Christians were appalled by the immorality of the plays presented in Roman theaters. They feared for the spiritual well-being of people who found this entertainment captivating, thereby leading a number of the early Church Fathers to speak out against it.

Origin of Roman Theater

Roman theater’s roots lay in Greek theater. Scholars cite Thespis (6th century BC), a Greek poet, as the father of the genre of tragedy, as it was he who stepped out of the chorus and introduced audiences to one sole actor, called the protagonist, who related a story to them. The word “thespian,” used as a synonym for “actor,” comes from his name.

The Greek playwright, Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 455 BC), added a second character, called the antagonist, with other playwrights expanding the number of players as time passed.

The first plays were performed at the spring religious festival of the god Dionysus (called Bacchus by the Romans) in Athens at the Acropolis. They included sacrifices made to the god. In fact, most of the dramas presented by the Greeks focused on mythological stories with their deities at the center of them.

Comedies related to mythological stories as well, but they did not revere the gods. The presentations were lewd, crude, and were usually sexual in nature, with the actors’ costumes exaggerating their sexual organs.

This is the theater that the Romans inherited and adopted for themselves. Whether comic or dramatic, all the plays were tied to religion in one way or another. By Christ’s time in the 1st century AD, two popular genres had emerged. The mime offered ridiculous stories, told with lots of sexual innuendo and was profane in both content and language. The pantomime was a presentation of mythological stories acted out in dance and music. However, it was not just the immorality and lewdness of the plays that offended the Church Fathers, it was the fact that some of these plays ridiculed Christians and Christianity outright.

Clement of Alexandria: Theater as Cesspool

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 AD) was the first early Church Father to weigh in on the issue. In his treatise, Exhortation to the Greeks (a term used for pagans), he condemned the plays that were based, as he put it, on “the cesspool” of mythology retold by “drunken poets.” He noted that these stories drew people into “the company of demons.”

Tertullian: Church of the Devil

Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220 AD) did not mince words either when it came to his criticism of Roman theater. He wrote, “How despicable it is to go from the church of God to the church of the devil . . . to raise your hands to God, and then to wear them out clapping for an actor.” He exhorted Christians to abstain from theater-going, citing the first verse of Psalm 1, which states that “blessed is the man who has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners.”

Tertullian stated that God, the Bible, and the Church offered experiences far superior to anything the theater might present. “What nobler than to tread underfoot the gods of the nations — to exorcise evil spirits — to perform cures — to seek divine revealing — to live to God?” he opined.

John Chrysostom: Is Your Body Made of Stone?

The fact that the theater was so spectacular became a problem for the Church, one that John of Antioch, nicknamed Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407 AD), identified, noting that people who attended the theater came to church expecting to be amused. “They sit there like critics,” he said, demanding “tragedies and musical entertainment.”

His nickname, Chrysostom, literally means “Golden Mouth,” and it was given to him because he was a particularly fine orator. Yet, he felt embarrassed when people praised his preaching, not wanting to be compared at all to the actors in the theater and their eloquence. The true theater is spiritual, he noted, and the greatest story ever told is that of Jesus Christ and the good news of the salvation he offers to humankind. Yet, he noted, people chose to go to the theater rather than church, even on Good Friday.

Chrysostom was most concerned about how plays could provoke sexual lust, writing about a prostitute who was “finely dressed” and “flirted seductively with the audience.” He said he could not see how the men in attendance could not be aroused by this, writing, “Is your body made of stone? Or iron? . . . If someone lights a fire in his lap, will he not burn his clothing?”

He concluded by saying that “each man takes home with him much of what he has seen there, so it sticks to him like the infection of a plague.”

Augustine: Shameful Insanity

If any of the Church Fathers understood immorality and debauchery, it was Augustine (354–430 AD). He lived a licentious lifestyle before his conversion in 386 AD. The morality of the Christians, which he saw was rooted in the love of the Lord, impressed him greatly, and he became ashamed of his own moral failures.

In his Confessions, Augustine noted that he had wasted a lot of time attending theatrical performances in his younger years and had been negatively aroused to sinful passions because of them. For this reason, he spoke out against them, saying that they would take people away from God, rather than to him. Ultimately, Augustine condemned the plays presented in Roman theaters as “shameful insanity.”

Greek and Roman Moralists and Philosophers Weigh In

Christians were not the only people appalled by the debauchery of popular theater. Greek and Roman philosophers and moralists spoke out against them as well. For example, Aelius Aristides (117–181 BC), a noted Greek orator, wrote a letter to the leaders of the city of Sparta condemning dancers as morally bereft and a bad influence on the public.

Actors were considered the lowest of the low in Roman society, not just by Christians, but by pagans as well. Actors were, for the most part, either foreigners or slaves, and were dismissed as sexually immoral.

A Christian liturgical work from the 3rd century AD, entitled The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome, reveals that actors had to give up their livelihood if they wished to be baptized and join the Church. Notably, they were listed along with prostitutes, astrologers, craftsmen who made idols, gladiators, and soldiers.

Genesius of Rome: An Actor’s Conversion Story

Legend has it that one Genesius of Rome (4th century AD), an actor, came to Christ through his appearance in a play he wrote that ridiculed the Christian sacraments. During the performance in which he presented baptism as a ludicrous practice, he fell to the floor of the stage, pretending to be sick. He called for water with which to be baptized because he feared he was dying. The audience included Emperor Diocletian, and the crowd roared with laughter at the farce.

However, at the moment when an actor poured water over his head, Genesius stood up and declared his faith in Jesus Christ. The other actors thought their fellow thespian was adlibbing and continued to mock Christians and the sacrament of baptism. But Genesius was sincere in his newfound belief, and when Diocletian realized this, he ordered the actor’s clothes to be ripped from him, calling for him to be whipped and beaten right then and there to make him change his mind.

Genesius refused to do so, and the emperor had him thrown into prison where, as the story goes, he was tortured daily, enduring the rack, as well as being torn with iron hooks and burned with torch flames. However, he did not acquiesce, and he was beheaded in 303 AD.

The Church designated Genesius the patron saint of actors as well as clowns, comedians, musicians, dancers, lawyers, epileptics, printers, and victims of torture; an interesting mix, to be sure.

Other Spectacles Considered Offensive

Christians abhorred other forms of Roman entertainment as well, including gladiatorial games, chariot races, and the contests between man and beast in the arena. They condemned the violence, the cruelty, and the bloodshed in these events, events over which the crowds went wild. Tertullian condemned them all, saying, “Everything in the pagan spectacles is idolatry.”

Anyone associated with these events, whether they be gladiators and their instructors or the men who tended the horses and other animals used in the games, had to renounce these occupations before being baptized into the Church. Everything that they stood for went against what Christ taught and, therefore, had to be abandoned.

Why Christians Did Not Create Their Own Theater?

It is noteworthy that the Jews were a literary people. They emphasized the hearing and memorization of God’s Word. This non-visual tradition worked against any attempt to produce Christian theater.

However, the main reason that Christians did not create their own theatrical presentations came from the command in Exodus 20:4 that said, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” The pagans made idols of animals and birds as well as humans and their various gods, but the followers of God would not make a mask of him and portray him in a play.

Conclusion

It would be many centuries before Christians began to realize that they, too, could put on plays, ones that would honor God, encourage and teach Christ’s followers, and preach the good news of salvation. The first known Christian play was performed in the 10th century AD. It consisted of a religious dialogue performed during an Easter mass in which Mary Magdalene and two other women found Christ’s tomb empty. The trope is called Quem Quaeritis, Latin for “whom do you seek?” The question an angel asked of the women when they arrived.

By the Middle Ages, performances of dramas based on Biblical stories such as Daniel in the lion’s den and Moses leading the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, miracle plays that focused on the lives of the saints and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and passion plays about the death and resurrection of Christ were standard fare.

The heroic last stand of King Leonidas of Sparta and his elite bodyguard of 300 men against the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC is one of the best known episodes from the history of ancient Greece. Despite Leonidas’s fame, most of what we know of his life comes from a few short passages in the Histories of Herodotus. Many details of his life and kingship before his climactic death at Thermopylae have to be inferred from the context of Spartan politics and the Graeco-Persian Wars.

A Spartan Prince

Leonidas was born in c. 540 BC into the Agiad dynasty, one of the two royal dynasties in the city-state of Sparta. For hundreds of years, Sparta was jointly ruled by two kings from the Agiad and Eurypontid dynasties. This unusual arrangement avoided the excesses of an autocratic regime, but often encouraged competition and rivalry between the two kings.

Leonidas was the third son of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who reigned for approximately four decades between c. 560 BC and c. 520 BC. According to Herodotus, Anaxandridas had initially been married to a niece who remained childless for several years. He refused demands to divorce his wife but agreed to take a second wife while remaining married to the first. After his second wife bore him a son named Cleomenes, Anaxandridas’s first wife gave him three more children: Dorieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus.

As the third son of Anaxandridas, Leonidas was not expected to succeed to the kingship. Like all boys of the Spartan citizenry, at the age of seven he would have been separated from his family to undergo the Agoge, an arduous physical training regime to prepare Spartan men for military service. At the age of 18, the most accomplished young men would join an elite body that included senior army officers and members of the 300-strong royal body guard.

The Age of Cleomenes

Following the death of Anaxandridas in around 520, the Spartans recognized his eldest son as King Cleomenes I. The succession was challenged by Dorieus, who claimed seniority by virtue of being the eldest son of Anaxandridas’s first wife. After being forced into exile, Dorieus attempted to set up his own power base in North Africa and later Sicily, but was killed in battle in around 510. While Leonidas was now the heir of the childless Cleomenes, little is known about his life during his half-brother’s reign. However, Cleomenes’s reign would have profound consequences for Leonidas’s reign decades later.

After vanquishing Dorieus, Cleomenes proved to be one of Sparta’s most ambitious kings. In 510, Cleomenes led a Spartan invasion of Athens to overthrow the Athenian tyrant Hippias. While the Spartans hoped to install a pro-Spartan oligarchy, the Athenian statesman Cleisthenes introduced democratic reforms, prompting Cleomenes to consider further intervention in Athens.

In 506, the Spartan kings Cleomenes and Demaratus launched a campaign against Athens at the head of a large Peloponnesian army. However, the alliance soon disintegrated after the Corinthians withdrew from the coalition, prompting Demaratus to follow suit and abandon the campaign. The disintegration of the Spartan alliance may have been due to a news of a recent Athenian alliance with the Persian Empire, but the incident fatally undermined relations between the two Spartan kings.

At the turn of the century, Cleomenes refused to join the Ionian Revolt against Persian rule. Instead, Sparta went to war against Argos in 494 and destroyed the Argive army in battle. However, after returning to Sparta, Cleomenes was put on trial for failing to occupy the city. Although he was acquitted, the trial may have been an attempt by Demaratus to undermine him.

King of Sparta

In 491, following another disagreement between the joint kings, Cleomenes deposed Demaratus after bribing the oracle in Delphi to pronounce Demaratus illegitimate. Demaratus fled Sparta and was granted refuge in the Persian Empire. Cleomenes’s corruption was soon exposed, and Herodotus claims that the king became insane and fled the city. He was captured and imprisoned in 490 and subsequently took his own life in prison.

Modern historians such as Paul Cartledge suggest that Cleomenes may have been killed by his half-brothers Leonidas and Cleombrotus. In any case, Cleomenes’s death elevated Leonidas to the Spartan kingship alongside Leotychidas, the Eurypontid king whom Cleomenes had installed as Demaratus’s successor. To consolidate his position, Leonidas married Cleomenes’s daughter Gorgo.

Leonidas came to the throne during the Greco-Persian Wars, although it is unclear if he was already king when Athens requested Spartan assistance against the Persians in 490 BC. The fact that the Persians were harboring the deposed Demaratus engendered Spartan hostility towards the Persians, and Sparta was prepared to march to Athenians’ aid once they finished celebrating the Karneia festival. In the event, the Athenians defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon without Spartan assistance.

The Battle of Marathon forced the Persians to abandon their first invasion of Greece. The death of King Darius I in 486 BC and his son Xerxes’s efforts to consolidate his rule in response to a series of uprisings across the Persian Empire allowed the Greeks some respite from further Persian invasion.

The Anti-Persian Coalition

By the late 480s, once Xerxes had restored order in his empire, the Persian king began preparations for a second invasion of Greece. According to Herodotus, the Spartans received advance warning of the Persian invasion from the exiled Demaratus, who sent a secret message in a tablet covered in wax. The Spartan men were initially confused by the blank tablet, and it was only after Leonidas’s queen Gorgo suggested burning off the wax that the secret message was revealed.

The Spartans responded by inviting the 30-odd Greek city-states committed to resisting the Persians to a meeting at the Isthmus of Corinth to consider the military response. While Sparta and Athens were the leading powers in the coalition, around half of the city-states were members of the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. This ensured that Spartans would command Greek forces on both land and sea.

As King of Sparta, Leonidas would have played a major part in formulating the coalition strategy. The Greek allies identified a series of three defensive positions where they could expect to resist larger enemy numbers on equal terms. The first was the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly in Northern Greece. The second was the narrow pass of Thermopylae at the Malian Gulf. The third was the Isthmus of Corinth itself, which connected the Peloponnese to the rest of Greece.

Xerxes’s invasion force crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 480 BC and slowly progressed southwards towards the Vale of Tempe. A Greek force of 10,000 was initially deployed to defend the position, but withdrew after being informed by King Alexander I of Macedon that that the position could be outflanked.

Thermopylae

During the summer, the Greek city-states were prevented from mobilizing their full manpower since they had religious obligations to celebrate the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus. Meanwhile, the Spartans were also due to celebrate the Karneia festival dedicated to Apollo that had prevented them from fighting at Marathon a decade earlier.

At this critical juncture, the Spartans sought guidance from the famous oracle at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, which informed them that either Sparta would be occupied, or they would be mourning the death of a king.

After receiving the oracle’s answer, King Leonidas left for Thermopylae with his elite royal bodyguard of 300 hoplites. The Spartan contingent also included 1,000 enslaved Helots and a similar number of Perioikoi, free men recruited from the Spartan hinterland. Including various allied contingents, Leonidas marched to Thermopylae with some 4,000 men.

At Thermopylae, they were joined by around a thousand Boeotians, Locrians, and Phocians each. Leonidas’s 7,000-strong army was still a fraction of Xerxes’s invasion force, which modern historians estimate in the tens of thousands. Although he knew there was no prospect of defeating the Persians, Leonidas hoped that he could delay them long enough for the other Greek states to mobilize their forces at the end of the festivities.

Upon arrival at Thermopylae, Leonidas fortified an old Phocian wall while Xerxes offered him various inducements to surrender. When a Persian envoy asked the Greeks to hand over their weapons, Leonidas challenged them, “Come and take them!”

For two days, the Persians suffered heavy losses as wave after wave of infantry failed to break through the wall. Even Xerxes’s famous Immortals could make no headway and were forced to retreat. Meanwhile the Greek fleet held the Persian navy at bay at Artemisium to prevent any Persian landing in Leonidas’s rear.

After nightfall on the second day of battle, a local man named Ephialtes informed the Persians of a narrow mountain pass to the rear of the Spartan position. Leonidas had known about this prior to the battle and deployed the 1,000 Phocians to defend the pass. However, they were no match for Xerxes’s Immortals, who overwhelmed them on the morning of the third day of battle.

Recognizing that his position was untenable, Leonidas intended to continue fighting to the death with his Spartans but offered the allies the opportunity to withdraw. Most of the allies agreed, but the 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans in the Boeotian force remained with the Spartans.

Leonidas ordered his men to sally forth beyond the wall, where they engaged in bitter hand-to-hand combat with the Persians. In the midst of the melee, as the Greeks sought to sell their lives as dearly as possible, Leonidas fell in combat. Nearly all the Greeks fought to the death, apart from a small number of Thebans who surrendered. For the loss of some 4,000 men, the Greeks killed 20,000 Persians in response.

Leonidas was succeeded by his young son Pleistarchus, but the new king was still a child, so Leonidas’s brother Cleombrotus assumed command of the Spartan army and prepared to resist the Persians at the Isthmus of Corinth, while the Greek fleet withdrew from Artemisium and sailed to the island of Salamis in the Saronic Gulf to prevent the Persians from landing at the isthmus.

Although the Athenians abandoned their city to the Persians, the Athenian commander Themistocles defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis and forced Xerxes to abandon his invasion. In 479 BC, Cleombrotus’s son Pausanias decisively defeated a Persian army at Plataea, bringing an end to the Graeco-Persian Wars.

Leonidas the Legend

In the decades after his death, Leonidas’s last stand at Thermopylae acquired legendary proportions. A monument of a stone lion was raised near the spot where Leonidas fell in battle, and some 40 years after the battle the Spartans recovered Leonidas’s remains from the Thermopylae battlefield. They may have been placed in a building known as the Leonidaion, which served as the focal point of public veneration for the king.

Leonidas’s legacy has endured over the centuries, and he has often been hailed as a defender of freedom against the tyranny of Persian despotism, even though Sparta itself was one of the most oppressive societies in Greece. The 16th century French essayist Michel de Montgaine argued that Thermopylae was a finer demonstration of Greek military prowess than the victories at Salamis and Plataea.

In 1814, after Napoleon fought a brilliant but ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the armies of the Sixth Coalition, French neoclassical artist Jacques-Louis David painted his grand canvas Leonidas at Thermopylae, depicting the king and his Spartans preparing to sacrifice themselves in a noble cause.

More recently, the 2006 historical action film 300 has reignited popular interest in Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae. Like many retellings of the battle, it does not account for the contribution of the Helots and the perioikoi in the Spartan army, nor the allied Greek city-states, particularly the 700 Thespians who fought and died alongside the Spartans.

Euripides’ Cyclops is the only satyr play that has survived intact. We do not know anything about the performance history of this play, or why or even when exactly it was written. The plot borrows from well-known versions of Odysseus’ encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus. The plot is simple and brutal, but with comic elements provided by Silenus and the satyrs. The play is perhaps easy to dismiss, but Euripides raises some interesting questions about power and brutality.

The Main Characters

The three main characters in the play are Polyphemus, a cyclops; Odysseus, the cunning Homeric hero; and Silenus, the former companion and tutor of Dionysus. There are also a number of satyrs, described as Silenus’ sons, that act as the chorus. Odysseus’ shipwrecked crew is present, but none have speaking roles and were probably not depicted on stage.

Silenus has a few guises in Greek mythology. Sometimes he is depicted as a drunken man and other times as a satyr-like creature. In Euripides’ Cyclops, he is depicted as an old man. In the play, Silenus is toadying, coarse, sly, and greedy. He is there for comic effect, as are his sons, the satyrs.

Odysseus is the same character we see in the Odyssey. He uses his cunning to outsmart the cyclops and escape. However, in Euripides’ play, we do not see all of the tricks Odysseus uses in Homer’s story.

Polyphemus is a cyclops. He lives on an island with his cyclops brothers. They are referenced but not seen. Cyclopes are solitary creatures and self-sufficient. Polyphemus lives off the sheep, which he forces the satyrs to look after. They were captured and enslaved after becoming shipwrecked on the island. Polyphemus is brutish but not unintelligent. He believes himself to be superior to the gods by virtue of his brute strength.

The Play Opens With Silenus

The play opens with Silenus outside the cave of Polyphemus, a cyclops. Silenus has a rake in his hand, and he is speaking aloud about his woes. His speech is a convenient piece of exposition that quickly fills in the audience on what is going on.

He calls out to Bromius (another name for Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility, and theater, of whom Silenus was a tutor and companion). We learn that Silenus, along with his children, was shipwrecked after setting off on a quest to find Dionysus, who had fallen foul of Hera. The island on which they found themselves is occupied by the cyclopes, monstrous one-eyed ogres. They were taken prisoner by Polyphemus and forced to serve him.

This story would have been well-known to Euripides’ audience. They would also have recognized the Cyclopes and Polyphemus from The Odyssey. After Silenus’s speech, we see his children return from tending to Polyphemus’s sheep and hear news of the arrival of a Greek ship. Silenus does not yet know that this is Odysseus’ ship, but the Greek audience would have no doubt over who has just arrived.

Odysseus and his crew quickly arrive and introduce themselves. We get a bit of backstory and learn more about the cyclopes from Silenus. One thing that is established is that there is no wine on the island. The audience would know what a hardship this would be for Silenus! Odysseus promises to share some wine from his ship in return for food.

The wine is exchanged for food, and Silenus is delighted to taste “the drink of Dionysus.” The scene is quite merry as Silenus enjoys his first taste of wine in some time, but suddenly Polyphemus returns home.

Polyphemus Captures Odysseus and His Men

Polyphemus is angry and wants to know (a) if all the day’s work has been done, (b) about the status of his dinner, and (c) who Odysseus and his crewmates are. The satyrs reply that Polyphemus’ dinner is ready and he can have anything he wants. Silenus, lying, claims that the strangers beat him up and attempted to steal Polyphemus’ goods. He also says that they bragged about capturing Polyphemus and selling him as a slave. In response to this revelation, the cyclops asks for butchering tools and a fire to be made. He intends to eat the newcomers.

Silenus’ children are more honest and tell Polyphemus that their father is lying. They tell the truth that Odysseus and his men came honestly and offered to trade wine for food. Silenus protests, but Polyphemus does not believe him.

Odysseus pleads his case and appeals to Zeus as well as other gods and the sacred idea of hospitality. It was considered a great sin for the Greeks to treat honest visitors badly. However, Polyphemus is unmoved by Odysseus’ words. The scene ends with the cyclops driving the unfortunate men into his cave while Odysseus calls out to Zeus, “protector of strangers,” to help him and his men.

Odysseus Sets His Plan in Motion

Odysseus appears and starts talking to Silenus’ sons. We learn that Polyphemus has already slaughtered, butchered, and eaten two of Odysseus’ crewmates. None of the gory details are spared as the horrible fate of these men is recounted. Odysseus says that while the other sailors were huddled together in terror, he was forced to act as the cyclops’ servant during the meal. But as he did so, he formulated a plan.

The wily Greek, known for his cunning, gave Polyphemus some of the wine to drink. Since there is no wine on the island, the cyclops is not used to alcohol and is unaware of its effects. Odysseus plans to wait until the monster passes out drunk, and then, with the help of Silenus’ sons, he plans to burn out Polyphemus’ single eye with a huge wooden beam, sharpened and glowing red from the fire.

Silenus’ sons readily agree to help: they hate the cyclops as much as Odysseus and, like him, they are desperate to escape the island. Once Polyphemus is blinded or killed, they will all slip away to Odysseus’ boat and make their escape.

The drunken Polyphemus enters, carrying the wineskin, and tells the others that he is going to visit his brothers, the other cyclopes on the island, to share the drink with them. Obviously, this would scupper the plan, and so Odysseus (and Silenus, who has joined the scene) convinces Polyphemus to keep the wine to himself.

As they sit in the grass basking under the warm sun with Polyphemus drinking wine, the cyclops tells Odysseus he will eat him last as a reward for introducing him to such a fine drink. He asks Odysseus his name, and the cunning Greek tells him it is “Nobody.”

Sexual Innuendo in Cyclops

Satyr plays typically involve a great deal of sexual innuendo. For example, the actors portraying satyrs would wear enormous phalluses on their costumes, and when Silenus is first given a taste of the wine, he grabs his phallus and says, “with drink it is possible to make this stand to attention!” Now, the bawdy theme returns as the drunken cyclops starts referring to Silenus as his “Ganymede” and ushers him back into his cave.

Ganymede was abducted by the gods to serve as cupbearer to Zeus. In Greek mythology, he is strongly associated with homoerotic passion. It is from the Latin form of his name, Catamitus, that we get the word catamite, which refers to a young boy involved in sexual activity with an older man. Silenus, in the play, is an old man, and so there is humor intended in this reference. As he is led into the cave, the usually wine-loving satyr says, “Oh woe is me! I’ll soon see that the wine is very bitter now.”

Odysseus and the Satyrs Escape Polyphemus

After the gruesome description of what Odysseus plans for Polyphemus, the actual blinding scene is played for comic effect. Instead of helping as they promised they would, Silenus’s sons bungle about and dither over the handling of the wooden beam. Their bungling notwithstanding, the plan succeeds, and Polyphemus’ single eye is burned out, and he is blinded.

In other versions of this story, Polyphemus cries out to his fellow cyclopes for help, saying that “Nobody has attacked me.” He means, of course, that Odysseus has attacked him, but because he thinks Odysseus is called Nobody, he tells those who would otherwise come to help him that nobody has blinded him. In Euripides’ version, the satyrs merely use the name “Nobody” to mock and taunt Polyphemus as he stumbles blindly about trying to find Odysseus.

The play ends abruptly and somewhat anticlimactically. Odysseus and his surviving crewmates do not sneak past the blinded cyclops by clinging to the underside of sheep but simply go back to their ship and sail away, accompanied by the satyrs.

The last words go to Polyphemus and the satyrs. The cyclops walks through his cave to the rear entrance, which overhangs Odysseus’ ship, and from there hurls a huge rock down to destroy the vessels. The satyrs gleefully announce they are off to serve their new master, Dionysus. The audience is left to assume Polyphemus is unsuccessful and that Odysseus, his crew, and the satyrs escape.

Themes of Brutality in Euripides Cyclops

In Euripides’ play, we see a thoughtful cyclops and a less-than-eloquent Odysseus. Polyphemus is literally monstrous and violates many of the sacred Greek codes. In Odysseus’ speech, in which he begs for his life and the lives of his crewmates, it is made clear that Polyphemus is a Greek, albeit a god (he is the son of Poseidon).

But the cyclops does not care about that. Any sense of loyalty, let alone friendship, to fellow Greeks is out of the question. Neither does he care about the gods. He is unafraid of Zeus, whom he believes cannot hurt him. All of Odysseus’ arguments and pleas fall upon deaf ears.

Polyphemus believes himself superior to the other gods, obligated only towards himself. His gluttony and selfishness provide him, as far as he is concerned, with a good life, which he believes shows him that he is right. The argument the cyclops puts forward for doing exactly what he wants without concern for others is a combination of the ideas of “might is right” and “greed is good.”

What is of interest is that the usually eloquent Odysseus fails to offer any convincing arguments against Polyphemus’ claims. Indeed, in the end, it is by brute strength and violence that Odysseus manages to escape. In his play, Euripides seems to suggest that when facing violence and brutality, the answer is to match like for like.

Typhon, or Typhoeus, was a monstrous, serpentine creature with a hundred heads that could shoot fire from his eyes. He spoke with a myriad of sounds and voices, sometimes bellowing like a bull, barking like a dog, or roaring like a lion. He was the greatest and final challenger of Zeus for the throne of Mount Olympus and dominance of the world. His eventual defeat culminated in Zeus being crowned king of the gods and dividing the domains of power among the Olympians.

The Origins of Typhon

The earliest mention of Typhon comes from Hesiod’s Theogony, written in the 8th century BC. In it, the poet wrote that Typhon was the child of Gaia and Tartarus. He was the youngest son of Gaia, born after Zeus defeated and imprisoned the Titans and the Giants in Tartarus. It is a common misconception that Gaia was angry with Zeus over his treatment of her elder children and, therefore, gave birth to Typhon specifically so he could seek vengeance. However, there is no textual evidence for this story.

The birth of Typhon rather falls into the broader succession myth, which foretold Ouranos being overthrown by his son Cronos, and Cronos by his son Zeus. Zeus was also told that he would have a child by Metis, who would overthrow him and become the lord of heaven. To prevent this, he swallowed Metis while she was pregnant with their child, resulting in the goddess Athena being born from his head. Metis then lived inside Zeus, unable to give birth to a male child, breaking the cycle. With the cycle broken, Zeus’ triumph over Typhon was definitive and cemented his rule as eternal, unlike his predecessors.

Another version of Typhon’s origin came from the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo. In the poem, it wasn’t Gaia who birthed the monster but Hera. She gave birth to Typhon through parthenogenesis, virgin birth, because she was angry at Zeus for giving birth to Athena on his own. She struck the ground with the flat of her hand and prayed to Gaia, Ouranos, and all the Titans sealed away in Tartarus that she might bear a son stronger than Zeus. Gaia heard her prayer and fulfilled it, and for a year, Hera did not share Zeus’ bed. When the year was done, Hera gave birth to Typhon. She then brought Typhon to Delphi, where he was raised by the she-dragon Echidna.

In both versions, Typhon was born with the express purpose of challenging Zeus, and he proved to be Zeus’ greatest challenger.

How Typhon Caused the Flight of the Gods

When Typhon attacked Olympus, the force of his assault filled the gods with a terror they had never known before. Luckily, they received advanced warning from Pan. They all fled to Egypt and the banks of the Nile River, where they hid disguised as animals. This is an aetiological myth that explains why the Egyptians practiced animal worship. Apollo became a hawk, like the god Horus; Hermes became an Ibis, like the god Thoth; Artemis became a cat, like Bastet; Hephaestus became an ox, like Ptah; and Dionysus became a goat, like Osiris.

To the Egyptians, Typhon was equated with their god Seth, the god of destruction. The 5th-century BC historian Herodotus reported that the Egyptians had a myth that Typhon was once the supreme king of the cosmos but was deposed by Apollo, Egyptian Horus, who became the last divine king of Egypt. While this is not part of Greek tradition, it is noteworthy that the Greeks found no conflict between their own cosmogony and that of their neighbors and were easily able to reconcile the two.

How Typhon Challenged Zeus

The main purpose of Typhon’s existence was to be a challenger to Zeus for supremacy of the cosmos. This plays into the larger theme of the succession myth and also parallels the succession myths of the Near Eastern Hurro-Hittite culture, where the Greek version was thought to have originated. Hesiod’s version is brief, emphasizing the cosmic implications of Typhon’s potential victory, while later authors provide more detail.

In Apollodorus’ Library of Greek Mythology, Typhon stormed Olympus, throwing red-hot rocks at the heavens. They were warned of the danger by Pan, and when the gods saw Typhon approaching, they all fled to Egypt and hid by transforming into animals. Only Zeus, and sometimes Athena, remained to fend off the monster, hurling down lightning bolts at him. As Typhon drew nearer, Zeus attempted to attack him with an adamantine sickle, similar to the one used to castrate Ouranos, but Typhon fled to Mount Casium.

Zeus followed, hoping to finish the job, but Typhon captured him in his serpentine coils. The monster took the sickle and cut out the sinews from Zeus’ hands and feet, immobilizing him. He then took Zeus to Cilicia and left him in the Corycian cave, hiding the sinews and leaving a dragon to guard him.

Hermes stole back the sinews and implanted them back into Zeus. Regaining his strength, the king of the gods pursued Typhon, hurling lightning at him as he fled to Mount Nysa. There, Typhon was said to have been deceived by the Fates into eating the fruits of Dionysus (i.e., wine grapes). They told him that they would give him strength, but what they actually did was unclear.

Typhon fought Zeus desperately, throwing entire mountains at him, but the god blasted them apart with his thunderbolt. As Typhon fled to Sicily, Zeus cornered him and dropped Mount Etna on top of him, imprisoning him beneath.

Imprisonment of Typhon

Tradition holds that Typhon was imprisoned beneath Mount Etna in Sicily, guarded by Hephaestus. From his prison below, Typhon was said to send up flames out of the mountain, which Hephaestus used when smithing his many divine armaments.

Another account further connected Typhon with Egypt, stating that he was buried beneath the Serbonian Marshes, an area east of the Nile Delta between Mt. Casius, the Isthmus of Suez, and the Mediterranean Sea. This account also linked Typhon with Seth.

Typhon as Father of Monsters

Typhon was said to have fathered many of the strange and dangerous creatures that inhabited Greek mythology. His monstrous brood terrorized the mortal world, most of which were eventually dispatched by the generation of heroes. Some, like the three-headed hound Cerberus, who guarded the gates of the underworld, were incorporated into Zeus’ cosmic order. In Hesiod, the author named Typhoeus and Typhaon (both names for Typhon) as two distinct entities, though later authors often conflated the two.

Typhoeus was the last son of Gaia, who tried to overthrow Zeus and was imprisoned under Mount Etna. Typhaon was the consort of Echidna, a half-maiden, half-serpent nymph, and fathered by her a race of monsters. These monsters posed a similar threat to the order of the world as Typhon himself since they represent the same aspects of chaos. Once the last of Typhon’s brood were killed, the world took on its modern shape.

Typhon sired Orthos, the Lernaean Hydra, the Nemean Lion, the eagle that flew to the Caucasus mountains and ate Prometheus’ liver every day, and the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. All were killed by Heracles during his 12 labors. Typhon was also the father of the Chimera, which was killed by Bellerophon, and the dragon that guarded the golden fleece in Colchis, which was killed by Jason.

The Ordering of Sound

Hesiod’s Theogony explained the ordering of the world and how things came to be as they are, culminating in Zeus’ kingship. With each new succession of gods, the world took a more familiar, delineated shape as gods were born and given names and powers. The episode with Typhon explained the ordering of sound and methods of communication in the cosmos, with emphasis on mortal and divine voices. Hesiod made the threat of Typhon less of a physical threat than a sonic one. The poet spent many lines describing the chaotic and terrible sounds made by Typhon.

With Typhon’s chaotic and boundless voices, his challenge to Zeus represented an ordering of the cosmos where sounds are not delineated, and therefore there can be no communication between the gods and mortals. When Zeus battled the monster, the action again focused on sounds as Zeus overwhelmed Typhon with his lightning.

“[…]he thundered mightily
and fiercely, and the earth rang terribly,
broad heaven above, the sea, and Ocean’s streams
and Tartarus resounded.”

---

(839-841)

The death of Typhon was described as a necessary precursor for the birth of the Muses, who imparted ordered song and knowledge to Hesiod so that he could transmit it to others. In the poem, several words are used to describe the voices of Typhon. All are found elsewhere in epic poetry, used to describe the utterances of gods or the sounds of battle. The glaring omission is the word αυδε. This word is only used in epic poetry when describing communication between gods and mortals. In the Theogony, this is the word used to relate the utterances of the Muses to Hesiod. Only when they have converted their divine voice into αυδε is Hesiod able to understand them.

Αυδε is the singular voice not possessed by Typhon, but it seems that his many voices interfere with αυδε and, therefore, block the creation of the Muses and communication between the divine and mortal. He, therefore, poses a threat to the hierarchy Zeus sought to establish. Zeus’ victory over Typhon enabled the birth of the Muses and clear communication between gods and mortals.

References

• Clay, J. S. (1993). “The Generation of Monsters in Hesiod,” Classical Philology 88(2), 105–116
• Goslin, O. (2010). “Hesiod’s Typhonomachy and the Ordering of Sound,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 140(2), 351–373
• Griffiths, J. G. (1960). “The Flight of the Gods Before Typhon: An Unrecognized Myth,” Hermes 88(3), 374–376
• Hesiod, (8th century BC) Theogony and Works and Days (D. Wender, trans), Penguin Group, 1973

Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, ends with his long-suffering hero, Odysseus, returning to his home of Ithaca and reclaiming his palace from the opportunistic suitors. After ten years of war and ten years of wandering, he is reunited with his long-suffering wife, Penelope, and now-adult son, Telemachus. The story ends on a happy note. But Homer’s epic only tells part of Odysseus’ story. What happened to Odysseus after the Odyssey?

And They Lived Happily Ever After?

By ending his story with Odysseus’ return to Ithaca and his reunification with his wife, Penelope, Homer ended the Odyssey on a satisfying note. Odysseus may have lost all his men in the years of war and wandering, but Penelope had loyally held off her many suitors. Additionally, his son, Telemachus, was now a man capable of standing by his father’s side.

But the story ends violently. Odysseus kills his wife’s suitors, the sons of prominent families. Only the intervention of the goddess Athena prevented a descent into civil war. Other gods, notably Poseidon, remained angry with Odysseus. Therefore, despite the seemingly happy ending, not all was resolved for the hero.

Homer hints at the aftermath of these events. Book Eleven of the Odyssey recounts Odysseus’ journey to the underworld. He took that descent to learn how to get home from the shade of the renowned seer Tiresias. He tells Odysseus that after killing the crowd of suitors besieging his wife and destroying his home, Odysseus must once again leave Ithaca and travel to a land without knowledge of the sea. When he comes across someone who mistakes a ship’s oar for a fan, Odysseus is instructed to sacrifice to Poseidon, which will finally placate his bitterest foe. While Tiresias tells Odysseus that his travels will not be over when he returns to Ithaca, he does say that he will die a gentle death by the sea on Ithaca.

Immediately after reuniting with Penelope, Odysseus repeats Tiresias’ prophecy (book 23). This sets the scene for the next part of Odysseus’ story, even though it is not included in the Odyssey.

Sources: The Epic Cycle

Homer’s two epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, have been admired for more than two thousand years, but they recount only a small part of the complex epic surrounding the Trojan War. The Iliad focuses on the actions of Achilles in the final weeks of the ten-year siege of Troy. It does not include the destruction of Troy or the story of the Trojan Horse. The Odyssey follows the adventures of one of the Greek heroes, with asides explaining what happened to several other veterans of the Trojan War on their journeys home. The quality of the two epics ascribed to Homer set them apart, but they were far from the only Trojan War epics in circulation.

We know of, but have largely lost, a group of at least six other epics that tell the story of the Epic Cycle, all dating to before the 2nd century AD (West 2013, 1). These stories covered the origins, course, and end of the Trojan War. Only a few fragments or summaries have survived. Exactly who Homer was is one of the great debates of ancient history. Nevertheless, other books in the Epic Cycle are sometimes attributed to him. But this was doubted even in antiquity (West 2013, 27). Other named authors have been credited with different epics by the Greeks, but in general, the authorship remains a mystery.

Much like the Homeric poems, there was probably a two-stage development to the Epic Cycle. Their story lines likely came from tales circulating at the time of the composition of the Odyssey and Iliad, in the Archaic Age (8th-6th centuries BC), with earlier elements. They were probably performed as complete epics around the same time as Homer, and were written down between the late 6th and 4th centuries BCE (Davies 1989, 3; West 2013, 23).

The Cypria: Origins of the Trojan War

The Epic Cycle is believed to have included the following works:

• Cypria, recounting the origins of the Trojan War
• Aethiopis, recounting various battles of the war and the death of Achilles
• Little Iliad, retelling the Fall of Troy
• Iliou Persis, describing the sack of Troy
• Nostoi, recording the return journeys of other Greek heroes after the war
• Telegony, recording the life of Odysseus after his return to Ithaca

It is to the last on the list that we must turn to see the fate of Odysseus.

The Telegony: Sequel to the Odyssey

The Telegony has been described as a sequel to the Odyssey (Davies 1989, 87). It picks up Odysseus’ story after Odysseus has reunited with his family and killed the suitors threatening his home. The Greeks named Eugammon of Cyrene as the author, and this is considered one of the more reliable authorial identifications (West 2013, 31). Unfortunately, none of the work has survived.

What we know of the Telegony is pieced together from passing references in other works and a summary of the plot made by Proculus in the 2nd century AD. He produced outlines of several works in the Epic Cycle that were then preserved by the 9th-century AD Byzantine writer Photius.

Greece was a decentralized society without a single authority to create an “authorized” version of its mythology. Consequently, conflicting stories about Odysseus’ later life also circulated, and occasional conflicting references survive. Nevertheless, for the most part, we are reliant on Proclus’ work to complete Odysseus’ story.

Part One: Thesprotris

The Telegony was made up of two parts, referred to as books. The first may have also been known as the Thesprotis after the region of Thesprotia, where the action largely takes place.

The story picks up right where Homer left it, with Odysseus on Ithaca dealing with the consequences of his bloody revenge on the suitors. Immediately, Odysseus sets sail again. First, it is a short trip across to the Greek mainland region of Elis. Then he takes a trip that kept him away from home for many years again.

Perhaps following the instructions given by Tiresias, Odysseus sets off for the region of Thesprotia, roughly the northern Greek region of Epirus. As a mountainous region with fewer maritime traditions than other Greek regions, Odysseus could be sure to eventually find someone who had no knowledge of the sea and offer his sacrifice to Poseidon. Along the way, Odysseus also finds a new wife, the local queen Callidice (though he is still married to Penelope). In his new role as leader of her territory, Odysseus commands a war against the Thesprotians’ neighbors. He stays in this new life long enough for Callidice to have a son, Polypoetes, to take over leadership in Thesprotia. Odysseys then returns to Ithaca.

Part Two: Telegonus

In the meantime, Penelope has given birth and raised another son of Odysseus, Poliporthes. While sons seemed to play a major role in the Telegony, Odysseus’ oldest son, Telemachus, who had a leading role in the Odyssey, does not feature much. Instead, another son plays the leading role in the second book.

In the Odyssey, the hero was detained by the goddess and sorceress Circe, and the pair had a son, Telegonus, meaning “Faraway-born.” Now an adult, Telegonus sets off to find his father, equipped with a spear tipped with a poisonous stingray barb given him by his mother. Despite the ominous weapon, there is no hint of hostility in this estranged family.

Unfortunately, Telegonus is blown off course and lands on an unknown island. Homeric characters turning up on unknown shores often take the opportunity to plunder. This drew a band of warriors to confront him, but Telegonus and his poisoned spear drove them back. In this confrontation, Telegonus stabbed an old warrior. Only as the man lay dying did he understand that he had landed on Ithaca and accidentally killed his own father. There was probably a recognition scene as Odysseus and Telegonus finally came face to face, but it was too late. Odysseus died on the shores of Ithaca in old age, as Tiresias had said. In being killed by a stingray barb, his death had indeed, in a way, come from the sea.

With Odysseus now dead and Telegonus presumably full of regret, there was the loose end of Odysseus’ family to tie up. Telegonus takes Penelope and Telemachus, along with Odysseus’ body, back to Circe. In a strange twist, Penelope and Telegonus marry while Circe marries Telemachus. Through the marriages to a goddess and a demigod, Odysseus’ family becomes immortal, giving them their happily ever after.

Does the Story Make Sense?

The Telegony could stand as evidence that unnecessary and confusing sequels are not just a feature of the modern world. Without Eugammon’s complete work, we must reserve our judgement, but the plot details we know have been criticized.

The first criticism is that the story seems disjointed, as there appears to be no connection between the years in Thesprotia and the story of Telegonus. The early episode of a visit to Elis also apparently contained an unconnected digression on the story of two robbers. Long-form works from the ancient world can often seem disjointed as they combine different stories. In the absence of this work, we cannot judge Eugammon’s skill in weaving a coherent tale.

While the Telegony tries to continue elements of the Odyssey by playing out the prophecy of Tiresias, it is also clearly at odds with its most renowned source material. Odysseus’ dying from a stingray barb can be seen as a death “from the sea,” but Tiresias’ claim that it would be a gentle death certainly does not fit with Odysseus’ end.

More seriously, Odysseus’ marriage in Thesprotia does not match his repeated desire in the Odyssey to return to Penelope. He is so determined to return that he rejects offers of immortality from Calypso in the Odyssey. Yet the Telegony seems to turn this on its head with a new marriage and immortality providing the happy ending (Burgess 2014, 119; Tomasso 2020, 146).

The years in Thesprotia may have originated in stories of Odysseus’ exile following the murder of the suitors. The consequences of that act were dealt with in the Odyssey by the intervention of Athena. Any Greek would know that a peaceful life at home after a bout of serious civil strife was little more than a fantasy. That Odysseus was forced to leave again is a more realistic story.

The marriage to Callidice is perhaps not such a departure, considering Odysseus reportedly had long relationships with Circe and Calypso. The happily ever after ending of marriages and immortality seems far too convenient, though it seems Eugammon at least rejected versions of the story that have Odysseus resurrected. We should bear in mind that the Telegony appears to be the conclusion of the Epic Cycle, so this is a happy ending not just for Odysseus’ family, but the entire Trojan story (West 2013, 306).

A Fitting End to the Story?

Odysseus’ further travels and accidental death feel pessimistic and unnecessary. But it is not out of character for Odysseus. After decades of a heroic life, Odysseus’ retiring quietly on Ithaca is perhaps less realistic than continuing trials. His death, coming by accident from the son he fathered on his travels, can be seen as the consequences of his actions, without implications of guilt, finally catching up with him in the end.

A similar view of Odysseus and his life has inspired modern poets. The 19th-century Greek poet Cavafy used his most famous poem, Ithaca, to transform the voyage home into a more open-ended, ongoing search for meaning. Tennyson too saw his Ulysses dissatisfied with the calm life and setting sail once more.

Sources

• Burgess, J.S. (2014). “The Death of Odysseus in the Odyssey and the Telegony,” Philologia Antiqua 7: 111-122.
• Davies, M. (1989). The Epic Cycle. Bristol Classical Press.
• Tomasso, V. (2020). “The Immortality Theme in the Odyssey and Telegony,” Classical Journal 116.2: 129-151.
• West, M.L. (2013). The Epic Cycle: A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics. Oxford University Press.

Visit any museum housing ancient statues, and you will notice that many of them no longer have noses. It is possible that some of them have simply fallen forward, and the noses were broken off. However, it is also possible that Christians destroyed their noses in an attack against the pagan idols that they believed were demonic. This iconoclasm, that is, the destruction of religious images, came into play in the 4th century AD when the Emperor Constantine the Great made Christianity an official religion, thereby ending almost two centuries of intermittent persecution of it.

How Greeks and Romans Viewed Their Statues

Most ancient statues were made of either bronze or one of many varieties of marbles. Some people believed that they embodied the gods that they portrayed. In other words, they saw them as the gods themselves. People placed these divine images in prominent places at weddings and public festivals. Ancient accounts state that people carried the statues through the streets, where onlookers pressed through crowds just to touch them, crying over them, embracing them, and giving them offerings.

Caretakers tended to the idols, washing, dressing, and perfuming them as if they were real. One manuscript describes a scene in Magnesia, where statues of the twelve Olympian gods, clothed in the finest of garments, were positioned around a large dining table, as if enjoying a divine banquet.

Another account describes how people would bring offerings to the statue of Asclepios, god of medicine, to request his intervention for the ill or wounded. And when someone recovered, people would bring, as offerings, casts of the body parts that had been healed, including hands, feet, and even internal organs, in thanks.

Additionally, pagans would often revere sculptures of military figures and political leaders as if they were gods. We see this with the Romans and their Imperial Cult, wherein emperors were deified, sometimes in life as well as in death.

However, many people saw the statues, whether of a god or human hero, as man-made works of art, aesthetically pleasing, but nothing more. The Phoenician philosopher, Porphyry (c. AD 234 – c. 305), disdained the belief that the deities actually inhabited the sculptures, saying that only the “light-minded” would believe such a ridiculous idea.

How Christians Viewed the Statues

Some Early Christian Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 to 115-220 AD), Tertullian (55/160 to c. 220/240 AD), and Athanagoras of Athens (133 to 190 AD), considered statues to be demonic representations of false gods that enticed people away from Christ. In John 14:6, Jesus stated clearly that he was the one and only way to eternal life, and to Christians, this meant that the pagans, in worshiping their idols, would be separated from God for eternity if they continued to be deceived by the devil. Hence, the attack on pagan beliefs, rituals, and statues.

Bishop Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 to 394) put it this way: “The pagan who is devoted to the vanity of idols is transformed into the stone he looks upon and becomes other than human.” His statement harks back to Psalm 115:8, which states that those who make idols become like them as do their worshipers. In other words, the pagans would become, spiritually, as dead and powerless as the stone statues they revered.

Christians mocked the very idea that a god could exist in the form of a man-made piece of art. The unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, a 2nd-century Christian apologetic work, wrote, “What makes a stone statue any different from the stones we walk on?” And Athanasius (c. 296 to 373), in his Against the Heathen, ridiculed the pagans who did not realize that the idols they worshiped were mere “carver’s art.”

The Politics of Destroying Statues

Destroying and defacing statues was never a policy of the Christian Church. Politically, however, it was a different story. Constantine the Great (272 to 337) was the first Roman leader to interfere noticeably with pagans and their rituals when he made Christianity a legal religion with the Edict of Milan in 313.

While he did forbid public sacrifices by pagans and ordered the destruction of several key temples, including the Temple of Aphrodite and the Temple of Jupiter in Jerusalem, he did not issue a proclamation demanding that all pagan temples be closed or destroyed. Nor did he order the eradication of Greek and Roman idols.

Theodosius the Great, who came to power as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in AD 379, was the political leader who officially banned pagan religions and their rituals and sacrifices with the introduction of his Theodosian Code. Given that statues were part and parcel of religious events, they were included in the banishment. Theodosius commanded the destruction of some temples, such as that of Serapis in Alexandria in AD 391-392. However, he had some of the buildings repurposed. The Temple of Dionysus in Alexandria, for example, was converted into a church.

This practice of taking pagan temples and making churches of them continued for some time. The famous Parthenon in Athens, once the temple of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and handicraft, became a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the late 6th century and remained so until it was converted into a mosque by the Ottomans in 1458.

What About Reliefs, Paintings, and Icons?

Pagans believed that the gods could also inhabit reliefs. A relief is a work of art wherein the figures project from a supporting background. Christians took exception to them along with statues. Notably, however, they did not attack paintings, frescoes, mosaics, and the like, even if they did present mythological deities. Scholars suggest that the three-dimensionality of statues and reliefs allowed for the embodiment of a god or a demon, whereas a flat picture did not in the minds of their audiences.

It should also be noted that Christians themselves made their own religious paintings called icons. The earliest examples we have are found in the Roman catacombs from the late 2nd and 3rd centuries. Later, they appeared in churches. However, Christians are quick to point out that there is no worship involved with Christian images. They are venerated, meaning that they hold an honored position of respect as they reflect back on Christ and notable figures of the faith, but nothing more. Today, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics employ them. Protestants rarely do so.

So What About Those Noses?

Christians were not the only ones to practice iconoclasm. It was particularly common in Egypt. In fact, you could find examples of it throughout the entire Roman Empire, especially in times of invasion when outsiders wanted to destroy foreign gods to assert their power over a conquered people.

If you believed that a statue embodied a god, and you wanted to destroy that statue’s power, you would smash or mutilate it. Hacking off ears meant the statue would no longer be able to hear supplications and prayers. If you removed its arms, it could not accept the sacrifices brought to it. Without feet, the god could not move. Damaging the lips prevented it from speaking. And, most importantly, to break off the nose was to take away the breath of life from it; in essence, killing it.

The Christians who attacked statues went one step further. They did not just smash a nose or remove ears from a work of art; they would often carve or chisel a cross into the forehead of a statue or over its eyes. And they did not commit these deeds surreptitiously. They wanted the pagans to see the vandalism as a demonstration that their God was more powerful than their mythological deities.

The Christian historian, Rufinus, describes how Christians knocked off the head of the statue of Serapis when they destroyed his temple in Alexandria. They chopped off its arms and legs as well. Then they took the torso to the city’s amphitheater and set it on fire for everyone to witness.

Of course, not every statue missing a nose, limbs, or head was vandalized. There are many natural reasons that some works of art are missing body parts. One lies in the fact that the Mediterranean area was prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters, which would have toppled over many a statue, resulting in breakages. One example is that of the Colossus, a 32-meter (104 feet) high bronze statue of Helios, the sun god, located in Rhodes, that snapped off at the knees during an earthquake. And it was not unusual to find statues missing heads simply because necks were fragile, as were arms, especially if outstretched.

Conclusion

To some Christians, destroying and defacing statues and repurposing or dismantling the pagan temples that housed them provided visual proof that Christianity had triumphed over paganism. It is true that many of these religions fell out of practice, and many of their adherents entered the Christian fold in the centuries following Constantine’s edict, making Christianity a legal religion that spread quickly and widely.

Socrates, the legendary Greek philosopher, faced death in Athens for impiety and corrupting the youth. Yet he defended himself with a remarkable claim: an inner voice, his so-called “daemon,” guided him away from wrongdoing.

Unlike the demons of later mythology, Socrates’s daemon wasn’t a malevolent spirit. Rather, it was a daemonic sign, a mysterious inner warning. But what exactly was this enigmatic voice, and why did it matter so much to his life and philosophy?

Who Was Socrates and What Was His Daemon?

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher and is revered as the father of Western philosophy. He used conversation in his philosophy, rather than written text, like many modern philosophers. These conversations involved pointed questioning that blended logic and myth, a method many philosophers still practice, now known as the “Socratic method.” His most famous student, Plato, wrote dramatic dialogues about his teacher’s philosophical conversations with notable citizens of Athens.

Socrates’s death at the hands of the Athenian Empire is well known because it sets the dramatic background to four important works by Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. These four dialogues tell the story of Socrates’s last days as he was sentenced to death by representatives of the ancient Greek city-state.

When officially questioned about his motives, Socrates testified that daemonic signs inspired his actions. Many people think of Socrates’s daemon as a guardian angel or the inner voice of his conscience, rather than as an evil demonic possession.

Socrates testified that his daemon was responsible for many of the charges brought against him and instructed him to remain and face them rather than flee. Socrates trusted his daemon with his life, piety, and philosophy.

Daemon vs. Demon: Clearing Up the Misunderstanding

There are two ways that contemporary philosophy uses the word “demon” that may misrepresent Socrates’s daemon. First, modern philosophy, beginning with Descartes, has used demons as thought experiments: Descartes imagined a demon constantly tricking him; Laplace imagined a demon that could know the positions and movements of every molecule; and Maxwell imagined a demon that could test the laws of thermodynamics.

The second use of “demon” in philosophy involves Christianity and fallen angels. The word “daemon” is similar to “demon,” although the special spelling signifies that the word daemon is used only in the classical or Hellenistic sense, not the contemporary Christian sense.

While “demons” are malevolent beings within Christian mythology, daemons may represent benevolent or malevolent beings because they are defined by the mythology of the time. Unlike in Christian mythology, Greek mythology involved many deities with a variety of altruistic and selfish motives.

Divine Sign or Spiritual Entity?

Plato was very careful in choosing the words of the Socratic dialogues. The phrase “Socrates’s daemon” may not be a true translation of the Greek because it implies the existence of an entity like a demon or an angel.

Just as English can represent entities (“demons”) and qualities (“demonic”) through related words, so too does ancient Greek represent both entities and qualities. Plato used the “daemonic” quality to describe signs, voices, or something in relationship with Socrates, but he never used the word “daemon” to represent a spiritual entity.

Plato also uses the word “daemon” in his Symposium, which may help us determine whether Socrates’s daemon was a divine entity or merely a sign considered to have divine qualities.

The character Diotima applies the word “daemonic” to intermediary activities between humans and the divine, such as prayers, sacrifices, and oracles. Therefore, daemonic signs, voices, or things arise from the gods, even if the gods or divine beings are not directly present as entities. Using the phrase “Socrates’s daemon” may still be appropriate because daemonic signs imply a daemon or deity.

The Apology: Key to Socrates’s Inner Voice

Of the four dialogues by Plato that deal with Socrates’s last days, the Apology provides the clearest arguments about Socrates’s daemon and its role in his defense.

Socrates testified to the importance of his daemonic sign, which he described as an inner voice that prevented certain actions. By the end of the dialogue, the Athenians vote and sentence Socrates to death.

The Athenian accusations center on impiety and corruption of the youth, and the impiety accusation is relevant to our inquiry into Socrates’s daemon. The Athenians accused Socrates of not believing in the city’s gods but in other spiritual things. Interestingly, the accusation associates the word “theos” with the gods of the city and the word “daemonic” with Socrates’s impious practices.

Socrates is forced to defend himself by describing his relationship with his daemon, and so the legal proceedings depicted in Plato’s Apology may be the key to understanding Socrates’s Daemon.

The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates’s Prophetic Guidance

Socrates defended himself against the Athenian accusations by testifying that his philosophical activity was in part caused by the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle of Delphi was a priestess at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. Years earlier, the Oracle had said that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens. In response to the puzzling oracle, Socrates sought the wisest man in Athens and offended some citizens through his direct line of questioning.

In response to the accusation of impiety, Socrates testified that he would rather obey the god of the Oracle than the men of Athens because philosophy will lead to piety and the perfection of the soul. Socrates used his commitment to philosophy and the gods’ will as a defense against the charge that he was an atheist and impious. Apollo, the god of truth and prophecy, presided over the Oracle at Delphi; we may assume that Socrates’s daemon was ultimately related to Apollo.

Was Socrates’s Daemon a Form of Prophecy?

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates testifies that his daemon would prevent him from taking certain actions, like fleeing Athens or teaching certain students. Socrates said that the daemon was with him since childhood. The daemon would speak through an inner voice to oppose certain courses of action. Socrates describes the daemon in impersonal terms as a negative voice.

Socrates’s daemon has been interpreted as the inner voice of conscience or the unconscious, perhaps not even a spiritual being at all. Our reading of the Apology demonstrates Socrates used impersonal or adjectival phrases like “something divine” or “daemonic,” but never personal or objective phrases like “god” or “daemon.”

However, Socrates repeatedly connected his daemonic signs with prophetic power. The root word of “prophecy” is “mantis,” which is why it is sometimes called a “mantic art.” Socrates said that his inner voice was a small type of prophecy, and the word “mantis” directly connects Socrates’s daemon with the Oracle at Delphi, which also uses that root word.

The Mythological and Spiritual World of Socrates’s Daemon

The connection between Socrates’s daemon and prophecy also aligns with core Socratic mythology, such as the transmigration of the soul or the world of the forms. The sequel to Plato’s Apology is the Phaedo, which recounts Socrates’s death and discusses myths about the soul’s immortality.

While it may be tempting to interpret Socrates’s daemon as a personification of his conscience, Plato describes it as prophecy. The word root “mantis” was used to describe the means to perceive the realm of the immortal soul, i.e., the world of forms, as well as Socrates’s daemonic inner voice. Socrates himself admitted that he had little prophetic power, perhaps compared with the Oracle at Delphi. Therefore, there is a spectrum of prophetic powers from Socrates’s little voice to the powerful oracle of Apollo.

Socrates’s inner voice was his peculiar way of relating with the divine, perhaps directly to the mythical god Apollo, whom he called as a witness during his defense in Plato’s Apology.

Mount Olympus, Gods, and the Nature of Daemonic Signs

It is tempting to imagine that the ancients naively believed their own mythology, as if Zeus physically lived on top of Mount Olympus as Homer described. We have seen that it is easy to confuse daemonic things with daemons. On the one hand, daemonic things are impersonal, like Socrates’s inner voice or the oracles from Delphi. On the other hand, daemons are personal beings, such as Apollo or Asclepius. Apollo was the god of prophecy. Asclepius was Apollo’s son and the god of dreams.

Did Socrates believe that Apollo really spoke to him through his inner voice? In Plato’s writings, Socrates avoided directly addressing such a question. In the Apology, he invoked the god of the Oracle of Delphi as a witness to his piety. Socrates also testified that a daemonic inner voice guided his actions and prevented both impiety and atheism, the charges against him. The voice was not the personification of his conscience, a thought experiment, or a spiritual entity like an angel or demon. Rather, Socrates testified that his daemon was a small prophetic skill that spoke through daemonic signs, voices, and things.

Socrates’s daemon is a shorthand term for prophetic experiences involving an inner voice. While it is easy to imagine that Socrates was possessed by a literal or figurative demon, the words Plato used suggest that Socrates testified to prophetic skills upon the spiritual authority of the Oracle of Delphi

Prophecy, Not Possession: The True Role of Socrates’s Daemon

Socrates never speaks of an entity or a god in association with his inner voice. Rather, he testified that his inner voice was a daemonic prophecy or spiritual communication. Plato’s writings contain many references to daemonic things, such as Socrates’s inner voice. In contrast, Plato’s writing contains few references to daemons themselves.

The difference between “daemon” and “daemonic” is the same as the difference between “angel” and “angelic.” On the one hand, angelic things may include light in clouds, beautiful music, and sentiments of charity, but angels are spiritual beings who have personas that act in this world as we do. Socrates did not testify to encounters with spiritual beings. Rather, he testified to his own prophetic inner voice.

Daemonic vs. Divine: Lessons from the World of Forms

The distinction between “daemon” and “daemonic” is subtle, but powerful. Socrates testified only to daemonic things in this world, such as oracles and prophecy. He invoked Apollo as a witness to his piety. However, he offered no direct testimony of having interacted with the god or other spiritual entities.

Around 6500-3500 BC, in an era known as the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, huge advances were made that would shape the future of mankind. At this point, human society transitioned from using stone tools to copper ones and took its first steps on the journey to civilization.

When Humans First Started Using Copper

Copper usage began simply—by finding it on the ground. Around 6500 BC, Native Americans in the western Great Lakes region picked up copper nuggets from exposed copper veins and eventually began digging quarries. The Old Copper complex, as it is now known, is one of the easiest places in the world to obtain copper, and artifacts are so prolific that many residents of the area have a few in their homes. The Copper culture of the western Great Lakes mostly shaped the copper through cold working, without heating and melting the metal.

In Eastern Europe and the Middle East, extensive copper use began sometime after 6000 BC, though some evidence suggests it may have been worked as early as 8700 BC.

The Earliest Copper Deposits

The earliest copper deposits used were the North American Old Copper complex near the Great Lakes. In Europe, several examples of early copper mining exist. Rudna Glava in eastern Serbia dates to about 5000 BC, and 186 miles away is the Aibunar mine in Bulgaria, dating to about 4000 BC. Both of these mines, as well as others in the region, contributed to an early rise of some sort of civilization in the area that predates Sumeria in the Middle East. The islands of Crete and Cyprus also had easily obtainable copper, similar to that of the Great Lakes.

Why Was Copper Used by Early Man?

Early civilization use of copper before bronze and iron developed for several reasons. Copper is abundant and is a metal that is so pure that it needs little to no refining to filter out impurities (the copper found in the Great Lakes Copper Complex is as high as 99% pure). It was simple to mine and easy to work into shapes. It is also pretty once refined and shaped, and was easy to fashion into jewelry.

Humans eventually learned to work copper effectively, once they discovered that heating the metal enabled it to be shaped into larger, more durable forms. It could be used as tools and weapons— edged for shaping wood, for creating trade goods, and for waging war.

Copper and Other Metals

Hoard of bronze socketed axes from the Bronze Age found in modern Germany. This was the most common tool of the period, and also seems to have been used as a store of value. Source: Wikimedia Commons

As metallurgy developed, mixing copper with other metals, such as arsenic or tin, produced stronger alloys. Arsenical bronze—a copper alloy that contains arsenic—naturally occurs in an area of Anatolia, and its development led to the early Bronze Age in that region, helping to create a society that predated the Sumerians.

The End of the Copper Age

As the Neolithic Age gradually developed into the Copper Age, the Copper Age gradually shifted into the Bronze Age around 4000 BC as man learned more about fashioning metal into useful implements. While there were great Bronze Age civilizations and societies, no great Copper Age civilization emerged along the lines that would come to be, such as the Egyptians or Sumerians, though the roots of those civilizations would have their beginnings in the Copper Age.

Many tens of thousands of years ago, two human species lived in Europe. They were both distinct species of the Homo genus, but with noticeable visual differences.

Homo neanderthalensis was short and stocky, made for a life of tough, confrontational hunting and surviving in the bitter cold of Europe’s ice age. Homo sapiens was tall and lithe, better suited for persistence hunting, tiring out their prey over the open plains of Africa.

A comparison of these two species, however, reveals striking differences and similarities and offers valuable insight into our extinct cousins and ourselves, both in body and mind.

Neanderthals and Us: Diverging and Coming Together

The earliest known Neanderthal fossils have been dated to around 430,000 years ago, although it is certain they evolved before this. Likely evolving from Homo heidelbergensis, their lineage diverged from ours around 500,000 years ago, although some evidence points to it happening as far back as 650,000 years ago, or even as far back as 800,000 years ago, according to research using mtDNA calibrations and fossil morphology.

The current scientific consensus is that Homo sapiens emerged as a distinct species around 300,000 years ago. There is some evidence suggesting that around 200,000 years ago, the two species encountered each other, but this is a debatable range that requires much deeper investigation. Periods of intimate intermingling occurred 105,000 to 120,000 years ago and 45,000 to 60,000 years ago, suggesting waves of migrations, with the latter being the most dominant phase of genetic exchange.

Around 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappear from the fossil record. The reasons are a subject of fierce debate and include suggestions of being bred out, being outcompeted, and even genocide, although the latter lacks any significant academic support. Other factors could have been climate instability or pathogens introduced by Homo sapiens. What is certainly true is that, compared with Homo sapiens, the Neanderthal population was small, and modern humans have inherited some of the Neanderthal genome, with individuals outside sub-Saharan Africa having 1%-4% Neanderthal DNA.

The two species were not sufficiently different that they couldn’t interbreed, and although there were genetic challenges to the offspring’s fertility, interbreeding was possible and did occur.

Different Bodies for Different Purposes

Just by looking at the skeletal frame, it becomes clear that Neanderthals were built differently. Their skulls were elongated, and they had smaller foreheads, significantly more brow ridging, smaller chins, and bigger teeth. Their noses were also broader and taller than modern human noses, likely an adaptation that helped to humidify the dry ice-age air, and to draw enough oxygen in for their extremely physical lifestyles and the theoretically high energy demands of the Neanderthal body. Some research suggests the average Neanderthal required 5,000 calories per day, which is roughly the same as a cyclist training for the Tour de France!

Their skulls were larger, and their cranial capacity was also slightly bigger on average. This does not necessarily mean they were smarter than Homo sapiens, but it does go some way to dispelling the myth of them being primitive brutes of low intellect.

Overall, the Neanderthal frame was slightly shorter, but stockier and more robust. Their barrel-chested ribs encased lungs that had an estimated 20% more capacity than modern Homo sapiens. Their lower legs and arms were also shorter, enhancing their stocky appearance. This was likely an adaptation to the cold, as examples of these adaptations, including the wider thorax, are observable in Yupik and Inuit populations that live in arctic conditions. By comparison, it seems the narrower thorax and longer legs evident in Homo sapiens were an adaptation for endurance running.

Given the difference in lifestyles, these evolutionary differences make perfect sense.

Strategies for Survival

Homo sapiens and Neanderthals evolved in completely different climates with varying geographical and biological dynamics that shaped the evolution of each species. Of primary note are the very different hunting strategies employed by each species. Neanderthals were confrontational hunters. They got in close and thrust with spears designed for close-quarters hunting. Given their prey consisted of bison, horses, aurochs, red deer, and even woolly rhinos and mammoths, it is unsurprising that Neanderthals sustained many injuries over the course of their (probably shorter) lives. They were also ambush predators, hiding in the foliage and behind rocks until the prey was in striking distance. Neanderthals often employed herd mentality and geographic features to drive large numbers of prey into areas where they could be picked off with ease.

Like Neanderthals, Homo sapiens hunted in groups, but preferred (and still do) to keep their distance, favoring projectile weapons rather than getting up close and personal. This perfectly suited their (our) evolution, as their upper bodies were far better adapted for throwing spears. While Neanderthal shoulder and arm construction favored strength and stability, Homo sapiens was far better suited to overhead throwing and a host of other arm movements facilitated by a more mobile scapula. This was (and still is) significantly aided by joints and muscles conducive to storing and releasing elastic energy necessary for effective projectile use.

Being ambush predators meant that Neanderthals were built for fast bursts of speed, after which they used their considerable strength against their prey. Homo sapiens, on the other hand, were adapted to long-distance running, tiring their prey out over the African savannah in incredible feats of endurance. They did, however, use other hunting strategies depending on the context. Persistence hunting was not exclusive in the repertoire of Homo sapiens techniques.

Behavior and Culture

Speech is a defining feature of modern humans, and there are academics who argue that language was developed suddenly around 40,000 years ago. Other academics believe that language was a slow development that began as far back as 2 million years ago.

While there are no remains of actual languages, genetic and anatomical research provide strong evidence to suggest Neanderthals were capable of speech. Of note is the FOXP2 gene, which is vital for human speech. While other animals also have this gene, the derived version found in modern humans was also found in Neanderthals, strongly suggesting that Neanderthals at least had the capability for advanced speech and language.

This is supported by anatomical research, which shows Neanderthals had the physical abilities to produce speech and to distinguish the complex features of it aurally.

Another overt feature of humanity is the ability for abstract thought and the creativity that is born as a result. While Lascaux, Altamira, Chauvet, and numerous other cave sites are famous for their depictions of animals and hunting scenes, there are also several places associated with Neanderthal creativity that, until recently, have gone largely unrecognized. La Pasiega cave in Spain features a scalariform idiomorph (a ladder-shaped image) that has been dated to at least 64,800 years ago, strongly suggesting it was made by Neanderthals. In Bruniquel cave in France, a circular structure made from stalagmites has been dated to 175,000 years ago, predating Homo sapiens in the region by more than 100,000 years. This represents the oldest structure ever discovered.

The creativity didn’t stop at cave art. Personal decoration is a hallmark of the human species, and this dynamic was also true for Neanderthals. Eagle talons strung together as a bracelet or necklace were found in Krapina, Croatia, and were dated to around 130,000 years ago, while several Neanderthal sites in Iberia have yielded pigment-stained, perforated shells that were presumably used for body decoration.

Speaking to the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals were the stone tools they used, which were predominantly created using the Levallois technique. Unlike other methods in which a stone is fashioned by chipping away at it, like a sculptor turning stone into a statue, the Levallois technique involves preparing the stone by chipping it in a way that sets it up for a final strike to release the desired, predictable shape. This requires a level of skill and sophisticated creative thinking that far exceeds previous conceptions of Neanderthal cognitive capabilities. Homo sapiens used this technique as well, and there is strong evidence indicating it was used by late populations of Homo heidelbergensis, the common ancestor of both species.

Neanderthals had a host of other clever technologies and techniques that prove their intelligent adaptability. A notable example is the difficult process of extracting birch resin by heating the bark to a precise temperature in earth ovens. They used the resin as an adhesive for their spearpoints, among other uses.

Compassion

Like Homo sapiens, Neanderthals buried their dead intentionally. Whether these burials were linked to ritual and spiritual significance is still a matter of debate. Evidence for ritual significance comes from Shanidar cave in Iraq, where the grave of a Neanderthal seems to have contained flowers. Alternative theories suggest that the pollen evidence entered the grave via other means, such as bees. Nevertheless, the placement of the body and others at Shanidar cave suggests deliberate care for the deceased.

In the same cave, the remains of Shanidar 1 (a male nicknamed “Nandy” by excavators) show that he was between 30 and 45 when he died. His body exhibited severe signs of impact trauma to the left side of his face, which fractured his orbit and may have left him blind in that eye. He also suffered from two broken legs, a fractured vertebra, and the loss of his lower right arm, which may have been amputated. If this is so, it may represent the earliest evidence of surgery.

These wounds healed, but it is highly unlikely Nandy would have been a productive member of society. He was certainly cared for, pointing towards a level of compassion that is undeniably human.

In this, it is likely that Neanderthals had the same ability for empathy as Homo sapiens.

Static and Dynamic Cultures

Of major note is the fact that the Neanderthal population was much smaller than that of Homo sapiens. The total Neanderthal population at any given point in their existence is estimated to have ranged between 5,000 and 70,000 individuals, with estimates at the lower end more commonly cited. In contrast, the Homo sapiens population was likely in excess of 100,000.

Neanderthals also lived in tight-knit, closed communities, surrounded by challenging geography. This led to inbreeding and lower genetic diversity, as the gene flow between Neanderthal groups was hindered. This also meant there was less knowledge exchange. In comparison, Homo sapiens lived in larger, more interconnected societies that fostered rapid growth and technological exchange, ultimately adding to the dynamic that led to the growth of Homo sapiens populations and the reduction of Neanderthal populations.

Neanderthals can be considered human in every sense that matters. They made art, they treated their sick, wounded, and dead with care, they spoke languages, and they even interbred with us. Modern science has redefined the image, and breaking free from the stereotype of the primitive troglodytes, Neanderthals were more like us than was previously accepted. Yet they exhibited striking differences that illustrate their evolutionary context.

The invention of writing is considered the dividing line between prehistory and history, and it represents a major achievement that provided a foundation for human civilization. Developed in Sumeria over five millennia ago, cuneiform was the script that first recorded stories, thoughts, prayers, hymns, lists, and business transactions.

Of huge importance to this dynamic was a woman named Enheduanna (𒂗𒃶𒌌𒀭𒈾), a high priestess in the city of Ur, a daughter of (the great) Sargon of Akkad, and the first named author in world history.

This is her story and how she helped shape the Mesopotamian world.

The Rise of Akkad and the Historical Context of Enheduanna

Enheduanna was born into a turbulent world of conquest and the formation of the world’s first empire. In the southern portion of Mesopotamia existed the Sumerian city-states, each an independent polity that vied for control with one another, often leading to violent conflict. To their north were the city-states of Semitic-speaking peoples. Sargon rose to power in the northern city-state of Kish and then launched a campaign against Lugal-za-gesi, who had united the Sumerian city-states. After taking Uruk and capturing Lugal-za-gesi, Sargon conquered the whole region, uniting the Semitic-speaking people with the Sumerians and forging the Akkadian Empire.

Building a nation required cultural syncretization, and Sargon appointed his daughter as High Priestess of Ur, where she could attend to this demand. She took the name of Enheduanna, which means “High Priestess (En) Ornament (Hedu) of Heaven (Anna),” and played an important role in this dynamic, as she merged Sumerian and Semitic peoples into a unified whole through religious respect. What her original name was at birth is lost to history, but we know her adopted name was Sumerian, differing from her original name, which would likely have been Semitic.

In the city of Ur, Enheduanna had the title of En-Priestess, which was reserved for royal women, and held significant spiritual and administrative power. To this, she was the representative of the Sumerian moon god, Nanna. In 1927, an alabaster disk was excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley and his team. The shattered pieces were reconstructed, and the reverse side identified Enheduanna as the wife of Nanna, while the front depicts Enheduanna in worship.

Power and Duty

As an en-priestess, Enheduanna was the most powerful figure in the giparu, Ur’s temple complex, which represented the religious aspect of the city of Ur. This made her one of the most prestigious people in the city. However, primary executive, administrative, and military power still rested with the šakkunakku (governor). Nevertheless, her positions as a high priestess and a princess made her one of the most influential and well-known people in the entire empire. Assyriologist Joan Goodnick Westenholz suggested that the position of High Priestess held a level of prestige comparable to that of a king.

The power of the temples at this time was not just religious and moral, but underpinned by economic activity. Temples served as factories for commercial manufacturing and as storage facilities for grain. Without the centralized economic power of the temple complex, the city could face severe, possibly catastrophic, economic disruption.

Enheduanna’s appointment likely came at the behest of her father, who wanted his daughter to use the position to cement ties between the Sumerian and Semitic/Akkadian religions and foster a sense of unity. This appointment set a precedent for tradition, and in the centuries that followed, royal princesses became high priestesses of Ur, although the records of this practice are incomplete and may suggest an intermittent tradition rather than a continuous one.

As a high priestess, Enheduanna’s duties were vast and varied. Despite intense research into the subject, there is little information about what the specific duties were and how they were carried out. Nevertheless, safe assumptions can be made.

She would have looked after the statues of the temple, organizing their proper treatment. She made offerings and sacrifices, and interpreted dreams and omens. Along with her staff, she was responsible for cataloguing celestial movements. This was tied to religious beliefs and would have been a complex endeavor, though it is unknown how it was carried out.

As a religious figure, she represented the god Nanna and his wife, Ningal. In some circumstances, she was considered the embodiment of Ningal, and once a year, she took part in a ritual marriage to a representative embodying Nanna. Whether they had intercourse is unknown, but it is possible.

Apart from the religious aspects, Enheduanna had many other high-profile responsibilities. She would have been a diplomat, keeping peaceful and productive relations with other temples and cults within the temple complex. As her temple owned significant agricultural land, she would have also been responsible for overseeing the temple’s transactions and finances, as it acted as a bank as well as a distribution center. There were also many employees, such as farmers, fishermen, and shepherds, who worked for the temple, adding to its economic power and its position as a vital aspect of the city.

Enheduanna the Writer

As with many priestesses and those involved in administration, literacy was a core feature of Enheduanna’s education, but up until the time of Enheduanna, texts were anonymous. Enheduanna represents the first instance of a writer attributing their work to themselves by including their own name. She did so by naming herself in the concluding statement (colophon) of her texts. This is a quote from a compilation of her texts known as the Temple Hymns:

“The compiler of the tablets was Enheduanna. My king, something has been created that no one has created before” (The Temple Hymns 543-544).

Representing the main corpus of her work, the Temple Hymns were reconstructed from 37 tablets containing 42 hymns, found in Ur and Nippur and dated to several centuries after Enheduanna first put stylus to clay. The originals, sadly, have been lost to time, but Enheduanna’s works were copied and “republished” many times over during the centuries that followed her life. Attributions of this period, however, are difficult to ascertain, and some of the hymns were not written by Enheduanna. Over time, hymns were added to the collection, but the main body of work is generally attributed to Enheduanna. Each hymn is dedicated to a god or goddess, and the city with which they were associated.

A separate and distinct hymn written by Enheduanna was Nin-me-šárra, the Exaltation of Inanna (Ishtar), which contains 153 lines of cuneiform text. Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of fertility, love, and war, and the daughter of Nanna and Ningal. Enheduanna seems to have dedicated much time to the worship and exaltation of this goddess, and as a result, Inanna’s popularity within Akkadian/Sumerian society skyrocketed.

No explanation of the Exaltation can be complete, however, without mentioning the context in which it was born…

Political Exile and the Exaltation of Inanna

When Enheduanna wrote the Exaltation of Inanna, her life had been turned on its head, and the words she wrote were a reflection of this challenging period. Much of what is known of the political crises comes from the stylus of Enheduanna as she described her own situation. The text is a personal plea in religious language rather than an account of historical events. As such, the facts are difficult to verify.

Likely during the reign of Sargon’s grandson (or possibly son), a local usurper named Lugal-Ane assumed power in Ur and deposed Enheduanna for not confirming his assumption of power. Lugal-Ane exiled Enheduanna, following which the former high priestess wrote the prayer, pleading with Inanna for divine justice and to punish the impious usurper. While the prayer ends with Inanna accepting the pleas and restoring Enheduanna, it can be assumed to be a mythic interpretation. There is no consensus amongst historians on the matter.

What really happened in the end is unknown.

The Implications

While verified knowledge of Enheduanna’s fate is left to apocrypha, the fate of her writing lasted long after her demise. Enheduanna’s name outlasted the politics and became entrenched in dogma and impressed in clay. For centuries, scribes copied her works as religious traditions were preserved past the timeframe of the Akkadian Empire.

At the time of her struggles against Lugal-Ane, the Exaltation acted as propaganda, justifying religious sentiment against the usurper. Through this, political and personal struggles were transposed into literature, giving us arguably the first instance of someone injecting their own personality into writing. Enheduanna was the first to give us a glimpse into her own world in her own words.

And she did so over one and a half millennia before Homer wrote his Iliad and Odyssey. In this, Enheduanna is recognized as the world’s first author, and a powerful symbol for literature, ancient Mesopotamian religion, and women in the ancient world.