The Oriental Origin of Herakles Author(s): G. Rachel Levy Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol.

54, Part 1 (1934), pp. 40-53 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/626489 . Accessed: 31/07/2013 12:40
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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

an irregular eminence of Baghdad, ABOUT fiftymilesto the north-east which the townof Eshnunna, hascovered till recently knownas TellAsmar by Hammurabi in the was abandoned to the desertafterits destruction now being conducted twentiethcenturybeforeChrist. The excavations there by the OrientalInstituteof the Universityof Chicagohave unfinds,a numberof cylinderseals from earthed,amongother important in Fig. I levels,of whichthosereproduced earlyDynasticand Akkadian II, 2) from the Southesk with one seal (Plate and Plate II, I, together collectionnl formthe basisof thisarticle. It will be observedthat the designsshownin Fig. I, a Sumerian

ASMAR . FIG . I . SEALINJ PRESSION FROM TELL

of clay, and Plate II, I) an Akkadian impression piecedfrom fragments the conquest of a hydrastonecylinder of about2500 B.C., both represent has a serpent,two of whoseseven heads like monster. The impression man or god who holds have alreadybeen severedby a crudely-rendered above the living heads a head in eitherhand, the stumpsbeing visible which still menace him. The scene is placed between friezes of snake,while a dragonwith scorpions, amongwhom is a single-headed it may be, in the scorpion-tail standsbehindthe hydra,a participant, signs throws inscription in pre-Akkadian contest. An almostobliterated intention. no lighton the artist's and the divine Hydra (PlateII, I) iS dragon-bodied, The Akkadian for his assistance. antagonist has a comradewho kindlesfire, it seems,2
1 BallnLight from theEast,p. I5. 2 See Part III belown for an alternative inter4o

pretation.

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

41

At the knee of this being is a shallowscorpion-shaped depression, which may or may not be accidental. Plate II, 2, Akkadian work again,revealsto the left of a group of vegetation deitiesthe formof a godfromwhoseshoulders plantsarespringing, while a ram leaps towards his knee; who wearsthelion's skin and carries the club and bow associatedwith Herakles. A cylinderseal analogous in subjectwith this last, and closelyresembling it in style,was foundunfinished at Eshnunna. An accountof the whole seriesof whichthese seals forma part has been published by Dr. HenryFrankfort, FieldDirector of the Expedition to Tell Asmar, in the firstnumber of Iraq. He recognises in theirsubjects, rareamongthe Sumerians, but risingto suddenimportance in the hands of their Akkadiansupplanters, a series of events chosenfrom the cult of the local God of Vegetation,whose temple,togetherwith relics of its ceremonial rites, was uncovered at Eshnunnaduring the winter of I932-33.3 Among the latter may be mentioned two alabaster plaques, the one 4 shewingworshippers in attendance on the God in his snakeform,and the otherthe performance of a ispoS yaEuoS, constant features of fertility-cult in later times. Frankfort is able to shewon the evidence of the excavations as a wholethat duringthe laterdynasties the Sumerians had begun to fuse the personalities of their severalfertilitygods into a singledeity of varyingaspectsor local epithets(suchas he believeshim to havebeen at his origin). He proveson the authority of the sealsthat in this God, a potencyof the changingseasons, the solar and chthonic elementswere mingled,the SemiticAkkadians later stressinghis solar aspectsuntil the victoriousMardukreplacedin popular imagination the suffering Tammuztogetherwith the band of oldervegetation spirits whichhe had absorbed into himself. The following pagesare an attemptto discover how closelythe figure of Herakles and such tracesof his cult as are knownto us-can be connected with those divinities,and what justification may exist for the recognition of his person on the seals. The factat onceemerges, of primary importance forour investigation, that amongthe heroesworshipped in historicGreece,only Herakles was man and also god. His twofoldpersonality is made clear in one of our earliest records, whereOdysseus encounters him amongthe dead5:' Next I becameconscious of the mightof Herakles; his shadow only, for he himselfis in blissamongthe immortal Gods.' That this was no singlepoet'svisionis attestedby Pindar'sriPCl)S isos,6 and Herodotus 7 iS quiteexplicit:3 4 5

III. LondonJvtews, July 22nd, I933. Ib., also Times of July Ioth, I933. Hom. Od. XI, 60I f.:
Tov 6 p.Et ICEVOCC sE pinv Hp=KEinV, iEOICI EI6CoXOV- CVT6; pET M=v=Tolal

6 7
iop0sTaTa

Pind. Jvtem. III, 22. Herodotus, II, 44:

Kai ol slia

soKEoUcrl HpaKi\Ela ovAv"w{X

6;
6

tUOI ispUCaguE ;wXvU>inv

0T

rrOIE

IV aiavaTZ

KVTal idOUCt,

TZ

pV XS

ziplTETal.

8; pipX XS EVCi30UCI. Quoted in this connexionby J. E. Harrison,Themis,p. 373.

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42

G. RACHEL LEVY

' And I thinkthat thoseof the Greeks do quiterightlywho have established a doubleworship of Herakles, andto the one makesacrifice as an immortal with the nameof Olympian, and to the otherperform ritesas to a hero.' Farnell 8 has shewnin detailhow widelyseparated werethosetwo modes of ritual, the cult of Herakles alone offeringa commonobjective. In Greece, however,it was obviouslyhis heroic aspect which held the imagination and developedthroughliteratureand art a characterso many-coloured, clear-cutand vigorousthat the divine background was almost forgotten. This purely human personality, in spite of several pointsof close resemblance with the Babylonian hero Gilgameshn stands apartin the main as a defirxitely Helleniccreation, and need be touched uponherebut brieflyto throwthe divineHerakles into his proper relief. I. HERAKLES ASMAN A. Prehellenic. Professor Nilsson 9 takesthe Iliad to witnessthat the cycleof twelvelabours mustin someformhavebeenwellknownto Homer, as undertaken by a Tirynthian Herakles in subjection to Eurystheus of Mycenae,lthat Homer'streatment of the birth legendsputs back the Thebancycleto a prehistoric Thebes,andthatreference is madeto several storiesabout Herakleswhich appearto have fallen out of memoryin historic times. Nilssonassigns to the pre-Homeric cyclethe earlier labours (as we knowthem),with theirlandscape in Northern Peloponnesos, and their wild huntingscenes heroicdeedsto the mindsof the earlierrace and frequentsubjectsin their art, but withoutinterestto the Hellenic Greeks unlessin a mythological setting. B. Hellenic.The humanHeraklesas knownto us in historictimes is especiallythe performer of voluntarylabours (rrappya) undertaken from compassion for mankind,whose trialshe shares. Like Gilgamesh he exhibitsan occasional savageryreminiscent of some more primitive hero from whom he tracesdescent,and a gluttonydear to the comic poets,but chieflyhe is the Guardian of Youth,llaECiKaKoS, of diseaseand old agel2 aXTnp of Alkestisand Theseus 13 and Prometheus, who in the wordsof Aristophanes ' goes straightfor the greatestfoe.' As Hellenic herohe hasAthenaforGuide,andneedsinitiation intotheLesser Mysteries foundedfor his sake at Agrae14 and later into those at Eleusis.l5 As ancesterof the Doriansand of the Lydiankings he is an ' historical ' personage, like the vegetationGodsTammuzand Osiris,once kingsin theirown land. His legendary place of deathon MountOeta was kept in memory by a ritualof whichthe archaeological remains) consisting of the foundations of a pyrewith its enclosure, and somebronzes and black8 Farnell, Hero-Cults, Chap. V. I04 from AM. I9I I, Pl. I I. Also jtHS. 9 Nilsson, MycenaeanOrigin of Greek Religion. XXX. p- 207 f. 13 geazIey VA. Sg- 85* Iliad, XV, 639 f. 14 Schol. Aristoph. Plout.845. 11 Harrison) Themis?p. 37815 Xen. Hell. vi, 36, etc. 12 Cf. inscribed relief reproduced in Themis, Fig. I883,

Pl.

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

43

were excavatedin with the name of Herakles, figuredsherdsinscribed by N. Pappadakis.l6 I920 and published
AS DIVINITY II. HERAKLES DAIMON. FERTILITY as a deity of birth, growth Even in Hellas,Herakles A. Prehellenic. by the human and decay was by no means completelyovershadowed originis madeevidentby the hero. That this divinityhad a prehistoric has left of threeshrinesof his cult as Idaean accountswhich Pausanias that is to saynof MinoanCrete,svhom Daktyl, one of those survivors, ; 17 fromthe Age of Kronos Plutarch calls ' daimons he reof the GreatGoddesses in the sanctuary (a) at Megalopolis, on the infantor CretanZeus;18 ceivedofferings as attendant heardthe taleof his marriage Pausanias (b) at his templein Thespiae, the practiceof a former of Thestios,suggesting with the fifty daughters day the shrinewas servedby a virgin ispoS yauoS, thoughin Pausanias' priestess; 19 a name connectedwith early (c) and especiallyat Mykalessos,20 wherehe migrations from S.W. Asia Minorto Creteand the Aegean,2l closedeachnightand openedby day the doorsof the Templeof Demeter, beforewhosefeet in autumnthey placedfruit that bloomedfor a whole year. a link with the Cretanfertilitycult is revealed Still moreimportant of Elis, that by the priestlyfamilies in the tradition relatedto Pausanias founded thatHerakles of eldestof the IdaeanDaktyls it wasin thecharacter with wild olive broughtfromthe land of the OlympicGames,crowning the amonghis brethren v 22 the victorin the foot-race the ' Hyperboreans Kouretes, who had sung the hymnof yearlyrenewalroundthe cradleof it is evident,who gave its name DiktaeanZeus.23 It was this Herakles, a winter festival.24 to the Hill of Kronos' wet with snow,' suggesting by Professor A. B. Cook,has giventeasonfor the Mr. Cornford, inspired rite, the victorreplacing beganas a fertility assumption that the foot-race and peltedwithleaves,25 the founder as daimonof the New Year,crowned with the as year-daimon linksthe ritualof Herakles and so Jane Harrison how a deadheromay alsobe, shewing yearlyritespaid to him as hero,26 perhaps alwaysis, a daimon. But in purelyGreekreligionhe is nevera God. B. Hellenic.The drama of Sophocleshas bequeathedus the life and seasonalbirth and as Greekspiritof vegetation historyof Herakles warfare that the qualities decay. Since it is a featureof all superhuman ( I ) AS (Weimar,I895), p. 2. N. Pappadakis, BCH. I920, 392 f.; I92I, 523. 22 Pind. Ol. III, Pyth.X Plutarch,Defac. in orb.Iun.XXX. 23 See opening chapterof Themis. 4. 18 Cook, geus, I, I I2,2 quoting Paus. VIII. 3I, 24 Pind. Ol. X, 49. 19 Paus. IX. 27, 6, discussedin Harrison,Themis, 25 Origin of the Olympic Games; Chap. VII of p. 37IThemis. 20 Paus. IX. I9, 5 26 Themis, p. 372p. 235, 21 Paus. V. 7, 6. See Cornfordin Themis, in Olympia 4, who quotesWeniger,DerHeiligedIbaum
16 17

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44

G. RACHEL LEVY

or attributes of the conquered becomepowersof the victor,so the river Acheloos,manifestfertilitydaimonunder the changingshapesof bull, snakeand man27 losesto Herakles, the new and higherdaimon,bothhis horn and his bride. The horn in more fruitfulhands is ' exalted' as cornucopia, the weddingof Herakles with Deianeira is seen to be a ipoS yauoS,28 prophesied to him in Hades, harbinger like the marriage of the year-king in Babylonia, of his own deathand hers. In this ritual-drama the CentaurNessosis the doubleof Acheloos 29 anotherdaimonof the powersof growth,who in defeatdestroys his conqueror.Antaiostoo is such anotheradversary, whosestrengthis renewedby contactwith the earth. The doublepoplar-wreathed bustin the Vatican30may verypossibly represent the bearded and beardless, young-old Herakles, a ' Dying-God ' like Hippolytus-Virbius in the busts from Nemi31 and the two-faced Marduk sometimes appearing on Akkadian seals. C. Orthic. In the Orphictexts the qualityof Herakles is revealed quite explicitly as in6uvaulS TuS q)ucrcoS, making him thusthe verycounterpartof the God of Eshnunna, thatis, the personification of the generative powersof nature. AlreadyHymnXII surprisingly invokes him as aioXopOp9 WayyVET@p, and pictures him as wearing dawn and darkness about his head the ' time' aspect whose significance will presentlybecome clearer whirling a branch,no dead club, to scatterthe evil plagues.32 Consistently with the hymnthe theogony of Hellanikos and Hieronymus quotedby Damaskios 33 introduces him at the creationof the world as a wingedsnakebornof waterand earth,whosethreeheadsare those of lion, god and bu11,34 and his othername Chronos the Ageless. This accountis confirmed, as Professor Cookhas shewn,35 by Athenagoras and others, who,however, omitthebovine head,thusstressing hissolaraffinities, and declarethat the snakeHerakles laid an egg, which, filled with his force,burstinto halves,the upperheaventhe lowerearth. So Tiamat, the primeval chaosof the Babylonian Epic of Creation,36 is split like an oysterby the wind of Marduk when caughtin the net of ordered being, and this late versionmay therefore be coloured by directreminiscence of
27 ings.

Sophocles, Trach.g ff. and many vase paint-

I82I,

Vi.

I0D,

I02,

pl.

I3,

2.

SOw Cook,

Zeus, II

As pointed out by Harrison,Themis, p. 368. On the Hydria B3I3 in the BM. (publishedin Gaz. Arch.I875, pls. 20, 2I) Acheloos is a Centaur except for his horn. The true bull's body appears in the vase-painting pub. in A4. XVI ( I 883), pl. I I, and reproducedin Themis, fig. 99. So in BM. B228 Acheloos is a horned centaur, and the representations of Herakles'fights with Nessos are generally identical in attitude. Only the gods are absent. The snake-bodied Achelooswith bull's horn is represented magnificentlyon the red-figuredstamnosof Pamphaios, BM. E437. For centaurs as fertility damions see J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, pp. 379, 380. 30 E. Q. Visconti, M2lseePie-Clementin, Milan,
28 29

pls. XXII, XXIII. Prof. Cook, considersit more probable that this bust represents Hermes-Herakles . 32 XII. I 5: i?<avow 6& KaKas aTaS, K?<asov S xEpl
Tra?k?<c^)v.

p. 383, 8. 31 Cook, geus, II,

33 Damaskios,Quaest.de primisprincipiisI 23 bis, quoted by Cook, Zeus,II, p. I022, Appendix G. 34 See the Cilician coin Fig. 4 below, the ' God ' being represented by the Club of Herakles. 35 Ib. p. I023. Athenag. Supplicatio pro Christianis, I8, p. 20 (E. Norden in Hermes,I892, XXVII. 6I4 f.). 36 Epic of Creation, Tab. IV. I37. See p. I47, Note 5, of Langdon'stranslation.

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

45

37 setsHerakles in hisLifeof Pythagoras Babylonian texts. ButIamblichos in the midstof a purelyHellenicTriad,in a GracewhichnamesZeusas the directorof nurture,Heraklesas the dynamicprincipleof grosvth, as harmony of all the ingredients.Delatteis scornful and the Dioskouroi akinto the the passage but an idea seemsto underlie of these' allegories,' in the Hindutrinity,becomesincarnate beliefthat Vishnu,the Preserver of savioursof men, and it also appearsprobablefrom in a succession severalof the texts that Mardukheld this positionin the trinityof the of the divineand human the personalities Babylonian Gods. But however in orthodox minds,the concepHerakles may have been linkedtogether tion of the daimonicHerakleswhich these texts defineis in any case established as existingin Hellenic Greece,and as having a pre-Greek of only after investigation can be considered origin,whose provenance on the easternshores whichwas important that otheraspectof Herakles of the Regeansea. (2) AS SUN-GOD.

relateshim not only to the seasons The ' Time' aspectof Herakles of growthand decay,but still more closelyto solarchange. Serviusin Cook,38 refers on Verg. Aen.8, 276, quotedby Professor his commentary by the Babylonians, ' as described to a cult of Herakles' pro tempore sayingthat the white poplartree was sacredto him under that aspect, himself after the darkand light sidesof the leaveswith whichhe crowned (and still wearsin manyworksof art), darkfrom victoryover Cerberus beingsymbols of day andnight. Hades,whitewiththe sweatof his labour, the Herakles of the OrphichymnosTrpi Kp=TI OpE15 @ Thisat oncerecalls 39 KalvlJKTa ,ualvav.It calls to mind also thosecoinsof Barisin Pisidia which portraya double Herakles,the mortal and immortaltwin, the found and the dwellerin the sky. sojourner in Hades whom Odysseus In Herakles, too, then, as in the Godsof Akkadand Sumeralreadydeweremingled. scribed, the solarand chthonicelements His laboursoccupieda GreatYear, or cycle of twelveyears,as in40 at theirlastparting scribed uponthe tabletwhichhe leftwithDeianeira with the passage of the sun through by the ancients and were associated the sun's own sign, and is astrologically the Zodiac. His lion-emblem vase paintings magnificent must be won withoutweapons(as numerous bear witness),its skin being removedonly by its own claws. So does of Marduk(and with the lion and the sun we leave behindthe isolation in his net, ' the sky's the Greekworld)hold the defeatedconstellations gold-knotted mesh,'to fix themin theirstations. Greece. has no homein European Sun,indeed,Herakles As the risen seals,a rayed strides betweenhis gateson Akkadian Just as the Sun-God
quoted by Delatte in 37 Iamblichosv. Pyth. I55; pythagoricienne, Paris, I9I5, his Etzldes sur la litte'rature TpaTrd3Tls rrapaKaEl Al65 p. I I5 f.: crTrev6elv 6 Trpo
2@T0pOS
tilvOvvTaS Ka; Kai 'HpaKFDvs apXnyov Ka; Kai

TnV 38

av>gSviav

TxV

CU=VTXV.

AloCKOVp@V,
nypova

Tn5
tia

TpO9nS
Kai

TOV T=VTnS V:EXS,

Zeas,II, p. 469.1 39 Ib. p. 446; figs- 354, 355 356 in the Trachiniae of 40 See Verrall, The Calendar Sothocles (CR. I896).

TOV Hp=KCTnV

Evvaplv T0S

TOVS

tIOCKOVpOVS

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46

G. RACHEL LEVY

and heavenlybeing, so Herakles standsbetweenhis doublepillars,from the Atlanticshoreto India, but neveron Greeksoil. At Tyre they were seen by Herodotus 41 of gold and of emerald, SalllTovTos TaS viKTaS ,uyaioS, and the TyrianHiramplaced them in Solomon's templeas Jakin and Boaz. Those at Gadeira,says Arrian,were dedicatedto the year and the months.42And Herodorus speaksof the Pillarsof Heavengiven to Herakles by a Phrygian Atlas.43 But the winter,or settingsun, with his chthonicaffinities, is once moreat homein Greeklegend,art and ritual. The voyageof Herakles to the West, steeringthe sun's cup acrossthe streamof Ocean (where Odysseus encountered the dead), to bring back the oxen of the triplebodiedGeryon,is but anotherversionof his descentto the underworld to bear away the three-headed Cerberus, as in the Orphictheogonyhe rearshis own three headsout of chaos. So on Akkadian seals the SunGodtravels injust sucha cup-like boat (usedto thisday on Mesopotamian waterways) leadinghis chainedbeasts.44As Dr. Frankfort has shewn,45 this is no heavenlycircuit,becausethereare alwayspresenta plough46 and other symbolsof the life of the crops,and once indeed47 the God himselfdrives the plough,in the curvedformof the boat and dragonheaded,through the ' unharvested deep.' Andjust as Herakles wounded the God of the Underworld ' in the gate, among the dead,48 ' so did Ninurta,the most Herakleanof the vegetationgods whosepersonality becamemergedinto that of Marduk, do battleat the door of Marduk's mountainprison with Enmesharra, the AkkadianPluto. So too did Herakles strivewith the God for the soul of Alkestis, and his livinghand raisedTheseusfrom his immovable seat among the shades. 49 And as Ninurta,in the recurring ritual of the Babylonian New Year, rescues Marduk, the imprisoned Sun, by shooting the bird-God Zu, stealerof the Tabletsof Destiny,so is Prometheus, anotherchainedand fierybeing,50 delivered from the eagle by the arrowof Herakles. Indeed, the image of Zu on the seals, outspreadsidewaysbefore the Sun-Godon his mountain,may even have suggestedthe piercedliver of Prometheus. Theirstory seems againto illustrate theinterchange between conquered and conqueror amongthe gods,for Prometheus and the eagleZu, both of the older orderof divinities, both stole fromHeavenpowerand knosvledge for the enemiesof the youngerGods, and Ninurtacombinedthe sun's lion and the falleneagle in his emblem,the lion-headed Imgi, which,it is interesting to note,is foundto predominate amongthe Sumerian fertility pendants wornat Eshnunna in the service of Ab-u (Tammuz).5l Langdon says that Tammuz,the divinitywhoseyearlysojourn in the lowerworld was the ritualisticprototypeof Marduk's winter lmprisonment in the Herodotusn II- 44Iliad, V. 397 readingsw TruAco for evnvx.
41 42 48

Arrianap. Eustathad Dionys. Perieg.v, 64, 72. 43 Herodorus ap. Clem. Alex.Strom. I, I 5, 73, p. 360. 44 See central seal of group in III. London JEews, July I5th, I93345 IraC, i, pp. I8-I9 46 The plough was, of course,also a constellation. 47 Frankfort, I.c. Pl. III, h.

See No. I 3 above. Evenif his namehas no connectionwith Sanskr. pramantha= firestick (cf. Diodorus, 5, 67), he is said to have obtained his fire by touching the wheel of the sun: Serv. in Verg. Ecl. 6, 42. 51 III. London News, July s5th, I933 (coloured plate).
49 50

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THE ORIENfAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

47

mountain,is sometimesidentifiedin the texts with Orion, 52 another hunterSun-God,it seems,chainedamongthe starsand blindedlike the sun-heroSamson,a SemiticHerakleswhosefirst exploitwas to wrestle with a lion, who like him wasoverthrown by a woman,and trodhis circle grinding thecorn,andin hisfallbrought downhispillars Brith him. Images of the fettered Melkart, the Phoenician Herakles, are described by several of the ancients.53 The J2ery death of the Sun-GodHeraklestakesus straightfrom the forgotten ritual on MountOeta to the pyresbuilt yearlyfor Melkart in Tyre,54 for Sandasat Tarsus,and to the burningof Kingu at the New Year'sfestivalin Babylon, as represented on the seals. The identification of Melkartwith Heraklesis fortunately placed beyond doubt, for the bilingualinscription found at Malta confirms the statements of ancient writersfrom Herodotusdownwards.Turning to Asia Minor, we find the doubleaxe, takenby Herakles fromthe deadAmazonand left to his descendants the Lydiankings,in the handsof Sandason Ciliciancoins (perhaps a fertilityemblem,to judge by that Anatoliansculptured god with Sandas'tall cap whoselion-bodyends in a daggerstruckinto the earth,connected by Professor Cook55with the doubleaxe stuckinto leafbearingpillarsin Minoanart), and the woman'sgarmentworn during his year of bondageto Omphaleclothedthe imagesof the dyingSandas andAdonis,as well as his ownpriestat Kos,56 as alsothe priests of Ishtar. That degradation was, in fact, forno mortalQueen, and as Omphale carrieshis weaponsin Lydianart and legend,so does the Goddess Ma herself bearhis clubon a coinof PonticComana.57It is the oldAnatolian relationof dominant Goddess and youngconsort. The periodic burnings of Sandas,to whichindirectreference is made by ancientwriters, are apparently represented on a succession of Hellenistic coins of Tarsusin Cilicia58 and find a counterpart in the Jewish Feast of Purim,duringwhich imagesof Hamanwere bound to a cross and burned.59Frazer identifiesEstherwith Ishtar and Mordecaiwith Marduk, thusmakinga directconnexion with the Babylonian Festivalof the New Year. Yet anotherstrangesurvivalof the ritualof the yearly
52 Langdon, Tammuz andIshtar,p. 2s6. Raoul-Rochette,Sur l'Hercule assyrien et phetnicien,Metm. Ac. Inscr.XVII, 2me. partie, I848, throws doubt on these, partly because he considerssuch a statue ' tout a fait etranger a l'idee religieuse du mythe ' (p. I 9) . He describes, however,an Etruscan figure of Hercules in which the legs are held imprisonedin lead (p. 24) and comparesit with the chained lion among human-headedbulls on one of the facadesat Khorsabad. 54 See Frazer, TheGolden Bough, V, I, Chap. 5 for the evidence of the burning of Melkart,and Chap. VI for the pyres erected to Sandas. Cook in Zeus, Vol. I, pp. 600, 60I, does not considerhis arguments conclusive. iret Clem.Recognit. X. 24, has ' Herculis sepulchrum apud Tyrum demonstratur,ubi igne crematus est ' and Dion Chrysestomspeaks to the
53

men of Tarsus (Or. 33, p. 23 f.) of the beautiful pyre which they built for Heraklestheir founder. 55 teus, II, pp. 550-552. Both Herodotus,I, 93, and Klearch. ap Athen.I, XII, p. sI6A, mention a iEpo, yapos in connexion with the worship of Heraklesin Lydia. Omphale was evidentlya Goddess who destroyedher lovers like Ishtar and Semiramis. 56 The priest of Heraklesat Kos was requiredto performthe sacrifices wearinga woman'srobe, with a mitre upon his head. Plut. Quaest. Gr. LVIII. 57 Rec.gen. des monnaies gr. d'AsieMineure, Pontus, Paphlagonia, Tom. I, Fasc I. 2me Edition, p. II0, n. I 2A, pl. XII, n. 4 (pointed out to me by Dr. Berta Segall). 58 See Part IV below. 59 Frazer, Golden Bough,IX, pp. 360-36I.

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48

G. RACHEL LEVY

in the story burnings may be found, as suggested by Raoul-Rochette,60 to so fittinga close. The corpse, of Er, with which Plato bringsthe Republis laid on the pyre on the twelfth day after death in battle, revived to tell of the world beyond death. And that resurrectioncalls up an important point of connexionbetweenMount Oeta and the pyresof Asia. Josephus61 speaksof the rite called il TOU 'HpaKoUS EySpOls) which seemsto have followed the burningof Melkarts image at Tyre, and the bird which hovers above Sandas) triangularpile on the Cilician coins 62 may play the role of the eagle above similar scenes of the apotheosisof certain Roman Emperors. One of the Tarsian coins, it is true, has an inscription referring to quails, which was associatedby Raoul-Rochettewith the birds flung to the flames before the body of Adonis at Byblos. It calls to memory, indeed, the legend that the mother of Melkart took the form of a quailn but more pertinentin this connexionis the strangeOsirianstory preserved that Herakles,slain by Typhon in Libya, was revived by by Athenaeusn63 the scent of roastedquail. It seems apparentalso, as Frazerhas shewn,64 that the self-burningsof Croesus in Lydia (himself the descendant of Herakles), of the PhoenicianHamilcar, and of Sardanapalusthe human Sandas, were performedby rulers in imitation of their God, to obtain resurrectionfor themselvesand their people, and that the yearly burning of Kingu, Marduk's adversary,at the New Year's Festival in Babylon (for which the Akkadianseals shew a far earlierhistory), was part of the rites by which the king, sacriSced in the person or image of another, renewedhis life and that of his people and their sustenancefor the coming year. In the Epic of Creation upon which that festival was founded, Kingu is definitelysacriScedfor the creationof mankind,who are Cormed of his blood.65 The king's substitutein Babylon used the royal wives as his own, and it is significantthat Hyllos, the son of Herakles,is orderedby his father in the Trachiniae,both to kindle the pyre and to succeed him as husbandof Iole. Nonnus 66 speaksof that death in completeaccordance FK WUpOS7 U. The ympcs,apFip<Cz 6' ev Trupi with Asiatic belief: l\ucras and referenceto bride, punning use of the name of Herakles'Olympian his warfarewith Old Age, shows that the death of Heraklesin the flames held a promise of immortalityfor the Greeksalso, as the Sre brought it to the human child w-hocomfortedDemeter in her wanderings. ATinurta burned Kingu, but Herakleswas his own sacriSce, ' himself to himself' like Odin hanging on the world tree, and like Shamash, the Akkadian Sun-God, who remained with Tammuz in the shadow of the Kishkanu Tree, in the underworld;where no man comes.'6
60 Raoul-Rochette,I.c., following Movers, makes some interesting speculationson the origin of his name, connecting it with 1R light, llX fire, 9CX name the iMacedonian lion and refers to WAPr}TCtS for Herakles(pp. 35, 40). 61 Josephus,Antiq. ud. VIII, 5, 3. 62 Raoul-Rochette,Op. Git. p. 32. 63 Athenaeus, IX. 47, p 39?, D, E, quoted by

Frazer,Adonis,Attis, Osiris, In p. III. 64 Frazer,ib. Chap. 6. 65 Epic of Creation, Tab. VI 26. See note IO p. I69, of Langdon'stranslation. 66 Nonnus, Dionysiava, XL, 398. 67 CIn its holy house, casting its shadow like a forest where none entereth, wherein are Shamash and Tammuz.' Langdon,Sem. Myth. I52.

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

49

III. THEHYDRA The serpent is the alterego of Herakles, as of the God of Eshnunna in his chthonicaspect (Ningiszida). Far from ' sloughing the snake,'as Jane Harrison affirms of him, he foundit his antagonist through life. His feetweretoo firmlyplantedon the earthto permit him to slayit as Apollo destroyedthe Python,so Herakleslost the contestfor the Tripodand neverbecamethe GreekSun-God. The twin serpents sent by Hera he strangled at his birth, but the Hydra'sheadscould only be vanquished by fire,and the midmost, still immune, mustbe buriedalive. In fighting this particular monster he had only the support of humanfellowship, and was hindered by the crab. The Akkadian craftsman, as we saw, givesto the protagonist on his seal a helperwho drivesinto the flameshis tridentheadedrod, suchas 3000yearslatera GallicHerakles wieldsin attacking a seven-headed, dragon-bodied hydraon a relieffromVaison.68Arhen we remember that the Snake-God Ningiszida alone hasflames risingfrom his altars on theseals,69 an uncertainty arises as to whether the fierystreams

WIRR2JA2DI1C;>J)/

A4

Am
V\
Xf0*><9V:\\Sl

4YELO 2^ 3DSy

FIG. 2. SEAL IN CAMBRIDGE.

that standabovethe body of the Akkadian Hydramay not represent an explosionof the monster's own power directedagainsthis adversaries. The texts of the Rig-Veda,however, supportthe assumption that fire is the weaponof the attacking Gods.70 The tale of Indra'sfightwith the seven-headed serpent who attempted to drinkup the waters of life, already associated with the Greekmyth by Leopoldvon Schroder,7l takesquite a new significance in the lightof the previous season's (I93I-2) discovery, in Akkadian levelsat Tell Asmar,of a seal and otherrelicsof the Mohenjodaro civilisation of the Indus Valley.72 In the Rig-Vedathe critical strugglewith the water-serpent and its attendant' son of the spider' is prophesied to the child Indraat birth.73Aidedby Vishnuhe eventually destroys it, like Herakles, with fieryweapons, and tramples the son of the spiderbeneath his foot. The existence of our Sumerian impression (Plate II, I) suggests an earliertale of poisonous swamps drained by the vigorous Highlandimmi68 Esperandieu,I, 2I2, No. 274; reproducedin 70 Rig-Veda, II, II, IO. B. Schweitzer, Herakles, fig. 38. Another example 71 Leopold von Schroder, Herakles und Indra of the survival of our seven-headed quadruped is (Denkschr. derKais. Ak. d. Wiss. T1fien, Phil.-Hist.S1. shown in Fig. 2, a seal in terrasigillataLemnia pre- Vols. LVIII, LIX, I9I4). servedin the libraryof Queens'College,Cambridge, 72 III. London ;Mews, Oct. 8th, I932. and kindly centributedby Prof. Cook. 73 Rig-Veda, VIII, 66 (v. Schroder,p. 34). 69 Frankfort, I.c. p. I2. J.H.S.- VOL. LIV. E

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50

G. RACHEL LEVY

but it is natural Gulf,74 watersof the Persian grantsbeyondthe receding monster a of whoseslaughter thirsty be theRain-God thatin Indiait should the embody saved the world from drought. These texts may indeed Langdon Professor formof thelegend. Asto the' sonof thespider,' original times the scorpiontook among the states75 that until Neo-Babylonian the placeof the crab. constellations and therethe textshave the tale also,76 The Avestaand laterPersian of the snakecausesthe additional kiss of Ahrimanupon the shoulders of Ningisdo fromthe shoulders headsto sproutforth,as they sometimes it had Hydra.77 But to the Greeks with the constellation zida, identified as Vergilknew:becomea tale of humanstruggle, egentem, Non te rationis anguls, clrcumstetlt capltum za tur Jernaeus as man foundthe dragonLadoncoiledroundthe tree of and Herakles the whole and could only obtainits fruit by supporting the Hesperides, of while Atlas calmedthe monster. The possession sky on his shoulders these apples should have gained him immortallife, twice won indeed of the earth,and to the boundary alreadyby hisjourneyto the Western him fromhis reaching poison Hydra's the but Cerberus, for underworld first to die. him forced Nessos Centaur the of body the in own arrow of divinities older the by him bequeathed robe envenomed From the find could he Delilah, involuntary an Deianeira vegetation,through only on the Oeteanpyre. In this mannerthe Hydraunited deliverance his threeaspectsof man, daimonand god, and it is fittingthat a Hydra in of his presence indication seal shouldhave been the firstrecognisable of Akkadand Sumer. the Pantheon
. * * * i

LINK IV. THEHISTORIC are based upon indirectevidencealone, but the These connections Heraklesfrom his Babylonian great gulf of space and time separating of the firstimportin partby a discovery has latelybeenbridged afEnities textfromBoghazbilingual of a Luvian-Hittite the reading 78 namely, ance, the name is used to translate for Marduk keui 19in which the ideogram the to considerfrom a new standpoint Sandas. It becomesnecessary of Heraklesin Asia Minor, especiallythe literary religiouspersonality with Sandas. If this evidencefor his identification and archaeological
74 There is in the National Museum at Copenhagen a mace-head (No. 54I3) of unknownprovenance, round which is carved a frieze of Imgi-birds resemblingthose which surroundthe famous sils7er rraseof Entemena in the Louvre, and probably of the same period. Round the top of the mace-head is coiled a seven-headedserpent, affordingfurther evidence that this monsterwas known in Sumerian times. and Ishtar,p. I60. Dr. A175 Langdon, Tammuz bright has drasvnmy attention to two texts of the Babylonianperiodfrom the libraryat Nippur,which

battlewith a seven-headedserpent; describe STinib's Ges. Tab. III (? K. 38, Hrozny, Mitt. d. Vorderas. Rev. I3) and Tab. IV (? K. 4829.79.7.8.290 and Rm. I I7, obrr.I4.) 76 Von Schroder,1.6.pp. 7477 Langdon,1.c. Chap. V, p. I59. III, I: SleinadesAltenOrients, 78 Kulturgeschichte sien, by AlbrechtGotze, Munich, I933, p. I27, and Frankfort. broughttc my notice by Professor I, 36 (= HT. I, i, 29); 79 KUB. IX, 3I, ii, 22; Gotze, Op. Cit. p. IX7, n. 7.

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

51

can be established upon an incontestable basis,the very route of hisjourney into Europe may become apparent. A. Archaeological Evidence.No existing monument can be certainly identified with Sandas. In the inscriptioncut on the cliS-side at Ivriz before the face of the God who wears a horned, pointed cap and carries fertilityemblems,Sayce and Jensen believed that the name Sandas could be deciphered, and the town beyond the gorge was called Herakleia in Byzantine times.80 But a more definite body of evidence is available in the seriesof coins from Tarsusin Cilicia81which coversroughlythe period of the later Persianand Seleucid empiresand appears.topresentthe figure of Heraklesinterchangeably with that of Sandas as tutelary deity of the city. The earliestof these (Fig. 3) from the collectionof Professor Cook82 shews a purely Greek Herakles, naked and bearded, recognisableby the club which he extends towardshis worshipper,the satrap Datames who ruledoverCiliciafrom378 to 374 B.C. Fig. 4,83struckby the satrapMazaios about a generationlater, shewsthe club of Heraklesfallingupon a lion and

f,iR
'<;f

FIG.3. FIG.4. FIGS. 3, 4. GOINS OFTARSUS.

bull lockedin a death-struggle abovethe toweredcity of Tarsus,reminiscent of that Orphic triad of lion, god and bull in the theogonyof Damaskios.84 The next two examples, dating from Seleucid times, shew a return to a more native conceptionof the God of the city. In Fig. 5 Heraklesstands nakedand beardedas before,his raisedrighthand holdinga three-branched plant, while the other graspsthe double axe. Behind are slung his club and bow. He stands upon a horned lion with folded wings.85 In the second example (Fig. 6), a God in Asiatic dressis uprightupon the same beast, in an identical attitude, bearing the same tokens, but clothed in ashort tunic and wearing a high cap.86 This personageappearsagain in Fig. 7 87 in the scene generallycalled ' the burning of Sandas.'88 Within a bird-surmounted triangularstructurehe takes the same attitude, upon the same beast, his right arm raised as before. Nowhere is his name inscribed,and the evidence of these coins would not be sufficient,taken alone, to put beside that of the Hittite text.
Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, I, Chap.VI. Figs.4 to 8. Cook, geus,I, fig. 454 83 British Museum,Coinsof Lycaonia, Isauria, Cilicia, P1.XXXI, 7, Rev. 84 See PartII, I, C, above. 85 COGk, geus,I, fig. 463.
80 81 82 86 B.M. Coinsof Lycaonia, Isauria, Cilicia,P1. XXXII, I5, Rev. Raoul-Rochette, I.c. pl. IV, 8 shewsa coinof Philadelphia in Lydiain whichthe Godon the lionwears a pleated robe(?Sandvx). 87 Imhoof-Blumer, eHS. I898, P1. XIII, no. i. Fromhis owncollection. 88 See note54 above.

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52

G. RACHEL LEVY

B. Literary Sources.But fortunatelyvarious ancient writers have left unequivocal,though mostly late, confirmation of the identity of Herakles with Sandas. A passage in Syncellus'Chronogragthia quoted by Frazer89 affirms that Herakleswas knownas Sandasamongthe Phoenicians, Cappadocians and Cilicians. In the existingtext E:avsav is written Alvavsav, tt being apparentlyan accidental repetition from the AI of the preceding word yvcA)pi3Ctal.9 Fortunately,however,Nonnus has it clearly:91 o0ev KlXiKCA)V Vi yain Eav8nsHpaKns KIKn:KTal. There is also the suggested derivation offered by Lydus92 Of the name Sandas (Sandon) from the woman'srobecalledSandyxwornby Herakles in bondageto Omphale: TauTn Kai E:avscA)v 'HpaKils avrlvxt. As we have seen, this was a ritualgarment, but whetheror not the two wordswere really connected,the identificationof ' Sandon' with Herakleswas clear in the Lydianauthor'smind. But perhapsthe strongest proofof identitylies in a fragmentfromBerosus, himselfa priest, in the early third centuryB.C. of the temple of ' Bel ' in Babylon: E:av6nv ti TOV 'HpaKa.93 It is quotedin a passageof Agathias, who mentionsthat the factwasknownalsoto otherwriterson the antiquities

FIG.5.

FIG.6. FIGS. 5-7.- COINS OFTARSUS.

FIG. 7.

Ofthe Assyriansand the Medes.94 The identificationis direct, therefore, at the westernend, and the link Marduk-Sandas-Herakles holds firm. C. Passage to Europe. Professor Gotze in his newly published Kleinasien 95 suggestson the evidenceof the Hittite texts that the Luvians, whom he affirmsto have worshipped Sandasas their chief divinity,crossed the Aegean from S.W. Anatolia, bringing the place names with -ve and -C: roots, together with those ' Urfirnis' wares and their offspringthe Vasiliki pottery whose migrationto the islands and subsequentdevelopment, especiallyon the shores of Eastern Crete, was first establishedby Frankfort 96on technicalgrounds. Gotze shewsthese people97 associated on the westernmainlandof Asia Minorwith the Troy-Yortan cultureand -nd and -s place rlames,the civilisationof EasternAnatolia being Hittite
89 Frazer, ozb. Cit. p. I25, n. 3; the emendation 94 Also Agathias, deReb.yustinian. II, c. 24,p. suggestedby Movers. ed. Bonn: E:iv8qv8 TOV 'HpaK\;C * * * aS 90 Syncellus,Chron. I, p. 290: 'HpaK7tEa TtVES q)avlv Brlpco::co TE TZ BapuAcovico Kai AeTlVOKt Kal ithaKco EV 4)OIViKn yvXpl3scrial II7, wITOU TolS

(/\l)advsav

sTrl>.syo,u.evov, xS Kai

apXalsTaTa 95 I

,U*Xpl VUV blrb

KatTrnbasoKicov

Ka; KlAIK@V.

'Aavvpicov TEKal Mrl8svavaypayvapAVols. A. Gotze, K7>lturgeschichte des AltenOrients, III

91Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XXXIV, I 92. 92 Lydus, de Magistr. Roman. III, 64. 93 Berosus,Fragm.p. 5I, ed. Richter, quoted by Raoul-Rochette,op. cit. p. I87.

5340. 96 Frankfort, Studies in theEarlyPottery of the;Near Eastn, II, I927X P. 90 f. 97 Gotze, op. cit. p. 54.

n I 933, pp- 48,

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THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF HERAKLES

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(Alishar, III.).98 Thus he is able to name the young God who stands behind the Goddesson the Yazilikayarelief,not as Sandas,as was formerly son of the Sun-Goddess supposed,but the storm-godof Nerik-Zippalanda,99 of Arinna and the Father Storm-God; a Hittite deitynin fact, of the line of Tishpak, the weather-god worshipped at Eshnunna, and shewn by Dr. ThorkildJacobsen on philological evidence100to be identical with Teshub, while Sandas-Tammuz-Adonishas no father, and is the young consortof the dominant Goddess. There then, it seems,is the cleavagein religion,languageand habitat. Together with the Luvian culture)which was also the beginningof European civilisation,came Sandas, destined to shed his eEminate robes and most of his divinity, to dance the Olympianfoot-raceamong the Kouretes from Minoan Crete, in order to win re-birthas an Hellenic hero. Of his journey itself some memory perhapsremained in the association of the tale of Samsonwith the Philistinewars,for the ' Pulesti' depicted on the reliefswhich celebratethe sea-victoryof RamesesIII are of Minoan type, and wear the body armourof the Enkomiivories,lland the feathered head-dresswhich Herodotus says belonged to the Carians. Considered beside the pottery of native clay but Aegean descent-from Philistine sites in Palestine, they suggest most strongly an origin in South-Western Asia Minor or the adjacentislands. Samson was a Herakles who knew no Hydra, since for an Israelite hero there could be no apotheosis. Yet along that coast also the waterserpent ' made a path to shine after him,' 102for the opening invocationof a divine victory,l03 a Phoeniciantablet from Ras Shamrawhich prophesies ' the Mighty gives the name of Leviathan to the god's serpent-adversary, One with the seven heads,' using the same pair of adjectivesby which Isaiah describesLeviathanin his prophecyof a similar conquest.l04 As M. Virolleaud observes, we may thus number the ; heads of Leviathan' broken in pieces in Psalm 74, v. r4. We may even surmise svhy the culminatingexperiencein the trial of Job should be the terrible beauty of Leviathan, whose scales no weapon could pierce, whose fiery breath made the deep to boil, who was ' king over all the children of LEVY. G. RACHEL pride,' but not over the savioursof menl05
98 Von der Osten-Schmidt, Or. Inst. Communica- 102 Job 4I, , 3i, of Leviathan. (Virolleaud,Afote 103 Syria I93I, XII pp. 356-357 tions,No. I I (Chicago, I93I). xmpSementaire surSepoeme de Mot et Alein). 99 Gotze, op. cit p. I34. 104 Isaiah 27, v, i:; Leviathan, the piercing ser100Th. Jacobsen, Or. Inst. Co?lm.,No. I3, 1l pent, even Leviathan,that crookedserpent.' Asmar andKhafaje (Chicagc, I93I). 101This erridence is discussedin Prof. GarstangSs 105 Job, whole of Chapter4Iffoshzla-Rudgesn pp. 3 I I-I 5 .

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JHS. VOL. LIV. (1934).

PL. 11.

ACCADIAN CYLINDERS
ABOVE, FROM TELL ASMAR; BELOW, FROM THE SOUTHESK COLLECTION.

Scale 3: 2

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