The Good and Evil Serpent (41 page)

Herodotus reports that the wings of these flying serpents are like bats¸, but they are not feathered. They are like water snakes (
Hist.
2.76). There is no doubt that Herodotus thought that winged serpents could be found in Arabia, because in Book Three he makes the following comment: “The Arabian winged serpents
do indeed seem to be many”; but whereas there are vipers
in every land, these winged serpents are only in Arabia and are not to be found anywhere else on earth.
³⁴⁹

Aelian also influenced the masses by his report that serpents did have wings. Like Herodotus, Aelian claims one has to go to Arabia, perhaps deep into the interior, to see the winged serpents. Note his words: “The Black Ibis does not permit the winged serpents
from Arabia to cross into Egypt, but fights to protect the land it loves.”
³⁵⁰
When much of our earth was unexplored, myth and legends helped to describe the animals and creatures that roamed the mysterious regions.

What could this anguine iconography symbolize and why are serpents pulling Medea’s chariot and not horses (oxen or lions)? Is it mere ornamentation, or did the ancients believe there was truth in such mythological symbolism? If there is meaning to the symbols, is there a deeper meaning and, if so, what is it?

F. Cumont and A. D. Nock explored the meaning of symbolism on sarcophagi.
³⁵¹
Both of them correctly pointed out, as the attentive reader already grasps, that we cannot answer this question with logic or our own modern presuppositions. Both scholars warned that images and symbols were, and can be, copied without attributing any meaning to them. But both experts chose, with variations of emphasis, to opt for meaning in the symbols.

Yet we must be wary of assuming all iconographic images are to be interpreted from the presupposition that the maker and buyer were both interested primarily, or only, in some deep symbolism. The fact of death, the loss of life, is commemorated in and on sarcophagi; that does not allow us to assume epitaphs must contain a deep allegorical or mythological meaning. The symbols on sarcophagi are silent, and epitaphs may be fundamentally silent philosophically and spiritually. It is we, the living, who bring voice and meaning to them. Hence, we must be careful that we do not attribute our own ideas, or own perceptions about antiquity, to silent monu ments. On the one hand, we must be aware that no symbolic meaning may have been intended, and, on the other hand, we need to be sensitive to the possibility that metaphorical and allegorical meanings may be embodied in an image even if we do not seem aware of it at the outset.

It will not be easy to discern the meaning of the serpents pulling a chariot. More than one meaning could and probably was intended. The symbol most likely evoked a range of meanings. A symbol can indeed point to verbal meanings. Perhaps an example of ancient iconography cannot display meanings, but it may evoke reflections that stimulate them. Symbols may even help one endorse meanings and values, at least at times, by the reflective and educated observer. Since the winged and upright serpents are often on sarcophagi, they probably were intended to denote something positive, at least originally by the one who devised the imagery.

The wings would denote the power, otherworldliness, and elusiveness of serpents. Since they were attached to chariots depicted on sarcophagi, and with images of Medea and Persephone, it is apparent that life after death could be intended. Since Medea and Persephone were seeking to travel to a world unknown to humans and by a way unknown to us, a serpent seems the best guide. A serpent, the wisest of all creatures (including the human?), can move over the earth, through the water, and deep into the earth. With wings it can go everywhere an ancient could imagine a postmortem world could be located.

What did the ancient Greeks and Romans think about death? Was it the end of life? Was there life after death? The Greeks and Romans were not guided or limited by some form of orthodox revelation. Thus, the views of most were unsystematic and often contradictory. Some form of belief in existence after death was widely held.
³⁵²
The most ancient belief may be that the dead continued some form of existence in the tomb and still felt needs that the family could supply. In the
Odyssey
, Homer gave classic expression to the idea that the dead live together in some subterranean (not in a sphere separate from and beneath the earth) abode sometimes called Hades. The good and bad live the same shadowy existence. Another thought is also found in Homer and Hesiod; there is an Abode (or Isle) of the Blessed Ones. It is situated somewhere mysterious on the earth. For some, Pindar’s
Olympian Odes
contain the thought
³⁵³

that immediately after death, on earth, it is the lawless spirits that suffer punishment … while the good, having the sun shining for evermore … receive the boon of a life of lightened toil … in the presence of the honoured gods, all who were wont to rejoice in keeping their oaths … in keeping their souls pure from all deeds of wrong, pass by the highway of Zeus unto the tower of Cronus, where the ocean-breezes blow around the Islands of the Blest
.
[Olympian Odes
57#x2013;71]
³⁵⁴

Benefiting from the insights of Homer and Hesiod, Pindar (518#x2013;438
BCE
), whom L. R. Farnell called “the first great master of eschatological poetry,”
³⁵⁵
has given us a glimpse into what seems to be the Orphic theory of postmortem existence.

The Greeks and Romans also held many divergent ideas about postmortem existence. By at least the sixth century
BCE
, the Eleusinian Mysteries offered to its devotees a blessed, or at least happy, afterlife. Apparently similar ideas were advocated by many Pythagoreans.
³⁵⁶
The mysteries appealed to those who were seeking to experience the sacred, but they did not promise resurrection or even immortality.
³⁵⁷
The first to record the idea that souls after death entered something like a celestial home may have been Phocylides;
³⁵⁸
perhaps this is one of the reasons why we have the Jewish work in the Pseudepigrapha entitled
Pseudo-Phocylides.

Plato never defined his concept of immortality, but he affirmed it and somehow connected it to his teaching that the advanced (gold) person receives good and is related to God. Aristotle and the Academy rejected this aspect of Platonism; they were skeptical about any form of postmortem existence. Epicurus flatly affirmed that the soul, like the body, is composed of “atoms” (indivisible particles) that dissipate at death. Some Stoics thought that the soul is immortal and partakes of the eternal Divine Fire; others advocated some survival, at least for the wise souls. The mysteries, like Cybele-Attis,
³⁵⁹
Demeter-Persephone, and Isis-Osiris,
³⁶⁰
promised some form of blessed immortal life for their initiates.
³⁶¹

Thus, we should avoid talking about a Greek or Roman belief in resurrection,
³⁶²
except for some of their gods like Persephone, Cybele, and Aphrodite, but even here I would caution that the term “resurrection” can be misleading, if not defined and carefully qualified. For many Greeks and Romans—like many Jews of that time—there was an afterlife, and another world. It was there that the soul would be taken. The chariot was the means of carrying the soul to its ultimate destination. The serpent—as the wisest creature in the universe—would know how to take the soul to its heavenly abode or postmortem existence. The serpents’ wings would provide the means of transportation. Thus, these serpents could travel over land, sea, under the earth, and up into the air.

This interpretation of the sarcophagi depicting chariots drawn by winged serpents receives support from the Greek tragedians. The play
Medea
by Euripides (c. 485#x2013;406
BCE
) has the sorceress and daughter of King Aeetes appear to Jason after killing her sons by him (lines 1317#x2013;22). She is depicted above the palace’s roof in a chariot drawn by serpent-dragons; the text refers to her appearance in “such a chariot.” She is on her way to Hera’s mountain, to Erechtheus’ land (
Medea
1379#x2013;84).
³⁶³
This episode follows a discovery by the Heroes on the ship
Argo;
they learned that the Golden Fleece was guarded by fire-breathing bulls and a never-sleeping serpent-dragon (the primordial guardian, as we have seen).

Our understanding of the symbology of winged serpents pulling a chariot is enhanced by the observation that they usually appear on sarcophagi. A passage in Ovid is also helpful. Stretching her arms to the stars, and then kneeling on the earth in prayer, she says to the moon (
Luna
), and perhaps also the Night (
Nox
), Earth (
Tellus
), and other celestial deities: “I have need of juices by which aid old age may be renewed and may turn back to the bloom of youth and regain its early years. And you will give them; for not in vain have the stars gleamed in reply, not in vain is my chariot [
currus
] at hand, drawn by winged dragon-serpents [
volucrum tractus cervice draconum
].”
³⁶⁴

The reference to the moon brings to mind the connection between serpent iconography and the moon. The moon, as well as the sun (as is well known), attracted the fascination of the ancients. The moon is conceived in terms of serpent imagery. According to Ennius’
Epicharmus
, as well as the report found in Varro, the moon is called “Proserpina” because it creeps “like a serpent [
serpens
],” moving intermittently to the left and then to the right, and so proceeding forward.
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