Carthage Must Be Destroyed (66 page)

31
Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 133–45; Karageorghis 1998, 65–159,
contra
Yon 1986, 147–9, who suggests that in Cyprus the major associations during this period on the island may well have been between Heracles and the Phoenician warrior gods Reshef and Eshmoun (the latter of whom in the Greek world would come to be identified with Asclepius, the god of healing), as well as the Egyptian deity Bes. This clear symbiosis between Heracles and Melqart might explain the strident alacrity with which some later Greek writers aggressively dismissed Herodotus’ explanation of the Tyrian origins of the cult of Heracles as nothing more than the perverse prejudices of a writer who had spent too much time with and studying barbarians–in essence, any person who was not a Greek. Yet the fact that these writers felt that they had to address these issues so forcefully hints at grave disquiet over the ambiguous origins of Greater Greece’s favourite hero. For instance, see the extraordinary attack on Herodotus by the later Greek writer Plutarch (
De Herodoti malignitate
13–14), who accused him of ‘philobarbarism’–of being a lover of barbarians and a self-hating Greek.

32
Malkin 2005, 246–7.

33
KAI
47. Amadasi Guzzo 2005b, 47–8.

34
Malkin 2005, 245.

35
Amadasi Guzzo 2005b, 50.

36
Pausanias 10.17.2.

37
Bonnet 2005, 23–5; Bernardini 2005, 130–33.

38
CIS
i.256; Bonnet 2005, 25.

39
Grottanelli 1973.

40
Amadasi Guzzo 2005b, 49–50, for arguments which relate the epithet not to Tyre but rather to the outcrop on which the temple at Antas was built. However, this still does not detract from the likelihood that it was a reference to the Tyrian heritage of the god.

41
Bonnet 1986, 210–12.

42
Lipiński 1989, 67–70. Bernardini 2005, 125–6, for arguments that this Carthage was in fact either Tharros or another Punic Sardinian city, Neapolis. However, the case for the North African metropolis is still the most convincing.

43
Bonnet 1988, 399–415.

44
Bonnet 1986, 214–15.

45
M. Miles 1998/9, 1–2, 21–5.

46
Bonnet 1988, 272; Krings 1998, 200.

47
Moscati 1986, 101–5; Galinsky 1969, 70–73.

48
On the association of Melqart and Astarte, see Giangiulio 1983. Long after it had become the Roman cult of Venus Erycina, the cult would maintain much of its Punic character through the continuation of the practice of sacred prostitution and sacrificial rites on an open-air altar in a sacred enclosure (Aelian
On Animals
10.50; Galinsky 1969, 70–73). Indeed, the site itself had a special connection with another mountain-top sanctuary to Astarte, at Sicca, a Carthaginian-held town in Numidia, where the same religious rites and sacred prostitution took place (Valerius Maximus 2.6.15; Solinus 27.8). It was said that each year the goddess left her sanctuary and travelled to Sicca with the doves that were sacred to her, before returning to Eryx after an interval of nine days (Aelian
On Animals
4.2; Schilling 1954, 234–9). The same conflation between Heracles and Melqart is found in the work of the sixth-century-BC Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus, who wrote that, on his return with the herd of Geryon, Heracles killed Solous, the eponymous king of the Sicilian Punic city of Solus, and received the assistance of a maiden named Motya in getting his stolen cattle back (Hecataeus of Miletus Frs. 71–2,
FGH
, I: 18–19; Malkin 1994, 210–11). In the fifth and fourth centuries BC Solus, which was said by the Greek historian Thucydides (6.2–6) to be a Phoenician foundation, minted a considerable number of coins on which Heracles featured (Bonnet 1988, 272–3).

49
Herodotus 4.8. A number of later Greek writers reported that the tomb of Geryon could be seen at Gades, while others maintained that two trees which dripped blood grew out of the tomb (Philostratus
Apollon
. 5.4). Strabo (3.5.10), citing the second-century-BC Greek polymath Poseidonius, also mentions a tree at Gades which ‘if a root is cut, a red liquid oozes forth’ (Pausanias 1.35.7). Another stop-off, Abdera, on the eastern coast of Andalusia, was also not Greek but a Phoenician settlement (Apollodorus 2.5.10.)

50
For the merging of Melqart and Heracles in the West, and the earlier syncretism between the hero and the Near Eastern god/heroes Gilgamesh and Sandon, see Fabre 1981, 274–6. There is also some suggestion that the great sanctuary to Venus Frutis at the Latin town of Lavinium may have been connected to the sanctuary at Eryx (Solinus 2.14; Strabo 5.3.5). In two of the manuscripts in which Solinus’ work is recorded the designation is not ‘Frutis’ but ‘Ericis’, ‘of Eryx’. Some have simply put this down to a copying error, but the fact is that, whereas Frutis is an unknown, Aphrodite/Astarte of Eryx is well attested (Galinsky 1969, 115–18). A further example of the cultural syncretism that defined archaic Sicily can be found in the final episode of the Dorieus tale. Euryleon, the sole survivor of the ill-fated expedition, had taken refuge at the nearby town of Heracleia Minoa. One might assume, especially with the Heraclean undertones of the tale, that the town’s name was derived from the Greek hero, whereas in fact the Punic name for Minoa was
Makara
, which simply meant ‘City of Melqart’ (Malkin 1994, 215–16; 2005, 252–3).

51
Hellanicus of Lesbos Fr. 111,
FGH
, I: 134; Hecataeus of Miletus Frs. 76–7,
FGH
, I: 19; Pearson 1975, 188.

52
It is certainly the case that the vast majority of the later recountings of the activities of Heracles in Rome emphasize the positive and friendly nature of his relationship with the indigenous locals (Fabre 1981, 287). The one dissenting voice is that of Plutarch, who recounts that in fact Heracles had killed Faunus.

53
Dionysius 1.40.1. There has been considerable debate over the provenance of the Cacus myth. It is generally agreed that it owes much to Greek mythology, particularly the story of Hermes’ theft of the cattle of Apollo recounted in the Fourth Homeric Hymn and dramatized in the fifth century BC by the Athenian playwright Sophocles in
Ichneutae
. It has also been linked to the story of the theft by Sisyphus of the horses of Diomedes, when Heracles was driving them back to Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, after the successful completion of his eighth labour (Apollodorus 2.5.8). Dana Sutton (1977) has argued that its most likely source of entry into the Roman mythological canon was through satyr plays written in the early first century BC. However, it is well known that Dionysius heavily used western-Greek Hellenistic-era writers. Taking into account the Greek provenance of the story, one of these authors was surely a more likely source.

54
Bradley 2005, 138–40.

55
Most recently, ibid., 141–143. For the original hypothesis of the Greek roots of Italian, Etruscan and Latin Hercules/Hercle, see Bayet 1926.

56
In other parts of central Italy Heracles was also assimilated with various deities (Bradley 2005, 132).

57
The earliest representation of Cacus is on an Etruscan mirror dated to the fourth century BC.

58
Ritter 1995, 18–23; Bonnet 1988, 296–302.

59
Clear links between the Sant’ Omobono temple and Etruria exist through an ivory plaque inscribed with the Etruscan name Araz Silqietanas Spurianas, which was found among the archaeological deposits from the temple (Forsythe 2005, 90). For an overview of the archaeological evidence for temples and sanctuaries in archaic Rome see Smith 1996, 158–65.

60
Forsythe 2005, 90–91.

61
Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 635–6. The identification of the goddess figure has been controversial, with scholars putting forward a number of different deities (on Juno/Hera, see Coarelli 1988, 301–28; on Athena/Minerva, see Colonna 1987). Some have argued that these probable representations of Heracles and Athena, which would have sat on the roof of the temple, were the work of one of the Roman kings who, following the lead of autocratic rulers in mainland Greece, wanted to represent his rule as being divinely sanctioned. They point to a statue in Athens showing the Athenian autocrat Pisistratus as Heracles being introduced to Olympus by Athena, the patron deity of his city, thereby suggesting that he enjoyed divine favour. This might explain the existence of a similar set of statues at the southern Etruscan town of Veii. The later Roman writers Martial (14.178) and Pliny (
NH
35.157) both record that Vulca, a sculptor from Veii, was commissioned to produce a sculpture of Hercules by the last Roman king, Tarquinius Superbus (Cornell 1995, 148; Bradley 2005, 130; Ritter 1995, 21 for the connection with Veii). Useful parallels exist between these stories and the sanctuary at Pyrgi, where, within the temple complex where the famous tablets were discovered, archaeologists have pinpointed a specific subterranean space which may have housed the underground tomb of Melqart, before he was brought back to life in the ceremony of the
egersis
. An inscription was found there dedicated to Uni and Tenia, the chief Etruscan deities. As in the context of this temple Uni was associated with Astarte, who was the consort of Melqart, it seems likely that the same kind of religious syncretism was at play here between Melqart and Tenia (Casquero 2002, 89–90).

62
Holloway 1994, 166–7.

63
Van Berchem 1967, 1959–60. There are other similarities, such as the absolute exclusivity of the god in his temple, and the long robes and the crowns of laurels worn on the uncovered heads of the priests (although parallels for these traditions can also be found in the Greek world). It has also been suggested that the Potitii, one of the aristocratic families who were to oversee the cult, were in fact a caste of priests in the Near Eastern tradition (Van Berchem 1967, 311–15). Bonnet (1988, 278–304) is sceptical of the connections between Melqart and Rome. However, her qualifications, although useful, do not discount the appropriation of some of the rites and iconography associated with the god in the archaic city.

64
Torelli 1989, 49–51.

65
Casquero 2002, 86–91.

66
Février 1965.

67
Casquero 2002, 69.

68
At Gravisca, the port of the important Etruscan city of Tarquinii, inscriptions found at a sixth-century-BC temple dedicated to the Greek goddesses Aphrodite, Hera and Demeter show a strong eastern-Greek element (particularly from Samos, Miletus and Ephesus) among its worshippers (Torelli 1989, 48–9; Smith 1996, 146–7). The lack of Phoenician pottery in archaic Roman contexts might argue against the hypothesis of a large Phoenician mercantile presence in Rome (Casquero 2002, 101–2). However, the discovery of large quantities of eighth-century-BC Greek pottery in a deposit underneath the shrine at Sant’ Omobono proves very little, as the Phoenicians were often involved in the transportation of Greek goods (Cornell 1995, 68–9).

69
This model for the introduction of Melqart and Astarte into Italy is preferable to the Bonnet thesis (1986, 29) that sees it as the work of the Carthaginians who brought the cult to Etruria. See Smith 1996, 159–62, for an overview of the general issues and how they relate to the Sant’ Omobono temple.

1
For Ibiza, see Gómez Bellard 1990. For Sardinia, Van Dommelen 1998, 125–9. For the idea that Carthage increasingly looked overseas for food and land for its growing population see Ameling 1993, 250 ff.

2
Van Dommelen 1998, 125–9; 2002, 130–3.

3
Mastino, Spanu & Zucca 2005, 103–4; Bechtold 2008, 51–6, 76.

4
Pseudo-Aristotle
Mirab. Ausc
. 100. It is also noteworthy that ears of grain were a common motif on Punic coins minted in Sardinia.

5
Barnett & Mendleson (eds.) 1987, 41–6, for grave goods in Tharros.

6
Barreca 1987, 24–6.

7
Van Dommelen 1998, 127.

8
Bernardini 1993, 173–7.

9
Garbini 1983, 158–60.

10
Van Dommelen 1998, 127–8, must be right in disputing Barreca’s claim (1986, 88–9) of a Carthaginian border-defence system across the island, but he in turn does not take enough account of the fortified nature of many of these sites.

11
Gharbi 2004.

12
Bonzani 1992, 215–16.

13
Herodotus 7.165; Brizzi 1995, 308.

14
Polyaenus 1.27.2.

15
Herodotus 7.167.

16
Diodorus, 11.24.4.

17
Ibid. 11.26.1–3.

18
Ibid. 11.25.1–5.

19
Asheri 1988, 776–8.

20
Aristotle
Pol
. 2.8.1–2. Although the actual date of the introduction of the suffeture is vague, Krahmalkov (1976, 153–7) makes the important observation that there is no reference to the suffeture (for an explanation of which see p. 130) in Punic epigraphy before the fifth century BC. Although the suffeture is also recorded in Tyre in the fifth century (Sznycer 1978, 571), there is no evidence that the office hailed from the Levant.

21
Aristotle
Pol
. 2.8.5–6, 2.8.8–9.

22
At Tharros an inscription dated to the third century BC mentions suffetes. However, the inclusion of the ancestral antecedents of the office-holders suggests that the suffeture had existed as a political office in Tharros before this period (Barreca 1987, 26). In addition, suffetes still existed in the first century BC in a number of the old Carthaginian/Phoenician colonies such as Eryx, Bithia, Sulcis, Malta, Gades and perhaps Caralis. Popular Assemblies are recorded at Leptis Magna, Malta, Bithia and Olbia. At a more junior level, many of these colonies also appear to have had officials (who are also attested to in Carthage) whose duties involved administrative matters including the collection of taxes. An inscription (
CIS
i.154.) found in Tharros and dated to the third century BC was originally thought to refer to a Carthaginian official, but it is now thought that he was in fact a local market official.