Arimaspen

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Satyr , gripping and Arimaspe on an Attic red-figure calyx v to 375-350. Chr.

In some ancient Greek sources, a one-eyed people in the north of the Issedonen is referred to as the Arimaspen . In modern research, the legendary reports about the Arimaspen are only given limited faith, especially since Herodotus did not trust the reports blindly.

swell

The lost work Arimaspea by Aristeas of Prokonnesos is said to have reported in detail by the Arimaspea; the later reports also depend on him. After Herodotus, the author visited the Scythian and Issedonian lands .

Aeschylus seems to have used the work for his tragedy The Fettered Prometheus . He describes countries beyond the Caucasus where gorgons , creatures with only one eye and one tooth, griffins and arimasps live. These Arimaspen are one-eyed riders who run gold mines (lines 790-805).

World map according to Herodotus. The countries of the Issedonen, Arimaspen and Hyperboreans are entered on the top right.

Herodotus (Histories III 116; IV 13, 27, 32) quotes Aristeas, who tells of the Arimaspen who lived north of the Issedonen. They were supposedly born one-eyed. Beyond them lived the gold-guarding griffins. Elsewhere he reports that some say the arimasps steal the griffons' gold. Beyond the Arimaspen and Issedonen lay the island of the Hyperboreans (Herodotus IV, 32). The Arimaspen would have expelled the Issedones, these in turn would have expelled the Scythians , who expel the Cimmerians and thus trigger their invasion of Asia Minor and Egypt .

According to Ktesias of Knidos , who is not very reliable, the griffins lived north of India (Indica 12, 250).

The gifts of the Hyperboreans reach Delphi via the Arimaspen and Issedonen .

Strabo (XI) calls the Arimaspen among the peoples north of the Black Sea . Johannes Tzetzes describes the Arimaspen as strong warriors "the toughest of all people", good riders and shepherds of cattle, sheep and goats. They are one-eyed and their hair shaggy.

Surname

Herodotus (4.27) derives the name from the Scythian words arima "one" and spu "eye". According to Karl Johann Heinrich Neumann , the name Arimaspen could come from Mongolian , meaning "mountain dwellers". Wilhelm Tomaschek considered the word to be Iranian and refers to the proper name Arimaspo, which supposedly means "owner of wild horses", Iranian aspa , "horse" (compare Hystaspes), as well as the avestian airima , "desert" and the Scythian aspu , "horse" . Laufer also considered the name to be Mongolian (see then Mongolian äräm däk , one-eyed). Phillips is also considering a mixed formation of a Turkish word for eye and the Iranian word for horse, which would make the Arimaspen one-eyed riders.

interpretation

The Armiaspen were connected to Sabazios . Griffins, on the other hand, were associated with Apollo . Aeschylus, on the other hand, calls them " Zeus ' dogs that do not bark".

In modern times there has been numerous speculations about the ethnic classification of the Arimaspen. Bishop Thomas Percy wanted them to be the ancestors of the Lapps and Finns . Even Johann Gottlieb Radlof saw them Finnish miners, one eye was in fact a miner's lamp . W. Tomaschek considered the Arimaspen to be the ancestors of the Hiung Nu . Phillips thinks they're Mongols. Some identify the Arimaspen with today's Cheremiss on the central Volga . Jeannine Davis-Kimball locates the Arimaspen in Kazakhstan . Mark E. Hall sees them as part of the Saken . Bernschtam settled the Arimasper in the steppe north of Lake Baikal .

presentation

Representations of the battles of the Arimaspen with the griffins were popular in Greek and Roman art. The Kelermes mirror (around 570 BC) shows two men fighting a griffin. They are often interpreted as arimaspen.

As the first known presentation, Hanfmann et al. an agat - scarab from the orientalizing time , the armor of Trajan as Britannicus in the Lateran is decorated with pictures of arimaspen, which hand the griffin potion, over it hovers Sol in the sun chariot . Schaeffer holds the Eroten in a battle between Eroten and Griffin on a Hellenistic scrap of fabric from Noin Ula for the representation of Arimaspen. In the case of female fighters, it is unclear whether arima spiders or amazons are represented. Hanfmann et al. consider the fighters on Augustus' Ara Pacis to be Arima spiders, since the Amazons, as allies of the Trojans, the mythical ancestors of Augustus , would not have been portrayed as enemies.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Reinhold Bichler : Herodots Welt . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 25 ff.
  2. ^ Adrienne Mayor / Michael Heaney: Griffins and Arimaspeans. Folklore 104, 1-2, 1993, 42
  3. ^ Karl Johann Heinrich Neumann: Hellenes in the Skythenland , 1856
  4. ^ Critique of the oldest news about the Scythian north. I, On Aristeas's Arimaspean Poem . Meeting reports of the Vienna Academies of Sciences, 116-118, 1888, 761
  5. ^ T'oung Pao 9, 1908, 452
  6. ↑ ED Phillips: The legend of Aristeas. Fact and fancy in Early Greek notions of East Russia, Siberia and Inner Asia. Artibus Asiae 18/2, 1955, 173-174
  7. ↑ George MA Hanfmann , Cornelius C. Vermeule, William J. Young, Hans Juckee, American Journal of Archeology 61/3, 1957, 234
  8. ^ ED Phillips, The legend of Aristeas: Fact and fancy in Early Greek notions of East Russia, Siberia and Inner Asia. Artibus Asiae 18/2, 1955, 173
  9. ^ Thomas Percy: Northern Antiquities , 1770, iii
  10. ↑ New investigations of the Celtic period to illuminate the prehistory of the Teutschen , Bonn 1822, §15
  11. ^ Critique of the oldest news about the Scythian north. I, On Aristeas's Arimaspean Poem. Meeting reports of the Vienna Academies of Sciences, 116-118, 1888, 757
  12. ^ ED Phillips: The legend of Aristeas: Fact and fancy in Early Greek notions of East Russia, Siberia, and Inner Asia. Artibus Asiae 18/2, 1955, 173-174
  13. ↑ Meyers
  14. ^ Keyword Asia, Central Steppes, Elsevier 2008, 542
  15. ^ Mark E. Hall: Towards an absolute chronology for the Iron Age of Inner Asia , Antiquity 71, 1997, 868
  16. ↑ Istoriko-arxeologiceskieje ocerki Zentralnogo Tjanschanja i Pamir-Alaja (Moscow 1952), chapter 5, map on page 209
  17. ^ Adrienne Mayor / Michael Heaney: Griffins and Arimaspeans. Folklore 104, 1-2, 1993, 45
  18. ↑ George MA Hanfmann, Cornelius C. Vermeule, William J. Young, Hans Juckee: American Journal of Archeology 61/3, 1957, 236, note 108
  19. ↑ HB Walters, Catalog of the engraved Gems and Cameos, Greek Etruscan and Roman in the British Museum, London 1926, 39, No. 320, plate VI)
  20. ↑ George MA Hanfmann, Cornelius C. Vermeule, William J. Young, Hans Juckee: American Journal of Archeology 61/3, 1957, 234
  21. ^ H. Schaefer, American Journal of Archeology 47, 1943, 269 ff.
  22. ↑ K. Schefold: Investigations on the Kerch vases (Archaeological messages from Russian collections 4) , Berlin and Leipzig 1934, 153
  23. ↑ George MA Hanfmann, Cornelius C. Vermeule, William J. Young, Hans Juckee: American Journal of Archeology 61/3, 1957, 236

literature

  • A. Bernabe: Poetarum epicorum Graecorum testimonia et fragmenta 1 (Leipzig 1987), 144-154.
  • Christopher G. Brown: The Hyperboreans and Nemesis in Pindar's "Tenth Pythian" . Phoenix 46/2, 1992, 95-107.
  • K. Dowden: Deux notes sur les Scythes et les Arimaspes , REG 93, 1980, 486-492.
  • Adrienne Mayor / Michael Heaney: Griffins and Arimaspeans . Folklore 104, 1-2, 1993, 40-66.
  • ED Phillips: The legend of Aristeas: Fact and fancy in Early Greek notions of East Russia, Siberia, and Inner Asia . Artibus Asiae 18/2, 1955, 161–177.
  • Konrad Wernicke , Wilhelm Tomaschek : Arimaspoi . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 1, Stuttgart 1895, Col. 826 f.