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Scyllias: Diving in Antiquity1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Frank J. Frost
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Extract

When Xerxes' fleet encountered a violent storm and was shattered against the seaward flank of Mount Pelion, much of the treasure that had been lost in the wreckage was recovered by Scyllias of Scione, the best diver of his day. He and many of his fellow citizens had been impressed into service as the Persian armada came by the Chalcidic peninsula, but he later escaped to the Greeks waiting at Artemisium. By the time of Herodotus, a half-century or so later, it was being claimed that he had dived into the sea at Aphetae and not come up until he had reached Artemisium eight miles away. ‘Many other tales are told of this man, some lies, some true,’ said Herodotus (viii. 8), ‘but in my opinion, he came by boat.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , October 1968 , pp. 180 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

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References

page 180 note 2 If one accepts the story of Scyllias at all, one must agree with the location of the disaster proposed by Pritchett, W. K., ‘Xerxes' Fleet at the “Ovens”’, AJA 67 (1963), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar At other sites along this coast the land falls off immediately into great depths where no salvage would have been possible.

page 180 note 3 Pausanias, , x. 19. 1–2.Google Scholar The authenticity of the tale is argued convincingly by Hauvette, A., ‘Un épisode de la guerre médique’, Revue de Philologie 10 (1886), 132–42.Google Scholar

page 180 note 4 Apollonides, , in Anth. Pal. 9. 296.Google Scholar These elegiac verses echo, if in a rather forced manner, extant work of Simonides. It is not impossible that Apollonides had Simonides’ Seafight at Artemisium before him (the title of the elegy alone is known from Suidas, s.v. Simonides). The poet was a good friend of Themistocles (Plutarch, , Them. 1. 4, 5. 6Google Scholar), and it is difficult to see who else could have brought Themistocles into this episode of the Persian War.

page 181 note 1 Proposed by Klein, W., ‘Zur sogenannten Aphrodite vom Esquilin’, Jahreshefte Öst. Arch. Inst. 10 (1907), 141–4Google Scholar, on the basis of the early fifth-century style, binding of the hair and sandals (which he claims to be unsuitable for mere bathing) and other features. The theory is ingenious, but see other interpretations cited in Picard, C., Manuel arch, grecque, ii, La sculpture, 120 f.Google Scholar

page 182 note 1 Aristotle, , Const, of DelosGoogle Scholar, in Athen. 7. 296C (Mueller, , Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ii. 154 fr. 165).Google Scholar

page 182 note 2 Diog. Laert, . ii. 22Google Scholar; ix. 11; Suidas s.v. Δηλίου.

page 182 note 3 Plutarch, , De Primo Frigido 950BGoogle Scholar; Oppian, , Halieutica v. 638, 646.Google Scholar

page 183 note 1 Any one of a number of wrasses, perhaps lulis Mediterranea according to A. W. Mair, ad loc. (Loeb edition).

page 183 note 2 See Gary, G., The Medieval Alexander (Cambridge, 1956), 237–8Google Scholar; 340–1. Cange, Du, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis s.v. colimpha.Google Scholar

page 184 note 1 The longest descriptions are in Oppian, , Hal. v. 612–74Google Scholar, and Pliny, , NH ix. 151 ff.Google Scholar Oppian's spine-tingling account is ludicrous, but is clearly built upon a description of actual practice.

page 184 note 2 Oppian, , Hal. v. 594–5Google Scholar; Heraclides, i. 24.Google Scholar

page 184 note 3 Athenaeus, , 7. 317BGoogle Scholar; Pliny, , NH ix. 86.Google Scholar

page 184 note 4 [Aristotle], Mirab. Auscult. 58Google Scholar; Antigonus, , Hist. Mirab. 131.Google Scholar Cf. Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Demonesos.

page 185 note 1 Chrysostom, Dio, Orat. vii. 31–2.Google Scholar Traditionally, the custom was begun by King Nauplius of Euboea; see Euripides, , Helen 766 f., 1126 ff.Google Scholar; Apollodorus, ii. 1. 5.Google Scholar