Six lines of the Arimaspeia: ‘Issedoi’ describing Arimasps
[So say] the Issedoi, glorying in their flowing hair, that there are men sharing a border above them, near Boreas, many and very brave warriors, rich in horses, of many sheep, of many cows. And…
Six lines of the Arimaspeia: a landlubber abhors the Greek way of life
This also is a great shock for us in our hearts: men live on water, away from land, amidst the sea. Unhappy are they, for their work is oppressive. Their sights are in the stars,…
The stone remains of the sanctuary to Apollo in Metapontion where Aristeas was honored
The site of the sanctuary in Metapontion dedicated to Apollo and Aristeas, described by Herodotos and in a story retold by Athenaios, was uncovered during excavations in the 1980s and confidently identified thanks to the…
Votive bronze laurel leaves from the Metapontine sanctuary associated with Aristeas
In the 1980s an ‘enormous number’ of bronze laurel leaves were excavated (De Siena, Metaponto Scoperte, §1.3) from the area of a large stone platform and well, located within the market of Metapontion, confirming to…
Metapontine coins depicting an Apollo statue that probably stood near an Aristeas statue
A series of silver coins issued in Metapontion during the 5th century BCE (images 1-5) depict a statue of Apollo, which is believed to be the one that stood near a statue of Aristeas within…
Damastes’ story of an Athenian mission via an Arabian lake to Sousa
[Strabo:] Eratosthenes does not do well in this way: he cites too much from men who aren’t worth citing, sometimes reproaching them and sometimes believing them and proclaiming them to be witnesses, such as Damastes…
Damastes on Skythians, Issedones, Arimasps, the Rhipai and Hyperboreans
Hyperboreoi: a nation. […] And Damastes in his On Nations: that the Issedones lived up from the Skythians; and the Arimasps further up from them; and up from the Arimasps the Rhipai mountains, from which…
Herodotos on Hyperboreans
About the Hyperborean people, neither the Skythians nor any others of those living by them tell us anything, unless perhaps the Issedones. And I myself think even they say nothing. For if they spoke of…
Herodotos on Aristeas’ account of his journey
And Aristeas son of Kaustrobios, a man of Prokonnesos, composed verses saying he reached the Issedones while seized by Apollo; and dwelling above the Issedones, the one-eyed Arimasps-men; and above them, the gold-guarding griffins; and…
Herodotos citing oral tradition on Aristeas’ journey
And having said where Aristeas was from, I’ll tell the story I was hearing about him at Prokonnesos and Kyzikos. For they say that Aristeas, who was not of a lesser family among his townsmen,…
Herodotos on Aristeas flying to Metapontion 240 years after the Arimaspeia
And these things I know happened to the Metapontines in Italia, two [or three] hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I myself gathering in both Prokonnesos and Metapontion discovered. The…
Herodotos claims Aristeas traveled no further than the Issedones
And as for the land that this account has begun to talk about, no one knows exactly what there is above it, for truly I am able to find no one who claims to know…
Plato on Er’s near-death vision of afterlife and reincarnation (abridged)
“Mind you, I’m not going to give you an Alkinoos’ tale,” I [Sokrates] said, “but the story of a brave man, Armenios’ son Er, by race from Pamphylia. Once upon a time he was killed…
Plato on divine inspiration and possession
Phaidros leads Sokrates to an idyllic spot connected with Nymph worship and reads a speech by Lysias on why men who don’t love each other are better for each other than lovers. Sokrates responds with…
Fragments of Herakleides of Pontos on Abaris
1. [Diogenes Laertios] Herakleides son of Euthyphron of Herakleia of Pontos was a wealthy man. In Athens he first joined up with Speusippos. Besides, he listened to the Pythagoreans and zealously emulated Plato. And later…
Lykourgos on Abaris’ mission to Hyperborea during a legendary famine
1. […] oh gentlemen jurors, that one is not to sacrifice in the way Menesaichmos says, and if one does, it is sacrilege. He will read you the testimony of Theogenes, being the herald to…
Simias on reaching Hyperborea, the Massagetai, the Kampasos river and half-dog men
And up to the rich country of the far-away Hyperboreans, with whom once ago banqueted hero king Perseus. And there where the Massagetai, riders of swift horses, dwell confident in their quick-shooting bows.And I came…
Pherenikos on an Arimasp king and the origin of Hyperboreans in Zeus’ war with the Titans
And about the Hyperboreans, who inhabit the edges, under the temple of Apollo, unknowing of war. They sing now of their origins from the blood of the Titans, sprouting above the clear-skied course, of the…
A scrap of scholarly commentary on Damastes, Hellanikos, Persia, Arabia and Issedones
[…] nation […] Persia […] went to meet […] to Arabia […] also in Damastes [name of book]. [… three undeciphered lines …]of the Arabians […] Hellanikos in Foundations [of Nations and Cities] says […]…
A Hellenistic or Roman-era scholar connecting Abaris to eiresione
[Aristophanes:] “You’ve torn my eiresione to pieces!” [Commentator:] An olive branch bound up with enwinding wool. And they hung on it all the seasonal first fruits, and stood it before the doors, as still even…
Dionysios on Aristeas’ extant but doubted early history
And about those [virtues] that all the historians before Thoukydides possessed, and those they grasped only slightly, taking them up from the earliest [historians], […] not even those that are preserved does everyone trust to…
Strabo on Aristeas as Homer’s tutor
And some say [Kreophylos] was Homer’s tutor, and others [that it was] not him, but Aristeas of Prokonnesos.
Strabo calling Aristeas a wizard or charlatan
Along the coasting voyage from Parion to Priapos are the ancient Prokonnesos and present Prokonnessos […] Aristeas the poet of the so-called Arimaspeian verses is from there, a man [who was a] goēs if anyone…
Lucan on Apollo taking a woman on a tour in her mind of the Roman civil war
These fearful predictions had terrified the masses enough, but a greater one is looming. For like from the summit of Pindus a reveler runs down filled with Theban Bacchus, just so a matron runs enraptured…
Pliny citing Aristeas as a source for his Natural History
Book VII contains […]. From the authors: […]. Foreign [authors]: Herodotos, Aristeas, Baiton, Isigonos, Krates, Agatharchides, Kalliphanes, Aristotle, Nymphodoros, Apollonides, Phylarchos, Damon, Megasthenes, Ktesias, Tauron, Eudoxos, Onesikritos, Kleitarchos, Douris, Artemidoros, Hippokrates the medic, Asklepiades the…
Pliny on Aristeas’ soul flying out of his mouth as a raven
Aviola, of consular rank, revived on the funeral pyre, but since he couldn’t be helped to overcome the flames, he was burned alive. A similar case is handed down about L. Lamia, a man of…
Plutarch on how Nikias of Engyion faked divine possession
There is a town of Sicily called Engyion, not large but very old, and famous for an appearance of the goddesses called Mothers. Its sanctuary is said to be a monument of the Cretans, and…
Plutarch on a near-death vision of an untethered soul
“Such was the notion, Pheidolaοs, that we for our part held about Sokrates’ divine signal while he was alive and still hold now he is dead; we have scant use for those who account for…
Apollonios the paradoxographer on Aristeas appearing in Sicily
Epimenides the Cretan is said to have been sent off to a country pasture by his father and father’s brothers to bring a sheep back to town. When night overtook him he wandered off the…
A Roman writer on Aristeas’ fame
But then, now, and for all time, Aristeas lives. And later someone will remember me, I say. For Sappho said it very beautifully, and Hesiod even more beautifully: fame never completely perishes, as many people…
Tatian counting Aristeas among writers older than Homer
But in regard to my present point, Ι am most anxious to make it absolutely clear that Moses is not οnly older than Homer but is older even than the writers before him: Linos, Philammon,…
Harpokration on Abaris
Abaris: A proper name. When a plague, they say, had spread over the whole inhabited world, Apollo answered the oracle-seeking Greeks and barbarians that the Athenian people were to make prayers on everyone’s behalf. And…
Gellius claiming he found a copy of the Arimaspeia
When I was returning from Greece to Italy and had come to Brundisium, after disembarking I was strolling about in that famous port, which Quintus Ennius called praepes, or ‘propitious,’ using an epithet that is…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight to Hyperborea and claims of divine inspiration
And next, what do we think about Hesiod, shepherding around Helikon in Boiotia, encountering the singing Muses, being reproached for working as a shepherd, taking from them a branch of laurel, and suddenly he sings,…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight and the vision of untethered souls
Once there came to Athens a man of Crete named Epimenides, bringing a story that is difficult to believe as told. While lying in the cave of Zeus Diktaios in a deep sleep for many…
Clement of Alexandria on Aristeas as predictor of the future
And even the great Pythagoras was always applying himself to prediction, and Abaris the Hyperborean and Aristaias the Prokonnesian, and Epimenides the Cretan, the one who came to Sparta, and Zoroaster the Mede, and Empedokles…
Athenaios on Metapontine retribution for the looting of Delphi
In the treatise written by Theopompos, About the Treasures Stolen from Delphi, he says: To Chares the Athenian, sixty talents from Lysander. Out of them he provided the Athenians with feasts in the marketplace and…
Antoninus Liberalis on Kleinis traveling to Hyperborea with Apollo and Artemis
Near the city of Babylon of what is called Mesopotamia lived a god-loving and rich man named Kleinis, who had many cattle, asses and sheep. Apollo and Artemis loved him exceptionally, and very often he…
Origen versus Celsus on Jesus versus Aristeas
Next, miracles have happened everywhere, or in many places, as even [Celsus] on this repeatedly cites Asklepios being a benefactor and foretelling the future to whole cities that were dedicated to him, including Trikka, Epidauros,…
Iamblichos on ‘Abaris the Skythian’ as Pythagoras’ apprentice
In general it is worth knowing that Pythagoras discovered many ways of teaching and training, and transmitted the appropriate portion of wisdom according to each one’s own nature and ability. And the greatest evidence is…
Iamblichos on why Pythagoreans trust in Aristeas
Next, then, let us celebrate in words [Pythagoras’] virtuous deeds no longer in general, but according to the individual virtues. Let us begin first with the gods, as is the custom, and let us try…
Iamblichos including Aristeas among a list of Pythagoreans
Out of all the Pythagoreans so many have been anonymous and unknown, but of those who are known, these are their names: […] Metapontines: […] Aristeas […] Akragantine: Empedokles […] Hyperborean: Abaris […]
Gregory of Nazianzos comparing Emperor Iulian to Aristeas’ disgraceful hiding
If [Iulian] has taken up the opinion that we [Christians] braved danger for the sake of drama, and not for the truth, let them play with the Empedokleses, Aristaioses, Empedotimoses and Trophonioses, and number among…
Proklos on resurrections, the flight of Kleonymos, and the seizure of Empedotimos
Many other ancient writers collected stories about people seeming to die and then coming to life again, including Demokritos the natural philosopher in his book On Hades. […] For it appears that this death [of…
Claudianus Mamertus on the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul
But since now is not the time for us to examine at greater length this very important matter, I have obviously omitted much here, leaving as much I judge is sufficient for the wise who…
al-Kindī citing ‘Aristotle’ on a Greek king’s near-death prophesies
Aristotle has described the case of the Greek king who had difficulty breathing. He continued to waver between life and death for many days. While he recovered, he instructed people in the arts of hidden…
The Souda on ‘Skythian’ Abaris and his ‘Skythinian’ book of oracles
Skythian, son of Seuthes. He wrote the so-called Skythinian Oracles and Marriage of the river Hebros and Purifications and a Theogony in prose and Arrival of Apollo among the Hyperboreans in meter. He came from…
The Souda on Aristeas’ poetry mislabeled as Peisander’s
Peisander, son of Peison and Aristaichma, a Kamirian from Rhodes … His poems: a Herakleia in 2 books; it is the deeds of Herakles; in it he first gave Herakles a club. The rest of…
The Souda on Aristeas’ life and works
Aristeas, son of Democharis or of Kaustrobios, from Prokonnesos, a poet. [He wrote] the verses called Arimaspeian, and it is a story of the Hyperborean Arimasps, 3 books. They say that his soul, whenever it…
Tzetzes listing the resurrected and the prophetic
Zabareian Lachanas, may you with these luxuriate, more than Kroisos with his treasures, and Midas with his gold, […] more than long-ago, before his changes, high-minded Proteus, and Periklymenos, and both Thetis and Mestra, and…