Category: Deathlessness
Separate from the Arimaspeia’s story that Aristeas’ soul departed from his comatose body, traveled to the edge of the world, and then returned into and revived his body, there are also stories about Aristeas that portray him as deathless, and a small hint that these stories might have a basis in the Arimaspeia. This hint is contained in a story that Herodotos attributed to oral tradition, in which Aristeas was spotted walking away from Prokonnesos, returned after a seven-year absence and wrote the Arimaspeia, and then disappeared a second time. This story appears to have been mainly intended to discredit the Arimaspeia’s claim that Aristeas traveled extracorporeally, so it’s likely that its mention of a second disappearance of Aristeas might also responded in some way to the Arimaspeia, which for example might have ended with Aristeas declaring his intention to return to Hyperborea.
The main evidence for belief in Aristeas’ deathlessness are two stories describing a sanctuary established in the Greek city of Metapontion in south Italy after Aristeas visited long after his natural life and commanded it. According to one of the stories, told by Herodotos, Aristeas flew to Metapontion in the form of a raven together with Apollo, apparently mimicking the way Aristeas flew to Hyperborea in the Arimaspeia. In the other story, told by Athenaios, Aristeas said while visiting Metapontion that he had been in Hyperborea, which likely indicates that Aristeas was believed to have been living deathlessly in Hyperborea since after he wrote the Arimaspeia, though this could simply be a reference to his journey described in the Arimaspeia.
Other stories make clear that the story of Aristeas’ out-of-body travel was closely associated in Greek thinking with stories of visits to the underworld, visions of the afterlife, resurrections and reincarnations. For the archaeology of the sanctuary site and other stories about cult worship of Aristeas, see the related Cult of Aristeas category.
Herodotos citing oral tradition on Aristeas’ journey
Posted in Author and poem, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAnd 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
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionAnd 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…
Plato on Er’s near-death vision of afterlife and reincarnation (abridged)
Posted in Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel“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…
Strabo calling Aristeas a wizard or charlatan
Posted in Author and poem, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAlong 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…
Pliny on Aristeas’ soul flying out of his mouth as a raven
Posted in Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelAviola, 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…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight and the vision of untethered souls
Posted in Deathlessness, Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionOnce 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…
Athenaios on Metapontine retribution for the looting of Delphi
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travelIn 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…
Proklos on resurrections, the flight of Kleonymos, and the seizure of Empedotimos
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, Deathlessness, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionMany 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
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, DeathlessnessBut 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…
Tzetzes listing the resurrected and the prophetic
Posted in Cult of Aristeas, DeathlessnessZabareian 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…