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 praetorian rank. Whereas C. Aelius Tubero, serving as praetor, was brought back from the pyre, as Messala, Rufus and many others recount. This is the condition of mortals: to these and similar episodes of fortune we are born, such that regarding a man not even his death can be trusted.
We find among the examples that the soul of Hermotimos of Klazomenai after relinquishing its body used to wander and roam and reveal many things from far away that without being present one would not be able to learn. His body, meanwhile, was barely alive, until it was burned by his enemies, who were called the Kantharids, like depriving the soul of the sheath into which it returns.
And likewise [the soul] of Aristeas was seen [or seemed to be, visam] flying out from his mouth in Prokonnesos as an image of a raven, which is still sought because of this great fabulous tale.
Indeed I have received also this in a similar vein about Epimenides of Knossos: a boy tired from walking in the heat slept in a cave for fifty-seven years, and marveled at the changed appearance of things after he awakened as if on the following day. From then old age came upon him in an equal number of days, so that his life lasted for one hundred and fifty-seven years.
The female sex is highly vulnerable to this malady as a result of misplacement of the womb. If that is corrected, breathing is restored. To this pertains that well-known book among the Greeks by Herakleides with the woman lifeless for seven days then brought back to life.
Also, Varro is the author of this: while he was one of the Twenty Commissioners dividing the fields of Capua, a man carried off as dead to the forum returned home on foot. And the same happened in Aquinum, and in Rome also: Corfidius, who was husband to his maternal aunt, was prepared for his funeral and revived, and then the preparer was carried out for his.
He adds such marvels, it’s worth telling them all: of two equestrian brothers of greater rank than Corfidius, the elder was seen to expire, and the will was opened and read out naming the heir as the younger, who ordered the funeral. Meanwhile, the one who appeared to be dead clapped his hands to summon his servants and told them he had come from his brother’s, who had entrusted his daughter to him, and furthermore indicated the place where he had secretly buried gold, and asked that the funeral they prepared be carried out. While he was telling this, the servants of his brother hastened to announce his death. And the gold was found where he had said.
Moreover life is filled with these prophetic stories, but they are not worth collecting, since most often they are false, as we will demonstrate with this remarkable example. In the Sicilian war, Gabienus, the bravest in Caesar’s army, was captured by Sextus Pompeius, who ordered his throat cut. And barely holding together, he lay on the shore all day. And then, when evening was approaching, with a groan and prayers he begged the assembled crowd that Pompey come to him or send someone trusted, as having been sent back from below he had something to report. Pompey sent several of his friends, whom Gabienus told that Pompey’s pious causes and partisans pleased the gods below, and therefore the result would turn out as he preferred. This he had been ordered to announce, and the proof of its truth would be that when his mandate was fulfilled he would immediately expire. And that was what happened.
There are also cases of people having been seen after burial, but we are studying the works of nature, not miracles.
Author: Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)
Title of Work: Natural History
Location in Work: 7.53/173-179
Date of Work: c. 77 CE
Original Language: Latin
Original Text:
Aviola consularis in rogo revixit et, quoniam subveniri non potuerat praevalente flamma, vivus crematus est. similis causa in L. Lamia praetorio viro traditur. nam C. Aelium Tuberonem praetura functum a rogo relatum Messala Rufus et plerique tradunt. haec est condicio mortalium: ad has et eius modi occasiones fortunae gignimur, uti de homine ne morti quidem debeat credi.
reperimus inter exempla Hermotimi Clazomenii animam relicto corpore errare solitam vagamque e longinquo multa adnuntiare, quae nisi a praesente nosci non possent; corpore interim semianimi, donec cremato eo inimici, qui cantharidae vocabantur, remeanti animae veluti vaginam ademerint. Aristeae etiam visam evolantem ex ore in Proconneso corvi effigie, quae magna quaeritur hac fabulositate.
quam equidem et in Gnosio Epimenide simili modo accipio: puerum aestu et itinere fessum in specu septem et quinquaginta dormisse annis, rerum faciem mutationemque mirantem velut postero die experrectum, hinc pari numero dierum senio ingruente, ut tamen in septimum et quinquagesimum atque centesimum vitae duraret annum,
feminarum sexus huic malo videtur maxime opportunus conversione volvae; quae si corrigatur, spiritus restituitur. huc pertinet nobile illud apud Graecos volumen Heraclidis septem diebus feminae exanimis ad vitam revocatae.
Varro quoque auctor est XXviro se agros dividente Capuae quendam, qui efferretur foro, domum remeasse pedibus; hoc idem Aquini accidisse, Romae quoque Corfidium, materterae suae maritum, funere locato revixisse et locatorem funeris ab eo elatum. adicit miracula, quae tota indicasse conveniat: e duobus fratribus equestris ordinis Corfidiis maiori accidisse ut videretur exspirasse, apertoque testamento recitatum heredem minorem funeri institisse; interim eum, qui videbatur exstinctus, plaudendo concivisse ministeria et narrasse a fratre se venisse, commendatam sibi filiam ab eo, demonstratum praeterea quo in loco defodisset aurum nullo conscio, et rogasse ut iis funebribus, quae comparasset, efferretur. hoc eo narrante fratris domestici propere adnuntiavere exanimatum ilium, et aurum ubi dixerat repertum est.
plena praeterea vita est his vaticiniis, sed non conferenda, cum saepius falsa sint, sicut ingenti exemplo docebimus: bello Siculo Gabienus, Caesaris classium fortissimus, captus a Sexto Pompeio, iussu eius incisa cervice et vix cohaerente, iacuit in litore toto die. deinde, cum advesperavisset, gemitu precibusque congregata multitudine petiit, uti Pompeius ad se veniret aut aliquem ex arcanis mitteret; se enim ab inferis remissum habere quae nuntiaret. misit plures Pompeius ex amicis, quibus Gabienus dixit inferis dis placere Pompei causas et partes pias, proinde eventum futurum quem optaret; hoc se nuntiare iussum, argumentum fore veritatis, quod peractis mandatis protinus exspiraturus esset, idque ita evenit.
post sepulturam quoque visorum exempla sunt, nisi quod naturae opera, non prodigia, consectamur.
Reference Edition: König and Winkler, Plinius Naturkunde.
Translation Notes: This translation of the second clause about Aristeas, ‘quae magna quaeritur hac fabulositate,’ follows König and Winkler, Plinius Naturkunde in interpreting ‘quae’ as referring to Aristeas’ soul or its image, ’quaeritur’ in its usual sense of ‘is sought,’ and ‘hac fabulositate’ as an ablative of cause. Translations into English have interpreted this clause more creatively (Rackham, for Loeb: ‘with a great deal of fabulous invention that follows this’; Bostock, on Perseus: ‘a most fabulous story, however, which may be well ranked with the one that follows’).
Source of Date of Work: Pliny, Natural History, preface 3
Commentary:
This text contains only a single sentence about Aristeas, but is nevertheless a unique and important witness to the beginning of Aristeas’ journey. The description of an image of a raven flying out from Aristeas’ mouth seems authentic and related to the connection in Greek thought between expiration, death and the departure of the soul from the body.
Another aspect of the sentence about the raven is particularly noteworthy: the statement that Aristeas’ soul ‘was seen’ or ’seemed to be’ (visam) flying out of Aristeas’ mouth, if taken in the former, direct sense, implies a third-person narrator, whereas Herodotos’ account of Aristeas’ journey in the Arimaspeia implies a first-person narrator.
The full context in which Pliny mentioned the story of Aristeas’ soul leaving his body – a discussion of people recovering from apparent deaths and related stories – fits with another account by Maximus of Tyre in which Aristeas is described as cataleptic when his soul departed his body.
Pliny’s full discussion also provides insight into the sort of cultural processes that must have led to the creation of the Arimaspeia. Firstly, recovery from catalepsy is a genuine medical phenomenon, and several of Pliny’s stories (on Aviola, Lamia and Tubero, and Varro’s in Capua and Aquinum) are entirely plausible. Secondly, such stories are likely to be exaggerated in the retelling (recovery after seven days lifelessness), and mystical powers are likely to be attributed to the visions of the cataleptic person (as in Gabienus and the equestrians). Thirdly, more complex literature is developed with obvious roots in oral stories about recovered cataleptics, such as Hermotimos and his use of out-of-body flight to spy on enemies, or Aristeas and his out-of-body flight to a paradise at the world’s end.
Ken Dowden (BNJ Aristeas T2) deemed this text’s material on the Arimaspeia to be derived from Herodotos’ story of Italian Greeks claiming Aristeas flew to them in the form of a raven 240 years after composing the Arimaspeia. This could only be so if Pliny read a highly corrupted version of Herodotos, and the dismissal of the uniqueness of this text seems hard to reconcile with Dowden’s inclusion of other unique material from Pliny in his collection of fragments of the Arimaspeia (BNJ Aristeas F3b), or with Dowden’s argument that Pliny drew material directly from his own copy of the Arimaspeia (commentary to BNJ Aristeas F3b).
Apollo was associated with a crow and raven in another early myth, in which he fathered Asklepios by a woman named Koronis, whose name is the adjective of ’crow’ (Homeric Hymns, 16; Pindar, Pythian 3; Hesiodic Catalogue, F59-60). In one of the early versions of that story (Hesiodic Catalogue, F60), a raven reported to Apollo the news of Koronis’ marriage to a mortal. An Athenian portrait of Apollo on a plate of the early 5th c. BCE found in a tomb at Delphi (see below) depicts Apollo with a black bird, without any obvious allusion to any particular story. The Apollo-and-raven theme was developed further by later writers (reviewed in Gerencella, Korax, 258-264).
Epimenides was also mentioned together with Aristeas in stories by Apollonios the paradoxographer and Maximus of Tyre (twice), who each also told the story of Epimenides’ long sleep, and by Iamblichos, Proklos of Lykia, Clement of Alexandria, Tatian and Claudianus Mamertus. A biography of Epimenides was written by Diogenes Laertios (1.10). For testimonies and fragments of writings attributed to him see BNJ Epimenides von Kreta (457) and DK Epimenides (3).
Hermotimos was also mentioned together with Aristeas in texts by Apollonios the paradoxographer and Origen (citing Celsus), who each also told of Hermotimos’ extra-corporeal flights, also mentioned by Plutarch in a story of a near-death vision of the transmigration of souls. A mention of Hermotimos together with Aristeas by Proklos of Lykia and a mention of Aithalides together with Aristeas by Tzetzes seem to both refer to another legend that Aithalides and Hermotimos were among the previous incarnations of Pythagoras (told by Diogenes of Laertios, 8.1.4-5). Hermotimos was also mentioned much earlier by Aristotle (Metaphysics, 984b) as a philosopher predating Anaxagoras, who lived in the 5th century BCE.
Key to images:
Archaeological Museum of Delphi, 8140; LIMC 42389.
Concordance: EGEP Aristeas T7; EGF Aristeas T7; PEG Aristeas T10; Bolton, Aristeas T&F 15