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The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daemon1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. W. Tarn
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Extract

My excuse for adding another item to the literature of the Hellenistic ruler-cult is that two new ideas have recently come into prominence. One is that the founder of the official ruler-cult was not Ptolemy II but Alexander; the other is that what was worshipped was not the ruler himself but his daemon. The former idea originated with Dr. P. Schnabel, and was derived by him from a new interpretation of the proskynesis scene at Bactra; he argued that Chares' account in Plutarch (Alexander 54) showed that the proskynesis was made to a statue of Alexander standing on an altar (ἑστία) among the hearth-gods: whether Macedonians in the fourth century had hearth-gods he did not consider, but quoted Roman analogies of a later time. This idea has been much criticised, and I know of no one but Professor L. R. Taylor who has accepted it; in particular, Professor Berve has made a strong case for preferring Arrian's version of the proskynesis scene. But, in fact, Schnabel's interpretation of Chares was killed dead at once by Dr. Th. Birt, though this has not been much noticed, perhaps because it only needed one sentence: Chares in the same passage makes Demetrius say to Alexander οὖτος γάρ σε μόνος οὐ προσεκύνησε where the word σε is conclusive that the proskynesis was made to Alexander (and not to a statue on an altar).

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Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , 1928 , pp. 206 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1928

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References

2 Literature here referred to: Schnabel, P., Die Begründung des hellenistischen Königskulles durch Alexander, Klio, xix. 1924, p. 113Google Scholar; Zur Frage der Selbstvergötterung Alexanders, ib. xx. 1926, p. 398. Birt, Th., Alexander der Grosse und das Weltgriechentum, 1924, pp. 491–3.Google ScholarBerve, H., Die angebliche Begründung des hellenistischen Königskultes durch Alexander, Klio, xx. 1926, p. 179Google Scholar; Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, vol. i. 1926, pp. 339–40. Otto, W., Zum Hofzeremoniell des Hellenismus, Ἐπιτύμβιον H. Swoboda dargebracht, 1927, p. 194.Google ScholarKaerst, J., Geschichte des Hellenismus, vol. i. 3rd ed., 1927Google Scholar, Beilage VIII: Proskynese und Herrscherkult. Taylor, Lily Ross, The ‘Proskynesis’ and the Hellenistic Ruler-cult, J.H.S. xlvii. 1927, p. 53Google Scholar; The Cult of Alexander at Alexandria, Class. Phil. XXII. 1927, p. 162.

3 The conclusive evidence that he is right (which he does not quote) is the fire on the ἐσχάρα before Alexander's throne in Eumenes' Alexander-tent, Diod. xviii. 61, 1. See n. 52.

4 Pfister, Fr., Der Reliquienkult in Altertum, vol. 2, 1912, pp. 529, 585Google Scholar; Weber, W., Der Prophet und sein Gott, 1925, p. 127.Google Scholar

5 To Miss Taylor's references for the fravashi add some interesting definitions quoted by Spooner, Elizabeth C., J.R.A.S., 1916, p. 497.Google Scholar But I apprehend that the nature of the Achaemenid fravashi, if one existed, is unknown.

6 Andres, , δαίμων in P. W. Supp. III, 1918.Google Scholar Menander's lines show that the daemon was still an external thing,——ἀνδρὶ συμπαρίσταται.

7 Herod. vii. 43, where the context shows that the ἤρωες to whom Xerxes at Troy poured libations were not, as Clemen, C. thought (Die griechischen und lateinischen Nachrichten über die persiche Religion, 1920, p. 81)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the lesser Zoroastrian gods, but Greek heroes (so R. W. Macan ad loc., and see his remarks on the Persian attitude toward Greek cults). In Arrian, Parthica fr. 1, Alexander is similarly κτιστής.

8 Suggested to me by A. D. Nock.

9 Clemen, op. cit. p. 175.

10 See the present writer in Class. Rev. xl. 1926, p. 14, and in a forthcoming article, Ptolemy II and Arabia, in J.E.A., 1929.

11 Prooim. 10.

12 J. H. S. xlviii. 1928, p. 6.

13 The latest study, Eitrem, S. in Symbolae Osloenses, vi. 1928, 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar [A.D.N.], which shows that the whole of the necromancy of the Persae can be explained from the Greek, speaks (p. 6) of ‘Aischylos’ astonishing ignorance—or complete negligence—of Persian affairs.’

14 Op. cit. p. 575: he interpreted proskynesis as worship, as a Greek would. The similar error in Curtius, viii. 5, 18, 11, probably, as the context suggests, arose from the same reason.

15 For προσκυνεῖν merely in the sense of ‘respect’ or ‘reverence’ cf. Eunap. Hist. Exc. 89, 10, ἀκρίβειαν τε προσεκύνησε καὶ ἀλήθ [A.D.N.]. So Jos. Ant. xii. 114, Ptolemy II προσκυνήσας αὐτοῖς, i.e. the sacred books.

16 Athen. iv. 128A—130D. See 130 B, ἓως ἐσάλπισε τὸ εἰωθὸς τοῦ τελευταίου δείπνου σημεῖου. οὔτω γὰρ τὸ Mακεδονικὸν οῖσθα ἔθος ἐν τοῖς πολυανθρώποις εὐωχίαις γινόμενον.

17 Ib. xii. 538 D: ἐγίνετο δὲ τὰ δεῖπνα πρὸς σάλπιγγα τότε μὲν ἐν τοῖς γαμοις καὶ ἄλλως δ᾿ αἰεὶ ὅτε τύχοι σπονδοποιούμενος, ὥστε πᾶν εἰδέναι τὸ στρατόπεδον. I do not suppose that Alexander's use of a trumpet has anything to do with the (suggested) occasional use of a trumpet in initiation; Eitrem, S., Symb. Osloenses, iv. 1926, p. 67.Google Scholar

18 Arr. Anab. vii. 11, 8–9 (both libations).

19 Ib. vi. 3, 1–2.

20 Plut. Mor. 454 E and 623 F (quoted by Plutarch as a story from a collection of gossip about drinking); Athen, x. 434 D, attributed primarily to Lynceus, the third-century writer on gastronomy, and secondarily to Arigtobulus and Chares; Chares is certainly wrong (see post), so Aristobulus may be wrong also.

21 Ferguson, W. S., Hellenistic Athens, p. 171Google Scholar; Tarn, , Antigonos Gonatas, p. 268Google Scholar, n. 27. Whether in 1.5 we read δύο (Kaibel, Meineke) or διὰ (Kock following Cod. Marcianus of Athen. xi. 502 B) is immaterial here; if the latter, it only means that τῆς Ὁμονοίας is included in the four ladles Πτολεμαίου τῆς τ᾿ ἀδελϕῆς.

22 Xenarchus, fr. 2 (Kock, II. p. 468).

23 Kock, I, p. 695; II. pp. 220, 224, 230. See generally Athen. xv. 692 F sqq.

24 Following this, Scott, K. in A. J. Phil. XLIX. 1928, p. 154Google Scholar has explained the cups Antigonis and Seleucis as those in which men toasted these kings. But Polemon (Athen. xi. 497 F) says ποτήρια παρατλήσια Σελευκίς, Ῥοδιάς, Ἀυτιγονίς. Did men really drink the health of the city of Rhodes? Wellington boots or an Albert chain might be a better parallel.

25 Arr. Anab. vi. 3, 1, ἐκ χρυσῆς ϕιάλης ἔσπενδεν ἐς τὸν πόταμον.

26 Ib. vi. 19, 5, σπείσας … τὴν ϕιάλην, χρυσῆν οὖσαν, ἐνέβαλλεν ἐς τὸν πόντον κ.τ.λ.

27 Chares ap. Arr. Anab. iv. 12, 3: ϕιάλην χρυσῆν.

28 Alexis, fr. 111 (Kock, II. p. 336): παῖ, τὴν μεγάλην δὸς. So Antiphanes, , Didymi (K., II. p. 44).Google Scholar

29 Plut. Alex. 54; Arr. Anab. iv, 12, 3–4.

30 For the impersonal cry, and this evolution, see Ganshinietz, , Agathodaimon in P. W. Supp. III. 1918.Google Scholar He gives no certain pre-Hellenistic instance of the personal Ἀγαθὸς Δαίμων. But personification by the fourth century is certain, see Cook, A. B., Zeus, II. 1125Google Scholar, 1126 [A.D.N.]; while the red-figured vase cited by Miss Taylor, p. 59, n. 28 (not dated by Benndorf), is in the opinion of Mr. Hinks of the British Museum (communicated to Nock) early fifth century.

31 The English translation of a toast like ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος or ὑγιείας would be some impersonal phrase, like ‘Here' good luck’ or ‘Here's good health.’ In the Highlands to-day, if you hand a man your flask, he always drinks in the impersonal form, ‘Here' good health’; possibly because an impersonal health is (my wife tells me) common in Gaelic.

32 Kaerst, op. cit. p. 574; Berve, , Alexanderreich, I. p. 340.Google Scholar

33 Inscription quoted from Botti by Schiff, A., Hirschfeld's Festschrift, p. 377Google Scholar, n. 5.

34 Quoted by Ganshinietz, op. cit. 39, from the Emperor Julian; Diog. Laert. vi. 5, 81 bears it out.

35 Pseudo-Callisthenes I. 32, 5 sqq. I use Kroll's, W. text, Historia Alexandri Magni, Vol. I. 1926.Google Scholar

36 Kroll, p. 32, 1. 24. B omits the whole passage.

37 Rh. Mus. LV. 1900, p. 354.

38 Kroll, p. 33, 1. 6. As he here quotes the Armenian version in Greek, I presume (see p. viii) that he takes it from Raabe's ῾Ιστορία ᾿Αλεξάνδρου (the Armenian translated into Greek), which he praises. Unfortunately this book is not accessible to me.

39 Kroll, p. 32, 1. 18: text, καθιδρυμένου δὲ τοῦ ἡρψ´ου (the snake's temple); apparatus, ‘ίδρυμένου δὲ τοῦ πυλῶνος τοῦ ἥρωος τούτου, (Arm).’ Nothing has previously been mentioned to which τούτου can refer except the snake.

40 Pyrrh. hypot. III. 24 (221): ῾ίδρυμένου δὲ τοῦ πυλῶνος τοῦ ἥρωος τούτου αἴλουρον ἐν ᾿Αλεξανδρείᾳ τῷ ῾´Ηρωι θύουσιν, δ παρ᾿ ἠμῖν οὐκ See Hopfner, Th., Fontes historiae religionis aegyptiacae, 1922, p. 383.Google Scholar

41 See the magical papyrus P. Osloenses, I. 3, and thereon Preisendanz, C., Symb. Osloenses, IV. 1926, p. 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; it gives the metamorphoses of Psois (as the sun in the zodiac), and the first is a cat, ἄν ποιήσειέ τις ὤρᾳ ά μπρφὴν which illustrates the cat sacrifice.

42 Suidas, s.v. Αγαθοῦ Δαίμονος.

43 Col. II. 11. 2 sqq. The most recent text is that of Reitzenstein, R. and Schaeder, H. H., Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, 1926, pp. 39, 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar [A.D.N.], based on that of Wilcken, U., Hermes, xl. 1905, p. 544.Google Scholar They date it in the reign of Antiochus IV; Struve, W., Raccolta Lumbroso, 1925, p. 273Google Scholar, dates it in the reign of Ptolemy III.

44 Shown by a parallel, not I think noticed. The Oracle, Col. II. 1. 4: ἔχεις αἰλούρου αὔτη π[ό]λις ἧν παντοτρόφος [εί]ς ἤν[κ]ατοικίσθη πᾶν the Romance, I. 32, 4: γένος ἄνδρων αὔτη ἧ ηόλις κτισθεῖσα ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην θρέψει καὶ ηανταχοῦ ἔσονται οἱ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθέντες ἄνθρωποι καὶ γὰρ τὰ πετεινὰ ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην περιεπο ρεύσαντο γεννηθέντες As I understand this passage, πανταχοῦ goes with πᾶν γένος ( = ἔσονται of the Oracle) and not with ἀγαθὀς the men who shall be in Alexandria shall be men born everywhere, for those birds (i.e. the birds who had just eaten the meal with which the city was marked out) went round (aorist, a single definite act) the whole oecumene (i.e. on their way to the city). It means that men from all the oecumene will come to the city in the track of the birds; as in fact they had done before Pseudo-Callisthenes wrote.

45 Suidas, s.v. ἀργόλαι; the Ethiopian legend of Jeremiah (I only know this as quoted by Ganshinietz, op. cit. 52).

46 Plut. Mor. 755 F.

47 Klio, xx. p. 182.

48 I have met with no evidence that the celebration of the king's birthday by Ptolemy II and his successors has any bearing on the alleged cult of the king's daemon; but I make the reservation that I am not here really considering the later period.

49 Syll. 3 1044, 1. 35; said to be probably fourth/third century. Berve musthave overlooked this when he wrote (Alexanderreich, I. p. 340), ‘Der Kult des δαίμων τῆς τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ ᾿Απολλωνίουx eines Menschen ist für die griechische Welt nirgends bezeugt.’ It is true that such a cult is never mentioned in literature.

50 Oaths by the daemon of Ptolemy II (P.S.I. iv. 361) or by the τύχη of Seleucus II (O.G.I.S. 229, 1. 62) or of the king of Pontus (Strab. xii. 557) are not in point; for one thing, men swore equally by the king himself, P. Eleph. 23 (Ptolemy III); for another, τύχη did not import any cult; for example, the writer in P.S.I. iv. 361, goes on to say, τύχης βουλομένης σὲ δὲ παρόνθ᾿ ὁρῶμεν (which Wilcken, , Archiv. vi. p. 390Google Scholar, rightly translates, ‘if the king and Apollonius wish’), but there was no cult of Apollonius. Yet τύχης here might just as well have been δαίμονος; for the personal τύχη (which also originally came to the man from without) and the δαίμων were now practically identical, an expression of the man's personality; see Wilamowitz, , Hermes, lxii. 1927, p. 290Google Scholar [A.D.N.], and Hellenistische Dichtung, I. pp. 74, 76; Bouché-Leclercq, A., L'astrologie grecque, p. 288.Google Scholar So when Hannibal swore by the δαίμων of the Carthaginians (Polyb. vii. 9, 2) he swore by his city's ‘Fortune,’ its personality, that is, by Carthage herself.

51 Berve, , Klio, xx. p. 182Google Scholar, has rightly emphasised that in Alexander's case this must have been so.

52 Diod. xviii. 60, 5–61, 1. The wording of the story throughout is instructive; note too the ἐσχάρα with the eternal fire, which burnt before the living king.

53 Douris, ap. Athen. 253 D, 11. 15–20; σὲ δὲ παρόνθ᾿ ὁρῶμεν is conclusive.

54 Scott, K., A. J. Phil. xlix. 1928, p. 233Google Scholar, suggests that the Athenians on this occasion were worshipping Demetrius as Dionysus (with which I cannot agree), and unintentionally misquotes me in support (cf. his note 186 with Antigonos Gonatas, p. 49). To me the point of the Ithyphallus is the contrast between the gods, who were powerless to help, and the deified king, who emphatically was not; see my Hellenistic Civilisation, p. 48.

55 Notes on Ruler-cult, I–IV., J.H.S. xlviii, 1928, p. 21. A few have always rejected it, e.g. Meyer, E., Kleine Schriften, 1910, p. 331Google Scholar; Perdrizet, P., Rev. E.A. xii. 1910, p. 227Google Scholar, n. 6.

56 U.P.Z. I. pp. 25, 86, and on No. 1.

57 Kornemann, E., Raccolta Lumbroso, pp. 235Google Scholarsqq.: Zeus βασιλεὺς of Arr. Anab. iii. 5, 1, is Sarapis. See on this Ehrenberg, V., Alexander und Ägypten, 1926, p. 40Google Scholar, who gives the correct view.

58 Instances. 44.–Alexander writes to Antipater at Athens; Antipater was never in Athens in Alexander's lifetime, and could not have been save at the head of his army. 44.–Perdiccas threatens Diogenes with death if he does not come to him; (a) Diogenes was dead, (b) this was not the attitude of the Successors toward philosophers. 57.–Craterus invites Diogenes; (a) Diogenes was dead, (b) there was no moment in Craterus' brief life when this was possible. 63.–Diogenes remarks that kings do what their queens wish; this could not be said of any queen before Arsinoe II.

59 C.A.H. vol. vi. pp. 398 sq.

60 See generally the discussions by Weber, W., Die ägyptisch-griechischen Terrakotten, vol. i. 1914, pp. 42Google Scholarsqq., and Roussel, P., Cultes égyptiens à Délos, 1916, p. 91.Google Scholar

61 Figured in their serpent form in Weitz' article Sarapis in Roscher.

62 P. Oxyr. xi. 1380; Roussel op. cit. No. 119.

63 Aelian, , H.N. x. 31.Google Scholar

64 As by Radet, G., Notes critiques sur l'histoire d'Alexandre, I. 1925, p. 74.Google Scholar

65 C.A.H. vol. vi. p. 378 n.

66 Arr. Anab. vii, 26, 2; Plut. Alex. 76. See Kaerst, 's discussion, Gesch. d. Hellenismus, II. 2nd ed., 1926, pp. 244–5Google Scholar; Nock, op. cit. p. 21, n. 2.