HUXLEY, GEORGE, Aristeas and the Cyzicene , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 27:2 (1986:Summer) p.151 Aristeas and the Cyzicene George Huxley I N DESCRIBING migrations of Scythians, Cimmerians, and other Asiatic peoples, Herodotus mentions that one of his sources is the poet Aristeas, son of Caystrobius of Proconnesus (4.13.1). The wondrous career of the poet caught the fancy of Herodotus, who reported what he heard in Proconnesus and Cyzicus (4.14.1) and at Metapontum (4.15.1). Here we are concerned with a small problem in the Proconnesian part of the well-known tale. Aristeas, says Herodotus, was a citizen of high birth in Procon­ nesus. He entered a fuller's shop there and gave up the ghost. The fuller closed his shop and went to fetch the kinsfolk. Word spread about the city that Aristeas was dead, but the story was denied by a man of Cyzicus who had lately sailed over to Proconnesus from Artace; he protested that he had met Aristeas, who was on his way to Cyzicus; moreover the two travellers had conversed together. When the shop was opened, there was no Aristeas, dead or alive. Later, in the seventh year, Aristeas reappeared in Proconnesus, where he composed his poem, the Arimaspea, relating the marvellous things he had seen and heard during his wanderings beyond the Euxine. There­ after he disappeared for a second time; but some two hundred and forty years later, according to the estimate of Herodotus, Aristeas manifested himself to the Metapontines, first as a raven in the com­ pany of Apollo and then as himself; in his own guise he ordered the Metapontines to build an altar to Apollo and to set up a statue of Aristeas the Proconnesian (4.14.1-15.4). In a classic article on Asiatic shamanism Meuli argued that among the legendary powers of Aristeas was a capacity for marvellously rapid travel. Concerning the Cyzicene's protest at Proconnesus that Aris­ teas was not dead, Meuli wrote, "und als man in der Stadt schon vom Tod des Aristeas geredet hatte, ware ein Mann aus Kyzikos eben von Artake hergekommen und hatte steif und fest behauptet, er sei dem Aristeas auf der Strasse von Artake nach Kyzikos be­ gegnet und habe mit ihm gesprochen."l Consistently with this inter­ pretation of Herodotus, Meuli referred to the miraculously swift 1 K. Meuli, "Scythica," Hermes 70 (1935) 121-176, esp. 157f. 151 HUXLEY, GEORGE, Aristeas and the Cyzicene , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 27:2 (1986:Summer) p.151 152 ARISTEAS AND THE CYZICENE journey of Aristeas from Proconnesus to Artace, that is, to "die wunderbare Schnelligkeit" of his travel before the meeting with the Cyzicene on the road between Artace and Cyzicus. A slightly different interpretation of Herodotus was given by 1. D. P. Bolton.2 He argued as follows. "Herodotus states that he heard the story of Aristeas' first disappearance and reappearance from the Pro­ connesians and Cyzicenes. It is a reasonable conjecture that the Cy­ zicene contribution was the man of Cyzicus who met the 'dead' Aris­ teas on the mainland, and that Herodotus himself has combined this with a Proconnesian account-of the corpse which vanished from the fuller's shop-in a manner dramatically effective though chronolog­ ically absurd, for logic demands that the Cyzicene had left the main­ land before the death, if he was to arrive in Proconnesus, a good four hours' voyage from Artace, just after it had been announced." Bolton also remarked that "it is not so much the speed of Aristeas' journey from Proconnesus to the mainland as the speed of the Cyzicene's in the reverse direction which is really anomalous."3 Before Herodotus is agreed to have dramatized a tale which in itself is sufficiently remarkable, it is necessary to look again at what he states. The meeting of the Cyzicene with Aristeas happened be­ fore the journey of the latter as far as the Issedonians~ so it would be surprising if he had already, prior to his instructive journey, acquired a shamanistic power of bilocation or rapid travel. Not only shamans can be mistakenly supposed to be dead. What Herodotus says is that according to the tale told in Proconnesus and in Cyzicus, Aristeas died in the fuller's shop but later met the Cyzicene coming from Artace~ Aristeas told the Cyzicene that he was on the way to Cyzicus (or the Cyzicene inferred in the course of their conversation that Cyzicus was the destination of Aristeas): E~ ai-«Ptf3aeTia~ TOl,eTt AEYOV- , '8" ~ K r \., 'I: ''A' ,). A..~ eTt a7TtKJJEEeT at aJJupa V,:>tK'Y1 1'01' 'Y1KOJJTa E':o pTaK71~ 7TOl\.tO~, is a reflex of the Hittite and Luwian -piya and Piya-, frequent in Anatolian compound names, and meaning 'given by' or '-given'. See the discussion by E. Laroche, Les noms des Hittites (Paris 1966) 317-19. HUXLEY, GEORGE, Aristeas and the Cyzicene , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 27:2 (1986:Summer) p.151 GEORGE HUXLEY 155 that Aristeas was alive did not have to travel all the way from Artace to new Proconnesus. He came across from Artace to Old Procon­ nesus in the isle of Halone. Results can now be gathered. (1) The miraculous element in the Proconnesian and Cyzicene story about Aristeas was his recovery from death. (2) There is nothing shamanistic in the meeting between Aristeas and the Cyzicene visitor who came over from Artace. (The tale implies neither praeternatural rapidity of travel nor a capacity for bilocation. If Aristeas learned about shamans-from the Issedonians, for instance, who were the most remote of his informants [4.13.1] -or was initiated as a shaman, his knowledge was acquired after his first departure from home.)lo (3) The hypothesis that Halone is Old Proconnesus well suits the textual and geographical evidence.ll (4) Aristeas can be dated early in the seventh century, and despite the lack of archaeological evidence for the date of the earliest Greek settlements in Old and new Proconnesus he is fittingly placed in the earlier of the two-that is, in Halone.l 2 THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY, ATHENS June, 1986 10 What Pindar said about Aristeas is not clear (fr.271 S.-M.), but the Proconnesian belongs with other early Greek shaman-like persons, such as Hermotimus of Clazo­ menae (M. L. West, The Orphic Poems [Oxford 1983] 149). The word shaman orig­ inated in Siberia among the Evenki people, who were known to their western neigh­ bours, the Samoyeds, as Tungus. Today the Nenets still use a form of the word Tun­ gus to denote the Evenki: see J. Janhunen, "The Tungus Peoples and the Conquest of Siberia," in Altaistic Studies, G. Jarring and S. Rosen, edd. (Stockholm 1985) 73-77. The name Tungus passed into Russian, and so the Evenki word saman is conven­ tionally called Tungusian (as in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "Shaman"). 11 There is a typically acute discussion of ancient literary evidence about islands off Cyzicus by A. Andrewes in JHS 102 (1982) 23-25. Stephanus of Byzantium, s. VV. 'AAoJVYj and TIPOKOIIIIYjO'O<;, gives no help with the problem of Old Proconnesus. The entry s. v. BEO'{3LKO<; (pp.165.10-166.6M.) includes a fragment of Diogenes the Cyzicene (FGrHist 474 F2); the text is corrupt, but a Proconnesus and Halone are distinguished. 12 F. W. Hasluck's account of the Marmara islands in JHS 29 (1909) 6-18 is still valuable; a description of Halone, which can be supposed to have kept its name since antiquity, is included (15-17). In the southeast of the island of Halone a Hellenic enceinte runs down to the sea on either side of the the hamlet of Khouklia. The poly­ gonal walls are almost certainly those of Old Proconnesus. Ancient walls and other remains at Khouklia in southeastern Halone are also described by M. I. Gedeon, npOL­ KOVIIYjO'O<; (Constantinople 1895) 28f; the archaic funerary inscription of Mandron found there shows that the settlement at Khouklia already existed in pre-classical times.