Category: Seizure and possession
The Arimaspeia’s story of Aristeas’ extracorporeal travel was also a story of divine possession by the god Apollo, judging from Herodotos’ statement that Aristeas traveled while ’seized by Apollo’. Unfortunately none of our texts describe this seizure or possession, so we can only indirectly infer what it involved.
In another passage, Herodotos described a flight by Aristeas to Metapontion in south Italy centuries after the Arimaspeia. In this flight Aristeas was ‘following the god,’ which is likely what Aristeas did also in the Arimaspeia, assuming the story of Aristeas’ flight to Italy mimicked the Arimaspeia’s story of Aristeas’ flight to the edge of the world. In another story told by Antoninus Liberalis, which appears to be largely derivative of the Arimaspeia, a man travelled with Apollo and Artemis to Hyperborea. These stories don’t provide detail, but seem to confirm that Aristeas’ flight was controlled and accompanied by Apollo.
This category also includes a selection of important stories about divine seizure and possession that help throw light on how ancient Greeks thought about gods acting through humans and the language they used to describe the phenomenon.
Herodotos on Aristeas’ account of his journey
Posted in Arimasps, Author and poem, Eastern Sea, Extracorporeal travel, Griffins, Hyperboreans, Issedones, Kimmerians, Seizure and possession, SkythiansAnd 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 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 divine inspiration and possession
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionPhaidros 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…
Lucan on Apollo taking a woman on a tour in her mind of the Roman civil war
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionThese 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…
Plutarch on how Nikias of Engyion faked divine possession
Posted in Seizure and possessionThere 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…
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…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight to Hyperborea and claims of divine inspiration
Posted in Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Hyperboreans, Seizure and possessionAnd 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,…
Origen versus Celsus on Jesus versus Aristeas
Posted in Abaris, Cult of Aristeas, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionNext, 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,…
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…
al-Kindī citing ‘Aristotle’ on a Greek king’s near-death prophesies
Posted in Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionAristotle 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…