 407–451 Fountains in, 413–417, 427–451 Magic and, 430–432 Sea voyages in, 428–429 Livy, 245 Lokroi Epizephyroi, 27–28 de Lorris, Guillaume, 429–430 Lousoi, 129 Low Countries See Flanders Lusignan, 444–445 Lycophron, 27 Lydia, 197–198, 203–206, 209 Lys, 384

536

index

Macedonia, 212 Magi, Magians, Magianism See Zoroastrianism Magna Graecia, 238 See also Greece, ancient Magna Mater See mythology, Roman Mani See Manichaeism Manichaeism, 263–273 Marsyas Painter See Greece, ancient, art Martial, 335 Matthews, Irene 511–531 Megara, 211 Meidian style See Greece, ancient, art Melania, 341–342 Melusine, 444–450 Midas, 196–197, 206–207 Midwives See childbirth Miron, Gabriel, 150–152, 158, 162–164, 169 Moats, 392–394 Morgantina, 43–59 Mount Ida, 202 Mount Tmolus, 202–203 Mountain Mother See mythology, Greek: Cybele, mythology, Roman: Magna Mater Mundiqh, Usamāh ibn, 174–175 Munn, Mark, 438, 445 Musarna, 58 Mythology, Babylonian, 192 Mythology, Egyptian Isis, 137–138 Osiris, 22, 138 Mythology, Greek See also Greece, ancient: religion Acheloös, 23–24, 26, 28, 30, 35–36, 240–241, 246 Adonis, 356 Aeneas, 22–23, 33, 38 See also mythology, Roman: Aeneas Amazons, 70 Amphiaraos, 285 Andromeda, 352–353 Aphrodite, 81, 84, 280–281 Apollo, 33 Artemis, 126–128, 203, 281–283 Asklepios, 285–286, 297 Attis, 356–357 Bull and bull-man as personification of river, 23–24, 26–28, 35–36, 238–241, 244–245 Ceres, 65 the Cornucopia, 35–36 Cybele, 198–210, 356

Danaids, 129–131, 137 Demeter, 135, 286, 290 Dionysos, 70, 100, 289 Eros, 78–81 Helen, 79, 81 Hera, 128, 133, 137 Herakles (or Heracles, Hercules), 32, 35, 241–243, 246, 289 Hermes, 100 Kephisos, 228, 279, 296 Nymphs, 23–26, 69–70, 77–83, 109, 116–123, 127–132, 194, 280, 296 Pan, 293–294, 296 Pandora, 135 Pankrates, 284–285 Poseidon, 119, 193 Proitids, 128–129 Prometheus, 206 Proteus, 30, 32 Rhea, 206 Siren Parthenope, 26–27, 40 Symbolism of water in, 21–23, 30–35, 118–122 Thetis, 31 Zeus, 125, 128, 133, 194–196 Mythology, Hittite 193–194 Mythology, Persian See Zoroastrianism Mythology, Roman See also mythology, Greek Aeneas, 234–237, 246 Magna Mater, 356–357 See also mythology, Greek: Cybele Remus and Romulus, 244, 246 Tiberinus 233–247 Naples See Neapolis Neapolis, 25, 38–40, 303 Nicomedia, 302 Nile River, 22, 138, 234, 243 Nymphs See mythology, Greek Nymphaea See Roman Empire, fountains Ocean, 15, 119, 194, 265, 362, 377, 409, 412, 453, 456, 457, 460, 512 Odyssey, 68 Ohrmazd See Zoroastrianism Olympic games, 28 Oracle of Delphi See Delphic Oracle Origin myths, 192–193 See also mythology Osiris See mythology, Egyptian Othello See Shakespeare, William Ottoman Empire, 185–186 Ovid, 22, 354–355

index Pan See mythology, Greek Panagia, Saint See Greece, modern: religion Pandora See mythology, Greek Pankrates See mythology, Greek Paradise, 13, 14, 358, 434, 436–437, 511–531 Paris, 381 Parthia See Persia Passeri, Giovanni, 63–64 Pausanias, 211, 214, 227–229, 287 Pearl, 417–421 Pedenemicon See Miron, Gabriel Peisistratus, 227–228 Pergamon, 249–262, 304 Persia, 207–210, 263–273 Baths, 270–272 Religion See Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism Phrygia, 196–198, 206, 209 Pipelines, 398–399 See also Roman Empire, hydraulic projects Plato, 286–287, 289 Pleasure, 2, 169, 175, 186, 194, 267, 314, 335, 424, 512–531 Pliny the Elder, 1, 28, 119, 322, 361 Pliny the Younger, 301–302, 348, 369–370, 375–377, 379 Plutarch, 119, 193, 206, 291 Pollution, 31–33, 259, 266, 272, 392, 435, 528 Pompeii, 314, 324–325, 335 Pontus-Bithynia, 301 Portugal Under the Roman Empire, 339–360 Poseidon See mythology, Greek Praxiteles, 61, 65, 85 Precipitation See hydrological cycle Prometheus See mythology, Greek Proitids See mythology, Greek Pseudo-Isidore, 362, 369, 371, 375, 377 Remus See mythology, Roman Reservoirs, 394–398 Rhea See mythology, Greek River gods See mythology Rivers In commerce, 382–389 In sanitation, 390–391, 401–403 Roman de la Rose See de Lorris, Guillaume Roman emperors See individual emperors

537

Roman Empire Architecture Villas and water features, 337–360 Art, 234 Statuary, 221–223, 226, 350–358 Aqueducts, 212, 216, 225, 228, 301–304, 306–317, 320–323 See also Roman Empire, hydraulic projects In warfare, 303–304 Baths, 53–59, 225, 312–314, 316, 319–336 Architecture of, 53–54, 56–58 Concrete in construction of, 58–59 Development of bathing culture, 332–333 Features of, 333 Byzantine Empire See Byzantine Empire Fountains, 212–232, 326–328 Gymnasia See Roman Empire, baths Hydraulic projects, 211–232, 319–336, 346 Canals, 315–316 Cisterns, 249–262, 322, 328 Pipelines, 307–312, 325–326 Sewers and sanitation, 328–331 Mythology See mythology, Roman Religion, 342–344 Roman Republic See Roman Empire Rome Aqueducts, 302–303, 320–322 Baths, 316, 335–336 and the Tiber River, 233–247 Forum Boarium, 246 Romulus See mythology, Roman Same-sex love See homosexuality Samos, 69 Sanitation See Roman Empire, sewers and sanitation Sardis, 202–203, 207–208 Sasanian Empire See Persia Scott, Anne, 427, 439, 503 Sea, 5, 16, 17, 18, 65, 82, 119, 208, 209, 263–275, 287, 346, 352, 355, 361–380, 384, 388, 407–412, 426, 453–461, 508, 522 Sebethos, 26–27 Seleucid Empire, 260, 304 Semonides, 68 Seneca, 331, 335

538

index

Sewers and sanitation See Roman Empire, sewers and sanitation Shakespeare, William Othello, 17, 18, 453–461 Sidonius Apollinaris, 340–342, 359 Siren Parthenope See mythology, Greek Skamandros, 109, 133 Soranus, 160–162 Spain Under Islam, 172, 359–360 Under the Roman Empire, 337–360 Stevenson, Ruth, 453–461 Suetonius, 27 Sutton, Robert, 61–86, 88–90 Syracuse, 44, 53, 59 Syria, 172 Talmud See Judaism Tempest, the See Shakespeare, William Textiles See Flanders, textile industry in Thales, 192–193, 203–206, 209 Thasos, 257 Thetis See mythology, Greek Thucydides, 214, 288 Tiber River, 23, 233–247 Tiberinus See mythology, Roman Tigris, 265 Tinos, 113 Tmolus See Mount Tmolus Torture, 463–478 Trade See commerce Trajan, 301 Transportation, 320, 410, 464, 505 de Troyes, Chrétien See Chrétien de Troyes

Urban Water supply, 1–20, 211–232, 301–318, 319–336, 381–404, 525 Population, 254, 268, 322, 329, 382, 390, 523 Vallambert, Simon de, 149–170 Venerable Bede See Bede Vergil (or Virgil), 234–238 Villas See Roman Empire, architecture Vitruvius, 56, 324–325, 336 Water gods See mythology Water mills, 389 Wearmouth See Jarrow Wells, 398–399 Xenophanes, 206, 209 Xerxes, 209 Ypres, 381–404 Textile industry See Flanders, textile industry in Water management, 399–401 Yser, 382 Yvain See Chrétien de Troyes Zeus See mythology, Greek Zeuxis of Herakleia, 61, 81, 85 Zoroaster See Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism, 207–209 Ahuramazda, 208 Anahita, 207–209, 266–267