The Hyperboreans Again, Abaris, and Helixoia

Author(s): Grace H. Macurdy

Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 34, No. 7/8 (Nov. - Dec., 1920), pp. 137-141
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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 THE CLASSICAL
THE HYPERBOREANS AGAIN, ABARIS,
Miss HARRISON made a just criticism
on my paper on the Hyperboreans,
published in the Classical Review for
1916, in her review of the year's work
in Greek religion and mythology' for
1917. I quote the passage in question:
'But to the making of the Hyper-
borean myth went another bora,
sheltering another garden of the Sun,
4Golt/3ov rraXati /cirro9, which I would
ask Professor Macurdy to consider.
Pauly-Wissowa's lexicon has happily
embarked on a second series beginning
with R, and concealed under Pirrata
b'pr is an account of the astronomical
Heiliger G6tterberg im Norden, behind
which the Sun, after setting in the west,
was supposed to pass to the east. This
astronomical and of course purely
imaginative northern bora puts a new
complexion on many an old confusion,
on the myths not only of Hyperboreans,
but of Kimmerians and Atlas. The
bora of myth gets contaminated with the
bora of fact, like contamination of hero
and daimon.'
I heartily concur with all that Miss
Harrison says about the heavenly Bora.
Kiessling's remarkable article was
known to me at the time when I wrote
my paper, and I refer to his remarks
about the derivation of the word
Hyperborean. My own aim was merely
to show that the myth of the Hyper-
boreans was among the gifts of the
Pierians to Greece, and to bring the
previously suggested derivation of the
word from bora, mountain, into con-
nexion with the well-known facts about.
the northern worship of Sun and Moon,
Apollo and Artemis Basileia in the
Hyperborean countries2 Illyria, Thrace,
Macedon, and Thessaly. I had no in-
tention of giving these mythical people
any local habitation except possibly
that assigned them by Minns: 'The
Hyperboreans are always the people
beyond knowledge toward the north.
They must always figure as the last
term in any series that stretches in that
1 'Year's Work in Classical Studies,' 1917,
96.
2 G
Farnell, Cults, IV. Ioo and lo4.
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REVIEW 137
AND HELIXOIA.
direction.' My surprise was great on
reading Mr. Casson's recent article3 on
the Hyperboreans to find him stating
that I had placed the Hyperboreans
themselves among the people of Pela-
gonia-Paeonia, among whom, as I
argue, the myth about them arose.
I derive the name from the Pierian
side, but did not mean that the Hyper-
boreans were neighbours close by the
Paeonians. By my expressions 'the
land beyond the bora,' and 'a holy race
of men living beyond the bora on the
north-western track that led to the home
of the Sun God,' I meant an indefinite
region of fancy. Professor Shewan's
remarks in Class. Quart. XIII. 2,
66-67, on the idealisation of unknown
regions, give many illustrations of such
imaginings about people just beyond the
limits of knowledge. My dwelling on
Heracleia Lyncestis as an important
station in the route of those who came
from the north for purposes of trade or
cult was intended to emphasise the
significance of the entire Sun-route,
along which the Sun and Moon, Apollo
and Artemis Basileia, were worshipped
by Illyrians and Thraco - Paeonians.
Somewhere in the track of the Sun,
aE/tL EXtov there
lived, in the KVcalav twdr'o-TaotP,
Thraco-Greek imaginings
of them, a blessed folk, devoted to the
service of Apollo. From them, "Jo-Tpov
dw7ro-ctapav 7rayav, Heracles, according
to Pindar's famous passage, brought the
olive, 'Tweppop&wv r'elot-ar' 'AIn-6XCwvo9
Oepa7rOva. And though the Heavenly
Pair, from whose cult, according to my
belief, the myth arose, was worshipped
all along the trade-route which led to
the (fancied) home of the Hyperboreans,
yet vavto- oVTe rveqo 'lv dX' evipotv dE
'Twrep3opeov d&yovaOavyaTo-ar 0v 68v. I
regret that my interest was so centred
on the etymology of the word, and the
transmission of the myth to Southern
Greece by the Pierians, that I did not
make sufficiently clear the fact that I
did not place them in any definite region
beyond the Bora. Between the Pela-
gonians and the ancient Chinese, whom
Class. Rev. XXXIV. I and 2, Iff.
138 THE CLASSICAL
Mr. Casson, following Gladisch afar off,
inclines to, I personally would choose
Pelagonians, on the principles laid
down by Professor Shewan in the pages
already cited. The Pelagonians, like
the wild peoples discussed by Professor
Shewan, were called Titans and giants.'
And Almopia on the Bora and Pallene
are among the giant-lands. J. N.
Svoronos has an interesting, though
highly rationalistic, explanation of the
way in which the Titans came to be
called Pelagones in his article in the
Journal International Numismatique for
1913, entitled 'Numismatique de la
P&onie et de la Mac6doine.' As Phere-
nikos says2 that the Hyperboreans were
sprung from the blood of Titans, one
might, if so inclined, make a genealogy
from that. I am not arguing for that,
however, but for the general thesis that
the Danubian peoples influenced, to a
greater extent than is usually admitted,
the religion and mythology of Greece.
M. Svoronos puts the case perhaps too
strongly when he says-' que la P6onie
greque et lePangee ... deviendront dans
l'avenir le plus important centre et point
de depart des nos connaissances numis-
matiques, historiques, et mythologiques.'
The article on the 'Date of Hesiod,' by
T. W. Allen (J.H.S. 35) shows clearly
the influence of the southern Thracians
on Greece proper; and Tomaschek, in
his well-known articles on 'Die Alten
Thraker,' discusses the culture of these
more civilised of the northern tribes
and their contacts with Greece.3 These
' mountaineers, descending either in one
flood or in various streams from the
Haliacmon,' brought with them a form
of music, an art of healing, and many
myths connected with their local wor-
ships. In the article just cited Mr. T. W.
Allen writes: 'By Hesiod's time the
HIIepE9, southern Thracians-to Homer
a mere landmark like Emathia between
Olympus and Athos-had sent their
muses, friends of Thamyris, southward.'
And by Hesiod's time, too, as Mr. Allen
does not fail to note, the myth of the
Hyperboreans had reached the south.
My own position is that the cult of
1 Strabo 7,frag. 30, Callim. Hymn to Zeus 3.
2 Schol. on Pindar Ol. 3, 28.
3 4 Pauly-W:ss.owa,
J.H.S., 1914, P. 95.
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REVIEW
the Sun and Moon in the 'Hyper-
borean' lands, Illyria, Thrace (in the
widest sense of Thrace), Macedon, and
Thessaly, produced the Hyperborean
legend; that it took shape in the lands
this side the Bora, and that Bora is
Bermion in particular, or the Balkan
range in general. But I do not mean
by this that the people who imagined
the Hyperboreans were the Hyper-
boreans.
Now to take up Mr. Casson's view.
He thinks that the' main problem at
issue' is to 'locate' the pre-Hellenic or
non-Hellenic Hyperboreans. In his
endeavour to do this he follows Gladisch
and Tomaschek, though without re-
peating all of their puerilities. Of such
attempts Daebritz4 remarks: ' (Darum)
hat man es im algemeinen aufgegeben
die H. zu lokalisiren.' Gladisch, in his
work on 'Hyperboreer und die alten
Schinesen,' brings forward such things
as the love of music in China and
among the Hyperboreans. The Hyper-
borean griffins he derives from the
dragons of the Chinese flag. Mr. Casson
refers to the celestial calm of the Chinese
as perhaps faintly echoed by the Hyper-
borean bliss. That and the griffins are
mentioned by him as indicating an
Asiatic home for the Hyperboreans.
The celestial calm, the music, and the
Chinese flag may be dismissed. The
griffins offer ground for argument as to
whether they came to the Hyperborean
worship from the Apollo worship at
Delos and Delphi, or vice-versa. Like
the swans they are debateable, and both
views have adherents. Daebritz con-
demns the method of Tomaschek and
Gladisch : ' Es bedeutet doch ein
Riickkehr zu dem Rationalismus der
Alten.' The theories of both have been
generally discredited by recent scholars,
and rationalism has no doubt been
carried by them to an absurd degree.
Yet it is difficult to escape the charge
of rationalism in the explanation of
myth, and many who use the term in
reproach are found guilty of it. Atlantis,
the Phaeacians, and Elysium itself, had
a 'rationalistic' element in their origin,
and my own theory of the Hyperboreans
is open to that charge, as I connect
122, Sp. 279.
121,
 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 139
them with a highway of trade and drew871 as
they are.3 Suidas ascribes to
religion. The Chinese resemblances him and Icalappo.oq. His
Xpqa1opoq
seem particularly vague and meaning- magic arrow and his purity of life are
less, and Professor Shewan's articles the most striking points in the legend,
tend, I think, to show that such legends and these may well bring him into
are apt to arise, so to speak, a little connexion with the Thracian Sun-
nearer home-that is, about places 'just worship, which produced Orpheus. A
beyond knowledge.' wonderful picture of him is given by
It can neither be proved or disproved Himerius,4 "Apaptv &? 7T o'-obYv rvo(
that the word Hyperborean is, as Mr. ptv 'Trep/36pptov X'Y7ov0nt,tEXXqlva 876rv
Casson suggests, a corruption of a real Ical tElv adXpt
Olvov
name of a Chinese or Asiatic tribe. It KIal
70roX4 ,ye.yevl0oOat, His speech was
:~,lO)?
o-Xila'rov.
has, in that case, 'gone very wrong perfect as of the Academy or Lyceum.
indeed,' and it surely came to mean to With his bow and arrows, his chlamys,
the Greeks, 'Those living behind the his gold girdle and his trousers he was
North Wind.' Before that I believe it the perfect Scythian to look upon, in
meant, 'Living beyond Bora,' on the manners and morals the perfect Greek
Hyperborean Road. As for Bora or ideal of the fourth century A.D. sophist.
Sabora in Spain, the evidence for its Zalmoxis was also transformed into a
existence is, I believe, entirely numis- follower ob 745) ao-eveaTdrt) aooctary,
matic, and I have not been able to Pythagoras, according to information
examine it as yet. In any case I can- given to Herodotus by some Pontic
not believe that its rose-gardens played Greeks.
as large a part in Greek legend as those The name of Abaris has been re-
of Paeonia. Sappho's lines are signifi- garded as Thracian, and is explained
cant : by Crusius5 as perhaps connoting his
o yap
'reU4XeLrj66wv function in the Hyperborean rite. It is
7rV K HEIpltes. rather curious that in the three battles,
With Mr. Casson's treatment of the in Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and in Virgil,
legends of Abaris I am utterly in dis- where a hero of this name is killed,
agreement, and here also I should be names elsewhere associated with Thrace
inclined to hurl that dangerous and so are in the neighbourhood-Rhoetus in
often recoiling epithet 'rationalistic.' both Valerius Flaccus and Virgil, and
Why should Mr. Casson derive from Phineus in Ovid. His father's name
Ovid, Met. V. 86, the information that is given as Seuthes by Suidas. The
the Abaris of the legends came from the Doliones of Valerius Flaccus are
Caucasus ? He could as well call him Thracian in origin. Mr. Casson's con-
a Rutulian from the occurrence of the clusion, that the whole story of the
name in an epic battle in Virgil,1 or a Hyperboreans originated at a time when
Dolionian from a similar episode in the scientific study of ethnology was
Valerius Flaccus.2 As Haupt remarks developing, and that the story was
on the passage in Ovid, these adjectives because of its vagueness relegated to
are only a device to give vividness to the realm of myth and religion, is un-
the epic narrative. In no one of the psychological and ignores the facts. As
three passages is there any reason Jacoby" says, Hecataeus of Abdera
to suppose that the legendary Greek 'hat, der Forderung der Zeit ent-
Scythian or Scythian Greek is the sprechend, dieses Volk aus der Un-
warrior in question. Mr. Casson con- bestimmtheit in eine feste geographische
siders Abaris a Greek traveller, con- Umgebung gebracht.' The course of
temporary with Aristeas. It is far the myth actually has been from the
more probable that he was a Sun-priest, poetic fancy of the early period to the
and like Zalmoxis and exact statements of the Euhemeristic
dvtpwworo8a4iwv,
in connexion with whom his
Orpheus,
name appears. He is master of the 3
Plato, Charmides, I58; Euripides, Cyclops,
646.
' Him. or. 25. 5
Roscher i. 2, 2831.
1 Aen. IX. 354. 2 III. 152. 6 Pauly-Wissowa, 7. 2756.

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140 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
period. Hecataeus did not hesitate to The island is described, though not
state that the land or island of the named, in the citations from Hecataeus
Hyperboreans still existed in his time, found in Diodorus 2. 47. In this well-
which was that of Alexander the Great known passage the island is said to be
and the first Ptolemy. He says that as large as Sicily, nv rotSg avmrEtpag
many Greeks had visited the island and KeXKrtc OKa-r Tov 'i2Kceav.
left precious gifts with Greek inscrip- r7F Diodorus alsorWOLr quotes Hecataeus and
tions. The place described by him so others as saying that the island v7brdpXELt
definitely and yet so romantically has araa -ragapicrov. Moreover, the Moon
often been identified with England. is at a very little distance from the
As for the Karambukai, a name which island, and earth-hills on it can be very
appears to Mr. Casson to be of an clearly seen.
eastern type, there is more to hold it to I wish to propose a derivation for the
the Black Sea and European Scythia name of the island, which seems to me
and 'Celtica.' Plinyl mentions a so obvious that I cannot believe that it
Carambucis river in connexion with has not been suggested before. How-
the Celtic promontory Lytharmis. The ever, I have not seen it. To make
passage is as follows: 'ab extremo my point clear I will first quote from
aquilone ad initium orientis aestivi Kiessling's article on the Rhipean
Scythae sunt. extra eos ultraque Mountains a part of his discussion of
aquilonie initia Hyperboreos aliqui arctic and antarctic poles. 'Wenn die
posuere, pluribus in Europa dictos, Geographen dazu kamen, die Rhipaen
Primum inde noscitur promonturium auf den Polarkreis der Erdkugel zu
Celticae Lytharmis, fluvius Caram- zu lokalisiren, so muss ihnen dieser
bucis.' This is evidently the part of einmal fuir den Barenkreis gegolten
the world where Celtica and Scythia haben. Auch Aristoteles konnte die
meet. Compare Strabo 7: v 86 T( Lage unten der Bairin nur auf die
7rCa
av- V
rrVKX;9I
dic"XwTSt olocovlfry,
O eOV/JUe1q rph aplcrv
wpog lipicrov Deklinationsparallele des grossen Bairen

r)V vora~vov ErL rT?79, $cvlla9 ?7 ~7~' und die dadurch bestimmte geograph-
KeXTrKI~c.Diodorus2 also tells of an ische Breite beziehen. Aber ftir Herak-
island of the sea near the ocean, Trm leit und die ionischen Meteorologen lag
KcvOia bri7rpFaXaTtag. Cf. also Pliny's das astronomische Nordgebirge unter
island Baunonia3 in the North Sea, over der Projection des Bdirengestirns auf
against Scythia. die Erdscheibe. Hinter dem Gebirge
There is a promontory in Paphla- war darum der Bezirk der Bairin den
gonia, often mentioned, Carambis, and die Sonne unkreist um vom Untergang
for the last part of the word there is zum Aufgang zurtickzukehren, cum re-
the river Buces,4 which flows into the laturus diem septentrionum accesserit
Maiotis, identified by Tomaschek as the confinia, sagt Avien. ora marit. 649f.'
Nogaika. For the meaning of Buces In the Hellenistic period the name
see Minns, Scythians and Greeks, p. 17. Helice was given to both the Great and
In speaking of the tradition which the Little Bear. The name is very
identified the Hyperboreans with extra- frequent among later writers. The
Scythic tribes of the Far East of the word evidently has to do with Agt and
ancient world, Mr. Casson remarks that JXlao-w. Both of these words are used
Hecataeus of Abdera appears to have of the movements of the Sun and the
travelled in the very regions where this stars. The verb is used in the Iliad for
tradition places the Hyperboreans. He turning the horses of the chariot around
then writes: 'Hecataeus mentions an the 7r-pCta. The name Helixoia of the
island called Helixoia, and its inhabi- island Iara rah apIcrovq, which con-
tants the Kapap,/IcKat.' I do not know stellations in this period had the name
whether I am justified in inferring Helice, might have been invented for
from this that the writer of it supposes the place where the Sun turns his steed
Hecataeus to have visited Helixoia. around this northern '-pta.5 Heracleitus
1 N.H. 6. 5 According to Pherecydes (ap. Athenaeum
34.
3
2 Diodorus V. 23. N.H. 4. 94. 11. 38) the Sun descends with his chariot
Pauly-Wissowa PL'rraLa 888. ei~ rb ras 8 abrbCTYv
.p6pet ov Tirot3.
"ra7s
spyt, Xp6oateov

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 THE CLASSICAL
speaks of the Bear as the r-'pta of Dawn
and Dark. 7o04 Kaal o-7rrptl9Tr'p/tJaTa
apK7ro-. It may be that the name
Helice for the Bear constellations had
the same origin, though various others
are offered.
I think that Mr. Casson is decidedly
on the wrong track in seeking the
Hyperboreans so far east as China.
Rather in the place of which Virgil
speaks:
mundus,ut ad ScythiamRhipaeasquearduus
arces
consurgit.
Even this is, in Kiessling's words, to
look at the myth of the Hyperboreans
with the eye of the geographer. But
that is just the contamination of the
earthly Bora with the heavenly of which
Miss Harrison speaks.
I believe that it is true that these
REVIEW 141
Hyperboreans, folk behind the mountain,
were, in the more naive time of peasant
fancy, thought of as nearer than in the
time of geographical and astronomical
knowledge. As fanciful at first as the
inhabitants of a haunted forest or lake
they were shifted farther and farther
away as geographical knowledge in-
creased.1
I am sorry that my previohs article
lent itself to any misunderstanding of
my views. I had no intention of giving
my Hyperboreans any fixed home as
long as they stayed in the realms of
myth. After that, when they got into
the hands of the geographers, they were
pushed up ;rr' air'vr v &pc'rov.
GRACE H. MACURDY.
Vassar College.
1 How and Wells, Herodotus, 4. 34.

ORIENTATION OF THE DEAD IN GREECE AND ITALY.1

THERE is a curious passage in Plutarch a westward aspect (7rp dao-rpavy-erpak.-
(Solon ro), on which no adequate /kva), but that the Athenians bury but
commentary exists. When Solon and one in a grave, the Megarians as many
the Athenians had got possession of as three or four.
Salamis, there ensued a long and ex- So far as the Athenian orientation
hausting war with Megara, which was goes, Aelian supports this account, both
at last settled by Spartan arbitration. he and Plutarch I suppose drawing at
The common tradition is that Solon first hand or otherwise upon an A tthis;
had a proof-text from Homer, of his own for he says (uar. hist. V. 14) that it is a
forging, to win his case with; 'but the law of Athens that he who finds a dead
Athenians' own version is that this is body shall by no means omit to cast
nonsense,' and they claim that Solon pro- earth upon it, and further that he
duced historical proof of a deed of gift should bury it face to the west. But
from the children of Aias to the Athenian Diogenes Laertius introduces great
state, and further appealed to the confusion into the matter in his Life of
testimony of archaeology, whereby it Solon (I. 48) by telling the story, it
was made plain 'that the dead (in would seem from the same source as
Salamis) were laid out, not in the Plutarch, or one very like it, with this
Megarian, but in the Athenian fashion. curious variant, that Solon found not
Now the Megarians when they bury only the dead men in the graves of
a man turn his face to the east, but Salamis, but the graves themselves,
the Athenians to the west.' He is 'looking to the east' (7rp\ g&oflxe-
careful, however, to add the counter- 7rov1a,). The witnesses for the west-
opinion of Hereas of Megara (early ward position in Athens are two to
third century B.C., see Pauly-Wissowa one; but while I have no high opinion
s.v.), that the real difference is not of the intelligence or critical powers of
as the Athenians would have it, for the the worthy Diogenes, I cannot hold
Megarians also bury their dead with with C. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der gr.
Ant.," II. iii. 40, p. 205) that he so
1 The following paper was read before the grossly mistook his own language as to
Classical Association at Newcastle, April, 1920. suppose that 'to turn towards the

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