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 certain spears were displayed there and bronze helmets, some inscribed with the name of Meriones, others with Ulixes, that is Odysseus, dedicated to the goddesses.
This town very ardently supported Carthage, and Nikias, its leading citizen, was trying to persuade the town to switch to the Romans, arguing openly and boldly in the assemblies and refuting the imprudence of his opponents. And they, fearing his power and reputation, planned to capture him and deliver him to the Phoenicians.
Nikias soon figured this out, and that he was being secretly closely watched. And so he began declaring disparaging opinions about the Mothers in public, and doing much to appear that he disdained the customary belief in their appearance. And his enemies were pleased that he was supplying better grounds to be punished.
But when his arrest was imminent, there was an assembly of the citizens, and Nikias, in the middle of making a speech giving advice to the people, suddenly dropped his body on the ground. After a short interval – naturally, amid the silence that accompanies shock – he lifted his head and turned it around. And with a grave and tremulous sound, straining little by little to strengthen his voice, as he stared at the quivering and silent occupants of the theater, he threw off his cloak, tore his tunic, leapt up half-naked and ran towards the exit from the theater, crying that he was being driven out by the Mothers. And for fear of the divine no one dared to catch or block him, but instead they stepped aside as he ran away towards the town gates, sparing no conspicuous sound or motion of someone under divine power and out of his mind.
And his wife, knowing and joining in the plot with her husband, took her children, first to wallow as a suppliant in the temples of the gods, and then to pretend to seek her wandering husband, while nobody prevented her from safely leaving the city. And in this way they were saved and escaped to Marcellus in Syracuse.
Author: Plutarch
Title of Work: Parallel Lives: Marcellus
Location in Work: 20.3-10/2-7
Date of Work: c. 105 CE
Original Language: Greek (Attic)
Original Text:
πόλις γάρ ἐστὶ τῆς Σικελίας Ἐγγύϊον οὐ μεγάλη, ἀρχαία δὲ πάνυ καὶ διὰ θεῶν ἐπιφάνειαν ἔνδοξος, ἃς καλοῦσι Ματέρας. ἵδρυμα λέγεται Κρητῶν γενέσθαι τὸ ἱερόν, καὶ λόγχας τινὰς ἐδείκνυσαν καὶ κράνη χαλκᾶ, τὰ μὲν ἔχοντα Μηριόνου, τὰ δ’ Οὐλίξου, τουτέστιν Ὀδυσσέως, ἐπιγραφάς, ἀνατεθεικότων ταῖς θεαῖς.
ταύτην προθυμότατα καρχηδονίζουσαν Νικίας, ἀνὴρ πρῶτος τῶν πολιτῶν, ἔπειθε μεταθέσθαι πρὸς Ῥωμαίους, ἀναφανδὸν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις παρρησιαζόμενος καὶ κακῶς φρονοῦντας ἐξελέγχων τοὺς ὑπεναντίους. οἱ δὲ φοβούμενοι τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν δόξαν, ἐβουλεύσαντο συναρπάσαι καὶ παραδοῦναι τοῖς Φοίνιξιν.
αἰσθόμενος οὖν ὁ Νικίας ἤδη καὶ παραφυλαττόμενον ἀδήλως ἑαυτόν, ἐξέφερεν ἐν φανερῷ λόγους περὶ τῶν Ματέρων ἀνεπιτηδείους, καὶ πολλὰ πρὸς τὴν νομιζομένην ἐπιφάνειαν καὶ δόξαν ὡς ἐπιστῶν καὶ καταφρονῶν ἔπραττεν, ἡδομένων τῶν ἐχθρῶν ὅτι τὴν μεγίστην αἰτίαν αὐτὸς ἐφ᾿ ἑαυτὸν ὧν πείσεται παρεῖχε.
γεγονότων δὲ τῶν πρὸς τὴν σύλληψιν ἑτοίμων, ἦν μὲν ἐκκλησία τῶν πολιτῶν, ὁ δὲ Νικίας μεταξύ τι λέγων καὶ συμβουλεύων πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἐξαίφνης ἀφῆκεν εἰς τὴν γῆν τὸ σῶμα, καὶ μικρὸν διαλιπών, οἷον εἰκός, ἡσυχίας σὺν ἐκπλήξει γενομένης, τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐπάρας καὶ περιενεγκών, ὑποτρόμῳ φωνῇ καὶ βαρείᾳ, κατὰ μικρὸν συντείνων καὶ παροξύνων τὸν ἦχον, ὡς ἑώρα φρίκῃ καὶ σιωπῇ κατεχόμενον τὸ θέατρον, ἀπορρίψας τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ περιρρηξάμενος τὸν χιτωνίσκον, ἡμίγυμνος ἀναπηδήσας ἔθεε πρὸς τὴν ἔξοδον τοῦ θεάτρου, βοῶν ὑπὸ τῶν Ματέρων ἐλαύνεσθαι, μηδενὸς τολμῶντος ἅψασθαι μηδ’ ἀπαντῆσαι διὰ δεισιδαιμονίαν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐκτρεπομένων, ἐπὶ τὰς πύλας ἐξέδραμεν, οὔτε φωνῆς τινος οὔτε κινήσεως πρεπούσης δαιμονῶντι καὶ παραφρονοῦντι φεισάμενος.
ἡ δὲ γυνὴ συνειδυῖα καὶ συντεχνάζουσα τῷ ἀνδρί, λαβοῦσα τὰ παιδία πρῶτον μὲν ἱκέτις προσεκυλινδεῖτο τοῖς μεγάροις τῶν θεῶν, ἔπειτα πλανώμενον ἐκεῖνον προσποιουμένη ζητεῖν, κωλύοντος οὐδενὸς ἀσφαλῶς ἀπῆλθεν ἐκ τῆς πόλεως. καὶ διεσώθησαν μὲν οὕτως εἰς Συρακούσας πρὸς Μάρκελλον·
Reference Edition: Ziegler et al., Vitae Parallelae, 2.2.105-151
Source of Date of Work: Jones, Chronology of Plutarch
Commentary:
This excerpt from Plutarch’s life of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the Roman general who conquered Syracuse in the late 3rd century BCE, is part of a longer passage attributed to Poseidonios, a prolific Stoic polymath writer of the early 1st century BCE.
This text is included for the insight it provides into how divinely seized or possessed people were believed to behave. Many ancient accounts describe the divinely possessed as raving madly or irrational, and that is usually the sense of the word for possession used here, a form of δαιμοναω. What is less typical in this text is the way that Nikias begins his pretend divine possession by dropping to the floor, which suggests that suddenly losing consciousness was also associated with divine seizure.
Meriones was a Cretan Trojan War hero who in the Iliad (10.262-271) gave Odysseus an heirloom boar-tusk helmet. The site of the ancient town of Engyion has not been located.
Concordance: Bolton, pp. 137-138; BNJ/FGrH Poseidonios (87) F43; Edelstein and Kidd, Posidonius, F257