Yulia Ustinova

6 SNAKE-LIMBED AND TENDRIL-LIMBED

GODDESSES IN THE ART AND MYTHOLOGY OF
THE MEDITERRANEAN AND BLACK SEA
Introduction
The image of the snake- or tendril-limbed selni-human female Illonster is
attested in various parts ofEurasia, in both archaeology and mythology. However,
researchers usually either concentrate on the iconography of Rankenfrau, I or
discuss the Scythian anguipede goddess with brief mention of analogues
elsewhere. This chapter attempts a synthesis, using Mediterranean archaeology
and comparative data frOlll other cultures.
The Anguipede Goddess and the Scythian Genealogical Myth'
There are five main versions of this myth: two are recorded by Herodotus (4.5
and 8-10); the others are found in Valerius Flaccus (6. 48-59), Diodorus Siculus
(2.43) and the Tabula Albana (leXIV 1293 A 93-96).
1. Herodotus refers to his first version only briefly, saying that the parents
of the first man, Targitaos, were Zeus and a daughter of the liver
Borysthenes.
2. The second legend is nanated in detail. Heracles with Geryon's cattle
reached a Scythian wasteland. His mares disappeared while he was
asleep; looking for them he anived at a land named Hylaea (Wood-
land). There, in a cave, he found a creature which was half-female,
half-snake. She told him that she was the mistress of the country. This
monster kept the horses, until Heracles gave her three sons; the
64
BED
IGYOF
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Gaddesses
youngest, named Scythes, became the forefather and first king of the
Scythians.
3. According to Valetius Flaccus, Scythians were descendants of Colaxes,
the son ofJupiter and Hora, a nymph with a half-animal body, living
near the springs of Tibisis.
4. In Diodorus' account, the first Scythian named Scythes, who was also
the first king, was the son of an earth-born snake-limbed maiden,
impregnated by Zeus.
5. In the epigraphic version, Heracles would unite with a daughter of
another liver-god, Araxes, whose name was Echidna. The offspring of
this union were Agathyrsus and Scythes, the progenitors of Scythians.
65
EA
Illonster is
vHowever,
lerifrau, I or
analogues
-chaeology
th'
dotus (4.5
rus Siculus
ents
'iver
lule
was
lOd-
ale,
rhis
the
The lllonstrous Scythian ancestress has the same principal characteristics in all
these versions. As the daughter either of a river-god or of the earth, dwelling in
a cave, she is manifestly chthonic. In all versions (save possibly the first) she is
half-female, half-snake. Further, she is almost unanimously identified with Api'
on two main grounds: firstly, in some versions Zeus is the partner of the snake-
limbed monster, and Herodotus (4.59) called Api his wife; and secondly, the
name of Api-Ce, the goddess of earth,
4
is taken to indicate a connection with
water: the Scythian ancestress was a daughter of a river-god.
But the identification will not do. First, the daughter of a local river-god can
hardly be a cosmic primordial deity, equal in Herodotus' opinion to the Greek
Ge (Hdt. 4.59). Secondly, especially given that Scythian kings had several wives
(Hdt. 4.78), the Scythian Zeus could easily have had offspring from several
partners other than Api, as did his Greek counterpart. Accordingly, Herodotus
does not name the snake-female as Api. Small wonder that the other sources
describe her as a "nymph with a semi-bestial body", Araxes' daughter, or an
anguipede earth-born maiden.
In cult, the Scythian ancestress is closely related to Argimapasa, Scythian
Aphrodite Ourania.' Further the Scythian anguipede goddess also resembles
another monstrous goddess, linked with Aphrodite ofAscalon, namely Derceto-
Atargatis. For they both have monstrous bodies, fertility-vegetation symbolism,
myths of sexuality and an association with Aphrodite. The name of the Scythian
Aphrodite Ourania is usually rendered as 'Argimpasa' (Hdt. 4.59). It seems
that Scythians believed that some of their fellows plundered the sanctuary of
Aphrodite at Ascalon during their occupation of Asia (Hdt. 1.105). Aphrodite
punished them and their descendants \vith a "female disease", which caused
impotence. With the affliction the goddess gave also the gift of prophecy (Hdt.
4.67).6 While Scythian Argimpasa was certainly not identical \vith Aphrodite of
Ascalon, the ScythiaJ1S of Herodotus' day were aware of their similarity. The
sanctuary ofAphrodite in Ascalon was thought her most ancient sanctuary (Hdt.
1.105): no doubt she is the Semitic Astarte.' Ishtar, it should be mentioned, was
believed to change men into women and WOIllen into men,s which is also a
characteristic feature of the goddess of Ascalon.
Diodorus (2.4.2-6) relates the myth ofDercet0
9
: she offended Aphrodite and
Iconography of the Anguipede Goddess in Scythia
An entire series of artefacts from Scythia (mainly from the fourth century Be
and made by Greeks for the Scythian market) clearly represents the anguipede
goddess of the Scythian genealogical myth.
12
Ahnost all CQlne from
Yct some caution is needed: in Russian-language scholarship the term
"anguipede goddess" is applied to several iconographic types, whereas only one
of them depicts the snake-limbed monster proper. 14
A gold pendant from the Kul'-Oba tumulus (Fig. 6.1.4) portrays a goddess
with snake-like legs, griffins' heads grmving below her waist, and lions' heads
rising from her shoulders; she has small wings, wears a calathus
J
and holds a
severed bearded head in her hane!. The snakes and griffins characterize this
goddess as Potnia theron, and link her with Medusa and Echidna.
The snake-limbed goddess is shown winged on pendant" frorn two indigenous
sites in the Asiatic Bosporus: the Bol'shaya Bliznitsa tmuulus (Fig. 6.1.2-3) and
the Ust'-Labinskaya group of settlements. E, A similar pendant was discovered ill
a vault in Hellenistic Chersonesus, together with pendants featuring a severed
head.
16
A group of horse-head plates from the Tsymbalova Mogila tumulus (Fig.
6.1.5) contains a forehead-piece representing a goddess with snake-like legs,
griffins' heads and vegetal tendrils beneath her legs and above the calathus.
suffered great shame and grief; finally, she threw herself into a deep lake ncar
Ascalon, where she metamorphosed into a fish. The Semitic name ofDerceto is
Atargatis.
HJ
And inscriptions mentioning Atargatis often identify her as Hagne
Aphrodite. Further, Atargatis, the supreme goddess of Syria, had sacred pools
in her sanctuaries; she was portrayed with fish, as well as with leaves or vines
around her forehead. Fish (and the representation of the goddess in the form
of a fish) perhaps symbolize the fertile power of water. Meanwhile, repre-
sentations ofAtargatis with lions recall Cybele and the idea ofanimal fecundity.
Lucian actually states that the Syrian goddess is very like Cybele (De Dea Syria
15) and tbat the myths and cults of both goddesses included self-castration and
transvestite rites (De Dea Syria 15-27, 50-2).
At Ascalon, however Derceto seems to have been subordinate to Aphrodite
Astarte. The pairing ofa great and a minor goddess, the latter only semi-human,
is known elsewhere. In Ephesus, Aphrodisias and other cui tic centres, where
essentially very silnilar great goddesses 'were worshipped, a female creature with
tendril-shaped legs also appeared: we shall return to them later. This splitting
of the fertility-vegetation deity into two figures, one of them august and entirely
anthropomorphic, and the second one half-animal, existed also in Scytho-
Maeotian religion. II
Accordingly, the literary evidence does not exclude a link between the Scythian
chthonic/aquatic goddess and Api-Ge, short of identification. On the contrary,
the snake-limbed ancestress of the Scythians is very much akin to Derceto-
Atargatis, both of them connected with Aphrodite.
66 Scythians and Greeks
F
I
2
3.
4.
5.
p lake near
fDerceto is
r as Hague
,cred pools
res or vines
n the fonn
lile, repre-
I fecundity.
)e Dea Syria
tration and
Aphrodite-
mi-huInan,
:res, where
::ature with
,is splitting
nd entirely
in Scytho-
Ie Scythian
e contrary,
J Dcrceto-
entury Be
mguipede
1 burials.].'\
the tcnn
18 only one
a goddess
)l1S' heads
ld holds a
:terize this
ndigenous
l.2-3) and
covered in
; a severed
mlus (Fig.
,-like legs,
: calathus.
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
2.
1.
3.
4.
Fig 6.1.
1. Pendant from the Butory tumulus (from Melyukova 1989, pI. 42: 23)
2. Gold pendant from the Bol'shaya Bliznitsa tumnlns (from Petro\, and
Makarevich 1963, fig. 1: 4)
3. Ivory pendant from the Bol'shaya Bliznitsa tumnins (from Petrov and
Makarevich 1963, fig. 1: 5)
4. Gold pendant from the Kul'-Oba tumulus (from Shelov 1950, fig. 18: 1)
5. Forehead-piece of the horse-harness [rom the Tsymbalova Mogila tumnlus
(from Rayevskiy 1985, 172).
67
Stylistically ,'cry close to the Tsymbalka plate is a silver plaque. originating
apparently from the Crimea.
li
The combination of chthonic and vegetal symbolism in the TSYlnbalka
forehead-piece links this iconographic group 'with another: the group of
goddesses with tendril-shaped legs. which includes a series of representations
of a winged female figure wearing a calathus, with tendril-shaped legs and often
surrounded with rich vegetal
Sometimes the standard type of the tendril-lilnbecl goddess c\'okcd into a
new pattern, of a still less human monster, as for instance on earrings from the
Butnr)' tumulus (Fig. 6.1.1), on the plate [rom the GaYl1lallO\'a .. \Iogila tumulus
(Fig. 6.2.3), on the sil\'er cup [rom or on the sil\'er \Tssel from a
grmT in the area
Depictions of the goddess with tendril-shaped legs, akin to the snake-limbed
goddess, became predominant in the first centuries AD. This motifpenetrated
the art of the Bosporan Greek cities and turned into recurrent designs on
sarcophagi (Fig. 6.2.2); it also appeared in architectural decoration.'!] Repre-
sentations ofthe anguipede goddess were disco\'ered also in Chersonesus, Illostly
in gra\'es (Fig. 6.2.1).
The general shape of these representations is reminiscent of1he Tree of Life,
which lillks the lower ancl1he upper spheres of the l'ni\"erse, hut also symbolizes
the supreme life-gi\'ing pO\\'er. and thus merges with the image of the fertility
goddess.'!'! In the art of Scythia and the goddess usually clutches with
both her hands \'egetal tendrils and animal heads that grow from her hody,
often from beneath its lower part. The typical posture of the anguipede goddess
with her hands and legs spread wide (the so-called ;'birth-gi\'ing" posture) appears
on some Luristan pinheads. \"hich clearly show a human head emerging from
between the parted legs of a woman, who is surrounded by rosettes and two
gazelles.'!'" Accordingly, the Scythian anguipede goddess is associated not only
with \'egetation, but with a general life-giving principle.'!I; Feline predators
appearing near the goddess in Scythian and Luristan an'!7 make her also Patnirl
theron. This cOlnplcx image reflects the amalgamation of three major fertility
principles: human motherhood, \'egeLation, and animal life.
She is the ancestress of the Scythians, so that her cult was connected with
ancestor cult, \\-hi<:h (together with her apparently chthonic nature) may account
for her regular occurrence ill burials. Con trolling the continuity of the life cycle,
she IlIay also gi\'e eternal life. As to the se\"ered head held hy the goddess on the
Kul'-Oba and Chersonesus pendants, it may signify the sacrificial offering ofa
man, hanging on the Tree of Ljfe.'!:-:
Snakes are complex symbols, in \'iew of, for example. their ability to disappear
below ground, their \'el 101l1. skin-sloughing, fertility and sinuous mo\'eillcllt.
They e\'oke the nether world, death, renewal, fertility and more, across a range
of peoples. The union of snake and woman is to be understood as an enhance-
ment of those cyocations.
68 c)'cythians and Greeks
Fig. 6.2.
1. Tcrracotta plaque from the Chersonesus necropolis (from Bessonova 1983,
fig. 3: 3)
2. Gable of a sarcophagus from the Bospoms (from Minns 1913, fig. 234)
3. Plate from the Gaymanova Mogila tumulus (from Bessonova 1983. fig. 21).
69
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
1.
3.
2.
.e-limbed

on
.2
1
Repre-
us, mostly
ected with
ayaccount
e life cycle,
less on the
fering ofa
,e of Life,
ymbolizes
Le fertility
tches with
her body,
Ie goddess
,) appears
ging from
s and two
:l not only
predators
a.lso Potnia
or fertility
vmbalka
;roup of
'ntations
nd often
) disappear
nOVCluent.
ass a range
n enhance-
ginating
:d into a
from the
tUlnulus
el from a
Rankenfrau in the Mediterranean
While the Rmkenfrau was important on the north coast of the Black Sea, her
image was not confined to that area.:)0 Nor was Scythia and its environs the only
area where it had religious significance, beyond simple decoration, though such
has been argued..'!] For representations of the tendril-linlbed goddess have been
discovered so often in funerary contexts throughout the Mediterranean world
that it seems hard to deny its connection with the afterlife..
32
Mainland Greece
In the late fifth century female protomes, emerging from a scroll ornament,
,vere painted on Attic vases.
42
In particular, two lekythoi show a female helmeted
head between branches, with a pomegranate in front of it.'13 rv16bius sees this as
Athena, conceived as a fertility goddess, which seems unusual. "Vas she not rather
a warlike Aphrodite or one of her counterparts?+! A Hellenistic relief fragment
from the Athenian Acropolis shows a foliate-skirted goddess, with a sinalllion
hiding beneath the foliage, hinting that the goddess was conceived as related to
Cybele, or simply as Potnia theron.'"
A tendril-hlnbed winged goddess is portrayed on a gold diadeln frOin Eretria.
41
'>
A silnilar ilnage appears on two fourth- or third-century gold diadenls of
unknown provenance, one showing a winged tendril-limbed female figure
flanked by griffins,47 while the other one features the same design repeated six
thues.
4H
Curious is a fourth-century Attic tOlnbstone of Philippus son of Phoryscus,
frOlll Pallene (IGIP 713S) .4<1 It features a standard farewell scene, but its unique
Northern Balkans
Mter Scythia, the ilnage occurs Illost often in fourth-century contexts in northern
Greece. It recurs at A tOlnb-ste1e from Aetolia shows two human
figures changing at the waist into acanthus stalks.:l
4
In Macedonia, female half-
figures wearing calathi and foliatc skirts appear on a mosaic in the palace at
Aegae (modern Vergina, Fig. 6.3.1).''' Also at Aegae, a winged tendril-limbed
goddess wearing a calathus appears on the gables of fourth-century tOlnbstoncs.
36
As in Scythia, she belonged to the underworld.
37
Pilaster capitals from Perinthus
feature three-quarter female figures rising from acanthus leaves.:\8 On a mosaic
floor from Epidamnus (Illyria), a fcmalc hcad is shown emcrging from florals.
39
In Thrace, caryatids inside the burial chatnber of the early third-century tOlnb
at Sveshtari have nonnal human bodies, but they 'wear chitons with apoptygma
shaped as floral volutes and an acanthus leaf between them. The caryatids' hands
either hold these volutes, or are raised, as if supporting the entablature. These
seeln to be local interpretations of the tendril-limbed gocldess.'10 A wall painting
in the lunette above the caryatids portrays a goddess standing on a pedestal, a
crown in her hand, reaching out towards an approaching horseman. The scene
evidently represents the posthumous heroization of a noble Thracian.
41
Scythians and Greeks 70
71
..
i\
!;
,
"-
---
3.
1.
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
2.
Fig. 6.3.
I. Mosaic floor from Vergina: a fragment (drawing by Helena Sokolovskaya
after Andronicos 1984, figs 19, 20)
2. Gold bracelet from Reinheim: a fragment (drawing by Helena Sokolovs-
kaya after Duval 1977, figs 19, 48)
:\. Capital from Salamis, Cyprus: a fragment (drawing by Helena Sokolovs-
kaya after Cnrtius 1958, fig. 28).
fom Eretria.
46
1 diadems of
"male figure
1 repeated six
<ts in northern
vs two hlillian
a, female half-
the palace at
:endril-limbed
, tombstones.
so
:-Olll Perinthus
18 On a lllosaic
frOlll florais. 3!l
-century tOlnb
th apoptygma
.ryatids' hands
llature. These
l wall painting
1 a pedestal, a
an. The scene
lcian.
41
Black Sea, her
virons the only
1, though such
:less have been
rranean world
of Phoryscus,
Jut its unique
Jll ornament,
,ale helmeted
lUS sees this as
she not rather
:lief fragment
h a small lion
:I as related to
South and Central Italy
In late Republican and Imperial times the motif of a tendril-limbed goddess
appeared in Italy in paintings. stucco, terracotta and sculpture, including
sarcophagi. It was very popular at Pompeii and Herculaneum,"" with a long
acroterium shows an anguipede goddess almost identical to the Macedonian
examples. From which Pallene did the deceased originate: was this the Attic
deme or the westernmost peninsula of Chalcidice? Hundreds of siInilar Attic
stelae lack any depictions of deities, while the anguipede goddess was certainly
popular in Cha1cidice, as the Olynthus evidence demonstrates. A northern
background seems possible for Philippus.
The Near East
In the Near East, winged female figures rising from foliage decorate one of the
pediments at Baalbek." In Khirbet et-Tannur (Transjordan) in the temple of
Atargatis, the goddess appears from a floral scroll, with leaves sprouting from
her face and neck.
63
A Hellenistic cast of a helmet, featuring a tendril-limbed
winged goddess, was found in Memphis, Egypt". It is perhaps to be related with
the Macedonian tradition.
65
Scythians and Greeks
72
Ionia and Cyprus
A late fourth-century snake-limbed goddess appears on a capital from Salamis
on Cyprus (Fig. 6.3.3) ,'" a centre of the Aphrodite-Astarte cult. In Lycian "lyra,
a tomb frieze with tendril-limbed female figures dates to c.350-300." A goddess
with legs of vegetal shoots recurs in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor in the
centres of the great goddesses of Anatolia. An acroterium of the temple of
Artemis Leucophryene at Magnesia (third-second centuries) is a winged female
torso wearing a calathusJ elnerging above acanthus leaves.
52
The SaIne design
decorated the frieze in the cella of the Artemision," and the capitals of the
temple of Zeus Sosipolis," closely associated with Artemis Leucophryene."" In
Didyma the same image appeared on the frieze inside the temple of Apollo.56
The image appeared even in the decoration ofsecond-eentury "Megarian" bowls,
produced at Pergamum.
57
Later, at Aphrodisias the foliate-skirted goddcss
clutching stems of acanthus occurs on pilaster capitals of the Inain entrance to
the Hadrianic baths.
58
The snake goddess appears too in the theatre at
Termessus,59 while female figures emerging from the acanthus leaves decorated
the propylaea of Aphrodite's temenos.""
Evidently the image had a cui tic significance. Nude tendril-limbed figures
alternate with bees on the dress of the Ephesian goddess herself.
6l
A foliate-
skirted female figure clutching floral stems crowns the entrance to Hadrian's
temple, and winged creatures with snake-like or tendril-shaped legs appear on
two depictions of tripods.
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
73
facedonian
,is the Attic
imilar Attic
'as certainly
I\. northern
om Salamis
,ycian Myra,
;1 A goddess
linor in the
, temple of
Igedfemale
arne design
)itals of the
hryene.
55
In
of Apollo.56
lrian" bowls,
ed goddess
entrance to
theatre at
~ s decorated
,bed figures
.61 A foliate-
o Hadrian's
;s appear on
2.
:e one of the
Le temple of
outing frDIn
,dril-limbed
related with
[)ed goddess
e, including
with a long
Fig. 6.4.
1. Thymiatedon from the area of Croton: a fragment (drawing by Helena
Sokolovskaya after Stoop 1960, pI. 12)
2. Volute-crater, Berlin-Branca group: a fragment (drawing by Helena
Sokolovskaya after Trendalll989, fig. 191)
3. Gold plaque from Cerveteri (drawing by Helena Sokolovskaya after
Marshall 1911, pI. 16, No. 1265).
local tradition, besides any influence from further afield." A "proto-image" ofa
tendril-limbed goddess first appeared as early as the seventh or sixth centuries,
on twin gold plaques from Cerveteri (Fig. 6.4.3),&3 apparently the earliest example
of the motif in the Mediterranean. They show a female creature, with two
branches springing directly from below her chest and terminating in palmette-
like ornaments, with lions' heads on either side; below the branches is an
pahnette. A silver cista from Palestrina features a similar female head abm'e a
palmette, with volutes instead of branches.
li
!! Although attributable to an
Orientalizing trend in Etruscan art, this sYlnbolisll1 probably also made sense in
Etruscan mythology: snake-lilnbcd winged [cIliale creatures appear Oll a series
of Etruscan urns.
70
Plants and snakes have lunch in cmUlllon. Sprouting from the earth \\,11erc
the dead are buried and blossoming anew each year, plants suggest feculldity.
opulence, renewal and afterlife.
71
That was further amalgammed with hllll1an
and vegetal elelnents in the tcndril-Ihnbed goddess or the head emcrg'ing from
vegetation. This pattern of sYInbols recurs, especially in funerary contexts in
South Italy, the Balkans and elsewhere in the Mediterranean and In
Magna Graecia too, other therianthropic iInages recall the pattern: for example,
a pisciform tritol1,73 tritonness,74 Scylla. 75 Although not quite snake creatures,
various therianthropic lllonsters seem to have shared association with tlll' nether
world. This association is especially evident in the gilded terracotta decoration
of a fourth-century coffin frmn Tarentum,7i 'which looks like a duplicate of
ornamented coffins from the Bosporus,7s save for one detail: Scylla takes the
place of the anguipede or tendril-limbed goddess.
Mythological Background and Symbolism of Half-Snake Creatures
,The role of the anguipede goddess as the ancestress of the Scythialls suggests
that she existed in Scythian mythology before intensive contacts with the :\lcdi-
terranean world. It has been argued
79
that Herodotus' second \Trsion of the
Scythian genealogical Inyth resembles the story of ROSt.:'1Ill and Tahmina in the
Inediaeval Iranian Shah-nama by Firdawsi: a hero arrives in a ne\\' COLlnlry: is
deprived of his horses when asleep; the mistress of the country tells hilll her
wish that he father her child; the hero accept.... ; leaving the cOLilltry and his
partner, he gives her a token which is to be passed to his offspring, ',"c kllO\\'110(
whether the two authors tapped a related Iranian traditioll or Firdawsi had read
his Herodotus.
SiInilar tales abound. An Ossetian legend on the birth of the greatest hero.
Batraz, makes hirn a son of another hero, Khamytz, by a daughter of a riyer-god
Don-bettyr, who wore a turtle's shell during daytime:'lO Again, there is the CcItic
fairy MeIusine: breaking his oath, her nlortal husband saw her semi-reptile boch
and thus forced her to leave him forcver.
sl
German mediaeval folklore also has
a creature who is half-woman/half-snake, in a cave with a treasure.'';:.'
In the Mediterranean, we find dryads elnerging from trees and the like.':; III
Lycian Myra coins feature a wmnan cInerging frmn a tree, flanked by nn) snakes
and attacked by two Inen with double axes.
84
This image is close to the tcndril-
HInbcd goddess,s5 It has been suggested
Sti
that the coins illustrate the hirth of
Adonis to Myrrha, who angered Aphrodite and was punished by her. She fell ill
74
Scythians and Greeks
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
75
inverted
above a
e to an
sense in
a series
1 where
:undity,
human
19from
:exts in
ld.
72
In
ample,
Lures,76
neLher
)ration
:ate of
~ e s the
.res
ggests
Medi-
of the
in the
try; is
n her
ld his
wnot
. read
bero,
r-god
:eltic
body
) has
,83 In
akes
dril-
.h of
,II in
love with her own father and had sex with him. Myrrha was turned into a myrrh-
tree and later gave birth to Adonis, to be Aphrodite's lover (Apollod. 3.14.4;
Ovid. Met. 10.490). The myth recalls that of Derceto, Aphrodite's wrath-
ultimate shame of the girl who had provoked it-her pregnancy and the birth
of the child-her metamorphosis.
Snake-like and pisciform felnale monsters are known in Inainland Greece. In
Phigalia (Arcadia) a goddess who was a fish below the hips was worshipped as
Eurynome, taken to be a form of Artemis by the locals (Paus. 8.41.6).87 Better
known is Echidna, with whom the Scythian anguipede goddess is compared by
Diodorus. Hesiod in the 7lleogony (295ff.) gives her the torso ofa woman and a
serpent's tail instead ofhuman legs. Like the Scythian ancestress, Greek Echidna
dwelt in a cave (Theog. 302), and descended either from a river, the dreadful
Styx (Paus. 8.18.1), or from Gaia, either directly (Apollod. 2.1.2), or via Chrysaor
(Hesiod Iheog. 296). Echidna was born from Ge.
There was also anguipede Cecrops, the first king of Athens, who introduced
his people to religious rituals and marriage (FGH328 F. 94-89)." He was the
paradigmatic autochthon: he had no parents, but emerged directly from the
Earth (Hygin. Fab. 48). His half-animal form (human above the waist and
ophidian below) indicates his dual charactec
f19
Like the Scythian ancestress, he
was a lilninal figure: founder of a dynasty, born into a primaeval world, only
half-human and still resembling the snake, which passes freely between the two
worlds of the living and of the dead.!lo
The Origins of the Snake Goddess Motif
Many hold that tlle snake goddess was essentially an oriental vegetation/fertility
goddess, whose image spread over the Mediterranean."] However, she hardly
appears in the rich repertory of Near Eastern and Anatolian Inonsters.92 In the
Mediterranean world and it.Ii environs, the earliest exalnples of the tendril- or
snake-lilnbed creature appear in Italy, South Russia and the northern Balkans.
Only later, in the fourth century, are they attested in Lycia and on Cyprus.
Moreover, in Northern Europe female creatures with snake-like legs recur
through the Bronze and Iron Ages,!l3 earlier than in the Mediterranean. They
are attested in early La Tene art, for example,94 on a magnificent gold bracelet
from a princely burial at Reinheim (Fig. 6.3.2, dated c.400)-" Anguipede
creatures appear too in Late Bronze Age Scandinavia and Germany.96 Indeed,
the snake-lilnbed Medusa on the Vix crater, from the burial ofa Celtic princess,
lIlay reflect an interpretatio Celtica of the Greek image,97 much as the predilection
of Scythians for Gorgons resulted from their own anguipede goddess."'
Meanwhile, an early first-millennium goblet froln Luristan shows a two-headed
monster with a wOlnan's breasts, hands and hips, and reptile legs, clutching
gazelles with both hands.
99
But if tllis Iranian motifinfluenced Greek iconography
directly, why did it take Greeks half a millennium to use it? Moreover, the earliest
female anguipedes in Greek art are snake-Iinlbed gorgons, not the snake WOlncn
of Northern Greece and Scythia. Perhaps the Luristan monster and the Scythian
anguipede both belong to a CDInmon Iranian tradition.
Artefacts deposited in Scythian burials were produced by Greek artisans to
Scythian taste. The Scythian style ofrepresenting the snake goddess was certainly
perfected by Greek artisans, but it lnay well have existed earlier and been
affiliated with ancient Iranian traditions, as is often the case with Scythian art.
Even Greek images from Scythian contexts (e.g. Medusa) appear to connote
also local mythological characters. Rather as Herodotus identified Scythian
deities with Greek gods, so Scythians might see their ancestral gods in Greek
images. 100
In detail the iconographic history of the snake goddess remains obscure, but
there SeeIng no reason to seek a Mesopotamian or Anatolian origin for the
motif in the Mediterranean world. Several hundred years divide the Luristan
monsters froill the art of Ionia. The early occurrence of anguipedes all over
Eurasia may imply a shared repertory, but it may also have emerged independ-
ently in several places from Northern Europe to India. 101 Its diffusion into the
Graeco-ROInan Mediterranean may well have started from Scythia and the
northern Balkans. 102
Tendril-Limbed Creatures and Androgyny
Winged tendril-limbed creatures, with griffins or panthers, 'were sOIuetimes given
beards: on fourth-century marble thrones from Athens (Fig. 6.5.3),103 a winged
deity with a calathus and women's clothes holds the ends of vegetal tendrils,
flanked by winged griffins. On a contemporaryAthenian column base the deity
appears in a similar context (Fig. 6.5.2). Especially interesting is a fourth-century
acroterium (Fig. 6.5.4), showing a tendril-limbed, bearded deity, who has a high
headdress and holds unicorn panthers (or maybe lions) by their horns. The
acroterium belongs to the Hermitage: it was perhaps found to the north of the
Black Sea
W4
For a gold diadem from the Kul'-Oba tumuhlS (Fig. 6.5.5) 105 (where
pendants with the anguipede goddess were found (Fig. 6.1.4)) features bearded
and winged figures wearing calathi and legs ending in sea-
Illonsters and sprouting pomegranates being eaten by birds. This finn
provenance for a bearded version of the deity in turn supports the suggested
provenance for the Hermitage acroteriuIl1.
But what is the gender of the deity? The calathus is normally worn by a goddess,
not a god;W6 symmetrically arranged felines are depicted on either side ofPotnia
theron, the garments of the deity in all instances are undoubtedly female, and
on the nude torso of the deity shown on the Hermitage acroteriuIll one can
perhaps detect breasts, Yet scholars take this to be a male, whether Dionysus, j07
Sabazius, W8 a "Iuale fertility deity", W9 or the "Lord of the animals",l W I-fowever,
Sabazius and Dionysus are never portrayed with wings. The solution is probably
supplied by fourth-century bronze reliefs from Olynthus (Fig. 6.5.1),111 which
76
Scythians and Greeks
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
77
2.
4.
5.
1.
3.
Fig. 6.5.
I. Bronze relieffrom Olynthus (from Bessonova 1983, fig. 10)
2. Relief on a column base from Athens (from Bessonova 1983, fig. 10)
3. Relief on a marble throne from Athens (from Bessonova 1983, fig. 10)
4. Acrotclium of unknown origin (from Bessonova 1983, fig. 10)
5. Gold diadem from the Kul'-Oba tumulus: a fragment (drawing by Helena
Sokolovskaya after Williams and Ogden 1994, fig. 85).
cure, but
1 for the
Luristan
; all over
ldepend-
into the
and the
les given
I winged
tendrils,
:he deity
-century
IS a high
ns. The
.h of the
; (where
learded
. in sca-
lis firm
ggested
rtisans to
;certainly
md been
thian art.
connote
Scythian
in Greek
~ o d d e s s ,
fPotnia
lIe, and
)ne can
lySUS, Hl7
owever,
robably
I which
,eWOlnen
, Scythian
Conclusions
In areas where a goddess such as Aphrodite, Artemis or Cybele, had a major
cult-whether in Asia Minor, the north Black Sea steppe, or at Ascalon, for
exanlple-she seems to have been associated with a rather different deity, a
half-animal monster which was often distinct from her, but also sOInetimes so
close to her that the two almost merged.
Anlbiguous by t11eir nature, therianthropic images are a "category of represent-
show a bearded, winged deity, with emphasized breasts, a plant above the head
and two panthers emergingfrom beneath the waist (i.e. almost the same design
as on the Tsymbalka harness-plate (Fig. 6.5, as well as a bird between the
panthers. If this bird is a dove, which is most likely,ll2 the Olynthus reliefs
presumably represent the androgynous Astarte-Aphrodite.'13 An early fourth-
century mosaic from Olynthus
l14
shows a deity clutching its tendril-shaped legs,
and flanked by two double-bodied sphinxes, but its schematic design does not
allow one to discern the sex of the character. 115
The bearded Aphroditus is shown emerging from a scrotal sac on a seventh-
century terracotta plaque from Perachora."
6
Photius (s.v. Aphroditos) explained
that Aphroditus was Hermaphroditus, and cited fragments from Attic comedies
mentioning the divinity. A bearded Aphrodite was worshipped on Cyprus (Paeon,
FGH757 F I) and celebrated in Athens in a transvestite rite (Macrob, Saturn.
3.8, FGH328 F 184)."7
Meanwhile, the Scythian Enareis, punished by Aphrodite with the "female
disease," are manifestly transvestite. I IS Meuli I 19 stressed their shaIuanic nature:
transvestisIll and trans-gender behaviour are elements of shamanic culture.
120
Moreover, recent archaeology attests Scythian transvestitism. At the sanle time,
the transvestite androgyny of Enareis suits the cult of Levantine Aphrodite, for
castration and male impotence was deeply rooted in the rituals of Aphrodite
and Astarte. 121
The deity on the thrones and base from Athens, on the acroterium [rOIIl the
Hermitage, and on the Olynthus plaque is probably the androgynous Aphrodite.
The Kul'-Oba diadem is an additional indication of the bisexual nature of the
goddess to the north of the Black Sea. Most important, perhaps, the bearded
androgynous Aphrodite-Astarte is shown here in a posture typical of the Black
Sea anguipede goddess. This is a striking expression of the relationship between
Aphrodite and the anguipede goddess, as otherwise shown in myth, ritual and
iconography. 122
The snake-limbed goddess was in the eyes of the Scythians a primordial being,
the progenitor of the human race. Ambiguity of gendel; probably expressing
the deity's all-inclusiveness, was conunon to several divinities, who usually had a
conventional gender, but deviated from it in cult, mythology and iconography."3
We may compare the German priInaeval god Tuisto, also bisexual, a scion of
the earth and the parent of the first man, named Mannus (Tac. Germ. 2.3) ."4
78
Scythians and G,.eks
I
ation betwixt and between other categories ... [they] are frequently associated
with rituals of transition and liminality, or with the intermediate stages of
creation, when the world is in neither its primal nor its finished state". 125 At this
transitional stage, when the conntry of Scythia already existed but was not
inhabited by men, the angnipede goddess gave birth to the Scythian people.
Similarly in Greek belief, in the primordial world before people learnt the laws
of civilized life, angnipede creatures flourished.
Snakes are creatures ofambignous character, gliding between the worlds above
and below the earth, capable of bringing death and opulence. Plants growfrom
the depth of the earth, where the dead depart; they evoke fertility and renewal.
Accordingly, both snakes and plants embody the ideas of death and revival. The
combination of human and vegetal or serpentine elements in a divine image
implies the deity's power oflife and death.
Further, the duality inherent in the combination of human and animal or
vegetal elements is enhanced by the androgyny of the snake- and tendril-limbed
creature. The androgyny shared by the Scythian "pair" of goddesses (Argimpasa-
Aphrodite and the angnipede nymph) is evident in iconography, mythology
and cult, as it is also in the examples from Attica and Olynthus. The ambiguity
of gender seems congenital to therianthropic monsters.
love the head
~ same design
between the
rnthus reliefs
early fourth-
I-shaped legs,
sign does not
on a seventh-
os) explained
ttie comedies
rpms (Paeon,
crob, Saturn.
the "female
lanie nature:
lie cuIture. 12(1
le same time,
phrodite, for
)f Aphrodite
urn [roIll the
lSAphrodite.
lature of the
the bearded
of the Black
;hip between
h, ritual and
ordial being,
y expressing
usually had a
mography.l23
tI, a scion of
mn.2.3).I24
had a major
Ascalon, for
rent deity, a
)metimes so
::>f represcnt-
Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses
79
194 Scythians and Greeks
Savostina (1999, 200-1), pointing out the variety of details in the execution, assumes
that they may have been made by different craftsmen but in one workshop, designated
as the Pectoral Workshop. Schwarmaier also suggests a considerable chronological
difference: she dates the pectoral from Tolstaya Mogila to c.3205, while the piece from
Bol'shaya Bliznitsa to the early third century.
106. Cat. SchleffiJig1991, No. 106; Cat. Vienna 1993, No. 30. Kiev, Mus. of Hist. Treas., inv.
AZS-3484.
107. Petrenko 1978, pI. 31, I; Galanina and Grach 1986, figs. 236-7; Cat. Hamhmg 1993,
No. 65. Hermitage, inv. Kp 1891. 1/26.
108. Deppert-Lippitz 1985, 158, fig. 11; Pfrommer 1990a, 101, 105, pI. 17, 3; Williams and
Ogden 1994, No. 96; Cat. Bonn 1997, No. 53. Hermitage, inv. P. 1854.28-9.
109. See, e.g., Williams and Ogden 1994, No. 93: from Pantikapaion, c.400; Cat. Bonn 1997,
No. 51. Hermitage, iov. P. 1854.24.
110. Cherednichenko and Murzin 1996, 73, 76, fig. 10; Cat. San Antonio 1999, No. 100.
Kiev, Mus. of Hist. Treas., inv. AZS-3079.
Ill. Ognenova 1961, 528-32, figs. 15-16, 18; Cat. Vienna 1975, No. 282; Archibald 1985,
165 ff.; 1998,255-7; Bessios and Pappa n.d., 92a-b; Faklaris 1991, 1-16, pIs. 1-9, 11-
12; Musti et aI., 1992, 188, fig. 147.11; 273; Cat. Florence 1997, No. 144; Fornasier 1997,
137-40, fig. 47; Knll 1997b, 362, fig. 78, 3; 365. A fragmented piece was recently
acquired by the Metropolitan Museum (Purchase. Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
Gift, 1996. 1996. 248). Its vertical neck-guard is ornamented with rectangular panels
enclosing pairs of confronted seated lions, a cow's head between them, interspersed
with eight-petalled rosettes, with concentric decorative bands below. See: Christie's
Antiquities. 14June 1996 (NewYork). No. 45.
112. Fornasier 1997, 119-46, esp. 145-6.
113. Archibald 1985, 181. The Bosporan origin of the pectorals from l1uace and Macedonia,
suggested by Hoddinott (1981, 106--7), seems very improbable.
114. Hoddinott 1975, 72-3, pI. 43; 1981, 106-7, fig. 100; Archibald 1985, 166-7, figs. 1-2;
Faklaris 1991,8-9, pI. 9, Cat. Florence 1997, No. 144. Sofia, Arch. Museum, inv. 6401
(Mal-Tepe) .
115. See, for example, Themelis and Touratsoglou 1997, pIs. 14-16,74,75. Thessaloniki,
Arch. Mus., inv B 1.
116. See Treister in press b.
117. Artamonov 1970, fig. 186; Rolle 1979,106; 1980, 141; Marazov 1980, 75, fig. 57;
Bessonova 1983,94-5, fig. 18; Galanina and Grach 1986, fig. 144; Pfrommer 1990a,
73, note 26, No.5; Cat. Schleswig1991, 152, fig. 1; Cat. Hamburg1993, No. 52; Boardman
1994,209, fig. 6, 32;Jacobson 1995, 272-3, fig. 142; Michel 1995, 171-3, K 10, fig. on
p. 224; Kull 1997b, 386-7, fig. 90, 2; Ustinova 1999,94-5, pI. 6, 1,6. Hermitage, inv.
Dn 1868. 1/8.
118. Mozolevskiy 1979, 39, fig. 23; Rolle 1979, 106;Jacobson 1995,272. Kiev, Mus. of Hist.
Treas.
119. See Treister forthcoming c. Moscow, private collection.
120. See above note 24. Hermitage, inv. Dn 1911. 1/11.
121. See above note 25. Kiev, Mus. of Hist. Treas., inv. AZS-2358.
122. See above note 26. Hermitage.
123. See above note 27. Hermitage, inv. 2495/31.
124. Detailed analysis, see Treister in press c.
6 Snake-Limbed and Tendril-Limbed Goddesses in the Art and
Mythology of the Mediterranean and Black Sea
1. This term, as well as Rankengiittin and Rankenwesen, denotes a snake- or tendril-limbed
semi-human female monster.
Notes: pages 62-70
195
lSsumes
ignated
Cllogical
ce from
inv.
,
'g 1993,
lfiS and
m 1997,
10. 100.
d 1985,
-9,11-
" 1997,
'ecently
11dation
- panels
spersed

edonia,
gs. 1-2;
I
IV. 6401
aloniki,
t'
fig. 57;
. 1990a,
ardman
,fig. on
1ge, inv.
of Hist.
t and
-limbed
2. For a detailed discussion ofthe evidence on mythology and cult ofthe Scythian anguipede
goddess, see Ustinova 1999, 87-99.
3. Artamonov 1961, 66; Rayevskiy 1977, 46-8; Bessonova 1983, 37.
4. For Api-Ge, see Ustinova 1999, 74-5.
5. For Argimpasa, see Ustinova 1999, 75-87.
6. For Enareis and their androgyny, see also below.
7. Boedeker 1974, 4; Schurer 1979, 31.
8. Flemberg 1991, 14.
9. For this cult, see Ustinova 1999, 80-3.
10. Straba 16.4.27; Plin. Nat. Hist. 5.19.81; Lucian, De Den Syria 14. For Atargatis, see Harig
1984; Bilde 1990.
II. Ustinova 1999, 128.
12. Rostovtzeff 1922, 107; Ivanova 1951; Pyatysheva 1947; Rayevskiy ] 977,52-3; Bessonova
1983,93-8.
13. Bessonova 1983, 94.
14. Ivanova 1951; Petrov and Makarevich 1963; Bessonova 1983, 93.
15. Bessonova 1983, 93.
16. Pyatysheva 1971, 102.
17. Treister forthcoming. Michael Treister discussed this plaque in his paper 'Die Ranken-
gottin - Ein neues Silberreliefvon der Krim,' delivered at the colloquium Griechen und
NichtgJiechen am N(Jrdmnd des Schwarzen Meeres, in Munster Ganuary 2001). I am very
grateful to Michael Treister for having kindly given me the manuscript of the relevant
chapter from his forthcoming book.
18. Bessonova 1983, 94.
19. Stoop 1960, 53.
20. Curtius 1934, fig. 2.
21. Ustinova 1999, 155-7.
22. For the Tree of Life and fertility goddesses, see Przyluski 1950, 94, 148. For the Tree of
All Remedies in Iranian beliefs, see Rashn Yasht 17; Yarshater 1983, 346, 352. For the
association of snakes with the World-Tree in the Edda, see Welsford 1960, 420.
23. For the connections between artistic traditions of Scythia and Luristan see Ghirshman
1964,301-29; Bessonova 1983, 82.
24. Godard 1931, pI. 52; 1962, pI. 34.
25. Godard 1962, fig. 78; Ghirshman 1954, pI. 8a; 1964, ill. 58.
26. Rayevskiy 1977, 55; Bessonova 1983, 96.
27. Godard 1931, pI. 36; Ghirshman 1964,46.
28. For severed human heads in the art and cults of Scythians, Sarmatians and Thracians,
see Ustinova 1999, 98-9, ]69.
29. MacCulloch 1960; Crooke 1960; Welsford 1960.
30. For a survey of the iconographic evidence on Rankenwesen from the Mediterranean,
with an emphasis on Asia Minor, see Pfrommer 1990b; Veit (1990) adopts a broader
approach, both in terms of geography and chronology, treating materials from the
whole of Eurasia, dating from the antiquity to the modern epoch.
31. Mobius 1968, 717.
32. Cf. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950, 5; Curtius 1934, 231; 1958, 200; Schauenburg
1957,210,220.
33. To be discussed below, p. 34.
34. Stoop 1960, 61.
35. Andronicos 1984, figs 19,20.
36. Andronicos 1984, pI. 61.
37. A winged and foliate-skirted figure on the arch of Galerius at Saloniki, and a pair of
pilaster capitals from Perinthus featuring female figures rising from acanthus leaves,
may belong to the late Imperial, rather than local, tradition (Toynbee and Ward Perkins
1950,31).
38. Ibid., 31.
39. Robertson 1975, pI. 152c.
40. Fa! et al. 1986, 116, figs. 29, 30; Chichikova 1989; figs. 2-6.
41. Fa! et al. 1986, 117; Chichikova 1989, 208.
42. Mobius (1968,717) interprets the female figure emerging from a scroll ornament,
painted on a fifth-century Be lekythos, as a 'fancy creation ofthe author,' since it has no
attributes of a divinity. Is not the fantastic shape sufficient to prove that the image on
the vase was conceived as a supernatural being, and not just as a mortal?
43. Ibid., 716.
44. For this aspect of Aphrodite's divine personality, see Flemberg 1991; Pirenne-Delforge
1994, 33, 208-9, 450-4.
45. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950, 7. The lion was not intended just to 'enliven the
scene,' as Toynbee and Ward Perkins claim.
46. Stoop 1960, 52.
47. Curtius 1958, fig. 34.
48. Marshall 1911, No. 1610.
49. Curtius 1958, 197-8.
50. Curtius 1958, 195, fig. 28; Schmidt-Colinet 1977, 229, No. W 35.
51. Schmidt-Colinet 1977, 219, No. W 9; Bean 1978, 125, fig. 14.
52. Humann et a1. 1904,67,69, figs. 57, 60; cr. Laumonier 1958, 532.
53. Humann et al. 1904,75,77, figs. 65, 69.
54. Ibid., 147, fig. 158.
55. Laumonier 1958, 535.
56. Wiegand 1941, pIs 107-9; Schmidt-Colinet 1977, 219, No. W II.
57. De Luca 1990, 161.
58. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950, 31, 34, pI. 24. 2.
59. Curtius 1934, 231.
60. Laumonier 1958, 482; pI. 10. Related designs are also rather common. A three-quarter-
length female figure wearing calathus is portrayed emerging from a calyx and clutching
leafY boughs on a stone table from Athena's sanctuary in Priene. A similar nude female
figure appears on the main gable of the scenae frons at Aspendus. A winged goddess
emerging from acanthus leaves was represented in the Pergamon Trajaneum. A series
of terracotta incense-burners from South Italy feature female heads and busts, often
nude, crowned by a flower and sometimes emerging from a floral calyx. They were
discovered mainly in Heraion on the Sele, near Paestum, and are dated to the fourth
and third centuries Be. Judging by the goddess' nudity and the representation of one
or two Erotes above her shoulders, these thymiateria portray Aphrodite. An incense-
burner from the sanctuary of Hera near Croton (Fig. 6.4a) is exceptional, as it shows a
winged tendril-limbed goddess, clutching volutes spreading from below her waist, with
a calathus, consisting of leaves or petals. A calyx that emerges from the calathus and the
tendril-limbed goddess was apparent in Italy. Apulian vases often feature not only heads
in floral scrolls on their necks and shoulders, but also sepulchral or undenvorld scenes
on the bodies. Several hundred small clay altars from South and Central Italy and Sicily,
dating from Archaic to Hellenistic times, show the same tendency: the majority are
decorated with frontal representations of female heads surrounded by vegetal volutes,
whereas some specimens feature complete tendril-limbed female figures. Thus, on
terracotta thymiateria and arulae, as in vase painting, representations ofheads and busts
emerging from florals dominate, but the Rankenfrau-type also occurs. Chthonic
symbolism of the head emerging from vegetal scroll details featuring female heads
surrounded by scrolls usually belong to tombs. Most terracotta arulae feature funeral
subjects, such as sphinxes, griffins, Nereids or Bacchic scenes, and were found in tombs,
or in sanctuaries of goddesses, connected with chthonic cults. Gold diadems were placed
in graves, as well. In Etruria, a third-century BC sarcophagus from Cerveteri exemplifies
196 Scythians and Greeks
the occurrence of the motif in sepulchral art.
61. Fleischer 1973, 100-2, figs. 7, 8, 19, 21, 33, 34.
62. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950, 31.
63. Glueck 1937, pis. 14, 15.
64. Toyubee and Ward Perkins 1950, 4-5, fig. on p. 4.
65. Stoop 1960, 61.
66. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950,7,9,18; Curtius 1934, 228-30, figs. 1,5; 1958, 195,
198-201,205, figs 29, 36, 43.
67. The Greek epithet of the deceased wife in a Latin epitaph from Rome (IG XIV
2036",IGUR 974), is perhaps to be related to this tradition, rather than to be interpreted
asa 'female initiate into an esoteric religious association' ,asAronen 0996,132) suggests.
68. Marshall 1911, Nos. 1265-6; d. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950, 5.
69. Langlotz 1995, pI. 5. 1; Str0m 1971, figs. 104, 105; 1990,94, pI. 5.
70. Veit 1990, fig. 12. Several urns featuring similar motifs are preserved in the Archaeological
Museum in Florence (inv. 5471, 5551, 5554). Male snake- and fish-limbed figures occur
in Etruscan sepulchral art: a snake-limbed giant is painted in the first-eentury BC Tomb
of the Typhon in Tarquinia (Pallottino 1952, 127), and a fish- or snake-limbed oarsman
appears in the fourth-century BC Tomb of Stucco Reliefs in Cerveteri (Pallottino 1955,
fig. 9; Mansuelli 1966, pI. 27). This oarsman, depicted next to Cerberos, is Charon, who
is not only chthonic, but also an emphatically liminal figure, an embodiment of the
transition between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
71. Cf. Burkert (1987) on the symbolism of Eleusinian and Dionysiac mysteries, both
celebrated in honour ofvegetation/fertility deities. For plants and flowers in sepulchral
art, see Schauenberg 1957,202-4.
72. The occurrence of nude female figures rising from the acanthus in Roman Gaul and
Germany may derive from the artistic tradition ofImperial Rome. However, in the context
of local culture they were perhaps conceived as associated with some indigenous
personages. Twin reliefs from Noricum may illustrate this point. There are no indigenous
features in the artistic style of these reliefs, featuring winged creatures with pisciform
legs finishing in ivy tendrils, surrounded by dolphins, shells and cornucopia. Yet these
rehefs, which are attributed to a syncretistic cult ofNoreia Isis, have no parallels elsewhere,
and the nature of the cult implies that the monstrous image was meaningful both to the
Roman colonists and to the local population. Figures of double nature, human/vegetal
or human/ophidian, prevail in the Eastern Mediterranean, but form only a minority in
Italy, whereas the situation regarding busts and heads, rising from or surrounded by
floral elements is exactly the opposite, as Stoop rightly observes. They are relatively rare
in the East, and predominate in the West. However, iconographic proximity of the two
types, their occurrence in the same areas and their semantic interchangeability on art
objects prevent clear distinction between them. Figures with legs in the form of coiling
snakes are found only in Scythia and in the Eastern Mediterranean, besides the snake-
limbed Medusa on bronze craters. The Pontic repertory, which includes not only semi-
bestial and semi-vegetal, but also transitional forms, combining both tendrils and snakes,
implies that the two types are contiguous
73. E.g. Langlotz 1995, figs. 122, 123. For the iconography of tritons, see Icard-Gianolio
1997,68-85. Tritons are very common in Etruscan art, and seem to have penetrated it
under the Greek influence (Camporeale 1997, 85-90).
74. Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978-82, 2, pI. 397, 2-6.
75. E.g. Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978-82, vol. 2: 1025-1026, pis. 396: 6, 397; Trendall
1989, figs. 63, 270; Pugliese Caratelli 1996, cat. No. 345. Scylla, a man-eating monster,
makes her first appearance in literature in the Odyssey (12. 73 f.). The scholiast on the
Odyssey mentions also dogs at her sides, and the coiled form of her feet. For a survey of
Greek and Roman sources on Scylla, and arguments for the monster's connection to
Lamashtu, see D.R. West 1995, 303-7.
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Notes: pages 70-74 197
76. Scylla is represented with one tail and in profile in early Greek art; when portrayed in
frontal position, she acquired the second tail, the earliest example being an Attic red-
figure fragment. These two tails sometimes end in dragons' heads rather than fins (Stoop
1960,59). For the development of Scylla's iconography, see Andreale 1999, 303-19.
77. Pugliese Cararelli 1996, cat. No. 298.
78. E.g. Minns 1913, fig. 277.
79. Tolstoy 1966, 245--6; Rayevskiy 1985, 38-45.
80. V.F. Miller 1882, 200; Tolstoy 1966, 245.
81. MacCulloch 1960,410; Boehlau 1989, 518.
82. Tolstoy 1966, 240--1, with refs.
83. Cf. Veit 1990,12.
84. Laumonier 1958, 496, pI. 12, 19; Cook 1914-40, vol. 2, fIg. 620. See above on the
decorated tomb there.
85. Laumonier 1958, 496-7.
86. Cook 1914-40, 2, 680.
87. Jost 1985, 412-14.
88. Parker 1990, 197-8.
89. Eur. Ion 1163; Aristoph. Vesp. 438; Apollod. 3.14.1); Parker 1990, 193, 195.
90. Titans, the offspring of Ge, who also lived in the Golden Age and are called by Hesiod
'the former gods', struggled against Zeus and his siblings (Hesiod. Theog. 134ff., 621
ff.). Some myths regard them as progenitors of humans: mankind emerged from their
ashes (Graf 1993, 97). In the late fifth-fourth century BC, Titans become synonymous
with Giants (Bavant 1997,31-2). In early Greek art Giants are entirely anthropomorphic,
but starting in the late fifth-early fourth century BC they were depicted as anguipedc
(Vian 1988, 192,253). This transformation resulted from the assimilation of all the
Titans to their awesome half-brother, the Earth-born Typhoeus (Theog. 820 ff.), who was
represented as anguipede already in Archaic art (Touchefeu-Meynier and Krauskopf
1997,147-52). For the Near Eastern origin of the Greek conception of Titanomachia
see Burkert 1992, 94-5; Penglase 1994, 192; M.L. West 1997, 296-300; for Typhoeus
see M.L. West 1997, 300-4.
Emphatic cosmic symbolism and representation of the nether-world are also suggested
for two quite different later groups of anguipede creatures, giants on
jupiter-Giants columns and cock-headed creatures with reptile legs portrayed on so-
called gnostic amulets. Late second-third century AD juppitersaiile, found in the
Rhineland, are crowned by triumphant horsemen supported by bending snake-limbed
giants. Nilsson (1960) convincingly argues that these columns express cosmic symbolism,
showing the highest god of Heaven, who holds sway over the upper and nether worlds,
the latter denoted by the giant. The image engraved on the magical amulets conveys
the same idea: the cock's head symbolizes the creature's power over the universe as the
god of Sun and Heaven, whereas his ophidian legs indicate that he is also the Lord of
the undenvorld. In Hesiod (11reog. 120), Eros is a cosmic ubiquitous force, and the
god's pervasiveness (as well as the Italic tradition of showing him surrounded byflorals)
may be the reason behind the trend to depict Erotes as Rankenwesen in Imperial art,
for instance, on a relief from the Trajan's forum. Regrettably, no local myths of
Rankenwesen survived to account for the popularity of these creatures in the art of
Etruscans and Greeks. Indian Nagas' dual power over life and death, wealth and famine,
as well as their role as progenitors of ruling families, and bestowers of king's authority,
are characteristic of other anguipede therianthropic figures.
91. Curtius 1958, 196; Stoop 1960, 45-50, 57; Veit 1990, 21-4; d. von Lorentz 1937, 177.
92. Stoop (1960,45-6) cites Perrot (1937) for 'the motive of the human figure with vegetable
elements developing from the head or the limbs or substituting a greater or smaller
part of the body' as common in the art of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. However, these
are figures havingfeetand shown either holding branches in their hands, or with branches
198
Scythians and Greeks
attached to their cloths (Perrot 1937, 55-9, figs 30-33). So far, I have failed to find
designs similar to Rankenfrau in the art of the Levant. Moreover, Stoop (1960, 57)
cites von Lorentz (1937, 165) as suggesting that the motif in question was diffused
from Ionia to Greek colonies east and west by means of the export of embroidered
textiles. Yet von Lorentz refers to a single hypothetic Oriental predecessor of various
Rankenwesen, a representation ofAhura Mazda inside a winged solar circle on a Persian
cylinder, supposing that the tail of the eagle could later develop into tendrils (1937,
177), which is rather dubious. Thus, the hypothetic Oriental prototype of the
iconographic scheme of Rankenwesen still remains to be found.
93. Gimbulas 1991, 132.
94. A male Celtic god Cernunnos is portrayed with ram-horned snakes forming his legs
on a relief from Cirencester (Gloucestershire; Green 1992,227, fig. 7.18). On a stele
from Vendoeuvres (Indre) Cernunnuos is flanked by two human-headed snakes (Ibid.,
227-8) .
95. Scholars discussing this bracelet (Duval 1977, 61, figs. 19,48; Gimbutas 1991, 132, fig.
214; Green 1998, 189, fig. 95) fail to notice that the hands of the monster rest on her
vulva, depicted in a realistic manner. Helena Sokolovskaya drew my attention to this
detail.
96. cr. Gimbutas 1989, 132, fig. 214. 2 (Pictish).
97. The buried princess must have been a priestess, and the religious character ofthe Vix
burial seems apparent to many scholars (Hatt 1970, 90), although it is questioned by
others (Megaw 1966, 41). Hatt even suggests that the decoration of the crater, the
procession of warriors round Artemis, represented 'in the eyes ofthe Gauls... a cavalcade
of warriors in honour of a native goddess' (1970,91).
98. USlinova 1999, 110-11.
99. Godard 1962, pI. 34.
100. For indigenous and Greek elements in Scythian art, sec Ustinova 1999, 18-23, with
refs.
101. Schauenburg (1957, 218) suggests spontaneous development of Rankenmotive in
various parts of the HeIIenic world.
102. Stoop, although insisting on the Near Eastern provenance of the motif, arrives at
similar conclusions concerning its diffusion in the Mediterranean (1960, 63)
103. Mobius 1926, 121; Kraus 1954. Although Richter (1954) maintains that these thrones
are Roman copies of a common fourth-century BC Greek original, this does not affect
the discussion of the iconographic type (d. Schauenburg 1957, 217).
104. Mobius 1926, 121.
105. Williams and Ogden 1994, 142-3.
106. There are some rare exceptions, limited to Zeus, Hades, Sabazios, Dionysos and
Asclepios (Laumonier 1958, 337).
107. Langlotz 1932a, 182.
108. Toynbee and Ward Perkins 1950,5; Kraus 1954, 43; Picard 1961, 135; Mobius 1968,
717; Segall 1955, 212.
109. Ivanova 1954, 197.
110. Robinson 1941, 31; Bessonova 1983, 86.
Ill. Robinson 1941,31, pI. 5,16.
112. It does not resemble an eagle, as Picard (1961, 135) argues. For pigeons depicted en
face, their wings spread, see Ustinova 1999, 105-6.
113. For doves as birds sacred to Aphrodite and Astarte, see HeIck 1971, 274; Pirenne-
Delforge 1994, 415-17.
114. von Lorentz 1937, pI. 44; Robinson 1941, pI. 6A.
115. There is no doubt that some male deities and other mythological figures were often
portrayed as snake-limbed: Greek characters such as Cecrops and Giants, some Etruscan
demons, putti in Imperial Roman art, and figures onJuppitersaule in Roman Germany
199
Notes: pages 74-78
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esiod
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200 Scythians and Greeks
(all of them already discussed above). Some of these are winged: figures on Attic three-
sided bases published by Mobius (1926, table 18), various anguipede giants (Vian
1988, 250-1) and Erotes. However, none of these wears female dress or headgear, and
when the composition allows, their male genitalia are shown. Their general attitude
differs from the fixed Rankengottin-type.
116. Payne 1940, pI. 102; Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 123.
117. Comastic cross-dressing is depicted on a series ofAttic vases (M.e. Miller 1999), gender
ambiguity attested in other cuitic aspects of Dionysos (ibid., 242). However, comasts
and Dionysus himself, even when transvestite, do not have wings. Transvestite festivals
were also celebrated for Artemis (ibid., 242), but not in Athens. Thus, although Artemis
was indeed portrayed as winged, Aphrodite remains the most plausible identification
for the deities depicted on the objects under discussion. For Artemis and Aphrodite
represented as winged, see Ustinova 1999, 109. Ephrat Habas-Rubin drew my attention
to M.e. Miller's paper.
ll8. Halliday 1910/ll; Khazanov 1973, 43; Taylor 1996, 2ll-14.
ll9. Meuli 1935, 127-30.
120. For a detailed discussion of Scythian Enareis see Ustinova 1999, 76-9.
121. Delcourt 1958; Herter 1960, 71-5; Ustinova 1999, 37-8.
122. The androgyny of the Scythian goddess perhaps finds its clearest expression in a very
curious terracotta figurine, probably produced on the Bosporus, which was discovered
in a late Scythian (first century AD) grave near the village of Krasny Mayak, in the
Lower Dnieper area (Symonovich 1981). The figurine is a herm "With male genitals;
the head is, however, female, with a typical female headdress and a radiate nimbus.
123. Herter 1960, 75; Cook 1914-40, vol. 2, 674-5; Laumonier 1958, 77-81; Flemberg
1991, 13--14; M.e. Miller 1999, 242-3. For a discussion of androgyny in Indo-European
and non-Indo-European cultures, see O'Flaherty 1982, 283-334.
124. Much 1967,51-2; Polomo 1987, 522; cf. Anderson 1938, 39.
125. Walens 1987, 481.
, 7 Pericles, Cleon and the Pontus: The Black Sea inAthens c.440-421
* It is a pleasure to acknowledge the benefit I have gained from discussions of these
matters with Daniel Ogden, Keith Sidwell andJohn Wilkins (on history and comedy),
as well as David Blackman, Stephen Lambert and Anna Rusyayeva (on matters of
epigraphy). Of course, I am responsible for the views expressed.
1. Modern scholarship on the expedition is surveyed well by Karamoutsou 1979, though
her early date for the expedition is untenable: see Mattingly 1996b, with further
hypotheses, on which more below.
2. Stadter 1989, 217 seems to agree, but he also allows that much of the account might
be 'a rhetorical elaboration of the Sinope affair'. Yet it is not so elaborate or rhetorical
and, crucially, the Sinope affair (under Lamachus almost as much as Pericles) looks
more like an appendage to Pericles' expedition than vice versa.
3. Mattingly 1996a, 150 hears echoes at TIme. 2.41.4 and 62.2. See below on Hennippus
too.
4. Strabo 12.3.11, p. 545 gives a first-hand account of the city and its defences, making
clear why it was seldom taken by force.
5. See e.g. Mattingly 1996a, 148-9, noting that Lamachus' relative youth in the 430s tells
against any attempt to locate the expedition much earlier; also Meiggs 1972, 197-9.
However, the deposit of a coin hoard in the vicinity c.420 (Mattingly 1996a, 497-9)
seems irrelevant to these matters of historical chronology.
6. On the close chronology and uncertain context/causes of Byzantium's revolt, see
Fornara 1979, 7-8.