APULEIANA GRONINGANA V

Haemus, The Bloody Brigand (or : What's in an Alias?)

BY

B. L. HIJMANS Jr.

When in Apuleius Met. 7, 5 a newcomer appears in the robbers'

assembly, he dubbs himself Haemus, son of Theron, Thracian.

Elsewhere I have argued that the name Haemus contains at least

three puns: it refers to to A!¡1.oç the Thracian mountain and, in addition, plays with the phrase aemulus uirtutis paternae 1). The name occurs outside Apuleius as well, but only a limited

number of times, in a limited number of contexts. A survey of

those contexts may produce one or two suggestions as to the (type

of) source or sources Apuleius, or his Voylage 2), drew upon. If we

look at the mythical and literary passages in which the name

Haemus is employed, they may be put in the following order:

passages in which Mt. Haemus plays a role in a literary context, in a myth or as a personification (I), passages in which various

more or less heroic Haemi occur (II), and two passages in Juvenal

mentioning an actor of that name (III). By far the largest number of

instances occur in group I, and it seems likely that at least some of

those have an echo in the name Tlepolemus was made to choose for

himself by his well-read author 3). If it could be shown that Haemus

the actor was in fact a well-known literary figure or that Apuleius used Juvenal on other occasions as well, the link of the passages of group III with our pseudo-robber would be secure. As it is we

1) See B. L. Hijmans Jr. and R. Th. van der Paardt (ed.), Aspects of Apuleius Golden Ass (Groningen 1978), 115 f. (AAGA).

2) The Onos does not give the bridegroom of the kidnapped girl a name, but that does not mean that the Metamorphoseis of Loukios of Patras neces- sarily eschewed a name for him.

3) That Apuleius was well-read does not have to be argued. A. G. Wes- terbrink, AAGA, 62 ff. adds to the list of parodying quotes and half-quotes. A full-scale study of literary reminiscences in the Met. is still lacking.

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depend on probabilities. For the instances of group II I am equally unable to show that a link must exist, but even there a possibility

presents itself.

I. Mt. Haemus

a) Three literary contexts

The Thracian mountains, often snow-capped as Homer knew

(11. 14, 227), have kept the association with snow and cold through- out ancient literature and Mt. Haemus is no exception: Calli-

machus speaks of the cold north wind blowing down from it 4), Claudian 3, 334 still speaks of Haemus niualis, and Ausonius has

the same reflex action (152, 134 Peiper) 5). In the present note,

however, the purely geographical aspects of the mountain with

its tamarisks and its border- and defense-function will be left

aside 6) ; we simply note that some of the geographical aspects have their literary uses.

More interesting (in view of robber Haemus' martial claims) are

such phrases as Mauoytius Haemus (Sil. II, 464). The god appears to have been placed on that mountain for the first time 1) by Callimachus, Hymn. in Del. 63 f.: xopuq$jq È1tt L

AZ¡J.ouj6oupoç "Apqq £q4xaaac auv The connection

with Ares/Mars also occurs in Statius (Theb. 7, 42; 12, 733) and

4) Hymn. in Dian. (III) 114 ff.:

ρυµν γoυσα. 5) Paola Venini collects a few instances in her comm. on Stat. Theb. 11,

195. To these we may add Theocr. 7, 76; Verg. G. 2, 488 f.; Hor. Carm. 1, 12, 6; Porphyrio and Pseudacr. on Hor. Carm. 1, 37, 19 (the impression is strong that they, like Servius on G. 2, 488, place Mt. Haemus in Thessaly); Ov. Met. 6, 88; 19, 77 (pulsus aquilonibus); Pont. 4, 5, 5 ; Sen. Med. 590 ; Stat. Theb. 5, 16 (no snow in summer); 5, 189 ; 9, 532; Claudian 20, 565 ; 21, 131; 26, 166; Nonnus Dionys. 48, 73.

6) Tamarisks are mentioned by Theoph. Hist. plant. 4, 5, 7. For the re- levant passages see Oberhummer in R.-E. 7, 2221 ff. Interesting is Livy's report of Demetrius' mountaineering expedition (40, 21 f.), especially in the light of the disagreement between Strabo 7, 5, 1 (313) and Polybius 24, 3 (fr. 1131) on the question how far one can see from the top. Livy reports dense woods and fog (22, 3-4).

7) No earlier instances survive to my knowledge.

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Claudianus (i, I2o : procubat horrendus Getico Gradiuus in Haemo ;

20, Io3 ff.; 20, 162).

Though he is not mentioned, Mars is hardly far from Vergil's mind when he writes G. 1, q.gl f. nec fuit indignum superis, bis

sanguine nostro IE mathiam et latos Haemi Pinguescere campos, a

passage Lucan has in mind when composing Phars. I, 678 ff. In

both cases the reference to Haemus is placed towards the end of a

crescendo of terrifying horrors, but Lucan does not repeat Vergil's

strikingly contrastive picture of the farmer whose plough will in

later times turn up rusty spears and helmets 8).

Equally sanguinary is the statement in Juno's speech at Stat.

Theb. I, 273 ff. that Mt. Haemus would have been a better place for

Oenomaus' horses: Oenomaus was a son of Ares and his horses

(of divine speed) the cause of death for many suitors of Hippo- damia. Statius clearly hints at a comparison with the man-eating horses of Thracian Diomede. See Heuvel ad loc.

An association with Bacchus/Liber is less frequent but perhaps

equally violent. Lucian, Salt. 51, admittedly does not make it

fully clear whether he means the mountains as sites for the sparag- mos of Orpheus and the punishment of Lycurgus 9), but in Latin

literature that connection offers no problem: Pomponius Mela 2,

17 tells us that Haemus, Rhodope and Orbelos were sacris Liberi

Patris et coetu Maenadum OrPheo primum initiante celebratos 10) and V.Fl. 1, 726 ff. produces the telling comparison of raging Pelias with Lycurgus maddened by Bacchus:

8) If we are inclined to give some weight to the martial association of Mt. Haemus in the well-known geographical conflation that occurs in these passages (cf. also Ov. Met. 15, 824), we should be reminded by Vergil's contrastive picture that the area also has more peaceful associations, as will be seen presently. A different aition for the name Haemus is given by Apollodorus when telling the story of Typhon (Bibl. 1, 6, 3). When fighting Zeus the monster is hit by a thunderbolt and blood runs in streams over the slopes of the mountain which from that time onward is called Haemus.

9)

10) Cf. Steph. Byz. 12, 1, where the name Agathyrsoi is connected with the Dionysian Thyrsus.

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Bistonas ad meritos cum cornua saeua Thyoneus torsit et infelix iam mille furoribus Haemus 11), iam Rhodopes nemora alta gemunt, talem incita longis

porticibus coniunxque fugit natique Lycurgum.

Stat. Theb. 4, 652 also associates a warring Bacchus with Mt.

Haemus. Bucolic overtones on the other hand are obvious at Verg. G.

2, 486-489, where the ÀtX6e: ?Lc0O'rxç theme is linked with Haemus

(o qui me gelidis conuallibus Hae?ni/sistat, et ingenti Yamorum

pyotegat umbra) 12). Yet here, too, the contrasting picture is not

omitted (495 ff. mention the temptations of power as well as (civil)

wars). The aspect brought out by Horace Caym. i, 12, 6 is the poetic one in his reference to Orpheus to whom forests came to listen.

The same story is elaborated on by Sil. It. II, 464 (see above), who works in a contrasting element by means of the adjective Mauortius: non illo Pangaea iuga aut Mauoytius HaeJxus,/non illo modulante sonos stetit ultima Thyace;/cum siluis uenere feyae, cum montibus amnes. See also Claudian's introduction to De rapt. Pros. II (34, 21): when Orpheus sings ardua nudato descendit

populus Haemo /et comitem queyczam Pinus amica tyahit.

Whether Ov. Met. 2, 21g nondum Oeagrius Haemus should be

listed here or with the passages in which a sparagmos occurs is left

to the reader. Oeagrus was Orpheus' father 13).

Finally there is the story of Aristaeus' disappearance in Diod.

Sic. 4, 82. Aristaeus' connection with the myth of Orpheus (Eury- dice was bitten by the snake when trying to escape from Aristaeus'

amorous pursuit) is well known from Verg. G. 4, 453 ff. Diodorus

relates that after having been initiated to the Dionysian mysteries

II) Langen notes ad loc. : "infelix (...) Haemus dicitur propter furores Baccharum infesta Lycurgo insania uagantium".

12) See Fr. Klingner, Virgil (1967), 272 on the link of the Epicurean and bucolic elements. The Bacchus aspect is here linked with the Taygetus (Conington notes a temple of Bacchus on the Taygetus mentioned by Paus. 3, 20).

13) Bömer ad loc. thinks the combination was imitated from Verg. G. 4, 524 Oeagrius Hebrus. The latter river is sometimes regarded as the son of Haemus and Rhodope. See under b.

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Aristaeus was last known to live on the slopes of Mt. Haemus, and

there he disappeared without a trace (acpavTOV

b) A myth

Ovid Met. 6, 87 ff. tells us that Pallas, when competing with

Arachne, weaves a tapestry:

Threiciam Rodopen habet angulus unus et Haemum, nunc gelidos montes, mortalia corpora quondam, nomina summorum sibi qui tribuere deorum.

This fits the story as told in Ps.-Plutarch De fluv. m, 3 14), where a

few details are added: Rhodope and Haemus, though sister and

brother, fall in love with one another and address one another with

respectively 'Zeus' and 'Hera' 15). Those gods, angered, change them into mountains. According to Servius on Verg. A. I, 317 the

couple have a son: the river Hebrus. Steph. Byz. 50, 7 makes

Haemus the son of Boreas and Oreithyia. Pherecydes, on the

other hand, mentions two sons of that couple, who remain nameless

in fr. 28 (FGrH Jacoby) but are called Zetes and Calais in Apol- lonius Rhodius (1, 211). The scholiast on this passage who quotes

Pherecydes (fr. 145 FGrH ) has him speak of Haemus as a mountain.

Thus Ovid appears to preserve the earliest reference to a metamor-

phosis of Haemus.

c) A personification

The city of Nicopolis on the northern slopes of Mt. Haemus 16)

14) Schmid-Stählin6 (II 239) characterize the product as "eine völlig schwindelhafte Entartung der Paradoxographie". They give no information about the suspected date of origin.

15) Lact. Plac. Narr. fab. 6, 1 also explicitly mentions illicit love and abuse of the names Jupiter and Juno (Mythogr. Latini ed. Muncker, Amste- lodami 1681, II, 227). Anderson on Ov. Met. 6, 87 ff. also mentions these details and compares Cephalus and Procris (7, 800 ff.) and Ceyx and Alcyone in a non-Ovidian version. Ps. Plut. adds a curious further detail: γεννντα

< ... > Thrasyllus of Mendes was Tiberius' astrologer; he died 36 A.D.

16) For detailed information concerning this city see G. Kazarow in R.-E. 17, 1 s.v. n. 4. The city was particularly prosperous during the reign

412

has a series of coins from the period of Julia Domna and Macrinus

(i.e. shortly after Apuleius' death) showing on the reverse a young hunter, beardless, seated on a rock and wearing a himation; a bear is represented below and a tree behind him. The coins show the name AIMOE with the exception of the last Macrinus issue. For a description see the Catalogue of Coins of the British Museum :

Chers.-Thrace, 48, n. 49 ; B. Pick, Die antiken Miinzen von Dacien und Moesien I (Berlin 1898), 389 n. 145o. Apparently we have to do with a local divinity, since the type is not found elsewhere.

Unhappily there is no epigraphical evidence for this divinity other than the coins mentioned.

II

a) Haemus, a pre-Homeric hero

In Philostratus' Heroicus the shade of Protesilaos (I I, 4 p. 268 ed. Westermann) is asked about the early development of the Tro-

jan war. He gives an account of a battle between Telephus and the Greeks when the latter have just landed. Warned by his brother

Tlepolemus and helped by Haemus (,ro5 ''APEOs) Telephus attempts to drive off the Greeks, but is unsuccessful. Palamedes kills Haemus

(3, 33 p. 284 Westermann). Tzetzes, Antehom. 26o ff. tells essentially the same story; with him, too, Haemus is 'Apct8qq. C. Robert, Die griechische Heldensage, 3, 2, 1 (Berlin 1923), 1151, notes that various aspects of the Telephus tale were taken from the Pergamene account of the Trojan War but suspends judgment on the origin of Haemus. For the difficult question of Philostratus' sources see R.-E. s.v. Philostratos, 158, 54 ff.

b) A Thracian tyrant and c) a Scythian king

In the foundation myth of Byzantium as related by Hesychius Milesius 17) (FHG IV 146 ff.) Byzas has to deal with invading

of Septimius Severus. Antoninus Pius had allowed it its own coinage. Dio- nysus appears on both coins and reliefs of the city as does Artemis, the huntress. For Haemus see col. 526 (with a ref. to the earlier article in R.-E. 7, 2223).

17) Schmid-Stählin once again pronounce a vitriolic judgement on this author, who probably wrote in the 6th cent. A.D.

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barbarians, first amongst whom is Haemus os <4pavvoq In a duel Byzas kills Haemus on his eponymous mountain.

Eust. in Dion. 783 (FHG III 5g6) mentions a Haemus, king of

the Scythians, whose son Eridios gave his name to a river (later called Iris). He cites Arrian as his source.

III. Haemus, a famous actor

Juvenal twice mentions an actor Haemus: 3, 99 and 6, 198. At

3, 99 the interesting point is that Juvenal is speaking of Greeks

who can act so well that they actually "are" the woman they act

(95 f.: muliey nempe ipsa uidetur, non Persona loq2ci). This national

talent is then compared with a number of apparently well-known and proficient actors:

Nec tamen Antiochus nec erit mirabilis illic

aut Stratocles aut cum molli Demetrius Haemo.

In 6, 198 Haemus and Carpophorus are equally adduced for the

sake of comparison, and by implication it is obvious that they can

act a Greek woman to perfection. For this Haemus neither scholia

nor commentaries mention any further evidence.

Apuleius is a doctissimus scriPtor as is noticeable on every page of

his Metamorphoses. In principle, therefore, there is no reason why

any employment of the name available in his time should not be

available to him. In some of the cases mentioned above the likeli-

hood that the information was available in his time is rather less

than in others. Least likely seems to be knowledge of the tyrant and

king of II b and c. Mere possibilities II a and I c: in both cases

there is an element that might serve as a link; respectively the

elements of 'son of Ares' and 'hunter', the first of which may be

hinted at in the phrase fortissimo deo 111 arti clientes mihique iam

fidi commilitones (158, 3-4) and the second in the name of the rob-

ber's father, Theron. But the chronological situation of the evidence

does not support the link.

In the case of III it may be regarded as significant that Apuleius' Haemus, too, is acting, but Haemus is the name he assumes, not

the man's name in 'real life'. On the other hand, both Juvenal's

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GRONINGEN, Klassiek Instituut

Haemus and Tlepolemus' Haemus are characters in a tale who act female roles with great success. However, in the unlikely event that it can be shown that Apuleius had not read Juvenal's satires 18) it may still be pointed out that the satirist had a well-known

penchant for using historical celebrities to indicate types 19), and that a name known to Juvenal between 100 and 125 A.D., even if it were to date back to the time of Domitian, may still

have been known to Apuleius in the second half of the same century. I b presents us with a Mt. Haemus which is the result of a meta-

morphosis. Apuleius' Haemus ille Thyacius (Pyaetey ceteyam corpoyis molem toto ueytice cunctos antepollebal 157, 25-26) of course has

undergone a kind of metamorphosis, too. The existence of this

particular myth supports the pun: the-man-like-the-mountain-

that-was-a-man.

But this mountain, even without its myth-of-origin, has at least three well-known literary associations (I a), of which Apuleius appears to use the martial (e.g. libentius uulneya corpore excipientem

quam auyum manu suscipientem 158, 5-6) and the blood-drenched

one (humano sanguine nutyitus x sanguine nostyo ... Haemi Pin-

guescere The more bucolic and peaceful associations we

met in Horace and Vergil would fit peaceful Tlepolemus rather

better than the Haemus he plays, but that play with opposites,

typical as it is for Apuleian humour, should certainly not be com-

pared with the serious contrasts Vergil achieves.

18) Popular in the 4th c.A.D., he was out of fashion in the period in which Apuleius flourished. See e.g. U. Knoche, Handschr. Grundl. des Juvenal- textes (Leipzig 1940), ch. I. It is hard to find obvious and indisputable Juvenal echoes in the Met.

19) See e.g. U. Knoche, Juvenal, Satiren (München 1951), 18; G. Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford 1954), 290-294.