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Perseus and Chemmis (Herodotus II 91)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. B. Lloyd
A. B. Lloyd
Affiliation:
University College, Swansea.
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Extract

Few sections in the whole of Book ii of Herodotus' History present such difficulties as Chapter 91. The problems posed are: first, what and where was Neapolis? Second, who was the Perseus mentioned by Herodotus? Third, how could the Χεμμîται, Egyptians by Herodotus' own admission, have retailed to Herodotus so thoroughly Greek a story as the tale of the sandal of Perseus? Fourth, how could Egyptians have set up gymnastic contests in the Greek fashion as Herodotus claims that they did? The present article is intended to offer a solution to all of these problems.

Where uncertainty is so rife it is perhaps reassuring to find some data which can be regarded as beyond dispute. The geographical position of the city of Chemmis at least is certain. It was the capital of the Ninth Nome of Upper Egypt, usually called Πανὸς πόλις or Πανῶν πόλις by later writers, and stood, as the survival of the name proves, on the site of the modern town of Akhmîm.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 89 , November 1969 , pp. 79 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1969

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References

The present article owes much to the advice and guidance of Mr W. G. G. Forrest of Wadham College, Oxford, the Rev. Professor J. B. Barns, the Queen's College, Oxford and, in particular, my colleague, Dr J. Gwyn Griffiths, of University College, Swansea. The following abbreviations have been adopted:

AEO SirGardiner, Alan H., Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford, 1947).Google Scholar

ASAE Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte (Le Caire, 1900–).

BIFAO Bulletin de l'Institut français d'Archéologie Orientale (Le Caire, 1901–).

RÄRG Bonnet, H., Reallexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin, 1952).Google Scholar

Rd'E Revue d'Egyptologie (Paris, 1933–).

REA Revue de l'Egypte Ancienne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1925–9).

RT Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie Egyptiennes et Assyriennes, 40 vols. (Paris, 1870–1923).

Urk Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums, ed. Steindorff, G., i–vii (Leipzig, 1905–).Google Scholar

Wb A. Erman and H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache.

ZÄS Zeitschift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Leipzig, 1863–).

1 The attempt of Montet, , Dict. Géog. ii 81Google Scholar to move the city of Chemmis elsewhere sprang from a desperate attempt to avoid the difficulties of the Perseus-Min connection. He located it in the Fifth Nome of U.E. and identified it with a city Ḫm Mnw mentioned, according to him, only once in Urk. ii 55.12. The presence of the Double Falcon in the line above irresistibly recalls Antaeopolis (cf. Gardiner, , AEO ii 50Google Scholar*) so that we should not be very far wrong if we assumed that the name in question is simply a late writing of Ḫnty Mnw = Akhmîm.

2 Cf. Strabo xvii 1.41; Ptolemy, , Geography iv 5.72.Google Scholar

3 Gauthier, , Dict. Géog. iv 177Google Scholar; Gardiner, , AEO ii 40*Google Scholar; Montet, , Dict. Géog. ii 109.Google Scholar This city is not to be confused with the floating island of Χέμμις which we first meet in Hecataeus: Jacoby, FGrH 1 F 305 where the name is given as Χέμβις. Herodotus ii 156.1 gives Χέμμις.

4 Kees, , ZÄS lvii (1922) 128.Google Scholar

5 Spiegelberg, , RT xxvi (1904) 163Google Scholar; Sagenkreis des Königs Petubastis 84*, no. 572.

6 Powell, , Lexicon to Herodotus 233.Google Scholar D.S. i 18.2 speaks of Χέμμις as κατὰ τὴν Θηβαΐδα.

7 Heliopolis (ii 3; 7–9; 59; 63; 73); Hermopolis (ii 67); Archandropolis (ii 97; 98); Crocodilonpolis (ii 148).

8 REA iii (1931) 75.

9 Akhmîm was a centre of the textile trade in the Late Period (Forrer, , Die Gräber und Textilfunde von Achmîm [Strassburg 1891])CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strabo (op.cit.) refers to it in this context abo and adds the fact that it was also an important centre of stone working. The presence of Greeks in Upper Egypt at least is suggested by finds of Greek pottery dating to the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. (cf. Cook, , JHS lvii [1937] 237Google Scholar; Boardman, , The Greeks Overseas 154Google Scholar).

10 Wiedemann, , Herodots zweites Buch 368Google Scholar; Sourdille, , La Durée et l'Étendue du Voyage d'Hérodote 159Google Scholar; Griffith, op. at. 76; Kees, , RE x 1506Google Scholar; Gardiner, , AEO ii 29*Google Scholar; Ball, , Egypt in the Classical Geographers 18 n.Google Scholar

11 Gauthier, , BIFAO iv (1905) 87.Google Scholar

12 For this city cf. Ptolemy, , Geography iv 5.72.Google Scholar

13 Kees, op. cit.

14 So Sourdille, loc. cit.; Ball, loc. cit.

15 Scholiast, , Pindar, , Pyth. x 47Google Scholar; Ap. Rhod. iv 1513–17; Schol. ibid., 1515; Ovid, , Met. iv 617 ff.Google Scholar, who all associate the legend with Libya; Servius, , Aeneid vi 289Google Scholar locates the home of the Gorgon near the Atlas Mts.

16 Apollodorus ii 4.3; Strabo i 2.35; Scholiast, Pind. op. cit.

17 Bleeker, , Die Geburt eines Gottes 26 ff.Google Scholar

18 Scharff, , ZÄS lxii (1927) 90.Google Scholar

19 Scharff, op. cit. 90.

20 Scharff, op. cit. 89.

21 Bonnet, , RÄRG 379.Google Scholar

22 Quoted by Wiedemann l.c. from Stein's commentary.

23 Lanzone, , Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia ii 940.Google Scholar

24 Histoire Ancienne iii 802.

25 Hérodote, ii 123 n. 4.

26 Wb. i 541.

27 Rd'E xiv (1962) 53 ff.

28 Athene, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Dionysus, Hermes, Zeus, Helios, Heracles, Hephaestus, Leto, Pan, Selene.

29 Ammon (Amoun), Apis, Boubastis (for Bastet), Isis, Osiris, Horus, Mendes.

30 University of California Publications in Classical Philology ii (1910) 81.

31 Linforth (op. cit. 88) was disinclined to admit this on the ground that the existence of two Greek versions of ‘Apis’ was unlikely. We find, however, considerably more than one Greek version of ‘Thorn', to take only one similar example (cf. Roscher, , Lexikon v 825Google Scholar).

32 JEA xxi (1935) 154.

33 Hérodote et la Religion de l'Egypte 212.

34 Forschungen und Fortschritte xxxvi (1962) 307 ff.; Rd'E xv (1963) 125 ff.

35 Pritchard, , Ancient Near Eastern Texts 2129 ff.Google Scholar

36 Gardiner, , Late Egyptian Stories 76 ff.Google Scholar

37 Wiedemann, , Herodots zweites Buch 370.Google Scholar

38 Jéquier, , Mon. funéraire de Pepi II. ii 17, pl. 12Google Scholar; Gauthier, , Les Fêtes du Dieu Min 147.Google Scholar

39 Gauthier, op. cit. 149 ff.; Bonnet, , RÄRG 467.Google Scholar

40 I conomopoulos, Revue des Études Grecques ii (1889) 164 ff.

41 The Harvest Festival called in Egyptian Prt nt Mnw.

42 RE xix 1, 980.

43 Säve-Söderbergh, , On Egyptian Representations of Hippo. Hunting as a Religious Motif 39.Google Scholar

44 Gardiner, , AEO ii 49* ff.Google Scholar; Montet, , Dict. Geéog. ii 118.Google Scholar

45 Mariette, , Denderah iv pl. 60Google ScholarDd mdw ἰn Ḥr wr etc.; Brugsch, , Dict. Géog. 928Google Scholar; ZÄS xvii (1879) 16.

46 i 21.4. The passage is discussed by Griffiths, J. Gwyn, Conflict of Horus and Seth (Liverpool, 1960) 99.Google Scholar The god of the nome was in fact Anty (Antaeus) but he was not infrequently confounded with Seth.

47 i.e. the games include only one of the three possible classes of contest and but contained every kind of ἀγὼν γυμνικός which existed.

48 Running: Davies, , Mastaba of Ptahhetep and Akhethetep i pl. xxivGoogle Scholar; Wreszinski, , Atlas iii pl. 22Google Scholar (Tomb of Mereruka). Urk. iv 1279, 16.

Wrestling: Davies, loc. cit.; Newberry, , Beni Hasan ii pl. vGoogle Scholar; Klebs, , Reliefs und Malereien des mittleren Reichs 151Google Scholar; ib., R. und M. des neuen Reichs 224; cf. generally Wilsdorf, , Ringkampf im alten Ägypten (Würzburg, 1939).Google Scholar

Rowing: Urk. iv 1279, 17–1280, 8; cf. generally ASAE xxxvii (1937) 129 ff.

Boxing: Davies, , Rock Tombs of El Amarna ii pl. xxxviiGoogle Scholar, 5th Register.

For sport in general in Egypt cf. Favre, , L'Arte e lo Sport nell' antico Egitto (1965).Google Scholar

49 A by no means unexemplified phenomenon cf. Hellanicus, Jacoby, FGrH 4 F 71a; Heliodorus ix 24; Polybius, i 67.7. Cf. also Jacoby, FGrH 608 F 9.