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Nicagoras of Athens and the Lateran Obelisk*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Garth Fowden
Garth Fowden
Affiliation:
Klassiek Instituut, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens
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Extract

One day in the year 326 of our era Nicagoras, torch-bearer of the Eleusinian mysteries, made his way unsuspectingly past the buried tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings near Thebes, and climbed towards the entrance of the tomb immediately above it. Though it had itself long since been robbed, the making of Ramses VI's sepulchre had at least produced a generous scree, to which Tutankhamun owed his current oblivion and future fame. Scrambling cautiously over this, and the accumulation of sand and stones in the tomb's entrance, Nicagoras followed his dragoman down a long corridor. We can tell from its thick encrustation of graffiti that this tomb was by far the most popular with visitors; and Nicagoras's practised guide knew exactly what appealed to the different sorts of people who made up his clientèle. Learning that the Athenian was a priest, and a cultured man with philosophical interests, he made a point of stopping in front of a scene which shows the soul standing before Osiris, the god of the dead, thanks to which this tomb is sometimes called the ‘Tomb of Metempsychosis’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 107 , November 1987 , pp. 51 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 Baillet, J., Inscriptions grecques et latines des Tombeaux des Rois ou Syringes à Thèbes (Cairo 1920–1926) 222Google Scholar.

2 Piankoff, A., ASAE lv (1958) 160Google Scholar.

3 Baillet (n. 1) no. 1265.

4 Ibid., no. 1889.

5 For these two points see Clinton, K., The sacred officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Philadelphia 1974) 64–6Google Scholar.

6 Third-person graffiti might be written by members of important people's entourages (e.g. Baillet [n. 1] nos. 1380–1), but not by guides.

7 Ibid., nos. 1255, 1263, 1266, 1279, 1281.

8 Porph., Abst. iv 10.

9 Fowden, G., The Egyptian Hermes. A historical approach to the late pagan mind (Cambridge 1986) 63–5Google Scholar.

10 Millar, F., JRS lix (1969) 16–18Google Scholar. Pace Follet, S., Athènes an IIe et au IIIe siècle: études chronologiques et prosopographiques (Paris 1976) 281Google Scholar n. 4, it may not have been the same Nicagoras who recorded his visit to the Cave of Pan on Mount Parnes on IG ii–iii2 4831. That this Nicagoras neither observes hieronymy nor proclaims himself a torch-bearer does not necessarily preclude identification with the Theban Nicagoras, since his visit to the Cave of Pan may have occurred before he entered office; but his allusion to his father as having been dadouchos is not confirmed by anything we know either of Minucianus or of Mnesaeus, the father of the Theban Nicagoras's homonymous grandfather. Since the inscription (of which there is a photograph in AE [1918] 214) could well be fourth-century, it seems reasonable to assume that its author was our Nicagoras's son (in which case one would restore Νικαγόρας [ἀνέθηκεν ὁ Νικαγόρου τοῦ δ]ᾳδουχήσαντος υἱὸς τοῖν θεοῖν) or, more probably, his grandson. The Theban Nicagoras, if he had indeed been in office since at least 304 (Clinton [n. 5] 66), will not have been so young in 326 that we need project his (grand)son's floruit very much further into the fourth century.

11 E.g. J. Baillet, CRAI (1922) 282–96; id. (n. 1) 489–92; Graindor, P., Byzantion iii (1926) 209–14;Google ScholarBataille, A., Les Memnonia: recherches de papyrologie et d'épigraphie grecques sur la nécropole de la Thèbes d'Egypte aux époques hellénistique et romaine (Cairo 1952) 172–3;Google ScholarBarnes, T. D., Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass. 1981) 211Google Scholar. Fox, R. Lane, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth 1986) 640–1,Google Scholar advances the diverting suggestion that Constantine sent Nicagoras in search of the phoenix, in order to teach the philosophers of Athens ‘the truth about life after death’.

12 Jul., or. i 8cd.

13 Ibid. On the hoplite general, and his responsibility for the grain-supply, see Geagan, D. J., The Athenian constitution after Sulla (Princeton, N.J. 1967) 18–31Google Scholar.

14 Phot. Bibl. 62.

15 Eun. V. Phil. vi 2.

16 Constantine's movements are documented by Barnes, T. D., The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, Mass. 1982) 76;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and cf. Lane Fox (n. 11) 638–43, 654.

17 Eus. V. Const. ii 72.2: σπεύδοντι δή μοι ἤδη πρὸς ὑμᾶς [sc. Alexandria] καὶ τῷ πλείονι μέρει σὺν ὑμῖν ὄντι ἡ τοῦδε τοῦ πράγματος ἀγγελία πρὸς τὸ ἔμπαλιν τὸν λογισμὸν ἀνεχαίτισεν, ἳνα μὴ τοῖς ὀΦθαλμοῖς ὁρᾶν ἀναγκασθείην, ἃ μηδὲ ταῖς ἀκοαῖς προαισθέσθαι δυνατὸν ἡγούμην.

18 Barnes (n. 16) 41–2.

19 Barguet, P., ASAE 1 (1950) 269–80;Google Scholar and id., Le temple d'Amon-Rê à Karnak: essai d'exégèse (Cairo 1962) 223–42; Iversen, E., Obelisks in exile i (Copenhagen 1968) 55–64Google Scholar.

20 Amm. Marc. xvii. 4.12–14 (tr. Rolfe, with adjustments).

21 Iversen (n. 19) 27–38. On still-visible evidence of the lowering process at Thebes, see Barguet (n. 19) 271.

21a Perhaps he had been told about it by Diocletian, who may have known Thebes well: El-Saghir, M. et al. , Le camp romain de Louqsor (Cairo 1986) 21, 29Google Scholar. On Diocletian's taste for things Egyptian see Malaise, M., Les conditions de pénétration et de diffusion des cultes égyptiens en Italie (Leiden 1972) 449CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Amm. Marc, xvi, 10.17.

23 Dessau, ILS 736.

24 Iversen (n. 19) 63–4.

25 E.g. Mazzarino, S., Aspetti sociali del quarto secolo: ricerche di storia tardo-romano (Rome 1951) 125–6;Google ScholarDagron, G., Naissance d'une capitate: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris 1974) 310–11Google Scholar.

26 Ambr. ep. xviii 32.

27 Mazzarino (n. 25), loc. cit.

28 E.g. Amm. Marc, xvi 10.13–14; and cf. Klein, R., Athenaeum lvii (1979) 103–6,Google Scholar though the transition noted by Amm. from (ridiculously) formal to (acceptably) informal behaviour was a recognized part of imperial adventus: MacCormack, S. G., Art and ceremony in late antiquity (Berkeley, Ca. 1981) 42–3Google Scholar.

29 Amm. Marc, xvii 4.12.

30 Amm. Marc, xvii 4.6.

31 Amm. Marc, xvii 7.17–23.

32 Klein (n. 28) 99–103.

33 Them., or. iii 41 cd etc.; cf. Jul., or i 8b (composed late in 356), and Dagron (n. 25) 56–60, on iconographical evidence for this theme.

34 Barnes (n. 16) 77.

35 Preger, T., Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum (Leipzig 1901–1907) ii 138Google Scholar.

36 On the controversial evidence, see Dagron (n. 25) 37–42; Cameron, A. and Herrin, J. (edd.), Constantinople in the early eighth century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden 1984) 263–4Google Scholar. Compare the inscriptions affixed by Augustus to the obelisks he set up in the Circus Maximus and the Campus Martius: ‘Imp(erator) Caesar Divi f(ilius) Augustus … Aegypto in potestatem populi Romani redacta Soli donum dedit’ (CIL 6.701–2).

37 On the ambiguities of Constantine's religious policy see the wise remarks of Cameron, A., JRS lxxiii (1983) 188–90Google Scholar.

38 Iversen (n. 19) 31, 38–41, 50, 52–3, 62, 64 etc.— note especially the extremely pointed inscriptions Sixtus always provided for ‘his’ obelisks.

39 Amm. Marc, xvii 4.12.

40 Eus. Triac. viii 2–3 (whence the quotation, tr. Drake); V. Const. iii 54.

41 It should not be assumed that emperors thought it beneath their dignity to ask politely when they wanted an obelisk: Jul. ep. 59. (Julian's proposal that the Alexandrians should swap an obelisk abandoned on their beach by Constantius for a colossal bronze statue of himself was not intended humorously.)

42 NHC vi 7–8: J.-P. Mahé, Hermès en Haute-Egypte (Quebec 1978–82) i 157–67, ii 145–207. Ascl. (with Greek fragments): Nock, A. D. and Festugière, A.-J. (edd.), Corpus Hermeticum ii (Paris 1946) 296–355Google Scholar.

43 Ascl. 24 = NHC vi 8.3–10. Cf. Eun. V. Phil. vi 10.8: ἡ δὲ Ἀλεξὰνδρεια διά γε τὸ τοῦ Σεράπιδος ἱερὸν ἱερά τις ἧν οἰκουμένη.

44 The passages are conveniently set out by Scott, W., Hermetica iv (Oxford 1936) 9–27, 179–91Google Scholar.

45 Amm. Marc, xxi 14.5.

46 Cf. Barnes (n. 11) 47, 73–6, and Lane Fox (n. 11) 658–62, on Constantine's acquaintance with literature and philosophy.

47 Barnes (n. 11) 266–7.

48 Cf. Phot. Bibl. 62: Φησὶν οὗν ὁ Πραξαγόρας, καίτοι τὴν θρησκείαν Ἕλλην ὤν, ὃτι πάσῃ ἀρετῇ καὶ καλοκἀγαθίᾳ καὶ παντὶ εὐτυχήματι πάντας τοὺς πρὸ αὐτοῦ βεβασιλευκότας ὁ Βασιλεὺς Κωνσταντῖνος ἀπεκρύψατο.

49 Baillet (n. 11) 289–96.

50 Compare the similarly laconic graffito left in the Valley of the Kings by a member of the French expedition which in 1831 removed from Luxor the obelisk that now stands in the Place de la Concorde: Baillet (n. 1) v n. 2.

51 Compare Valerius Rometalca, a Thracian whom Constantine made dux Aegypti et Thebaidos utrarumque Libyarum, and who dedicated three statues to his benefactor in the temple at Luxor, probably c. 324/5: Lacau, P., ‘Inscriptions latines du temple de Louxor’, ASAE xxxiv (1934) 35–46;Google ScholarPLRE i, s.v. ‘Val. Rometalca’. Maybe he is the Ροιμητάλκας who left a graffito in the Valley of the Kings: Baillet, Inscriptions no. 292.