Category: Abaris

The legends of Abaris and Aristeas share some key elements. Both figures were believed to have visited the temple of Apollo in Hyperborea, and both spread their stories among Greeks. Both figures were associated with worship of Apollo, and both came to be associated with Pythagoreanism. Both traveled extensively, although Abaris traveled around Greece whereas Aristeas traveled in foreign lands. And in some versions of Abaris’ story, he flew with help from Apollo, although Abaris did so riding on Apollo’s arrow, whereas Aristeas flew as a disembodied soul guided by Apollo.

When the evidence about Abaris is examined closely, however, the parallels with the legend of Aristeas seem limited. This might be partly because the legend of Abaris is much less well preserved. The spread of the story of Abaris appears to have been linked with the circulation of a book of written oracles attributed to him, but the earliest reference to this book comes from Hellenistic or Roman-era scholarship preserved in Byzantine scholia, and no extant text tells us anything explicitly about the book’s contents. Judging from the stories told about Abaris, this book was made up of multiple shorter stories of his oracles that were directly relevant to religious practices, and thus more closely related to the Homeric hymns than to long narrative poems meant for public performance like the Arimaspeia, Hesiodic poems and heroic epics.

The oldest stories of Abaris have him arriving among the Greeks as an envoy of thanksgiving after Greeks resolved a legendary global famine, which was part of the founding myth of the Apollonian festival of Pyanopsia, celebrated widely in Greece especially in Attica, Ionia and Ionian colonies.

In most versions of the legend, Abaris was himself a Hyperborean, and in the earliest account, by Herodotos, he does not eat. But in another of the earliest accounts, by the orator Lykourgos, Abaris was a visitor to Hyperborea, and in two later accounts he is called a Skythian. But it is unclear whether Abaris was ever associated with the South Caucasian Skythians who figure in the Arimaspeia.

Category: Abaris

Herodotos on Hyperboreans

Fragments of Herakleides of Pontos on Abaris

Lykourgos on Abaris’ mission to Hyperborea during a legendary famine

A scrap of scholarly commentary on Damastes, Hellanikos, Persia, Arabia and Issedones

A Hellenistic or Roman-era scholar connecting Abaris to eiresione

Apollonios the paradoxographer on Aristeas appearing in Sicily

Harpokration on Abaris

Clement of Alexandria on Aristeas as predictor of the future

Origen versus Celsus on Jesus versus Aristeas

Iamblichos on why Pythagoreans trust in Aristeas

Iamblichos including Aristeas among a list of Pythagoreans

Iamblichos on ‘Abaris the Skythian’ as Pythagoras’ apprentice

The Souda on ‘Skythian’ Abaris and his ‘Skythinian’ book of oracles