Poison Damsels by N. M. Penzer

Poison-Damsels and Other Essays in Folklore and Anthropology by N. M. Penzer
London: Chas. J. Sawyer, 1952

The present four Essays are based on Appendixes originally published in my edition of C. H. Tawney’s Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara, which I called The Ocean of Story. Somewhat hidden in such a large work—it ran to ten volumes—and in view of the fact that much important new information has gradually accumulated since I first started research work on them thirty years ago, it was agreed between Mr. Sawyer and myself that if revised and corrected in the light of present-day scholarship these studies night merit publication in their new form.
…

N. M. Penzer
Cambridge, July, 1951
(From the Foreword)

The four essays in this book are

• Poison-Damsels
• The Tale of the Two Thieves
• Sacred Prostitution
• The Romance of Betel-Chewing

One chapter in Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel was titled “Poison-Damsels and the Pseudo-Aristotle.” Kaeppel quotes Norman Mosley Penzer at one point in the essay which was enough to send me to this volume, comprised of Penzer’s expanded notes originally found in Tawney’s translation of The Ocean of Story. They are a treat to read, just like Kaeppel’s slim volume, although the chapter on betel-chewing just didn’t interest me so I won't recap it. The chapters I enjoyed can be trying at times since Penzer does his best to exhaust all known examples of his limited subjects, but overall they are a fun read.

Poison-Damsels

In the Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara of Somadeva (The Ocean of Story, vol. ii, p.91 [see the notes below for links to the version Penzer is using]) we read of the methods employed by Yogakarandaka, the minister of King Brahmadatta, against the King of Vatsa: “He tainted, by means of poison and other deleterious substances, the trees, flowering creepers, water and grass all along the line of march. And he sent poison-damsels as dancing-girls among the enemy’s host, and he also dispatched nocturnal assassins into their midst.”

The tactics of this minister are as curious as they are unscrupulous. We have read of wells being poisoned and even of diseased clothes being left for the enemy to find, but the poisoning of the vegetation and the dispatching of poisoned women are much more uncommon.

This subject is of great interest from many points of view, and as there appears to be very little published on the matter, especially poison-damsels, the whole question will be considered in some detail. (3)

Penzer begins by looking at other methods of poisoning mentioned in Sanskrit and European sources. While not common in Sanskrit literature, they are advocated in the Code of Manu (also called The Laws of Manu). European writers distinguished between the law of nature and the law of nations, well summarized by Hugo Grotius in his work De jure belli ac pacis. While condemning unnecessary and unethical killing of an enemy, actual practice and literature show many such examples exist whether through poisoned food, water, wells, garments, etc.

Although the poison-damsel motif is rare in Sanskrit literature, Penzer looks at the additional works containing it. These examples jumped to Europe with the Secret Secretorum, the inauthentic correspondence from Aristotle to Alexander the Great (which is in the Kaeppel link above). While not authentic, it was widely read and contained a famous example of Aristotle warning Alexander not to trust his care to a woman, reminding him of the time he saved him from a poison-damsel. The legend and example quickly spread through Europe. Penzer mentions examples in Spanish, German, French, Latin, Italian, and English. Among the latter is a variation of the motif in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappacini’s Daughter.” In most examples a woman is raised on poison, immune to its effects, and is able to poison others through some sort of close contact. Examples of poison transference are in a kiss, a look, the breath, perspiration, a bite, or sexual intercourse.

Penzer believes a snake bite, “the sting of the cobra,” to be the “clue to the whole idea.” Death is rapid after the venom enters a large blood vessel, the venom is temporarily exhausted after the strikes (needing to ‘re-form’), and many snake handlers inoculate themselves until immune. Most times, too, a snake can’t poison itself or its own species. From Penzer’s conclusion to his essay:

To summarise briefly, I would say that the motif of the poison-damsel originated in India at a very early period before the Christian era. The poison-damsel herself has no existence in actual fact, but is merely the creation of the story-teller, who derived the idea from what he saw around him. First of all he was acquainted with poisonous herbs and knew something of the uses to which they were put, but he was still more familiar with the ways of the snake-charmer and the methods of his gradual inoculation. He could not help being fully aware of the fatal results of the bite of the cobra and krait, and the reverence and fear of the snake throughout India was everywhere evident. Thus there was plenty of material for the creation of the poison-damsel, and in later days the knowledge of opium and other foreign drugs would merely introduce some new variant of the tale.

But apart from all these rather obvious sources, we must not overlook another, and deeper, origin of such tales, of which even the story-teller himself knew but little and probably cared less. I refer to the psychological fears, ignorance and superstitions that form the basis of so many folk-tales and beliefs—a fertile ground indeed, where the seed of the story teller could produce exotic blooms of fantasy and exaggeration. … [D]espite her many disadvantages, there is much that is attractive about the poison-damsel. (70-1)

The Tale of the Two Thieves

The story of Ghata and Karpara as told by Somadeva (The Ocean of Story, vol. v, pp. 142-151) is composed of two distinct tales. The first, ending with the final success of Ghata’s tricks, is a Sanskrit version of the well-known tale of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus (ii, 121). The second consists of several incidents, quite likely of Kashmirian origin, dealing with the favourite subject among Orientals—the inconstancy of woman. (75)

Penzer is only concerned with the first part of the story. He quotes from The Ocean of Story how a thief named Karpara, on a mission to steal from the king, enters the bedchamber of the princess and they fall in love. The princess gives Karpara her wealth but he was caught and executed. His accomplice Ghata, holding the money for Karpara, returns to the palace and carries the princess away. He also tricks the king’s guards, sent to watch and safeguard the body of Karpara, and successfully mourns over his friend and steals the bones of his friend for proper burial.

Penzer compares this to Herodotus’ version, told to the historian as an Egyptian tale. The stories are similar, although the surviving thief wins the princess as a reward for the shrewd tricks he plays on the king. Penzer looks at the origin and migration of the story. While many scholars (at the time Penzer was writing) believe the tale of Rhampsinitus could not possibly be of Egyptian origin since several points do not fit in with Egyptian customs. Penzer disagrees on each point raised, although he isn’t sure if it really is of Egyptian origin, either. If not, the story had been semi-“Egyptianized” before Herodotus’ time. Penzer looks at classical versions of the story or references to it in works by Pausanias, Aristophanes, Cicero, Pindar, and Plutarch before looking at medieval and modern versions. Variants in these versions come from the storyteller taking the local environment and motifs into account. Penzer highlights a study of gypsy folk-tales by F. H. Groome who notes that “the gypsies form an important channel of story-migration.” Since there is a version of the story in the gypsy tales, they may be the link in moving the story back and forth through the Balkans.

Penzer finishes his essay by looking at several more versions of the story from Italy, Finland (written in Old Swedish), Tibet, and the gypsies. Penzer believe the “Story of Ghata and Karpara” to be a variant of Herodotus’ tale even if we are unable to trace its migration. Regardless, “The ‘Tale of Rhampsinitus,’ therefore, affords one of the most interesting and perfect examples of the longevity and migration of a really good tale, the history of which can be traced for over two thousand, five hundred years.” (128)

Sacred Prostitution

In the story of Rūpinikā (Tale 7 in the Ocean of Story, vol. 1, p. 139) laid in “a city named Mathurā, the birthplace of Kŗishņa,” we read that the lady herself who is described as a courtesan, at the time of worship went into the temple to perform her duty.

From this passage it is quite clear that Rūpinikā combined the professions of prostitution and temple servant, which latter consisted chiefly in dancing, fanning the idol, and keeping the temple clean. She was, in fact, a dēva-dāsī, or “handmaid of the god.”

Penzer looks over time and across many regions at the various texts in what he politely calls the “Science of Erotics” and other works that link prostitution to the temple. Southern India was religiously more consistent (or invaded less) and more examples and details of the ritual are described. That’s not to say prostitution was uncommon in other areas, just that there wasn’t the explicit link with a house of worship. The courtesans were trained in many arts, particularly dancing (there’s a repeated close tie between dancing and prostitution in the quoted stories) and successful ones were held in high esteem. The many examples of dēva-dāsī highlight elaborate ceremonies where the handmaids are married to a deity or item associated with a god—some of these accounts reveal envy since, married to a god, they can never become widows. Marco Polo and other medieval travelers included some descriptions of the temple girls in their writings.

Penzer looks at other areas outside India that had sacred prostitution, with Babylonia a central focus since the oldest writings show the first mentions of the profession, particularly in the Code of Hammurabi and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Penzer looks at some of the theories on which the basis of such systems rest but he emphasizes the need for more research.

---

LINKS:

C. H. Tawney’s translation and Penzer's original essays can be found at these links:

• Volume 1 (Appendix 4: Sacred Prostitution)
• Volume 2 (Appendix 3: Poison-damsels)
• Volume 3
• Volume 4
• Volume 5 (Appendix 2: The Origin of the Story of Ghata and Karpara) [The Tale of the Two Thieves]
• Volume 6
• Volume 7
• Volume 8 (Appendix 2: The Romance of Betel-chewing)
• Volume 9
• Volume 10

I’m amazed that such a collection is available online—many thanks to the Internet Archive. The forwards to the 10 volumes have some fun reading, too. Other appendices in this series are entertaining reads, too, such as Sneezing Salutations (Volume 3, Appendix 1).

The Sacred Prostitution appendix is also available here. Here are the volumes and notes available at the site.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: a quick introduction (updated and bumped)

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

---

Update: I have included links to the posts in the list of chapters. I may include links to other books that tie in with the chapter posts (such as N. M. Penzer's essay on Poison Damsels) as I get to them.

---

I'm listening to The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World’s Greatest Empire by Anthony Everitt and it references peripli that are the subjects of essays in Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel. See this post for a link to a biography on Kaeppel as well as the post that alerted me to the book at Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog. From the dustjacket cover:

These essays are based, in the main, upon the author’s reading when working in the British Museum. Mr. Carl Kaeppel, who is well known in the world of classical scholarship, has, among his unusually wide intellectual activities, always taken a special interest in ancient geography, on which he is an authority. The section of his book which is devoted to Hanno’s ‘Periplus’ is therefore an outstanding piece of scholarship as well as being a graphic picture of what was to the ancients a world of mystery and magic, and is interesting to readers either with or without a special classical training. The other studies range over a number of little-known but extra-ordinarily interesting aspects and activities of the world of antiquity, and all have been very highly praised by scholars.

The chapters:

• Gais Iulius Solinus, a Teller of Wonder-Tales
• The Periplus of Hanno
• Aristarchus of Samos, the Copernicus of Antiquity
• Periplus of the Red, or Erythraen, Sea
• Some Early Greeks on India
• Pytheas and Massilia
• Poison-Damsels and the Pseudo-Aristotle
• The Periplus of Scylax

What I’d like to do over the next few months is post on each essay individually. Up first is Gaius Iulius Solinus: A Teller of Wonder-Tales…in the next post (by the weekend, I hope)…

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Scylax

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

Except for the account of the west coast of Africa with Cerne and the trade in Attic pottery, to which we have already referred, the Periplus of Scylax is not a particularly exciting work, nor has it any pretensions to literary style. Further, the text, which exists only in a single manuscript, is full of gaps, corrupt, and difficult. It is, however, a most important document and, as I mentioned it in the Periplus of Hanno, I propose to give a brief account of it here.

The Periplus of Scylax belongs to a class of work, common in the classical world, which describes in regular order the coasts of countries. It does not give a general geographical survey of the countries themselves, but describes the maritime cities, headlands, gulfs, rivers, etc., just as they would present themselves to anyone sailing along the coasts, and adds distances from point to point. … As we shall see, the Scylax of this treatise cannot possibly be the Scylax of Coryanda, whose exploit is preserved by Herodotus and to whom we have already referred. That in the manuscript it is ascribed to Scylax of Coryanda is merely a proof of the fame of his exploit—the author, or authors (for it may easily be a compost) wished to send it forth under the aegis of a great name.

This periplus surveys the lands bordering on the Mediterranean and Black Seas and can be dated at approximately 350 B.C. The author works clockwise around the Mediterranean and includes a little bit on the Atlantic coast of Africa but, importantly, not the Atlantic coast of Europe. Pytheas’ account is not until about 50 years later (when Carthage was occupied with Syracuse). As Kaeppel noted in his Pytheas essay, Carthage actively discouraged exploration in the European Atlantic in order to monopolize that trade. Toward that end, they also spread discouraging tales of the area.

A few points from Kaeppel’s essay:

• The work mentions Rome, “the first passage in any extant author in which the name occurs.”
• While many descriptions and measurements are accurate, there are notable errors. One error involving the Ister River (Danube) persisted for quite a while, becoming enshrined in other works by logographers and poets alike (including Apollonius of Rhodes’ explanation of the Argonauts’ passage).
• The most interesting part of the periplus to Kaeppel is the

  account of the west coast of Africa as far as the Carthaginian settlement of Cerne, where the Greeks traded pottery, stone ornaments, and other good for ivory, gold, and skins. This trade, however, was not direct; it operated through the Carthaginians and it seems evident that our aruthor had no first-hand knowledge of the coast beyond Cape Soloeis (Cantin). Cape Soloeis he describes clearly by using Carthaginian sources, among them, possibly, the Periplus of Hanno. If the question be asked why the Carthaginians, while sedulously keeping the north Atlantic closed, allowed trade, albeit only through themselves, with their African settlements, the obvious answer is the demand for Attic pottery…, for which there was no substitute.

Kaeppel closes the essay noting that there was no good critical edition at the time (mid-1930s). I will note Graham Shipley’s recent translation and study—hopefully it fills Kaeppel’s wish. From the book’s description:

But, argues Graham Shipley, it is not the record of a voyage or a navigational handbook for sailors. It is, rather, the first work of Greek theoretical geography, written in Athens at a time of intellectual ferment and intense speculation about the nature and dimensions of the inhabited world. While other scientists were gathering data about natural science and political systems or making rapid advances in philosophy, rhetorical theory, and cosmology, the unknown author collected data about the structure of the lands bordering the seas known to the Greeks, and compiled sailing distances and times along well-frequented routes. His aim was probably nothing less ambitious than to demonstrate the size of the inhabited world of the Greeks.

For more information and links, see the Wikipedia entry.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Poison Damsels and the Pseudo-Aristotle

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

Now the poison-damsel legend is that of a girl who, being poison herself but immune to it, brings death to all she comes in contact with; in some forms of the legend her mere look is fatal, in others it is her touch, usually it is her embrace. Sometimes, again, she is born a poison-damsel, and sometimes turns into one by being nourished on poison. …

The poison-damsel of Sanskrit literature was regarded with the greatest dread and it was, as it were, the hall-mark of a clever minster to be able to recognize one at sight and save his master. There can be no doubt that the poison-damsel motif originated in India. It is found there long before the Christian era; but outside India it is not found till the sixth century A.D., and then in a Persian version of an Indian original, The Fables of Bidpai. She does not appear in European literature until the twelfth century, but a few years later figures prominently in the literature of every European nation.

Kaeppel doubts the origins of the poison-damsel legend was based on communicable diseases unrecognized as such, preferring instead that it was tied to snakes. He points out that in some of the early Indian legends the poison-damsel embraces and kills a man but then a second man can embrace her—similar to some snakes she has used up her ‘venom’ and must develop more. Kaeppel then goes into detail about the introduction of the poison-damsel legend to European literature.

[T]here appeared in European literature the Latin translation of an Arabic work. The Arabic claimed to be translated from the Greek, but no Greek version is extant, and there are very good reasons for believing that there never was one and that the Arabic is the original. The work in question is entitled Secreta Secretorum or De Secretis Secretorum. It claims to be nothing less than the collection of the most important and most secret communications sent to Alexander the Great by his tutor Aristotle when the latter was too old to attend in person and thus to comprise a treatise on political wisdom and statesmanship, ‘on the correct conduct of body and min,’ and on all the mysteries of the occult arts and sciences.

No book has ever achieved a more instantaneous popularity or exercised a more immediate influence.

The combination of Alexander the Great and Aristotle guaranteed its popularity. Different versions appeared and nearly every European language had a translation. Copyists added or deleted chapters. A Hebrew version was made early in the thirteenth century, translated directly from the Arabic. This version reflects the work in its earliest state, before all the additions and deletions.

Taking the Hebrew text, we find Aristotle warning Alexander not to entrust the care of his body to women and to beware of those deadly poisons which had killed so many kings in the past. To drive home his warning he reminds Alexander of the great danger which he himself was able to frustrate. ‘Remember,’ he says, ‘what took place when the King of India sent to thee splendid gifts and among them was that beautiful maiden whom they fed on poison till she was deadly as a snake, and had I not perceived this by my arts, for I feared the craft of the clever men of those countries, and had I not found by proof that she would kill thee by her embrace, most surely she would have killed thee.’

The methods by which the poison-damsel would have killed Alexander vary in other translations, but regardless of the language the legend was introduced to Europe and quickly spread. Kaeppel attributes Norman Mosley Penzer with my favorite quote on the legend: “despite many disadvantages, there is much that is attractive about the poison-damsel.”

See the Wikipedia entry on Visha Kanya for more information and links on the poison-damsels. I’ve put in a request for one of Penzer’s books, which I look forward to reading and passing along.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Pytheas and Massilia

Pytheas' route
Picture source Fridays with Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936) continues, although a little late...

Of the three great explorers of the ancient world Pytheas has had the worst fortune. Of none of them has the personal narrative survived, but the work of Hippalus and Hanno, although not permanent, had results that endured for centuries. Pytheas had no successors, his voyage was of no material benefit to the city he served so well, and he was even, some two hundred years after his death, denounced as an imposter, as a precursor of the Zenos or Frederick Cook. But in certain respects Pytheas is greater than either Hanno or Hippalus; he was not only an intrepid explorer but a scientist of more than considerable merit and achievement; ‘his journey was more fruitful in scientific discovery than any preceding the age of Henry of Portugal.’

Kaeppel begins with a quick glance through the history of Mediterranean travel, focusing on the western part. He also touches on Tartessos, which controlled Atlantic Ocean trade until around 500 BC. As long as the Tartessians were powerful, Phoenicians and others were mostly kept out of the Atlantic.

Kaeppel then looks at the history of Massilia (modern day Marseille). Some of what Kaeppel covers can be found in the prehistory and classical antiquity section of the city’s Wikipedia entry, including the story of Protis’ marriage to Gyptis (recorded by Justin but probably ultimately from Timaeus). Despite the continual change of power in the Mediterranean, Massilia flourished: “The real cause of Massiliot prosperity was the discovery and use of the gateway from the Mediterranean up the Rhone Valley into northerly Europe. … They swarmed into what is now French and German territory. The volume of trade was enormous.” The use of the knowledge is stressed since so often many discoveries lay dormant, not to be used or exploited for many years (see the introduction to this section as well as several of the preceding essays in Kaeppel’s book).

The Massiliot didn't publicize their experience but “one written record, corrupt, it is true, but of superlative value and interest, has survived.” The Ora Maritima attributed to Avienus provides “a more or less confused version of the guide book of a Massiliot trader—a guide book to both overland and sea trade.” Avienus mentions the voyage to Britain for tin as well as the exploits of Himilco, the first known Carthaginian to sail in the North Atlantic (and may have been an approximate contemporary of Hanno).

Pytheas of Massila’s date assigned by Kaeppel is in the window provided by his Wikipedia entry, but he focuses on the likelihood it would have happened while Carthage was engaged in fighting Syracuse from 310 to 306 BC. While Massiliots traded with Britain, their route had been through Gaul. Pytheas’ “primary object was to break up the Carthaginian monopoly of Atlantic trade, particularly in Cornish tin.” But that only partially explains his journey since he circled the island and explored many other areas. His practical application of astronomy was far ahead of others in his day.

Kaeppel labels Pytheas as unfortunate, not just because his work perished but also from attacks by later writers such as Polybius and Strabo “whose excerpts from Pytheas are as meagre as his own comments are bitter and skeptical.” Diodorus and Pliny end up being the more reliable sources of his journey. Kaeppel believes that, like Hanno, the details receiving the most question are proofs of Pytheas’ veracity.

A few points Kaeppel highlights in what has survived about Pytheas' journey:

• He describes the tin mining process in Britain
• Sailing clockwise around Britain he sighted Ireland (although it’s not known if he landed)
• Kaeppel believes the “Thule” Pytheas visited to be Norway, despite some inconsistencies
• On his return voyage Pytheas followed the continental coast and found the “Amber Isle,” where amber washes up on the spring tide
• His distances traveled are overestimated, a common occurrence (possibly compounded by corruption in the text)—it’s interesting to note the accuracy of Pytheas’ measurements when in one place as compared to when traveling
• Kaeppel attributes Pytheas’ description of “sea-lung” at Thule (where “there is neither air nor sea, but a mixture like sea-lung, in which earth and air are suspended” binding everything together) as the sea fog off the upper Norwegian coast

Next week’s chapter has the wonderful title “Poison-Damsels and the Pseudo-Aristotle.”

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Some Early Greeks on India

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

To what extent the civilizations whose remains have been discovered in North-West India influenced and were influenced by the civilizations of Mesopotamia and, thereby, influenced those of the Western World, we cannot as yet determine. Such influence there certainly was, but a discussion of it would be outside the scope of this essay.

Turning to the India we know, the India of recorded and semi-recorded history, the India of Hindu and Dravidian civilizations, we have notice in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea that her trade relations with the outside (Western) world are of extreme antiquity.

The very early Greeks, however, knew little about the land. The reason is obvious. Assyria lay across the path and entry into Assyria meant death in its most awful forms. ‘To the contemporary Greek the land beyond the Taurus and behind the Syrian coast was all by terra incognita while this empire lasted, a land of blood and peril from from which he shrank.’

Absorption by Darius a couple of generations later into the Persian Empire, which eventually extended to Indus, meant that the Greeks could learn about the Eastern lands from the Persians. Hecataeus’ Description of the Earth, written at the end of the 6th century B.C., was the first Greek account of India. In the third and fourth books of Herodotus’ Histories there is plenty of detail on the Persian Empire, with some facts and tales about India. The story of the gold-digging ants is part of it and the hypothesis that this describes marmots in a particular region of the upper Indus River had not yet been proposed when Kaeppel was writing. While he can’t explain it, Kaeppel urges caution in summarily dismissing it because of corroboration with later careful writers such as Megasthenes and Nearchus. Herodotus also gives a few details on the voyage of Scylax exploring the Indus, then sailing to the coast of Arabia and up the Red Sea.

Ctesias of Cnidus had been part of the Persian court for seventeen years, then returned to Greece and “wrote a history of Persia, a treatise on its revenue, and a treatise on India” in 398 B.C. While these are lost, abridgements and extracts are in works by Photius and Aelian’s Historia Animalium. Ctesias unfortunately was a lover of the marvelous and compiled “an anthology of wonder-tales.” He includes stories later found in Solinus such as those of the Martichora (man-eater), Griffins, Unicorns, Pygmies, men with dogs’ heads and men without nostrils or mouths. Ctesias did mention the use of elephants in war and describes the sport of falconry. Kaeppel notes that Ctesias “is best studied in the Didot edition.

The best of the ancient Greek writers on India to read, according to Kaeppel, is Megasthenes, an envoy sent by Seleucus (the Babylon-based “inheritor” of part of Alexander’s empire) to the court of Sanracouttus (Chandrapupta in the original language). After returning to Greece he produced a book about what he saw and learned in India. The book is unfortunately lost but Strabo and Arrian used extensive extracts from it. A few highlights and comments on Megasthenes’ work:

• The distances “are hopelessly confused”
• Megasthenes was probably the first Greek to see the Ganges (definitely the first to give an account of it)
• He details the well-organized administration of the Prasian kingdom
• He provides an account of the caste system (although he doesn’t mention the Pariahs)
• He devotes plenty of space to the Brahmins (‘philosophers’), considering them to have much in common with the Pythagoreans
• He also notes other ‘philosophers’ practicing austerity, the Buddhists
• He describes the practices of self-immolation and sati/suttee (but understates the latter’s use)
• His natural history of this region of India is remarkably accurate
• The direct information presented is limited to the Indus and Ganges valleys

He unfortunately reproduces “some of the absurdities of Ctesias” but “these are spots on the sun.”

Kaeppel notes that fragments of Megasthenes’ work “have been collected and published by both Schwanbeck and Müller (Vol. II of the Fragmenta Historicorum Graecurum). J. W. McCrindel published Ancient India As Described By Megasthenes and Arrian in 1877. It provides fragments of Megasthenes' Indica as well as the Indica by Arrian.

Note: There is plenty of discussion and controversy regarding which leader of the Indian court Megasthenes visited, but Kaeppel focuses mostly on his description of India that was used by later historians.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Periplus of the Red, or Erythraean, Sea

It's Friday so I'm continuing with a chapter from Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936).

In studying any long period of history, one frequently realizes that great ‘discoveries’ which have profoundly influenced civilization are, after all, only rediscoveries—though the later discoverers showed every whit as much brain and courage as their predecessors.

It may happen, owing to the state of the times, that the earlier discovery is without immediate influence and is utterly forgotten; or it may exercise a potent influence for a time and then, owing to causes unforeseen and unexpected, it also passes away among forgotten, or half-forgotten, things. …

The work of a discoverer of the second class is, in the main, the subject of this essay—the voyage of Hippalus to India in the latter half of the first century A.D., and its results.

A few notes are in order, so I’ll quote the first footnote:

First, the term ‘Periplus’ is used in three senses. Originally meaning a ‘sailing-round,’ it is applied to a geographical description of coasts like the Periplus of Scylax or that of the Euxine by Arrian. Then it is used for the record of an individual voyage, like that of Nearchus or of Hanno. Finally, it may denote a manual for the instruction of navigators or traders, such as the work we are discussing. The second point to be noted is that by the ‘Red’ or ‘Erythraean’ Sea, the Greeks denoted not only the modern Red Sea, but also the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

Kaeppel opens with a discussion on the main routes of communication between the ‘classical world’ and the Far East (while avoiding, in large part, the migrations of people). The overland (jade) route, from China to India and over land to Europe, was popular but depended on several factors. Incursions by Mongol tribes disrupted use of this route. The climate along the route can be brutal, varying wildly at times during the year. And the changing geography of several of the major rivers, particularly the Oxus, has hindered or helped trade (and with this point Kaeppel corrects one of my earlier complaints about not considering such changes). Strabo, writing in the first century B.C. and relying heavily on Aristobulus, gives a valuable account of the existing overland route. There were two routes by sea—one keeping close to the coast, using the overland caravan route once reaching Mesopotamia, the other a direct course across the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden and up the Red Sea. Even in this route goods were unloaded and hauled overland.

“Hippalus was the first man of the classical world to sail his own ship direct into Indian waters, the first to open up direct trade relations with the Far East.” His achievement’s practical purposes for direct trade ended before too long, though, due to the fall of the western Roman empire, the reliance on the caravan route by Constantinople, and the rise of Islam a few centuries later.

The Periplus can be found online here or here. It reads as a trader’s log, giving details on what a voyager would find sailing from the head of the Red Sea, along the east coast of Africa and then along the west and south coasts of ‘Arabia,’ then to India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon for Kaeppel). The importance isn’t in the literary story (because there is very little there) but because it marks a new era. The journey took place around 50 A.D. and written about 10 years later. Hippalus discovers the change of weather (which, of course, others had taken advantage before him, of the change in weather that comes with the monsoons:

57. This whole voyage as above described, from Cana and Eudaemon Arabia, they used to make in small vessels, sailing close around the shores of the gulfs; and Hippalus was the pilot who by observing the location of the ports and the conditions of the sea, first discovered how to lay his course straight across the ocean. For at the same time when with us the Etesian winds are blowing, on the shores of India the wind sets in from the ocean, and this southwest wind is called Hippalus, from the name of him who first discovered the passage across.

These changes make sailing in one direction easy for half of the year and returning easier in the other half. The Periplus is a quick read so I won’t quote anything more from it. The pieces I found most interesting in the Periplus were the descriptions of the trading cities, emphasizing the impact of trade on these ports. I found Kaeppel's discussion on the long-term impact from such trade the most important part of the essay. After describing products that flowed from east to west, he asks:

And what did the East take in return? A few products, chiefly coral and wine, but the main payment was made in gold in silver. For nearly two thousand years the drain of specie to the East had gone on. It has always been a problem; even to-day [mid-1930s], with a favourable trade balance, over two million pounds disappear every year out of circulation into unproductive treasure houses; but in the Roman world its effect was calamitous and the spice-silk trade must certainly be regarded as one of the contributory causes of the decay of the classical world. From the time of Tiberius far-seeing men realized the danger to financial stability, and Pliny (VI, 23) was not a voice crying in the wilderness when he wrote: ‘The subject is one worthy of attention, there being no year in which India does not drain our empire of at least fifty-five million of sesterces, sending us in return wares which are sold for a hundred times their original value.’ The great hoards of Roman coins, both gold and silver, discovered in the mine districts and in the marts can represent only an infinitesimal portion of the ‘drain.’

Funny how little has changed. Kaeppel ends with a bibliography for classical and historical geography—his bibliographies provide a great starting point for anyone interested in delving into these topics.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Aristarchus of Samos

10th century CE Greek copy of Aristachus Samos's 2nd century BCE calculations
of the relative sizes of the Sun, Moon and the Earth
Picutre source Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

So stupendous is the work of the Greeks in art, literature, and philosophy that there is a tendency, even among those devoted to the study of the Greek spirit, to overlook or take for granted their achievements in other fields, e.g., medicine, geography, or mathematics.

That is my excuse for commenting in this brief study on Greek mathematics in general and for providing a short account of a great and original genius, Aristarchus of Samos, who put forward the heliocentric hypothesis nearly two thousand years before Copernicus.

To disregard the Greek interest and achievement in natural science and mathematics is, in fact, to miss the cardinal characteristic of the Greek genius—its many-sidedness.

"Fridays with Carl Kaeppel" continues with the next chapter in Off the Beaten Track in the Classics, focusing on mathematics in general and Aristarchus of Samos in particular. I’ll plead guilty to Kaeppel’s charge of overlooking or taking for granted achievements in other fields in classical Greece, even though I know many of them. In place of a bibliography of Greek mathematics, which he says would run many pages, Kaeppel recommends Sir Thomas Heath’s History of Greek Mathematics (as well as Heath’s “translation of The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, with introduction, notes and appendices; his Works of Archimedes, and last but not least, his definitive edition of Aristarchus.”) There are other works by Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius in the Teubner Series by Heiberg he recommends, too. Keep in mind Kaeppel was writing in the mid-1930s.

Some quotes and summaries from Kaeppel’s essay:

• "Mathematics, we have said emphatically, are a Greek creation, and a brief digression on this point is, perhaps, permissible. It has been said, and even written, by people who should know better, that the Greeks learned much of thei science and mathematics from Egypt. … In some of the papyri they [Egyptians] go farther; real mathematical problems are set and solved but, ‘with that curious incapacity for abstract thought’ which both Sayce and Erman stress, the Egyptians never formulated any real mathematical theorem. In short, like so much else, nay, like everything else in Egypt, mathematics had stopped and been perpetuated in the archaic stage. For in Egypt we have a civilization which is great in the sense of being enduring and firmly established, but not great in the sense of being far advanced intellectually and spiritually. It was a civilization, as the late March Phillips so well pointed out, not really based upon or nourished by the intellectual faculty, but supported by the strength of routine and usage, and it remained immovable, fixed in that archaic phase which precedes intellectual development.” (I have mentioned several times already that Kaeppel doesn’t pull his punches.)


• Kaeppel traces the development of Greek mathematics, a great mass of it accomplished in a short time period, especially the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The third century sees Achimedes, “who may be said to have anticipated the integral calculus” and provided seminal work in hydrostatics. Apollonius of Perga completes his theory of geometrical conics around 200 B.C., completing the main body of Greek mathematics in four centuries.


• Astronomy was seen as a branch of mathematics. Many of the works of, say, Heraclides of Pontus has been lost but have been imitated and incorporated by later writers so that the earlier works can be reconstructed. Heraclides “put forward in detail the theory of the daily rotation of the earth about its own axis, and that the inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, revolve about the sun” (fourth century B.C.) but he stopped short of declaring a heliocentric model.


• Aristarchus’ life has been approximated as 310 to 230 B.C. Only one work has survived (On the Size and Distances of the Sun and the Moon, which does not claim the sun at the center of the galaxy), “but we know that he also wrote on light, vision and colours, and invented an improved sun-dial, the σκάφη, with a concave hemispherical surface instead of a plane. The treatise Size and Distances is based on Euclid but assumes things “that go beyond Euclid.” Ancient references make clear that Aristarchus put forward the heliocentric model after Size and Distances by such authors as Archimedes in “Sand-Reckoner” and Plutarch in his essay “On the Face of the Moon” (among others):

  Cleanthes held that it was the duty of the Greeks to indict Aristarchus on the charge of impiety for putting in motion the Hearth of the Universe—supposing the heaven to remain at rest and the earth to revolve in an obique circle while it rotates at the same time about its own axis.

• Kaeppel again stresses how long it took before further strides were made in the sciences, especially mathematics, and how fragile the civilization that had been achieved could have been lost (a familiar theme if you have read the earlier posts on this book). As it was, almost two millennia elapsed before achievements rivaling the ancient Greeks occurred. Kaeppel also references a familiar zeitgeist I keep seeing from writers just before the start of World War II:

  It [civilization] could have been, and can be, utterly destroyed, and the spectre of annihilation is, at this moment, hovering over it. Nothing is more futile or more dangerous than the facile optimism that regards progress as inevitable. Before our own, there have been some eleven or twelve civilizations of varying values; some of them we know only by their ruins.

I wish Kaeppel had followed up on the charge by Cleanthes. From this essay by Immanuel Velikovsky I found out that Cleanthes’ charge was in a tract titled “Against Aristarchus” and that it was about 150 years before we see followers adopting Aristarchus’ theories. Velikovsky also points out that Hipparchus, a well regarded contemporary of Aristarchus, rejected Aristarchus’ conclusions on a heliocentric model based on scientific grounds, not religious ones (like Cleanthes’ charges). If anything, these additional points help reinforce Kaeppel’s point on how fragile civilization and its advancements can be. Not to mention how charges of impiety weren't limited to philosophy and that junk science has been with us for a long time.

Links:
Aristarchus info at Wikipedia
The link to Immanuel Velikovsky's essay (again)
Another Aristarchus biography, this one at University of St Andrews, Scotland's School of Mathematics and Statistics

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: The Periplus of Hanno

Codex Heidelbergensis 398
The single surviving manuscript of Hanno's Periplus
Locate din the Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg
Picture source

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

For the most part the student must lament that ‘the iniquity of oblivion’ has overtaken work of the utmost value, but sometimes a precious survival is a reason for thankfulness. There is the case of Hanno’s Periplus. Short though it is, I doubt whether any single document is of greater importance historically or geographically.

The Periplus is, in brief, a Greek translation of the record, in the explorer’s own hand, of perhaps the greatest achievement of ancient seamanship—the voyage of exploration and colonization of the Carthaginian Hanno (c. 500 B.C.) along the west coast of Africa, certainly as far as Sierra Leone (N. lat. 7˚ 45’).

It has survived by the slenderest of chances. The original Semitic version, posted in the Temple of Melkarth at Carthange, has perished and the Greek translation survives only in a single manuscript (Heidelberfensis 398). Exactly when the translation was made we cannot say, but it was extant at an early date, being first quoted by Pseudo-Aristotle (De Mirab. Auscult., 37), and most probably was known to Ephorus (c. 340 B.C.).

I doubt the Periplus of Hanno would be considered off the beaten track when it comes to the classics, and it wasn’t even in Keppel’s day (given the number of works listed in his bibliography). Today there is a webpage dedicated to Hanno’s Periplus on the Web with all sort of wonderful links—please be sure to check it out, especially the literary echoes section. There are several translations available at the page, too. Unfortunately some of the links are broken. For someone mentioned by Arrian (in his Indica), has a song by Al Stewart about him, and debates raging on authenticity, Hanno’s fame has been fairly steady for the 2,500 years since his trip.

Kaeppel touches on the topic of forgery or the report’s fabrication, briefly noting that attempts to disprove it have been unconvincing and unsuccessful. He then spends quite a bit of time confirming the date of c. 500 B.C. for the trip and record. Kaeppel includes the text of the periplus, in Greek and Karl Müller’s translation, and then walks through the work making comments along the way. This is the fascinating part of the essay, especially when he includes how parts of the story filtered into other works. Regarding the island of Cerne:

Its subsequent history is interesting. After the destruction of Carthage, her Atlantic colonies declined and finally disappeared. The best analogy to this is the history of Norse Greenland. But even after Cerne had disappeared from the map the name remained as a place of myth and legend among such writers as Lycophron, Paleaephatus and nonnus. Palaephatus, e.g., puts three Gorgons in the Cernean Islands, and Diodorus both the Amazons and Gorgons. On the other hand Strabo, who apparently had never heard of the periplus, censures Eratosthenes for admitting the existence of the island (I, 3, 47).

Kaeppel enjoys presenting what he calls preposterous theories, then puncturing their logic. One thing he doesn’t seem to account for, though, is possible changes in geography. For example he locates in today’s terms where “the wild men clothed in skins (Guanches) who pelted them with stones” would be but comments that the statement “’overhung by lofty mountains’ is certainly an exaggeration.” Maybe not in Hanno’s time, though.

Near the end of the periplus there are a couple of stories that have captured the imagination and caused plenty of discussion over the years. The first has to do with the “streams of fire” and “pillars of fire.” As I mentioned in the previous post on the book, Kaeppel doesn’t tend to pull his punches:

To this day, as Sir Harry Johnson has told us in his Liberia, it is the custom of the natives to burn off the dry grass and bush at the end of the rainy season, thereby causing the most awe-inspiring conflagrations. It is quite a ceremony and is marked by much music (!) and shouting. The practice has been noted by many explorers from Pedro de Cintra (1462 A.D.) to Mungo Park (1800 A.D.). We shall let the latter speak for himself (Travels in the Interior of Africa, ch. VI):

'The burning of the grass exhibits a scene of terrific grandeur. In the middle of the night I could see the plains and mountains, as far as my eye could reach, variegated with lines of fire; and the light reflected on the sky made the heavens appear ablaze. In day-time pillars of smoke were seen in every direction.'

It is only the stupidity of commentators who have insisted on translating ρύακες as 'streams of lava' (it can, of course, also have that meaning) that has caused Hanno’s veracity to be questioned.

But before leaving the fire stories [note: there seems to be a repetition in a fire story in paragraphs 15 and 16] we should note that few classical wonder-tales have taken such a hold on the imagination as the picture of the place silent by day but blazing with fire and resounding with noise by night. Pseudo-Aristotle, Pliny, Diodorus, Mela, and, finally, Solinus, all retell the tale—with additions; and, as we have noticed elsewhere, through Solinus it becomes one of the favourite mediaeval legends.

I have a new phrase for completely disagreeing with someone: “That's stupid: it can, of course, also have that meaning”. As you can see, there is a lot of conjecture on what exactly Hanno saw and described. Kaeppel points out that in paragraph 16 “Hanno does not say it was a volcano in eruption, but simply that it was a tall mountain whose sides were alight.” Mount Cameroon has been the frequent placing of this sight, although Kaeppel conjectures it is Mount Kakulima. Kaeppel also looks at the last paragraph and the killing and skinning of what Hanno’s interpreters called “gorillas” (and also an interesting sidenote of how the term ‘gorilla’ came to its present meaning because of Hanno). Not surprisingly, Kaeppel believes what Hanno encountered were chimpanzees, better fitting his description of what he found. The essay closes in looking at mentions of the African coast in later accounts, such as:

• Polybius’ description of the decay of the colonies after the destruction of Carthage.
• The Periplus of Scylax will provide a separate chapter in the book.
• Fragments from the lost work of Ephorus in the mid-fourth century B.C., who devoted some time to a geographical survey that incorporates some of Hanno’s story.

The essay ends looking at the possibilities of Carthaginians visiting and settling other African island groups, particularly the Canaries, Madeiras, and Azores (Kaeppel’s judgment, in order: probably, possibly, unlikely).

While the bibliography section of Kaeppel’s essay is somewhat dated, it is a helpful list of reports and criticisms. There’s also a section for the unmasking of forgeries related to the periplus. I’m including a few additional links I found interesting in connection with Hanno’s work:
A translation of the text and discussion of it
Two translations of the text and a Google map of the possible route
Text and commentary side-by-side
Another translation, with a map showing other Phoenician voyages and routes to help put Hanno’s trip in context.

Insert from Erythraei Sive Rubri Maris Periplus Olim ab Arriano Descriptus
depicting the African coast, based on the Periplus of Hanno
From the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598)
(please please please see the whole work)

Update: I meant to include some other notes on Hanno’s Periplus but hit the ‘publish’ button too early. Richard Miles’ book Carthage Must be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization spends several pages on Hanno’s trip, speculating on what some of the passages mean and, most importantly, putting his trip in a bigger picture of Carthaginian trade and exploration (see pages 82 – 86, hardcover).

In The Landmark Herodotus, Appendix D is on Herodotean Geography (written by James Romm and James H. Ottaway). §5 has some interesting points on what was and wasn’t available to Herodotus:

Much of that knowledge came from the voyages of exploration which the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Egyptians had begun undertaking, both within the Mediterranean and outside it, starting shortly before Herodotus’ time. Indeed, Herodotus lived in a golden age of geographic discovery, though because the means by which explorers published their finds were not far advanced, he was not always aware of what had been learned. … [T]he voyage of Hanno the Carthaginian down the west coast of the Africa may have taken place too late for Herodotus to have learned of it.

Romm and Ottaway mention tale and reports that Herodotus would have known, such as a “different West African voyage led by Sataspes, a Persian” (4.42) and the tale of a Phoenician crew (4.43), voyaging for the Egyptian pharaoh Nechos (which may or may not have happened as told). Apparently trade between the Carthaginians and the natives on the west coast of Africa was fairly common given Herodotus description of the way transactions were made in 4.196.

Update (5 Feb 2017): Gabe Bakale at The Classical Association of New England has posted a link to an additional translation and some work student activities/worksheets to supplement the text.

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel: Gaius Iulius Solinus

Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)

Kaeppel begins his book with an essay on "Gais Iulius Solinus, a Teller of Wonder-Tales". Solinus’ work, the Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium (Gallery of Wonderful Things), was written somewhere between 230 and 280 A.D. by Kaeppel's reckoning. Different editions of it can be found at The Latin Library, the 1895 Mommsen second edition being the one I’ve seen receiving the highest recommendations. The only English translation Kaeppel knew about was by Arthur Golding, “a quaint and charming work, though more a paraphrase than a translation.” I wasn’t able to find any additional translation, but if you know of one please let me know. [Update: I've looked through the facsimile reproduction of Golding's translation. I recommend Kaeppel's summary for all but the serious scholars.] The quotes in this post are from Kaeppel’s essay, while quotes from Golding’s translation, within Kaeppel's quotes, are indicated by single quotemarks. Also, remember that Kaeppel wrote these essays in the 1930s so terminology and scholarship may have changed in the intervening period.

So what does Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium cover?

Solinus is not an original writer. His object is simply to collect marvelous tales of monstrous races, strange animals, wonders by land and sea, from all available sources. Chief among these is Pliny, whom he uses constantly, though Pliny is never mentioned by name. Next come Varro and Pomponius Mela. In all, he mentions about sixty authors, about some of whom, e.g., King Juba and the Punic Books, nothing is known, while many of his marvels are from entirely unknown sources.

Kaeppel provides an outline of the contents of the work. The book proceeds geographically, starting with Italy then covering Greece, Black Sea lands/Russia, northwest Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since readers of Solinus’ time would have already been very familiar with Italy and Greece their sections are somewhat subdued, although Kaeppel says “he makes what he can of it” by providing tidbits of interesting tales. Starting with the Black Sea lands Solinus' stories begin to take flight, relaying tales about Gryphons, the land of feathers, and interesting tribes of men, such as the “loupgaroux—men who, at certain times, turn into wolves and regain their proper shape after a holiday among the beasts.” The marvels of Northwest Europe, including Britain, are no less fascinating but Africa is where the enchantment really takes off and doesn’t slow down whilecovering Asia (including China and India).

So why does Kaeppel include an essay on Solinus? Not just because some of the tales reappear again and again in ancient works and are used in more modern contexts (he provides two examples that are in novels by the Welsh author Arthur Machen), although that is of interest but because of what the historical inclusions/references represent. Kaeppel argues that Solinus’ work was

perhaps the most completely miraculous view of the world ever put forward. Much has been said about his sources, but it must be remembered that Solinus is different, not in degree, but in kind, from the classical authors he uses. Pliny’s Natural History, e.g., to which he is chiefly indebted, certainly does contain a great deal of curious and mythical matter, but it is the reverse of unscientific. Solinus made it his business simply to transcribe every marvelous tale, ‘extracting the dross and leaving the gold’; and the result is a book which, with one exception, is unique. The exception is to be found in the mediaeval Bestiaries, or story-books about animals. Read as Mr. Machen reads it, as a fairy tale, as a work of pure imagination, the Collectanea is by no means without literary merit; in fact, it may be compared with such stories as the ‘City of Brass’ or ‘The Queen of the Serpents’ in the Arabian Nights. The trouble is that it was not read in that way during the Middle Ages.

Apart from its literary qualities, the Collectanea is of great value, generally, to the historian and anthropologist, but by far its greatest importance lies in the light it throws on the workings of the early mediaeval mind. In this respect, though in this respect only, for Cosmas has no literary value whatever, it can be compared with the Christian Topography. [Kaeppel goes into detail on the monk Cosmas’ work and some of its geographical errors] … This fantastic scheme of the universe [by Cosmas], together with Solinus’ miraculous view of the world, was adopted in the Dark Ages. It needs little comment. They did not desire knowledge. Knowledge was there, ready to hand, knowledge gained by painstaking, truth-seeking enquiries. They despised it. They seemed deliverately to reject the sources of real information, the geography of Ptolemy, the description of the known world by Strabo, authentic narratives of travel like the Peripli of the ‘Red’ or Indian Sea, or of the Persian Gulf. It was nothing to them that, in the time of Hannibal, Eratosthenes had made almost exact measurements of the circumference of the earth. No greater contrast is imaginable than that between the First Book of Strabo, where he defines the scope of geographical enquiry, its relation to geology and history, and the manner in which evidence should be collected and weighed, and the miraculous view of the world put forward by Solinus. Strabo writes almost in the spirit of Darwin; Solinus like, well—Solinus. But the Dark Ages accepted the Collectanea as sober fact and rejected the geography of the classical world even as they rejected its mathematics and astronomy.

Did I mention that Kaeppel has strong opinions and rarely pulls his punches? His inclusion of Solinus was to point out “how and why mankind can lose what it has won and exchange knowledge for ignorance and superstition.” Kaeppel highlights that his study of the “Dark Ages” provides an unwelcome but profound truth: “Neither knowledge nor civilization is stable or assured; they must be kept so by those to whom they are entrusted.” An overstatement? Perhaps, but probably not by too much, and a timely message in any age. The problem wasn’t necessarily with Solinus, although he didn’t help things, but with those that accepted him (and other writers like him) as providing the truth. But how do we know this is the case?

Few writers have more profoundly or more mischievously influenced subsequent thought than Solinus. Whether he was a Christian or a pagan is uncertain, probably he was the latter; but at any rate his readers were almost all Christians, and not only were his legends accepted by the popular writers of the bestiaries and travellers’ tales such as Mandeville, but they were believed by geographers, grammarians, and the Fathers. Starting with four quotations in Saint Augustine, the number rises to some fifty in Priscian, and reaches over two hundred in Isidore, and the list could be increased indefinitely. The geographers used the topography of his most striking tales in their maps and, of these, the famous Hereford Map, as late as 1300, is perhaps the best example. His influence is most clearly shown in the general belief in monstrous races living on the edge of the known world, a belief which, perhaps more than anything else, hampered the spread, or rather the recovery, of knowledge.

I find Kaeppel’s claim against Solinus a little exaggerated, but the overall charge of preferring tales to proof during the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ (and earlier) isn’t completely off base. But then these stories have been around…well…is forever too much of an exaggeration? We’ll skip many early stories in my posts. Herodotus’ history has many such tales although he didn’t represent all of them as true. And while I’m not a historian (nor do I play one on TV, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night), I don’t think the ‘Dark Ages’ was completely an age of “degradation and weakness of the human intellect” (as he describes it early in the essay). Although, as I've hinted at earlier, the view of the "Dark Ages" has changed quite a bit since Kaeppel's day, with evidence that supports that it wasn’t an age of complete darkness. Yet when a source gets quoted exponentially for a quite some time and even reverentially in the Middle Ages, including maps based on these fantastic tales, it’s also difficult to argue against its significance. Most importantly, Kaeppel's underlying message of the instability and fragility of civilization and knowledge hasn't changed since his, or Solinus', time.

Off the beaten track, as usual

I started Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog this week and quickly fell in love with it. I also have a copy of the 1988 Russian movie that I hope to watch this weekend. For anyone not familiar with this short novel, it

"tells the story of a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Thanks to the skills of a renowned Soviet scientist and the transplanted pituitary gland and testes of a petty criminal, Sharik is transformed into a lecherous, vulgar man who spouts Engels and inevitably finds his niche in the bureaucracy as the government official in charge of purging the city of cats." (from the back cover)

The other recent acquisition that I'm eager to dip into is Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel. I found out about this book through a review by "Dr. Beachcombing" at Beachcombing's Bizzare History Blog. This excerpt is from Kaeppel's entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

After the Armistice Kaeppel studied archaeology in England, his researches in the British Museum laying the foundation for his profound knowledge of ancient geography. He returned to Australia in August 1919 and next year was appointed classics master at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School where the headmaster R. P. Franklin, a former fellow teacher at Shore, was a close friend.

A voracious reader with a photographic memory, Kaeppel excelled as scholar and teacher. Although he lacked an ear for phonetics (and could not pronounce an r), he had not only an intimate knowledge of Greek and Latin but 'explored with indefatigable thoroughness' the lesser-known ancient languages. A short man, in grey slacks and a well-worn sports jacket, he was a firm disciplinarian in the classroom; he carried an ash walking-stick which he banged on the ground to emphasize points and reputedly could inspire even the recalcitrant idler. His 'lads' greatly respected him.

He lived in the school lodge, made generous, impulsive gifts to his friends from his extensive library, and was an habitué of the Savage and Naval and Military clubs. He was a spell-binding conversationalist. However, his heavy drinking increased with the years and in 1931 he was forced to leave Melbourne Grammar. He moved to Sydney where he lived by coaching and by freelance journalism. In 1932 he wrote A Short History of Latin Literature and in 1935 the fascinating Off the Beaten Track in Classics.

A. R. Chisholm, who considered him 'one of the three or four most eminent scholars that Australia has produced', described him as 'exuberant, but moody; purposeful, but nostalgic; almost blatant at times, but fundamentally shy'.

The index page is at the end of this post and the listed essays "are based, in the main, upon the author's reading when working in the British Museum." (from the jacket cover) I'll probably mention these essays in posts as I get to them. (For anyone not familiar with the term "periplus", which until this week included me, a definition can be found here).